I was hungry.  We’d spent what seemed like forever in line for the free pasta dinner, and we finally had food.  Steve and I were at a small table against the wall.  Surrounded by other Racers, we dug in to our slightly overcooked noodles and surprisingly well-made red sauce (meat for me, vegetarian for Steve).

“I can’t believe it,” Steve said.  “We’re actually here.”

I nodded slowly, looking around the dining room.  “Dude.  It’s finally real.  This is really going to happen.”

‘Here’ was the town of Grande Cache, Alberta.  That’s in Canada, eh.  Two thousand miles from home, over 4100 feet above sea level in the Canadian Rockies.  ‘It’ was the Canadian Death Race.  125 kilometers (about 76 or so miles) on trails through the wilderness, including three mountain summits.  17,000 feet of elevation gain.  Only 24 hours to complete it.

Steve and I had been planning and training for the race for nearly a year.  In the weeks leading up to our departure, neither one of us experienced much in the way of the usual pre-race anxiety.  We focused on getting gear in order, coordinating driving plans; Joy and I would meet Steve and his family near Glacier National Park in Montana a few days before the race.  The race was so far away, in time, in distance, so far from anything we had ever done, that we had nothing to compare it to.  Until that dinner, the night before the start, it didn’t seem real.

Miraculously, that night I slept like the dead.  I’d had my ritual pint of Guinness (4.2% ABV?  WTF Canada?) and crashed.  Up and out early in the pale, chilly dawn.  I munched down a bagel with peanut butter and chatter with the relay team camped next to us.  Steve was up and worried; he had hardly slept.  One drawback of Tent City is that you’re, well, in a tent.  You can hear everything.  I’d managed to shut it all out, but Steve wasn’t as lucky.

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June 5, 2010.  Just outside of Washington, DC, near Sterling, Virginia.  Another early morning, and once again I was preparing for a 50k.  This time I was going to be running on my own, in high heat and humidity, on unfamiliar terrain, and with a new, inexperienced crew (my mom, Val).  I was excited, not really nervous.  The day before had been my birthday.  I was a newly-minted 31-year-old running 31 miles.  I’d met Dean Karnazes and got his book signed.  I was ready.

The sun was coming up over the trees and the field was filling up with runners.  I set some waypoints on my phone’s GPS so Val could find the aid stations and her way back to the finish line.  This would ultimately prove useless.  I briefed her, again, on what it would be like.  I tend to repeat myself when I’m anxious.

Okay: I may be incomprehensible later in the race, this is okay.
If I ask for something, ice, water, gel, whatever, that means I need it RIGHT NOW.
My body will not understand patience.
I may be manic, just go with it.
If I snap, I am sorry now and I will be sorry later but in that moment I am not.
Never tell me I’m “lookin’ good!”
Do not touch me at any point during or after the race.
I will probably fall asleep in the car after and then wake up like a hungry bear.
Val said she understood.  I repeated everything.
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