CHAPTER 16: THE JACKET
1845: Run course; mile 15:
The medical aid station is at this mile marker. The participants can gather their “special needs” bags here, since we cannot carry meds on the course.
I had better just take my asthma rescue inhaler, whether I need it or not. This is my last chance to use it. I won’t get another opportunity to pass by this aid station. Taking a puff or two of albuterol will help me finish this race by restoring oxygen to my lungs and uscles.
I feel okay. I can breathe, but my inhaler may improve that. Since I have a medical diagnosis of asthma, this isn’t cheating. That volunteer was sure surprised that I could finish this race with the possibility of having an asthma attack. He had been holding my bag for most of the marathon. I guess he didn’t peek inside to see what was in the bag. It’s probably against the rules.
This is definitely a harder race than that 50-kilometer run I did as a tune-up for this race. I wouldn’t need the jacket I earned for finishing that race today. It’s very warm here, even after the sun went down. I definitely wouldn’t need the jacket I earned for completing my first ultramarathon…
***
It's not much of a jacket as jackets go. In fact, it says on the label to keep it away from open flames, because the material it’s made of is Tyvek, which is flammable. Of all my "trophies" though, this one is, perhaps, my favorite one to date. Not because of its material makeup, but because of what it represents; finishing a 50-kilometer, or 31-mile trail run. My time was as slow as I thought it could possibly be, six hours and 22 minutes. I had originally thought I could possibly have finished about an hour faster, especially since the weather conditions were ideal for running the morning of the race. The temperatures were in the high 40s, and a cloud cover kept the sun from being much of a problem. A dense fog, however, delayed the start of the run by about 15 minutes. The weather still held out afterward.
A trail run takes a different mentality than a marathon. You’re bound to see people carrying backpacks and camelbacks filled with food, water, and sports drinks. The different sizes and shapes of the competitors is also interesting to see. Both the average weight and the average age of a trail runner tend to be higher than that of a mid-pack marathon runner.
***
I started the 50k run in the middle of the pack. This being my first trail run, I hadn’t realized that it was nearly impossible to pass anyone for the first five to six miles. That’s because the path is only wide enough for one person at a time to get through. Once the path widened, I was able to run at about a nine-minute-per-mile pace. That's a tad slower than my usual pace, but a good one for a trail run. I kept this pace until around mile 14 or 15 (trail runs don’t have clearly marked mile markers, for obvious reasons) when my right foot found a tree root with brutal force. My right knee, the one that had been surgically repaired when I was 19 years old, slipped out of joint, just as it had at the last water stop on the 30-kilometer run the year before. That time, I was only one-half of a mile from the finish line, so I decided not to risk taking my knee brace off and not being able to finish the race. Instead, I dragged my right lower extremity over the finish line and over to a light pole, which I leaned against while stretching my leg and putting my damaged joint back in the right position.
This time, though, my knee was hyper-extended, and I wasn't quite halfway through the run. That left me with a conundrum—whether or not to risk taking off my knee brace in the middle of the woods, with little help in sight. Taking the knee brace off was the only way I knew to put the knee back into joint, which would help me run. I opted to leave the knee brace in place and see how far I could run (or, more likely, walk).
There are two neat things about a trail run. One is that the course is very forgiving since it’s made of trampled dirt. The other is that there’s a very generous time limit (12 hours for the 50-mile run and ten hours for the 50-kilometer run). I knew that I had time to walk the whole course in under ten hours (I can walk pretty fast), but walking isn't really what I enjoy doing. I had no choice at this particular time, though.
Walking on one good leg was hard enough, but running was impossible. So, I walked, and I walked, and I walked some more, getting a chance to get to know some of the other competitors along the way (especially the others who were struggling).
A fireman who had opted for sandals around mile 20 because his feet were too swollen to wear his running shoes anymore struck up a conversation with me, and we talked until the last rest stop. At that point, one of the volunteers told us that we had a little less than three miles to the finish line. Being very tired of walking, I decided to see how my knee would hold up. I know I looked more like a duck than a deer as I started to “run," but my pride had been gone for several hours. I dragged my right leg up the last hill and across the finish line, grabbing a concerned Nicole for support as I gathered my "trophy" from one of the volunteers.
My knee healed faster and better than I had ever hoped it would, allowing me to start to train again after only resting it for a little over a week. This was about as long as I had planned on resting before resuming my training.
These two incidents did, however, convince me to spend $150 on a new knee brace, one made of magnetic material. My hope was that the new brace would help me train for and complete my next marathon with a minimum of complications.
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