Friday June 23, 2017
I know I've said this before but I REALLY did not sleep well last night. For once it wasn't hot since this camp is at higher elevation -- in fact we borrowed a sleeping bag from one of the volunteers to throw over the two of us. I was just flying on some chemical soup produced by excessive exercise, sleep deprivation, the thrill of the experience, and deep concern that said experience, which had rendered several people moderately ill and two people seriously ill, was completely fucked up.
I kept Bill up half the night and when he finally fell asleep I started texting Wendy since it was already morning in Mexico. Some excerpts:
Sue: I have had one halfway decent nights sleep all week. Shouldn't all this exercise make me exhausted? Also another person is seriously ill after today. Kidney injury. I'm not sure this is responsible at all to do this. So many thought and feelings now. They surely aren't going to allow her to run the final marathon so this is pretty much mine to lose. I think there's too much time separating me and the girl in my video for her to catch up unless I too come up with life threatening condition ... who knows, they seem to be awfully common. The running is amazing, can't believe I can do this but I'm kind of disenchanted seeing these serious things happening every day.
Wendy: the problem with heat stroke is that it impairs your mental ability first so it´s hard to know to stop
Sue: Which maybe gets back to the point that this whole exercise is irresponsible
Wendy: yes, but do we want to turn over all responsibility for our actions to authority, race directors, etc?
Sue: It just feels pretty fucked up to me right now. And makes it hard to jive the part where "wheeeeee I did so well!" with the part where the only reason for these stage wins is that someone is pathologically disregarding good sense.
Wendy: ok, now you´re spiraling down. sleep deprivation will do that to you. This is part of the ups and really low downs that happen in these. Find joy in your success and use this experience to decide if you want to do another adventure race. There are lots of 100s that are not life threatening. You just chose one of the really hard ones to start.
After a mostly sleepless night I spent much of our day off discussing/pondering how to feel about the sport and thinking up creative ways to nap. Once the sun came out it was very hot -- maybe not as hot as a couple thousand feet lower but still impossible to sleep in a tent or the direct sun, so I pushed my mattress under a supply truck and lay down with one of Candice's dogs. Later when most of the group drove down to the "beach" -- i.e. one of those campsites by the Colorado River -- I took the mattress toward the little stream and managed to find shade under some trees, dunking in the stream whenever I got too warm.
for my Survivor application. Sleep deprived, pumped with adrenaline, and with more blisters on my lips (from sunburn) than on my feet.
As for the conversations, I did feel better after talking to several people. First of all it's important to acknowledge that Candice was up and around, and while she probably wasn't feeling a hundred percent, she was laughing and enjoying time with people.
Hanging around in the shade. Happy smiling beautiful Candice seems much less troubled by the events than I am. I think Tara (in center) is probably checking out her blisters, which were really stupendous
My feet and the two ultra celebrities, Catra and Candice. My blisters were nothing compared to Tara's but I did lose the 2nd and 3rd toenails on my left foot, and #2 on the right, a couple weeks after the race
Candice and her daughter see how much they can balance on the sleeping medic's head
I'm finishing this blog a couple weeks after the fact and I still don't know how sick she actually was -- as I mentioned already, FB says she's going to do a 100 miler soon, and there are also pics of her looking fabulous as she scouts trails for the 200 milers she's directing this fall. My head was just spinning that day, especially after what happened to Hans and Shane and Catra and the other vomiters in the heat. While I had felt a bit of shame/envy when Amanda offered to walk with Candice, I also felt conflicted seeing Catra bringing her in after several slow excruciating hours. Who cares, what's the point, what if she really is sick, is this even helping her?
It didn't seem like any of the other runners were as freaked out as I was. Maybe they had seen this sort of thing before, or maybe they had seen enough races to know that this *wasn't* typical so they had a bigger context for it. I did hear from a couple of the staff that this year had an unusually high number of casualties.
My conflict about the competitive aspect of the race was even more intense now that I was equating it with physical illness. On our bike/backpack trips, if one of us doesn't feel well, we shorten the day or stay a second night somewhere. Would any of these people have pushed themselves to puking/passing out/possible kidney injury on a casual training run? Maybe so -- I recall seeing some friends who do cross fit posting about exercising to the point of vomiting -- it seemed almost a rite of passage. (I just now googled "cross fit vomit" and found this article
I'm really not trying to make any judgment and now, a couple weeks away from the experience, I'm ok that just like any other activity -- including playing symphonic music for a living -- people do it for all kinds of reasons and have all kinds of relationships to it. Doesn't make the experience inherently one thing or another. Same goes for marriages and every other part of life. I can think, "ok I wouldn't want *that* marriage for myself" but still love and learn from the people involved. I'm not going to leave the sport as yet; in fact before I even set out for Desert RATS I had registered for my first 100K, the Ultra Trail de México which I will do with Wendy this October.
Two new napkins before tomorrow's final stage: my third stage win, and the yellow jersey