Wednesday June 21, 2017
9 miles, 559 vertical feet
At breakfast we learned the full story of what happened with Hans and the three runners who came in at 10:30. At some point beyond the shade-bridge with the water drop, Hans collapsed on the trail. Tara was the first to come across him, followed by Mikie and K-Ray.
[Yes we have a woman named Mikie and another named K-Ray, a nickname for Karen Ray. It took me a while to get my head around this as I have a friend called KK with a dog called ReeRee, and also another friend whom I call RaeRae. Now back to very serious story.]
Tara struggles with something called POTS. I’m still not entirely clear what this is despite the fact that Wendy also has it, but it’s relevant here in that it requires Tara to take extra care moderating her body temps. Also she is not a fast runner, meaning more hours under the sun, between rest stops etc. It was fortuitous that she was the one to find Hans as she had plenty of water to pour over him as well as technical fabrics specifically designed to help dissipate body heat.
Hans was convulsing, non-responsive, and with an irregular heartbeat. They managed to move him to shade, cool him down, revive him, and hang out until the sweep and the doctor arrived. The doctor said that had those three not shown up when they did, Hans could easily have died out there. He pulled him not just from the rest of the stage, but the entire race — much to Hans' disappointment because he started to feel fine again and wanted to run this morning. Evidently heatstroke is like head injury — in fact I think it might *be* a head injury — in that once you’ve suffered it a second occurrence can come more quickly and be more serious.
The three women were understandably shaken by this and decided to finish the stage together, and Reid lifted the cutoff to allow them all to stay in the race.
Hans (skinny figure on left) embracing K-Ray, Mikie and Tara upon their arrival. (photo by Glen)
Shane is allowed to continue, since his heat *exhaustion* wasn’t as severe. He won’t get an official finish, but there are quite a few now in that category. Another is Catra who has since posted on her FB fan page (13.5K followers):
"Day 2 was brutal I stopped at 33 miles could not move forward any longer . I stopped every mile to find shade and then every half mile. Regrouped and aid station 4 and felt a bit better. Thought I could make it 8 miles I. The 117 degree temps. But my mind and body did not connect anymore . Made it a couple more miles and found shelter under the only thing around. I made it to the shade of a telephone pole.
Phil stayed with me and he knew I was wrecked . He watched me decline all day . Fighting to get to the end.
Sometimes we have to ask ourselves do we want to die or do we want to live.
I wanted to live. I was so overheated and dehydrated.
It hit a lot of us out there.
Phil said this is way harder then Badwater .
Badwater you have a crew every 2 miles here you have aid 4-13 miles apart .
You pretty much are on your own until you get to the aid station .
Out here everyone looks out for each other."
I was really so oblivious to all of this yesterday. If I saw her at camp that night (can’t remember if I did) she must have looked as fine as Shane did, or even Hans this morning. I honestly doubt I have that kind of fight in me; I think I’m too afraid of brain injury or heart attack. Anyway this race was certainly an eye-opener… and if you’ve found this interesting you’ll definitely want to come back for stage four which really freaked the shit out of me.
Back to today’s 9 mile “sprint” stage…
This morning Corey requested that I not “wait until you’re about to run a fucking race stage” before getting my ankle/blisters taped. I did manage to get this done in advance but was STILL somehow scrambling to assemble my pack as the second wave was lining up. Once again most people started to run, I started to walk, then at whatever point I started to overtake them. I passed the first wave people first; several of them blogged later that they pretty much walked this entire stage to recover from yesterday and prepare for tomorrow.
tortoise's view of hares
Glen the photographer was stationed atop this climb up from river
Bill thought he should have gotten the pic about ten feet earlier so you could see more effort in the shot! This looks too easy.
Around midway through the stage I came across Candice moving slowly through a flat section. I slowed down to talk to her a bit — she said she’s just not feeling her best, is looking forward to a long relaxing afternoon. I told her how weird this is for me, that I know I’m not half the runner she is and I am generally uncomfortable with success and might need to call my shrink. Granted I have no idea how much she is invested in this race, if at all. I’d think if you’ve run as much as she has you’ve had good days and bad days, so maybe this is just one of the bad days (or, in this case, weeks). I don’t know what you’re supposed to do in this situation. Which behavior is more annoying? To linger if she would prefer to run alone? Or to just move on by? I’m thinking the first is the worse option so after a couple more minutes I move on. Before long the short stage is over and I’ve won two in a row among females (behind Brian, Jean-Michel, and Theresa’s husband Jeff).
finish line. Looks like I'm carrying a golf putter
Bill was actually first in — he had his own guilt, flying down a hill about half a mile from the end and whizzing by the two front-runners. I reassure him that I’m quite confident nobody thinks *he’s* a jerk. He doesn’t like when they read the times and he’s the fastest. As for me, I’m extremely uncomfortable at the evening meeting when they read the composite times, announce that Candice’s overall lead is now down to 4 minutes, and that if we’re within 10-15 minutes of each other after tomorrow they’ll do a “rabbit start” on the final stage, i.e. have the leader start exactly that number of minutes later so that the first to finish line is the overall winner.
At the end of today’s stage they shuttled us to the closest in a series of campgrounds by the Colorado river. A few years ago Bill and I had camped about ten miles down river from here with my niece. It’s a lovely spot, though it’s definitely way hotter in late June than the April we were last here. People spend the afternoon trying to nap in the shade (I am unsuccessful at this... will I EVER sleep again??), cooling off in the river, getting massaged by the tattooed massage therapist. SO. MANY. TATTOOS.
K-Ray, Catra, and Fay the massage therapist (photo by Glen)
We were required to write something on cardboard for photo series. I love that this is such a different world from my normal life.
Bill and cardboard
I get an opportunity to chat with Candice in the river; her two daughters are splashing around and can’t get enough. Their dogs are hanging out… I wish my dog were here…
She says her stomach just hasn’t felt great this whole time. And that she mostly organizes races at this point, only actually runs a couple per year. She says something that makes me think she might have her own conflicts about competing. I suspect we all do.
I went back into that river fully clothed at least five times to cool off.
It’s nice just to hang there in the water. At some point during the afternoon people are talking about nausea and vomiting in their lives and I mention that I get hopelessly seasick. Candice makes a joke about finding some boat tomorrow and telling me that’s a shortcut to the finish line. This makes me feel great, to hear her being lighthearted. Maybe I'm taking this all way too seriously.
Evening blister routine with Corey. He's REALLY into blisters. Safety pin in right hand, beer in left. The routine is to drain them in the evening, then tape for running in the morning.
evening racer meeting
I actually sleep really well after all of this… finally a solid 7-8 hours. THANK YOU Baby Jesus.