Friday, June 24, 2011

One

The day before. It's really not any fun. It's a whirlwind of nothingness, with distractions galore. As we prepare dinner, I don't even know what happened today, but I do have some highlights since the arrival as the clock ticks down the final 12 hours to the start of the race. In the interest of explaining where my head is at, these memories are presented in completely random order.

-- We saw this bear at dinner last night, he seemed cute until he snarled at us:



-- Tim Twietmeyer received a small cougar for his work and accomplishments within the context of the Western States Endurance Run. This was the only real "moment" in the pre race meeting.

-- Mike, Sarah, Al and I went for a little run today around the golf course. We encountered some pretty wet trail and did some jumping from rock to rock as well as some bushwacking to find dryer trail and eventually made it through. So, we basically did the 3 mile fun run today and we left the main event for tomorrow.

-- I watched Geoff Roes casually walk past us, drop his drop bags, and walk back towards the athlete meeting. Nobody said hi, though I have to believe we all recognized him. I see this as one of the coolest parts about this sport (so few chamois sniffers) and also a reflection of his very low key personality.

-- Rod (my pacer) gave me some good advice and soothed my frayed edges.

-- The countdown clock keeps ticking away. 11 hours left until the pain begins.

-- The belly of the beast awaits. There isn't anything left to do at this point but worry.

Mike just asked me if my attitude has changed since arriving. I can't say that I even know b/c I'm completely out of tune with who I am today. I like to keep myself busy, to put in a lot of workouts, to squeeze as much out of the day as I can. Today is all about doing next to nothing and even sorting gear and quadruple guessing myself adds up to a whole lotta nothing.

Jeff, Becky, Maya, and Rod will be here soon and we'll eat dinner. Then I'll go upstairs and pass out in my loft. At 3am I'll stop thinking and go on autopilot. And at 5am the fun begins.

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