JJ100 - LAP 1: Less Too Fast than Expected

They asked me to use my legal name.

Once again, somebody sent me a link. And once again I’m standing on a starting line about to face the hardest thing I’ve ever done. How I got here, I’m not quite sure other than it involved some intense training, a lot of Gatorade* and a Civic. And here I am.

*Yes, I use Gatorade. Get over it.

5…. 4…. 3….. 2….. 1…. CRACK!

I crossed the starting line arm-in-arm with the Kates and took off into the dark, cold Arizona desert. I was calm, my mind was quiet; echoing the stillness of the landscape. I mean really, what do I have to be nervous about? I’m not going to WIN the thing for chrissakes – Abbs has got that one all sewn up. (I know!) Not really understanding what I had gotten myself into, today was less about a “race” and more about an “exercise in survival.” Just call me Bear Grylls – wait until the part where I drink my own urine. No. No, that didn’t happen. Anyway, Guillaume caught up right out of the gate and as we talked I looked down and realized we had picked up the pace quite a bit. (side note: The last time I saw G, I was half-dead sleeping on a bench at PMSP. Oh wow, that was less than two weeks ago). I slowed down, let G go and fully expected team Kate to catch back up. But I never ran with them again after the first 2 minutes. The dark really wasn’t all that dark and I was sad because I wanted to use my Bat Signal. Oh yeah, did I fail to mention I ran 100 miles dressed as Batman? Well, I did. Peow. Peow.

Dananananananana - nananananananana.... BATMAN! -GIRL! -WOMAN! -PERSON! (ask me how many times i heard THAT song). (photo cred: Will LaFollette).

During the first loop I focused on not running too fast. That sounds ridiculous, but seriously – do you have any idea how slow an 11 minute mile is? And do you have any idea how long it seems to run 100 miles at that pace and SLOWER? Yuck. I reluctantly strapped on my Garmin and anytime it clocked below 10 minute mile pace, I put on the breaks. Unless I was going down a "hill." (quotations will be removed on subsequent laps). Anything’s fair game if I’m going downhill. I also got this word in my head maybe 45 minutes into the thing… and that word stuck with me throughout the day, into the night, the next morning… and it’s still swirling around up there now. My mantra.

Relentless.

Before long, I caught up to P-Dubs, gave him an ass slap (this is typical, don’t worry) and we ran the rolling section together (middle 5 miles, my fave). Again, I got into a conversation with one of many freaking crazy but totally awesome dudes and pulled away, fully expecting him to catch back up. I never ran with Peter again either. That sucks because he is entertaining as hell.