The 2012 Zion 100/50

What a beast. What a nasty beastly, beast of a race. For the last two nights I've been falling asleep with visions of ledges and deathly drops swimming through my head. Fortunately, during the race, my only thought was "don't look down!" the race was awesome, and I am considering the 100 miler for 2013. It started on a lovely dirt trail that headed straight for an enormous mesa(which is a mountain with a flat top) and we then climbed, a lot, for about a mile, straight up. I thought things would ease up at the top, but we then proceeded to traverse 11 miles on undulating sandstone rock as we ran the very edge of the mesa. The views were so amazing. I stopped frequently to take photos. But the rock, the ups and downs, and the uneven surfaces all took an amazing tole on my quads. Added to that, I quickly realized that getting to mile 27 in 7 hours was actually going to be a stretch for me and about 50 others. My pacer, Jeff, who had traveled 7 hours the night before just to pace me home from mile 27 was waiting for me, and the thought of ruining his weekend by not making the cutoff was enough to push me on. I made it in 6:30. As soon as Jeff joined me, things got better. Well, actually, they got much worse for a minute because a runner passed us and just as he passed, a 3 foot rattle snake lunged out with fangs bared to strike and the runner vaulted up over his running poles and we all had to stop a minute to cath our breath, but then things got better. Jeff entertained me with tails of his run across America, which will be coming out in a book in June. He took care of me at the aide stations and when I found my second wind at mile 40, he took off at my request, exactly at my speed, which allowed me to do only one thing: focus on his footsteps and run. Toward the end, we had the illusion of being the only people running on the Jem Trail, which winds through the most breathtaking terrain, with mountains all around, and then joins the Virgin River and runs the rim. I looked up and thought to myself, this is my final hour of running this unforgettable country this year, after an amazing month in Utah, and I tried to soak it all in. We finished in 12:28, and I took 13th place woman and 38th place overall. The finish was awesome, with music and cheering. The pizza guys were making pizza in their portable wood fired pizza oven and the local BBQ restaurant was serving up BBQ and baked beans, and everywhere you looked, runners were throwing up their guts. Having a stomach of steel, I thought to myself, "what is wrong with these people?" and then I sat down and sniffed the BBQ and well...it's been 48 hours and I still get nauseous at the smell of food, although I manage to eat. Amazing day overall, and when I got home at 9pm, little Alex snuck out of his room, because he had been waiting up for mommy. We snuggled and held my finishered medalian. When I woke up the next day, Alex was on one side of me and Izzy was on the other side and we were all wrapped up. It was Mother's Day.