Sarah Lavender Smith

I have never been in such a morose mood during a race as I was around Mile 26 in my first 50-miler, the October 9 Dick Collins Firetrails 50. The race starts at Lake Chabot in Castro Valley, traverses the glorious East Bay Regional Park District greenbelt, turns around at Tilden Park’s Lone Oak picnic area in North Berkeley, and heads back to the lake, with 7800 feet of elevation gain along the way.

See the middle part of this elevation profile, where the course plummets between the two peaks? That’s where my spirits plummeted too:

My body felt like a punching bag with every step on the descent to the turnaround point. My toes erupted with blisters that felt as big as cherry tomatoes. I kept looking at my watch and obsessing about how I was missing my goal — I wanted to reach the turnaround in as close to 4 hours as possible, and it was, what, 4:17? That’s not what I was hoping for. And I had to take a break at Lone Oak to spend a couple of minutes in the portapotty. I felt physically lousy and mentally wrecked, the polar opposite of the share-the-love-and-grasp-the-meaning-of-life runner’s high I felt during recent running events. (more…)

Tomorrow at 6:30 a.m., I’ll take off with nearly 300 other runners at the start of the Dick Collins Firetrails 50. Right now, I should be getting ready to run 50 miles tomorrow — which is exactly 20 percent farther than I have ever run before. I have errands to run, gear to gather, bills to pay, a story to edit, a chapter to finish, email to answer, laundry to fold, an iPod to update, two kids to pick up, one dog to walk, logistics to coordinate. But I have accomplished virtually none of that yet today because I AM FREAKING OUT. Not the head-spinning, hollering kind of behavior that those all-cap words might suggest, but the caving-inward, desperately quiet kind that freezes me to this chair and erases from my mind all — wait, where was I going with this? See, that’s what I mean: I can’t finish a thought, much less a task. (more…)