Well, I found my crew who always did an awesome job getting me to our crew chair.
After spending a few minutes in tent getting food and looking for a doctor. NO NO NO, I learned my lesson. I was just going to confirm that every doctor in Leadville had my picture and was notified to mess with me. As I walked out of the aid station officially, i found my chair. What happened? I love aid stations. I sat down and decided to change socks, powder my feet, eat and chill. I know, I had to do it. At this point, the big gun, Don Sansom, a Boston Marathoner, was pacing me home. He had the legs, but Joe informed him that it would take us a long time due to my condition.
This was by far the coldest aid station. I put on an extra top and gloves to get home. Somehow, in the aid station, i begged and found another Tylenol (just 1…they said their very last one…sorry everyone). When I started to talk to the crew (while in the chair relaxing), a woman DOCTOR who was crewing for someone next to us handed me 3 Advil’s and told us that you can mix pain meds. I felt like I was cheating to take pain meds, but my vagisil was not working.
We left May Queen at 7 minutes before 5am. My goal was 28 hours. To do this, I had to leave May Queen a little after 4am. Don and I walked down the road, shot some video and laughed about having a little over 5 hours to make it. As we hit the trail by the lake, a miracle happened. My IT bands were not buckling. I asked Don to open it up and we ran. Did we run? We broke speed records. I am not sure what it is, but when I am getting close to the barn, I haul ass. I also enjoy passing people and saying, “good work” while they look at me in contempt. Maybe this is a guttural reaction to training for a year with people faster than me. Sorry…I enjoyed passing peeps! (NOTE: My last 13 miles ended up being one of the fastest legs of all racers…again, Lippman’s advice to run faster allowed me to end the pain sooner:))
Don and I somehow ran the entire lake section (besides a few uphills) and finally hit the road. I drank enough to stay hydrated and ate, but my consumption had gone down now. The cold and the excitement was fueling me. Don and I ran the entire road to the train track turn off. When we hit that turn, we walked a little and then ran to the uphill climb to a long dirt road. We must have caught 40 people since May Queen.
As we ran this road, the excitement was building. Did you know that this road has more false summits than Sugarloaf. WTF? This road just became the single longest track in history. I wanted to run the entire track (out of fear that the 3 “Advil” that I was slipped in May Queen…OKAY…It had to have been Narcotics…I felt awesome!) but after the 2,300th false summit, we walked some.
As we crested the road and saw the stadium and the finishing road, Don and I began to run. Then we power-walked up the finishing road until we could see the red carpet. When it came into view, I was STOKED. We ran the entire 1-mile finish in. I did it. I was going to beat my original 28-hour goal by 10 minutes!!! We ran from May Queen in less than 3 HOURS!!! Ken, it must be narcotics. Praise you oh DOCTOR crew member in May Queen, I owe you.
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