Thursday, December 14, 2017

Fat Dog 120 - 13 Crying at Cayuse

Tale 13 - Crying at Cayuse

Mom keeping track of me!
I was literally a blubbering mess when I got to cayuse. How do you tell your family "hey thanks for coming out to support me, I'm not quite as strong as I thought I was so we're just going to quit now". I still had two pacers left - one of which was my older brother - who is just getting into trail running and I knew would never let me live it down if he came all the way out to pace me and didn't get to run.
Now I'm a pretty shy person, and normally I'm not a big fan of crying in front of other people - but at this point I don't have much of a choice. There are at least six people there to support me, and I'm in too much pain to go on. My husband is there and alive, so that's a good start!
I sit down and tell them I'm in too much pain and I can't continue. And my tongue hurts so much I cant eat so how do I continue moving if I can't eat.

Then Chris starts doing his thing...
Do you think other shoes will help? No! My feet hurt. I don't want to keep going.
Here, try eating this avocado, does this hurt your tongue? No? Good. Eat more of it.
I remember looking up at Shira and trying to get her to tell my family how miserable I was, and how she just looked back with a shrug. What kind of pacer hangs you out to dry like that?! Turns out, the best ones! She had fully done her job and got me there safe, she wasn't about to let me quit.
My next tactic was to try and trade in my family. Does anyone else want these lunatics in their life? I'm dying over here and they won't let me quit!
There was also this amazing lady beside us waiting for her runner to come in who offered me all of this nice looking food she had. What a great community of people.

I am told that I ate and put on new shoes and just got up and headed back onto the trail, all of my own accord! Which I struggle to believe. But it was only 5 miles to the next aid station - guess I figured I would give it a shot.
Heather jumped in as an impromptu pacer armed with a bag of avocados. Timed feedings became a thing to make sure I ate enough. It was actually pretty fun! I was like a new person!

We made it the 5 miles to Cascade in pretty good time - and I was ready to take on the rest of the race!

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