Here goes nothing!

Cute sign during Bighorn, 2009

There's potential for this post to be super boring. Skip it if you want! Lots of pondering, some ultra content, some Addison's content.

Gorgeous scenery. My friend Carl is in the orange shirt on the left. He always kicks my ass.

On June 18th, I will start do the Bighorn 100. It is a 100 mile foot race. It goes out 50 miles and back 50 miles on trail. There's a 34 hour cut off. It's beautiful. Most of the first 50 miles is uphill and the second 50 is downhill. I attempted this race in 2009 and ended up pulling out at the half way point hypothermic, with low O2 sat and some kind of gastroparisis.

This is what a DNF (did not finish) looks like. Barf bag and oxygen!

In the 2 hundreds I've started and not completed and the one that I did complete, I learned the following:

• Race volunteers rock, they cheer for you and take care of you, they are awesome!!!!
• The feeling of accomplishment is worth all the exhaustion and vomiting during the event
• I have to plan in a nap
• I have to dress more warmly
• I can go without food or water for a really, really long time and still keep moving
• Take more hydrocortisone than you think you need
• Wearing something quirky makes people smile, it's nice to have people smile when they are tired

I started out 2010 with a stress fracture of the neck of the femur and highly under replaced with my hydrocortisone for a couple of months. I started a walking streak on February 13th, 2010 and I'm currently at day 116 of my one mile a day or more streak. I quickly progressed to 50 to 60 miles a week of walking/running and discovered that I really like walking. As a result, I haven't run as much as I have in the past and have walked more. I am thinking that this might be more realistic training for someone like me! Lots of slow time on the feet might get me further than running and then walking. Who knows? I'm feeling fresh and hopeful.

I've got a concern about my day 10 migraine which is due to hit race morning. I don't know what to do. None of the changes I've made over the last 30 years of migraines have made one bit of difference in stopping them. What do I do if I get a migraine race morning? I really do not know.

I'm trying something new and exciting! Compounded HC troches. They are peppermint flavored "gummie squares" with 10 mg of HC in them that I will put under my tongue. Some of my gut trouble during races is exacerbated by not being able to digest the HC orally when my stomach seizes up which inevitably happens at some point during a 30 hour effort. Putting the HC under the tongue makes the HC go directly into the blood stream, bypassing the digestive system. I'll give a report on that after the race.

I'm avoiding getting all of my stuff together for the race. I don't know why. I will try to do some of it today. It's hard to get motivated to do much of anything when it's in the high 40s and raining. I think I'd rather get in bed and read!

The conditions last year where snowy and muddy. Because of the late snowfall, they will probably be much worse in 2010. I will be doing this section twice in the dark.

Marie slogs through the mud. Eventually the mud sucked her shoe off. Note to self, bring a change of socks in my pack. I will do this section once during day light and once at night.