Whirlwind

I haven't posted anything since the depressing Wasatch post because life has been a whirlwind.  I've traveled, met people, had a house guest, met lots of Addisonian's, lost some family and attended (unexpectedly!) the Caribbean Autoimmune Disease Summit in Trinidad (like Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad!).  Pictures and some captions if you're interested in reading my blathering.  My life of the last 17 years is going to change radically.

September 21, 2011.  I fly off to our home in Florida to see the house for the first time, clean it and paint it.  Hoping like hell that I like Florida since we are moving there at the end of the week.

September 21, 2011 Heather greets me at the Tampa airport wearing a tiara and carrying a sign.  Heather has Addison's too and we've been corresponding since 2007.  This is our first face to face meeting!  Heather came to my house in Florida and helped me with painting, countertop refinishing, morale boosting and blind cleaning.  For two people with Addison's, we were a freaking force to be reckoned with.  We also like bacon and eggs for breakfast at an ungodly hour!

October 6 - 9, 2011  Allison flew to Florida from Boise, Idaho to help with the house.  She worked tirelessly to make improvements!!  She was amazing and selfless.  We didn't go anywhere or do anything, just painted and redid the cabinets!  She was hard at work while I was sleeping.  She's amazing and must have been completely exhausted when she got home.  Allison is the best kind of friend to have, generous, hard working and all around wonderful.

October 1 - 3, 2011 I unexpectedly got an invitation to the Caribbean Autoimmune Disease Summit in Trinidad (off the coast of Venezuela). It was amazing to be surrounded by people who know stuff.  My focus has also been very, very narrow.  This conference opened up my eyes to the wide world of autoimmunity.  I will do a separate post on the conference.  I was honored to be a special guest and be invited to the conference.  It was cool being "behind the scenes" with doctors and organizers!

October 2, 2011 Speakers and organizers of the Caribbean Autoimmune Disease Summit.

October 2, 2011 Addisonian's unite!!

Back at the Florida house after the conference, I was cleaning up something in the garage.    I found a dead tarantula.  My world is so crazy different.  I didn't know if I should be horrified or fascinated.  I decided fascinated would be the better option.

The water is the canal across the street.  Look closely you'll see an alligator!  I saw this out my front window.  Very cool!

October 12, 2011  The same day I few back from Florida, Katherine flew in from the UK to do a race here.  She did the 100 mile Running with the Buffaloes.  Katherine's raced through the Arctic, run through African deserts (we met at Marathon des Sables in Morocco) and been stung by a scorpion.  She makes me look utterly and completely sane and reasonable in my pursuits.  I was only going to crew her but peer pressure had me walking the 50 miler a couple of days later...

October 13, 2011 My sweet boy gets his driver's license and buys a "new" truck.  A 1981 Chevy LUV.  It can do 50 miles an hour.  We're not sure she'll make it over Teton Pass.  He's so proud of his truck and I'm proud of him.  Zane just lost his wonderful Grandma two days before this picture was taken.  I'm so sad for him and his Dad's whole family.  His Grandma was a wonderful, wonderful woman.  She will be missed by everyone who knew her.

October 15, 2011 Running with the Buffaloes 50 miler.  I got peer pressured into doing this race on little to no training at all.  I walked the vast majority of it.  It was dumb to do a 50 mile race right off the couch.  BUT I was not terribly sore the next day, nor did I feel bad.  As a matter of fact, I spent much of the next day helping out a few of the 100 mile racers.  I did not learn any lessons.  I finished the race more slowly than any other 50 I've done and I came in second to last.  It was a great way to say goodbye to Teton Valley.

Great view from the race course.

I accidentally went off course during the race and saw this sign.  Funny.  The race was nice and small, it was very much like a small, crazy family on a bizarre vacation.  It was great.

October 20, 2011 one of my last beautiful Teton sunrises.

My new view of the sun rising.

FURTHER UPDATE:
October 23, 2011 We got an offer on our Idaho house late last night.  It's much lower than we had hoped BUT we were not expecting to get one for a while.

Oh boy, my life's changing so radically.  My son will stay here with his dad, I will have no job, I don't know the area, I've got lots of house stuff to do.  Wow!  The only thing I do know is that I will be warm and I'm doing Ancient Oaks 100 on December 3-4, 2011 and Everglades Ultra 50 miler on January 21, 2011.  The rest of my life, come Saturday, October 29th, is a huge mystery.

Yet another failure. Wasatch.

Jeff, Dennis, me, Tony

The start

Yes, yet another DNF and ridiculously early in the race as well.  Here's what happened...This is probably the best I've been prepared race wise as far as knowing what to expect, what I had packed, realistic pacing chart and medicine preparation.  I got to SLC a day early so I was not rushed, confused and tired.  My running preparation was nice, nothing too spectacular or hardcore.  I had a good summer with some incredible trail runs.  I found running sneakers that I love and with Drymax socks, not a blister all summer. The race started and I walked and trotted with Jeff for the first 13.5 miles.  At 13.5 miles, yes, the stomach started going despite or perhaps because of the medicine preparations I had made.  I ran for two minutes, walked for one for as long as I could and that wasn't long.  I took Zofran like it was going out of style.  The nausea was overwhelming.  I dropped at 28.5.

Regardless, I enjoyed everything but the nausea.  Seeing old friends and meeting new ones is always AWESOME!  The third of the course that I saw was gorgeous.  The volunteers were incredible.  As a matter of fact, I was given a great "you did great and quitting was the right choice" speech from a really good looking former second place finisher of Wasatch.  It was great to catch up with Jeff during the time we spent together on the trail.  At the end Niels, was so, so kind to me and my sorry ass.  He walked down the trail with me, rubbed my back while I threatened to dry heave and made me laugh.  Niels, if you read this, thank you so much.

What went wrong?  I got sick much, much earlier than I ever do when I run alone and when I'm not racing. The nausea was NOT a result of under training.  I'm definitely thinking that it was either too much HC, too much salt and too little water or some combination of the three.

Will I attempt another 100?  Yes, I hope so.  This was my most depressing DNF.  I was as prepared as I could be.  I DID SOMETHING to create the nausea, very sad.  Very preventable.  I can't let Addison's get the best of me.  I can't allow adjusting medicines on my own to be a barrier to what I want to do.  Come on Ancient Oaks 100 acceptance!

John B goes down hard

Jeff eating the breakfast of champions, gas station donuts

SLC from Chinscraper

Paul Bunyon's balls

Jeff  doing awesome!

Beauty everywhere

Paul Bunyon's balls from a few miles away

So pretty!

 For more pics from Wasatch 100:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.491628696770.271596.727986770&l=abf60b2e6b&type=1

Hi all, I'm down in Salt Lake City "camping" at the KOA.  Tomorrow morning at 5 am, I start Wasatch!

I signed up for this race in January, I was accepted via lottery in early February.  It's so easy to think you can complete something like this in February when September is so far off.  Elise got in too and since February she's had a broken foot and gotten squished by a horse and had some chest trauma.  Unfortunately, she's just getting her grove back and won't be joining me.  I'm doing this whole thing solo and I'm really nervous!!  I came down a day early which has been wonderful and less stressful than the usual drive down, hit the meeting, pin the number on, sleep and get up to do the race.

Any how, I'm feeling sick and excited about this.  It's like when you know you're going to go out and really, really tie one on. There are going to be some awesome, memorable moments, great pictures and "I love you Man!" Then, on the flip side, you know you're going to end up vomiting and you know your body will ache from a night on the bathroom floor.  The pictures of the bender could be great and put in the scrapbook or you might burn them.  It all depends on how the night progresses.

I'm hoping for a 36 hour finish.

Here's my pathetic pacing chart.
You can compare this to my actual and computer projected times here:  

http://wasatch100.com/RESULTS2011/Runner/Position

"Camping"  Water, electric, internet, showers, hot tub.  Not exactly roughing it!

Sleeping in the back of the car (to avoid tent and tent set up) watching the Big Bang Theory.

Prerace meeting at Sugar Hill Park

The Capitol building

Paul patiently models the hat I will wear.

TTFN, more pictures next week!