3rd Annual Mockingbird Lane February FatAss - A Monster of a Day

Milling around pre-run

Shauna with Schafer who ran his longest run ever

more pre-run milling

the big dogs on the first lap

last picture before my battery died.

Luckily, I get my birthday off at work and, even luckilier, my birthday falls on a scheduled holiday (President's Day), so I was able to take Friday off.  It took Unstrung and I almost four hours to get the FatAss course marked.  In order to not be marking in the rain, we waited till just after noon to start.  Knowing that we'd be out there a while and conditions would be wet, I wore the only boots I own, big clunky snowmobile boots (at least that's what they would have been called back in the 70's).  Xar had on her running shoes.  We had loads of fun (again check out for a great description), but, by the time we were hiking the hill across the street, my back was really complaining (and I'm pretty sure causing me to).  Before we were back down, my calves had gotten louder than my back.  Now that we had the distance, we still needed to pick up flags to mark across the street; I hadn't gotten permission for painting over there.  I changed into my street shoes.  Ahhhh.  The back instantly felt better, the calves, not so much.  Unstrung had made the right call.  Wet feet?  Like they've ever not been wet this winter.  We had to add the little stretch down to the beaver swamp in order to get the right mileage.  I think the Garmin said 5.12 when we were done.  5.16666 was the needed mileage.  I'm sure you could run the course and come in with less (depending on how tangenty you ran) or more (going really wide on the turns).  I hope I thanked Xar enough.

Rick asked me several times that night if I was OK.  I couldn't believe how beat up I felt from marking a course.  Later that night, when I woke up on the couch where I'd fallen asleep, I felt lousy.  Scratchy throat and low-grade fever.  NOOOO!!!!  I drank lots of fluids and went right back to sleep.  I still felt lousy when I awoke FA morning.  Too bad, but there was still stuff to get done before the crew started to arrive.  I was sweating while making the lap/time chart, but felt better the more I did.  My calves still hurt.

Then TMs started to pour in.  The excitement was palpable.  Food of all sorts started to fill up all horizontal surfaces.  Screws going in shoes, introductions, bathroom trips, Spot rules being conveyed, and finally, the pre-run instructions.  It was on!  Thirty nine runners filed onto the course.  I had tried to get the big dogs to go out first (I was pretty confident in our course marking), but I was to lead.  The adrenaline and the fact that I had fast people in tow, made me go out faster than I normally would have.  The first stretch had us crunching through snow.  We had to lift the feet high.  I loved our short woods section, interesting footing.  Xar and I had trimmed the thorns, but, as the legs of the people who wore shorts will document, more escaped during the day as their snowy prison melted.

One stretch where my lungs felt like they were going to burst because we were breaking through more snow heading up a hill, I heard Ian say, "Val, your killing me", or something to that effect.  I was never more happy to have my lungs hang in there and not to slow on the hill.  I took Ian's remark as a compliment to the course and that he was having fun (it was his comment, at exactly the right time, that made my lungs and legs hang in there).  Around the motocross piece of the course, I finally dropped back and let the fast group go by when three runners were cutting across the field to join us; it was a good way to relinquish the lead.  It would take most of the remaining two miles to recover from the fast start.  Mindy had been in the lead group, too and dropped back with me.  It's no wonder we are running partners; we are pretty in sync.  

It was interesting how the trail changed throughout the day.  Footing that had been difficult was beaten into submission only to regain the upper hand later in the day as temperature and traffic again morphed it into a new terrain.

Snowman was the perfect person to have at base.  He tended to people without them really knowing that's what he was doing.  Previous years, I would do host stuff between laps, checking on food, water, and the house.  Ryan had that covered.  I got back out after the first lap pretty quickly (for me).  Rick, Pete, George, and Michael were just ahead of Dora, Shauna, Mary, Mindy and me.  I meant to get more visiting in on this lap, but it was hard to hear over the crunching anyone you weren't right next to.  Still good to catch up a bit with Dora and Shauna.  I don't think I was ever next to Mary :(

During the running, I never felt like I was still sick.  My calves and ankles were the only grumpy things.  The third lap, Mindy and I had some low points, but I think at different times.  There had been talk about 3 being good enough.  Well, of course it wasn't.  Back at base, there was no doubt (had there ever really been one?) that we'd be doing the next lap.  Our training plan did have 18 miles for that day.

My Garmin said almost 21 miles by the time we finished.  The extra distance could be accounted for; I never turned the Garmin off so all my walking around between laps (I changed clothes every time except the first) was in there.  Could we have done another lap?  Yup.  Might not have been pretty, though and the time was really getting late.  Better to enjoy the food, people, and, for Mindy, helicopter!

We received so many thank yous for hosting.  Well, your welcome, but...Thank you!!!  The FatAss is really a present for me.  I enjoy every bit of the planning.  I enjoy the most having the energy and comaraderie of the Trail Monsters spilling over my own backyard.  I'd have FatAss every weekend if I could.