Sep. 24, 2005. This was one of my finest hours, even though the performance does not look impressive on paper. I had trained for the Run on the Sly 50-miler on Sep. 4, and due to family commitments had to do my last long training run on August 14. So I was already going to be slightly rusty for Run on the Sly. But then I got the flu the week before Run on the Sly, and spent most of Sep. 4 in bed. I had already planned that if I felt good about my Run on the Sly performance, I would also go for Sierra Nevada three weeks later (this was new territory for me, having run only two fifty-milers in my life, separated by 3.5 months). So although I agonized about missing Run on the Sly, I could still look forward to doing Sierra Nevada.
I recovered from that flu very slowly and did my first run, a 2-miler, only on Sep. 14, the Wednesday which was only 10 days before Sierra Nevada. The next day, 6 miles, then Friday off before attempting 20 on Saturday. A 20-miler seven days before the race was cutting it close in terms of recovery, but I had to do it to have any confidence that I could attempt Sierra Nevada after so many weeks off. I only made it 16 miles that day, but decided not to completely rule out Sierra Nevada. The decision was complicated by the fact that I had to fly Sunday for a business trip to Tucson, and I would return only on Friday night around midnight, 6 hours before the start of the race. I was hoping to fly standby on an earlier flight. If I couldn't do that, there was no way I was going to run the race.
Monday morning, I did an easy 4 miles starting from my hotel. I could still feel the effects of Saturday's long(ish) run after so many weeks off, and I was still procrastinating my decision on Sierra Nevada until Friday, when I could re-evaluate my legs and my travel schedule. Then an amazing thing happened. I happened to have some extra time at lunch (which I never do at these meetings) and wandered into a bookstore where I found a copy of Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston, the guy who cut off his arm after it was pinned by a boulder while he was alone in the middle of nowhere. Then he had to rappel down a cliff with one arm and hike eight miles to find help. This guy had some serious adventures even before that incident, and it started to inspire me for Saturday's SNER.
That afternoon, my meeting ended early (which never happens), and as I walked to the hotel I noticed that there was some cloud cover and it wasn't too hot (which never happens in September in Tucson). Inspired by the book, I decided I could run to the top of Gates Pass and back, a roughly 18 mile round trip from my hotel, with a roughly 1000-foot climb to the turnaround. I had only done this once when I lived in Tucson, and I remember it as one of my more epic runs (it was 21 miles then because I started from a slightly different place). It would be dark by the time I finished, but this would be my only chance. Of all my business trips to Tucson, the meeting had never ended early, it had never been less than broiling hot in September, and my hotel was sometimes prohibitively far from Gates Pass. It would screw my chances for SNER, but who cares? Inspired by the book, I wanted to seize the day, and after all there was a very good chance my flight schedule would take away my SNER option by not giving me any sleep before the race.
So I did it, and it was one of the more memorable runs of my life. The course actually sucks in many respects: it follows a busy road out of town, usually with no sidewalk. But it gradually gets less busy and more inspiring, and I enjoyed the feeling of conquering a course that I had conquered only once in the entire time that I had lived in Tucson. Even better, I lucked out that the road was under construction for the last few miles to the pass. Even before I got to the closed part of the road, there was essentially no traffic because traffic couldn't go over the pass. I got to the high point just after sunset and enjoyed a beautiful view.
The way back involved a major road in the dark with no sidewalk, but there was little traffic by that time. With roughly four miles to go, I entered the city and stumbled into a Circle K to refill my water bottles (from the bathroom tap because I hadn't brought any money. I think the clerk thought I was crazy.) As I left the Circle K, I found that my legs were shot. I had to alternate running and walking, and by the end it was walk two blocks, run one. I got to my room around 8 pm, having taken 3 hours to run 18 miles, and crawled into bed and stayed in a fetal position for about an hour before I could move. I didn't care about SNER any more. I had just finished an epic run! (18 miles in 3 hours is not normally epic, but consider what I was coming back from.)
Tuesday my legs were trashed. However, I began to harbor the thought that just maybe I could recover in time for SNER. Walking back to the hotel Tuesday evening, I noticed that again there was cloud cover and it felt unusually cool for September in Tucson. So I looked at the official temperature and it was 99 degrees at 6pm! Had I known that Monday, I probably would not have attempted it! Anyway, my legs remained completely trashed through Thursday, then they felt ok Friday. I got an earlier flight from Tucson to Phoenix, but then got stuck and only got home around midnight. I took an hour to organize everything I would need for the race, and went to sleep at 1 am, thinking that there was a 50% chance that when the alarm went off at 4, I would be so tired that I would just turn it off and go back to sleep and wake up at noon or so. But I didn't.
