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September 11, 2007

DWD 2007: The Highlights

Once again, the second weekend of September found me making the trek out to Hell, MI for another round with Dances With Dirt. This year, it would prove to be far more of an adventure than it was last time. Heck, just getting to the race was an adventure: the team I'd originally signed up with pulled out after losing (and being unable to replace) 2 or our 5 members, and the team I joined up with after that had all sorts of personnel problems. Just as we'd get a full team, someone would have to drop out. The Thursday morning before the race, we had a full roster. By Thursday night? Our 5th member lost his babysitter for the day and we were back down to 4. Of course. We held out hope against hope that a runner would magically fall from the sky to refill our team, but Saturday morning found us rearranging legs, trying to find an order that evened out the mileage as much as possible and gave everyone time to rest between legs. Instead of running just under 13 miles for the day, I'd be running a tad over 17. Bring. It. ON.

I was runner #2, so when our first runner came speeding in at the end of her leg I took off. The leg was called "Buttkicker" and is one of the hilliest legs on the course. They were not kidding. A complete lack of any sort of speedwork or hill training this year has left me completely out of shape for this sort of thing, and by the end of the 5.3 miles my butt was on strike, my quads were shot, and I was exhausted. I knew then that a) I might have gone out a little too aggressively and should have started walking the big hills earlier and b) it was going to be a long day.

My next leg, "This Sucks", involves a trip through a swamp and features a "Runner Wash" at the end. I needed it, because I was covered from the waist down in thick, black mud. For about a mile we trudged through mud that threatened to suck off your shoes (helpful hint: stay to the sides!) and crossed waist-deep creeks that required 2 or 3 people to pull you up on to the other bank. Luckily, everyone goes through this chunk of the leg at about the same pace, regardless of how fast they run, so I was in a crowd of about 6-8 people. After the shallow creek crossing each person helped the one behind them out of the mud, and at the end of the deeper crossing, two guys stationed themselves on the bank to yank people out, aided by a guy standing in the creek who was boosting people out. I don't even want to know how far down he sunk into the dirt once we all made our way out, because the ground he was standing on was anything but solid. It definitely takes a special kind of lunatic to enjoy this sort of thing, and I loved it. I mean, when do you get to have that much fun getting dirty and playing in the mud as a grownup?

By this point, I was realizing the challenge of running a race like this with only four people. It's not the extra mileage that gets you, it's the reduced recovery time. Even with 5 runners, by the end of the day you're getting that "I have to run again? Already?" feeling. With 4? I got done with my second leg, and it felt like I was heading out for legs 3 & 4 just five minutes later. I was beat, but, hey! I was almost done! I was running two legs back to back, but the second one was only 1.4 miles, so I was looking at it as a single 6-mile leg. It'd be my longest leg of the day, but I could do it. As I trudged off into the woods for the last time, I told myself, "6 miles to freedom!"

Except I just could not get moving. I was exhausted. I was on nice trail, but it was a never-ending gradual uphill. Plus, I really had to pee. Finally, I got to a spot where I was alone and could duck into the trees to take care of that last detail, and I couldn't believe how much better I felt. It was like I had a second wind! I hit the trail as hard as I could, but within 5 minutes I'd hit the swamp. Again. So much for my second wind.

The name of this leg was "Where's The F'n Bridge," and when I got to the big open river crossing, I thought that was what they meant. I waded through the nice clean river, ignored the guy on the boat that told me to watch out for the snake (although based on the scream from the girl behind me, he may not have been kidding about that. Whatever. If I didn't see it? It didn't exist), then skipped through a little bit of swampy mud and said to myself, "Why, that wasn't bad! Heck, after This Sucks, that was a lovely walk in the park!"

The phrase you are looking for is "Famous Last Words." We got back into the woods, and it was all swamp muck, all the time. So much for making up time with my second wind. Then we got to a creek crossing that had ropes across it, tied to trees at either end of the bank. I vaguely remembered the race organizers mentioning something about ropes and to please be using them during the pre-race announcements, and as I was pondering that, I saw the guy ahead of me step into the creek and wind up in mud and muck up to his waist. Clearly, they weren't kidding about the ropes. I grabbed on to the rope and jumped in. It wasn't too bad - I could reach the bottom, but it was nice to have the rope there for balance and to aid the forward motion, and I used it to pull myself out on the other side. Right on. Ropes. Not messing around. Moving on.

Then I came to crossing #2, again with ropes. The guy ahead of me recommended staying to the left, so I grabbed on to the left rope, jumped in, and was suddenly very glad I was hanging on to the rope. My feet were sort of touching something that felt like the bottom, but if I'd tried to stand in it the water would have been over my head. This was not water that you wanted to have over your head, I'll tell you that much. It was certainly the most fragrant swamp of the day, as "ass" was all I could smell as I pulled myself across the rope and up the other side. Everything from my armpits down was coated in a thick layer of swamp goo. Awesome. By the time we got to the third creek crossing (which was thankfully shallow enough to not require ropes), all I could think was, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, another fucking crossing?"

I may have been a little tired, and perhaps a smidge overmucked. Thankfully, I eventually made it out of the swamp and, after a little over an hour in the woods, I could see freedom and the end of the leg. I knew I had another mile and a half to go, but I was really hoping someone else on my team could take it since the thought of doing any more running with a half-inch of swamp dirt in my shoes was less than appealing. At the exchange point, one of my teammates was there and asked me if I wanted her to take the leg. On one hand, I did. On the other, I didn't want to make her run any more than she had to, since we were all busting our respective asses to cover the course with only 4 runners. I told her that if I stopped running now, I was done for the day. If that meant I ran the next leg? So be it. However, she told me that she was fine and that I could stop there if I wanted. I sent her off and then went and sat in the lake. I have never been so happy to see (relatively) clean and clear water in my life. Nor has lake water ever looked so clean and clear.

After my dip in the lake, I headed up to the team truck to change into clean and dry clothes. As I stripped off my shorts, I realized that I had mud in places people should never have mud. Ewwwww. There would certainly be some quality shower time as soon as I got back to the hotel.

At the end of the day, we finished the 60+ mile course in 11:43:45 - not bad for a team of four women. Our adjusted time (taking age/gender handicaps into account) was 9:59:57 - good enough for 247th place (out of about 370 teams).

It was still a fun race this year, but we were all just beat at the end of it. After talking to some of the other people that ran the F'n Bridge leg, I realized that I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I wasn't so tired, and if I hadn't already taken one trip through the swamp. (Another reason not to run both F'n Bridge and This Sucks: if you have sensitive skin, your legs will be angry with you for taking them through the nasty swamp water two separate times, and will demonstrate their anger by feeling burny and itchy for days afterwards.) On the plus side, my state of total exhaustion meant that I headed to bed fairly early in the post-race party, which meant no hangover on Sunday. Bonus! (Alas, I did miss a lot of fun, but perhaps next year I'll hit the happy medium.)

I will say this, though: despite the fact that I was totally untrained for the terrain and ran myself into the ground, it was still an awesome time. Highly, highly recommended.

Posted by Dawn at September 11, 2007 01:33 PM

Comments

Posted by: LeahC at September 11, 2007 03:07 PM

Posted by: Mike at September 11, 2007 04:33 PM

Posted by: Rachel at September 11, 2007 08:58 PM

Posted by: SpaceCase at September 13, 2007 03:45 PM