When someone asks me if I want to help out with an endurance adventure, I’m quick to say yes—sometimes too quick. A 200-mile trail run sounds crazy enough, but when you add camping, a rerouted course due to wildfires, and pretty much no sleep, you get some wild days.
Michelle participated in her second 200-mile BigFoot event and asked Janet, Grant, and me to crew for her. I figured that after last year’s RAAM, which went on for 12 days, I was ready. But BigFoot is a different beast. Instead of hotel beds with 4-5 hours of sleep per night, we had tents and somehow I only managed 60-90 minutes of sleep. But who am I to complain? Michelle did the whole thing with just a few hours of sleep in the back of a truck. Huge respect!
On her second day (she had done 50miles already), I decided to pace her for 20-40 miles. That seemed more appealing than waiting and not sleeping. The course had changed from an A-to-B route to a loop that had to be completed two times, so I opted to do 50 miles to experience the whole course, which was absolutely stunning (check the pics). My body wasn’t really prepared for a run/hike of more than 20 miles, but I went into athlete mode and pushed through. This turned out to be a mistake, as I ended up completely trashed mentally & physically. No sleep for about 72 hours, combined with the 50 miles of pacing, took its toll. I’m grateful for the adventure and for seeing these incredible athletes fighting it out. Michelle finished the race this morning! What a rockstar! This race is a beast.
What did I learn? Say yes to cool adventures, but I need to work a bit harder to leave my “pro athlete fighting mode” behind, as it can apparently still get me in trouble by ignoring my limits too much. Time to recover & relax and then on to the next one! 🙂