Running, the scariest thing I've ever done...

See saturdays post for an interesting story:

Sunday (0) was a very long day in Paris and had spent 4 hours on a train coming home after walking the streets for 4 hours also, decided to take off in light of all the walking.

Monday (5) Decided I wanted to do a real nice long run after some easy down time but 3 miles out I rolled my ankle and was forced to turn around and walk back.  Later in the night I decided to try and run a little more so I did another 2 before I gave up.

Tuesday (7) With ankle feeling a little better I wanted to get a real run in but not get too far in case it began hurting too bad.  Not an easy run, had trouble going downhill at decent paces but took uphills hard.

Wedsnesday ( 16.0) Woke up late feeling great, and had decided the night before that I would go long today.  It was very hot however, and I had done little hydrating.  For some reason I decided I would just run for two hours so I ran an hour out and an hour back. The last hour went by pretty slowly as I was feeling pretty bad.  Not a very fast run because I decided to run pretty long.  Additionally, after getting home my friend convinced me to go biking with him, so we biked around the lake, about 25 miles and after went for a little swim make a quarter mile.

Thursday ( 16.71)  After a rough night of little sleep caused by pain in my lower calf I woke up and went for a slow 6.5 and it felt pretty bad.  After classes and lounging by the beach I felt loads better and did a run in the evening for 10.2 miles and felt a lot better.

Friday ( 8)  Taking an easier day as tomorrow I agreed to do a nice little trail race with my host dad, or so I thought.

Saturday ( 10) The hour and 44 minutes between 830pm and 1014pm were probably some of the most scary moments of my life.  Allow me to explain, the beginning of the race, which was advertised as 14km with 900m of elevation change, was decently flat and just a trail like any trail in the fells. It didn't start out very fast and I hadn't planned on racing, just running with my host father. At like 5 minutes in he began to pick it up and beckoned me on, so I followed.  We began to pass many people until the crowd started to thin into a single broken line.  We hit the first real hill at about 10 minutes and it seemed to me that everyone else pretty much stopped.  The two guys in front of me started walking up the hill.  Needless to say, I was confused.  I continued to climb at a crawling pace, but compared to the rest of the field I was sprinting.  I lost site of my host dad behind me, and pretty much everyone behind me and there ceased to be anyone in front of me.  I wasn't winning but I was close.  At the peak of the first hill, or mountain I should say, after 6 minutes of straight up, I ran into a course volunteer who told me congratulations youre at the top.  I was very happy, I love downhills, it was time to open my stride and destroy everyone of those silly french walkers.  WRONG.  No one told me that the downhills had steeper inclines than the uphill, which make bunker hill look flat.  I am running along when all the sudden there is a cliff to my left and the course shrinks to less then the size of a single track lane and is riddled with rocks and tree roots.  It was then my turn to start walking down the hill in fear of death by falling down a rocky mountain side.  This was the point were all the tricky french bastards closed the gap. And by close the gap I mean that by the time I was at the bottom of the mountain I went from third to 20th and it got more serious as my host dad passed me.  Down the hill I was crawling and everyone else was literally flying with no concern for life at all it seemed.  Finally, flat ground again.

   A very short lived flat ground as the next hill came out of no where.  Again, surprisingly to me, I was now passing everyone again and by the top of hill 2 a spectator informed me of my position: 5th.  Yet sure enough that which goes up must come down and be passed by many frogs too.  To make matters worse, we were now consumed in darkness as the race started at 830pm and trees provide little light. Go-Go-Gadget Head Lamp! Yes head lamps were required and I had one, boy did I feel cool. Bottom of hill 2 a nice field of long grass, yet even that proved to be tricky as it had also proceeded to begin raining while I was in the trail and while I let my guard down I tripped on a log and then slid on the grass for about 20 feet before being able to regain control. At this point about 35 minutes in the course made a trip through the city where it began and the spectators went crazy and my host family was surprised to see I was just 15 meters behind good old dad after some major work on the flat ground.  I soon realized I was just halfway done if not a little less.

   Mountain 3 had a few more tricks up its sleeves than I ever expected.  After again passing all of my new friends up the slow decent of #3 we suddenly hit trail again and this time there was no running up, there was only crawling.  The hill was so steep I was pretty much rock climbing.  After 3 minutes of climbing the hill starts to level off and I was able to stand erect while running and the first thing I notice is a sign.  It is big and red and reads "Presence de Loups" and at first I don't think much of it until I realize that it means there are wolves in the area.  Wonderful.  As I begin to run just a little faster, I realize darkness is now complete and the moon is blocked by rain clouds which are pouring down on me.  Guided only by sights of headlamps in front of me and an occasional course marker every 5 to 10 minutes I occasionally found my self not on the trail anymore and had to make my own way back.  The first time I realized I was not on the trail however, I learned that sometimes the course went through barbed wires, or at least I did...  Through hell and high water and almost to the bottom of hill three and then there course dissapears.  There is only rock face to my left, cliff on my right and 20 meters inbetween me and the trail on the other side of the gap.  Could this be right? Then I discover a little metal cord that is bolted in to the rock.  Here goes nothing I thought, I grabbed the cord and began essentially horizontally across the rock face. Shortly after real ground appeared and I found myself on a road again.

   Hill was not such a great feet as the ascent was not as steep as the others and the descent likewise and so I made up ground on the rest of those in front of me.  However, at this point I was about 75 minutes in and expecting finish line at any moment and I began to experience tunnel vision.  There were some points were I literally felt like I had blinders on.  After the gentle beast that was hill 4 there was however a short drop where there was two options, run 200 meters out of my way and take some stairs or jump down 10 feet, everyone else was jumping I followed not knowing the pain that would ensue.   As I  hit the ground a searing pain went through my leg.  I quickly limped it off and began running again in thoughts that we were going back into the city to the finish.  I was right about one thing we were going back into the city, but not to the finish, just next to it. So much for sprinting but I did catch dad at this point.  Just one more hill he told me.  Okay, I thought, just one more

   For the last time I climbed, again actually climbing at some points.  Ambiguous trails at some points so again I just followed lights up the hill.  At the top again a race volunteer was stationed and he told me be careful it is dangerous. Oh, so now its actually dangerous you say! Swell.  He was right.  The entire course was now wet and good footing was pretty much impossible to come by.  This descent pretty much amount to me backpedaling as much as possible and running into trees in order to stop my momentum from throwing me down the side of #5.  For the last time super host dad passed me yelling "Allez Brendan!"  I tried to stay with him but he slowly gapped me.  I lost the glimpse of his headlamp and made a left turn to early and ended up riding my butt down a 30 foot dirt drop.  No rocks thank god but some roots which I now have to thank for some nice bruises.  But at the bottom of this near free fall I was back on trail and could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I put on my finished speed in hopes of catching some people in front of me.  The crowd went wild as the say me sprinting powerfully through the city as no other finisher had but just as I turned the last corner I realized I was to late too beat Dad as I saw him finish just ahead of me.  Good job he said to me you should come back next year and do it again.  Yea, sure, of course. He thinks we were in the top 15 out of about 170 or so people who started the race.  One hour and 44 minutes later, I was done, some minor cuts and bruises and a tenderness in my achilles to show for it but I was done.  A down week is in order as I finally head into finals this Wednesday and come back to the States. 

 Bon courage mes amis!