#13 Forty Mile Day

March 11
Week 3/16 for MO100

Ohiopyle and Surrounding areas
20 miles 2:59 1900ft gained

The morning started early. I've previously mentioned how I keep a log of my dreams. I will share most of last night's dream on here to give you a sample of my crazy night life. Here is what I entered into my log at 2:30am

Unbiological sista, Marceline, turned 22 today

Driving over to a convenient store in the snow. Slid through a parking spot and over a hill until I stopped in front of a tree. There were other cars down there, too that must've made the same mistake. As I opened the door a moose began climbing on the hood of my car. I stayed in. Then suddenly it ran away. I got out to go look for a way back up the hill. Once I got a few steps away from my car giant polar bears began circling me. They had the same antlers as the moose. After frantically rushing to my car, they blocked the entrance and began destroying my car. I grabbed a bike and set off down a rail road. I ended up at some school and walked inside. There was a bathroom door open and I saw Jerry Seinfeld in running clothes alongside a few of his friends. I walked in and started telling him about what had just happened. He was an asshole. I snapped a picture and left. I came back out of the bathroom to find the school had turned into a bar. I sat down and had a drink. Before I knew it I was looking at several empty glasses and oddly enough * was sitting to my side and she kept asking to leave. Then ** was the bartender handing me drinks and staring daggers through me. I attempted to go to the bathroom to reassess the situation and try to figure out where I was, but I couldn't walk well at all. I thought I was drunk, but ** came from behind the bar and wrapped a big bandage around me. One of the polar bear/moose had cut me open and I was pretty bloody, though that never came to light until then. I thanked her and she told me that I shouldn't leave with * because of the severity of the wound. I said if she wanted me to stick around just say so. She did. I went into the bathroom that Jerry was in and took a piss. When I returned to the bar, the bar was now *'s bedroom and I entered the bed. My side began hurting and I realized my bandage was gone and I was in a small pool of my blood. I tried to get up, but I couldn't sit up. After jerking enough, I rose up out of my sleep. Heart rate was pretty rapid. Calmed after a few minutes.

I must have hundreds and hundreds of entries kept in archives in my room. I like to keep track of repeating themes and faces and try and try to pick my own brain. It keeps me entertained. I don't know about you, but I hate waking up in the middle of the night when I have stuff to do early in the morning. My problem is that I often wake up in the middle of the night like today, 2:30, and my heart is racing and I am wide awake now. I know that I should try and rest some more, but it's pretty hard to fall back to sleep. And anymore I know that there is a fat chance that I won't feel as rested when I wake up in a few hours as I do now. (it's 3am while I am typing this section) There has been several occasions where I have chosen to stay awake for 3-4 hours, but crashed around 5-530. It's almost always a lose/lose situation. Tonight I think I will choose to stay awake. My legs feel like garbage, that won't change, and staying awake now will help the chance of me getting to fall asleep in the small window between runs that I can nap.

Where the cool kids hang, FIREFLY GRILL

Back from the run and going to try and do a full recap of the run before falling to sleep, but won't try too hard. <---- Literally as far as I got before I fell to sleep. A series of mistakes would be a good title for this morning. First, I drove all the way to Ohiopyle without thinking that the dirt rail trail may still be covered in ice; it was. Second, attempting to run through and around Ohiopyle via roads and wooded trails. Ohiopyle sits in a damn canyon it seems. Anyway you try to run away from it you are forced to climb, and climb, and climb. Only 5 miles of my run was on rail trail. Another 5 were on sketchy back roads, and half of the run took play tiptoeing through the woods. The exact opposite of what I wanted to do. I have never tallied more than 26 in a day, so I really had the intention of running 40 easy rail trail miles. One mistake not made by me this morning was losing at checkers. That, that was Josh's mistake. I was stunned at how many branches of trails were available to run today. I have been to Ohiopyle 20-30 times and have never left the rail trail except for one small trail loop. Ohiopyle will continue to be a longrun destination except from here on, I just may venture on some more of their endless supply of trails. Run Breakdown:

Mile 1- attempting to run down both sides of the rail trail and quitting due to footing(ice).
Mile 3- sticking my right foot in a phantom mud hole and questioning why I was running in wooded trails without trail shoes though I had trail shoes in my car.
Mile 6- navigated to a sketchy back road and dropped way back down to Ohiopyle
Mile 10- switched into trail shoes and headed down the rail trail to hit the trails that branched off from the main route.
Mile 17- borrowed Josh's watch as mine was running on fumes.
Mile 18.6- watched sputtered out and started Josh's watch for the last 1.4 miles.
Mile 20- Yay.

End of first 20 miler

This run could not have been more opposite as to what I wanted and I was forced to spend way to much energy. On the drive back to town me and Josh stopped and looked at these two fat donkeys. We saw two jackasses, and they saw the same thing. I am now certain, as I sit in the bathroom at 5:11pm that this next run will be closest thing to impossible as I have done in a long time. Knowing how much I will want to cop out I am going to run from Morgantown to Fairmont on the rail trail. Point to point and doesn't provide a place to quit. Gotta make the finish. Here's to the second 20 miler of the day! Figured the first one was so exciting, I will do it again.

Morgantown-Fairmont Rail Trail
20 miles 3:03

The finishing time is misleading as I was well on pace for finished right under 2:40, but leave to this day to continue to throw obstacles in my way. I think if I wanted my two runs to be complicated and crappy they would turn out to be easy and stress-free. Since I wanted to get the easiest 40 miles that I could, Ohiopyle's trail was frozen over and I was forced to run up and down the woods. And the last 6 miles of the end of this run was completely frozen over and a good 3-4 inches of snow. At that point in the run I was in no mental state to deal with that and my legs were too fatigued to go faster than like 11 minute pace. That was about the same time that the sun disappeared and I began seeing bats. I hate bats!
 I have two quick bat stories; I don't want to frighten you too badly. Back story- Bats have followed me my entire life, just bullying me when the sun goes down. Last winter was the first time the attacked me and my friends. I think it was December '12 and Josh and I set off down the rail trail in town and a half mile into the road I caught a glimpse of a bat swooping down to my left. It swooped right by Josh's head and latched onto my shoulder. In the split second it took me to access the situation and back hand it off of me- Josh had 180'd and was a good 100 meters in the other direction. Leaving me for dead. I yelped and we both high tailed it in the other direction. Fastforward 8ish months, me, Josh, and Charlie are running out at Cooper's Rock; through the trails. We mistimed/didn't care that the sun had set on us while we were still in the woods. As we made our way back through the single track trails, I hear a thump. I am the the ass end of the line, Josh in the front. Evidently a bat smacked Josh in the chest and fluttered its wings under his chin. I saw the bat fly away from him and there couldn't have been a more intense race back to the car; or dangerous. Completely dark and the three of us were in full stride screaming and getting to the car. Bats are easily my biggest fear. Snakes easy second. So much scarier than bears, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, etc. Do you know how many times a bear has come at me? Zero. Bats come at me at every opportunity. The weird thing is, bats were in Fairmont growing up, followed me to Norman Oklahoma, and to Morgantown. Josh claims that he was never bothered by bats on runs until he started running with me. My theory is that their life goal is to take the form of a human via eating them and they all just really want to be me. Boy will they be disappointed if they succeed. Also! I have a second, better theory. When we run in the evening I can hear birds chirping, then I hear silence, then bats. I have never seen a bird at night nor a bat during the daytime. They are the same thing! Like the moon and the sun used to be until I saw them both out at the same time almost nightly. Until I see birds and bats together, they are definitely the same thing. Poor birds. Back to run #2.
      Needless to say I was quite spent and completely done with running at that point. The first 5 miles were torture and I honestly almost most bailed. My left knee cap was stinging; felt like the Murphy brothers whooped up on my legs, especially that knee. I assume it is a result of all of the slipping I have done in the last few weeks on ice. Either my IB kicked in after that or the pain numbed down to a level that I couldn't feel, but the rest of the run was fine as far as that pain went. On a bright note, I had a double baconator, large frosty and candy soon after the run. I am too tired right now to go into detail, but there aren't many details to mention. I ran on a straight and boring rail trail by myself and got tired and didn't want to run any more. Luckily today was almost half of the distance of my race this June!

Yesterday I ran twice at Sabraton. 7 and 6 miles. That equals 13.

So, through 3 days this week I am up to 76 miles, tricky. Bed time for me.

Welcoming death after 40 miles on the day.

Also, I am in need of new KT tape as I will be adding some to my knee as well as continuing to hold my achilles in one piece. I don't want to get the moomoo tape this time, but I am too indecisive to choose a pattern. Comment below what pattern I should get and if you can convince me to get one, or enough people say the same design: I will go with that pattern, and show it off all the time on here. Here is a link to all of their designs- http://shop.rocktape.com/categories/Standard-Tape/

Also- Bracket Information (password is- pajamapants) http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2014/en/group?groupID=315080


One Love!