Thursday, December 06, 2007

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Lessons learned from running the High Desert 50k last weekend, illustrated version:

  • It is seriously cold in the desert in the winter. Like, ice spontaneously forming in the hydration pack cold. The desert is not messing around.

  • [Corollary to the previous point] Los Angeles does not condition one to endure temperature extremes.

  • It is not necessarily a good idea to try to smile while running. It is never as flattering as one thinks it will be:


  • Photo agencies are way too possessive of their proofs. (This lesson was actually learned after the race)

  • The High Desert 50k has the worst finish route in all of racingdom. It starts and ends at a college gymnasium, and about a mile and a half from the end, one can see the gym and the parking lot (where one's car is parked!). However, one still has to slog a mile and a half around the back of the gym, skirting the football field and the basketball courts, dragging one's tired, swollen feet on a rocky dirt path. Uphill. At this point, one feels murderous.

  • Finish line pictures cannot be trusted to convey the true murderousness of the subject:


  • There are worse things than one's bra strap chafing under the hydration pack. For instance, one could have the brilliant idea to tape the oft-chafed area, and one could then suffer 31 miles of tape rubbing one's back entirely raw. For instance.

  • As has been proven innumerable times before, the misery of post-race soreness is soon forgotten in the pursuit of the next big race. Catalina 50 miler, I'll see YOU in a month.

7 comments:

Tom said...

(Sing to the tune of "Someone's in the Kitchen With Dina")
Nobody listens to To-om.
Nobody listens I kno-o-o-ow.
Nobody listens to To-om.
Running-is-like-the-bad-boy-boyfriend
-who-keeps-treating-you-poorly-over and-over-and-you-convince-yourself it'll-be-better-next-time-but-he's
always-a-jerk.

Monique said...

Ha!

Well, I was going to say something about not supporting this. . .

But it seems like Tom wrote everything that needs to be said.

Jason said...

Though a committed non-runner, I have to say that it seems a bit too-clever-by-half to point to her back pain in proving your point about running. As if that was why you warn against it...

Kaahl said...

Well a bad boyfriend is better than no boyfriend at all, at least that's why I still read Tom's blog.

Besides, though Liz is bloodied, she is not bowed. She is not a wounded victim, but a warrior carrying the symbols of struggle and subsequent victory.

You guys are all like the people in the Sunday School class where they were saying, like, "yo that willey hand cart company thing was totally whack" and liz is like that old guy that stands up and say "back up off willey like that, I was there, that was the price I paid to know God."

I bet some people feel ashamed now!

Liz said...

Oh, the haters were TOLD. Karl, I want to frame your comment and hang it on my wall.

bruce said...

i'm with Liz.

that may not be much help.

Monique said...

The comments subsequent to mine are falsehoods.

Marathons are bad. Very bad. People who push themselves to these extremes actually have decreased life expectancy.

It's practically against the word of wisdom, I tell ya.

Thus, it is incorrect to say that this is the price you pay to know God. Rather, it would be better to say this is the price you pay to see your doctor sooner than later.

But, shhhhhh, I'm literally banking on these sorts of things to continue. Mwuhahahaha. . .