MdS Stage 3 - Jebel Zireg: 36.7KM
07April 2015
Lot's of wind last night! Right before we went to sleep we decided to drop one side of the tent and seal off the windward side of the tent as much as possible. As luck would have it, I slept in the spot where the wind was finding it's way up the ridgepole. I woke up the next morning completely covered in sand. The carpet had a mini sand dune between Felicia and I which was pretty hilarious because all of our kit was completely covered or dusted with sand. I was up pretty early trying to assess my left toe.
Roadbook for Stage 3
Stage 3 is looking to be a fairly speedy stage which makes things a little tricky because it's the stage before the long stage. From the start to checkpoint 1, we'll run through some soft small dune type terrain. We'll run this terrain through a small pass and then start to make our way to CP1. The terrain after the pass is golfball size stones with a couple trails that we use to run on. After CP1, we run through a dry lake over to another sandy pass where begin to ascend a small sandy jebel. CP2 will be just beyond this ascent. After CP2, we'll climb through another pass and up to another jebel. Once on the summit, we'll have a sandy descent all the way into Bivouac-3.
The Start for Stage 3
My toes took a beating yesterday due to doing a lot of running and hiking off the trail to try and get around folks. The toe pinching I was experiencing had caused large blister to form on the backside of my big toenail. The blister was halfway off the nail-bed and the other half was causing my toenail to lift up which was rubbing on my shoe. I drained the blister last night and by morning time the blister was already filled back up. Alissa took a look at the blister and recommended that I put two holes in the blister to ensure the blister continues to drain. We did that and we taped up the toe. Fixing my toe took some time so I was pretty much in rush mode from here on out. I get my kit on, grab my breakfast, and we take a group photo and we are off to the starting line!
Here's a couple pictures from the starting line:
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| Alissa Larson (888) - Awesome runner and the one who helped me with my toe. Patrick Tomada in the background with his hands crossed. |
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| Morning announcements and once again lined up in the back...LOL. |
So here I am, I'm once again at the back of the pack and I've turned my focus on how I'm going to run this stage. As usual, I take the conservative decision and decide that I'm going to just chill out this stage and run relaxed with no pressure in terms of rankings. So now we're off onto stage 3 with no pressure other than to just finish the stage.
I run the first few kilometers relatively slow. Partially because I'm in "chill" mode and partially because I'm getting some very sharp pain in my left toe. Running in the soft sand/gravel requires that I use my toes to push off more than usual. With each push off, I can a sharp cutting pain and it's quite annoying. After a few kilometers the pain numbs and I'm back to running in my groove. At this point, I'm through the pass and running towards CP1. There's a bunch of runners that pretty much take up the only trails that move toward CP1. Even with my toe as muffed up as it is, I decide that I need to make a pass on a bunch of the runners and move off the trail. I pick up the pace heading into CP1. The transition through CP1 is very quick and I'm off. Moving through the dry lake bed, the running got a lot easier and I began to struggle once again with the what my goals are for MdS. I keep reminding myself that I'm here to finish but I was am here to see what I'm made of and push myself which up to this point has been mediocre at best. I've been conservative for the last two stages and now I struggle whether I'm going to be happy with that for the rest of the stages. I end up decided that I'm going to pick up the pace and go pretty hard for the rest of this stage. So I pickup up the pace to a comfortable and put myself back in cruise. After all the terrain is pretty flat and I'm not feeling any pressure from my toe.
At some point, I'm running and I'm feeling fairly descent and I have in my head that I need to make up some time for yesterday. My head is down and I'm in my own world when all of a sudden I hear a females voice yell "Go, Ricky, GO". I look up and don't see anyone and then turn back and see Meghan. I slowed down and we ran together for a few kilometers. I was pretty happy to run into her because I'm almost positive that I would have run myself into the ground if it wasn't for her yelling my name. I got in this nice groove and didn't realize how fast I was actually going. After running just a few minutes with her I could tell that I was pretty fatigued. I've told her that she saved my bacon that day because she seriously woke me out of something that could have been disastrous.
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| Me cruising across the dry lake bed |
Meghan and I are running at a good comfortable pace and we are around 19km when we run into Garth and now the three of us are running as a group. Running with Meghan and Garth was a great honor and I learned so much just by watching them move through the terrain. I slide behind them and watch there every move. I quickly observe and learn how they pick the lines they are running and how to transition from running to hiking and still keep a good pace. I'm quickly reminded how I used to pay attention to my Grandfather in the same fashion. I was always intrigued by his charisma and positive outlook regardless of the circumstances. This one thought literally causes me to start unraveling a serious of emotions that for some reason I can not stop. Regardless of what I do, I'm thinking about my grandfather. The death of my grandfather is what got me back to running again and it was the running that helped me through so many other tribulations in my life. Now, I'm in a race that would have blown his mind and he would have been proud to watch me run.
In no time, I went from smiling and being happy listening to Meghan talk to completely silent and down in the dumps. At some point we lost Garth and I am right behind Meghan. I don't want to her to go so I solely begin to focus on putting my feet where she just stepped. This helped my thinking processes but my negative thoughts were still there. As we begin to climb another small jebel, Meghan asks I want lead and I move in front of her. Damn, now I have nothing to anchor too. I try to keep my thoughts focused but I continue to unravel. Meghan cracked a joke that made me laugh and in that moment I began to cry (thank God I was in front). I'm cruising up this hill and I have tears just pouring down my face. I tell myself that once I get off this hill the pity party needs to stop. I just let the tears fly and try to keep it together when Meghan and chat. We crest the top of the jebel and begin to descend. I'm still in front and have full-on let myself go. I hear Meghan run by me and ask if I was good and through my chattering teeth I tell her something to the effect of "yep...just toe pinch". I don't know why I said that but that's all that could think of. Before I know it, she's gone!
I can still see Meghan as get closer to CP2. Once we are here, we had roughly 10k left and most of it was a gradual downhill into Bivouac 3. After passing through the CP2, I was feeling better and began to focus on getting through the last 10k of stage 3. I needed a little motivation so I pulled out my headphones for the first time and put on some jams. I was beginning to feel much better and cruised the rest of the way into CP3.
After crossing the finish line, I headed toward our tents with the usual water ration. Crossing that finish line was one of the most symbolic moments of the race for me. As I walked to the tents, I was reflecting on the day and my dark moment and I realized that it's time to close that those chapters. No longer do I need to feel sad about my grandfather death, instead, I should use these moments to celebrate his life and if running is my way of being close to him than it's going to be about generating the positive memories versus his last few days on these earth. At that moment, I felt a huge burden lift and I began to smile just as I got to the tent. Meghan and Garth were just a few minutes ahead of me and they were still settling in. Liza and Dave were pretty much there hours head of me and they were already sipping mai thai's and getting a tan...LOL. I thanked Meghan for giving me a moment of clarity when I passed her. She seemed to think it was no big deal but I certainly did. I swear that lollipop leadership moment saved my MdS.
As usual, after a quick chat, I head over to my tent and begin to make adjustments to the tent. This time is was some work. There were lots of big rocks to pick out and a ton of weeds that I need to pull from our sleeping area. The good thing about our spot was the fact that we finally were going to get to sleep on actual soil versus a rock hard desert floor. Today's reflection on stage 3:
Stage 3 Statistics
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| Stage 3 Elevation Profile |
Official Time: 4:50:33
Position: 160
Average Pace: 12:47
Elevation Gain: 1,332 ft
Average HR: 160
Estimated Calories Burned: 2,191
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