When you least expect it…

Really rough week at work. Constant headache for 4 days, back to my advil abusing ways, waking up at 3 AM with left facial numbness, pounding headache, nausea, and feeling as if I had not slept at all, then forcing myself into the office without a run for 14 unproductive hours, then repeating the cycle. 

Thursday night I was supposed to meet VVN for a screening of a movie about mountain runners at a local running store. It seemed like a fine idea at the time weeks ago, when I had agreed to go, but that day the thought of navigating across town in rush hour to sit in a room full of skinny people and having to smile through this headache was too much to bear.  As soon as I learned she was meeting others there, I realized I would not be missed, and left work early.  I told Julius about the headaches and he said, “funny, you don’t look sick”. Guess I know how patients feel. 

I took a sleeper and slept 7 straight hours, then slept some more. Felt like a new person Friday. Good thing because Saturday 6 AM I had a 50 mile road race in Nevada I had signed up for last minute.

Landed in Vegas just after 8 pm but it took a million years to get off the plane and into a rental car. Drove to the Hacienda Hotel in Boulder City, about 45 minutes east of Vegas, near Hoover Dam on the AZ border. Stopped by Albertson’s to buy boxed wine and Starbucks in a can, then McDonald’s to buy dinner (Big Mac) and breakfast (McRib). It’s no accident I’m the heaviest I’ve been since the last VT100. 

Took another sleeper and got to sleep by 10:30, then up at 4 AM to get ready for the run. 26 degrees, going to a high of 34, much colder than last year but here, no ice. There were only about 30 of us addicts lined up for the Running from an Angel 50 miler, an "easy" road race. 

Love the wide open desert, the meditative turning over of the legs to the new tunes from NSM 2012. The only things I have to think about is not chafing and not puking.

Chatted with other runners, paused to take some pics. At the half ran into another runner I knew who runs a lot (once did 50 x 50 milers in a year and is a 2-time Badwater finisher, and though 11 years older is much faster than I am). She was having a rough day/ GI virus. She pulled me for a couple hours and the miles flew by, until she decided to take a more lengthy porta potty break and I kept going. Somehow the usual mile 43 slump didn’t hit me and I knew if I could just keep going another 7 miles….

8:53:09, another PR (by less than 2 minutes), and 3^rd place finish. OK, so there were only 9 women in the race, one of them probably had rotovirus and I was over an hour behind the 2^nd place person, but I’ll take it. Legs feel OK despite carrying the extra gallon, may actually be able to do the planned 50m/ 26.2 double I have planned in March. Got a bottle of bath salts as a prize, which raised some concern with airport security. 

Next morning met Ocean for situps, pushups, road march, and dumplings at Shanghai Gardens. Less than a month to get ready for DC Sequim 2013.