In the few weeks leading up to the race, I thought my body was falling apart. My knee bothered me and I kept thinking I would pull a muscle at any moment, but when I was running it felt fine. I had a pain in the roof of my mouth so I thought I had a cavity and my tooth was rotting from the inside. Turns out I just scratched my gum with floss and it healed quickly.
The previous summer I went in for my yearly check up and the doc told me I had a hernia. He said it wouldn’t bother me until it did. For about 3-4 months before the race I noticed a slight pain in my belly button. I didn’t want to think anything of it, but the more time went on the more painful it became, so much so I went to the ER one night because my hernia changed color and the pain was the most it had ever been.
And again it was a false alarm. Just a glob of fat stuck in some bulging skin. The ER doctor pushed my belly button back in and almost immediately the pain ceased.
I tried to cover all my bases, ran through all my preparation. I even spoke to a nutritionist who suggested I add more calories to my diet. I had strictly and consistently ate 2,500 calories a day and ate the same thing for meals and snacks. My weight stayed at a constant 195. I figured staying lean and keeping the weight low was optimal for running. But the nutritionist concluded I needed to be eating 3,000 calories and more protein. I hated the idea of drinking protein shakes. I didn’t want to be considered one of those people, but I begrudgingly added the extra calories and drank the shakes. I gained 10 pounds but after the diet change I kept breaking PRs in my 5ks and my long runs. Even through all my improvements, emotionally I was breaking down.
During my long runs, about a kilometer in, I would become overwhelmed with emotion. I would fight back tears as the warm breeze whipped my eyes. The weather had turned. The early Texas Spring was setting in, the time changed, the sun set later, and I was pushing myself harder everyday trying to outrun the emotion.
I kept having dreams I would get struck by lightning. There was a visceral fear something would happen during the race and I believed it, like I was training for my doom. The closer it got the harder it was to confront it.
When I think of what a runner’s high is supposed to be like, I imagine something like being stoned or some euphoria after your endorphins kick in from too much pain. I never thought it could be something like taking mild hallucinogens. On my last long run before the race, I had visions. Not the hallucinations like I experienced at Enchanted Rock, but strange images floated around in my brain like a waking dream.
In the sky I saw a gigantic tree, its branches spreading out like rolling smoke or a growing mushroom cloud. As I ran around the lake I would see it and it would fade in and out of my struggling brain like a looming harbinger.
I also imagined flashes of Jormungand, the snake that is wrapped around the world biting its own tail. It’s hard to describe how I could see it. Again, like a waking dream, flashes of the snake would appear and disappear. These strong images of the World Tree and Jormungand perplexed me as to their meaning, and I wondered if they foretold something to come.
I consulted the one eyed viking on their meanings. He had little to offer me but suggested I find their meanings on my own. Afterall, it is my journey.
At the end of the last training run, I had traveled farther than ever before. My nutritionist was right, for a month I had increased my calories and the change was paying off. But as I walked back to my car, there was a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of completion, but also the knowledge that there was one race to go before it would all be over, whether it be to my doom or my victory.
* * * * *
The week leading up to the race, I kept an eye on the weather. It was supposed to be high 30’s in the mornings and low 70s in the afternoon with clear skies around the Ft Davis Mountains. Probably couldn’t be any more perfect than that. There was no chance I was going to be struck by lightning, so at least that was one less thing to worry about.
A few days before, I started packing so I wouldn’t forget anything. I was only going to be gone for a weekend, but I packed a week's worth of clothes. I gathered all my workout gear: long and short sleeve compression shirts, half a dozen headbands, compression leggings, half a dozen shorts, all my performance socks. I even bought new underwear. I got both my running vest and backpack, multiple headlamps and spare batteries, gloves, my stupid hats, multiple sunglasses. All my gross gel blocks and energy goos, gummy bears, electrolyte tablets, even a blender just in case. I was also bringing a tent with the intention of setting it up and changing so I didn’t have to change in a portapotty.
March 21st was a New Moon and the Spring Equinox. In certain circles of belief, it means the beginning or end of a cycle and it just so happen to coincide with the Equinox. Some would say there was strong majik on that night. So of course I gave myself a Rune reading. The meaning was as follows:
My happiness is buried as deep as it can be, other people are the cause and there are many unknown reasons.
Protecting myself will lead to power and potency, but currently that is frozen and my rebirth is unknown.
Enlightenment leads to strength above all, a gift will lead me there, and there is some unknown wealth or strength that will come of it too.
In three days I would take my journey to the desert, and there I would look for whatever majik awaited me.
But that dear reader, is a story for another day…