To blog or not to blog that is the question. After quite a bit of consternation the answer is blog. Oh well there goes my few minutes of spare time :)
This weekend I had the privilege of joining my brother Tony Portera and many other friends at a race that has been on my radar for several years, the Javelina Jundred. Given my love of deserts running 100miles in the Arizona desert was right up my alley. After an amazing Badwater journey in July, great recovery and training this was shaping up to be a fine day in the sun. Unfortunately for me the "virus of death" caught me one week earlier and dropped me 6 pounds in one day. I did my best to rest up and made it to Arizona the day before the race but was very uneasy overall. Visit and dinner at the hotel with Tony and friends than an early morning wake up call for the race.
After a 4am wake up, some coffee and assembling myself into a male version of Shannon Griefer we headed off to the start. Not surprisingly the costume got quite a bit of attention, even a pic with eventual women's winner Liza Howard who did so in record crushing fashion. The course is 6 15.4m loops with a 7th 10m loop.
Loop 1: Off to a good start, slow and steady nice pace running with Tony P and Brad Fenner (Brad would eventually rock a 10th place finish and Tony another course PR as he does every year). The leaders passed us coming back and Hal Koerner looked like he was on cloud nine floating around the course. He also rocked to a 1st place and record crushing men's time. Did a quick strip show at the turn around and got quite a bit of cheers and clapping. I told Shannon later that she had officially now stripped at the Start/Finish of Javelina.
Loop 2: Still feeling good, rocking strong till a spill down the rocks mile 27.5. Ever scrape your knuckles on pavement, yeah it hurts. Actually it still hurts :( Got some well needed attention from the medical team thanks to some advice from Jimmy Dean Freeman. Smartest move I made all day. Came out again in good time and started on Loop 3 optimistic.
Loop3: Tony made a point Loop 1 to tell us the rocks multiply every loop, they do. I never saw who was scattering them but they were multiplying for sure. Mile 40, HALT.....boom just like that, dizzy weak and feeling generally like crap. It was official, my energy stores were depleted before even getting to the start. in fact let's just say going into a 100 mile race underweight is not a good thing. Those were my cards, they were on the table and this was going to be a grind. I managed to stick with Brad at this point. Bad news for me he was looking stronger and stronger and I was feeling weaker and weaker.
Loop 4: Let the pain begin. Brad and I made it to mile 50 together, he did the happy dance when he saw it on his Garmin then we pushed forward. As the loop wore on he went bye bye and I needed to go into mental lock mode. Legs felt weak but my mind was strong. The rocks were multiplying and my shoe choice was beginning to bite me in the tail. Kicking rocks with
Inov-8 F-Lite 230's does not feel good. Saw happy faces at the Start/Finish and learned I would be blessed with a pacer loop 6 and 7, thank god!
Loop 5: OK, there were 40miles to go but in my brain only 2+ loops. Anyway that's what I told myself. Lots of walking/running and then a dead headlamp. Just when I felt like running my headlight started to go out and I was forced to walk 3 miles to the next aid to change out the batteries. 7 miles left to the turn around all slightly downhill and I found my legs all of a sudden. Funny how you can die and be reborn so many times during these races. I actually ran the next 4 miles and pretty fast, at least it felt fast. The people I passed looked at me like I was an Alien. One guy said he thought i was a bike coming at them. Either way, felt good. After that I was once again cooked, a slow 3miles to the turn around and got my pacer Lisa. Let me just say, without Lisa things would have been A LOT different down the stretch, I owe her big time.
Loop 6: Lisa and I headed out. 15 miles of mostly walking with some running in between. Forward progress is forward progress and I am quite the power walker. The rocks were my evil enemy at this point and I cursed each and every one I saw. Although I had never met Lisa before this point we had some great conversation and it was like we had known each other for a long time. Funny how that is at Ultras, nice people and more nice people. Best part of this loop was getting to see one of my favorite people in the world Amy Dodson. Check out Amy's story sometime, she is the real deal and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. I knew at this point that my sub 20 finish had gone bye bye. Actually I knew that a long time before but finally admitted it. Goal now to get as close to 21h as possible. We had been warned of rain but had only seen some drizzling and shooting stars at this point.
Loop 7: 10 more miles.....Cool thing at JJ is that they give you a glowing necklace for your last loop. You know you are almost done and so does everyone you pass. Queue the rain, really really hard rain and lots of muddy washout. Why not, lots of fun right. My right IT band had been tweaking all day but now it was fully ticked off. My running was limited to about 30 or 40 feet max at a time and I was actually walking faster so why bother, just wanted to be done. Took a tequila shot at the turnoff but did not help, nice try at least. We walked it in at 21h7m for a strong 24th place finish despite one of my hardest days to date.
All in all a great race in every way, shape and form run very very well. Always nice to have a little family reunion in the desert. At the end of the day my mental strength was there to carry the physical being who was only partially there. I have found over the last few years that suffering is relative and there is no easy 100mile race. Next stop
Iron Horse 100 in Feb and hopefully a chance to visit Death Valley again in July :))
