Transrockies Run - Race Recap - Stage 5 (THE RAIN) & Stage 6 (The Quitting Legs)
"You don't need a 'WHY'.
The day you were born answered that.
You are ALIVE.
There is only one of you.
And you get ONE life to do all that is in your heart.
You don't always need an explanation.
You don't need people to understand.
What you need is 'TO KNOW'.
KNOW who you are.
KNOW your life is valuable because you simply exist.
KNOW that nothing is impossible."
- Sally McRae
Here we are at the last 2 stages of the 6 day Transrockies Run (TRR6). If you've read all my posts about the race up to this point, you da real MVP. Haha! Stage 5 and 6 were probably the most challenging for me! By the time we toed the line at Stage 5, we'd run 74 miles in 4 days straight, and had already climbed 11,491 feet, which is a lot -- however, we had 8,509 feet of climbing to go in only 2 more days! So our hardest days were ahead of us for sure!
The pre-race briefers the night before stated that the chance of rain for Stage 5 was 30%. HAHA. When we showed up at Mango's to wait for the start that morning, it was drizzling. We all put our rain jackets on and just hoped that it would stop soon. It was chilly to start, but the rain wasn't pouring, so we took off at the start just knowing we'd be taking these jackets off within a mile... Unfortunately, the rain didn't let up. And the wind kicked up. And it got cold. We were moving as quickly as we could but climbing requires us to slow down. I was the only one of the 4 who had a real water resistant jacket, so the other 3 got really cold really quickly. And the rain kept coming... pouring at this point. All the other runners began to get cold too, and it started to get scary cold. I began to verbally check on my husband and friends frequently, who admitted they were freezing. There was the real threat of hypothermia at this point. Andres began running up and down the hills to try and warm up and even that was not working. We were required to carry 1 emergency blanket (like a Mylar blanket) per team, so we had 2 emergency blankets for the 4 of us... not enough. Mariana was the coldest, so she got one. We saved the other for any worsening conditions. Mariana looked at me and said, "At the aid station, I want to drop out." I immediately responded, "Me too." I was serious, and I knew she was too. It was a very low point, and quitting sounded so much better than continuing on in this freezing cold rain risking hypothermia! About maybe a mile from the aid station, I turned to Mariana and said, "We can't drop out. There will be many who drop out today. Let's be 2 of the badass women that don't!!" Although she didn't say anything back, I knew she agreed. I know her fighting spirit and her determination. She'd worked too hard to get here, overcoming a chronic stress fracture and working beyond the effects of a beta blocker (a medication used to treat long QT syndrome - Mariana has a defibrillator, but you'd NEVER know it!!). We began singing our theme song for the week, "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley - it was a song we heard on the beach together the week before we left for CO, and said then that we would need that mantra over and over at TRR. Mariana and I also played our game, "Would you rather..." which basically consisted of "Would you rather run in this crap or in our usual long run weather of 80 degrees and 99% humidity?" That was a hard one to answer. LOL!!! We finally hit the first aid station, and all the runners were chilled to the bone. There were aid station volunteers running around like crazy, giving each and every runner an extra emergency blanket and working to make sure we all got warm and were safe before leaving the checkpoint. Once we all felt safe enough to move on, we kept moving due to the continued rain and cold.
We began to climb and had it not been raining and miserable, it would have probably been one of the most beautiful parts of trail we ran all week. It was so pretty! The rain began to stop, but it was still chilly. We continued to wear our jackets/emergency blankets long after the rain stopped - that's how cold it was!
Our singletrack opened up into a beautiful meadow at the Vail Ski Resort. The breezes were still cold and we were still wet but the sun was out and it was beautiful... we put on arm sleeves, buffs, and changed out our wet hats for warm toboggans. As we ran the switchbacks into Vail, our spirits lifted and we were able to find our dry ultrarunning humor again. We ran up some gorgeous switchbacks to the ridge above Vail and the cold breezes plus the warm sun were a metaphor for our runs that week - uncomfortable but beautiful at the same time. When we got to Checkpoint/AS 2, which was actually at the ski lift at Vail, we felt good and ran down into the valley and town of Vail itself. So so pretty. As we ran down the sidewalk and saw the finish line, we hopped on our hubbys' backs and rode it in piggyback - haha!! Also a metaphor, we relied and leaned on each other for this entire run!! When we got to the finish, and Mariana and I laid down in the lush green grass there, we had a good cry - this run was so hard and so awesome and so overwhelming in many ways. I am not a finish line cryer, but this one did it for me!
We went into Vail Village and got some amazing dinner at a German restaurant - we all got gnocci - it was so good to feel like a real human again! We went back to camp & I got another massage that night to work out some kinks. I slept well that night for sure!!
___________________________
Stage 6 - our last day. Our last stage. My legs were very tired. We had around 23 miles ahead of us and around 5200 feet of elevation on this one... last... day. Even though my legs were feeling the fact that I had run around 100 miles, there were no real concerns of injury or pain. I can do this, I kept telling myself. We began this run like we'd done the last 5 days - with "Highway to Hell" playing. I swear, I never wanna hear that song again!! haha!!
There's not a whole lot to report on this stage, except for the fact that we did about a million switchbacks as we climbed and climbed and climbed. We saw some beautiful scenery and the aspen forests were so captivating and breathtaking. It was just hard!
After getting to the top, the trail went into a good steep downhill that was pretty technical and rocky. It took a toll on my right calf, and halfway down my calf felt like it was separating from the bone. It was so so painful that I was resorted to a bad limp all the way down. The 3 amigos had beaten me down to the bottom, not knowing how bad of shape I was in. By the time I met them, I was in tears from the pain. Mariana and Andres went on, thinking I may be out of the run altogether. I stopped many times over the next few miles trying to work out the knife in my calf. This pain altered my gait and soon my right hip (that one) was starting to ache. I was slowly falling apart.
I knew the longer I was out there, the longer I'd be in pain, so I tried to run some here and there. We somehow ended up on a single-track that seemed truly endless. I'm sure it was pretty. But I was just so over it by now and ready for it to be over. Someone put me out of my misery, I thought. I didn't just think... I whined out loud... a lot. Bless my poor husband!! Bahaha!!
We finally came into Checkpoint 2, and the volunteers had all apparently heard of my struggles on the trail and also told me that Andres had sent Mariana on up the trail but had waited for us about 20 minutes. We'd missed him by about 5 minutes. He said later he wasn't sure if I was out or not. Thankfully I wasn't! The more I moved, the less pain I felt. We left Aid Station 2 and ran down into the town of Avon, this time on pavement and sidewalks. This lasted for a couple miles, and I was able to actually run at really good paces - it felt good to run all out!
We hit up our last trailhead for our final climb, once again it was hot and dusty and I was so over it. I pulled out the trekking poles one last time and put one foot in front of the other and did the darn thing. It was so hard. By the time we got to the top, we found our friend Steve, aka "Thor", for one last laugh.
As we started down the long last downhill approaching the finish (about 3 miles or so), we saw a fox but also my legs began to give up completely. I don't know if it's because my brain knew we were almost done or what, but the pain was so unbearable in my legs. It wasn't an injury-type pain, but more of a "we're done, why are you still moving us??" kind of pain. My hips/pelvis felt like jello as did my quads. My legs were essentially screaming. I was trying to run downhill and was shuffling instead of running. Al...most...there... Relentless forward motion...
We turned a corner, and there was a bridge, and beyond that the finish line. We crossed the bridge and I made an ugly cry face and I could feel the hot bubbly emotion coming from my chest and out of my eyes. I really didn't want to make an ugly cry face for the pictures, haha! I tried to pull it together, and we stopped running and simply walked in, hand in hand, into that finish line. Justin stopped and pulled me to him, kissed me so sweetly, and then swept me off my feet into a dip. It was picture worthy ;)
We crossed over and received our buckles and Mariana met me there, where the tears found themselves once again falling and my chest heaving with emotion. "That was so hard..." I found myself saying... "Yes it was...," she answered.
Yes. It was.
All that work, joy, triumph, heartache, frustration, physical therapy, massage, stretching, foam rolling, Aleve, steroid shots, tears, laughter, heat and humidity training, and so much more were done. I said I would never run again... but here I am, can't wait until I can run again! I miss the beauty of Colorado, but moreso the beauty of the trails. I miss the camaraderie of friends, new and old, pushing me and sharing in the beauty and pain. I miss card games. Transrockies tested me more than any other thing I've done, both physically and mentally. I still can't believe my body allowed me to climb mountains at altitudes of 12,600 feet or run 120 miles in 6 days. Our bodies can do so much more than what our minds tell us. We just have to get out there and show up... every day... and somehow, it just happens.
The day you were born answered that.
You are ALIVE.
There is only one of you.
And you get ONE life to do all that is in your heart.
You don't always need an explanation.
You don't need people to understand.
What you need is 'TO KNOW'.
KNOW who you are.
KNOW your life is valuable because you simply exist.
KNOW that nothing is impossible."
- Sally McRae
Here we are at the last 2 stages of the 6 day Transrockies Run (TRR6). If you've read all my posts about the race up to this point, you da real MVP. Haha! Stage 5 and 6 were probably the most challenging for me! By the time we toed the line at Stage 5, we'd run 74 miles in 4 days straight, and had already climbed 11,491 feet, which is a lot -- however, we had 8,509 feet of climbing to go in only 2 more days! So our hardest days were ahead of us for sure!
 |
| As you can see, I'm not feeling Stage 5... bahaha!! |
The pre-race briefers the night before stated that the chance of rain for Stage 5 was 30%. HAHA. When we showed up at Mango's to wait for the start that morning, it was drizzling. We all put our rain jackets on and just hoped that it would stop soon. It was chilly to start, but the rain wasn't pouring, so we took off at the start just knowing we'd be taking these jackets off within a mile... Unfortunately, the rain didn't let up. And the wind kicked up. And it got cold. We were moving as quickly as we could but climbing requires us to slow down. I was the only one of the 4 who had a real water resistant jacket, so the other 3 got really cold really quickly. And the rain kept coming... pouring at this point. All the other runners began to get cold too, and it started to get scary cold. I began to verbally check on my husband and friends frequently, who admitted they were freezing. There was the real threat of hypothermia at this point. Andres began running up and down the hills to try and warm up and even that was not working. We were required to carry 1 emergency blanket (like a Mylar blanket) per team, so we had 2 emergency blankets for the 4 of us... not enough. Mariana was the coldest, so she got one. We saved the other for any worsening conditions. Mariana looked at me and said, "At the aid station, I want to drop out." I immediately responded, "Me too." I was serious, and I knew she was too. It was a very low point, and quitting sounded so much better than continuing on in this freezing cold rain risking hypothermia! About maybe a mile from the aid station, I turned to Mariana and said, "We can't drop out. There will be many who drop out today. Let's be 2 of the badass women that don't!!" Although she didn't say anything back, I knew she agreed. I know her fighting spirit and her determination. She'd worked too hard to get here, overcoming a chronic stress fracture and working beyond the effects of a beta blocker (a medication used to treat long QT syndrome - Mariana has a defibrillator, but you'd NEVER know it!!). We began singing our theme song for the week, "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley - it was a song we heard on the beach together the week before we left for CO, and said then that we would need that mantra over and over at TRR. Mariana and I also played our game, "Would you rather..." which basically consisted of "Would you rather run in this crap or in our usual long run weather of 80 degrees and 99% humidity?" That was a hard one to answer. LOL!!! We finally hit the first aid station, and all the runners were chilled to the bone. There were aid station volunteers running around like crazy, giving each and every runner an extra emergency blanket and working to make sure we all got warm and were safe before leaving the checkpoint. Once we all felt safe enough to move on, we kept moving due to the continued rain and cold.
 |
| Stage 5's comic relief was in the form of "Santa" |
Our singletrack opened up into a beautiful meadow at the Vail Ski Resort. The breezes were still cold and we were still wet but the sun was out and it was beautiful... we put on arm sleeves, buffs, and changed out our wet hats for warm toboggans. As we ran the switchbacks into Vail, our spirits lifted and we were able to find our dry ultrarunning humor again. We ran up some gorgeous switchbacks to the ridge above Vail and the cold breezes plus the warm sun were a metaphor for our runs that week - uncomfortable but beautiful at the same time. When we got to Checkpoint/AS 2, which was actually at the ski lift at Vail, we felt good and ran down into the valley and town of Vail itself. So so pretty. As we ran down the sidewalk and saw the finish line, we hopped on our hubbys' backs and rode it in piggyback - haha!! Also a metaphor, we relied and leaned on each other for this entire run!! When we got to the finish, and Mariana and I laid down in the lush green grass there, we had a good cry - this run was so hard and so awesome and so overwhelming in many ways. I am not a finish line cryer, but this one did it for me!
We went into Vail Village and got some amazing dinner at a German restaurant - we all got gnocci - it was so good to feel like a real human again! We went back to camp & I got another massage that night to work out some kinks. I slept well that night for sure!!
___________________________
Stage 6 - our last day. Our last stage. My legs were very tired. We had around 23 miles ahead of us and around 5200 feet of elevation on this one... last... day. Even though my legs were feeling the fact that I had run around 100 miles, there were no real concerns of injury or pain. I can do this, I kept telling myself. We began this run like we'd done the last 5 days - with "Highway to Hell" playing. I swear, I never wanna hear that song again!! haha!!
There's not a whole lot to report on this stage, except for the fact that we did about a million switchbacks as we climbed and climbed and climbed. We saw some beautiful scenery and the aspen forests were so captivating and breathtaking. It was just hard!
After getting to the top, the trail went into a good steep downhill that was pretty technical and rocky. It took a toll on my right calf, and halfway down my calf felt like it was separating from the bone. It was so so painful that I was resorted to a bad limp all the way down. The 3 amigos had beaten me down to the bottom, not knowing how bad of shape I was in. By the time I met them, I was in tears from the pain. Mariana and Andres went on, thinking I may be out of the run altogether. I stopped many times over the next few miles trying to work out the knife in my calf. This pain altered my gait and soon my right hip (that one) was starting to ache. I was slowly falling apart.
 |
| Before the downhill section that almost broke me. haha |
I knew the longer I was out there, the longer I'd be in pain, so I tried to run some here and there. We somehow ended up on a single-track that seemed truly endless. I'm sure it was pretty. But I was just so over it by now and ready for it to be over. Someone put me out of my misery, I thought. I didn't just think... I whined out loud... a lot. Bless my poor husband!! Bahaha!!
 |
| I distinctly remember saying, "If we don't get off this trail soon, I will go absolutely insane!" The single-track was so tight you had to run with one foot in front of the other and the grass so thick and tall there were times you couldn't even see your feet! |
We finally came into Checkpoint 2, and the volunteers had all apparently heard of my struggles on the trail and also told me that Andres had sent Mariana on up the trail but had waited for us about 20 minutes. We'd missed him by about 5 minutes. He said later he wasn't sure if I was out or not. Thankfully I wasn't! The more I moved, the less pain I felt. We left Aid Station 2 and ran down into the town of Avon, this time on pavement and sidewalks. This lasted for a couple miles, and I was able to actually run at really good paces - it felt good to run all out!
We hit up our last trailhead for our final climb, once again it was hot and dusty and I was so over it. I pulled out the trekking poles one last time and put one foot in front of the other and did the darn thing. It was so hard. By the time we got to the top, we found our friend Steve, aka "Thor", for one last laugh.
As we started down the long last downhill approaching the finish (about 3 miles or so), we saw a fox but also my legs began to give up completely. I don't know if it's because my brain knew we were almost done or what, but the pain was so unbearable in my legs. It wasn't an injury-type pain, but more of a "we're done, why are you still moving us??" kind of pain. My hips/pelvis felt like jello as did my quads. My legs were essentially screaming. I was trying to run downhill and was shuffling instead of running. Al...most...there... Relentless forward motion...
We turned a corner, and there was a bridge, and beyond that the finish line. We crossed the bridge and I made an ugly cry face and I could feel the hot bubbly emotion coming from my chest and out of my eyes. I really didn't want to make an ugly cry face for the pictures, haha! I tried to pull it together, and we stopped running and simply walked in, hand in hand, into that finish line. Justin stopped and pulled me to him, kissed me so sweetly, and then swept me off my feet into a dip. It was picture worthy ;)
We crossed over and received our buckles and Mariana met me there, where the tears found themselves once again falling and my chest heaving with emotion. "That was so hard..." I found myself saying... "Yes it was...," she answered.
Yes. It was.
All that work, joy, triumph, heartache, frustration, physical therapy, massage, stretching, foam rolling, Aleve, steroid shots, tears, laughter, heat and humidity training, and so much more were done. I said I would never run again... but here I am, can't wait until I can run again! I miss the beauty of Colorado, but moreso the beauty of the trails. I miss the camaraderie of friends, new and old, pushing me and sharing in the beauty and pain. I miss card games. Transrockies tested me more than any other thing I've done, both physically and mentally. I still can't believe my body allowed me to climb mountains at altitudes of 12,600 feet or run 120 miles in 6 days. Our bodies can do so much more than what our minds tell us. We just have to get out there and show up... every day... and somehow, it just happens.
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