Welcome to BIG BEAR...whooohaaaa!

Yes, my 2 blog readers/friends/etc.  I got up at 3:45 a.m. (at the butt-crack of dawn mind you) this last Sunday and drove my ass up to Big Bear, which with traffic is about 2+hrs away, but being Sunday a.m. I got up there in 1.5hrs or so.  All I can say is once I hit the mountain, there was alot more driving and elevation gain to be had.

All I can say, is beautiful.  Perfect day, perfect conditions it seemed.  Directions once reaching Big Bear from the RD online info were perfect. 

Yeah, did I say perfect already or what?

I get to the park area where the trailhead starts for both the 33 and 15 mile runs.  I was planning on doing the 33, but about a day or so before, a callous pretty much ripped off one of my little toes.  It was like someone took a frickin scalpel to my toe and sliced off a few layers of skin.  I never knew a toe could bleed so much.  It was like a head wound or something.  Sooo, wasn't sure bout the 33 for sure or even the 15.  Didn't want to be out in the middle of the forest and have to DNF.  For some reason that didn't sit well and I knew if I did that I would be out there for a very long time since the aid station volunteers were set for a long while.  Ok, so I sorta whined for a little bit and Bri basically told me to get over my hang nail (as if, humph!) and HTFU.  Soooo, I did what any normal athlete would do, got pouty for a bit, and sucked it up and drove out there to see what would be.

I decided that morn that I would switch to the 15.  I figured my toe could hang for that amount of mileage at least without having to amputate it during or after the event.  It was a tad brisk up on the mountain top.  Lets just say, it was p'bly in the high 40's.  I had my Moeben Sleeves on, but just running gear with a tank top.  What can I say, I dress light.  The less I have to wrap around my waist or stuff in my shorts later on the better IMO.

They started us in waves.  Of course like all ass trail runs we started going uphill.  WTF is up with that nonsense?  About a mile in or so I'm like sucking air big time.  I'm thinking "shit!"  I must be really out of shape here, how can that be?  I mean I'm strict with my dieatary habits.  I eat fried foods sparingly, I make sure I have veggis at least x2/wk, and I've made sure to carbo load with pizza, noodles and the like the last couple of days.  Plus I have my trusty secret dietary drink aid weapon = wine.   Yes, wine.  I drink just enough daily, so that I get the strong antioxidants of reservatrol to counteract my free radical oxidative triggers from my sport.  So there!!  Tho, at this point that wasn't making me feel better.  Ahhh, light bulb moment....doh!  I'm not used to elevation, not like this anyways.  We started this race at 7,000 gain.  Hmmm, me being a "at sea level" creature with no altitude tent, etc., this was going to prove to be interesting to say the least.  Big Bear's total elevation is 9,000 ft above sea level, and we started climbing from 7,000.  Can we say lung transplant anyone?  Now if I were like Lance there wouldn't be any probs, right?

I slowly started to adjust, sorta anyways to the lack of O2 intake.  It was definitely a mountain, billy goat trail for the most part.  We were on the Pacific Crest trail line, and it was just amazing.  It is everything I like and love about trail running. 

There was a spot in the middle of the run, where it was sorta boring, at least for me.  We were on a fire road for about 2-3miles *yawn*, tho I did get to talk with a chick from El Segundo.  She had done this race before and had done 100 mile ultras.  GOOD LORD!!  I don't think I will get that far.  I have pretty much come to the conclusion that my feets won't tolerate anything > 20 miles on the trails.  Yeah, well, call me a weenie baby or whatever.  Guess I will keep my 20+ mile races on the road, and keep my feet somewhat happy and intact.

Anyways, I have to say, I found out that cheetos and coke are foods from the Gods on the trails.  OMG!!  Besides my G'Ade and two gels that I took on the run, I sustained with the C&C (cheetos/coke)......aaauggg!

At about mile 10 or so I decided to just enjoy the run.  It was so pretty and serene up there, I figured what the hell.  I would get into my groove of laying it on during the single tracks/switchbacks and downhill, sorta.....I really didn't want to fall off the mountain (like literally).  Tho, I would forget about the elevation gain and it would gently, ever so gently SMACK me in the face and remind me after about a 1/2 mile or so of ramping it up.  So, yeah I just went with it after awhile and enjoyed the run. 

At the end, they had chicken broth, spaghetti with meatballs, fruit salad, etc.  Quite the spread for a small, hometown production.   Also got this snazzy tech-T----cool beans!   

Don't know my exact results yet, sorta care, sorta don't.

Will definitely have this race planned for next year.  A definite repeat offender.  I usually don't do race repeats, but this race was total awesomeness and plus some.