My legs have seen some things. They are written all over. It looks like I got chicken pox and also was used as a scratching post. It's a mix of something like black fly bites and many, many thorn scratches. And I feel proud of every one.
Yesterday, I ran the Chota Trail race. Specifically, the shortest of the three distances offered, about eight miles. It was plenty. Here's how it went down:
9:00 PM, I head to bed after some Spanish practice with the proprietor of our lodging, Yahuarcocha Bungalows. I set the alarm for 5:15 AM. 12:30 AM, I am woken by Tyler and Matt, whose are up because their race, the longest at 34 miles, starts at 2:00 AM. 6:44 AM, I wake up and look at my watch. My race starts in sixteen minutes. I yell. Shorts, shirt, contacts, bathroom, socks, shoes, backpack. I run out the door. It is 6:58. It is a little over a mile to the start. I arrive around 7:07. Everyone is gone. A race official looks at me bewildered, quickly asks someone to guide me through the town streets to where the trail starts. 7:08 I cross the start line, barely having stopped since I stepped out of the Bungalow. "Les cogere," I tell my guide breathlessly. "I will catch them." I hit the trail within a minute or so, and immediately I see the consequence of my tardiness. The trail is a single-track, with high grass and brush on both sides. Every single runner is ahead of me, and I will have to pass most of them. Time to get to work. Passing whenever possible. Tramping through the brush to get around. I am gaining. It gets steep and the bushes close in. I am stuck, stopped dead in my tracks behind other competitors. I resign myself to the situation until it opens up again. Then more passing. The trail is so steep people are slipping backwards. My trekking poles help. We rise above the lake and farms below. I steal glances at the view. The trail winds past some precipitous drops. At those points I am happy to go slower. Another steep climb. I am catching up. I know because I am passing fewer and fewer people. We scoot under a barbed wire fence with red race flagging showing the way. I run within feet of a cow. Two ducks waddle out of my way. I wave to the farmer at her morning chores. We are about two thousand feet above the lake. Quite a view. A man in front of me cuts a switchback and gains ground. I vow to beat him. We are almost at the top now, and my competitors are much more spread out. For the first time, I find I am not catching up. I have found my place in the race. We hit the top and the trail is wide. I can run. A brief stop at the aid station for a cup of water. The poles go away in to my backpack. It's all downhill from here. The trail, single track again, follows a small canal across the slope. I hit the pace hard. There's a smile on my face. This is FUN! I pass a few more guys. One of them has music coming out of his backpack. Nice. I drink my Gatorade between breaths. First calories of the day. I know I need something if I am to finish strong. A sharp left turn with red flagging. I leave the canal and immediately begin a very steep descent. The trail could be better described as a rut in the grassy, brushy hillside. Full of sandy dirt and a the occasional trip-hazard rock. My quads feel like they could give up at any moment, but they don't. I am passing more runners, even as I grunt with every pounding step. A competitor in front of me reaches to stabilize himself and hits a thorn. I dance around him, and take a mental note about using my hands carefully. The worst section, the rut cuts waist deep in to the hillside. Finally I hit the bottom. I am on a dirt road, the finish is near. My legs feel like they have forgotten how to run after that pounding. I have to pass through two more sets of cows on the road, and then I'm in town. Legs still stumbling on the streets. Left. Right. Left. Finish!
Time: 2hr 6min Place: 20 Runners passed: ~110
It felt so good to be done. A hard effort can put a shine on things. Thankfully, they had food right in the finish area. I had: watermelon, orange slices, strawberry banana smoothie, cheese empanada (x2), cevichochos (beans, tomato, onion, lime), beer (x2), and later salchipapas (fried hot dog and fried potatoes), and another beer. I waited for the 55k to finish. After the awards, we shared our stories in the Bungalow over beer #3.
I was going to stay and paraglide the next day, but the weather forecast was not great, so we all piled in to our driver's car. Which broke down. So we replaced the battery. Which took a long time because it was the wrong size and had to be secured with zip ties. We made it a fair ways after that. Then we broke down again. Luckily, we got an Uber for the last half hour of the journey. And, after considerable trepidation, we ate pizza and went to bed. That pizza was good.
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