And so we piled into the van again for that long ride into the darkness. We were supposed to start at 8:43 p.m. after the sun had gone down, but the team was falling behind our predicted time, so we’d be starting closer to 10 p.m. We would all have to don our reflective vests, and I was kind of excited about getting to wear my new headlamp. I’m going to take care of this one. The last one I had, I kept forgetting I’d put it on over my hat, so when I finished my run, I’d automatically take my hat off to feel the coolness hit my forehead. The headlamp would go flying off my head, like a flying Garmin, and it would hit the hard tile floor hard. The first two times it hit, I just lost some of the light settings. The first time I lost the flashing light setting—which who cares?—then I lost the brightest setting, not so good. I was down to a basic headlamp, either on or off. The third time it hit, all light was gone for good. Man. Can’t I learn from my mistakes? I probably wore that thing less than ten times before I wrecked it for good. I’m going to try to take better care of this one. I believe I can still learn new skills.
For my second leg I was going to be taking the fourth leg this round, Leg 16. I had some time to sit in the van and try to encourage more recuperating before I’d be running. My first leg had taken a lot more out of me than I would have hoped. I was looking forward to running in the night this time, knowing my final leg was going to be an uphill in the heat of the sun.
At one point along the way, I think it was Kristi who was driving; she pulled over to thank some of the volunteers for helping to monitor the runners on a turn. Kristi said, “You’re going to have a long night.” And the volunteer, a woman in her fifties, bundled in a warm coat, said in a real country way, “Well, I’ll tell you, this is my favorite night of the year. I look forward to this all year long.” We had to laugh at that. I thought wow! Better than Christmas. Better than New Years. Better than her own birthday. To stay awake all night in the cold air and watch thousands of runners go by at so many different paces and states of fitness, and so many body types and ages. This is her best night of the year. This is the night she lives for. And to think, it might be the night I almost die.
Midnight was supposed to fall about half way through my run. I was beginning to toy with the idea of being known as “The Midnight Runner.” I liked the sound of it. I thought it would distinguish me from all of you summer soldiers and the sunshine patriots. . . . Speaking of pain, it wasn’t that—I wasn’t feeling pain—but I sat in the van unable to chase away the exhaustion in my legs. And my relay leg was coming up.
Shelley was going to hand off to me to pay me back for handing off to her on our earlier legs. It was going to be around 1:00 in the morning. We were far enough behind schedule at this point that I could kiss goodbye to the notion of my being henceforth known as The Famous Midnight Runner. And I figured I could relax about another Eugene team, the Lactic Asses, passing me, as was predicted. They had probably already passed us. I was relieved knowing I wasn’t going to be personally held responsible for that humiliation, even though the humiliation was a reality written in the in the darkness and the breeze of that night.
Before the handoff I got out of the van to go wait for Shelley. I wrapped a blanket around me and went over to use the porta-potty. While I’m standing in line, someone sprints up to me like she’s really got to go bad, and I don’t know if I have time to let her get in front of me for her personal emergency. Then I realize, oh my god, it’s Shelley, and she’s trying to hand off to me in the potty line. I guess she’s a fast runner at night when there might be badgers on the road. I hadn’t even located any satellites yet for my Garmin. I took the slap wrist, turned my watch on while running, analyzed my bladder, and decided I didn’t have to go that bad anyway, so then, it was all systems go. I felt bad that we didn’t have anyone supporting us on this exchange because she came in so soon. I had to hand my blanket and what-else to Shelley, the exhausted runner. Kristi showed up just then to take over the burden I was unfairly loading onto Shelley.
And I was off—6.7 miles. I would cross three cattle guards and wave to three sets of paired horseback riders. My headlamp was great, stronger than the last one I owned. Of course, every time a van passed me, the dust cloud would illuminate, and for a while I wouldn’t really be able to see much more than the individual grains of dirt before my eyes. It turned out I didn’t do too bad. My pace was only 35 seconds slower than anticipated—adding less than 4 minutes to the team’s predicted total time. The cool night air did make a huge difference for me. I handed off to Shana and climbed right into the van, because I don’t do stretches as Shana recommends. She was off and running, and this time she wouldn’t be able to scold me about not stretching.
In the van Connor was still in the back, lying on top of a bunch of stuff. How do people sleep like that? That couldn’t even be comfortable. He didn’t look comfortable anyway. Indeed, comfort or not, how do people even sleep? I was forgetting what sleep felt like. I think it was something nice.
I heard Kristi yell at her mom, “Go, Banana.” And I don’t know, there was something in the way Kristi said it that warmed my heart. There had been that tension between them about Kristi’s dehydration problem. Now there was true affection in Krist’s voice as she called out “Banana” to Shana. It gave me an easy feeling, as I relaxed into the ride.
(To be continued.)
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