JEMEZ

     I'm still tired. It is Tuesday morning, and I still feel a lingering fatigue from Saturday's race. This was my third running of the Jemez 50 mile trail run in Los Alamos New Mexico. So far this is the only ultra I have repeated. I think there are a number of factors as to why I go back, but primarily I'd say it is because it is so hard. Jemez can always find a weakness. My primary weakness still seems to be running flats. I know, that should be the easier part, but it is the terrain I struggle on the most. People laugh when I tell them I'm not really a runner, but a mountaineer (a glorified term for steep hiking) but it is somewhat true. The slow plod is my forte and I LOVE going up. Flats just get inside my head.
     I don't want to bore anyone with a blow by blow race report. Let's just say it was hot, it hurt, my mind turned inward, and I didn't feel like crying until around mile 47. I had a few mantras that popped into my head, primarily song lyrics.
"I'm still walkin', so I'm sure that I can dance" was a favorite, as well as the more humorous:
"His brain was was boiling, his reason was spent"
It comes as no surprise that Grateful Dead songs whirled around in my brain, but it seemed even more appropriate because of how much the weekend reminded me of my show going days. Hanging out and camping with friends (in a gravel parking lot with dogs, no less) up at odd hours, watching the sun come up, meeting weird new people, seeing people you only know from other events, and staring blankly at the ground the next day. There were so many parallels to those days. Of course, it is also very different, for obvious reasons, but it fills a similar space. Community, connection, feeling a little less like a freak (half the people there are wearing clown shoes!) are all pretty similar. Now, instead of frying neurotransmitter sites with too much serotonin, it is my piriformis that gets abused, and endorphins are the drug of choice. The more things change the more they stay the same, I suppose. I could go on with this metaphor, but I would lose almost everyone (The Caldera was like a slow twisted Dark Star etc.)
    Anywho, I enjoyed my weekend, and now it is time for the crash. Back to reality, work and all the other things I am "running away from."

Jemez has the best finisher awards

Careful, Weir everywhere!