or
" How I forgot to eat and drink and paid the price"
by Brian Collins
This was my second Wakely and I was in good shape this year so I was feeling
pretty confident about this year's run. I brought a water pump with me last year
and stopped twice to fill my bottles. This
year the plan was to do the same. I've been reading a lot about ultras the past
few months. Fascinating stuff. I
think I read to much.... too many books about Native Americans running all day
on a bag of parched corn and a sip of water....
Well, the humidity broke that night and we had a great day to run.
I ran nice and steady for the first 20 or so miles, nice chats with Mark
and Jeff. I was cruising feeling
great; I didn't drink a lot cuz it was so cool and I didn't eat either.
I was feeling too good to stop. About
five hours out, I ran out of water and surprisingly enough didn't come across
another spot to fill by bottles for about 20 minutes. By the time I stopped at 5
hours and 30 minutes, I was nauseous, wanted to puke, felt faint, wanted to be
helicoptered out. I was too nauseous to be upset with myself but I knew I had
screwed myself by not drinking and eating.
Well there aren't any choices out there to make, you have to pull it
together and finish, so I filled my water bottles, drank a lot, took salt tabs,
started nibbling on a cliff bar and started walking towards the finish line.
After about a half hour, I was able to get a passable jog together and kept that
up till the finish. I never really felt good again, but was able to finish and
finish in a better time than last year.
All in all, I learned a lot (again) about proper eating and drinking on really
long runs. This is a wonderful race
- its got it all, its professionally organized, has great runners and the course
can't be beat. Thanks to all. Hope
to see you next year.