Missing
9/09/2023
An idyllic golden September Saturday lay at my feet. I am training to run a 50K, again. I had 14 miles planned; my longest training run this round so far. After this, they will alternate between progressively longer and back-to-back moderate length. My daughter had to work at the coffee shop from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm, giving me the opportunity to get it done all at once instead of breaking it up into pieces. I made a promise to her that I would not run for more than two hours a day, or approximately 10 miles, when she was home for the weekend. This is a promise of my own insistence, and not at her request, as she is actually very supportive of my running. She is the most emotionally mature human on earth and recognizes that running is good for me, and therefore good for us, and therefore good for her. I was taking her to her dad’s immediately after work, so I needed to be back by 6:00 pm. Also, I had hoped to make it to the brew fest for a little while, as I always love live music.
My dog, Mr. Buster, has had trouble with his left eye since he came to us as a foster dog in May. After much deliberation and many sources of advice, we opted to do an enucleation (eye removal) so that we could test the eye to find out what is wrong, and to ease his suffering. The surgery was on Wednesday, so he was in no shape to run 14 miles, a mere three days later. Taking Juniper without Buster would just be cruel to Buster and Juniper’s paws have not shown quite that much stamina lately. So, I was going on a long run alone. I don’t think I’ve ever run that far by myself. I didn’t start running longer runs until after I got Juniper. It’s kind of funny how much the dogs occupy me. If someone were watching me carry on a conversation with them like they were people, they might feel I was crazy. More on that later.
I got all my gear ready the night before. Every training run longer than 10 miles, I am gearing up as though I am running the 50k so that I can troubleshoot water, fuel, and gear issues ahead of time. I packed a couple fruit leathers, a couple fruit and grain bars, a couple liters of water, a couple salt pills, and one chocolate/peanut butter pouch. I planned on having something to eat every four miles. Other viable options are a single mid-way meal or some food every two miles. Dietitians advise eating at least once an hour, even in training, for an ultra. An ultra is anything greater than marathon distance. Friday night I prepared an electrolyte drink and a fruit/protein smoothie for the morning so I could get calories and two liters of fluid in before the run. For gear, I had the usual rain jacket, gloves, first aid, water filter, knife, plastic bags, bungees, sunscreen, and bug dope. It felt strange to not have all the dog’s gear too. The route I had planned will be part of the 50k. This is a trail run on primitive two-tracks for about half of it and a gravel road for the rest. The first three miles have a 1000 ft climb, so it’s a slow start to warm up with. Starting hard gives you better confidence later in the run and is a little bit more fun too.
Saturday morning, I was up early to tend to chores, and I let my daughter sleep in. She has been under a lot of emotional stress lately. Just regular 15-year-old woes of failed and evolving romance and the betrayal of fake friends; but it is hard to be 15, and even harder in a very small town where she has every class with and even sits next to her fresh X who is taking her gal pal to the dance. And then she must be on stage with both of them during three hours of music rehearsal in the evenings. I suppose it is good practice for when she is the next Stevie Nix. When she finally awoke around 10:00 am, she asked her mama to make her Dutch babies and I dutifully and gleefully complied, happy to be of service. If you’re unfamiliar, Dutch babies are a type of souffle. I had very fresh eggs from a coworker. I put them in the blender with milk, flour, and cinnamon, poured them in a very hot cast iron pan filled with melted butter, and shut the oven until the magic happened. Within the hour, we lifted the fresh, crispy buttery puffed pancake from the cast iron and doused it with powdered sugar and syrup. Now, I have certainly had enough carbs to get me through and I went to get dressed for my run.
I tend to dress colorfully and almost always in a skirt if the weather is agreeable. This is true in general, but particularly for a run. I like color, and it doesn’t hurt that my gams are my best feature. It’s not uncommon for folks’ eyes to water from my blinding color and print combinations. The appeal has nothing to do with other people’s reaction. I do not enjoy that aspect. I have, however, grown accustomed to random strangers inexplicably having a strong opinion about how I dress, as if it were any of their business. Out running, however, it does have some to do with other people, as it is good to be as visible as possible. Also, believe it or not, it’s a form of prayer for me. “Consider the lilies of the field…if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you…. ?“
I like the skirts because they are more discrete and easier to pee in. I also feel like a saucy lass in one. On top, I usually just wear a sports bra, if at all possible. I love the feel of the sun on my skin, and I hate the feel of soggy fabric clinging to me. I have very broad shoulders and hips and present an hourglass silhouette until I turn sideways, and you can see that my curves are on a single plane. Therefore, I need minimal structure to my clothing. I pull my hair off my face with a headband, buff, or bandanna. I wear sunglasses mostly on top of my head, as I can never seem to see properly with them on, and I wear a bandanna around my wrist to catch nose drips and such. I don’t usually wear a hat, as they are hot and suffocating on a run. I see hats as much more fashionable than functional. I like to feel the breeze through my damp hair. I always put sunscreen on my face, but the lack of sunglasses being worn as they are intended still leaves white lines creased around my eyes. I tend to get debilitating cold sores if my lips don’t have sunscreen and it’s hard to keep it applied during a long run, so I reach for a physical blocker. Yes, I wear a thick coat of brightly colored, liquid waterproof lipstick on long runs. Sometimes even with a glitter overlay that acts like armadillo scales over the top of my lips.
Today, I am dressed in a tie-dye magenta and cerulean blue skort with a skull print, a magenta sports bra, a day-glow pink hydration pack, pea green Altras, and a navy-blue headband. My skirt, as always, has a pocket in the shorts for my phone so I can take lots of pictures and if I have a signal, I like to text/chat with someone. I don’t always find someone to be responsive, but most of my friends welcome my chatter even if they can’t interact at that time. This is the beauty of texting. My mind works overtime sorting out the peculiarities of life while on a run, and I like to have that pressure release, so I don’t carry on too many out-loud conversations with myself. I mean, the critters don’t mind, but I get odd looks when I encounter the odd human out on the trail. More on that later.
I expected the run to take 3.5 hours. Being ADHD, my sense of time is completely… incomplete. So, I added thirty minutes. My daughter is working from 1:00 to 6:00, that’s five hours. If I run four hours, I have plenty of time. Twenty minutes there, twenty back, and a four-hour run. Alas, experience has taught me that I STILL need to add an hour. I’ll leave at noon. This also makes the dogs happier, as they don’t suspect as much that they are missing out. So, right on schedule, I get out the door at 12:20 PM. I drive down the road and decide to drive the portion of the planned route I have not yet ground-truthed. I drive past my turn, turn around, find it, and start exploring. The road is soggy in places and before long, I encounter a fence and a gate, but the road seems to disappear beyond it. Having little confidence I should actually BE there and not wanting to take the time to find my land stat map, I decide to turn around. It’s one thing trail running across someone’s property and quite another to open a gate and drive through it. Maybe neither are wise, but one is a risk I’m willing to take and the other is not. I turn the ‘burb around and head back to the main road. I look for the other end of the two-track intersection with the main road and it is also behind a fence. So, I decide to amend my plan by taking the main road instead of the “frontage” two-track to the west of it. This will shorten my route, so I start thinking about where to add another mile. By the time I get to the starting place, it is nearly 1:00.
I start running and my legs feel like lead. Although it is only 72 degrees and I love the heat, I am already too warm. I run about ¼ of a mile and realize I haven’t hit ‘start’ on the Garmin yet. I press the button and within another ¼ mile I have to pee. Seems the pre hydration was still working its way through my system. I have changed what I am listening to at least three times. Balzac? No… the narrator is BORING… Louise Erdrich? LOVE her, but it’s the start of a book and she is a little slow to grab me. Positive Thinking? Sigh… NOT in the mood. Cadillac Desert? Mediocre narrator and a totally biased narrative, but some interesting history. I can’t get my Spotify 180 bpm playlist because there is no signal. So, I default to one of my iTunes playlists full of Wyoming folk artists, vocal jazz, and big band. Soon, a dirt bike zooms past me and then a UTV. One of the cardinal rules of running is “never trust the first mile”. This rule proved true today. So before too long, I hit my stride, as much as I could given the steady uphill. I hear some rustling in the bushes and look, hoping to see some elk stirring, but am disappointed to see it’s just a handful of cows. I planned on going up this road, past the intersection with the wildlife viewing loop, and back down again to join the loop. I still do this, only I went further than originally planned to compensate for the frontage two-track I eliminated. I decided to turn around at the top of the ridge to the south of Willow Lake. Here, I had to pause to take in the scenery and fail to capture its grandeur with the camera. No matter how wonderful cameras get, they can never capture the vastness and color of the awe-inducing landscape. I put the camera back in my pocket, turned, and went back down the hill.
At the intersection with the Spring Creek Trailhead road, I stopped and chatted with a grandly mustachioed gentleman on a mountain bike. Or I attempted to anyway. He wasn’t up for idle chatter. That’s all good with me, as I never am up for idle chatter. I’ve been told this is what people do and I admire those who can strike up a banal conversation with literally anyone and walk away happy. I am lacking this particular skill. Small talk is not my thing. If it is worth saying, it is worth saying. Anyway, I left him to his internal mutterings and continued down the path. While my speed was considerably faster than going up hill, I was still slow. I have always been afraid of going downhill. I am a total wimp, chicken, klutz, coward… you name it. Downhill is scary and I have never broken a limb for a REASON. Also, I left my sticks at home and was doing it as a bi-ped.
As I navigated the rocky slope, I encountered the cows again, only this time on the road. Two mamas and four calves. I politely asked them to move, being silly and saying loudly “MOOOOOOOOOve Please!” They kindly obliged as I perused the route, and I was still chatting with them (they don’t mind honest conversation) when I looked up and saw a woman on her bicycle looking at me like I was an alien from Mars chasing her. I nodded hello and she stopped me, to ask if it was safe for her to keep going. I looked around, confused as to what imminent danger I had missed. I said tentatively “yeeeesssss… Why do you ask?” She replied with a thick accent I couldn’t identify that the creatures on the road scared her, and she didn’t know if it was safe to pass them. I explained that they were just cows and calves, no bulls, so yes it was totally fine to just talk to them and ask them to move. She looked at me like she couldn’t have heard me right. She then told me “I saw him running and I was scared.” I said that it was just me asking them to move, and it would be ok if she did the same. She then hopped on her bike and pedaled away from me as though terrified of me.
I continued down the slope and encountered the intersection with the wildlife viewing loop. I turned and followed the path down to the wetlands and took pictures of the ducks on the water. I grabbed the peanut butter and fruit leather from my pack and ate them. I answered a text about what a single woman can possibly do with a huge bucket of fresh beets (I recommended dehydrating and powdering), I blew my beautiful mama a kiss (text photo) and proceeded to Soda Lake.
The route is getting easier by the step. The terrain has leveled out, and by the time I hit the gravel, maintained road, I have finally hit my stride. I follow the road around Soda Lake, attempting to get negative splits. Negative splits is when each mile is faster than the preceding one. It’s a good strategy for longer runs as it demonstrates that you conserved your energy efficiently. In this case, it demonstrates that I chose a route that got easier with every mile. But hey, it looks good on the stats charts. I was feeling a little lighter with every step.
Before long, I passed the main entrance, then the site where my daughter and I stayed for a week in June, and then the turn off where the horses roam. I pulled another fruit leather from my pack and ate it along with the salt pills. My total average pace was steadily dropping, and I started motivating myself by making progressive goals based on that number. Every time I wanted to walk, I kept that number in mind and picked up the pace as soon as my heart rate dipped below 140. I try to keep my heart in the 140s or a little lower on these runs. Usually by the end, it is hard to keep it that low without walking, but that is my goal, to keep it above 135 and below 155.
Eventually, I hit Willow Lake Road again and was on the last leg of my run with just about two miles left. I wasn’t sure how many miles I would get, as my mapped route was different than what I ran, but I was certain I’d make it close to 14 miles. Willow Lake Road proved to be very efficient, and I decreased my average pace by more than 30 seconds less than my original goal and finished only a little more than the original 3:30 hope with a time of 3:50. I was genuinely pleased! Not excited but pleased. I am on track for my goals. I got to the ‘burb, ran past it to the point where I started my Garmin (dude, you got to have a pretty map) and turned around to go to the truck again.
My face was shamefully red with the effort, and I poured water over my head to cool off before getting into the truck. My sweat ran into my eyes stinging them and I had to wash my face off some more. I wiped my face with the shirt I had worn to the starting point and hopped in the truck to head home. It was not even 5:00 PM yet! If I hurried, I would have time to pick up my brew fest mug at the park and hear a little music.
I got home and hopped in the tub with a can of coconut water to drink, scrubbed the dust off my legs, and rinsed all the salt off, scrubbed off my lipstick and reapplied my mascara, tossed on a bright yellow skirt and tie dye shirt with a hot pink sports bra underneath. Someone flicked me right in the punk rock (a good friend, an OG punk, taught me that saying) earlier that week and I wasn’t in the mood to be subtle. I walked to the park and got my wee taster mug for the brew fest.
I got a single pour of a local IPA and wandered round to see who I could see. I was very disappointed that there was no live music, just a DJ, and despite the masses of people having a wonderful time, I saw only one person I knew. I finished my tiny beer and walked home to meet my daughter as she arrived on her bike after work. She packed her bag, we loaded up the dogs, and we were off to Farson to meet her dad. We listened to music and chatted a bit while driving. He was weird, which is normal, and I turned to come back to Pinedale. The sunset was showing off big time and I took as many pictures as I could, always disappointed at the lack of accurate representation.
By the time I got back to Pinedale, it was dark. I dropped the dogs at home and stubbornly walked down to the park just to make absolute sure the festival was over. There were a few teenagers hanging at the bandstand and one food truck was still packing up, but other than that, no trace of the festivities two hours earlier. I decided to walk to the brew pub and get some food. After 14 miles a gal works up an appetite! I got there and the first thing the tender says to me is “the kitchen is closed”. I had a beer and walked home. The boys and I cuddled up for some TV and then tucked into bed for a well-earned rest.