CIM

The trip held a little lip, reading from the book of Buddha on the plane to Sac, smiling at the wet eyes of two terrors, car rental into Old Sac for taco plates at Taqueria Jalisco off 16th, across from Salvation, and on into Folsom on a blue afternoon. Success in hotel accommodations perched beside In-N-Out & Christmas shopping. For dinner with LB and her babe mom: 16% Zinfandel, halved kielbasa in blueberry compote, polenta triangle-puffs with curry and vegetable risotto, half on the cream, from a place named Bacchus so overwhelmingly Christmas, like dripping in crystal, snow, grapes, santas, carousels and nutcrackers. Dripping.

I saved all the cards, lipstick, goody bags, soft socks, mouth-savors collected from the generous hands of my friends, family and teammates in a clutter beside the bed, to be read the night before the race. The amount of literal physical love was and is abundant, and overwhelming. It's hard to just hold the things, the words, the emotions in my hands without fully believing I deserve as such as much; a state of overwhelm. I accept Love like Fleece.

Saturday morning, a couple miler on a concrete trail that ran along burger joints and the pre-rigging's of a big-engine & monster truck show. I didn't feel incredible, but when do you? Rather anxious and possible, as if just one more day could fall and a whole other set of emotions and physical assessments could evolve. Evolved anxiety with the belief a new day = a new day.  John 3:16's etched in purple chalk haunted the sidewalk in, almost like little Northwest catcalls from teammates. A long sit in the shower, shaving.

We drove to the Folsom Dam, the thirsty lake, where the parks-men let us in for free just to see, the brush and bramble, dry rocks and little pool, hoards of cyclists in kits. Then to the Folsom prison, the museum - a house converted with glass cases of shivs, of vials retrieved from inserts, all that Cash memorabilia, stationary, time capsules, serving trays and medical equipment, newspaper articles in plastic sleeves, listening to Johnny from the Prison the whole drive through. For lunch: rice, steamed broccoli and turkey with soy & a nap.

LB, her babe mom & I toured the course from Folsom to Sac later that afternoon. It was good to acknowledge just how undulating the undulations were and that for every up there was a down. We concluded at the Sacramento Convention Center and adjacent hotel for our bibs. Pre-race I am more a student than anything, absorbing, analyzing. I was afforded bottles, a first, and got the general idea not to count on them. In a suite up high we divvied them up in tubs; catered sandwiches, bottled water, flags folded in squares thrown across the bed. The elite B's separated out from Elite A's. Sat down at a full Lucca for bread, bread, baked parmesan and ricotta salata flatbread, bread and ricotta gnocchi bolognese with slow cooked Lucky Dog Ranch beef ragu. Belly distended we headed back to the hotel in Folsom for good quiet; race kit set aside, clear bag bulging in goo & goods.

Race morning: oatmeal mixed with almond butter & banana, slices of bread, a coffee. Kit on. Red dropped me off with LB & babe mom and we drove to McDonalds to poop; that was really nice of McDonalds. I left them a little early to check in at the elite tents, cordoned off by neon teens who let me through the first time, then tried to keep me out. There's a kind of inconsistency or confusion in details at these events that's irksome because you can't really help yourself, you just have to try to get someone to believe you're telling the truth. The tents were warm, rain sprinkling, all of the elite A's gear thrown into a truck, the B's dropped into a box and when full, littered all over the ground.

We stood under the trees as a faster rain fell, squeezed into the start like sardines & the gun blew. It took a few minutes to navigate the OTQ designated pacers; they did a good job of communicating their plan, voicing upcoming turns & elite fluids. Thankful to have been afforded the opportunity of a pacer; two men who held somewhere around 60 of our specific goals is a big gift to give.

I stayed with the negative pacer; found myself always a step ahead, gaining confidence in the pull, in pulling, thinking, "Use me." I knew they'd increase pace 10 miles in. It felt fluid, long run feeling. An ache in the pube for 7-9 miles. Afraid it would grow worse, gather tightly, bind me to an abbreviated gait, and in the fear the first and perhaps only of my mental strengthening exercises came through, as a white box. I knew that if I focused on the pain I'd turn down a road adorned in doubt, so I white boxed it. With each twinge I'd envision this box which seemed to act as: blank compartmentalization. It worked. The pain subsided and I finished the marathon for the first time in over a year, sans pain, sans limping, which I can attribute to Rad Bones and the influx of glute & core work I sprinkled in there between Chicago & CIM.

The pacer & accompanying group departed from view perhaps at the 1/2? The literal image of how much I was falling from pace. I put my head down, smiled when I could, pumped my fist in the air at Red and tried to be consistent. Grabbing bottles was difficult. I scored 2/7. Thankfully I had my rack full with goos.

Something in me spoke that the point of this race as a positive experience was slightly more important than the OTQ, if I couldn't have both. I wanted both. After seeing me struggle to locate my bottle, a man in red pinched the lip of his cup of water and passed it over to me. Then he became my advocate for miles 16-22. Yelling at me, telling me to pick it up, that I could talk, hooraying when I threw off my gloves, on and on. At this point I had to poop. I don't know if it was the 5x caffeine heavy goos, the powerade, or this guy yelling at me to succeed, and the whole time he's yelling at me I'm thinking, "You don't know me! My pube! I have to poop!" I looked to the portos we'd pass asking myself, Si or No? Si or No! But with guy yelling at me, I couldn't back down for poop. I lost the guy near the end of the race, pulled ahead and never got to thank him. So thank you for making me work for it when I could have gone weak. With his departure I relaxed a bit, and then sharted. I wasn't sure how much the buns could take. Like I'm literally hardly wearing any clothes, what if it's dripping down my legs. Now I fully understand when you lose control & have no choice. When your butt talks and you can't shhhh it. Never happened to me before and I always thought those who shit themselves had like weak buttholes. I get it now. This is what carried me through the final 10k, those infamous last 6.2 miles where a race can be made or broken - thinking, "Is poop running down my leg?" I ran with humility & wonder. In the final 10k I only passed people - perhaps this is where I garner most of my good feelings about the experience as a whole. I didn't negative split but I didn't totally blow up. With each person passed, I wanted to grab them, throw them over my shoulder, finish it together.

Saw the clock, told myself, "Get across that damn line before 2:45:30." Did. Was happy. Thankful. Pubetastic. Ran to a bathroom, cleaned up. Embraced Lauren who came through in a well-deserved PR. Took photos in front of the capitol, almost threw up in some waste bins, then pooptastic 2015 came to town. I pooped in grocery stores, Mexican restaurants, on the rental car seat, on my coat. Red had to run to the pharmacy for anti-pills and a coke, got the coke flat by shaking it, sprayed his whole self sticky with it, me laying in the back seat in fetal. 24 hours + of keeping nothing in/down.

Post race Red and I took a little historical tour-de-McKinnon, visiting the home he was born in, the hockey rink his dad used to play at, the bar they used to slip in through the back door for. I mean, mostly Red experienced these things. I was still in the poopy backseat and only lifted my head to take pictures of him in front of things every so often. Boarded our flight later that evening and were home in Bellingham before 10 pm.

Overall, the race was incredible. It was a perfect gray, 50 degrees, and I loved the course. I want to be back in that feeling I had immediately post-race. Where I was thankful & proud of myself. Where Red was leaping over the fence just to take a picture with me, and definitely pre-poopy. Because where I am now is a little blue. I'm still all of those good things, inside me, but I'm sorry that its over, sad that there's still those minutes between me and 2016's OTQ. I want to go again. I don't want patience, humility, maturity, next time. I want now. Dripping in desire to grow.