In a two-seater plane; it's the closest I've been to a stranger's body in months.
Falling asleep, with a mouth in O in hiding behind a surgical mask, and the sudden self-conscious jerk of waking feels even more intimate than in all planes past.
As I was O'ing, in air - Inauguration, and a young woman in yellow,
Amanda Gorman, poet laureate, called for unity.
Down the terminal, down the escalator - a man in a black suit at the bottom,
"HOKA" in hand, spoken for: glamour.
He's a soft talker or my ears are riddled in a compression of clouds or its our masks or all of it.
It's his first week back working.
Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass, now familiar: a Native American-owned luxury resort which reflects the Gila River Indian Community's heritage and culture in architecture, design, art, of the Pima (Akimel O'otham) and Maricopa (Pee Posh) tribes.
"Notice the spectacular ceiling dome murals!"
Reading Journals: Early Fifties, Early Sixties by Allen Ginsberg.
Contemplating peyote. Not enjoying his dream sequences.
Looking out the glass door,
Of floodlit Chandler! City of santa-rita prickly pear!
City I want to see: its javelinas & desert breeze & yucca.
It's a learned requisite to do less, lay plumb under the weight of an about-to
Under bleached bedding and Native American motifs
:Forensic Files, thin walls, staccato
Dart into the fever of an Arizona afternoon, on dirt track and perpendicular to
SR 347, to the windmill in the sky: Dutch - Kicker: Goodwill
Dinner slot: fragrant beef, thick mash.
All subsequent meals are presented in singular containers, brown bagged
(alcohol & sweets are wanting)
Broken between cleaning cycles; we've lost our ability for second helpings, for touching handles,
We've lost our microwaves and mini fridges, but,
Do you know the elementary reverie, the nostalgia
of having meal slots and things decided for you? Yes - blest
A dream: I'm racing Herron in a backyard duel & leaping lawn furniture:
a 100k steeplechase race...It's close, but I'm going to win.
I tell McManus as much. I think he smiles.
I love race dreams.
I savor the test in front of me with the youthful fear of standardized, aptitude, where
you know you have a sort of something behind the curtain, but you're blunt ended and at the mercy of body
:plantar, heel, with it's hot temper!
The playlist > Fitness > Hip-Hop Hits: 2020
Riddy Ricch, Pop Smoke, DaBaby, Cardi
Thursday night: enfolded by a mothering character organizing pacing strategies.
It's involved - it sure feels nice being around engrossed women.
Each in Hoka blue, at a round table, dim in desert night,
"Everyone is in a holiday mood."
It was tricky because none of us intended to set the WR, and knew
that it would take a really good day to hit the prospective AR, BR, FR, IR
But we came up with some strategies and
our pacers were more than generous in their willingness for range.
Still, among us were the undertrained, unknowing, injured, never have before's, pregnant.
That's a lot.
Optimism raged.
Disbanded and Forensic and Tik-Tok'd to bed.
Friday, 7:30 am: Addi, Ashley, Audrey, Carrie, Carla, Dani, Emily - such a bouquet -
a morning run, fruit parfait sky, entered
Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park for
a tour of the course: the finish, the start,
and strides and breakfast and bottle drops and
pre-race zoom meeting and the zoom bloop sounds of everyone leaving.
Saturday, 4:45 am: Cafe traipse
:latte and oats with nut butter, banana
hydrate
Bag packed with accoutrements for weather or feelings, a note tucked (to be read)
Here, the Brown Tower, the checkered floor, mass window, hi-top tables, narrow.
It is both pacified and twitchy; the race track vibrates.
He lays on the floor, lifting his arms, truly vertical, up and
down, eyes closed; a prepared portrait that makes you stop and consider. It's Buddhish.
And there's a very large tub of petroleum jelly and little stickers for us to write our names for the necklines of our clothing. For though our talent be different our layers are the same.
It is getting close.
"I don't warm up for this right lol?" I'm thinking
about all the people who have to stand around exposed for 8 hours.
She's doing an interview for her fans on Instalive.
He's striding the length of a thin slip of concrete that lines the race track's finish & flashing lights
I'm laughing, acting out old Western track drills
I'm about to do a few new things:
1) not wear inserts for my PF in order to best absorb X2's amulet
2) Run 62.1371 miles
Saturday, January 23, 7:10 am MST
:Walmsey, Hawks, Andrews, Pannu, Brown, Lantz, Lantz 2, Olsson, Hunt, Cabada, Finocchiaro, Van Der Zon, Watson
7:15 am MST
:Herron, Molinaro, Tanguy, Jennings, Monette, Olsen
We're lined on X's several feet apart, countdown - crack.
It feels so uncomplicated, undemanding. I'm not 100% myself, but perhaps I don't have to be.
Oh
Define: The feeling of wanting something desperately but being physically incapable of achieving it
Not: Delusional, Unsound, Idealistic, Invented, Presumed, Vainglorious
More like: trying to grasp the cat toy from under the couch, tickling, you just need a longer arm or to jam your face deeper into the plinth base
Like: willing oneself, belief despite disputing evidence + Weltschmerz
"If only I was X, then X"
:Likely a common thread that weaves through the human narrative.
An assigned pacer became a person I knew my soul needed.
Addi: divine, comedic, architect of slipstream, and perhaps most intimately - piddle bosom bud.
I stopped not less than 10 times because [hydrate] and also, Acceptance
Math: +/-10x30-45s ÷ 7:55:00 = X
There's this marching drum band going off next to the Brown Tower on each lap.
They are a Party. So much
So that when they've disappeared after lap 2, Addi and I are all like,
"WHERE ARE THE DRUMMERS?"
And Hoka staff are like, "Not to fret, they're on lunch. They'll be back."
Guess what?
They never came back.
And right where the drummers had been rippin it is this little blip, like
the only incline on the whole course, and every time I'd hit it
I'd almost trip and be like, Dude! And the Hoka staff would giggle, and say,
"Watch out for that hill!"
Two reporters spooning on the motorcycle zipped in with camera down -
"Hey! Where's Camille?"
"Dude, she's up front - I'd take that shortcut."
:literally directing cameramen about where people are at in the race, because I'm not as cool, and maybe because it looked like I wasn't racing lol
They came back for a spell, trained on Addi & I, and it was this annoying hum of motorcycle and trying to convince yourself not to stop for another pee. When
they did leave I ducked into a porto where someone had fusilladed sloppy joe across the whole interior.
It was the worst thing I've seen in my long history of porto usage. And I'm going to blame it on a male, because there were more of them in front of me than anything else. Yet
when I left the poo gremlin, who passes by?
Jim.
And immediately after?
Craig. And so like I start talking to Craig, and we're chatting as he's running 5:XX's and I'm all like,
"Damn dude, you're doing awesome!" And he's all like, "Jim's crazy!" And I'm all, "LOL!" And he's like, "I'm running under the World Record Pace! So Jim has to be having a day."
And that was it.
I'd make sure to keep cat-calling him as we'd pass by in opposite directions along Wild Horse Pass Rd.
I held to my pacing strategy until about halfway (50k), which was also when I lost Addi.
Losing her was not why I fell off, I had been trending towards what would be an undeviating internal commentary of, One foot in front of in Refrain. Imagine:
32 miles of a cyclical resignation but dedication to complete -
"I knew you'd finish," said the bike sweep,"You can just tell with some people."
There was this fun tango I did with Hawks (not fun, rather, team-spirity), where he passed and I was admiring his sinewy gams, and then he pulled over to the side of the road in obvious leg agony, then he'd pick it up, and have to stop again. He'd eventually drop due to quad upheavel, but seeing him try to man-handle his way through it, when his body was failing him, and also not over-reacting in the process - his spirit had a sort of, It is what it is, but not of deep angst, more of curiosity.
I really valued that.
Was passed by Audrey after we played this intense game of cat-n-mouse where she started out faster than she thought, I caught her and was like, Bye B! and then she reeled me in and
totally dusted me
by 15 minutes in the end.
Is it delusional if I wonder if my 10+ bathroom breaks could have afforded me a more competitive race? If you'll give me that, then I really need to figure out how to pee myself like Camille does.
I heard Camille's voice call well wishes from an aid station, and in a panic wondered if she'd dropped.
She did (due to hamstring pain).
Was passed by a few more men, first
Kris, who I really want to be best friends with.
I tried getting him to allow me to get on his back -
"Can I get on your back?" And he pauses, contemplates (?)
Likely assuming! that I wanted in his slipstream,
that I'm thinking I'm capable of using him as pacer for a bit, and so he goes,
"Yeah, sure."
Or something and then just runs away.
And then I'm passed by the striking specimen (apologies for any objectification) that is Rajpaul Pannu, and I ask him too,
"Can I get on your back?" And he pauses, and he's also, like offering a questionable yes,
and runs away.
They really didn't have any idea that all I wanted was a piggyback.
I had a lot of right hip, glute and hamstring pain for a large portion of the race.
I'm thinking it was due to compromised form from the PF.
Do you know what a fundamental comforting thing to hear/read is?
"Plantar Fascia: it serves a variety of functions, but one of those purposes is to actually get stretched out when your foot hits the ground; it stores energy so that when you take your foot off the ground it kind of recoils, gives a little hop to your step..."
This is very basic.
But comforting.
And creates visualization, the very reason why I can't pop off the ground, maintain speed.
I've had chronic adductor tightness/tendonitis/opathy, osteitis pubis, bone bruises, broken toes, and when they happen, I immediately picture taking a knife and just cutting the problem area out.
Adductor's talking? Just want to knife it.
Heel is throbbing? Knife it.
I am aware this gets me zero places. It probably simply speaks to frustration albeit the violence is a little weird. But think of this:
I feel ok everywhere but
my heel, so
can I just cut it off so I can get to work?
Retrocede - I've never done more to get to a start line:
Hire coach
Major decrease in volume & effort
9-12 hrs of sleep/night
Rolfing
Acupuncture
PT/Massage
Tape
Sleeping boot
Turmeric
Milk Thistle
Vit B12
Vit D
Iron
Magnesium
Pfizer Vaccine (1,2)
Bloodwork to monitor WBCs
3 Covid tests
A little less wine
It was as if for the first time I treated my body with the respect that it should have always been given. What of delayed respect?
[This]
So, I'm one foot in front of the other because I need to finish
:for my spirit, ego, Hoka
Even though I've just now been passed by Nicole, and I'm currently 4/4.
I'm just trying to make everyone I come into contact with feel good or smile.
And I'm coming around this roundabout, which is coned off so you don't cut the corners, and I tell the Hoka staff, "I'm going to cut through right there!"
And they're like, "Uh...no, you need to go around the cones."
Very calmly, as if I was confused or asking a question.
"Just kidding." And they lol'd.
And at the roundabout was a sign that read something like, "Ask me about the beer and the Fireball."
So, "What is this Fireball about?"
And some eager dude is like, "You want one?! I've got them right here." And I pause. Say,
"How about on the next loop?"
"YES!"
[He's excited]
I come upon aid station & these two guys who know my first name have football energy.
They're running beside me, though it's stressful, and they're clamoring cowbells and my brain is ringing
And they're saying how fast I'm going (lies), and that they remember me from the Marathon Project (embarrassing). I say,
"Oh yeah? So you know that I dropped out right?"
And then, desperately,
"How many more laps do I have?!"
They tell me I have 1 lap left.
My god, I'm going to finish this thing! And better than I thought based on that information.
:It was a lie.
I'm on that next loop, what I think is my last, rounding that same roundabout,
ask Dude, who I would later learn is a Hoka superfan, for the Fireball.
He's secured an ok to give it to me, because he had enough to offer anyone in the race
[fairness], but spoiler,
people don't really do this, and
I'd be the only one.
We've handled the transaction with Covid precautions.
He has a mini bottle on ice, and I'm to grab it from the cooler.
I tell him, "You have cost me 3 seconds," and tuck it into my top.
I hear them say, "That was so cool."
All of a sudden I see Carla, another person I'd fall in love with during the trip.
She had taken it out hard in sub 7:00:00 pace, and looked effortless in doing so until the later stages of the race where
her quads also reacted unfavorably. I see her get swarmed by these bell ringers, and then they swarm me and say,
"Our apologies, but we were incorrect before, Now You Have One Lap."
Wished that Carla and I could have used one another, picked it up,
but we were both muted by our bodies.
That day, we had the same sort of determination.
I had, with great patience, not giving up, and some luck, fallen into 3rd of 4.
I'm coming down the finishing stretch (800m) of the oily Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park drag strip. A mini car is whipping about, filming. I see Kris to my right and pull out my bottle of Fireball.
He squints to make it out, then laughs.
I cross the finish line with a (resigned to my situation, which is unfortunately not competitive, but also proud), arms out holding my prize, my whiskey.
When I look at the finish line photo my anima smiles. I see
large gangly wingspan, a well-positioned logo, and a sickly face.
Kind of like a body in whitewash, a first coat of sickness.
I'd found that Walmsley had annihilated the AR, but fell 11s short of the WR. I kept asking around,
"But how does he feel? Does he feel accomplished? Is it bittersweet?"
I'm sure.
The man I saw post race seemed most gracious.
I'd found that there had been many drops: Camille, Caitriona (who is simply divine, beautiful, talented, and is also pregnant. I can't with the Irish. I want to be among them always), Fernando, Hayden, Dion, Tyler, Joacim, Peter, Cole.
A big mix of elation, nearness, pain.
And it's just this - I'm underwhelmed.
Carla crosses the finish with a beautiful smile.
Audrey has won in just over 7:40, followed by Nicole in 7:43, and myself in 7:55.
Audrey is cot-ridden under a foil blanket but she's only cute and content.
We take a photo and it's burned into memory, I don't even need it's physical proof, the moment
was visceral.
I ask them, "So, we going to pee test or wut?" And they're like,
"No."
And damn it I'm going to get good enough one day to earn a pee test!
And then I ask the medic if he has a scale, because I'd like to see if I should be concerned about fluid loss (is this intense? I mean I've never asked for it or done this before, I just thought it would be helpful information to glean from). He says,
"No, we don't have a scale, but that would be a good idea."
This is kind of funny, but if you've followed along this far (god bless), you will see that I have directed camera crews to better talents, had conversations with many people alongside the course as well as my Hoka teammates during, got to know someone intimately by buddy-peeing with them, grocery shopped for some whiskey, and advised the medic of items he should, in the future, bring.
It might sound distracted, but I think it shows me that when I'm healthy, I have so much more to give.
Carla and I, plus two Hoka staff were the last ones left to shuttle back. It was hard to climb up into
the beast, "I'm sorry I'm moving like a little old lady." Followed by, "Now I'm sorry I'm being ageist." And a woman goes, "I appreciate that you self-corrected there."
And the gentleman says, "You're Courtney from Bellingham? You have some very fun, motivated friends back home. We were chatting back and forth the whole race with a guy named Shawn? He's awesome and really supportive of you."
I called my people.
Took a shower, knelt down, and cried.
It was a painful cry, stemming somewhere in the gut, as if the heart had dropped into it. It was not
a productive cry, it was
almost like being stripped of, and
what I think it is, was
a major bouleversement in hormones, or
complete gratitude mixed with deep melancholy.
I couldn't perform with fluidity a lot of my more general tasks: sitting on the toilet, putting lotion on, and I'd keep looking up at myself at the mirror, and saying, "Dudddde."
As a teen of SQHS and a young adult of WWU, I was raised
under the guidance of schmoozers.
I love to schmooze. Or wait,
I don't actually like to schmooze, I'm strangely introverted although a Leo, although a jokester.
But there's something about concentrated schmoozing, like
being around like-minded people, like-passionate, like-motivated, as well as
inspirational people, that really brings out my cultivated schmooze.
And this was just a fucking cherry to the whole experience provided by Hoka -
I didn't think there'd be much of anything going on post race, because
Covid
But - we had all been tested 3+ times, quarantined at the hotel, and
had hardly interacted with one another unless it was outside for a meal or a shakeout run.
Plus I had told anyone who would listen that I was vaccinated (douche).
So it was special when a few of us got to have drinks together after at the hotel, where
Hoka bought Jim and Audrey a bottle of bubbles, and Audrey generously poured
us all fishbowl amounts, and we, Simply
got to celebrate being able to do such luxurious, fortunate and self-fulfilling things.
I only had a good time.
I wish I could have been competitive, but I enjoyed trying.
I'm really happy to be a part of, and grateful to Hoka.
I never made it to the hot tub.
Can't wait for Project Carbon X3.
Full Results
Full Video
*All photos courtesy of Hoka One One
ARTICLES
Audrey Tanguy Wins 100K in Her Road Running Debut
Jim Walmsley Shatters the 100K American Records, But Misses the World Record by 11 Seconds
Jim Walmsley runs 6:09:26 for 100K, misses world record by just 12 seconds
Jim Walmsley comes close to a world 100km record
Flagstaff's Jim Walmsley breaks U.S. 100K record in Chandler
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