After the week I’ve had, granted nothing in my life is disrupted just a lot of work/life stress on my mind and body I was looking forward to grinding out a long run on some tough climbing. I had planned on doing 12 hours going in, on the way down I decided to drop down to 9 hours and ended up doing 3.5 hours, not the plan but it was the right call. Since it was a night race I didn’t have to leave Denton until almost 1 pm so I had time to work on laundry and eat and keep things chill for the most part. I knew it was going to be chilly overnight so I packed what I thought was enough, turned out not to be, and planned on just making a go of it.

The drive down isn’t terrible, went through Fort Worth and then out to Cleburne and down to Burnet. The park was right down the road from a race I helped time last year, the final trip we all took as a family unit. I had flashes of that experience as I turned into Burnet and drove through town. Spider Mountain is about 10 minutes beyond Reveille Peak Ranch, the venue from the last time, so at least I wasn’t driving right down the same path that I’d been through before. It was around 4:45 pm when I got to the park and I walked down to pickup my packet and get ready for the race. I chatted with Kyle for a few minutes and then went up to the car to grab a quick nap since I was still planning on making the 9 hour slog.

The layout of the course was two ascents and two descents for a 4.3 mile loop with around 800’ of climbing per loop. I talked with Kyle ahead of time and had a goal of 9 loops for just shy of 40 miles but I still was on the fence about how hard I wanted to push since I would have to drive myself back when I was finished running. I saw a few familiar faces at the start and went out pretty easy but quickly found myself towards the front of the pack. First ascent was short but lots of steep climbing interspersed with some runnable sections followed by a long road descent to the bottom of the hill. Second ascent was much more runnable and the second descent had a lot of banked turns. For the longer times we were able to take the chair lift either up or down twice but I had planned not to take it at all.

First two times through were very consistently at 45-50 minutes which was my goal per loop. I wasn’t really pushing that hard, I was keeping things in a comfortable range, but the climbing in that short distance started adding up quickly. I can still feel my glutes this morning after just 3000’ of climbing in the 15 miles that I ended up running last night. Third loop was good too but when I started on the fourth loop I could feel the weight of the week starting to settle in. I was emotionally exhausted. Physically I could have gone all night but I just didn’t have the mental piece in place. I started up the second ascent and the guy at the bottom of the hill said something about “hey, it’s that 9 hour guy…” and I could tell right there I was done. I made my way back up to the top of the hill, I didn’t take it easy, and when I got to the top I decided to take the chair lift down. I mentioned to the aid station folks that I was done and they said something like “you’ve got the whole way down to think about it,” and I had thought about it the whole way up.

On the chairlift down I turned off my headlamp and looked out at the vast darkness below. I was probably 75-80’ up in the air and the only sound that I heard was the creak of the chairlift and the wind. It was cold and dark and I the stars were out and I felt like I was alone and tiny in the world. I thought about all of the things that were weighing me down this week and had a bit of emotional release on the ride down but got things back together before I made it to the bottom of the hill. I was freezing, emotionally drained and just ready to be back home, 3.5 hours away. I ran in to the finish and turned in my timing chip, it was technically a finish since it was a timed event. I went inside for a minute and chatted with Kyle again, met Joe Prusatis again (founder of Tejas Trails) before walking out to the car.

Driving home I listened to My Favorite Murder all the way up to Fort Worth and then, on the Chisholm Trail Parkway, I almost died. I was driving along, it was about 1:45 am and I will admit that I was drowsy. I put on some music to tray and get pumped for the rest of the drive when I saw police lights in the rear view mirror. I knew it wasn’t me, I wasn’t speeding and I was driving carefully but they were in the far left lane moving quickly. I glanced back to the road planning to move into one of the right lanes when I saw headlights coming towards me. I had about a split second to swerve over into the left lane and miss the drunk driver going the wrong way down the CTP. The cop was coming to stop the driver going the wrong way down a major roadway and I was almost the casualty of that moment. As if I wasn’t already emotionally wrecked enough, that moment put me in hyper drive.

My hands were shaking as I kept moving down the road, I still had about 40 minutes before I made it home and I knew it was a simple luck that I was in that moment. If I had decided to run another loop or sleep in my car before I left or any number of things along the way I wouldn’t have been in that moment. I don’t know what happened with the driver going the wrong direction, all I do know is that I made it home. I ate when I got home and tried to wind down as best I could. I have to decide about Screaming Monkey in the next couple of weeks and I think that I’m going to just go for it and hope for the best because that is how I work. Every moment wasted is one moment too many because it could easily be the drunk driver going the wrong way that makes final decisions the final ones.

While I was sitting on the chairlift on the way down, I imagined what it would be like to fall into the darkness below. Split second of the 8 minute ride down but it was there. It is really hard for me to admit that moment existed because I am so committed to making the most of life, as much as I can, and there haven’t been many moments where I just felt utterly defeated. I was not in any danger, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but things can get really out of perspective in these moments but it took the incident on the roadway to snap me back to my current reality. The most powerful moments can be the unexpected ones.

Today is a new day. I’m going to vote, put up my laundry, maybe go for a run and check out a local margarita contest. And I need to clean out my car because I left my running stuff in there last night and that shit is nasty.