Day 2 (3 hours 45 minutes)

Flash! They have ski resorts around here! It's hilly. And, the running vocabulary is different - for instance - "flat" is the equivalent to, say ...Exposition Blvd, and "gently rolling hills" is like Scenic Dr. Maybe the guys who were yelling at me yesterday were right - I'm an idiot. But I'm also a humble idiot. The race makes you humble.

Anyway, I can't seem to sleep very well at altitude. But I'm not tired at all. Five hours sleep both nights and no need for a nap. Weird.

I woke up this morning and rolled out of bed and ...ooouch! Super sore! Not my calves ...but man-oh-man, my quads were totally wrecked. The upside to this was that nothing else hurt a bit, not my knees, ankles, nothing.

At 6:45, we drove about 13 miles in the other direction (to where day 1 had ended). On the way over, I ate a whole bag of Lemon Powergel Gel Blasts for breakfast. Very tasty. The temperature was warmer. Good when standing around, but not so good a few miles into the race. Most runners looked at least a little bit hobbled. No shotgun blast this time. At 7:45, I think someone just said GO! The first several miles were downhill. In no time, I had a dozen people in front of me. I got the terrible feeling that I'd shot my wad on the first day and everybody else knew better. But when things leveled off, I caught five or six ...but then we went down another steep hill and they all caught me again. So it was back and forth for six miles.

I was running much slower, but there were hardly another big trucks and fewer cars and it was incredibly beautiful. Incredible! But super sunny! I shed my gloves, my Decker top-shirt and eventually took off my gold and navy Gazelle singlet and gave it to Leticia ...who was a great crew.

At the halfway point, some guy hollered "way to save it for tomorrow!" (Huh?) I wasn't saving anything. I was going slow because I was slow. I felt heavy at mile 16 or so, but fairly strong. Sore, but strong. Leticia brought out a whole bag of Gels and Carbo-beans and gum and I probably wasted a full minute trying to decide what sounded good. Hmmm...

At mile 22, the "fairly challenging hill" that the race folks told us about turned out to be Mt Bonnell. I walked about half of it, but actually caught a guy who was slumped over trying to get his breath. After the 23 mile mark, I started to feel a second wind coming on. It was downhill again, but I was so tired of uphills, that it felt fine just to take little steps and let the momentum do the work. I caught several more runners who were walking or shuffling. I think the 70 degree temps favored the Texan. The last three miles took me about 25 minutes. It felt much faster. I was really pleased with the 3:45. I think I was fifth overall, but I don't really know because we dashed right down to the beach so I could soak. The water was colder than yesterday for some reason. I sat down up to my belly and every time a boat made waves that splashed up on my chest, I whimpered.

Tomorrow is the regular Tahoe marathon. I think this will make a huge difference. We drove the course on the way back from the end of the day 2 race. It doesn't really get any easier, but it's almost over. I'm hoping that I'm tired enough to sleep tonight.