Day 3 (3 hours 49 minutes)

I woke up at 2 am with leg cramps, drew a cold bath, soaked for 20 minutes and went back to sleep. When I woke up again at 6:00, I sat in the tub for another 15 minutes and took a couple Advil. I didn't have much of anything to say to Leticia and she didn't say anything to me either. It was a glum morning scene. Getting into the rental car was a struggle. We drove to the Horizon casino where buses would take both me and Leticia (who bought a spectator's bus ticket) to the start about 39 miles away. I talked a bit with some of the other triple runners who were standing in the bus line. For the most part, they all seemed to be in better spirits than me. I'd worn the white singlet with "Tahoe Triple" printed on it that came in our race bag. If I was going to shuffle along, I wanted the reason clearly printed on my chest. I ate another bag of lemon Powergel disks and drank some Powerade. In retrospect, I should have drank much more water.

The buses dropped us off in Tahoe City, at nearly the same spot we'd finished on Saturday. The spectator's buses took off about 15 minutes later. We runners walked down to a small park right on the water where a starting line banner hung over an expanse of unusually green grass. I noticed that several of the other triple runners had really great royal blue and gold sleeveless Tahoe Triple shirts on. My white one was crap, but there were a stack of nice blue ones on a picnic table that we were supposed to run in on day 3, so I quickly swapped out and felt pretty energized. No gloves were necessary on this day. It was sunny and probably about 55 or 60 degrees.

With the little start banner and the green grass and the picnic tables, the marathon had a fun-run feel to it. There were few really serious runners, but not too many casual runners either. I have no idea how the race started, maybe an airhorn. I'd worked up some adrenaline with the new shirt and felt pretty good. The first several miles were fairly flat, shaded, and although the roads were not closed, there were police around warning drivers to drive slow and watch out for runners. I settled into a rhythm for the first time in 3 days. There were aid stations every two miles and volunteers were great.

I trotted up behind a group of guys and just hung out for a while listening to them talk. Eventually, I started chatting with a guy named Matt from Reno. Within a few miles, we were talking about politics. Matt was quite a bit more conservative than me, so we started to get a little annoyed at each other. The pace picked up so that I had to let him go on ahead. By about the 10-mile point, my right nipple felt like it might be on the verge of bleeding, so I took off my shirt and immediately felt tired.

At about the 15-mile mark, there was a giant hill ahead and a sign pounded into the ground that said something like... "you're entering hell - 6,400 feet". As we ran up that hill, there were more and more signs... "entering purgatory - 6,600 feet", ...something about heaven - 7,000 feet, blah, blah, blah. I was walking before I left hell. I walked through purgatory. I walked before I got to heaven. I jockied back and forth with a long-haired, bearded guy who was either mumbling to himself or talking to me. He reminded me of Jesus. I ate a mocha latte gel and two electrolyte tablets. And then Leticia appeared from out of nowhere and handed me another three electrolytes which I mindlessly gulped down with a Powerade.

At mile 20, there was another terrible hill to climb. No dumb signs this time. The view of the lake was spectacular, but I really didn't care. At the end of the climb, the course suddenly became familiar. We were at the start of day 1 again, which meant that there would be some nasty downhills for a few miles, but this time, the runners around me were too tired to speed up. At one point, I had to walk the downhill as my knees got wobbly. At about mile 23, we moved over onto a bike trail that paralleled the road. Although we shared the trail with walking families and baby strollers and vacationing bike riders, it was a nice change from the roads. For the first time, I let myself think about the total miles run so far (75) and with less than three miles to go, finally got a second wind and surprisingly started to pass a whole bunch of people including the Jesus guy. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that I might be able to squeeze in as a top-25 male finisher and get a special windshirt.

The last two miles were surprisingly enjoyable; probably because I knew for sure that I'd finish this damn thing. As I turned the final corner and saw the finish line and the cheering crowd, I also spotted my conservative friend Matt ahead and decided to catch him. When I crossed the line, I felt nothing. Nothing. Someone handed me a finisher's metal and a claim sheet for the last of the top-25 finisher's shirts. About 5 minutes later, I felt an overwhelming rush of emotion and all of a sudden tears were streaming down my face. I wasn't particularly happy or sad, but something was going on here, so I hid behind a truck until things settled down. Afterwards, I stood in the cold lake for 30 minutes and looked at my feet. That did the trick.

I'm so glad this is over. I've finished races before and walked on air for days afterwards. This isn't one of those times. Wish it was. This experience tells me that I'm not an ultra-runner at all. I don't have to wonder anymore. To seal the deal, I threw up repeated throughout the day. Based on what was in my stomach, I stopped absorbing about about mile 10 - should have drank water - too much sugar. Too much.

It's over.