Calm Between the Storms

Not much change to the weather forecast for race day. Still humid, 60-80 degrees, with possible severe thunderstorms.

Last night there was an outrageous thunderstorm here in Eldridge. It knocked out power in the hotel for a few minutes. It was crashing so loud I thought there were elephants in the room above me. It literally shook the room. Rain was coming down in buckets, or sheets, or swimming pools. We got over 2 inches of rain here last night. It only lasted about an hour, but if that happens during the night on the track, we're definitely going to have to find shelter and halt the race for a while.

It's cloudy and humid again today. The sun is coming out a little, but it looks the same as yesterday. There was a tornado that destroyed a turkey farm about an hour or so southwest of here.

This morning I woke up early and did a few errands. Then I went into Davenport to the Walmart, which, like it or not, is becoming a part of my pre-race ritual since I run in so many out-of-the-way places. I only spent $39.71. Felix would be so proud of me. He thought I spent way too much in Nevada, but we were out there for a week and there were 6 of us!

I thought about getting this top, my lap counter at the track wouldn't have any trouble spotting me in this. But it seemed impractical. Yes Felix, I do think about those things.

I found out why people shop at Walmart. They have specialized clothing, with technical features you can't find anywhere else. And it's such a bargain!

After Walmart I drove down to the Mississippi River, just out of curiosity, I found myself on the riverfront in Moline, Illinois. I walked along a path down there. Nothing much going on, not very exciting at 9 in the morning. That was it. I wanted to get back to Eldridge and start organizing my stuff.

I drove back to Eldridge, dumped the water out of my coolers and re-filled them with ice. I'll have to top them off tomorrow, I'll need ice for my drinks and maybe for my head and neck when it's that warm out. Nothing will dry in this humidity, so I might have to change clothes a few times. There's nothing worse than a saturated running bra rubbing your skin off.

Now I'm in the room, eating a big salad, one of my pre-race rituals. Salad in a trough. I bought the trough at Walmart. Gotta get some fiber in before the big race, clean out the pipes before race morning! McDonald's is open at 5 am, and I'll do my usual pre-race 1000 calorie breakfast sandwich there in the morning. Sounds kind of gross right now, but last July was the last time I had one!

Doug and Marji will get here this afternoon and then we'll go to the pre-race dinner and briefing at Lancers Grill. Hopefully I can at least set up the tent tonight, so there's less to do in the morning.



All I have to do now is put my feet up and drink. Margaritas would be nice, but I'll have to wait a few days...

Iowa: Like Wayne's World, Only Different

Remember in Wayne's World when Wayne and Garth are fantasizing about becoming famous on TV, and they do this bit about being in Delaware?

"I'm in....Delaware."

That's how I felt today in Iowa. There is definitely too much of a good thing.

First thing out of Omaha, I crossed the Missouri River into Iowa.

I expected it to look like more of Nebraska.

More new and old windmills here, too.

I was wrong in my assumption. The state is more scenic than Nebraska, in my opinion, with more windmills, hills, farmland, trees, and old agricultural buildings. But after driving across Nebraska yesterday, 300 miles of Iowa was over the top. I'm ready to look at something else, anything else, even if it's the lanes of a track for 400 or more laps.

Never too far from home.

Fortunately I arrived in Eldridge, Iowa, site of the Cornbelt 24 Hour Run, at 1:30 this afternoon. The drive from Omaha was shorter than I anticipated, only 5 1/2 hours. Things are slow in Iowa. The speed limit is slower, people move slowly, and everything seems to go at a geared-down pace. That's okay with me, I can afford to slow down a bit.






The signs kept reminding me that I was definitely in the Midwest.

Assville?

There were a couple of billboards along the way that I wasn't able to photograph fast enough. One said, "Pork. Be inspired." Don't worry, I am soooo inspired.

But the winner? The "Really?" billboard of the day: A big ad by Monsanto, claiming 23 million jobs depend on farmers. With American Gothic-like couple on the billboard. Gag me with a genetically modified corncob. Shameless corporate scum of the earth.

Upon arriving in Eldridge, I turned off the highway and immediately saw the hotel that is hosting the race, and the town is so small that everything is within walking distance. Not if you're getting ready for a long race, though. But driving from the hotel to the track will take about 2 minutes. That's good- I need all the sleep I can get!

The pre-race meal is at a place called Lancers Grill. Hmm. I guess it's better than Lunkers (Okeechobee, Florida).

I parked at the local grocery store and did a tour- seems like they have just about everything I'd need, minus the variety. I think I'll make a trip to Walmart tomorrow in Davenport for my race supplies, just about 15 minutes away. I bought some ice to start cooling down all the drinks in my cooler. I drove around town, checked out the track, and the town is cute, Americana-like. Picket fences, green lawns, quiet.

There's also an eerie-ness to it, hair standing up on the back of my neck, like I kind of get the feeling that I shouldn't be asking if they have matzoh ball soup, hummus, or baba ganoush. I did infuse the Iowa air with electronic Persian music though, I listened to some Niyaz on the drive. It felt like Iowa needed it.

People were friendly at the grocery store and gas station, but they definitely look out the corner of their eye at you after you look away, seeing this stranger in their midst. Yeah, I know. A little ethnic-looking. I won't hurt you.

I took a walk for a mile or so on a bike path near the town park, called Dennis, and stretched my legs. It's warm and humid here. Just the way I like it. It feels like walking through the mist from a shower, like I'm in a cloud,and the sky looks hazy all the way down to the ground. The Mississippi River is east of here, just a few miles.

When I got to the hotel to check in, they were very friendly and asked me questions about running. The hotel is sold out for tomorrow night before the race. It's a pretty good-sized place for a town this size, but it's the only hotel in town.

Now I just need to relax and stretch out until tomorrow when the pre-race activities begin. Doug and Marji should be arriving in the afternoon tomorrow. I'll probably go to Davenport in the morning, maybe check some things out, stop at Walmart, and then come back to Eldridge.

Not a lot of exciting stuff, but it's what I need now.

Race day forecast: High 80, low 60, high humidity, isolated thunderstorms, chance of rain 30%. Whatever that means. I'm ready to rock n' roll!

Nebraska: Bug Guts, Road Work & Mudflap Chicks

The only thing about going to a race in Iowa when you live in Colorado is that you have to drive, unless you feel like paying lots of money for an airline ticket and rental car. I'm in a low budget mode this year, trying to recharge the savings account for future adventure runs.

The girls were not very happy to see me leave. Iris knew about the piles of mom's stuff, and insisted I take her for a run in the morning before I left. Isabelle refused to go, she stayed on the floor and pouted.

I left around 10 am and drove north to Cheyenne on I-25 instead of taking the back roads to Sterling and Julesburg.

From Cheyenne I turned east onto I-80 for the long haul across Nebraska and Iowa. It was a cloudy morning and early afternoon, the sun didn't come out until mid-afternoon when I was in central Nebraska, just in time for it to be warm and humid. Might as well do my humidity traning now, since that's what race conditions will be like. It didn't feel bad, even though it was warm enough that I wanted to turn on the A/C. I resisted. Gas is expensive enough,even though it's nearly 50 cents a gallon cheaper in some places in Nebraska than it is at home.

I've driven across Nebraska once, a long time ago, in the last century, to meet a friend in Omaha for a girls' weekend, because it was halfway for both of us. My memories from that trip include the Omaha zoo (very cool) and an encounter in the hotel lobby with a Promise Keepers convention (not so very cool). And since then I've never been back, except driving through parts of northwestern Nebraska on my way to the Black Hills. What's in Nebraska?

Well, they have windmills, new and old.

They have a lot of farmland with trees scattered throughout. It gets greener as you go east.

The scenery really wasn't that bad- I wasn't bored. There's plenty to look at, I found it pretty. I like landscapes with big open skies and space, with a few scattered trees.

They have big rivers, like the Platte.














Each town in central Nebraska has it's own grain elevator with the name of the town painted on it in big red letters.

They have nice rest areas with updated clean restrooms. I took a picture inside the bathroom, I was so impressed. They had wood planks on the ceiling!

What else does Nebraska have? They have big bugs that go SPLAT! on your windshield, leaving stars of yellow guts. They have old Pony Express stations.

And they have mudflap chicks.















And once you get east of Grand Island, you start to see some hills.

The worst thing about it was the road construction, across the entire state. Most of I-80 was a one lane road in each direction, and with all the semi trailers and traffic, it was annoying. I made decent time, but it would have been a much faster trip if the roads weren't narrowed to one lane. It's 450 miles from one end of the state to the other end on I-80, and I'd guess that 400 of it was under construction.

There's this bridge over the Interstate at Kearney. I didn't stop to check it out. I was already over the road work. By then I was just interested in making a beeline for Omaha.

When I got to Omaha, during rush hour, it really wasn't all that rushed. I had made reservations at a hotel in downtown Omaha for the first night, which was a good call. I got a nice room that was inexpensive and I was too tired to drive anywhere, ordered food delivered to the room from a Chinese restaurant and I got an incredible meal, it was hot when it arrived, with tons of veggies cooked just right, for less than $10 including tip. Holy crap you don't find those things in too many places!

Onward to Iowa, seeking truth...

Truth-Seeking Mission Packing Frenzy

I'm getting ready to leave for Iowa, which means I have to go through everything I own, pull it all out and throw it in a pile, and then go through again and sort out all the stuff I really don't need.

Iris always has to supervise the packing ritual. My car is already loaded with coolers, table, chair, tent. I stopped by the store yesterday and bought some things, food will have to wait until I get closer to race day.

After not running any ultras for 10 months, first I have to dig things out of the garage, which was a major project yesterday. Good thing to do when I'm on my weekend work hangover day. It was a crazy busy weekend at work but it was good. I started sleeping through the night again.

More piles. It's never ending.

Packing for a fixed-time race that you're driving to is a challenge. There's the temptation to take everything. I really just need a table, a chair, some coolers, something to prop up my feet, and then be very organized in my pre-race setup so everything is easily accessible without having to waste time searching for it. You just set everything up at the trackside, and it's a quick stop, but you have to minimize the number of stops because it's too easy to reach for an item whenever you think of it, instead of saving it for the break times.

Generally I try to take a break and put my feet up for no more than 10-15 minutes every 6 hours and get as many calories into myself during that time as possible. I do my pole stretch- holding onto some stable object and squatting down and stretching- my butt, hamstrings, calves, achilles tendons, feet- every hour. And that's basically it for strategy. Just holding back for the first 12 hours and not running more than half the miles than you think your total will be, re-assessing how the strategy is working, and then adjusting from there.

The forecast is for warm and humid, which suits me just fine. 87 degrees and high humidity as of yesterday's forecast, same exact conditions as in Florida at the Keys, where I got a 100 mile PR. I'll have plenty of ice and bandanas for my head and neck, lots of S caps and drinks, and the MP3 player with plenty of spare batteries. And food, of course. And Starbucks Doubleshots. I'm hoping to not have to sleep.

When I got home from work the other night, Dennis surprised me with his first modifications to Rocket with Gerry Z's guts attached. It's still under construction, he will probably shorten the front bars and put a larger wheel in front, but this is basically what it will look like. I need to take it for a test spin today. Then I need to finish organizing my foot kit and reducing the size of the pile of clothes I pulled out yesterday.

I'm ready to burn some tread off the bottom of my running shoes. I'm hungry to race, and I feel like pushing myself. Not only am I running a race, I'm on a truth-seeking mission...for two pieces of truth:

1. To see how many miles I can run in 24 hours.

2. To find out what's really in Iowa.

The plan is, drive across Nebraska, spend the night in Omaha, then drive the rest of the way to Iowa and have a full day to chill out before the race. I've driven across Nebraska only once before, about 15 years ago. Can't say I remember too much of it. I do remember the zoo in Omaha, that was pretty cool.

I'll be blogging from the road, looking forward to the interesting sights in Nebraska and Iowa, since I have never been into Iowa before. I know that everyone reading this is asking the burning question, what's in Iowa?

Well, pork chops, for one. And chicken fried steak. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Cornfields. A few rolling hills. Those are the things other people have told me.

If I get hungry enough after the race, I might even eat some of that stuff. Not the chicken fried steak though...can't even fathom chewing on something that looks like a fried cowpie.

Gotta go, the supervisor tells me to get back to my state of frenetic packing so we can go for a run...