Day 2,918 —50,000 Falls at the Double Chubb— with a PICTURE of ICE on a STAKE #703

I was looking forward to this race but not thinking about it (is that a contradiction?). I started fine and strong and was smiling and laughing as I ran down the hills and pretended to fly during the strong winds. And then, I kept falling and breaking my hands. 

I was wearing gloves! But not good enough to prevent me from busting my hands open for the third time. Shouldn’t my hands be better prepared at this point? 

The worst was a fall where I lost my phone. I had to walk back up the hill and get it. The photographer had it. He was super nice. I also got to catch up with Dave some who I met last year during the Katy 82. We ran part of the race together and I saw him at the end. It was nice to have someone to talk to when I finished. I wished I had more time and could hang out at the finish line.  

There were so many nice people I talked to today. When I was filling up my water bottle, this woman asked me if I was planning on doing some zoom meetings later today because of my shirt. I told her I was taking some meetings on my phone later. I always want to laugh during a race.  

I am looking at the results now, and I did better than I thought. I was 13th overall. And the 10th place guy was only five-minutes ahead of me. I think I am going to have to do this race again. I could have done a lot better had I ran a trail recently or had trained in the shoes I wore for the race, but I am glad I did it leading up to the Berryman 50 that is next month. 

 I don’t how crazy it seemed that each time I fell I was just laughing like a maniac at myself, eventually I got angry and slowed down. At first, I was just smiling and laughing, but when I stared bleeding, it didn’t seem so funny anymore. I guess it is kind of funny still thinking about myself falling on rocks, mostly catching myself. It seems like countless times. And not when I was going too fast down hills but when I hit a flat part and stopped looking down for a moment. 

I ended up not taking any pictures because I was distracted with the race. I took one picture of myself with my phone looking crazy and in pain: I think that kind of sums up this race.  

Thank you to everyone who helped today!