Day 3,684 —Final Thoughts on the Berryman/Sun Segments—

 

Today, I didn’t start until 5:30, so I didn’t have to wear my headlamp; however, I did spend a lot of time looking for my headlamp only to not find it. I am not sure where it is. Starting was so fun, running downhill as fast as I could for a moment. It felt like I was being propelled forward by the weight of a house, but then I slowed down and thought more about the race yesterday. 

Sun Segments 

I wasn’t wearing a hat, and certain parts of the race were genuinely sunny; however, the vast majority of the race was in the shade. Joel bought a special hat for the race, which looked nice, but when I caught up to him, he wasn’t wearing it. I asked him about it, and he mentioned that the sun was intense at times in segments. 

         After he said that, I thought the idea of a “sun segment” was hysterical. I mentioned it throughout the race, “Did you see that sun segment up ahead?” Wow, intense “sun segment!” At one point, I was talking to an aid worker and said after I had moved abruptly, “Sorry, I just needed to get out of that sun segment.” She definitely thought I was crazy. 

I am not a hundred percent sure if Joel ever said the complete phrase “sun segments,” but that’s how I remember things. 

Snakes

Before catching up to Joel, I saw a snake at least six feet long lying across the trail. I would usually jump a snake, but this one I weaved around. I could tell for sure it was a snake because of the shape of the tail. It was round and fat, so I knew I was safe because it had recently eaten something. It was genuinely frightening because it happened so fast, and I was only able to react to what I saw after I was past it. I wish I was running with someone else at this point to comment on it. When I was running with the group at the end, Dalton said he had seen a snake in a tree, and later he noticed a snake that both Joel and I jumped over without seeing.  

Bugs 

Bugs were flying into me, ticks were jumping on me, and the sound of the cicadas was so intense it made my whole body vibrate. I was thinking this must be the sound they use in horror movies. I knew there was nothing to be afraid of with the cicadas, but that buzzing got so intense at times , and other times it was silent. 

Video

In the future, I want to do the following for my videos: 

Always take pictures 

Record a minute before and after 

Record a minute at race markers 5K, 13.1, 26.2, etcetera 

However, in this video, I didn’t do any of those things. The video I shot before I couldn’t use. I did record hours of footage while I was running with my body camera, but I haven’t gone through it yet. From what I have seen, I think I will have enough to make a decent video, but it is just going to take me some time to go through what I have to create something. The good news is that I walked a lot, so the camera should be steady, and I did narrate the section thinking I might want to use the audio, Yet at the time it felt like I was talking to myself.