...that's exactly how I felt after the Capt'n Karl's night ultra 60 km of 2 weeks ago (August 8 2014).
As I promised 2 weeks ago, here is the report.
Let me start with an observation: Colorado Bend State Park is a really nice place to go and visit. So do it.
...and this is true. I arrived there and the place inspired me, and before the starting gun I was psyched and ready to go and kick some assess.
Off course it was warm as hell, we're in Texas, in August, but the heat didn't ruin the mood.
7 pm arrived, and it was time to go.
After 1 nice smooth km, the course changed radically, and it was time to climb some hill. I really enjoyed the first loop, I was really fast and everything was working well.
I immediately understood that the course was really, really, really, really, really hard. Up- and down-hills on stones and gravels and rocks and boulders coming out from everywhere. Every steps was a step toward a possible fall with a possibly dangerous outcome. Anyway, I managed it and in the end of the first loop I was 4th (or something).
Unfortunately, my ankle (already in pain for the stress of the last 5 weeks of races) started to bother me. And not just a simple small and manageable pain.
Nope.
Real fucking pain that went straight to my brain at every steps.
...and off course, in these occasions, it looks like that every step is made intentionally to hurt the ankle a little bit more.
In a couple of miles, the dream turned into a nightmare.
Every normal human beings would have already given up. But not me. I'm an asshole, and the only idea to give up was even more painful than my poor ankle. So, go ahead jackass, finish this fucking thing.
Did I mentioned it was night? Because it was. We started at 7 pm, so at the end of the first loop it was completely night.
Headlamp on and keep going. Off course in these situation everything was harder: you have to figure out where to land your feet and where the course is going.
Poetically (aka, lamely), I like to think that I was out there alone, completely in the dark surrounded by my nightmare and fighting my own demons. And somehow it was like that. But I won.
...but I suffered for every single steps.
At lot of runners drop off, a lot of runners didn't finished it.
I finished it in bad conditions, bleeding, in pain, tired, but I finished it and I'm proud of it.
I finished 15th overall out of 75 (or 100something, don't remember), and it took 9 hours and some minutes...
I should be up-set for the bad result, but I'm happy instead because I learned a lot of things.
After the finish line I was a wreck: vomiting on one foot because I couldn't use my right foot.
Someone could call this "insane", I call it "epic".
Did I like it? Off course.
Did I enjoy it? No. Not in those conditions.
Will I do it again? Off course.
I could go on and on and write about "the need of pain" for the "feeling-better-later" feeling, or more easier, the need of "punish myself"(for something that maybe I deserve, or maybe not, I don't know) but it would be very lame, and I don't know if it would be understood by someone: it's a very personal process...
So, go fuck yourself.
That's it.
Hug a tree in the dark.
"Pissing and spitting from bottom to top
picking up viscera, tendons and broken remains..."
Exactly. Well done Baroness.
