I
told you before about walking the 50 miles in 20 hours race, I
actually ended up doing it three more times. The middle two are not
terribly interesting just a lot of walking and a lot of pain. The
fourth time I did it though there was some drama. The drama came
almost entirely because this time through I brought my girlfriend. I
told her it was a good experience and that she would do fine and it
would be fun to do, because I am a liar. My dishonest methods for
convincing her to come along aside she did really seem interested in
trying a test of her endurance. We started out two blocks from my
house early in the afternoon figuring to get a jump on it and it was
pretty smooth sailing for about the first 10 miles. I find that in a
pinch even those without much athleticism or training can do about 10
miles before they collapse. 10 to 25 miles starts to weed out all the
people who were not really that interested or dedicated. On the route
we were taking miles 10 to 25 went through a canyon across a highway
and into the night and that is when we started to slow our pace and
settle into the grind. By the time we got to the halfway mark all of
our friends given up and gone home so it was just her and I in the
dark cooling night. From the halfway mark of the 35 mile mark she
started to get increasingly cranky about the physical pain. I'm the
type of person who actually likes to hear someone else complain so
that I can in turn be stoic and its kind of a power trip. It started
to make her even more angry that I was acting like I felt nothing and
I wouldn't complain. From 35 miles to 45 miles, which took us about
three hours, she stopped and yelled at me a couple of times and even
punched me a time or two to try to get me to complain which made it a
lot funnier for me and the distraction was more than welcome. I think
the race can be divided into three equal parts, the first 30 miles,
the next 15 and the last 5. That last 5 miles when the sun is coming
up and you have walked through the whole night and every part of your
body is in immense pain and the only thing that can keep you going is
the humor you find in your girlfriend's unadulterated rage. That last
5 miles took us about two hours and for virtually the whole time she
was yelling at me, cursing at me telling me, telling me how much she
hated me how stupid an idea this race was and I would just tell her
that if it was too hard for her she could just quit. It was
especially delicious because she was always going on about how much
more pain and suffering women could endure than men. I was making
very calm and understated observations about the intense pain that
was racking my body and how the key for me was to let my body be
subject to my will. When we turned the last corner and were only a
half of a mile away from the finish line she broke down and was
crying and leaning on me and telling me she was glad that we did this
thing together. I was in no condition physically or mentally to be
leaned upon in any sense but she wanted to walk in together hand in
hand and I was too far down the rabbit hole to resist. Arm in arm we
stumbled to the finish cried, hugged and got in the car to drive
home. I was so tired that I drove off the road and into a field when
the road unexpectedly teed. I backed out and got us home okay. I
dropped my girlfriend off and then went to bed and didn't wake up for
18 hours.
