CIM Race Report - Dustin's Take

This is the second part of the race report. For the "real race report", see Michaela's blog post below...this one's a different take on a race report...done by a runner's crew...I will warn you that I sort of go off in this one so it's really wordy and long...sorry, but hopefully it's at least somewhat amusing...enjoy!

“I should have just run the damn thing!”….at least that’s what I was thinking after my fourth sprint of the day…I went through and mapquested my mileage for the morning which ended up being right around 4.5 miles. Hmmm…4.5 miles or 26.2 miles…that’s not what I’d say is a fair comparison…but let me throw in some color…how about 4.5 miles where you’re carrying a 50-lb kid on your shoulders, a backpack stuffed with goodies and you’re running more than walking as you’re up against tight deadlines? Is that maybe a little closer? Yeah you’re right, it’s probably not….but let me get into my story before you completely disregard my statement…

The day started for us at 5:30am on Sunday…Michaela had been up for over an hour by that point (getting ready to qualify for Boston while looking THAT good takes a little work I guess)…anyhow…I dragged Landon out of bed, threw some sweatpants on him and we headed out the door as we needed to take Michaela to the Runner Drop off. After we wished her luck and said our goodbyes, Landon was wide awake and talkative as he had just remembered that I told him we could have donuts for breakfast…so the next 15 minutes in the car went like this: Landon: “Is that the donut store?”, Me: “No! I’ll tell you when we get there!”…Repeat times fifty.

The kid was hell bent on ordering TWO sprinkle donuts (which is more than I would be able to eat), but I had given him carte blanche for being such a trooper, so two he got….we headed home to ingest way too many calories, get the supplies we’d need for the day, then turn around and head back out. Incidentally, he only ate one donut in the morning…I saved the second one thinking it’d be a good bribe later (which earns me points for thinking ahead, but I lose twice as many points for bribing him with such an unhealthy snack…Bad Daddy!)…Anyhow...yes, he did eat the second one later in the day, but to be fair, the only other sugar he had were two fruit rollups and a couple of candy canes…wait a minute, now the bi-polar child I was with all day is seeming to make more sense…he was on a sugar-induced roller coaster…when I gave him his “fix” he was all over the place, running around, and basically acting like Beavis when he’d do the Great Cornholio routine….then there’d be moments where he was quiet and wanted me to carry him everywhere…his “downer” cycle…wow, this all makes sense to me now…again, Bad Daddy!

We eventually made it out of the house and headed over to Fleet Feet on Fair Oaks and Madison (mile 8.5) to hang with our friends (Kirk, Jenny, Anthony, Lily, and their daughter Isabella) and cheer on the first wave. Landon enjoyed cheering the runners on and shaking a cowbell as they passed. We were there for about an hour before Michaela came jamming past. I was there to switch out her water bottle (which I did), but she also chucked her sleeves and gloves at me and shouted at me that she needed more gels…My first thought was “Ok, so what do you want me to do it about it?!?!”…I didn’t have any on me, but I asked around and luckily Kirk had a few in his car that he let us have…the problem was, I wasn’t going to see Michaela again until Mile 18…oh well, she’d have to figure something else out to get by.

Landon and I climbed back in the car and headed to the next aid station at Watt and Fair Oaks (mile 18ish). While we’re making decent time on the freeway I hear this from the backseat: “Daddy, I have to poo NOW!!!”…I checked my watch, figured we had time (and I really didn’t have a choice in the matter as I like my car the way it is), found our exit and started praying there’d be someplace to go. As soon as we got off the freeway on Watt I knew we were in trouble. The police had completely shut down Watt and there was no way to get through towards Fair Oaks, I had no choice but to turn immediately…luckily I found a Jack in the Box and in we went….after a few minutes it turned out that it was a false alarm (man I love the lack of understanding that my 3 year old has of his digestive system), and I started scouting where we could drive to get to the aid station…and bear in mind, I have no knowledge of this area at all. I eventually notice a bunch of cars just parking on the street with people walking down towards Fair Oaks, so I figured that was our best bet. As we started walking I finally got a clear picture of how far we really had to go, and it was over a mile…of course, Landon was on my shoulders for this whole stretch…actually, he would be on my shoulders, tell me he wanted to walk, so I’d put him down, he’d run about 10 feet, say he was tired, and want to go back up on my shoulders…we did this about 3,000 times which makes for an awful good upper body workout!

We make it to Fair Oaks and Watt and I start looking around for our Ultrarunnerpodcast Team who we were supposed to meet but I don’t see any familiar faces. Then I run into Kevin O’Toole and KC Bobrowski who were both helping out with the Folsom Trail Runners….Kevin advises me that the URP guys are like over a mile down the road at which point I go “shit, there’s no way I’m walking ANOTHER mile to get to them, just to turn around and have to walk 2 miles back to the car, then drive to the finish before Michaela finishes!”….just as I’m thinking all this (I swear, I really thought all that)…Scotty Sandow calls me and tells me he’s going to pick me and Landon up to bring me over to where they are (at least I think that’s what he said, I was like right underneath some DJ’s speakers and could barely hear anything). About 2 minutes later there was Scotty (who thankfully has a car seat in back) and the three of us headed back to hang with the team for about 25 minutes. Scotty took us through some awesome neighborhood where he had grown up, but there were about 4 or 5 turns in there and I was lost by the time we got to the aid station. This aid station was great, as it was completely unofficial and they had beer and pancakes for any runner who cared to go for it. Our friend Joe even dressed up like a pimp, and let’s be honest, every aid station needs a pimp! While I was there I saw a couple of runners pound beer and one disappointed lady grab a cup thinking it was water (seriously?) only to throw it away once she saw the suds (party foul!)…Landon got to run around with Deno’s son Nicholas, which was great…and this is where he got more candy (thanks Scotty!)…

This aid station was also where my favorite story from the day took place. I see Michaela running up the street with Scotty in front of her, right next to Julie Fingar (who is pacing the group) and both Michaela and Scotty are yelling at me. Scotty throws his keys at me and yells at me to take his car up to where he met me as he needs to pace the group for a few minutes so Julie can use the facilities. Let me tell you right now, I only found out what he said to me after the fact as I was focused on Michaela (I needed to swap out her water again). We did the water swap and then she’s past me, but she’s yelling at me to move my ass and follow her as I have her salts and she needs them. So I take off after her and then remember that I’ve got Landon with me so I turn and yell at him to stay with our friend Ken and then I take off after Michaela with my backpack bouncing along behind me. There are about 30 runners running in this group and they all give me funny looks as I come blowing by them to get to her and give her the salts. I finally catch her, make the swap, then dive off the street to avoid getting trampled like I was in the running of the bulls. It’s only when I get back to Scotty and the group that he tells me what he needed from me…but I’m glad it didn’t work out as I had no idea where I was driving, definitely would have ended up lost (with his car) and missed Michaela’s finish.

So we get a ride back to where we were picked up, see Michaela pass us again (this time she doesn’t yell at me to move my ass…thank God!)….Landon and I start heading back to the car, and I realize that it’s going to be awful tight as she’s got about 7 miles to go, but I have to run a mile with him on my shoulders, drive to the Capitol, find parking (there’s something like 50,000 people down there), get to the finish line all before she finishes…it was going to be really tight.

So we get downtown and I wasn’t wrong, parking is terrible. Seriously, I have never seen it this bad before and I’m starting to freak out as the clock keeps ticking down. I eventually park way over on Q street and 14th, put a few coins in the parking meter (I only had enough for about an hour), throw Landon back on my shoulders, and start running. At this point, the kid is getting sick of being on my shoulders but he’s hanging in there like a champ…it doesn’t hurt that I give him some sugar-filled snack every time he opens his mouth… We cover the three quarters of a mile or so in record time, start weaving our way through the massive crowds of people and get to the finish roughly 5 minutes before Michaela comes rocketing through the finish line. Success!

By the time Michaela makes it to us through the crowd we’re down to about 10 minutes on the parking meter and I have no idea if they’re ticketing today (although I did check a bunch of them on my way out and it seemed as though every car either paid or had a permit), so I booked it back to the car and then looped around to pick up Michaela and Landon. After picking them up I thought we were on our way home (which suited me just fine as I was exhausted and had visions of beer and football dancing in my head), only to find out that Michaela really wanted to walk around the Expo for a bit to see friends and loosen up her legs….Awesome! So we drove around for like 10 minutes without any luck finding parking, then she points out a pay parking garage so I pull in and park. By the time we get out of our car, the security gates had closed down and there was no way out of the garage. “What the fuck? Are you kidding me?”…Michaela is taking it all in stride, telling me to relax and it’ll work itself out…while I’m sitting there fuming and thinking about how my car is going to be stuck in a damn garage all weekend and I have no idea how we’re going to get home , etc. (for those of you that know me, this is what Michaela calls the “Evil Dustin”…well, she doesn’t actually say that to my face, but I swear I know that she’s thinking it..I’m a high-stress individual as it is, and at moments like this, I can totally freak out…Michaela had an apt comparison yesterday when she told me I was acting like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber when he had given up hope and out of desperation yells “Our pets heads are falling off!”…I was being that guy)….I start calling every phone number listed in the garage and eventually come across some a-hole that manages the thing, telling me that the garage is closed and I shouldn’t have been able to get in there (the freaking gates were open and it says “pay to park”, so what would you think?)…then he proceeds to tell me that since there’s no one working this weekend it’ll probably take a few hours before he can find someone to come down there and let us out (good thing we didn’t have plans and wanted to walk around the Capitol!).

Long story not so short, we eventually got out of the garage by following some nice lady who opened the gate to get her own car out…my theory is that some random person left the garage, thus leaving the security gates up for a few minutes…during this time, we drove in thinking it was a normal, open lot…someone should identify this problem and do something about it!

After that, the three of us had a great lunch, then spent the evening decorating the Christmas tree and relaxing. The next morning I woke up extremely sore, from the dead-lifting of the 50-lb kid and all the crazy running around…so I will concede that her morning was more physically taxing than mine, and I’m super proud of her amazing accomplishment…but you’ve got to admit, Landon and I had quite the day too! Who knew spectating could be so crazy?