Chasing Blinking Lights.

Keep Moving. #TunnelVision

It’s 4:03 AM, the 4.5 mile ‘Moderate’ leg 26 of the BRR is looming and we are in the middle of nowhere.  As runner 8 of the 9 man team #F3Lean, this was my 3rd leg of the race. A manageable 9.9 miles ran so far for me, my last leg was the first time I ever ran with a headlamp on, in South Florida we don't run at night in the mountains.  I was deep in the peanut butter/banana/bagel diet and hadn’t slept a wink.  However, I already learned in my year and half in F3 that I was about to grind this out. #F3Tough

I was having way too much fun to sleep before that. #Delirious  In fact, we were an hour removed from wasting two hours trying to find EZ24, this would have been my only real chance for that.  The rest van that included Indian Hill, Peggy, Uncle, and the #Wheelman DRM had thoughts of arriving at EZ 24 with 3 hours to spare and getting our nap on.  A detour, a wrong turn, an unauthorized water/snack pit stop by me to DRM's disapproval which ended up being 100yds from where we needed to be only to then drive right by it, a talk with the #NoTeeth locals all the way at EZ27, another wrong turn, and a real spotty map shut all that down.  Somehow we made it back with 45 minutes to spare, all part of the plan.  Peggy was the only one who got any real sleep before leg 25.  ”Wake up Peggy! Its the third leg, it’s gonna be your hardest, get this one.”

Its the middle of the night in mountains and its time to run.  All this was a recipe for running a great leg I thought.  All of us in that rest van started chanting to each other at that point, well actually I was the only one really chanting, or maybe I was only talking to myself. “The third leg will be the hardest, get this one!”  The finish line is not quite there as it will be on your 4th leg, the adrenaline of the 1st and 2nd leg is far removed.  The pressure of having to hold up my end of the bargain for rest of Team LEAN who are all crushing it was there, and was I even fast enough to do that?

I have been pondering the last few days why by far, I felt the best during that leg than all the others.  I already had confidence through 2 recent GRC performances that my body and mind were gonna hold up for long hours without sleep so I wasn't worried about any of that.  I actually had no worries other than fear of simply not being able to run fast enough for my team, F3 gets us ready to handle the #3rd500.  

Leg 26 was a blast.  Throughout the whole leg, I would faintly see blinking lights in front of me.  I'd catch them and never look back.  Start looking for the next one, boom there is one.  Get em.  I was getting kills and it didn't matter if I was going uphill or downhill, throw out all the percentages and mountain grades.  Finally, I was getting kills. #TunnelVision No chance of stopping, too much on the line.  I knew that was the third 500 and was not saving anything for my last leg. I arrived at EZ27 4 minutes before ShawShank and Indian Hill had expected me shouting IH’s name for a delayed hand-off.

Chasing those blinking lights that are not in the direct view of your headlamp, I like that analogy and its the reason I wrote this, not to brag about feeling good while running a 4.5 mile leg.  I saw the other 35 legs and my teammates got way more kills than me #LeanMachines and F3 showed up big at that race.  The point is that the blinking lights are everywhere, look for them, use tunnel vision and chase em down, don’t get comfortable when you get one, move on to the next.  More importantly, keep moving especially when the blinking light is not visible, it'll show up. Eventually, you'll be running down blinking lights like Hyannis did to that poor 15 year old blazing tomato at the finish! aye.

“The race doesn’t start til the sun goes down!” – OBT at EZ11 during our only #U6 sighting. #Truth