I woke up and could hardly stand from a mixture of blistering and ankle swelling.

The atmosphere in the shelter (we slept in an abandoned building due to inclement weather) was quite a bit more chaotic than usual because all the races shared one roof. I got a few more hours of sleep so felt moderately fresher and was able to tune out the bustle and get myself prepped early enough to study the scores in the cybertent. I was placed 21st, with 30 minutes on either side of me and 20 and 22. This gave me good benchmarks for people to stay near in order to tread water and not continue dropping. It was the Long March, the longest day, nearly double the other days, and the one where placements shift the most.

I was surprised when everyone started quickly, albeit it made some sense since everyone slept a bit better than other nights. The opening section was several miles of aggressive uphill over trampled grass, on which I could warm up my legs and rip a quick pace without wrecking my legs. I passed racers 20 and 22 on the uphill, at which point, around mile 10, I faced a treacherous downhill. Racer 20 passed me and "Will to Death" by John Frusciante came on. On a whim, I started to stretch my legs a bit to see what I might be capable of. It was here, at mile 12, I realized that I might be able to run that day, and I started sobbing. 

Within minutes I was comfortably at the paces that I had planned before the race, and although my ankle was hurting, the joy of running was more than enough compensation. I felt like a child who had just learned to walk, awkwardly ambling forward feeling shocked and determined.

I caught up to Julie around Mile 18, and she was really chugging along. We ran more or less within sight of each other until mile 27. I am so impressed by here toughness, shuffling at a constant pace, faster everyday. At mile 26, I started to cramp, and she passed me, and I mentioned to her that I might finish in just 11 hours and change if I maintain 17min/mile the rest of the way (a bit of a demoralized statement). She went "I only deal in kilometers" and flew forward at a much quicker pace. I held on behind her until the salt I ate hit my system and I could catch up. Around mile 28, I realized how little I had left, and I resolved to run the entire way in.

I don't think I've ever displayed as much courage as I did during that next stretch. After running 140+ miles over the past seven days and over a marathon that day, I shrugged off total joint swelling and exhaustion to put forth a time that I would be happy with any given weekend in Salt Lake. I dipped into my collection of private and special music that I don't share with others due to its importance to me and sobbed through catharsis and incredible pain. The final sprint was caught on camera by Jeff and I look forward to seeing it. I finished in 10 hours flat. Times are below:

1 17

2 16.38

3 16.5

4 15.42

5 15.47

6 19.10

7 18.57

8 16.51

9 18.35

10 17.2

11 16.05

12 17.58

13 15.53

14 13.06

15 14.49

16 14.49

17 14.55

18 13.58

19 13.48

20 12.57

21 15.53

22 17.58

23 20.23

24 18.01

25 21.05

26 15.56

27 17.56

28 16.23

29 15.49

30 13

31 13.17

32 15.5

33 10.34

34 9.48

35 10.16

36 10.13

37 10.36

38 10.39

39 11.17

40 9.40

Apologies for not posting the past two days-- was a bit more tired than usual and now on the rest day I have a free minute to post. I'll do a post for each of the days I missed.

Day 4 got off to a nightmare start. I woke up and my watch immediately warned me that my sleep had not been adequate and my ankle swelling did not go down. A substantial portion of this had to have been my fault, not taking my compression socks off and giving my legs a rest. 

Dehydrated porridge with blueberries, my favorite breakfast, stopped tasting as good as it had and when the run was set to go and I primed by watch for a workout it blared at me that working out would be unhealthy.

During the course briefing we were told that there would be a limited amount of mud and that the weather should be moderately clear. I started in a t-shirt and immediately ran into ankle deep mud that completely sapped all strength and had me walking at about 23min/mile and picking up random debris and pounds of mud. Once we escaped the bog there was a river ford and clearly my head was not where it should have been as I spent about 5 minutes considering how to cross the river without getting wet and completely failed. The sweepers caught up to me and the clouds broke and I fell behind them momentarily as I struggled to get my poncho on.

That could have been the end of my race, but, in one of my better moments during the week, I ate a pack of M&Ms and refocused. I picked up the pace a bit and, while it was only about 19min/mile, I managed to pass some people and put some distance between myself and the cut off time. 

As frustrating as it was to walk the entire day I'm quite proud of my mental perserverance. I vacillated between anger and despondence as my ankle kept blaring at me but managed to hold steady and dig myself out of the holes I was getting in. 

The day ended on a long descent through a canyon on a cobblestone rode. Totally wrecked my legs and I spent quite a bit of time in the medical tent afterwards, after which I went right to sleep to prep for the long march. I went to bed thinking all hope I had of good placement was out the window.

26.37 miles, approx 8:30 (3 miles lost approx)

As I prepared my freeze dried porridge with strawberries the sun would fleetingly break through a desceding fog and catch the puddles that sat upon the mud of the running trail causing it to darkly bulge as a varicose vein upon the goregous and muscular hills that stretched before.

By the race briefing the fog swallowed those hills and visibility was reduce to 30 meters optimistically. I started quick, trying to take advantage of the miles where my knee was most function and caught the rear of the top 10, mixing downhill running and uphill trekking. We passed multiple mobs of barking herding dogs and in the distance I saw shepherds three, as Macbeth's witches transplanted from the heath unto the Georgian fescue.

Minutes later, around mile 4, I caught up to one of the race leaders, a most alarming sign. They were lost, the pink flags that lined the trail having completely disappeared. In that fog and filthy air, distant voices called "DO YOU SEE A FLAG" and we would respond "NO" until we stopped hearing questions and our own shouts into the cloud were left unanswered. Stumbling from tire tread to tire tread we ran into 8 more runners, all top tenners. We called the emergency line and retraced our steps, were we met the sweepers, working their way up the course at the race's cut off time. As the news circulated that the flags had been taken (by local shephers perhaps?), we waited for word, until we were led along GPS line to a point where we spotted a flag that was lost in the fog. I continued running, but, conservatively, lost 1.5 hours. More alarming, of the 43 runners that started the race, 32 were missing-- enshrouded in freezing fog.

I torched the next section to a tune of 9 minute miles until we reached camp 1 through a mulchy old-growth forest. Thinking I could maintain pace through the next section, tagged "moderately uphill" in my pre-race research, I added a minimal amount of water to my supplies and continued. Huge mistake!

The next section averaged out to "moderately uphill", meaing that it was a combination of extremely steepdownhill and diabolical uphill. My training is geared towards hills, having sprinted them with Italy's second fastest hurdler and going up Utah's Wasatch mountains in a weight vest. I estimate that I can take on a difficult hill at approximately 20min/mile. On these, I was moving at around 28 min/mile and exerting myself at 190 BPM. The "rasputitsa" mud sapped all downward force made all motions treacherous. Many of the inclines could only be handled with fistful of dirt. 

My water ran out 2 miles into this section and with an unclear distance covered in the starting fog I had no concept of distance. Paranoid thoughts creeped in. Could have the volunteers at Camp 2 abandoned post to go join a rescue effort? I started recording a selfie video to collect my thoughts, slammed some peanut M&Ms, and right as I began to panic, I reached camp 2.

I electrolyte bombed my system and chugged to catch up. As terryfing and challenging as the previous section was, it was epic and with my stores replenished I ripped to camp 3 at 15min/mile pace and to camp 4 at 17 min/mile pace.

I finished 13th. A couple of racers were not lost so they gained 1.5 hours on me. Many of the most lost marathoners arrived at camp 1 2 hours after me. There is discussion to "starting" the race at camp 1, negating the time gained due to the flag situation. Unclear the impact this would have on my placement. I imagine I would gain a spot or two against some people who had not been lost, but almost certainly will lose some given the energy I burned by coming out really hot. 

My knee took a beating during the second section, so i'm afraid that I will not be able to run tomorrow, but, regardless, I look forward to reporting 

when the hurly burlys done,

when the battles lost and won.

Hi All,

Writing this blog post on the geometrically patterned floor of the Courtyard Marriott Tbilisi, sitting with my back propped against a loose frond pot with the leaves dangling above my head (preparing for blogging in the Caucusus I suppose).

The race begins tomorrow and we are about to depart for "camp 1". I'm dressed in my race clothing which I will not take off save for maybe switching into another pair of underwear at night. My calves and thighs are compressed and I have a patellar strap to attempt to ward off inevitable knee troubles and a hip strap to deal with the pressure of the pack upon my lower back.

I came to Tbilisi with a bag overflowing with calories and bags full of random optional pieces caribinered onto the thin straps of the exterior of the pack. It weighed in around 16 kilos, double that of the most experienced competitors.

I spent the last two hotel days losing weight, first cutting about thousands of extra calories from my "gel bag" (about 2kg worth) and heavy protein bars in favor of peanut m&ms and potato chips. I'm still around 20,000 kg, about 6,000 above the minimum alotment (although in the moment I am ballparking burning about 42,000 cal while running).

I took all my freeze dried Expedition Foods out of their packs and poured into ziplocks (about half a kilo?). Threw out my lightweight bowl, half-emptied my too large sunscreen and alcohol gel, ditched my extra shoes and inflatable pillow and sleep pad, and removed all stuff sacks. Final weight about 10.5 kg. Hopefully not too much for the right knee. 

Everyone I meet is profoundly legit. World record holders, unreal athletes. Another runner who I had a few meals with while in Tbilisi has been to Georgia before while cycling from Rotterdam to Dubai. I asked why he passed through Georgia --- "in 2014, going through Syria wasn't an option". My roommate in the hotel has run 18 RtP ultras. Professional ultra coaches and runners who are doing the 4Deserts Grand Slam for real reasons. 95% of the reason I was able to shed so much weight is due to their advise and example.

The race starts tomorrow. I look forward to reporting further.