Weaving around on TopaTopa trying to find the narrow switchback trail that will take me to the top. Snow and rain making it hard to see far ahead using just my headlamp. Hand torch in my waist pack 600 feet below me in the Aid Station. This is no longer fun. The waterproof gloves are wet from the inside! A little blister in my right toe is starting to irritate constantly. This is a training run for other races during the year and I am not having fun with incipient hypothermia and wet clothes. Time to drop and find the warm hotel bed tout suite!
I had finished this race last year in similar circumstances and felt comfortable calling it a day this year. My heart was not in it and the weather was not co-operating. The rain had come earlier than I had expected. Even then I had put spare gloves, a balaclava and a spare T-shirt in my backpack. The only problem, I realized later, was that I should have had a big poncho that would have covered my backpack and keep all my stuff dry. The gloves had not become wet but the spare T-shirt had!
The next time I run a wet race I will make sure I have a poncho stashed away in my backpack.
I hoofed it out of Ojai on the Saturday, 2 p.m. flight back to San Francisco and was watching a movie later that day with friends when a friend, still in Ojai, texted me that it was raining very hard there and she was praying for the safety of the runners up on the Ridge. I too sent some positive energy to all those runners.
I woke up the next morning to learn that that Chris Scott, the RD, had canceled the race at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday and they had all spent the entire night making sure that the runners and the volunteers were safely off the trails and the Ridge. Kudos to him and his fantastic volunteers!!
Back to my GUCR and Spartathlon training now.
(Waiting to start the race)
(Circling the field)
