So it's been two months....

Thanks to friends, I finally remembered about updating this blog of mine. Which is wierd, because over the past two months I've done more things to talk about than normal. I mean, when talking to people, they normally ask whats up and I don't have anything to talk about. But now, it's a new ball game after telling them about Primal Quest. I still suck at conversations, but I can tell what happened at PQ pretty good.

I guess I can start off by catching, those that aren't in the know, up.

Jason has been gone for a couple of weeks now. Living in hotter than hell Iraq, and I'm not talking about the ladies. He say's it's like 140 degrees over there. So the 4 AM run he does doesn't sound all that bad afterall.

I used to think getting up at 4 AM sucked. And it does. But I also know that it's better than getting up at 2 AM. After doing PQ, I don't sleep like I used to. I want to, but I am up at 11 or midnight thinking about doing stuff. I make myself go to sleep, and wake up at 6 or 7.
Oh, and here's the whole shindig of what went down at PQ:
We started Monday morning. I felt good, a little too good. As we raced up the mountain I knew that the race would take a long time. I mean the 'cutoff' was 10 days. We made it to the top in a good spot, top 20. Then we headed down. Going down sucks more than going up, in my opinion. After making the first TA(transition area) in a couple of hours, we still had quite a bit of meat left on the bone to the next TA. We jogged, walked, and jogged some more. It got dark. We thought it'd take around 33 miles, but ended up being around 50. At 1AM we've been up a total of 15 hours, and got to a Checkpoint, with 6 miles to go. It was a river crossing. The rivers by the way, were up and flowing. They flowed more than MLK Street on 2Pacs birfday. We tenativly walked in the gushing river and found footing to be tough to get. My legs at this point were tired, and achy. But the ice cold water soon sent bone numbing chills throughout my body. My legs got numb and the pain went away! But it was dark, around 40 degrees and I was cold. So we jogged. Then had to cross another river. The next 6 miles were spent jogging, more to get the blood from freezing than anything else. We passed a couple of teams and got to TA in 6th or so.
We got 2 hours of sleep that night.
Woke up at 4 and was paddling by 5.
Dave and I in one boat, Shaun and Leslie in another. Did I say boat? I meant, a big blue rubber raft for two.
Now the river was on our side, pushing us along at 10-12 mph. We were making up time on other teams,as paddling is a strong suit of MOAT's. The rapids were tough, but we had dry suits on which kept us nice and dry in the frigid waters. I don't know when it was, around mile 17 I think, we hit a curve with a huge rapid that threw Dave and I out. We both were holding on to the raft and kept our feet up from avoiding getting caught in the rocks beneth us. Then I say something, but no response. Dave is gone. I don't know where he is, and I think that he's under drowning or something. I hold on and won't let the boat go. Shaun and Leslie though have already saved him....and left me out by myself. I take it upon myself to do or die....but more doing and less dying. I flip the boat. Unsuccessfully. Try it again. Didn't work. Then one more go, and I flip in over, and climb in. Find a etty(sp?) and get Dave transferred in. We finish the paddle around 8 AM and get ready for the river swim.
I get my big river board, suit up and hit the river. This part of the race was absolutly the funnest. The river pushed us again, and we only kicked to keep us in the good flow. I would try to hit all the big rapids, and you'd get bounced around and splashed and all.....but it was sooooo much fun. Shaun apparently smacked his thigh on a rock, making walking a difficult task. This 8 mile section of the race took 2 hours to do. At the Guadaloope in Tx, a 4 mile run took us 3 hours. Thats how much faster we went!
Once done with this section, we started another hike. This is where I started getting confused on what happened and when. I know it was a long hike. I know it was a hilly hike. I know it was a fun hike, besides that my feet were hurting and my IT band on my right leg started killing me. So I was down to a crawl with Shaun. Downhill was way more difficult than uphill now. I just wanted the bike leg to start soon. A bit of HTFU and gritting my teeth and we hit TA....on day 3, at 10 in the morning.
It was a bike leg! We started strong, on a gravel road. Then I flatted. Fixed it. Started strong again. Then same tire goes flat....for a different reason. Fix it again. We fly to the next TA and get some support here. I think this is when I ate a buffalo burger the size of a kitchen plate, and had some mighty fine fixin's. Then we headed out into an afternoon storm that had wind blowwing hard, and some rain. This was the only bad weather there(good for us as we picked up a tailwind for 15miles!). My knee started hurting as I feel off the pace, and was actually towed to the next CP. This is where a shot was delivered to my knee, giving me 3 hours of numbness, and only 20 more miles to the next CP where we'd hike again.
130 miles of total riding and we hit the last CP. Off to another hike starting at 2AM(day 4).
OH SNAP. Dave and I have the same pair of shoes(Montrails). I took a different pair(brooks) and he took the Montrails. He's a size 14. I'm a size 11. He got one of his, and one of mine. There was only one thing to do. He cut a big hole for his toes to hang out. We continued on and were walking when the sun was coming up. It was spectacular. Horses started running by us, and I shot some pic's with my camera. Then more horses came by and a lady yelping on a horse. I think we took a 5 minute catnap to recharge for the day here. But I know soon around here, by leg gave out. I had to stop. Shaun and Leslie were tired, and sat on the ground. Dave and I were talking....Dave:"We're quiting" Wink:"I'm not quiting". Dave:"You can't walk". WInk:"Just let me work it out". Dave:"Wink, think of all that we still have to do, we still have at least 3 hikes this long, and we just started this one, plus bike legs, and an O course that will be on rough terrain" Shaun goes and rubs out my leg. Wink:"I'm good." and we move on.
I started to figure out how to get rid of the pain, by stretching and rolling it out. I also figured out that if we kept moving the pain wouldn't come back, but once I stopped it got painful. It still hurt, and going downhill was the worst no matter what.
We made it along, hit another bike leg, and was moving along quite nice. I know this leg we kept getting tired, as it was day 5 and the sun has yet to come up. Dave was handing out caffine tablets, and everything else to stay awake. I sure didn't know that 2 equivilant shots of expresso had hit me. Found out that caffine doesn't work on ol' Wink. We hit a little bit of climbing, and some very cool roads in a canyon, saw tons of deer....literitly we saw hundreds of deer in a pasture. It looked very much like Jurrasic Park when they all ran away. But instead of dinosaurs, it was deer.
Then we hiked again.....I'm getting mixed up here. But I think it was a mountain range. Go figure! I am confuse with the Crazies, and the other range. We hit both, and both times I was a zombie. I know one we were lost, and it was getting dark. We had to get to TA and going downhill was tough. I think we ended up on the 'M' Trail. A downhill/uphill, swithback beast of a stupid trail. I was halucinating here....at stream crossing, I saw small crowds cheering for me, only to cross it and see they weren't there. I raced Leslie, unknowningly, at the hiking championships in Germany. I had a little leprechaun friend. ????Tell me about it! I know we were going so slow though. Dave started cracking the whip, keeping me moving. My knee was limiting us to only 1 or maybe 2 mph!!! I felt bad for slowing the team down like this, but I had no choice. I was lucky to still be able to walk! The craziest thing I encountered on this hike was my brain was so out of it, that I actually thought I was on this 'M' Trail which I've hiked before! I've never seen it, yet I knew I'd been here before! Deja Vu to the max!
We had to go on the climbing leg next, with an O course in the middle. It took 4 hours to climb 900 feet using our ascenders. I was kinda scared but it got dark and I couldn't see anything. The top was a razor edge, with 900 feet on the left/right and you had to walk using lobster claws about 100 feet to the actual mountain. We hit one point on the O course, that was on the way to the rappell. Leslie found a huge, 5 foot Elk anter, that weighed 80pounds, and Dave and I carried it back, SHuan rappelled with it, and we got to the RV for the next leg.
Then we biked again. Up a mountain, rode through some snow, hit a very cool downhill. Leslie would want us to wait 30 seconds then go. SHaun, Dave and I would talk for a few minutes forgetting all about Leslie, then we'd go and catch up to here. I didn't were any gloves this ride, and on the way up the mountain, I got some sun on my hands, on the way down, I was starting to get hand blisters. That downhill was cool though.
Then we hiked again. Either the Crazies(a mountain range) or the Bridgers(the other one, I get them both confused). This one sucked too, and it was out last hike, on day 6, and we actually were out until dark. I was getting pretty emotionaly here, as we climbed over thousands of trees, tried to find a ranger station(to this day I still don't know where it is) and ran out of food again(yes this is the third hike I ran out of food!). My knee hurt, and I was out of it. Again, we came to a downhill swithback that dropped us 1000ft, and I swore I have been there before...but never have I been there!
We got to the river, and Dave was leading us. Whipping us again. Keep moving. Don't stop. And we felt lost(I did), but I trusted Dave. We got on this road, and saw this big SUV driving to us. It was around 4:30AM on Monday(almost a week) and the sun was just coming out. The car got closer, and we saw Cheryl in the drivers seat! Dave ran up and they kissed. Then I saw Magan in the passenger seat. And Dad popped out the back seat! THey arrived a day or two earlier. They could see our lights moving down the mountian they said. Then they said, "2 more miles and you're there!". My heart dropped. My feet hurt, my knee hurt, I was tired. I was hungry. When we did make it, we ate. I opted for a little 30 minute nap before heading to the last 30 mile bike leg to the finish. No team was in front(that was catchable). So we did.
The last 30 miles sucked for me. Having the legs, but not able to use them because the knee hurt, or falling asleep on the bike. I was very low on morale here. Dave would want to tow me, but my legs didn't need a lift, my brain did! Then when we did get going, my knee would act up. I also had to take a dump. When we finally arrived, it felt so great to have finished. I was so happy. It ended up that our last bike leg was as fast as the top teams!!!! With all that went on we still moved along.
I ate, showered, and slept after that. For 3 days. I would wake up. I would eat. I would then proceed to slumber. It took a week and a half to 'catch' up on sleep. And I'm still out of it when it comes to that.
Well, besided telling that story, I will have nothing else to talk about....except my blog now!