That's right! You heard me correctly! I endured 15 miles of rocky trail, 26 miles of monotonous flatness, and 9 more miles of hills for a lousy sticker...that I had to pay for too! Why? Because it's a symbol of status in the running community and we JFK finishers like to wear it proud on our cars. Who cares about the medal? Yeah, I know the 3 medals was enough to lure me into the Maryland Double Dare this year and is also my main incentive for wanting to do the Disney Goofy and a Half Challenge. Ok let's face it, we runners come up with the stupidest reasons to run any race. The sticker and the MCRRC JFK shirts with funny sayings on the back was enough reason for me to endure this feat. Enough about why I did it, here's how the race went:
I ate an insane amount of carbs on Friday to prepare for this race. I usually just try to eat a little extra and throw a pasta dish in there for marathons, but I knew I had to really take carbo-loading seriously for this race if I didn't want to burn out. I had a bagel for breakfast. Lunch consisted of pasta, a baked potato, Sunchips, and pretzels. And I had almost half a pizza for dinner. I went to bed at 8 pm (although probably didn't fall asleep until 9:30) in preparation for my 3:15 am wakeup.
I managed to shove down a banana, a bagel, and two waffles for breakfast that morning. Hai got to my house at 4 and we were off our way to Boonsboro in pitch black darkness. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I would be spending practically the whole day running and how it would be just as dark on the way there as on our way home. The drive up there reminded us very much of going skiing.
We got to the high school really early, which is good because we avoided the 5 am starters that would be coming up that road. We sat in the gym and waited for fellow MCRRC runners to meet up for our group picture and for announcements from the race director. When I went to use the bathroom, I was shocked to see a line for the men's bathroom and absolutely no one in the women's bathroom for the first time in my life. The ratio of men to women for JFK is quite disproportionate, which I kind of noticed from how much more enthusiastic some of the spectators were towards the women runners than the men.
After the announcements, everyone headed out of the gym towards the race start (which was quite a walk away). We struck up a conversation with a fellow MCRRC runner named Iva while waiting for the race to start. To get to the Appalachian Trail, we had to run the first 3ish miles on paved road with lots of hills. Everyone took this portion easily, walking up most of the hills. No point in wasting that much energy so early on in the race. We managed to find Andrea, a runner we met at the Baltimore marathon, who did all the marathons we did this year plus some more! We tried to stick with her since she's done several JFK's and seemed to know what she was doing, but we lost her on the trails.
We did a practice run of the AT portion of the race with MCRRC on Nov 7, and let me just say this trail scared me so much that I went home and bought health insurance, which I haven't had since April. With my shoes laced tighter and the security of health insurance this time around, I faced the AT with new confidence, figuring I had nothing to lose. I was surprised to see how much less intimidating the trail was if you just believed in yourself. That and the fact that I didn't want to lose Hai as he blazed past all these runners. I then ended up ahead of him and slowed down to try to find him because I knew there was no way I would find him on the towpath. One fall, two almost falls, two stubbed toes, and several twisted ankles later, I made it out of the AT alive and was treated to our special MCRRC aid station where I loosened my shoelaces in preparation for the 35 mile run to follow. At the main aid station, I shoved down a PBJ sandwich and Coke before heading out to the C&O canal. Every aid station offered pretzels, chips, cookies, candy, water, Gatorade, and Coke and every few aid stations offered more food. There was something about the mix of sugar, caffeine, and carbonation in Coke that was so satisfying and rejuvenating to me that I took a cup at every aid station and swear I probably drank a 12 pack of Coke by the end of the day.
Although the towpath is scenic, every JFK runner will tell you that it gets old and monotonous really quickly. In order to survive this portion, you have to come up with a run/walk strategy and we decided to go with a 10 min run/2 min walk. We ran into Iva around mile 18 and she decided to run with us. At around mile 23, Iva and I lost Hai, who had started cramping and slowing down. Although I was sad to have lost him because we planned to trek through this experience together, I didn't know how far behind he was (and could not stop for long due to risk of getting cold and having my muscles tighten up) and didn't want to lose Iva. When it comes down to it, every runner has to run their own race and we haven't managed to stick together for many races due to our differences in speed and endurance abilities. Hai has more of the former, I have more of the latter.
As the miles passed, it became harder to keep up the 10 run/2 walk strategy, so we revised our plan to 8 min run/2 min walk. I did not even pay attention to the miles and the only thing that kept me going was counting down the 8 minutes until the next time I got to walk. I had Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" stuck in my head this whole effing time and probably overplayed this song for myself without even actually listening to it! We picked up a few other runners here and there and had a big group going for a while but Iva and I both decided their pace was too fast for us and left them. I cursed Iva at every aid station for blazing through them so quickly and then realized this is probably how Hai felt during the Baltimore marathon when I barely gave him a chance to sip his water before running off again.
Sunny, my and Hai's coach, was in charge of the mile 38 MCRRC aid station and was supposed to pick us up there and help pace us to the finish line. When she saw me, she asked where Hai was and I told her I lost him. She was then concerned about whether to run with me or with Hai, so I told her, "Hai needs you more than I do. I'll be okay." I had some of the delicious potatoes Sunny made for the MCRRCers and headed off with Iva and another MCRRCer, who was not doing JFK but just running with us to keep us company. We finally finished the towpath portion, and they gave us neon orange safety vests for the 8.4 miles to go on the road. It was exciting to hit the road because there were signs counting down the miles left to go.
Our strategy for the road portion was to walk up all the hills and run whatever portion we could, welcoming walking breaks as much as needed. By the time my feet hit the paved road, it was such a different feeling from the dirt towpath covered with leaves that I started to feel the pain and swelling in my feet. In fact, my feet were so swollen that they were numb because my shoelaces were cutting off my circulation. I hit my ultimate lowest point of the race between miles 43 to 44 and almost started to cry. I was hungry, I had had to pee since mile 38, my feet were in so much pain, and we had just hit the 9th hour of this ridiculous journey. I finally stopped at 44 and loosened my shoelaces and my feet felt so much better. I stopped right in front of a kid holding a cup at the water stop and just bent over and untied my shoelaces while he was trying to offer me his cup. An adult came over and told the kid that the runners were delusional at this point, so don't force anything on them and to let them come to him. I was so mentally exhausted at that point that I didn't care to argue and just carried on my shoelace business and went off on my way. At mile 46, I found my porta-pot, fueled up on more Coke, water, and a gu. This rejuvenated my energy but my body was in so much physical pain to actually exert any more than I had been.
When we passed the sign that marked 1 mile to finish, I was ecstatic, thinking that I'd never get there. With the end in sight, Carl (our MCRRC friend) told Iva and me, "This is it, guys! You guys are finished" to which I delusionally just kept saying "Shut up! You're joking! No way!" When I finally realized that this really was it (aka when the saw the official time clock and timing mat), I got so excited that I ignored the pain in my swollen feet and knees for 10 seconds and sprinted across the finish line, clocking in an official time of 10:19:24. I received my medal and was congratulated by Cathy, the person who manages our MCRRC JFK group. I then ran into Khoa and Quin, who had unfortunately missed me by a few minutes.
I headed to the gym to get my bag, layer on more clothes, grab my slice of pizza and cup of noodles, and, of course, buy my JFK sticker. The most amazing feeling after any race is taking your shoes off and it was especially great after 50 miles. I then went outside to wait for Hai to finish, plopping myself flat out on the hill and using my bag as a pillow. We ended our race in Williamsport and had the nooks drive us back to Boonsboro. They then treated us to dinner at Golden Corral in Frederick, where Hai and I were stiff as boards and walked like penguins and got weird stares (not sure whether from the way we were walking or from wearing our medals into the restaurant). Thank you so much nooks for coming out to support us!
I was not sleepy when I got home and stayed up til 1 (awake for 22 hours!), in hopes of exhausting myself into passing out and having a good sleep because after Baltimore, I was so sore that I could not get into a comfortable position and woke up several times during the night. Although I did sleep through the night, my body is so used to early Sunday morning runs that I can't sleep past 7:25 am. This morning, it felt like I'd been hit by a bus in my sleep. My feet and knees were still swollen, but nothing that ice couldn't fix.
