A Sneak Peak of Javelina Jundred 100 miler 2009

This coming weekend I will be running my 3rd hundred miler this year and my first Javelina Jundred 100 miler. I am excited but also nervous. 100 miles is far!

I have a team of pacers from Arizona lined up: “E”, Nikki and Renee and know I am in good hands. I am excited to meet them and know we will have lots of fun during the second half of my 100 miler.

If you want to check up on me during the race, there will be a live webcast which can be found here or at this website:

http://www.javelinajundred.com/webcast/live_results.html

Every 15 miles (each lap) runner’s progress will be posted online. I have been assigned Bib number 174. I somehow feel I may have been this bib number before (I guess this is not overly surprising considering this is now well over my 70th event).

I will be wearing a costume including a grass skirt, Hawaiian lei, flowery gaiters, flower headband and my bottle will be decked out with a flower lei as well. My test run this past weekend with a grass skirt was successful so I am pretty sure I will be comfortable enough for the 100 miler.

In addition to the costume contest I also will be participating in a clinical study. A brief description of the study provided by the race director when soliciting for volunteers is as follows:

Tamara Hew DPM, PhD from Arizona State University will be conducting a study on hyponatremia (low blood sodium) at this year's race. She was at the Western States Endurance Run this summer conducting the same study and would like to obtain more data. The study would require four small blood samples (1 pre, 2 during, 1 post race), urine samples, sweat collection, and weigh in's on a digital scale after each loop. Her team is experienced and efficient, so it shouldn't adversely affect your race. Participation in the study will help the ultra endurance running community at large by determining how much salt is lost and how much needs to be replaced in order to prevent the development of life-threatening hyponatremia.

Having corresponded with the race director and Tami (how she spells her name) I am in the study. I know this study might be a bit challenging not only for the blood collection and wearing a 4X4 inch patch but also because they want to collect all our pee throughout the race. But I am one of three women who are willing to do this. This is good because many times in clinical studies men and women respond and are different, so at least in this study we ladies will have a bit of data collected.

In addition to my costume and the study I am most nervous about the creepy crawlies on the course. I have sent way too many e-mails to the race director asking about snakes, scorpions, pumas, bears, hantavirus, javelina’s and other animals that might attack, eat or kill me. Jamil has reassured me that so far no runners have been eaten or attacked by creatures. Sadly I am back to nervous because my pacers did a test run on the trail this past weekend and suggested they ran into a “snake”. I assume they meant a poisonous snake. Then on Sunday I was chatting with my friend Jamie and she suggested during the race she saw a Tarantula. Spiders were not even on my radar and now I have a confirmed sighting, eek!!!

Well, I have my flight, hotel, car and race entry arranged and paid for so I am committed. I fly to Phoenix on Thursday afternoon (on my favorite carrier Southwest) and arrive at Pheonix in the evening. Friday mid-day I head to the race site to volunteer for several hours. Then I will pick up my packet, partake in the pre-race pasta party and attend a presentation by Caballo Blanco one of the characters in “Born to Run”.

Then bright and early Saturday morning (although not as early as if it was on the east coast) I have to get up to run the race. Oddly enough while nearly everyone else in the US will get an extra hour of sleep on Saturday night. Oddly enough because this race is in Arizona, I won’t get my extra hour until flying home. I know I will need this extra hour after running for many hours on Saturday and Sunday.