Kyrie Eleison (2023 Badwater 135 Training)

Never in a million years could I have guessed that this would be the story. Two weeks ago, after the Buckeye Trail 50K, I told Darris that what I would be doing on July 31 was a mystery to me. I could be running it, running the entire thing with my friend Darrin, or pacing Darrin from mile 65 to the finish. Darris told another friend of mine about the webcast, which I promptly told him not to watch. The thing is, I said, the webcast doesn't necessarily tell the story. It doesn't say if I fell apart, or if he fell apart, or if something's gone really wrong or really right. But in spite of it all, not a crystal ball, not a Shakespearean-era soothsayer, not a message directly from one of my loved ones above could have prepared me for this one. No, never in a million years would I have guessed where this year's story would start. Or stop. Or end. Or begin all over again. Because at 10:30 Saturday night, I found myself sitting on a park bench at Wetmore Road. *** If you read...

Last year, it was about breezes and watermelon. This year it was about mud, perseverance, Galileo, and the Velveteen Rabbit. Don't try to figure it out. Just gear up for one of Star's long emails and trust that it's makes sense at the end. So yeah, I had some goals going in. Some of those goals were quite reasonable. Some of those goals were partly for the wrong reasons. Luckily, by race day, I had been talked out of the goals for the wrong reasons by some very good friends and had my head on straight.I wanted to break 22 hours. Badly. It meant shaving 1:15 off last year's time. I knew that I lost over 30 minutes last year to "excessive time spent at aid stations." I was hoping that experience, and a strong spring and summer on the trails, would account for the other 45 minutes. After all, Burning River 2008 was only the sixth time I had ever run on trails. I planned. I warned Robin that I loved her but that I was going to move through most of the ...