j-lyn's corner

We were going to go up to Mill D... except for that fresh blanket of snow and blizzard. ...Yeah. I suggested Blanche again and the guys complied. It was a slow hike up, their legs were dead, and I was enjoying the hiking training, something I feel like I've neglected training for my first 100. Then I bolted down.

Oh, and I went out only with a cup of (stevia sweetened) black coffee and a banana, wanted to see what my blood sugar would do (curious if it'd crash). It did, I had a bit of a low blood sugar attack, got all shakey and dizzy, ate a couple dates, wished I had some protein and instant sugar to stabilize myself, but kind of worked through it without the easy resources.

Sort of dumb to do that on purpose, but I figured it was an easy super slow day... In the last month I've had a hypoglycemia attack 3 times, the most severe of which was during the Zion traverse... and I thought maybe I should try go through this on the trail a few times on shorter runs just to figure out how to get through it in case something happens again when I'm out and don't have proper supplies.

SLOW and steady @ dimple dell. I really wanted to go back out to Blanche, but didn't want the achilles to get super tight (it already was tightening up again)

Wild Wire. Quite a crew too! Silly me told Leslie I'd try to pace off of her on the way up. TRY is the pertinent word. She flew up that! Women's FKT car to summit is now 35ish min. 2400ish vert in 2 miles... yikes! 

I only had green juice and eggs the whole day, and stupidly drank a soda and ate a banana on the way over. It was just asking for my blood sugar to crash. Sure enough a little over half way up I started the usual cold sweats/shakey hands/mild confusion. No biggie. Then my feet went numb. For some reason (confusion?) I thought taking my shoes off and putting them back on would magically resolve this. So I did so twice. My feet were still numb. Somehow managed to get up the darn thing in the 40-41 range (at that point I didn't really care....) Jim's been around long enough to know me and he gave me a gu which I eagerly sucked down.

Then I saw the crew starting down a diff way and I took off- fun time! I quickly passed the first couple guys and fell in line with Pete, who flew down the hills and I had a jolly time chatting with him and trying to keep up. 

slow in the clunky ultra-raptors @ corner canyon. I thought with a 6am start I wouldn't see too many bikers. Wrong! There was over 20 that I saw.

 I payed it forward by running down what I think was an "only bikes" trail. I tried to get up to where the Jacob's ladder turn-off is on the dirt road with the bathroom.... yeah, I must've taken 5 wrong turns. Oh well. 

photo shoot for trailandultrarunning.com

I emailed Craig, "Hey, do we actually have to run for this?"

"No. Maybe a mile tops."

...right.

 but it was a blast anyways. For some reason, hanging with those guys makes me feel just a bit less nervous for Bryce.