Fat Dog 120 - 2 Wace Day Willies

Tale 2 - Wace Day Willies

I'll just leave this one here:

Willies - a strong feeling of nervous apprehension and discomfort.
Nervous apprehension - Check. Discomfort - Stay tuned!

By race day, I was pretty certain I could finish 100 miles.
I discovered that tapering is this great thing to do before a race where I run less thus can't sleep because I have ALL THE ENERGY IN THE WORLD! But then I also need to eat to fuel myself, and for some strange reason I'm not hungry (but... but.. I'm always hungry...). Not sure if it's because I'm running less, or because my stomach is now home to thousands of beautiful butterflies. I did however, by some miracle, make it to race day without starving!
Finally, the tiny butterflies that have been destroying my appetite for the last week have decided to migrate on. Something about spending 40+ hours out in the wilderness and needing to eat something before that may have scared them off.
We have discovered the best pre-race breakfast, which is likely going to sound insane, but actually provides lots of salt, calories, and sits amazingly well!
Drum roll please....................................
Indian food! Complete with Naan, butter chicken, palak paneer... yum yum!
I do recommend you go for mild spice to avoid the potential for untrustworthy farts later on (there's a video I was thinking of to put a name to this phenomenon - which had me googling 'ultrarunning poop fart' - wonder what kind of targeted adds I'll get now?). Also, try it in training before you race (the food, not the farts), or... don't.

Race ready with our animal packs!

We stayed in Penticton before the race, and Chris' Uncle Kevin was kind enough to drive us out to Keremeos to jump on the bus in the morning. Alright, so we've made it to Keremeos, it's maybe 8:30 am. Race starts at 10 am.
A few weeks back we ran into some lovely relay runners out on course way-finding on legs 1 and 2, and they happened to drive on by before the bus came, and offered us a ride to the start. There were already four of them, and a dog! I guess that's the great thing about Delica's - we still managed to fit all three of us (Chris, Brad, and I) cozy in the back seat! It was quite the entertaining ride. The person in the drivers seat kept turning around to talk.. and I mean fully turning around and taking her eyes off the road for quite lengthy periods of time. I was terrified. Until I realized it was a right hand drive, and she wasn't actually the driver (haha.. ha... phew!). I really truly love the people in the trail running community.

We make it to the race start, and have plenty of time to use the washroom and check in. It's a beautiful sunny day, perfect for the beach! Perhaps a touch hot for running, and more than a wee bit smokey (BC had some wildfire madness this summer that nearly cancelled the race - but eventually it was decided the show must go on). After waiting around for what seemed like an eternity (maybe an hour?), the race started! Albeit with this ridiculously useless out and back up and down a gravel road to 'space people out.' Then we shoot over the iconic start bridge and straight uphill. Ready or not, here I come!

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