I was really wound up about running "The Belt" this year!  I'd been at altitude in Colorado the previous weekend doing an off road X-Terra and I've heard it said that coming home after altitude can enhance your race.  So, the evening before "The Belt", I rested with a loop 360 bike ride followed by a swim in Quarry Lake.  I got in bed at 9:30 and set my alarm for 6 A.M. with all my stuff laid out.  (i just live a mile from the start).  Well, by 4:30 A.M.  i had not fallen asleep.  Frustrated from laying awake for so long, I switched off the alarm and decided to can the race.  (this psychologically put me right to sleep).  

I woke up at 6:35 feeling guilty about backing out, jumped into my running shorts, taped up my foot and plowed out of my driveway.  By the time i got my chip tied on, I was crossing the starting line at 7 A.M. on the nose!  This made me the last starter.  I was off, feeling great and my first victim  was the Fife-and-Drum Corps.  (well, 2 girls and a guy carrying a very large American Flag).   By the time i hit Sculptured Falls an urgent calling beckoned and I ducked into the bushes.  That sudden weight loss gave me a surge that blasted me to the top of the "Hill of Life" where I had breakfast at the International House of Gu.  My waiters and waitresses were attentive and the Gu was served hot and fresh.  By the time I'd run another three miles, the fatigue started to make me delusional.  I dreamed I had reached an all-girl aid station named "Aid Station Number 2.  I promptly invited them all to a private post race celebration party in my Jacuzzi atop my world tower and I asked the prettiest one to help me find my Congressional Medal of Honor that I seemed to have dropped somewhere along the trail.  

Was it a hallucination?  Must have been, because reality had set in when I reached the aid station known as "Peace Train", "Moonshadow", "Wild World" or something like that.  Great service.  They asked for my vote for best aid station.  I told them that I was a card carrying "Station 2" voter but I wasn't totally sure that Station 2 really happened...  

The rain from the night before had helped by cooling the temp, giving us a mostly overcast event and gotten rid of the dust, but it had created some pretty slick conditions.  I held on and crossed the finish line in 4:29.  Nothing competitive but think of the calories burned!  An exciting and memorable event thanks to Steve, Joe, all volunteers and 5 equally fantastic aid stations, but I still wonder if that the aid station award went to a mirage???