I had spaced out.

With all the excitement of our summer backpacking and camping trips, I had forgotten that the Brazen Ultra Half Championship Series requires you to run at least five of their toughest halfs, but I had only done four! That was why I found myself signing up for Drag-N-Fly, in the remote and somewhat exotic depths of the East Bay – Antioch, and on a week that promised soaring hot temperatures over the weekend.

But I was committed, and found myself getting up at 4am so I could head out to Contra Loma Regional Park around 6. My breakfast lately’s been of English Muffins with a slathering of butter and sour cherry jam. On this day I chose cream cheese instead of butter – I think that worked pretty well and tasted good as well. At 5am, nothing really seems all that tasty. Later, in the car, I usually will eat a banana about 1.5 hours before the race. Then, I’ll start on three to four Gu Chomps or Clif Shot Bloks about 1/2 hour before the start.

The staging area was perhaps the shadiest/ coolest area of the park (Sam and Jasmin know what’s up!) and parked next to a very pretty lake. I wonder if I’d be tempted to jump in after the race. It was good to see Allen and finally, Diane, who was starting to recover from her PF injuries from a few months ago.

I had barely peeked at the elevation chart prior to going into the race. Now I’m not sure whether that was a good or bad idea. 2 words kept going through my head: “hot,” and “hills.” A couple of minutes before 8am, Sam began asking about who was new to the race, and who had run the course before. He joked that it was impressive to see so many coming back.

Here I am, probably half a mile in, still somewhat fresh.

From the first mile, there was climbing in earnest.

After the first smallish hill, we rounded a corner and started downhill for a bit. Glimpsing a bit of shade, I was grateful, but could also see another climb coming right up. It was impressive. At the first aid station before that big climb, I made sure to dump a cup of water on my head and grabbed a bit of electrolyte drink. I had sworn to myself that I’d stop at every aid station that day. Temps at this point, however, were warm, but not yet too bad.

Temps started to feel bad on this exposed stretch. I also learned that we’d be coming back downhill on the same trail, which was graded fairly steeply.

It was really quite beautiful out there. Add some overcast/ cloud cover/ Karl and the race would have been somewhat fun.  If it hadn’t been for the kindness of a couple of other runners behind me, I would have gotten off-course at this point. I saw people walking in front of me, and completely spaced out on the course markings leading to the left.

After a while the course began to look like some of the hiking trails I was more familiar with – more technical – rocky and rooty. Going up was not a problem, though it was hard, and it was hot, and I began swearing to myself that I’d never do this race ever again. As usual, it was the way back down that scared me, and I made slow progress on some of the more technical downhills. I think I began to long for my hiking poles at some point.

Finally, I was on the last 3-mile stretch, heading down that last wicked 1.5-miles of 15% grade, and though it was on the descent this time, the air greeting me seemed like it came from an oven. I was run-walking at this point after the downhill, and stumbled onto the last aid station, where a kind volunteer sloshed ice water over my arms and gave me a sponge to squeeze over my head. I was glad. I desperately needed it.

And then, suddenly, I was in the chute, and doing my best to do an imitation of sprinting for the finish and hoping I wouldn’t step into any gopher holes.

After all that, I managed a time of 2:46:31, 2nd-place Age Group award, 10th female overall. Would I do this race again? Not sure yet, but I’m not swearing off it completely.

A note about photos – a scant couple are mine – the others are taken by awesome volunteer photographers we’re lucky to have at every Brazen Race. Free race photos! One of zillions of reasons why Brazen is so awesome.