I sat in my car shaking uncontrollably. Soaking wet, plastic tech t-shirt plastered against my torso. My left hand rested against the blowers, heat bringing feeling back into my fingers; the other held a baby wipe, smearing mud off my lower legs. It rippled like ochre peanut butter smeared upon thin bread.
I peeled off my wet clothes and, for a moment, leaned forward half-naked in the drivers seat, head bent against the wheel. I listened with my eyes closed as the rain pattered against the car, the wind blowing off the Sierra Nevada foothills in wave-like crescendos.
I’d finished the Way Too Cool 50K a few minutes earlier. And in 20 hours I would toe the line for the Napa Marathon with the goal of completing a trail 50K and road marathon in a single weekend. Or to complete the “Frogs to Grapes Challenge”, as my friend Rebecca Murillo pithily labeled it. (Cool is famous for offering frog-shaped cupcakes at the finish line.)
I’m not quite sure why exactly I decided to…
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