FOR PART 1, CLICK HERE
Dirty Deeds Run Dirt Cheap
The Aroostook Dirty 30
by Gary Allen
Part 2.
Reaching for the car door handle the thought suddenly crosses my mind
to just drive away. I figure nobody would even know I was here and I
can quietly go back to where I came from, instead I open the door with
a sure click. I am approached out of the darkness by a tall lean
figure and correctly deduct this must be the race founder and director,
Kale Poland. He greets me with a smile and a firm handshake. I meet
another female competitor who asks me if I know Kale and I say I do
not, I mention that I only learned of this event sometime in the summer
and it sounded kinda fun. (I think I heard her sigh softly) I thought,
does this mean it isn't fun? (Men always try to read things into the
little noises women make.) She explained that Kale had once done a quad or
a quint IRONMAN, just for the fun of it. I asked for a further
explanation, cause what I thought this meant surely must be different?
She confirmed that Yes, Kale had once swum 2.5 miles, biked 110 and
then had run a marathon for 4 or 5 consecutive days JUST FOR FUN!
This news re-engaged my basic flight or fight instincts and I almost
went with choice number one and got to hell out of here. This event
surely was way out of my league, thinking I am 54 years old and a
marathon runner and there is nothing much more extraordinary about me,
plus I can't swim very far, and although as the saying goes it's like
riding bicycle, it had been awhile since I actually had.
Suddenly a band of people wearing Halloween and other freakish masks
come from the building. These I later learn are TMBs whose main
purpose in life this day is to make ours hell. As in any race I study
the runners to see if there are any ringers. (You can always tell who
the fast people are.) Most of the competitors are wearing headlamps and
backpacks are all seem to be carrying a lot of stuff. I am still obsessing
about the forewarned swim part and borrow a floaty thing from the nice
women parked next to me. I had polished off my coke and eaten my banana
and had a swig of water that I had purchased from the quick mart cougar
earlier. I thought, I should be able to run 30 miles without eating and
drinking as I had done so a few times in my life with no real ill
effects.
We suddenly lined up and were off. I fell into line behind Kyle, the
winner from last year. I thought, he is wearing a headlamp and he must
know the course. The pace was easy enough but my worn out lunar racers
slipped on the wet mud of the dirt road we were running on. It had
rained overnight and there were big puddles to maneuver around. The
headlamps illuminated the puddles and give them an oily shine. We had
gone less than a mile and suddenly Kale was there and directing us to
duck under a metal railing (note: railings are usually added to keep
people out or from falling off something) into a tangle of blackberry thorns, dense
brush and alders, Kyle was still leading and he banged is way into the
brush with the vigor of an amazonian explorer being chased by a 18 foot
anaconda. I heard him cry out, arrrggh! and then silence, followed by
more silence and then splash. I scrambled over to the edge of the abyss
were I last saw him and looked over the edge and there he was laying,
half in the water and half on rocks. To me it looked like he had fallen
about 15- 20 feet. I said are you OK? He said he was bleeding. I could
see that his leg was badly gashed and he said he didn't think he had
any other major injuries but that he was out for the day. We continued
and my new running partners turned out to be Susan and Keegan. We were
instructed to follow the river. The bank was very steep and extremely
slippery not to mention the waist high tangle of brush and thorns. I
was leading our trio and asked about the trampled brush. Susan said it
was probably from Moose. (These creatures can get weigh over 1000 lbs
and are not very smart or very pleasant at times) We had gone maybe
another 1/2 mile and came upon a pile of very big bones as if a
dinosaur had died recently. The air smelled of death. ( If this was a
dead dino I thought, perhaps a meteor would hit Aroostook County and
make us go extinct too?...One could only hope!) Susan again added that maybe
a bear had killed it. I thought , Oh GREAT! Bullwinkle will trample us
to death and/or a Bear will maul us. I picked up a huge bone that I
called the Moose's femur and we continued running. The bone still had
some meat on it, it smelled really bad and it was slippery. It weighed
about 7 lbs. We'd go about 10 paces and then fall ,10 paces then fall.
Finally, we came to our first aid station. WRONG. These people were
not here to help us and one screamed get down in the mud and do
push-ups...NOW! I placed my Moose bone down beside me and quickly
complied with the instructions being barked out to me. I felt by body
rebel to the difficult exercises being force fed to us by freaks in
masks. These contortions were as foreign to my body at this time of
day, as the the French Canadian language used by many who live not far
from here.
to be continued.......
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