Last March 2020, New Daddy started trail running at the local state park to get out of the house during quarantine. He started with two miles twice a week and within a month, he was running five. He ran his first 5k in September and breezed through. He decided he needed a real challenge, so he registered for the North Georgia Death Race. The slogan written on the swag was a skeleton with "Run. Hike. Walk. Die." Hahaha. He did run twenty miles the weekend before that, didn't fuel enough, and learned the importance of that to avoid crashing physically.
He drove himself to Amicalola State Park on Friday afternoon, grabbed some sleep until 2 AM, and then caught the shuttle to the drop-off point at Unicoi State Park. The race began at 5 AM, and they had a certain amount of time to make it to each checkpoint to consider themselves still in the race. At each checkpoint, they were cheered on, given hot quesadillas, water, candy, snacks... basically anything they needed to get on with the race. The race was 74 miles and ended 24 hours later, or 5 AM on Sunday morning.
He was straight up and down mountainsides, drinking from pristine seeps in the mountainside, scaling peaks that overlooked miles of scenery... an unforgettable experience. But, it was mostly misery. He had packed a lightweight parka that I picked up for him the day before at REI, headlamp, a space blanket, toe socks to minimize friction on his toes, compression wear, gel fuel packs, liver capsules, etc. So many things to think about.
Meanwhile, on that Saturday I was at a meeting for the upcoming school year, and hoping that he wasn't going to end the race during my meeting and I would have to go get him. I had just heard my bedtime alarm at 10:30, and I was looking forward to a lonely night of sleep.
At 10:42, the phone rang.
New Daddy was done-done. He had hustled to make the 46-mile checkpoint, and that was all he could take. His legs didn't work anymore, so he found a spot to hang out above a paved road and rest until I came. He had made it 47 miles in 17.5 hours, which was awesome! Precious, Tater, and I hopped in baby car and drove an hour and a half to his location that we could see on Live360. We arrived in the area shortly after midnight.
Except that he was near a house and didn't want to weird them out; so he wasn't on the road, but up in the woods resting above the house. We couldn't see him and drove right past him. The pavement ended, along with our cell service. After about a mile and a half of wet, barely passable gravel, we came to a 1-foot drop in the road that the low-riding Civic couldn't navigate. It had rained a lot in the previous week, and it resembled a small waterfall... in the road. Precious hopped out and walked up the road with her phone flashlight until she was barely out of my sight, yelling for New Daddy. Nothing. With no other choice, we turned back.
As soon as we reached the pavement again, our service returned. New Daddy had awoken, seen us disappear from his Live360, and realized that we didn't have service. So he started calling us, and we finally made contact seconds before we saw him walking on the same location on the road that we'd driven past thirty minutes ago.
We still didn't have adequate cell service, but we had installed a GPS/bluetooth system in the Civic. This guided us over to Amicalola, where Tater and I hopped in the truck to drive it home. He'd been awake the whole time and crashed before we were even out of the park. Precious followed us home with New Daddy in the baby car while he slept and yelled random warnings to her in his sleep, hahaha. She is turning into a great driver, and this was a really proud moment.
New Daddy came home and soaked in epsom salts for the next few days. It took him three days before he could walk normally again. He hadn't told Mimi about this ahead of time, and I wish I had a screen shot of the horrified look on her face when he told her on FaceTime the next day what he'd done. He did tell my mom the weekend before, because we were eating together when he signed up. A look passed over her face for millisecond, and then she recovered and calmly said, "I'll be praying for you." Mimi turned around and for New Daddy's birthday, ordered him a pair of Hoka trail shoes that he'd seen other runners wearing in the race. We have the best mamas.
New Daddy decided this was a totally worth it and is looking for more races. This turned into a family adventure, and it was a good lesson in sticking together and resilience.
Mid-life crisis = complete.
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