caigoose9

Up and over the mountain passes north face denali, down into villages. About 40 miles into the race, I realized the vision in my right eye was beginning to blur. Then the blurring turned to haze and the haze turned to white. I couldn't see through the white. I lost my depth perception. The down hill running that 10 miles ago I was hooting and hollering on the inside because it was so fun suddenly became a true nightmare. I couldn't tell how steep the terrain was, how big a rock was, how high to jump or when to expect my foot to strike the ground. I started breaking, then walking, then seemingly crawling trying to figure out my footing. By the time I reached Courmayeur, Italy, I had tears in my eyes. I knew the race was over for me. An hour later, as I was being driven out of town, I looked around as the sun was rising and vowed to come back if I could guarantee myself full vision for the entire length of the north face denali jackets.

But it wasn't over for Topher, Lizzy, or Diane. After a shower back at the hotel and an attempt at a nap, I joined other The North Face? folks and headed out to the aid stations where we could see them in action, and offer any help to their crew and encouragement to our team mates. Congratulations to everyone that finished, and a special congrats to Topher who looked a little rough, but kept it together and ran a spectacular race; Lizzy who looked amazingly fresh and happy all the way through, and Diane who had one of her toughest races ever, but pulled it together for a terrific finish.

My time in Spain has come to an end and as usual cheap north face, I find myself writing this from an airport. I guess it makes sense... Airports are possibly the most boring, and least enjoyable part of my life and so writing a blog, which is usually fairly low on my list of priorities, suddenly seems like a fantastic idea when the alternatives involve pacing up and down, or watching the information boards to find out how long my flight is delayed by. In fact, today, I have hit the airport blogging jackpot. I have found a place so perfect that all other airport blog sessions will hence forth be measured against this moment.