Chapter 2: Sunday 25 August 2007

Leadville, Colorado

Oh, yeah. I was going to tell you how I got into trouble with the rats. I guess I should start at the beginning.

I reupped at the end of June and have been working hard all of July and August to make sure I'm in tip top condition. I also spent time at home; my home is a nice little cabin close to Leadville Colorado. It's not fancy, but I keep it clean, and it's a great place to unwind after "work." Of course, I only get to come here once every 15 months, between deployments. There's enough land that I can go out and shoot whenever I feel like it. Perhaps that's how I got so good at my job.

As nice as this was, I started to go a little stir-crazy by the end of August, so on a whim I decided to enter the Leadville Trail 100. I know. What a crazy-assed thing to do. I never said I was sane. Besides — lately, I'd had sort of an antsy feeling around my place; the same feeling I get when someone or something (like a puma) is watching me. I thought maybe the run would be a great way to cap off the end of my civilian career, because after I got rid of "Daddy's little bitch", I didn't plan on ever leaving my Marine family again; "Once a Marine, always a Marine!"

0330, 25 August 2007 found milling around the start area with about 450 other crazy people. I didn't think there were this many crazies in the world that would even attempt something like this, especially since more than half of them won't finish. It looked like a freak show at the fucking circus. It never ceases to amaze me what some people will wear and the colors they'll combine. It reminds me of the time in Basic Training (hereafter referred to as BT) when I got drunk and puked all over my ex-girlfriend's car.

Did I mention that I've never run 100 miles at a time in my whole life? I'd been training by running around the Leadville area. I ran 25 to 40 miles a day. At first, I didn't carry anything, but later, I carried my ACU Alice pack loaded down with about 40 kg. I'd become very comfortable with running.

One thing I never did get comfortable with, though, was running in those garish, skimpy little nylon shorts, or even worse, the nasty-looking tights, not many things shouted fag to me more than seeing a "guy" wearing either of those.

I do have to say though; there were some damn fine-looking women there this early in the morning. I didn't think women woke up this early; my ex-girlfriend never did. I sure didn't have any problem with seeing them in skimpy shorts or tights, and at least most of them weren't wearing any nasty-smelling perfume.

I'm not that old, but I've figured out a couple things about women. First, they never dress to impress or even get a man. Otherwise, they would walk around in negligees or bikinis all the time, because let's be truthful — that's what a man wants to see. Second, it's the same for their perfume; they wear it to impress other women. If a woman ever wanted to attract me with perfume, it would work much better if she smelt like bacon or Hoppes #9.

My footwear was the one "strange" thing that I did wear. Normally, you would expect a Marine to wear combat boots. I do things differently. I either run barefoot or in Vibram five-fingers¹. How did a gung-ho Marine end up running barefoot? That's a totally different story for a totally different time, but I'll tell you part of it now.

A few years back, Jack and I were loaned out to a three-letter branch of the federal government to help on drug interdiction in the Barrancas del Cobre area of Sierra Madre region of Northern Mexico. Some loco gringo that goes by the name of Caballo Blanco lived down there and made a big stink about the Mexican drug runners trying to wipe out some indigenous natives named the Tarahumara. Caballo Blanco's real name is Micah True and he used to live in Nederland, Colorado. He did some work for our federal government and had some connections.

The whole thing was huge cluster fuck from the start. The fucking Mexican federales just dropped us and then left us without any support. Not only that, they dropped us in the wrong fucking place. It took a couple of days for Caballo Blanco to find us, and when he did, I was sure that this clown was fucking crazy.

He came running up to us wearing some sort of stupid sandals on his feet made out of old tires and was followed by a couple of the Tarahumara Indians. They were all really happy to see us, and we had cordial greetings all around. We found out we needed to run for a 'few' hours to get to where our Forward Base of Operations (hereafter referred to as FBO) was. Damn, they sure run funny. It's not the normal nice, long strides like I take. It's a short, but very fast, gait. Five hours later, we dragged our butts into the FBO. I was fucking tired, but Caballo Blanco and the Indians don't even seem to be winded.

By the end of our mission, I had learned the running secret of the Tarahumara. They run like they are barefoot because essentially they are. The sandals or herache they wear don't offer any support for the foot, all they do is keep them from getting cut on the sharp stones. I've also learned some other things about running without shoes.

When you run barefoot, you run differently than when you're in shoes. You have to run on the balls of your feet, not the heels, causing three things to happen. First, you run with your knees slightly bent. Because your knees are bent, your legs end up absorbing the shock of running, not your shoes. Second, because the legs are your shock absorbers, your running becomes very smooth with short steps and at a much higher cadence (about 80 to 110 steps per minute) transmitting very little jarring motion up your body. Finally because the running cadence is higher and the jarring is less, you don't get as tired and can run further.

Getting off this rabbit trail and back to Leadville, I would just like to say that I guess I am just 'old school.' Give me my Vibram five fingers, MCCUU² pants and Devil Dog t-shirt any day.

The freak show continued as start time approached, and it seemed like everyone was going through some sort of weird gyrations they tried to call stretching. It looked to me like most of them just had ants in their pants. Don't get me wrong — I do believe in stretching, but I believe in functional stretching, such as a dog or a cat does. Watch an animal next time it gets up to move. What's the first thing it does? It stretches to prepare the muscles and the joints for any movement to come. I do exactly the same whenever possible.

I finished stretching and found myself a good starting position. I didn't really think I had any chance to win the damned race, but I sure don't want to be stuck in the back of the pack at the start.

I got tired of watching the freaks, so I lifted my gaze to the magnificent mountains. When I looked back down, I had to rub my eyes, thinking they were playing tricks on me, because I sure couldn't believe what I was seeing. Walking towards me was this drop-dead gorgeous blonde. She was about 5' 8" and looked like the quintessential girl next door crossed with the buff Linda Hamilton from "Terminator 2". No, I take that back; she was more buff than Linda Hamilton was. She was smiling a million-dollar smile, and wearing the exact same fucking uniform that I was — MCCUU pants, red Devil Dog t-shirt, Vibram five finger shoes (in pink, no less). Shit, she even has a USMC kabar³ knife on a web belt and a camo camelback. I was sure I was dreaming, because her violet eyes were trained on me.

She walked right up to me, stopping about a foot and a half from my face, and yelled, "SEMPER FI MARINE!"

My voice caught in my throat, but I managed to get out an, "Orraaahhh!"

She looked around at the circus and shook her head. "It's a shame our nice run will be spoiled by these fricken freaks. I never did care much for all the crap they said you have to buy just to go for a little run. This is what I always wear. By the way, my name is Jens." She held out her hand.

"My name's Ben," I said as I took the hand offered.

Now, if you have never shaken hands with a Recon Marine, let me warn you about it; you aren't going to get some pansy-assed little squeeze. You can expect that they will put some serious hurt into the shake, so you had better be ready for it. I knew this, but since she was a woman I didn't bear down.

She squeezed the hell out of my hand as she looked me in the eyes, and said, "What sort of half-assed handshake was that? I thought you were a Marine, but maybe you're a just another fucking poser!"

Son of a bitch.

The starting gun sounded, and we were nowhere close to the starting line. She took off running like her ass was on fire and shouted over her shoulder, "If you're a real Marine and not a fucking poser, you should be able to catch me!"

I have to say, Jens sure could run, and the view I had from the back was as good as the view from the front. This woman was crazy. She set a blistering pace, and by the time we reached the Turquoise Lake Road junction, we'd already passed over half the field. I think every one of them was upset at us. Jens didn't politely ask the other runners to get out of our way, she yelled, "Get the fuck out of my way," sometimes even adding, "asshole" to the end of her command. I would have laughed, if I wasn't doing my damnedest to stay up with her.

After the junction, we finally hit the first real 'trail' part of this trail run, and it became more of a challenge to pass the other runners. Because it was still a little dark, most of them had slowed up some, but not Jens. She was still running mach 1 with her hair on fire, and was even more vocal about the runners in our way. One old fool wouldn't move, and sure enough, she pushed him into the lake. Damn, was he mad. I was sure they would throw us both out of the race. That is, if they could catch us.

We caught the lead group about two miles from the May Queen campground on the west end of Turquoise Lake, and she finally slowed up at the back of the lead pack. As we came though the campground onto the pavement, she dropped back beside me and handed me two packets of GU energy gel and a food bar.

"We aren't stopping, so eat this shit, take a drink, and get ready. When the leaders slow up, we are going to sprint past them."

Sure enough, the whole lead pack slowed up to get some drinks, and Jens looked over at me and said, "Run your ass off you devil dog." As we blew by the aid tables she yelled, "What a bunch of fucking losers!" It scared the crap out of most of them. Several even dropped their drinks and started chasing us.

Over thirteen and a half miles done, and we were leading the race. Now on a road again, we ran side by side, and I would occasionally sneak a sideways glance at her, wondering what sort of psycho bitch I was running with.