Facing my fears and overcoming my challenges
I feel like it was less than a month after Fuego y Agua 2013 this year that my brother called me to tell me that he had come up with a new race concept/idea and was going to implement it in October. That idea was Hunter Gatherer Survival race, a sister race to Fuego y Agua survival race. I thought it was a brilliant idea and told him I would be there to run it.
As the year went by and I had so many wedding preparations I changed my status to volunteer for the race instead. Josué kept insisting I would run in it. As the time crept closer and closer and the wedding took precedence, my training was non-existent save a couple of 5 milers a month and a bike ride here and there. I bought my plane ticket because even if I wasn't going to participate in the run I was determined to be there for my brother's race. I told Josué that I was definitely not running it and that I would definitely be a volunteer, but even then he was tight lipped about any of the race challenges and did not remove my name from the runner's list.
About a week before I was to leave for the race, I kept thinking to myself why I didn't want to do this race. I had so many great excuses, I wasn't trained, I had no clue how to make fire, I hadn't done the things I needed to do to prepare, I had a corneal abrasion in my left eye and it was hard to run with glasses, the list went on. All of a sudden as I was riding my bike, I realized that I was actually afraid to do it, I was afraid of failure and the unknown.
As the year went by and I had so many wedding preparations I changed my status to volunteer for the race instead. Josué kept insisting I would run in it. As the time crept closer and closer and the wedding took precedence, my training was non-existent save a couple of 5 milers a month and a bike ride here and there. I bought my plane ticket because even if I wasn't going to participate in the run I was determined to be there for my brother's race. I told Josué that I was definitely not running it and that I would definitely be a volunteer, but even then he was tight lipped about any of the race challenges and did not remove my name from the runner's list.
About a week before I was to leave for the race, I kept thinking to myself why I didn't want to do this race. I had so many great excuses, I wasn't trained, I had no clue how to make fire, I hadn't done the things I needed to do to prepare, I had a corneal abrasion in my left eye and it was hard to run with glasses, the list went on. All of a sudden as I was riding my bike, I realized that I was actually afraid to do it, I was afraid of failure and the unknown.
The next day during my lunch break I ordered a Mora bushcraft carbon steel knife, "just in case". The knife arrived a day and a half before I left and that's when I texted Josué and told him if he didn't mind, could I please change my mind and run the 50k survival run? He didn't answer but I knew that he expected me to do it all along. My flight left on Friday morning at 6:45am and on Thursday night I was doing what I do best: procrastinated packing. This entails cramming a bunch of stuff into a bag at the last minute and hoping I have everything when I arrive. I hadn't read any of the lists on the website so I printed all the info, the plant ID stuff and ran around after work picking up a glow stick and para-cord from Wal-mart, a waterproof headlamp at the outdoor store and then looking through my camping gear for my steri-pen which I'm glad I didn't find by the way, after seeing the water we had to purify! I ended up having to take my Katahdin pump filter which was a lot heavier and bulkier than the steri-pen but didn't require batteries, and I heard several runners say their steri-pens malfunctioned after the river swim. My husband came home from work on Thursday night and saw me frantically stuffing stuff into my bag and then he saw the para-cord and said, "wait, you're running the race?!" He knows me well enough to know that I am super stubborn and didn't try and dissuade me.
The next morning, 3:30am came too quickly and my friend was here to drive me to the airport. During my flight, I read the lists over and over and read the plant identification over and over wondering what my brother had in store for us! My layover in Dallas ended up being longer due to plane delays and I started worrying about making it on time to packet pickup at 5. I had just found out that Camp Eagle was 2.5 hours drive from San Antonio and I still had no food for the race! Once I arrived at STA I could not for the life of me find my reservation number for the rental car and ended up taking the wrong shuttle to the wrong rental car place. I finally got my car, found a Wal-mart, rushed around grabbing fruit, jerky, bars, coconut water, snake bite kits, magnesium, and some other supplies for the race. Once I got on highway 10 I looked at the GPS and my ETA was 4:50pm, I thought there was no way I would make it on time for packet pickup! I even received a text from Josué, "Don't be late for packet pickup, 5pm sharp, bring your knife". I was not dressed for running at all and although I do not recommend this, I did change completely while driving (legally) 80mph. Thank God for straight Texas roads and 80mph! I'm pretty sure that I would have gotten a ticket for indecent exposure if a cop would have seen me.
As I drove my GPS time had changed to 4:00pm and I started to relax a little, so when I saw a sign that said 'The Best Deer Jerky in Texas' I couldn't resist! I have to say that part of Texas is so beautiful, it's a different kind of beauty but it's amazing and feels so remote. I arrived at camp eagle office at 3:55pm and signed in, got my bracelet and headed over to see where my cabin was. Josué was in his room looking super busy and after a quick hug and hello I headed over to see who my cabin mates were. Lo and behold, I knew most of them and ended up with some good old friends and met some good new ones. The excitement, and anxiety in the air was palpable and then it was 5pm.
Our packet pickup challenge was to carry a log (huge and heavy) for about 1.5 miles up to the top of a hill across the river where we would be given our race number. At the top we would leave the log and carve our race number into it for the next day. My log I named 'Margarita' and tried to make friends with the fact that I would probably be carrying it again the next day so I might as well enjoy it! The terrain was rough and rugged but I made it! I quickly carved a '50' into it and ran down the other side of the hill down to the river. I waded to the other side of the river and started down the trail back to the start line when Sharpie told me to keep following the flags. I kept going, caught up with Chris Dutton and together we realized that we were headed the wrong way so we doubled back and got back to the pavilion to get our packets. At the pre-race dinner that night, Josué gave everyone the run-down on the race the next day without telling us what challenges we would have. He just said, don't give up just because you can't pass one of the challenges, just do your best. And that's what I decided to do. I went to bed around 9pm and got a little bit of sleep even though there was a lot of ruckus between teenagers outside the cabin ( planted by Josué?) and snoring, and dragging of mattresses, and slamming of doors and all kinds of other noises! I rolled out of bed at 2:30am for gear check at 3:15. I decided wisely to wear running tights because I know my brother and I knew he would have us climbing something at some point! Plus a cold front was supposed to come in that day.
Due to some unforeseen event, the race start was pushed back 30 mins and then the race started! The first task was to make our running footwear. Luna sandals. I knew from the bib pickup the day before that the terrain was rugged, rocky and rough, and I know my brother! I made my sandals pretty quickly and was the second person to leave the start line, with Corrine right behind me. The first couple of hours were frustrating with the sandals, the strap kept stretching and they kept coming untied. At some point during the day I finally tied them so tight and wove them around so much that they stayed that way till the end of the race. I think that for the first 4 hours, I literally had to adjust my sandals at least every 10 mins. After picking up 'Margarita' at the top of the hill I had to carry her down to the river, where I put a life vest on her and was told to swim/wade over two spillways to the next checkpoint. In my head I thought oh this will be short, but no, it was a little over a mile! I stayed with Tyler Tomasello through most of the swim which helped keep my mind off of all the possible leeches and snakey things that could be in the water below. Only a little frog jumped in my face so it wasn't bad and I didn't swim through any leech nests. 'Margarita' my log, kept slipping out of the PFD and once she sank to the bottom of the duck weed forrest. My sandals kept coming untied and at one point I got so tangled up in the duckweed that I panicked. I felt like I was in a horror film and that the plants were alive and pulling me down. After thrashing about for a bit, I finally fought through that tangle and made it over the second spillway/dam to the checkpoint where I was given my first bead. I was thankful to say goodbye to Margarita at that point! After several miles of running and stopping every 5 minutes to adjust and re-tie my sandals, I came to a hole in the ground and a volunteer told me that the next challenge was to crawl around in the cave and memorize 7 symbols. I had been running with Chris Dutton and John Taylor at that time followed Chris Dutton down into the cave and found all the symbols. I ended up carving them into a little rock with another little rock so I didn't forget them. Tyler Tomasello was on his way out of the cave and said ''watch out for the snake''! Luckily I only saw bats and frogs in there and I passed the memorization test no problem and left that checkpoint with my first amulet 'fail'.
At that point I was in 4th or 5th place and Corinne was in 1st! On the next leg of the run, I was coming down a steep hill when I saw Corinne coming up the hill and realized that I must have made a mistake and skipped a part of the course! So I had to backtrack with Dalton who had caught up to us and made the same mistake. We turned around and found the spot where we went off course. We fixed the spot so no other runners would make the same mistake but apparently some already had! At the next checkpoint we had a plant challenge where we had to make a water vessel out of a prickly pear cactus and answer a short quiz on its medicinal properties, I knew how to do that and also passed the throwing stick challenge, I received 1 more bead and found out later I was supposed to have 2. I left that checkpoint with my throwing stick and was told to collect timber for a fire at the next checkpoint. In my ignorance, I picked a bundle of twigs! ha ha. I found out, that is not the way to start a bowdrill fire! Once I arrived at the fire making checkpoint, I caught up to many of the runners trying to start their fires. Some had breezed through because of prior practice and some were still struggling to get that little ember. After 4 different bows, countless 'cap stones', about 5 spindles, many 'firesticks' with little holes burned into them, and hours of struggling and frustration, I finally went into one of the tipis to see if I could be inspired by the atmosphere of the natives and told myself, "I will carve the perfect air notch into this wood and I will succeed", I drilled and drilled and lo and behold a perfect little orange ember, which I dumped into the timber nest. I can't quite explain the feeling of amazement, exhilaration, relief, and amazement that I had at that moment. I screamed "i did it!" over and over and ran out of the tipi with my flaming nest. I won't lie, I had some tears of joy. Luckily, Isaiah was still there and he had just completed his fire challenge in an hour less than me with the same emotional response. So he finished his stick throw, which I had failed, and we took off together for Prospector's cabin. We ran pretty steadily along some jeep roads and bushwhacked as fast as we could to try and make up for the lost time we had spent at the fire making challenge. We saw the cabin but we had to loop around and go back and forth several times before getting to a steep climb up to the cabin. On the previous checkpoint we had been told to collect Algerita and Juniper on our way to the cabin. The challenges at the cabin were easy: a quiz on the medicinal properties of the plants, which I got 100% and then making a rope from yucca, which I had learned to do a long time ago. The guys there instructed us to cut a bow stave and make a bow before the next checkpoint. We were also told that a cutoff time was approaching so we took off quickly for the next checkpoint. By the time we arrived to the last checkpoint it was very dark and a group of other runners greeted us by saying, "welcome to the 7th circle of hell", I thought "uh oh", but tried to ignore the fact that they were trying to drag travois they had just made with 150 lbs of rocks. The volunteers told me that I needed to climb a tree to cut down arrows and had to complete two bow shooting challenges and build a travois. At this point I heard that no one had gone on to do the 100k which I had suspected would happen after seeing the terrain, and that the cutoff time was approaching quickly. I climbed the tree easily and cut my arrows down. The bow challenge was tough because the wind had picked up quite a bit by this time and it was pitch black. The only light I had was my headlamp. Isaiah was up in the tree trying to get his arrows when I heard a crack, a yell and a crash, so we all went over to see if he was ok. A branch had broken and luckily he had caught himself on another branch. We finished our challenge without the travois and left that checkpoint with another guy named Justin
The next morning, 3:30am came too quickly and my friend was here to drive me to the airport. During my flight, I read the lists over and over and read the plant identification over and over wondering what my brother had in store for us! My layover in Dallas ended up being longer due to plane delays and I started worrying about making it on time to packet pickup at 5. I had just found out that Camp Eagle was 2.5 hours drive from San Antonio and I still had no food for the race! Once I arrived at STA I could not for the life of me find my reservation number for the rental car and ended up taking the wrong shuttle to the wrong rental car place. I finally got my car, found a Wal-mart, rushed around grabbing fruit, jerky, bars, coconut water, snake bite kits, magnesium, and some other supplies for the race. Once I got on highway 10 I looked at the GPS and my ETA was 4:50pm, I thought there was no way I would make it on time for packet pickup! I even received a text from Josué, "Don't be late for packet pickup, 5pm sharp, bring your knife". I was not dressed for running at all and although I do not recommend this, I did change completely while driving (legally) 80mph. Thank God for straight Texas roads and 80mph! I'm pretty sure that I would have gotten a ticket for indecent exposure if a cop would have seen me.
As I drove my GPS time had changed to 4:00pm and I started to relax a little, so when I saw a sign that said 'The Best Deer Jerky in Texas' I couldn't resist! I have to say that part of Texas is so beautiful, it's a different kind of beauty but it's amazing and feels so remote. I arrived at camp eagle office at 3:55pm and signed in, got my bracelet and headed over to see where my cabin was. Josué was in his room looking super busy and after a quick hug and hello I headed over to see who my cabin mates were. Lo and behold, I knew most of them and ended up with some good old friends and met some good new ones. The excitement, and anxiety in the air was palpable and then it was 5pm.
Our packet pickup challenge was to carry a log (huge and heavy) for about 1.5 miles up to the top of a hill across the river where we would be given our race number. At the top we would leave the log and carve our race number into it for the next day. My log I named 'Margarita' and tried to make friends with the fact that I would probably be carrying it again the next day so I might as well enjoy it! The terrain was rough and rugged but I made it! I quickly carved a '50' into it and ran down the other side of the hill down to the river. I waded to the other side of the river and started down the trail back to the start line when Sharpie told me to keep following the flags. I kept going, caught up with Chris Dutton and together we realized that we were headed the wrong way so we doubled back and got back to the pavilion to get our packets. At the pre-race dinner that night, Josué gave everyone the run-down on the race the next day without telling us what challenges we would have. He just said, don't give up just because you can't pass one of the challenges, just do your best. And that's what I decided to do. I went to bed around 9pm and got a little bit of sleep even though there was a lot of ruckus between teenagers outside the cabin ( planted by Josué?) and snoring, and dragging of mattresses, and slamming of doors and all kinds of other noises! I rolled out of bed at 2:30am for gear check at 3:15. I decided wisely to wear running tights because I know my brother and I knew he would have us climbing something at some point! Plus a cold front was supposed to come in that day.
Due to some unforeseen event, the race start was pushed back 30 mins and then the race started! The first task was to make our running footwear. Luna sandals. I knew from the bib pickup the day before that the terrain was rugged, rocky and rough, and I know my brother! I made my sandals pretty quickly and was the second person to leave the start line, with Corrine right behind me. The first couple of hours were frustrating with the sandals, the strap kept stretching and they kept coming untied. At some point during the day I finally tied them so tight and wove them around so much that they stayed that way till the end of the race. I think that for the first 4 hours, I literally had to adjust my sandals at least every 10 mins. After picking up 'Margarita' at the top of the hill I had to carry her down to the river, where I put a life vest on her and was told to swim/wade over two spillways to the next checkpoint. In my head I thought oh this will be short, but no, it was a little over a mile! I stayed with Tyler Tomasello through most of the swim which helped keep my mind off of all the possible leeches and snakey things that could be in the water below. Only a little frog jumped in my face so it wasn't bad and I didn't swim through any leech nests. 'Margarita' my log, kept slipping out of the PFD and once she sank to the bottom of the duck weed forrest. My sandals kept coming untied and at one point I got so tangled up in the duckweed that I panicked. I felt like I was in a horror film and that the plants were alive and pulling me down. After thrashing about for a bit, I finally fought through that tangle and made it over the second spillway/dam to the checkpoint where I was given my first bead. I was thankful to say goodbye to Margarita at that point! After several miles of running and stopping every 5 minutes to adjust and re-tie my sandals, I came to a hole in the ground and a volunteer told me that the next challenge was to crawl around in the cave and memorize 7 symbols. I had been running with Chris Dutton and John Taylor at that time followed Chris Dutton down into the cave and found all the symbols. I ended up carving them into a little rock with another little rock so I didn't forget them. Tyler Tomasello was on his way out of the cave and said ''watch out for the snake''! Luckily I only saw bats and frogs in there and I passed the memorization test no problem and left that checkpoint with my first amulet 'fail'.
At that point I was in 4th or 5th place and Corinne was in 1st! On the next leg of the run, I was coming down a steep hill when I saw Corinne coming up the hill and realized that I must have made a mistake and skipped a part of the course! So I had to backtrack with Dalton who had caught up to us and made the same mistake. We turned around and found the spot where we went off course. We fixed the spot so no other runners would make the same mistake but apparently some already had! At the next checkpoint we had a plant challenge where we had to make a water vessel out of a prickly pear cactus and answer a short quiz on its medicinal properties, I knew how to do that and also passed the throwing stick challenge, I received 1 more bead and found out later I was supposed to have 2. I left that checkpoint with my throwing stick and was told to collect timber for a fire at the next checkpoint. In my ignorance, I picked a bundle of twigs! ha ha. I found out, that is not the way to start a bowdrill fire! Once I arrived at the fire making checkpoint, I caught up to many of the runners trying to start their fires. Some had breezed through because of prior practice and some were still struggling to get that little ember. After 4 different bows, countless 'cap stones', about 5 spindles, many 'firesticks' with little holes burned into them, and hours of struggling and frustration, I finally went into one of the tipis to see if I could be inspired by the atmosphere of the natives and told myself, "I will carve the perfect air notch into this wood and I will succeed", I drilled and drilled and lo and behold a perfect little orange ember, which I dumped into the timber nest. I can't quite explain the feeling of amazement, exhilaration, relief, and amazement that I had at that moment. I screamed "i did it!" over and over and ran out of the tipi with my flaming nest. I won't lie, I had some tears of joy. Luckily, Isaiah was still there and he had just completed his fire challenge in an hour less than me with the same emotional response. So he finished his stick throw, which I had failed, and we took off together for Prospector's cabin. We ran pretty steadily along some jeep roads and bushwhacked as fast as we could to try and make up for the lost time we had spent at the fire making challenge. We saw the cabin but we had to loop around and go back and forth several times before getting to a steep climb up to the cabin. On the previous checkpoint we had been told to collect Algerita and Juniper on our way to the cabin. The challenges at the cabin were easy: a quiz on the medicinal properties of the plants, which I got 100% and then making a rope from yucca, which I had learned to do a long time ago. The guys there instructed us to cut a bow stave and make a bow before the next checkpoint. We were also told that a cutoff time was approaching so we took off quickly for the next checkpoint. By the time we arrived to the last checkpoint it was very dark and a group of other runners greeted us by saying, "welcome to the 7th circle of hell", I thought "uh oh", but tried to ignore the fact that they were trying to drag travois they had just made with 150 lbs of rocks. The volunteers told me that I needed to climb a tree to cut down arrows and had to complete two bow shooting challenges and build a travois. At this point I heard that no one had gone on to do the 100k which I had suspected would happen after seeing the terrain, and that the cutoff time was approaching quickly. I climbed the tree easily and cut my arrows down. The bow challenge was tough because the wind had picked up quite a bit by this time and it was pitch black. The only light I had was my headlamp. Isaiah was up in the tree trying to get his arrows when I heard a crack, a yell and a crash, so we all went over to see if he was ok. A branch had broken and luckily he had caught himself on another branch. We finished our challenge without the travois and left that checkpoint with another guy named Justin
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