Brutal Run

Snake River Canyon Run

The Snake River Half Marathon runs the first weekend of March every year. I really wanted to run it this year but spent most of February ill and wasn't able to train. By race weekend I was feeling all right, just not in competitive half marathon shape, so on Sunday (the day after the race) I drove down to Wawawai Landing and went for a run.

My plan was, instead of running along the river, to run out of the canyon. I was originally planning on running up maybe forty or so minutes then turning around, but I was feeling so good I ran all the way out of the canyon onto the Palouse! It was probably about 6.5 to 7 miles with 2,000 feet of elevation gain. Well I turned around at the top and realized, oh shit, I'm seven miles from my car, exhausted, and have no food or water. For the first several miles back down I was hurting pretty bad and my pace suffered accordingly, to the point that I seriously contemplated sticking my thumb out and hitching a ride back down the canyon. In the end though I couldn't bear to wuss out. It seems like all I ever do in my life is wuss out of things so I'm always eager for an opportunity to not wuss out.

I finally arrived back at my car after a total time a little over two hours. Foolishly I had not packed any food into my car, but I did have a Nalgene water bottle that I quickly emptied. The first priority became food so I drove immediately to the Safeway in Pullman and bought some candy bars, a bushel of bananas and some Gatorade. Then a remarkable thing happened: I fell asleep in my car. Now, for breakfast five hours previous I ate a bowl of oatmeal and drank 16 oz. of coffee, so the fact that I dozed off in my Saturn sedan in a parking lot speaks volumes to how exhausted I was.