I'm long-overdue in posting this major event from March. I didn't have any photos and since I usually look at my photos to help me reconstruct memories and then write posts, it wasn't until I got photos courtesy of my mother-in-law that I was finally able to toot Damon's horn for him.
Sometime last fall or winter, Damon's brother Justin (seen below on the left) convinced Damon to join him for a 50k race in the Tri-Cities area (3 hours east of White Salmon), the Badger Mountain Challenge. 50k people! I did not accidentally add a zero in there. That's about 31 miles. Damon has NEVER run a marathon in his life. I wondered how he would train through the winter for this end-of-March run, but he proved me wrong by setting out in the dark on snowy roads and getting in late-night or early-morning runs.
Sometime last fall or winter, Damon's brother Justin (seen below on the left) convinced Damon to join him for a 50k race in the Tri-Cities area (3 hours east of White Salmon), the Badger Mountain Challenge. 50k people! I did not accidentally add a zero in there. That's about 31 miles. Damon has NEVER run a marathon in his life. I wondered how he would train through the winter for this end-of-March run, but he proved me wrong by setting out in the dark on snowy roads and getting in late-night or early-morning runs.
Damon's parents came up from California and Justin flew in from Colorado for the weekend of the big run. We all drove to Richland where the 6 of us stayed with some friends while the other McMillans checked into a hotel. Then, up early on Saturday morning, we dropped off the runners and wished them well as they set off into the drizzly gray dawn. (The kids were actually all still asleep back at our friends' house.)
Mid-day and mid-race, we camped out at an aid station until both Justin and Damon (separated by a bit of time) came chugging through. They were past the halfway point by then, but I was still praying Damon would make it through the rest of the course. He had been plagued by a knee injury from some snowy playground play back in January, and I didn't want him to cause any permanent damage by pushing himself too far. The trail went up and down mountains and was much rougher than he anticipated--lots of rocks on the trail.
We missed Justin's arrival at the finish line while we were eating a late lunch. He was just too darn fast. We made it in time for Damon's finish, and I about started crying when I saw him come over the top of the hill and begin to make his way down the final descent and into the park where we were waiting. I was so proud of his major accomplishment--and that he was still running!
Hurrah!! Finishers!!
End Note: One advantage of blogging about this so late is that I can share a little story from last weekend. We've moved recently and so are meeting new people. I happened to tell someone about Damon's 50k in the course of a conversation about a very interesting book I'm reading about long-distance running (Born to Run). The next time I had a conversation with this person we were at a swimming pool and I mentioned the 1.1 mile Cross-Channel Swim across the Columbia River that I did last year. This person now thinks that Damon and I are some kind of extreme sport enthusiast super-achievers. ha ha! So much for first impressions. If I only he knew us better. I think we may be due to disappoint.
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