Alex Ishida

Day 2

Everything hurts.

Just finished day 2. Yesterday we ran 32 miles through towns and mountains. We left early in the morning around 4 am. Sleeping and waking up wasn’t a problem since I’m still jet lagged and the first thirteen miles I felt good considering the hot weather. First hill was where I started walking. Knowing I still had a long ways to go I made sure not to push myself too hard too early. Down hill felt good until I felt it in my quads and that’s when I felt the lack of training kick in. Started having issues with my hip and my legs were heavier. The sun had started coming up at this point and you could really feel the heat. From there on it was just trying to push through as much as I could and walk until I felt like I could run again. Thankfully I had my friend Duy alongside my the whole way. We have aid stations every 5k but each station kept feeling further and further away as the day went on. It felt like we weren’t really going anywhere at certain points but it was never dull. Never having been in a country like Haiti everything was new and it was a visual rollercoaster. From the towns and seeing how people lived and went on with their day and the beautiful scenes of nature there was never a dull moment. Theres lots of cows and goats just chillin’ everywhere which is cool. We were the last ones but eventually we finally got to the finish and greeted with a warm welcome by our crew and the school kids at the school house where we would be spending the night.

Day 2 I woke up and everything still hurt. But I slept well considering we slept on concrete floors. I didn’t know how my body would hold up. Day 2 was 13 miles up a mountain 8 miles up 5 miles down. When we took off my legs definitely felt sluggish. The first mile or two I kept it easy, breakfast hadn’t settled in my stomach yet and felt it as I ran. Ed one of our bike pacers pulled up beside me and kept pushing me along with stories about his times in Japan. I got into a grove and things got a little easier and I kept pushing through until our first checkpoint. Cam another one of our runners caught up to us and ran with us which helped more than I expected. Running with another person makes everything a lot easier. After our first checkpoint we weren’t too far from the summit. We were up high. We were up all the way in the clouds at this point. Everything was hurting but I knew stopping wouldn’t make it any easier. I didn’t realize when we hit the top but I soon realized we were going down hill. I couldn’t wait for the downhill but once we hit the downhill I felt it in the quads. The up hill was a slow agonizing pain and now the downhill was a more painful but quicker pain. So I don’t know which was better but it felt good to be moving quicker. Cam had been running with me the whole time and we made good time. Eventually I caught up to the fam, MK and Iggy and we were close to the finish. Seeing them gave me that extra push that I need to to make it to the finish. We’re staying at a hotel now so we have a bed to sleep, thank god. Gonna get some much needed rest. I’m hobbling around everywhere but hopefully I’ll get through the ~20 miles tomorrow.