Race Dreams: 50 Mile Corn Maze….With Snakes

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To be honest, I didn’t think I was stressing about my upcoming 50 Miler. I really didn’t! I’ve been so focused on February’s 100 Miler that the 50, in my mind was, “just another training run.”

That was what I was thinking until last night.

What a dream!!!

I know it will sound weird and not terribly dramatic as I write it out, you know how dreams lose something in the translation, but trust me, it was vivid.

Here’s the dream:

My friends and I pulled up for the 50 Mile race. We had time to kill and were pretty relaxed. No pre-race anxiety or anything *which should have been my first clue I was dreaming*

The race was scheduled to begin at 7:30. At 7:00, we noticed that everybody was running! That was odd. I walked over to the RD (Race Director) and asked, “Why is everybody running?”

His reply was, “I got tired of waiting for it to be 7:30 so I decided to start the race ahead of time.”

He had started the race a full 30 minutes ahead of time. Seeing as I was going to need every second on that clock, I had some *mild* panic but still nothing major. I walked back to my friends and calmly told them that they had started the race 30 minutes ago and thought that maybe we should go down to the course and get started.

So, we did. We didn’t hurry. It was like it was no big deal.

When we got to the course, we discovered that it was a 50 mile corn maze. How many of you have seen a corn maze in real life? They’re kind of cool!

We entered the corn maze and began the 50 miler.

We weren’t very far into the maze when I noticed a snake. It was on the ground next to the corn.

Now, being a runner in Mississippi, I’ve seen more than my fair share of snakes while running. I gave my slithery friend some space and kept on running.

Then I noticed more snakes! The were everywhere!!!

They were on the ground. The were coming out of the corn, level with my shoulders! They weren’t happy snakes. They were striking!!!

I was dodging snakes like crazy. I turned around, left the maze and found the RD.

I told him about the snakes and said I was concerned. His reply was that, “Yes, there are snakes but they aren’t too terribly venomous, just a ‘little bit’ venomous. The aid stations were supplied with plenty of anti-venom. When we went through the aid stations, we could grab what we needed and the aid station volunteers would inject us with the anti-venom and we could continue on with the race.

I nodded and replied that he sounded well prepared and that all of that sounded very reasonable. I turned around, re-entered the maze and began my run…again.

I was struck by many snakes along the way. Some of the snakes wouldn’t let go so I was running with snakes hanging on my arms and legs. I would arrive at an aid station and the volunteers would remove the snakes, inject the anti-venom while I would munch away on a PB&J or something like that. When they were done, I’d keep on running.

You’d think(!) I’d wake up after all of this nonsense! Nope, I dreamed the entire 50 miles. It was a three loop course. Each loop took me 12 hours due to having to have snakes removed and everything but I finished that race!

YAY for finishing the race!

YAY for waking up!!!

#IRun4Aiden