Running with the Devil, Part 1

Floating dust forced me to roll up the car windows, shooting the temperature inside up to triple digits. Reluctantly I set aside my steaming coffee, as it seemed no longer appropriate. A normal man would not be drinking coffee before a race, I thought. A normal man would not be embarking upon this race at all. The tires of my car crunched onto a dirt parking lot labeled Calico Racing. The racing organization was named after a cat. Was that an omen?

The clock read 11:25 AM. The thermometer read 99 degrees. This was just the beginning of the heat and of the race that would force me to face my own limits. Oh, and to face my inability to comprehend women.

The parking lot of Boulder Beach on Lake Mead, just outside of Las Vegas, was an ugly thing. It was bleak and beaten, rocky and unpleasant... not unlike my first marriage. The surrounding countryside was similar, if unleveled by heavy machinery. Everything was brown, uglier brown, or black. Nothing grew; no grass, no trees, nor even scrub. Sage brush was far too demanding for this area, and I even saw a Joshua tree that had uprooted itself rather than remain here. Really, what kind of a place was it where even cacti chose to end it all? Near the sun-bleached pavilions an occasional palm punctured the sheer infertility of the place: obviously an immigrant to the area and dependent upon the proximity of man-made Lake Mead. Nothing was meant to survive here. Yet many of us were here to try.

The parking lot was packed with men preparing behind opened hatch-backs and car doors. Sunscreen was liberally applied to faces and necks, bandanas were tied around heads and hats were filled with ice. Shoes were laced aggressively and bib numbers were pinned on. Most faces were grim with the chore that lay ahead, eyes squinting at the asphalt as it stretched into deeper, broader, hotter brownness. Two young women wearing devil horns took pictures of each other, but they, too, were subdued. Joy was for later, when the ice was on our knees and not on our heads.

I, too, prepared. I strung the timing chip through my shoe laces and tightened them up, ripped off my T-shirt and sprayed sun block everywhere. I tied the bandana around my head, sans ice, and pinned my number to the thigh of my spandex shorts. Though no longer in the shape to be topless and in spandex shorts, I didn’t know anyone here, so why should I care?

This, of course, was the first creeping sign of the advancement of my age… or of being married, anyway. Had I still been single my ego would never allow such a display of my sagging physique. This race was a form of mid-life denial. Another was the new tattoo. I eyed the ebony ink glistening on my arm regretfully. I was supposed to keep it out of the sun for at least a week, and really should wear my T-shirt. I just didn’t want to. I sprayed sun block on the pattern until it ran off in rivulets down my arm. It stung mightily, but if that was the worst pain of the day, I would be thrilled.

I wish my wife was here, I thought. Though accepting, she never really understood that I was a lusty man, passionate for extremes, rum, cigars, and women. Perhaps here she could begin to discover my lust for running, for pushing the envelope. The camaraderie of runners was heady stuff and I wanted her to experience it. This race in particular would weed out the posers because it was designed to be as brutal as possible: outside Las Vegas in summer; temperatures averaging 110 degrees; no clouds, no wind; starting at noon. This was called Running with the Devil for a reason.

All runners had to weigh in before the race. The marathoners were required to re-weigh at the halfway point to ensure they had not lost too much body weight. If so, they were not allowed to finish the race or they would likely die. Forcing us wimpy half marathoners to weigh in was merely to assuage our egos, no doubt.

“Number 333,” I said as I stepped onto the scale. The elderly, clipboard-wielding volunteer wrote down ‘204 lbs’. I blanched, having been only 190 a week ago.

Wandering among the crowd that gathered ice water, I noticed that I was only one of about half a dozen men running shirtless. To a man they put my physique to shame, despite varying in age from early twenties to early forties. Considering the amount of training I devoted my life to, I marveled at how these older guys could look so good. I consoled myself, however, by noting that I was taller than all of them. Except him. Or him. Shit.

Then I saw her.

Stretching on the hill above was an unbelievably gorgeous woman. Suddenly I was glad my wife wasn’t here. Now I could just sit on a bench and ogle. She was very tall and slender and was surely a professional dancer. Her long legs were tanned muscle that shivered with pent-up power as she stretched. She wore spandex short shorts and a sports bra that left her sculpted torso bare. Her brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail, revealing an intensely focused look on her pretty face. This was no mere human, I realized, but a demon temptress. It was the only explanation. I quickly resolved to run at whatever pace she held, regardless of my training or injury.

“Ugh, would you look at her?” said the woman beside me on the bench, with obvious disgust.

“Oh, I’m looking all right.”

Her frown deepened, but she did not bother to look at me. In fact, she ignored everything in favor of the demon on the hill. Even the shirtless Adonis standing nearby did not faze her. Jeez, he even caught my eye”.

“I’m married” I defended lightheartedly. “Looking is all I’ve got.”

“Absolutely demeaning herself for all to see…” she muttered with surprising vitriol.

“Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it,” I said. “Sure, she knows she’s hot, but she also knows we’re all here for the same reason. We’re all athletes here.”

Finally Ms. Bitter spared a glance at me. “You don’t look so athletic to me.”

I wondered idly about this woman. She was in her early thirties and obviously an athlete herself. Her attire was extremely modest, with loose shorts and a baggy T-shirt that made her look frumpy. She was pretty enough and certainly fit: she need not be threatened by the demon’s magnificence. Was she just jealous of her self-confidence, perhaps?

“Well, a little beauty makes the world a better place, right?”

“This is a place for personal achievement!” she snapped, rounding on me. “Not for picking up shameless hussies! That strumpet on the hill is up there in the best spot to get attention, and she knows you are staring, drooling like the dog you are.”

I blinked at her. So much for runner’s camaraderie. I wish my wife was here to defend me.

“Why,” she puffed angrily, “I’ll bet you’d even sacrifice your race time just to run beside her, you pig.”

“Uh, do we know each other?”

Then she just stood up and left. Since I had been called a boor by at least a dozen critics and readers in the last month alone, it no longer bothered me. This left me free to return to my field study of a demon in the wild.

“OK everybody!” a voice called via bullhorn. “Two minutes to go. Make your way to the starting line.”

Joyce, the spunky coordinator of the event and of Calico Racing Organization, was a petite and powerful woman wearing a red tank top with the word ‘Devil’ printed prominently across the bosom. Though not running today, she wore a bib with the number 666 and capped herself with a pair of devil horns.

“Get ice in your hat,” she commanded. “Soak your towels and bandanas and self in ice water, do what you can. I want everyone dripping at the starting line. No one runs without a water bottle with them. Remember, water stations in this race are refill stations. Carry all the ice water you can.”

En masse about one hundred runners shuffled to the road. Bright blue mats lay on the hot asphalt, as if a genie had been doing yoga there just moments before. The gun went off with little fanfare and the crowd merely spilled across the start, rather than the usual surge. The heat was affecting everyone before we had even begun!

Actually, the desire to sprint at the start of a race is hard to control. Pent up anxiety and excitement flush through you, but a marathon means discipline. I settled easily into my full marathon pace of a nine minute mile. I knew this pace without needing a watch to gauge it and could carry it through to the end. I had trained four months for the 26.2 mile marathon, but fate had erected several barriers for me.

A mere ten days earlier, my old calf injury had reared its ugly head anew. Months of grueling hours in the Las Vegas heat had all vanished in a flash. Overcome with enthusiasm for this event, I refused to abandon it and rested the next eight days. The day before the race I had run a short five miles to test my calf. I felt like a Ferrari with a flat tire: my whole body was primed and ready, but that one muscle in my leg was obviously weak. Yet after having already run a dozen half marathons in 95 degree heat, how hard could it be to squeeze out one more? Ironically, I had gotten my first-ever blister on a heel from that test. An omen, perhaps?

Being stuck midway in the thick crowd, all I noticed were elbows and knees and feet. We had run half a mile before I actually looked up from my footing and took in the situation. As usual, the beginning of a race was crowded, but soon enough people’s varying paces would spread them out. With as small a crowd as this, one mile was enough.

The race was on a desert highway that was open to traffic, so runners were relegated to the blisteringly hot shoulder. Two could run abreast if they chose, but the majority of us ran single-file along the hot asphalt. By mile two it was clear who was where and in what order.

The heat was already a factor. Though weather forecasts had promised a mere 104 degrees, I had already seen two thermometers declaring 111. The heat pummeled the land mercilessly and wrapped us puny humans thoroughly in its powerful, destroying embrace. The distant mountains shimmered, and the asphalt radiated heat upwards, doubling the effect of the sun. Any experienced desert runner knew that sun block was as necessary on your undersides as well as topside. There was no shade anywhere to break the heat. The rocks radiated enough heat to make their sauna-bound cousins jealous.

The new tattoo seared into my arm, and I nervously wondered if I was wasting the hours of discomfort it had entailed. Mimicking some of the other runners, I poured water onto my bandana and felt the coolness spread across my head. These bandanas were designed to spread the water efficiently to every corner, and I was pleasantly surprised at its effectiveness. Yet my feet were already smarting from contact with the blazing asphalt. I had never experienced this before, even when I ran a full marathon in the northern Nevada wastes years back. I had heard that shoes sometimes melted on the roads out here, and suddenly I realized it was not exaggeration. Nervously I ignored the unpleasant sensation.

By mile two I found myself pacing with one other runner directly in front of me. We two were fairly apart from the others and it was clear we would run a while at this same pace together. I usually stare at the feet in front of me to keep pace and let my mind wander, but this time my eyes strayed up the back of those long, curvaceous legs to a pair of spandex shorts. I couldn’t take my eyes off that solidly muscled, perfectly sculpted bottom.

The demon temptress from the hill!

Running with the Devil indeed. I was already thinking sinful thoughts. I would chase that sexy devil’s tail no matter how hot it got!

For the first quarter of the race, my mind revolved somewhat guiltily around how I could spin into a story my following this woman. I had a solid reputation for following women needlessly into Hell, after all. While the books I wrote were necessarily accurate, did I feel the same compulsion for a blog?

The first water station changed up our paces. The sexy devil took longer to refill her hydration backpack than it took me to refill my hand-held bottle. Strangely disappointed for no real reason, I rushed off into the shimmering waves of heat. I passed a lonely shrub that had a confused appearance. No doubt it was wondering how it ended up here and where everyone else was. I empathized with the beaten, wilting little guy. Marathoners always ended a race alone. Surprisingly, that was not how this race was to end.

Thanks for selling out entire edition of Cruise Confidential!

What a rush for me. I have discovered the phenomenally large and phenomenally pro-active members of Cruise Critic. Apparently they has already discovered me, because when they began discussing Cruise Confidential on their boards, the sales went through the roof. My publisher had trouble providing enough books out there, and suddenly it was backordered. I think that is the fantasy of every author, to have a book so popular that it is back ordered. Well, Cruise Critic fans took it to a whole new level after Cruise took the gold at the Book Expo America for humor, and now it is completely and utterly sold out.

Fortunately, my publisher is baking a whole new load of goodies for us, and they will be out probably by mid June. They are heading to the distributors now, for those who are waiting. I am truly thrilled and humbled by all this. Yes, humility is something that I am aware of, despite my many critics who think otherwise. It is a thing I take great pains to avoid, to be sure.

So for those many who helped propel Cruise Confidential forward, I thank you humbly. I promise to roam the boards on Cruise Critic as often as I can, and try to answer some of those excellent, random questions thrown through the void at me.