The Bourbon Chase is a 200 mile twelve man team relay race that begins in Clermont, Kentucky and ends in downtown Lexington. I started my first leg around lunchtime on October 22nd and limped the last few yards to the finish line with my team, Southern Discomfort, around dusk on October 23rd... And I haven't run since. Hell, I've barely been able to walk. It's just been in the last couple of days that I stopped looking like a candidate for hip replacement surgery. I'm still up in the air about whether this race was a once in a lifetime thing or not but I do know that it was an experience I'll never forget or regret.
I had no idea what was in store for me when we pulled into the packed Jim Beam parking lot that morning to start the race. It was still a little chilly when we walked up to the area around the starting line where we grabbed up freebies and got our Bourbon Trail passports stamped at the first of six distilleries we would pass along our way. My sister, Susan, started us off. Since this was her longest leg, Susan was sure that she would be coming in late so we all took our time walking from the van to the exchange point. As it turned out, my nephew, Damon, barely made it for the handoff and that made me nervous. Waiting to take the slap-on wristband from him at the next stop, I was feeling like that man who ran by me and puked beside a tree. The only other person in their forties on my team had just breezed through her first seven miles. How bad was that going to make me look if I didn't run my lousy 3.9 in the eleven minute mile pace I promised?
During my first run I wore some kind of gadget on my wrist that my sister let me use to see what kind of pace I was running. After glancing down a few times and seeing it yo-yo back and forth between eight and sixteen minutes, I decided it was a little too late for me to become a real athlete. I just tried to run in the same weird way I did before work back in Tucson. It worked pretty well until I got to Heaven Hill, not the distillery, the actual hill. The running screeched to a halt and after trudging to the top Damon tried to make me feel better by saying a lot of people walked it. Only I knew that if that pit bull straining at his chain in somebody's yard on the outskirts of Bardstown hadn't gotten me moving a little faster, I never would have come in when I was expected. After passing off to our captain, Ben, I had a short sneezing fit from whatever allergens were in the air and then we were back on the road headed to the next rendezvous.
Ben handed off to Andy, the last minute powerhouse in our van. With only a week's notice, he took over for an injured teammate and ended up being one of the fastest people we had. I wish a training diet of cigarettes, alcohol, and Krispy Kreme donuts worked for me, but I'm not in my twenties anymore. Dustin, a former center for the Murray State football team, finished off for van #1 and then van #2 took over. That gave us time to have the first real meal of the day at O'Charley's in Danville. Then it was on to a little rest in Perryville... Or so I thought. Dustin, Susan and I were all stretched out in the three back seats when the first musket or cannon or whatever the hell it was went off. And every time I would almost fall asleep another runner would come in and it would go off again. Dustin gave some pretty graphic descriptions of where he was going to stick those muskets but ultimately we gave up on sleep and braved the cold to watch our last runner from van #2, Rocco, hand off to Susan.
Susan said the night run was her hardest but it turned out to be my fastest. I regretted wearing my jacket at the end but I think it contributed to me making good time. When I originally decided to keep it on my thinking was that I could just take it off and tie it around my waist when I got hot but I didn't figure in the fact that I would have a reflective vest over the top that would eat up way too much time trying to remove. Between the unzipped jacket sliding down my arms and the headlamp resting on my nose, I was so damned uncomfortable that I was willing to do anything to make it back to the van, even run. I almost added a few extra miles to my 4.5 mile leg when I came to the first fork in the road and had no idea where to go. Luckily, I could see the lights of some runners up ahead so I guessed correctly that they had a better sense of direction than me. I got so excited when I saw the 1 mile left marker that I didn't notice the grass had turned to asphalt and came dangerously close to doing a face plant, but I managed to recover and with the strange rustlings in the woods spurring me on, I made it to the exchange point. That's when all the energy left my body and didn't return for at least a week.
I couldn't think of anything but our other teammates who were sleeping in the two motel rooms we had reserved for the race. We finally made it there sometime early Saturday morning and even though I changed and got in bed in record time, I still only slept about 2 1/2 hours at the most. At least we had it better than the guys since it was only me, Susan and our co-pilot, Janet. She's the sister of Mr. Bryan, our driver and my junior high band teacher. He said to call him Ron but I have a hard time even typing his name that way, much less saying it out loud. I have to give them props though because if you gave me a choice between running the hardest leg in the Bourbon Chase and trying to parallel park some big-ass van on the side of the road, I'd choose running every time. It was freezing when we got to Four Roses Distillery for Susan's last leg of the race and I didn't even have the energy to hobble down and see her start. They had various stands set up, including an old fashioned photo booth, but all I was interested in was some nice hot coffee. Well, I was really interested in a country ham biscuit too but the thought of it coming up in the middle of my next run kept me from acting on that particular desire. I probably should have passed on the coffee as well because while I was waiting for Damon to start his last run I had to use one of the port-o-potties in the middle of the Anderson County High School parking lot...And it wasn't number one.
I really had nothing left to give when I started my last and only medium rated 3.9 mile leg. I did manage to at least run up the first hill but that was only because I had to do it when I was leaving the crowd at the Wild Turkey parking lot. As soon as I turned the corner the walking began. Thankfully, the section I'd been dreading most came up fairly early. I'm not a real shot in the ass about heights and crossing a little two-lane bridge over the Kentucky River that runs parallel to what was once the highest railroad bridge in America was not my idea of a good time. But actually, it didn't turn out too bad. They had police posted at each side and they only let one car at a time come through so I never had to stop and pin myself up against the guardrail. I even slowed down to admire the view when I was safely on the other side. And the views were great but the slog was brutal. I didn't even attempt to run up the numerous hills and on the flat parts I only half-assed tried to do some creepy old lady powerwalk I'd seen somebody do at a race in Tucson. That left going down for picking up speed. I'm just glad no one had a camera to capture me pinwheeling down those hills like some crazed five year old. This was my only really rural run and I'd forgotten what often happens on two lane country roads. Animals and cars collide. My last count was 3 dead possums, a snake, a crow, some unidentifiable fluffy object and the distinct smell of dead skunk, although I never saw the carcass. Even though I limped across the railroad tracks to make my final hand-off a few minutes over time, overall I think I made my 11 minute mile.
Being in van #1 had a distinct advantage because once Dustin finished at Woodford Reserve we were able to check into our hotels and take long hot showers before the party began in downtown Lexington. I wore that stupid plastic wristband through the whole race just so I could do the free bourbon tasting at the end and once I had some chili and a Kentucky Ale aged in whiskey barrels I was too tired to even use it. We made our final run across the finish line, hurriedly got our medals and posed for a quick picture before they shoved us out of the way to make room for the next team. I limped around for another hour or two but the party was pretty much over for me. It was kind of sad thinking that I'd probably never get a chance to see grown men running around rural Kentucky wearing superman speedos or grass skirts and coconuts ever again. The Dickel Me Elmo van had made its final run.
