BEYOND THE LIMIT: Nolan’s 14
My feet are blistered and my knees are audibly creaking as I stumble out of the woods half an hour after sunrise. The first thing that my brain registers is Andrew, a broad grin on his face and words of encouragement on his lips. I don’t know him very well – in fact, I’d never met Andrew prior to that early dawn three days ago – but I do know that he shouldn't be there.
“Andrew…” I mumble, my voice cracking. “The weekend is over. You’re supposed to be at work.”
“Ah, details,” he smiles mischievously. “There was no way I was going to miss this. Guess what I told my boss when I called in sick this morning!?”
I look at him quizzically. My brain isn’t working; I’m still not quite sure if Andrew’s apparition is real or merely the hallucinatory effect of three consecutive nights without sleep. That’s when his girlfriend, Dana, enters my field of vision and chimes in.
“Sunny! You gals are just incredible. No kidding, Andrew called his boss a little while ago and said ‘T here’s some rad chicks doing epic shit here in the Sawatch’ and that he couldn’t show up at to work until you all had finished your run.
I’m floored. Floored by Andrew’s and Dana’s enthusiasm for this fastest known time (FKT) project and floored by how starkly their enthusiasm contrasts what I am feeling at this very moment – the exact opposite of rad, as I’m right in the middle of NOT finishing what I had set out
