She refused to admit that she also loved rom-coms. There was something about their silliness and the way the romance always worked out that she found satisfying. Itdidn’t matter that they all followed the same basic premise, and she knew how they were going to end before they started. She still loved how they tugged at her heart and made her smile.
“Action movies are my go-to too. Give me a good action or adventure movie anytime. The cheesier the better. And let me tell you, I’ve seen some cheesy ones over the years.” He chuckled.
Jack’s voice took on an animated quality as he described some of his favorite movies. She had seen most of them and was able to add her own comments and opinions.
As he spoke, his usually deep timbre rose an octave with his growing excitement, and he began to ramble a bit. She had noticed that trait before. For Jack Swisher, excitement and rambling seemed to go hand in hand.
When there was a pause in the conversation, she asked, “What’s the longest distance race you’ve done?”
“Lots of 50K ski races. And, um, I did a multiday expedition in Norway. That was pretty amazing.”
“Anything like The Frozen Divide before?”
“Well . . . yeah. The expedition— ”
“Did you camp at night?”
“Lodging was part of it.”
“In a tent?”
“More like dorm rooms.”
She turned this over in her mind as she wondered if the combination of the expedition and his skiing experience was what was used to qualify him for The Frozen Divide 100. It wasn’t much, but maybe it was enough.
He seemed to be holding up fine. Of course, they’d only been out there for a few hours. There was a big difference between three hours in the cold and fifty.
“So you haven’t done an ultramarathon where you’ve been forced to stay awake for over twenty-four hours?”
“Not yet. But I figure with this training and a few more overnights, I’ll have a good idea what to expect.”
“You will,” she agreed. “But at the same time, you won’t. You really don’t understand sleep deprivation until it happens. Hallucinations and lapses in time during an ultra are common.”
“I’ve read about that.”
“Reading about it isn’t the same.” Her tone held more of a snap to it than she intended. She cleared her throat. “A hundred-mile race might take an intermediate runner twenty-four to thirty hours, and that’s moving almost continuously with little rest and probably no sleep. It’s a lot.”
“It sounds like it. You’ve done how many hundred-mile races?”
“Several. My first had a thirty-five-hour cutoff, and I finished in thirty-four hours and forty-five minutes. That was a summer run. I didn’t truly sleep during the entire time, though I’ll admit there were stretches of the run that I have no idea how I got to where I was. One minute I was running easily through a flat, forested section, and the next I was climbing an open hill with no memory of the transition between the two.”
“Scary.”
“A little.” She laughed. “Not nearly as weird as the time I found a cat on the trail that kept disappearing into the trees. Soon there were two cats. Then three. They stayed with me until I caught up with another runner.”
“Make-believe cats?”
“Yep. Hallucinations. That was a good lesson for me to use a pacer when it’s allowed. Having someone runningalongside you helps keep you present and focused. Helps keep the imaginary cats away.”
“But pacers aren’t allowed at The Frozen Divide.”
“Right. Sometimes racers will team up. But that’s not terribly common. With a fifty-five-hour cutoff, you need to expect to be out there alone for most of it, and your mind could definitely play tricks on you.”
“Do you stop and sleep?”
“Yeah. Lots of the runners set up their tents and try to sleep. It helps, but it’s still pretty rough. Not like being home in your own bed.”
He was quiet for a moment. “How’d you find the race?”
