Sotol stands as a quiet sentinel of the desert, its long, slender leaves fanning out in a crown of green and silver. A hardy survivor of arid lands, it thrives beneath the relentless sun, its roots gripping the dry earth with tenacity. The leaves, rigid and sharp-edged, shimmer with a metallic sheen in the afternoon light, as if the plant itself were forged by the desert’s heat.

Running along the length of each leaf are rows of small, dagger-like thorns – delicate yet unforgiving. They trace the edges like the teeth of a saw, catching glimmers of light at their tips. This decoration is its defense, a silent warning to any who might venture too close. To brush against sotol carelessly is to feel the desert’s quiet bite, a reminder that even beauty here demands respect.

As the Sotol matures, its towering flower stalk reaches skyward, sometimes stretching ten feet high, crowned with clusters of pale blooms that sway in the desert wind. But below, the thorns remain, standing guard like loyal sentries, ensuring that the Sotol’s grace is not without its edge.

Oddly, Sotol isn’t a cactus, it’s a type of asparagus. The Texas type of asparagus that will take you out with its deadly thorns. I’ll run past 62 miles of them a week from now. There are many things to fear about running 62 miles. Death by a thousand cuts shouldn’t be one of them but at the Bandera 100K Ultra, the Sotol makes the rules. The Sotol is the master of the Hill Country State Natural Area. The trail is there to serve runners’ flesh to the Sotol.

I’ve tried to prepare as best I can for this challenge. Blowdown on my East Boulder Trail has added some challenge to my otherwise pedestrian trail. Its hills might mirror the Bandera trail and now I have downed trees to navigate. And I survived winds at the Boulder Res that nearly lifted me off my feet. Good prep for the Texas wind, which I expect to be a steady 10 mph. All good training prep. I completed my training today with 12 miles on the LoBo Trail. That gave me 100 miles for the week – the first time in 9 years I’ve pushed myself this hard. It feels good to know I’ve completed what I set out to do.

That statement might seem premature since I’ve yet to actually run the 100K, but with goals like this, the training is everything. A lot could go wrong next Saturday, but it won’t be from a lack of training miles, or a lack of studying nutrition, or a lack of training my body to fuel and hydrate over those hundreds of training miles. But there was one thing I’d yet to complete this morning. I still needed to pay homage to the trail spirits, and in Bandera, the God of those trail spirits is the slashing Sotol.

Turns out Sotol makes an excellent spirit in the form of distilled asparagus, 38% alcohol by volume. I had a shot tonight to mark the completion of my training and to shout out to the Sotol that guards the trails in Bandera that I’m ready. Having drunk its distilled spirits, I’ll be one with the Sotol next Saturday. I’ll be protected from its spears and destined for glory in the Texas Hill Country.

I consider the East Boulder Trail to be fairly pedestrian. The workout and any technical points come from the hills. There’s a nearly 3 mile section of hills that I run through twice, once at the start and again at the end on the return. Today’s 6 miles out, 6 miles back gave me a 6 mile flatish run in between the repeated hilly sections.

Add mud and ice and snow and this course became very technical today. It gave me the perfect 12.5 mile workout. Footfalls took thought. Such great training for Bandera.

There’s about one and a half months left before I run Bandera. My first attempt at a 100K. I feel ready.

I’m still thinking about last weekend’s getaway to Angel Fire, where the temps were so much cooler and the trails were tree covered. I gave hydration special attention today in the 90° plus temps but failed. I drank a pint of electrolytes before my run but made the error of not drinking during the run until after 3 miles. I should have started sipping immediately.

I walked half my return on a 12 miler. I depleted my liter of water early and almost called Karen to pick me up as I became nauseated. I didn’t wear a watch or my heart monitor today but I could feel my heart racing and that’s what would lead me to walk. I can’t say if it was my A-Fib kicking in without my chest strap, but it felt like it was acting up.

I’m deliberately practicing my hydration routine to prep for Bandera but clearly I have a ways to go. Hydration, meaning both water and electrolytes, is critical. You can recover from a lack of calories but you can’t recover from dehydration while continuing to run. You have to DNF. Or you should DNF. Unfortunately, dehydration impairs your decision-making and so many runners continue to run until they drop.

I recall running the Beach-to-Bay Relay Marathon in Corpus Christi in high school and college. I think I ran it 6 or 7 years in a row. One year in high school, I wandered down to the water after my leg and fell in because I was so delirious. We had to rush another runner from my team, Jessi Montez, to the hospital after he became dehydrated. My last episode with dehydration was the Desert Rats Ultra this spring. I was cramping and couldn’t maintain my balance afterwards. It was a bit embarrassing really but my friends were there to help me.

I’m grateful the air quality improved enough today after the fires to run outside. I ran most of the week indoors, on my elliptical which is sort of like running without gravity. If it’s not smoke in the air, it’s unbearable heat. It’s getting hard to be a runner anymore.