Ultramarathon Man

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll set you up on one of the cots and get you comfortable so you can sleep. Then in the morning, we’ll get you out on horseback . . . how does that sound?”

  “Well . . . ,” I said, hesitantly. “It sounds pretty good. Except for one minor detail—I’m going to keep running.”

  A murmur buzzed through the crowd.

  “But how you going to do that?” someone asked.

  “You can’t see.”

  “Good question,” I replied. “But I can’t be concerned with details at this point.”

  It was a joke, but no one seemed to find it funny.

  Somebody brought over a plate of brownies. Biting into one, I discovered that they were laced with espresso beans.

  “Wow,” I said, grinning. “That’s definitely going to put some life back in me.”

  The small crowd got a kick out of my attempt at humor, but I think they were mostly laughing at the mess I was making with the brownies.

  In a few minutes, the effects of the caffeine and sugar took hold. The jolt hit me like a mild electrical shock. I’d never eaten whole espresso beans before, and the experience was marvelous. Almost instantaneously I was wired.

  Oddly, the lift helped my vision, and I could now distinctly make out the individual colors of each light. Why Christmas lights? I wondered. This whole scene was very bizarre, almost like I’d entered an Alice in Wonderland story. Perhaps there was more in those brownies than just caffeine. Or perhaps the nineteen hours of continuous running had altered my brain chemistry in some unusual way. Whatever might be going on, the net effect was vitalizing; my senses were firing.

  As I wolfed down another brownie in preparation for departure, someone asked, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “No,” I replied. “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. In fact, I’m not even sure where I’m at right now.”

  That drew plenty of laughs, but it wasn’t intended as a joke. I really had no idea what I was doing; this was entirely uncharted territory for me. At least I now had hope, which is more than what I’d had an hour ago.

  “You’ve got balls, buddy,” a volunteer said as I headed off into the night. “Good luck.”

  Chapter 10

  Forever Changed

  Bid me run, and I will strive with

  things impossible.

  —Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

  Auburn Lakes to Robie Point Midnight, June 26, 1994

  The trail weaved back into thick foliage, with rocks and branches strewn across the path, but the lift from those magic brownies carried me along pleasantly. My step was more nimble and lighter than it had been. Clearly I was tapping into a reserve that I might not have adequate capital to cover in the not-too-distant future. Surely it wasn’t normal to feel so energetic 87 miles into a run. This had to be deficit spending.

  Medical analysis of blood samples taken from previous Western States participants has shown that some muscle destruction occurs in all runners. The harder one pushes, the deeper one digs, the more extensive the damage can be. Complete recovery usually takes several months, but I was certain it would take much longer in my case. In fact, the way I was pushing, it was questionable if I’d be walking again this year.

  The normally sleepy Auburn Faith Community Hospital was going to be a busy place tonight. I’d overheard that a crowd of runners had already filled the emergency room. Most were just in need of intravenous electrolytes and glucose, but there was the occasional laceration and a few broken bones. The ER was not the place I wanted my journey to end.

  Halfway to the next and final checkpoint at mile 94, my senses were preternaturally acute. An owl hooted off in the distance, and the sound was crisp and clear, as though it were only inches from my ear. A warm gust of air rippled across the front of my jersey, and the pattern of ebb and flow seemed entirely predictable, almost visible. This was more than just a “runner’s high.” This was an out-of-body experience, more potent than anything I’d encountered before.

  Unfortunately, the levity was fleeting. The high dissipated more quickly than I would have liked, and the last mile to the checkpoint was more about sheer fortitude than running. A thick cloud of dust trailed behind me as I shuffled in, now barely able to lift my feet enough to clear the ground. The crash of the earlier buzz had left me in a corresponding deep low. I declined a chair, knowing that I would instantly tighten if I stopped.

  From this last checkpoint, the finish line was just six miles to the east. Nothing more than a standard 10K, something I could usually do easily. The remaining terrain was flat compared to what I’d covered, but there was still one wicked 900-foot ascent to contend with, and it came at the very end of the course. Imagine scaling three Heartbreak Hills after having run ninety-seven miles through the mountains. This race was remorseless, bordering on psychotic. My body was being pushed to the limits of physical endurance—that much I could understand—but my mind was being played with in surreptitious ways. Would the trail ever end? Or would I eventually reach the edge of the earth and fall off into the abyss?

  With my water bottles refilled, I began agonizingly making my way toward the exit. As I did, the small crowd clapped and hooted, whistled and rang bells. It was after midnight, and for these people to be out here in the middle of nowhere showing such spirit gave me goose bumps. My eyes watered with hope.

  Ten minutes down the trail, I wished I’d been pulled from the event. Those tears of euphoria were replaced by tears of excruciating pain. The transition from high to low had happened so quickly that even covering a hundred feet—let alone six miles—was vexing. My quadriceps tightened further with each tender step. I was afraid to keep running for fear of cramping . . . but also afraid to stop for fear of cramping; so I chose a median, and began walking.

  The trail emerged from the thickets into a vast, grassy meadow. There was a slight breeze blowing across the expanse, and a landscape of long supple reeds swayed gently in the wafts of warm air. Light-colored soil made up the path, and the trail succinctly dissected the grassy span for as far as the cast of my lights could reach. In the pale moonlight, I could detect no end to the meadow as I walked along.

  Actually, it was a pleasant stroll . . . until the first mosquito stung my neck. Then another buzzed in my ear. Then one struck my leg. A swarm of the little blood-suckers surrounded my torso. Two dozen more circled overhead.

  I started racing down the trail, screaming. I could only sprint a short distance before my legs shrieked in agony and I was forced to slow; and then the tiny savages caught up with me again, and I forced myself to strike back out on a run. We continued this cat-and-mouse game across the meadow and up a gradual incline, where the warmer, drier air and brisker breeze abated the nuisance.

  My heart raced and perspiration dripped down my face. I’d already drunk one of my water bottles dry, and I needed to conserve the other for farther up the trail. There were no more aid stations left. But I was overheating and risked dehydration if I didn’t keep drinking. So I gulped from the second bottle, depleting my remaining supply.

  Coming over a minor embankment, I sensed movement up ahead by the side of the trail. I flashed my light at it. When a light flashed back at me, I knew it must be another runner, or one very smart bear.

  It turned out to be a pacer, actually; the runner was lying flat on his back.

  “I’m letting him nap a little while,” the pacer explained. “He’s been puking for about the last ten miles and he was starting to drift off, so it seemed like a good time to rest.”

  I looked down at the runner with my headlamp. He was sleeping on the ground, completely stiff, and his face appeared jaundiced.

  “Are you staying with him all the way to the finish?”

  “If we can get that far,” he said. “You know what DNF stands for, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’ve been trying to repress those words for the past ninety-five miles.”

  “A
t this point in the race,” he went on, “it stands for ‘Did Nothing Fatal.’”

  We both knew what he meant. The race isn’t over until you cross the finish line. People have been forced to quit with less than a mile left, for reasons that weren’t always voluntary.

  “You see that light up there?” he said, pointing off into the distance.

  “Yes, I see it.”

  “That’s Robie Point. That’s where we need to go.”

  Robie Point is where the Western States trail leaves the wilderness for the paved city streets of Auburn. From Robie Point it’s just over a mile to the finish line on the Placer High School track. That light at Robie Point was faint and fleeting and well off in the distance.

  “Where’s your pacer?” he asked.

  “Big mistake—I haven’t got one.”

  “Whew,” he said. “You don’t want to be out here all alone, it gets kind of hairy.”

  “I know. It’s my first States and I didn’t really understand what I was getting into.”

  “Man, if it’s your first time, you’re killing it! To make it this far in this amount of time is phenomenal.”

  Now, if I could just live to tell the story, it would be all the better.

  I thanked him and pressed on. The path entered a twisting succession of zigzag turns. Although the cornering was tricky as I ran along, the pitch remained surprisingly flat and even. Suddenly I detected a substantial void between the slope that I was on and the rise of the adjacent hill. It wasn’t possible to fly between the two, so there was probably going to be an abrupt topological change in the not-too-distant future.

  And soon enough, the trail literally dropped out from under my feet. I lurched forward, with no surface beneath me, and began free-falling. When my foot finally contacted the ground, the speed was too much to remain upright. I tripped, fell, and wheeled down the slope like a barrel, eventually crashing into a sturdy shrub.

  I lay there on my back, gazing up at the sky while the world whirled round and round. Afraid to move, I remained motionless.

  When my head finally stopped spinning, I inched myself up. I’d been deposited on a small ledge, with a steep drop below me. Thank God that shrub had arrested my fall—who knows where I might have ended-up otherwise?

  The embankment that I’d tumbled down was composed of loose sandstone; it wasn’t going to be easy getting back up. After collecting my senses, I slowly rose, took a deep breath, and began a calculated charge up the hillside. The footing was sandy, my feet sank as I dug in, but I desperately clawed my way to the top.

  Debris filled both my shoes. Screw it, no need to empty them out. My feet were toast anyway. Best just to keep moving forward.

  Rattled by the fall, I labored up the trail with reserve, watching for other unmarked drop-offs. The path wove confusingly through tall shrubs for a while and then stopped abruptly at a sheer rock wall.

  Clearly they didn’t expect for us to free-climb a vertical rock face, did they? I searched for a way around the obstruction, thinking that perhaps the trail was hidden from view. But blocking all potential exit routes were thick and impenetrable bushes.

  Then it occurred to me: this was not the Western States trail at all. I was lost. Time to make a U-turn.

  Backtracking was deflating. I’ve made my share of mistakes over the years, but this was an exceptionally costly blunder, wreaking havoc on my psyche. I’d fallen down a hill and then taken a costly detour. How much worse could it possibly get?

  The answer, unfortunately, was “much.”

  The final climb to Robie Point was hellacious. My remaining water was consumed early in the ascent, leaving me dry. I marched wearily upward, stumbling frequently. My hands were cut, and my arms and legs were bruised and scraped.

  After I’d contended with this beastly climb for about as long as my body could hold up, the lights of Robie Point finally came into view. I was coated in dirt and drooling on myself as I covered the last few feet of approach. My eyes were nearly shut; all I could see was the ground a few feet in front of me.

  A man stood there with a record log. When he saw me, he dropped the clipboard and ran over to help. I crumpled into his outstretched arms, and he slowly lowered my body to the ground. He was talking to me, almost yelling, but I was fading in and out and couldn’t comprehend a word.

  Then another face appeared above me. It was oddly familiar.

  “Dad?”

  “My God, son,” he replied gravely. “What’s happened to you?”

  He knelt down beside me and took my head in his hands. There were tears streaming down his cheeks. He cradled my body gently, as though trying to protect any last bits of life that were still left inside.

  “Where’s Mom?” I whispered. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

  My father choked back tears. “Don’t worry, son. She’s waiting at the finish line.”

  “Dad,” I said weakly, “I’m not sure what to do at this point. I can barely move.”

  “Son,” he said resolutely, “if you can’t run, then walk. And if you can’t walk, then crawl. Do what you have to do. Just keep moving forward and never, ever give up.”

  He closed his eyes and held me tightly. I reached up and put my hand on his shoulder. “I will, Dad,” I muttered. “I won’t give up.”

  He loosened his hold and I rolled onto my stomach. I got my arms and legs in place and then simply followed his instructions: I began crawling up the road. I could hear Dad trying to control his crying as I dragged my body off into the distance.

  Robie Point to Oblivion Mile 99 and Beyond

  The course was now on paved city streets, but it was still pitch-dark. There were no lampposts along this back-country road on the outskirts of town. No side-walks, either, so I crawled up the middle of the dark road. I rose to my feet and shuffled when capable, but mostly I crawled. Slower and slower I progressed, until my legs were nearly useless and I inched forward using primarily my arms.

  The finish was less than a mile away, but it was bullheaded ambition to continue onward in this manner. I would never make it at this rate, the odds were impossible. Still, nothing was going to stop me.

  Not even the car that came barreling down the road at me.

  I stopped crawling and waved my flashlight at it. Eventually the driver slammed on the brakes, then pulled up beside me. A man and woman leaped out.

  “Are you all right?!”

  I was flat on my stomach in the road. Slanting my head sideways, I muttered, “Never felt better.”

  “Oh, thank God,” the woman cried. “We thought you got hit by a car.”

  “Nah,” I groaned. “I just look that way.”

  I contorted myself into a sitting position and explained what was going on. They offered to help, but there really wasn’t much they could do. The finish line was so close, but it just as well could have been on a different continent. Destroyed, I reclined on the warm asphalt in front of them, thoroughly defeated.

  But when my back hit the ground, a strange phenomenon began: my mind started to replay the events of the day. And through all the pain and despair I’d experienced over the past ninety-nine miles, the memories that came flooding in were good ones of all the people who had helped me along the path. Jim the “foot-repair man.” Nate the water guy at Last Chance. The lady who baked magic brownies. My sister, who inspired me in life, and whose spirit inspired me to this day. The final scene that played through my mind was that of the Indian chief at the Ford’s Bar aid station and the last words he had said to me: “You can do it.”

  It hit me as if I’d awoken from a dream, only to realize that I wasn’t dreaming at all. I turned to the couple standing by their car and defiantly proclaimed, “I can.”

  They both stared at me. With even more resilience in my voice I repeated, “I can!”

  They blinked at me, but the husband played along.

  “Yes,” he bellowed. “Yes, you can!”

  I jumped to my feet and started shaking my
arms and legs wildly. I swung my head around, letting out an animal-like growl. And then I took off, dashing up the road, shouting, “I can! I can!”

  The initial few steps were agonizing, but it’s not like the hurt came as some big surprise. I knew what to expect by this point. Though it hurt like never before, I no longer just numbly accepted the pain for what it was. Now I went after it, sought it out, hunted it down. The pain radiated from every cell in my body, and my response was to push even harder. The tables were turned. To hell with the pain: bring it on!

  I don’t know precisely when I broke through the last wall, but it was sometime during this final melee. The initial breakthroughs along the way had all been physical, about trying to deal with exhaustion and bodily fatigue. After mile 50, they had been battles of the mind. But this last breakthrough was much more hallowed, and it touched me on a deeper level than the others, more like an awakening.

  It struck me in the space of a few steps that my past as I knew it had suddenly ceased to exist. Nothing would ever be the same to me from this point on. I’d been profoundly transformed by this journey, in ways I had yet to understand. This person who was staggering and crawling and persisting at mile 99 was a different being than the guy who had started the race just yesterday morning. I was more capable than I imagined, better than I ever thought I could be. This realization was like stepping into another dimension.

  Covering 100 miles on foot was more than a lesson in survival, it was an education on the grace of living. Running is a solo sport, but it was no longer about me anymore; I became almost irrelevant. My struggles were not about a single runner trying to finish this unfathomable challenge but about the greater ability of a human being to persevere against insurmountable odds. The many supporters who’d provided encouragement and strength along the way didn’t really care about me per se—hell, they didn’t even know who I was. What they cared about was that a person had taken the time to train, and sacrifice, and dedicate himself wholeheartedly to the pursuit of a dream. It was a powerful message; I was just the host. And proud to be. Upholding my end of the commitment meant crossing the finish line, and I was now going to make damn sure that happened. For all of us.