Explore Fatigue

The Uphill Experiment: Two-hour-loop reprise

2011-09-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks before this year’s Iron Mountain Trail Run (IMTR) I ran “the two-hour-loop.” This is a course I scouted back in 2005 and used as a benchmark while training for the 2006 Mountain Masochist Trail Run (MMTR). The route starts near Skulls Gap and contours along the Iron Mountain on “old 84” to Hurricane Gap. It crosses the ridge of the mountain at Barton Gap and then drops to the bottom of the mountain at the trailhead for Jerry’s Creek (near the trailhead for Rowland Creek Falls). It then climbs the mountain again, following Jerry’s Creek, to near Skull’s Gap. The terrain has equal parts single track, double track, and gravel forest service road. The course climbs 2700 feet in nearly 18 miles. It took about 2 hours 20 minutes to run it at first, so I decided to come back to the course at regular intervals and see how close I could come to running it in 2 hours. Treating the run like an extended tempo workout, I began to approach the 2 hour mark after a few weeks.

About that same time, David Horton came down for a training run in preparation for the first IMTR. The middle section of that course is very similar to the two-hour-loop except that IMTR follows Rowland Creek instead of Jerry’s Creek back up the mountain. During that run Horton asked me my goal for MMTR. I told him that I wanted to break 7 hours. He quickly retorted that I couldn’t do it. Only a couple of people had done it, and when the inestimable Eric Clifton had failed to he reportedly said that he didn’t think there was anyplace he could have made up the necessary time.

My response was that I’d let my result speak for itself. I also said that my training included the two-hour-loop, and that I thought when I could break 2 hours on it, I could break 7 hours on the MMTR course. Though we quickly moved on to other topics, it is interesting to note that Horton can recall this story with more clarity than I can. Part of the reason, no doubt, is that I did ultimately break 2 hours on the loop and 7 hours at MMTR. He greeted me at the finish, as he does for all runners, and was able to witness the most special moment of my athletic life.

Horton is one of the few people who could really appreciate what reaching the finish line in Montebello meant to me. That place represented much more to me than winning a race, or meeting a goal, or proving something. That race finally brought into relief the full scale geography that is me. I had first stumbled down that same campground road in 1997 in the middle of my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. I was empty – destitute and alone, and slept on the wooden porch of the pavilion. My second approach to the same road was in 1998 after suffering a beating through my first ultra at MMTR. My calves had shredded by mile 37, and I had to hobble on my heels for the next 16 (?) miles to the finish. I had been sunk as low as I have ever been twice – both times across from the small general store that defines that tiny town. The contrast in 2006 could not have been more apparent. I had started to build momentum on the climb up Buck Mountain, and I didn’t let up. I blasted the final mile along the road in under six minutes and charged into David’s embrace. I cried for the only time at a race.
I retired the two-hour-loop for some time after that. It wasn’t so much the weighty feelings surrounding it, but more that it’s a tough run and shouldn’t be overdone. I’ve had one other reason to avoid the two-hour-loop. It would be too good an indicator of my fitness. I was 38 in 2006, and I’ve been getting older ever since (!). I wouldn’t necessarily want to know how my performance had declined.

That is why I was so pleasantly surprised early this spring, when after a minimal flurry of speed workouts, I was able to again go under two hours for the loop. Soon after I ran a PR at the Promise Land 50K, a race I had already ran respectably. As quickly as I had begun to run fast, though, I slowed back down because my goal for this year had been to run 100s. I slowed my training and muddled through Old Dominion and the first 70 miles of Burning River. The misery induced by these races finally caused me to reconcile the space between my aspirations and my talents. So much for 100s.

I like to run fast. I decided to keep my races at or under 62 miles this fall, and to run MMTR in November once again. In preparation I’d confront whatever the two-hour-loop had to say about my fitness. Two weeks before IMTR it said 2:05. That translated into a 7:15 two weeks later – a respectable time on a tough course. Historically runners are able to run similar times at IMTR and MMTR. Of course I’d like to run faster than 7:15 come early November. So this past Wednesday I was back on the two-hour-loop, having carefully considered what I had to do to go under two hours.

Here's an experiment I would like to do: get a bunch of runners to do a hilly 8K time trial. Tell all of them to go for the fastest time they can without killing themselves. Then break them into two random groups. Tell one group to push the uphills, and explain that will help them keep the best overall pace. Tell the other group to slow down on the uphills and pick it up on the downhills, and explain how that will help them to even out their effort and yield the best overall pace. I’ve given contradictory advice – I can’t have been truthful to both groups.

I’d like to do the experiment because I know now how it works for me – and how I’ve been lied to.

There are two distinct models for understanding how fatigue limits performance, and they predict different outcomes for the experiment. A "peripheral fatigue" model says -- and this is oversimplified -- that pushing the uphills will fatigue the muscles and therefore (eventually) cause runners to slow down. It would predict that maintaining a constant threshold effort (by slowing down on uphills and speeding up on downhills) limits fatigue and therefore maximizes exertion across the whole exercise. According to this model the advice is simple – DON’T push the uphills.

In contrast, a "central governor" model says that runners (perhaps subconsciously) anticipate what is ahead and experience fatigue depending on how they interpret their current exertion relative to how much is left to run. This model at least leaves open the possibility that pushing the uphills could result in a better time, because performance depends on how the runner interprets what he or she is doing. So, while not the advice is not as clear, we can at least advise: PUSH the uphills if you can.

When I was in college heart rate monitors were just coming into use. Our team bought one and rotated it among team members during training. The idea was to make sure we were not over-exerting. The theory was built on a peripheral-fatigue model. One inescapable conclusion was that the best pacing strategies tend to even out effort across the run. In other words, all else being equal, slow down on uphills so that your heart rate remains relatively constant. We didn’t apply this to races, because in a race all else is not equal. Relative place matters much more than time, and maintaining place on climbs surely trumped maximizing overall pace.

My tempo runs are generally alone, though, and so I have tended to fall back on the theory that I should slow down on the uphills in order to get the best out of the total distance. That is the lie. And I think I know why.

On Wednesday I ran just under 1:58 for the two-hour-loop. I worked the uphills pretty hard. Part of the reason I have to do that now may be that I can’t run downhills as hard as I used to, but I think there is another reason. When we charge uphill we raise the threshold for perceived effort. We breathe hard and our hearts pound and we go for it knowing that the climb will top out and we’ll continue on an easier course. Because of the raised threshold, however, we tend to pick up the pace on the downs and flats compared to what we would have if we had backed off on the climb.

I don’t really know if this is a personal quirk – perhaps shaped by my own way of thinking about running or just my unique physiology – or a generalizable finding that would help corroborate a central governor model of fatigue. That’s a good reason to run the experiment. In the meantime, I’m going to push the uphills.

Iron Mountain

2011-09-04T10:42:00.000-07:00

My soaked shirt is pasted, once again, across my torso. I have to flick the sweat off my eyebrows because when I use the shoulder of my shirt I just rub caked on salt into my eyes. Once again, my stomach protests as I try to pour enough fuel and fluid through it. Twice this summer I have been simmered into a soggy lump -- all will to carry on boiled out of me. This time, though, I know exactly what lies ahead. This is MY race. I'm not staring down fifty miles of uncharted territory in the middle of a hundred mile race. I'm on the climb past Rowland Falls, the scenic backdrop for the shirt I designed years ago for the race I started in Damascus, Virginia. This is the first time I have been able to compete on the course I laid out soon after moving here in 2005. I'm on the return trip, and I know I'll make it even if I have to stop eating.

Eventually I do stop eating. I don't take a bite of food after VA 600, 36 miles into the run. Jim Cobb is there and tells me I'm 8 minutes ahead of course record pace. I know it's a lot hotter than last year when the record was set, though, and the cushion feels small. When I reach FS 90, 43 miles into the run, Tammy Redman tells me I am 5 minutes ahead of course record pace. I fill up my handheld with Gatorade and get out of there.

The final 7 miles, like many other parts of the course, triggers multiple memories. I cross FS90 at the top of a hill climb that I used to run along with my buddy Nick. The climb portion alone took upwards of fifteen minutes, so that I equated my time up it with a quality finishing time for 5K. The looping descent took a longer path through Buzzard Den and so also took close to 15 minutes. We typically ran 3 loops, in addition to the warm-up and cool-down.

The next section of the course takes me past Buzzard Den on the Iron Mountain Trail. This marks my return route for a 90 minute loop I do from Widener Valley. I've seen many black bear on the spur the trail follows down the mountain. As I continue on the gradual descent toward the top of the Beech Grove trail, I'm reminded of the run I did with JJ Jessee in 12 inches of fresh snow. I tried out some new snow booties and wore blisters on my heels until I took off the booties and carried them along this same section.

The richest set of memories come at the top of Beech Grove, where I have been many times. The intersection helps to connect loops that the Iron Mountain Trail Runners use in training. One year when I was still directing IMTR I dashed from the finish along the course backwards re-marking the course all along the way because the markings had been removed clear to this intersection. I then turned around and ran back to the start, passing several runners, including Kevin Townsend.

This year Kevin waits at the finish line to greet me. Fortunately for all of us he stepped up to direct the event 3 years ago and together with his wife and volunteers has made the Iron Mountain Trail Run a truly special day for all involved. I finish in 7:16, about 10 minutes ahead of the course record set by Sean Pope last year. For the rest of the afternoon I enjoy just hanging around and watching as other runners create memories for themselves and those who help them. I am grateful to be able to reflect on my day, and on all the experiences that have coalesced for me around Iron Mountain.

This is your brain... on heat training?

2011-07-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

This is pretty embarassing, but too instructive to keep to myself.

I'm in Louisville for a few days. I spent most of my life here before moving to Virginia six years ago. I decided to stay on after bringing my kids to spend two weeks with their grandparents. Burning River 100 is a week from Saturday. Like any summer ultra, it will test participants' ability to manage heat stress. Louisville in summer is a heat sink. It lies low in the Ohio valley trapping all the radiating heat in thickly humid air. The city is currently under an extreme heat warning with a heat index around 110. I figured spending a few days here would help me prepare for Burning River.

Now I've been here since Saturday evening, and today's noontime excursion was my sixth run. On Monday I ran for 2 1/2 hours starting at noon. My run today couldn't have been simpler. I drove to Eva Bandman, a park along the river that I know well from the days when I launched rafts full of schoolkids from its mucky river access. I ran west toward downtown paralleling the river on the riverwalk, a paved recreational trail. The run was exposed, but flat. I went past downtown, checking out the new pedestrian access to the old railroad bridge, the new Yum! sports arena, and the approach to the locks. After 30 minutes I turned around to head back to the car.

I was carrying a water bottle that I had already finished. I refilled it at Waterfront Park downtown and continued running. Extra-hot air off the pavement washed over me in waves, making me want to avoid inhaling. My soaked shirt was pasted against my body and sweat flung from my fingertips with every swing of my arms. I wiped my finger across my brow every minute or so just to keep the burn-inducing liquid from pooling in my eyes. A few expletives started to leak from my mouth (as in, "this is f*ing hot.") And that's not the embarassing part.

Get this: I'm 61 minutes into the run and wondering why the h*ll I'm not back yet, and why I'm running along Beargrass Creek. (Note: Beargrass Creek is a tributary to the Ohio River, and so basically perpindicular to it. My route was supposed to be simple: out and back along the river) So I find a path back to the riverwalk and proceed with what should have been a couple hundred yards of running back to Eva Bandman (Second note: Eva Bandman, where I started, is at the confluence of Beargrass Creek and the Ohio river). I run for an endless couple of minutes and then notice the "future Louisville Botanical Gardens," a landmark I had ALREADY PASSED. I look up and see the downtown Louisville skyline back in front of me. Holy sh*t! I did a 180 by accident on an out-and-back with unmistakable linear geographic features for handrails in an area I'm intimately familiar with!

Let's just say when I turned around (again) I took the last couple minutes of running VERY easy. I immediately thought of "into thin air" when some of the descending climbers got lost only hundreds of yards from base camp. They had a lot better excuse than I had! I can only say, on my own behalf, that the pavement along Beargrass Creek was not there when I was using the park years ago (still no excuse for not noticing that I passed under River Road!!), and that I was starting to flirt with hyperthermia. Heat, apparently, is not good for brain function. If nothing else, at least I learned that. On the slim chance that northern Ohio achieves Louisville heat next Saturday, I'm going to go slow.

Old Dominion 100 -- Full

2011-06-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

Me: You’re the man! Roll through here and you’ll make up ground over Sherman.

The Mountain:

Me: Just keep an eye out for the turn. Don’t miss the turn. That will really screw you up. Where is that turn? For that matter, why haven’t I seen any course markings?

The Mountain:

Me: Now I’m really pissed. I am going tear through this thing!

The Mountain:

Me: Where is this little climb over Sherman? I’m going to kill it!

The Mountain:

Me: The sweat is pouring off me. My legs are completely hammered. This mountain has no end.

The Mountain:

Me:

Most of us live completely suspended in self-delusional fabrications. We are the disembodied characters at the center of the stories that others know of us. That bugs me. My best reason for running a 100 mile race through the mountains is that the activity inherently resists the kinds of contortions most of us can insert into our narratives. 100s are bluff proof. At some point in every 100 that I’ve run I’ve had to let go of my preconceived notions of how it would go, and how I would handle it, and just accept the circumstance as presented to me. The 2011 Old Dominion 100 unfolded in just this way.

I was in reasonable, but not top, shape. I had gotten in some long days, and some good heat runs. I have a lot of ultra experience behind me. The OD 100 was the first of four 100s I scheduled for this year. My goal was to run in such a way as to win. I guessed it would take me 16 hours if the weather was cool and 17 hours if the weather was hot. I had never been on the course, but I had looked at the stats and asked others who were familiar. I was glad that other established ultra runners entered and that the race looked to be competitive. I exchanged messages with both Neal Gorman and Jon Allen before the race. Keith Knipling was running, as well as Jeremy Pade and Karsten Brown.

The first 50 miles went as well as I could have hoped. I spent many early miles with Jon, and then a bit later with Neal. Both runners make good company, and I look forward to running with them again. I was by myself in 2nd place when I passed the 50 mile mark in 7:29. I felt the time was appropriate considering the cool morning temperatures and the easy running terrain of the first half of the course.

Both those variables changed considerably in the afternoon. Temperatures rose steadily and the protracted technical trail sections took a big toll on me. I was losing time to Neal, who had been at or near the lead from early on. I wasn’t concerned, however, because I knew that the miles from 70-85 would likely determine the race. I was biding time, trying to keep up with my fueling and hydration, and trying to stay efficient.

After mud-hole aid station at mile 70 I began to pick it up again. I ran uphill on an open double track section and by the time it turned downhill I was really moving. This was just the momentum I was hoping to build, and at just the right time. I stayed very alert to course markings. It didn’t help. After mile 73 the course flagging stopped. I followed the double track until I came to a road at about mile 75. I knew I was close to Elizabeth furnace, and that I could access it from the road. I also knew that the course followed a trail into that aid station, not the road. If I wanted to find and follow the prescribed course I would have to backtrack. Fuming, I ran back up the long slope up the double track. I scanned both sides, looking for any sign or course marking. Nothing. Finally, I came to the last of the orange flagging. I felt relief and anger at the same time. I felt relieved that I hadn’t missed a marked turn. I felt angry that someone screwed up my race. I didn’t have time to worry over that much, though, because my biggest problem was still navigating to a place I had never been with no course markings.

I ran down the double track for the second time. I was 80% sure that the turn was an “abrupt left” that I recalled from the course directions. I came to the first left turn and scouted it out. It led to a small campsite and then narrowed into an unpromising track. I abandoned it. Continuing downhill, the only other reasonable possibility was a trail marked by a sign that said simply “hiking trail.” I went for it. It had no flagging, but it contoured around the mountain a bit and headed downhill. That fit with my recollection of the course map. Just before I came to the road on that trail, I ran into fresh flagging. It led to a crossing that in turn led to the Elizabeth Furnace Aid Station.

photo by Bobby Gill

I was seething mad. How did Neal get through that section? Why was no one out on the course replacing the flagging that so obviously was missing? I certainly wasn’t going to pass the aid station without ensuring that someone got out to the critical turn and marked it. I stormed in to the pavilion and hastily convened the pow wow. Once I felt I had been heard I tried to gather myself to get what I needed for the “charge” over Sherman’s. I knew I had lost my head, had lost at least 25 minutes, and had lost valuable energy at a critical time. I gathered my hydration pack, trekking poles, and stuffed a mouth full of noodle soup into my mouth, chomping as I stormed out of the aid station.

The energy carried me about a quarter of the way up that monumental climb. By the time I got to the jug of water at the bottom of the other side, I was little more than a deflated heap. I trotted painfully along the gravel road. When the next technical ascent started I had little to give to it. Karston passed me on that, and I didn’t have the energy to care. I didn’t see much reason to continue at all. I hadn’t come here to death march and just finish in 19 hours. The last half-mile of trail before the 87 mile aid station is slightly downhill and runnable. I started to trot again, and softened a bit on my conviction to quit.

I came into the aid station and announced what I had been considering. My family, who had been following and supporting me all along, was there. Robin gave me “the pep talk.” Gavin just said, “Don’t quit Daddy.”

I just said, “OK, I’m going.” I wasn’t happy about it, but the race was bigger than me. My family is bigger than me. The mountain is bigger than me. I picked up the pace to a survival shuffle that carried me the final 13 long miles into Woodstock.

photo by Bobby Gill

Old Dominion -- short

2011-06-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update while I have a minute...

3rd place, 17:40

7:30 thru 50 miles. Slowed as temperature rose. Started to roll at mile 70. No course markings into Elizabeth Furnace. Went off course for 25 minutes. Eventually guessed correctly about the trail. Suffered over Shermans. Felt like dropping at 85. Regrouped at 87 and ran into Woodstock.

More later!

Bring The Heat

2011-05-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

When I run from home I can go left or right out of my drive onto a gravel road. After a half mile I am faced with the same choice again. Either way I’ll soon be running alongside cow pastures. I enjoy running occasionally on these country roads. Every few minutes a vehicle will come along, usually a pickup truck. Everyone I pass gives me a wave, whether I know them or not. During my runs the last two days, folks paused a moment when they saw me. Instead of all four fingers lifting from the steering wheel, for a moment just the index finger rose, pointing, before the other three fingers followed. One woman couldn’t help but stare as her car drifted straight toward me.

We finally had got some heat around here. After weeks of cold drizzly wet weather, the sun shone and the afternoon temperature reached (barely) into the eighties. So naturally I jumped on the chance to get out, in the late afternoon, when the temperature had peaked and the pavement had stored up maximum solar energy. My family watched as I donned long sleeves, nylon pants and vest, and a black cap. I took a water bottle in each hand and headed out, yelling “bring the heat!” I ran comfortably for about twenty minutes. Then I started the feel the sweat dripping down my back. I smiled, and my face started to glow with the kind of radiance that only comes this time of year.

This is the time when I am looking forward to races that last all day – on days that will be hot. I’ll be running the Old Dominion 100 on June 4th. It will be uncomfortable, and much of that discomfort will be due to the temperature. I’m not a glutton for punishment. I want to run as fast as possible, and that means staying comfortable as long as possible. And that means preparing for the heat. Heat management lies right at the core of our success as runners. Better than any other animal, we can cool ourselves by sweating. Still, our bodies can tolerate very little deviation from 98.6 degrees. Even the sense that we are heating up faster than we can cool off will cause us to feel more fatigued and slow down. And that happens before any change in core body temperature! The volume of water that has to be moved by osmosis through our skin during a summer 100 mile race is staggering. Creating the osmotic pressure to move that water requires sodium. Of course we have to drink water all along the way and consume ample sodium as well. Calibrating those variables with the effort and the heat and the need for fuel (!) is what makes running 100 miles possible. I’ve missed more than I’ve hit.

Fortunately, we get better with practice. That’s what the next few months are about – I’m going to do everything I can to get better at the 100 mile distance. My neighbors – even some members of my family – may look on, dumbfounded, at the bearded figure loping down the blazing highway dressed for winter. My mindset, if twisted, is simple: “bring the heat.”

Casseday's First Day's Thru-Trekking the AT

2011-05-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

Happily I found myself on the Appalachian Trail last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday helping launch what I'm calling Adam's thru-trek. Our mileage was big compared to thru-hikers (34 miles/day), but our pace was reasonable (3 - 4 miles per hour). So let's call it a trek. Bradley Mongold accompanied us on days 1 and 2. I had to get a picture of his efforts to coordinate the photo shoot on Springer Mountain.

The weather cooperated perfectly and while we had minor misadventures along the way, we had no real impediments to putting in the miles required in a reasonable (at least by ultrarunner standards) fashion.

The AT feels like home to me, and my 3 days in the lush green vegetation of the southern Appalachians made me hanker for more. I'm already looking forwarding to getting out with Adam again when he gets closer to Damascus!

Race to Promise Land

2011-04-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

The race course dripped with the full potency of spring in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Rain fell all night and into the 5:30 am start. The humble camp at the foot of Onion Mountain teemed with multi-colored tents, a couple campers, and many folks just sleeping in their cars. The runners, like the mountain creeks, were fully charged.

After hanging under TheAidStation tent with Jeremy Ramsey, Clark Zealand, and Jake Reed Friday afternoon, I took a run-out up the mountain a bit. If I could have convinced everyone else, I would have started the race right then. The cool temperature and steady drizzle were much better suited to racing than standing around. Jake had piqued my playful, if well honed, racing instinct by handily outpacing me up the substantial climbs of Terrapin Mountain four weeks before. I relished employing all of my hard-earned race savvy to test the value of experience over horsepower. It started with the pre-race banter under the tent. Jake brought up Clark’s course record. He was like a young Springer Spaniel, ready to jump at anything. “Oh I don’t know,” I said, “That’s a pretty high bar.”

And so it was. In 2002 Promise Land was new and part of the lucrative Montrail Cup. Zealand thumped a stacked field -- all of whom were on a mission. Scott Jurek finished six minutes back, Hal Koerner another minute behind him. As a side-note, all three ranged in age from twenty-six to twenty-eight years old. Jake is twenty-three.
When the run started the air was saturated with moisture and darkness. I was fiddling with my headlamp and cap for about a quarter mile. Considering it had worked flawlessly for years, I was mildly perturbed when my light simply turned off, and then flickered erratically as I tinkered with the switch. I had to take it off to manipulate it, and then, when it seemed to be working, get it back over my cap so that the beam wasn’t blocked by the bill. That occupied my attention while Jake sprung out in front with another Liberty runner.

Jonathan Basham said hello from beside me. This is a guy who knows how to race, especially here – on the Promise Land course. At age 24 he ran the 2002 race, finishing 21st. In 2006 he placed 2nd. In 2007, Basham was up against northern Virginian – and road racing speedster -- Pete Breckinridge. Pete was looking to go 3 for 3 in his first 3 ultras, having won the uber-popular JFK 50 miler. I was fortunate to have a ringside view from inside the race. I was sworn to jog all the down-hills so as not to aggravate a recent hamstring injury. Pete left us early, but I was with Basham at the highest point on the course, just before the descent to Sunset Fields. That’s where he started to roll, and he didn’t let up until he caught Breckinridge after the final ascent up Apple Orchard Falls. Basham won by about 30 seconds.

Ultra competitors spend most of these protracted events alone. When one finishes within minutes of another, it’s a close race. While ultra runners may seem more individualistic than other athletes, the ultra scene is as social as any sporting event. The Sunset Field aid station at Promise Land is a case in point. Volunteers and crews converge to help each other to help the runners manage food, fluids, and the motivation to complete a multi-hour event. My friend Adam Bolt had volunteered to meet me there, though he had never even seen an ultra. As he waited for my return trip through the aid station, Adam got sucked into the action. As he noted to me after the race, many of the runners in the middle of the pack cluster together, and so overwhelm the aid station when they pass through. He witnessed the twin tendencies of humans: to separate themselves, as with those who flew through the aid station toward the front, and to stick together, as with those who all came into the aid station at once. Both are social compulsions, though, as we all work to establish our place within a niche community.

Lucky for us, the desire to race and place well is a thrilling and welcome compulsion! When I finally got my light on straight, I looked up and started to move to the front. As the pitch steepened, so did my intensity. When I moved alongside Jake, he responded and quickly left his Liberty counterpart. The first few miles of Promise Land climb about 1400 feet. No sensible individual pacing strategy would involve blasting wide open up that climb. Of course I knew this. “We might as well go for the record,” Jake said to me. “What have we got to lose?” Ah, the joys of youth, I thought to myself. So blissfully unburdened by the full knowledge of the suffering we heap upon ourselves by proceeding like this. The only significant variable to me was when, and how badly, each of us would blow up. Jake had shown only four weeks before that he had a bigger engine. My best shot at him was to turn the race into a battle of attrition by making the initial intensity entirely unsustainable for both of us.

I hope someone kept the stats at the first and second aid stations. I’m going to be very surprised if anyone has ever been through those stations faster. I had suspected it would take longer, but by Sunset Field Jake had already dropped at least three minutes back. Now I just had to manage my own imminent implosion so that it was spread out across the middle third of the race. Basham was fit; Horton had assured me that on Friday night. He would no doubt be able to make up ground in the second half of the race. My work was to steadily take in fluids and a few calories, and keep a pace that would let me recover without giving up too much time. That’s the way I chalked up all those miles, particularly between the two visits to the Cornelius Creek aid station. Everything was carefully metered.

A two minute out-and-back is required to get to the aid station just before the final climb up Apple Orchard Falls. I was just leaving that section to start my climb as Basham turned to go into the aid station. In other races I have felt a familiar surge of energy when I first notice I am being chased down from behind – like you are in a nightmare trying to stay ahead of the bad guy. When I saw Basham, though, I just got excited, like I had felt in 2007 when he was chasing down Breckinridge. “It’s on!” I yelled to him, “You are ROLLIN’!” Instead of trying to drop the hammer (which more than likely would have only hurt me), I kept my effort steady, biding my time for what I figured would be a mad dash down the other side of the mountain. In 2007, when I couldn’t run the downhills hard, I made a point to work the climb up Apple Orchard Falls for all I was worth. From aid station to aid station I recall going under 40 minutes. My careful effort this time yielded a time of about 43 minutes for the same section. Still, no sign of Basham. He had to have lost his momentum somewhere early on that climb.

All that was left for me was to run down the mountain. The only dissension was in my lower extremities; my toes, feet, and lower calves took turns cramping – causing my feet to splay out oddly when airborne. I knew Basham would hold back nothing here. Likewise I just had to beat my feet into submission – jamming them into the ground with every stride. With a mile to go I was hammering at well under six min/mile pace. After I finished I only had about three minutes to try and keep my quad from cramping before Basham burst into camp. Jake had caught him at the top of the climb – so the race was on – it was a battle for second place. A minute and a half later Jake crossed the line for third. I told him I was impressed that he held it together and finished well. And I was. I know that is exactly the kind of effort required to emblaze into the neurons the deep knowledge of what is possible.

Eric Meets Bear

2011-04-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a little something I'm working on with a musical friend. I don't pretend to be good, so if you choose to listen, be gentle. I imagine most of us have run with music in our heads. I remember clicking out many rhythms on my AT thru-hike. This tune, and some version of the lyrics, have accompanied me on many running adventures. Think particularly of times you are trying something new and get into some unexpected trouble!

Adam Bolt composed the music with me, and plays the guitar here. He is a student at E&H.

A Few Words about Promise Land

2011-04-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

On the most recent episode of Justified, Boyd Crowder is being interrogated along with his former sister-in-law, Ava, when the ATF officer insinuates a certain, ahem, impropriety on her part. Boyd responds with this statement: “I know you have an investigation to run, sir, but if you disrespect Ava one more time I’m gonna come across this table.” Importantly for the character, we believe him.

True to the cliché, it wasn’t a threat, it was a promise. The distinction is important because threats can be idle, rattled off in haste, and left hanging. Promises, on the other hand, carry a personal guarantee. They speak to the integrity of the individual. When one makes a convincing promise, a potent obligation has been established. One is saying, in effect, this is more important to me than the many forces that might persuade me otherwise (like fighting with a federal agent and going to jail, as in Boyd’s case).

We are rooting for Boyd, even if he happens to be on the wrong side of the law. He is trying to do right. His capacity to make – and keep – a promise, is his best leverage against worldly temptation. And so it is for the rest of us. We inherit the proclivities of our parents; we experience the rewards and pitfalls of our environment; we are ultimately led by the nose to our pastures. Unless… We take stand. We say what we do, and we do what we say. What separates us from all our animal cohabitants on planet earth? We alone live in Promise Land!

Promise Land is where our best selves reside. And it happens, not coincidentally, to be where I plan to race this weekend. Promise Land is a 50+ kilometer course devised and directed by the inestimable David Horton. Most participants will gather on Friday night at a remote church camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains called, you guessed it, Promise Land. We’ll camp, splayed across the grassy field, within sight of the fading glow from a once crackling bonfire. In the wee hours of the morning car doors will start to open and close as runners begin anxious preparations – applying lubricant, adjusting clothes and shoes, and pinning on numbers. At 5:30, after a brief prayer, Horton will send us out to climb the mountain, cross it, and then come back again from the other side. Our final ascent is up Apple Orchard Falls. After scrabbling around loose rock and larger boulders, we’ll mount countless steps before crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway for the final time. From there the race is an oxygen-deprived, but mercifully downhill, blur. We’ll arrive back at camp, all guns blazing. To me, Promise Land is the perfect race.

Runners who set out to run any ultramarathon are stepping into Promise Land. We are setting an ambitious goal. We announce our intentions, we sign up for the race, and we do the training that will be required to achieve our goal. That speaks to character. As anyone who has dealt with a runner can likely attest, we are hard to dissuade from our efforts. How could it be any other way? Our promises lead us to Promise Land!

The Two-Hour Loop

2011-04-15T06:25:00.001-07:00

I was wide awake at 9:30 last night. Generally that is the time my eyelids begin to close involuntarily. I was still buzzing from my evening workout: my third shot at "the two hour loop" this season. I drove out to Skulls Gap and parked at the trailhead for Old 84 and Jerry's Creek Trail. The loop follows some of the "backside" of the Iron Mountain 50-mile Trail Run course, except the route passes by the Rowland Falls trail and ascends Jerry's Creek Trail instead. My watch recorded the elevation change over time -- shown below.

The Iron Mountain 50-mile Trail Run (IMTR) crosses White Top Road at mile 16 and again at mile 36. The 20 intervening miles snake through Jefferson National Forest across some of the best racing and training terrain I have run. Forest service road 84, also called Hurricane Road, climbs precipitously heading east. After a mile "Old 84" splits off and rewards runners with prime double track -- carving playfully along a contour significantly lower than the Iron Mountain ridgeline. Roughly paralleling Hurricane Road is FS 643, running mostly along the northern base of the mountain. There are four good options for creating routes that connect these two dirt/gravel forest roads. Jerry's Creek trail is the western-most option, and that is how I closed the end of the two-hour loop. Rowland Falls is the next option, and the one used on the return trip for IMTR. The next is Barton Gap, which is the outbound crossover for both IMTR and The 2-hour loop. Finally, Hurricane road can be followed east down the mountain to Hurricane Campground, and SR 650.

This area is bound to catch on with the growing popularity of trail running. For the time being, however, I enjoyed running all-out on a picture perfect Spring evening with no one around. I managed to rouse a couple of grouses and at least one lumbering bear, but otherwise I focused completely on the task at hand: getting back under 2-hours for this mountainous trail loop. I don't have an accurate measure for the length of the course, but I estimate it at 17-18 miles with 2500 feet of climb. I began to run it as a tempo workout in 2006 when I was preparing for The Mountain Masochist 50+ mile Trail Run (MMTR). I struggled to lower my time below 2 hours, and decided that when I could, I'd be fit enough to break 7 hours on the MMTR course. Based on my performances that year, it was a good calculation.

This season began from scratch, following a long layoff with achilles issues and then hernia surgery. My buildup has been a bit unorthodox in that I haven't included a long base phase. Instead I started right away doing fartlek-style runs in which I'd insert 5 minute "pick-ups" into my otherwise very slow runs. I also started right in on long and low intensity hike/runs on technical terrain. From there I extended the pickups into tempo runs -- and those have culminated in my three efforts at the two-hour loop. The day before each of these efforts was a long (23 mile?) hike/run around the high country beginning and ending at Elk Garden. Though still remote, Grayson Highlands gets considerably more hikers than Iron Mountain and it has been fun to see thru-hikers en-route to Maine.

My running fortunes have turned for the better. I have so far avoided re-injury. I've kept my mind as clear of expectation and open to possibility as I can manage. I've remained centered on my Slam for the Summer and Fall, and meanwhile enjoyed my capacity to run fast again. I surprised myself with a 1:55 last night on the two-hour loop. After a 2:08 on my first attempt, followed by a tough 2:03 on my second, I figured it would be hard to manage anything much under 2:00. Not to say it was easy -- you know you're working hard when its no longer worth the effort to wipe the spit and snot off your blue-tinged face. Still, when I hit the watch and doubled-over at the top of Jerry's Creek Trail, the realization crept through my brain along with the oxygen: "I'm back!"

I'm just happy to be here

2011-03-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

I don’t really follow basketball so you’ll have to help me understand how a tournament designed to pit the best teams against each other ends up with a final four with none of the top seeded teams. Don’t get me wrong, like a lot of people, I’m thrilled to see Kentucky back in it (I’m a native), and I couldn’t be happier that VCU displaced a top seed (I reside in Virginia). I can’t imagine anyone is actually happy about their bracket, but aren’t a lot of us merrily snickering about mid-major programs like Butler’s becoming a staple of the NCAA tournament? And beyond the mildly malevolent joy of watching a Goliath fall, don’t we also appreciate the humble shrug of athletes who respond to questions about their hopes going into the semi-finals with some version of “I’m just happy to be here.”

Just because a phrase is a cliché doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Athletes do well to cultivate states of mind conducive to top performance. The weight of high expectation can strain athletes’ abilities to stay positive and stay focused. Some dynasties may be so good that this fragility is never exposed. If talent is more evenly distributed, however, the mental side of the game may come into play. A couple of mistakes in a row can be shaken off by a player who wasn’t even expected to make it this far, for example, while the same two mistakes could cause another athlete to feel seriously frustrated. To the extent you can dwell in the present, savor any immediate successes, and avoid a frustrating comparison of what is happening to what you expected, don’t you have a mental advantage?

My races feel most free when I’ve recently come back from injury and sincerely feel that all I want is to run and to enjoy whatever the event may bring me. I cannot realistically expect to run fast, or to even feel good. I’m literally open to anything. The freedom of these races is a joy in itself, but as it happens, my performances suggest that this state of mind is also good for running fast.

Don’t take the fact that I was outpaced by young Jake Reed at last Saturday’s Terrapin 50K as contradicting my conclusion. I did run fast, he just ran faster! We both went under the course record. For the first many miles I kept Jake in sight. I would normally be more comfortable running in front, but I was quite content to hang back. I paid attention to things; tucked my Clif Bloks into my gloves so they would soften up; kept my strides as quick and quiet as possible. It made me smile that Jake seemed worried about me behind him – he kept turning his head to check my position. “Just run,” I said to him in my mind, “you are doing great!”

It didn’t bother me that Jake was able to pull away. I had no reason to expect otherwise. He is 23 years old, having recently graduated after successfully competing as a college varsity athlete. He won Promise Land 50K last year -- where we will meet again in a few short weeks. I will be tempted to presume that I am more fit than I thought before running at Terrapin. I will be tempted to expect another good performance. Paradoxically, I will only be able to run my best if I resist these temptations and keep as open a mind as possible. I should not presume anything except that I will show up and run as I am able. And if someone asks how I think I’ll do, I’ll reply: “I’m just happy to be here.”

The Running Tap

2011-03-15T10:19:00.001-07:00

I recall my first long run: trotted out the front door and didn't turn around until I started to feel tired. From Crescent Hill in Louisville I had run to, then through, Cherokee Park. I came out above Big Rock onto Woodbourne Avenue and approached Bardstown Road. I had carried myself to the neighborhood of my aspirations. As nighttime approached I turned and ran back toward home.

My recollection of that midsummer's night run from my youth -- before I had competed in or even had a concept of a distance race -- still gives me pause. Running just bubbled up from somewhere. My brothers and I did typical kid stuff. We rode bikes, played ball in the street, mixed it up with the bullies. A foot race was won or lost within seconds, and status was achieved with bravado. That long run came from another place. I was expanding my boundaries.

We had just returned from a camping trip. Although our family had already started to disintegrate, we could all appreciate something about spending the weekend outside together. We all enjoyed outdoor activity, and though the details are lost to memory, I know we hiked, ran, and played to contented exhaustion. Back home I imagine my Dad quietly puttering around our station wagon, getting the tent and stove put back in the garage. I imagine my brothers plopping down in front of the TV.

The energy demands of the weekend had been high, so a restful evening would have been in order. For me, though, our strenuous activity had just opened the tap. The energy was flowing. I imagine that I got little more than a raised eyebrow when I said I was heading out.

That pattern -- high level exertion followed by exhilaration -- has marked many of my adventures since. The most exhausting work I ever did was leading groups of 11-year olds through the woods in Greenfield, New Hampshire, in 1991. They arrived Monday morning and stayed until Friday noon at which time most of the staff collapsed in their cabins. Every Friday afternoon I ran up Crotched Mountain. When I finished my thru hike of the AT in 1998, I decided to run the Mountain Masochist 50 mile race. It took a while, but that race ultimately launched my ultrarunning.

The energy I can put into running has waxed and waned with many variables – now revolving around my family and work. The story has many layers, but suffice to say that last December I put my running to rest. One reason I had for retiring is that I want my kids to shine without any distracting glare from my successes. They resist when I encourage them to run, and I thought maybe they were uncomfortable being compared with me.

Of course I’m running again. I couldn’t really help it. And the kids run too – when I’m not watching. My son, remarkably, let slip his feelings about my running recently. Once I decided to run Terrapin and Promise Land, I abruptly ramped up my training. With the strain of training again came the familiar risk of injury. Robin expressed her concern that I was taking too big a risk by increasing my mileage so quickly. I replied that by “going for it” at least I’d end up in one of two certain places – either fit or retired. She pleaded with me to be careful and preserve my running career. Gavin, ever alert to his mother’s fears, blurted out that he wanted me to run 100 mile races! I was stunned. “Well alright then,” was about all I could say. Glad we settled that.

Last Friday I ran 13 miles on the rolling country roads around Meadowview. On Saturday I parked at Elk Garden and ran a 5 hour circuit around the Mt. Rogers Recreation Area. On Sunday I ran an 18 mile loop on Iron Mountain, hard. In 2006 I established this loop as a benchmark of my fitness. I determined that when I was able to run under 2 hours for that loop I would be ready to run under 7 hours at Mountain Masochist. Turned out I was right. So in my condition Sunday (old, fat, and tired!) I was hoping to eke out a 2:15. I managed a 2:08. That felt good.

The significant exertions on Friday and Saturday could have tired me out. Thankfully, however, the pattern that emerged in my youth continues. Open up the tap pour yourself out – the water will replenish itself. I hope the well runs deep.

Eric's Slam

2011-03-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

I stole a run this morning before another cold rain set in. Yesterday I went out at midday to the “Salt Trail,” a new rails-to-trail that starts in Glade Spring. It’s only a few miles from my house, so I head over there regularly. On a nice day I might see 2 or 3 other folks walking, jogging, or biking. With a steady rain and the temperature at 39 degrees I had the trail to myself. The trail runs to Saltville, which sits 400 feet lower than Glade Spring. So the course sets up as an out and back – gentle down on the way out and gentle up on the way back. I’d prefer to climb first while I’m fresh, but it’s not worth the extra driving. What I do instead is use the out section to get my legs moving. After the first 15 minutes I run 1 minute fast every 3 minutes. The gentle slope makes it feel easy. When I turn around at 30 minutes I’ve gotten 5 of these “striders” in and it’s time to go to work. On the way back I keep the tempo up continuously. The slight uphill makes me work, even though the turnover feels slow compared to my strides from the way out. I finish in 57 minutes, feeling little worse for wear.

So what? Here’s why yesterday’s run was remarkable:
• A couple of months ago I was laid up from hernia surgery and retired from running.
• The weather doesn’t get much worse for running – and I loved it.
• This past Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were the toughest running days I’ve had since I started back.
• During the run I set my goal for this year: to run, and win, four 100 mile races.

The 100 mile race has remained enigmatic to me – and I want to lay it open. Most years since I started running ultras I have entered one 100 mile race each summer. While psychologically manageable, this hasn’t worked as a strategy for optimal performance at that distance. This year I want to focus on 100s. Knowing that I have to manage training for 4 races instead of 1 will affect how I prepare. Each event is not only an end unto itself but also a trial and a stepping stone; a trial because I can still make adjustments; a stepping stone because I have to get through each one in order to reach my goal.

I’m not doing the “Grand Slam” of ultrarunning, or even the “Eastern Slam.” The growth of our sport has created an odd disparity between a few hyper-popular events and many under-utilized venues. So rather than rack my brain, adjust my schedule, and rob my wallet to get into the “biggies,” I’ll drive to events directed by good people and run through awesome countryside. I’ll just call it “Eric’s Slam.”

Eric’s Slam, 2011

June 4, Old Dominion
July 30, Burning River
October 8, Grindstone
November 5, Ozark Trail

The Grossman Motivation Series

2010-11-23T06:58:00.000-08:00

My blog, like my running, has been quiet of late. Last Thursday I had a hernia repaired (yes, seriously).

My hiatus from running has not hampered my writing, however. In case you haven't already stumbled over it, you can check out my weekly motivation series for Running Times at:

http://www.runningtimes.com

Part 8 is posted at the top of the homepage.

Motivation and will power are good topics to consider as we begin the season of staying indoors and eating large portions.

GEER up

2010-09-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

A thin sheen of stratus clouds gives shape to the faint glow of the predawn sky. I run eastward on a road that descends along a ridge at about mile six of my new morning route. With the gradual illumination of the convex horizon coinciding with my downhill acceleration I can sense, better than at any other time, my place on a celestial object hurtling through space – my speed adding to the vectors of earth’s rotation and orbit.

I welcome the buzz in my gut that wakes me up in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I set an alarm clock. For several weeks after Burning River I slept in. I had to rest and allow my hamstring to heal. Of course I didn’t just rest. I sought, and got, good treatment advice. My rehab routine took a little over an hour each afternoon. I’m happy to share the details of the program, gleaned from an orthopedics journal. The gist is to engage in dynamic neuromuscular work – not stretching or massage. Six weeks later my hamstring is strong and fit for another ultra. My anticipation of the Great Eastern Endurance 100K Run, along with the daily demands of shepherding children (mine) and young adults (at the college) causes me to wake me at about 5 am each morning.

I have been striving, since last summer, to run 100 miles well. The disappointment of a DNF could be cause for despair. It did cause me to reevaluate my fall schedule – which had been devoted to a steady stream of 100s. My thinking had been to simply run that distance until I did it right. [Doing a 100 “right” is the subjective experience of owning that distance. Its converse is the experience of a ragdoll tied to a beagle by a little girl; found, washed and wrung out by her mother; then gutted, filled with firecrackers, and exploded by her brother.] My new schedule puts off the 100 until next summer. The irony is that I feel more excited now. I’m running GEER in a week and a half followed by the Mountain Masochist 50, the North Face 50, and Bandera 100K. Instead of dread I feel a sense of urgency. I want to run fast.

I bounced off my injury at the national 100 mile championships and onto a new trajectory. So why don’t I feel like a flea unwittingly jangled onto the back of an elephant who was only scratching his head on my tree? Running 100s was an existential exercise for me, designed to prove that I am a prime mover. If my choice of race was dictated by comfort, or talent, or circumstance – then I didn’t choose it. That’s a problem for people. We imagine moving ourselves – all the while stuck to the back of an elephant itself spun by the earth itself spinning haplessly through space –every movement determined by the laws of physics. Yet there is something to being me that makes me want to try anyway.

Ultimately, my new race schedule leads me back to the real source of my angst: the Western States 100. Mountain Masochist and Bandera are both Montrail Cup races. Following those in the spring I could enter American River or Miwok with the same purpose: to win one of the few coveted slots that allow runners to avoid the low probability of a lottery pick for Western States entry. Why should I aim to run a race that has given me little except cut-to-the-bone pain? You can get a sense by reviewing the history of posts to this blog. It’s something between the two trite responses given to the question “why climb Mt. Everest?” by George Mallory and Joseph Poindexter respectively.

Because it’s there… and because I’m here.

Intersections

2010-08-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

We were off course for a second time. I cussed -- a treat I allow myself on just these sorts of occassions. We had arrived at a T in the trail, with neither choice marked. We took the one more traveled. Wrong choice. The trail circled the small lake and brought us to within earshot of the aid station we had just left. They seemed as clueless as us. Intersections.

A week ago Tuesday I debated two distinct choices. I could run my final tempo workout alone, as usual, or I could enter a small 7-mile trail race in Kingsport TN. I chose the trail race. It felt like a good workout until shortly after the finish -- when I tried to jog for my warm down. My right hamstring had tightened and a dull but persistent pain emanated distinctly from the muscle belly. That isn't the sort of signal you want to get 10 days before a bid for the 100 mile trail national championship.

The trip, unlike my physical condition, was set. We had reservations at campgrounds from Ironton to Sandusky Ohio. My 8 and 10-year-old children were absolutely counting on big days at Cedar Point amusement park. We were going, and I was going to run, regardless of any signals I was getting from my right leg.

I took 3 days completely off, and then came back slowly. By last Thursday, I was able to run 8 minute miles pain free for an hour. I hoped for hot weather on Saturday even though I don't run especially well in heat. In steamy conditions we would all have to run slower, and that would have put less stress on the hamstring.

As it turned out, Saturday was as cool as any this summer. The Burning River 100 course begins with 10 miles on relatively flat roads, and then proceeds onto a mix of wide trail, towpath, and paved recreation trails. I responded to the conditions, and 20 miles in I found myself plucking along with 100K road specialist Todd Braje.

The hamstring kept me informed of its distaste for my selected activity. As Braje and I began to separate from the other front runners, the pain became more insistent, and I wondered if I would be able to run another 80 miles. But we hit some trails that slowed our pace somewhat and the pain subsided. And we got off course. That slowed us for about 4 minutes while we found our way back. We kept our heads and returned to our established pace while we caught up to the lead group that included Mark Godale. The Cuyahoga Valley and the Buckeye Trail in particular are Mark's training grounds, and he has won twice here on his home course. Given that he is also just downright friendly, I determined that I was going to hang around and run with him until I felt like I could follow the course on my own.

Only gradually did Todd and I ease back into the lead. The course markings had tightened up, and we continued to have (relatively) cool and overcast conditions. I was able to eat and drink everything that I needed, and I felt fluid and efficient. About 4 hours in, though, and things inevitably start to wratchet down. My stride shortened as my muscles began to query my brain about the wisdom of continuing indefinitely on my present course. Todd must have had the same internal conversation because we both slowed simultaneously to about 9 minute per mile pace. Even so, my hamstring raised its voice again, enough that I was convinced to try the compression sleeve I had been wearing during runs since the original strain.

I pulled on the thigh sleeve at mile 40, and chased after Todd who had just donned an ice vest. Although the trail was mildly technical, we may have picked up the pace slightly. I wasn't hot, but I would guess that by cooling his core temperature, even slightly, Todd may have been convinced (subconsciously) that he could run a little faster with no additional burden. This is a topic for another post, but there is some interesting research that suggests pacing is regulated by our apprehension of the potential to overheat. In any case, within 10 minutes the pain in my hamstring intensified. I was concerned that the compression sleeve was making things worse so I pulled it to my ankle and continued running. Almost immediately the hamstring seized, making it impossible to run. I walked, took the ibuprofen I was carrying, and hoped the pain was a spasm that would pass. I ended up walking 3+ miles to the next aid station. I tried several things, but it was clear that I had injured the muscle beyond what it would tolerate. The only way I could cover the next 55 miles was walking, and, well, that's not what I came for.

I withdrew from the race and met my family at the Boston Store aid station, a central location the runners pass at mile 49 and again at mile 55. We hung around, visiting with other runners' crews and helping cheer folks through. I enjoyed getting the perspective of a full swath of participants, from those toward the front for whom seconds are precious, to those toward the back who took the time to enjoy the people who had come to support them. Although I had my own very attentive group around me, I was struck by the level of committment shown by family members, coaches, volunteers, and friends that gathered around runners as they came through the aid station. These folks care!

A young boy, maybe 5 years old, with dark hair and fair skin, approached me. His eyebrows furrowed with concern as he asked, tenderly but plainly, if it made me sad that I had to drop from the run. We had a nice exchange. I tried to reassure him -- I had done many races, and a lot of them turned out very well. The image of him, his dark eyes peering up to meet mine, has stayed with me. I think it must have been the sort of unjaded compassion that children have that prompted him to talk to me. I am disappointed. The conditions were good, the competition was good, and in many ways I was fit to run. Just not in every way.

So I'll soak it up. Wait to let the next moves take shape. Given my immediate goals, I made a wrong turn at the intersection. Now I'm in a different place, though, and a different set of things may be possible. Pity for others may be a helpful emotion -- as the runners tended at Boston Store will attest -- but self-pity is not. We can usefully reflect on lessons learned, and move forward, without wallowing in weighty disappointment. I do feel ready to move -- to where I'm not sure. I'll keep you posted.

Across the Highland Sky

2010-06-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

I'm running on the Road Across the Sky. I've got five pringles in my left hand, and one in my right. I try to keep my lungs full, exhaling about half the volume with each breath. The painful tugging runs from my ribs to my belly just right of mid line. I know my ileo psaos is cramping. I push the single pringle in my mouth and chew. It soaks up the little saliva in my mouth and turns into a dry chewy clump. I grab my bottle from my waist pack and fill my mouth with water so I can swallow. I'm able to get through three more chips this way. I pitch the last two.

Brian Schmidt runs alongside. We don't talk much. Not because it's a race, and we're battling at the front. We have emerged after more than 20 miles of steep, rocky, mountain single track. After miles of ankle-twisting, body-jarring scrambling up, down, and back up the lush mountain, I eagerly anticipated the chance to run out in the open. Now I feel overexposed as we run across the highlands. The road stretches out interminably in front of us. I welcome a companion through this inviting, yet inhospitable, place. Within our quiet is a shared focus -- to maintain ourselves.

Very long runs will inevitably require attention to maintenance: to hydration, electrolytes, and fueling -- and usually in that order. Running well for many hours requires successful management of these elements. Failure is felt as exhaustion, cramping, nausea, bloating, light-headedness, and other unpleasant sensations. Ultimately, failure to manage is felt as a complete loss of motivation to continue. It usually takes an ultramarathon to get to this point, though, because under normal conditions we have a couple hours buffer built in -- the reserves stored in our bodies. Experienced ultrarunners carry water bottles, salt tablets, and high-energy snacks to supplement those stores. Of course, conditions aren't always normal.

Courses can be set that are challenging by design. Highland Sky is like that: a couple of fast road miles to lure you in, a huge climb to drain your stores, a precipitous descent to bash your quads, then more climbing to rock-strewn boulder fields that take all of what is left of your mental focus. And then, still less than halfway through, you are left to bake on a wide open stretch of road across the top of the mountain.

That's where I am when I'm confronted with demons of races past. The painful abdominal cramps that caused me to drop from a race for the first time. The cotton mouth that I've experienced many times in warm weather races. The deadly potential of low blood-sodium that I experienced twice before I knew what it was. Even considering the difficult course, and the summer heat and humidity, I should not have been struggling after only three hours.

I slept little the night before, and got up with intestinal distress. Some of that is typical race stress -- but this was disproportionate for me. I drank some of my homemade energy shake, a concoction of yogurt and blueberries that was untested as a pre-race meal. For the run, I packed several packs of Clif Bloks in my waistpack, along with my water bottle and salt tablets. I methodically emptied my water bottle between aid stations, and took an S-cap each hour, but the Clif Bloks went untouched for 20 miles. It was time to take stock.

I had benefited from the work of other runners up to that point. Sean Andrish led up the big climb, taking some of the sting out of the nettles, and setting a strong steady effort that contoured to the terrain. Sean's vast trail running experience was evident. Jeremy Ramsey has also paid some dues, and was able to take over pacing duties throughout the most technical sections of the run. He established himself as one of the three best rock runners I have run behind. Clark Zealand, who gapped me on through those same sections seven years ago, dances across rocks like a kind of forest spirit. Dave Mackey runs through rocks like a locomotive. Jeremy just picks the most economical line possible and scoots through it. To the extent I kept him in sight, my best strategy was to follow him. We all knew that a shake-up was likely. The Highland Sky course, perhaps more than any other, changes abruptly. We didn't just go from technical single track trail to open dirt road. We went from forest canopy to exposed meadow. We went from hazy shade to glaring light. And an aid station where my wife waited. She couldn't believe I hadn't eaten. I traded Clif Blok flavors around -- it didn't matter though -- I would only eat one pack the entire run.

I finally led the way down that first section of road. I choked down two Bloks. I backed off the intensity in response to the cramping and dry-mouth. At the next aid station I grabbed the short stack of pringles. Small bites of savory snacks, interspersed with sips of water, help me keep it together. The race became a lesson in management. Small bites, small sips. Short strides up hill. Arms lightly swinging, hands loose. Recognize the despair, chalk it up to low blood sugar and dehydration. Manage it. Small bites, small sips. Flow across the ground.

I proceeded across and down the mountain in that way, resolutely clinging to the edge of what was possible. Technically, at every point of the race I could have tried harder. My sense, then and now, is that if I had tried harder, at any point of the race, things would have turned out worse. Had I resisted the truth of the situation, or imagined I had any special power to buoy myself above it, my flight would have melted like the wax of Icarus' wings. What I did have, and use, was the experience of countless prior moments. I do mean the sort of technical expertise to manage fluid and fuel consumption. More importantly I mean the management of my motivation, or will, to carry on with what is ultimately a recreational activity.

You have this notion that there comes a point in the race when the strongest runner willfully separates himself from the pack. I suggest another explanation: the strongest runner prepared to separate himself. The work was done across time, and in other places. Successful athletes prepare by training, of course, but also by establishing habits of mind. No one has a special lamp for conjuring the personal genie who can levitate us to the finish line. No one can decide to just go for it. While some athletes might gain by perpetuating the myth of a spectral puppeteer, I think the first step to real willfulness is admitting our own powerlessness. How do you do that? I can recommend a little race across the Highland Sky in West Virginia...

The Tyranny of Comfort

2010-06-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

It's not hard to imagine that we are living in a cloud. I opened my eyes early this morning to the softest, grayest, most diffuse light that daybreak can offer. I turned on to my back and closed my eyes, picturing a vase-like shape that I use as a kind of visual mantra. I stride on its interminable surface until it curls back into itself. That was enough to allow me some extra minutes of precious rest. When I emerged again into full consciousness, the air on the other side of the window was completely saturated: light and fog everywhere. The clock said 6 am. I rolled out of bed, slipped on some clothes, and laced up my running shoes.

I don't try to take any special credit for the discipline required to train at high levels. We call it "will," and imbue it with a mysterious, supernatural quality. We admire people who have it. We think it helps athletic performance. Our conception of will goes well beyond a desire to win, though. It works to get us up early, while the rest of the household still sleeps. It works to keep us on the track doing extra laps after the rest of the team has worn down. Most of all, it works to push at -- and exceed -- our own limits. Therein lies the biggest clue that we have misconceived the will.

The limits on athletic performance derive from laws of nature. People do go faster than they used to, but not because they evaded those laws or exceeded those limits. When Paul Biedermann swam faster than Michael Phelps at the World Championship, we didn't say it was because of his "will to win." We said it was because of his swimsuit. The suit helped him to decrease the friction between his body and the water. So he swam faster. Why are other advances less nakedly obvious? Why has Phelp's success been parlayed into a book titled, "No limits: the Will to Win?"

I think we like to preserve some of the mystery of athletic performance so that we can credit the athlete -- the person -- with the "stuff" that it took to make it happen. And the athlete may perpetuate the myth by maintaining some of that mystery. In the run-up to this year's Western States 100 mile trail race, Geoff Roes, fellow Montrail athlete, reports that he trains as he feels -- taking a daily invitation to run in the mountains of his Alaska home. When they aren't so obtuse, athlete's blogs document seemingly inhuman efforts. Anton Krupicka, training for the same event, reports running 200+ miles per week, running having become "first nature" to him. These two inspire awe with their performances. How can mere mortals hope to achieve what seems to belong to a different realm?

Some people do seem couch bound. Who doesn't like to recline into a soft cushion, legs extended and feet propped, cold beverage at one hand and savory snack at the other? And given the opportunity, why shouldn't we avail ourselves of such creature comforts? Running in a world without imminent predation is totally discretionary. And generally uncomfortable. A recent blog post by another Montrail teammate, Gary Robbins, captured well the angst of finding oneself completely miserable while running a race. He was running Miwok when he found that all he wanted was to stop. What can you do? He stopped. Tellingly -- he felt badly afterward for what seemed to him a failure of will. I don't think willpower is like that -- something you can activate when needed -- like at mile 38 of a 62 mile race. I don't think it is something that some people just have. Tiger Woods may have the most disciplined of golf games -- but his power of will obviously didn't extend into his personal life. Will is a social device -- something we use to hold each other accountable. Willpower develops in non-mysterious ways among people who don't like excuses.

That brings me to the ultimate source of my will: a compulsion to be free. I value freedom more than comfort. I scoff at happiness. Every invitation to do what feels good has the potential to sway me, and in so doing, become me. To the extent we are swayed by inclination, we have no autonomy to decide for ourselves. We can neither be praised nor punished for how we proceed. We have a ready excuse -- it couldn't be helped. Strong groups depend on the banishment of excuses, and the emergence of individuals who decide for themselves. Training for and competing in ultras is a declaration of this kind of freedom.

Determination doesn't just happen. I'll have to elaborate on the mechanics of willfulness in later posts...when I can discuss them in context of what happens at Highland Sky on Saturday?

Whose Race to Run?

2010-06-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't raced since February, so I'm excitedly counting down the last week and a half until Highlands Sky on June 19th. I've written some about competition, but I thought it might be useful to drill down into some of the strategic race psychology I've developed over the years. Pay attention competitors! I will give you all the information you need to turn my own psychological ploys against me...

If you enter a race, you have your reasons. A common reason is to give yourself a goal. Once you have target race, your day-to-day runs are structured to prepare for that race. You may find out, however, that the daily preparation means as much to you as your actual performance come race day. You may fall short of your goal, but still feel satisfaction from having worked hard for all those weeks or months. You may be happy to feel more fit, look better, or have more energy. By signing up for a race, you play a little trick on yourself. You know that it probably wouldn't work to wake up each morning and make yourself get out of bed for a run so that after 8 weeks you will be more fit. So you enter a race. Of course you have to put some stakes on it, or the trick wouldn't work. You'd wake up and say to yourself: "I don't really care about that race anyway," and then fall back asleep. No, the trick depends on making yourself care. It seems odd to talk about ourselves like this. Playing tricks on ourselves, making ourselves care. Does it really work like that?

Competitive runners care about how they finish compared to other runners. If I want to motivate myself to train hard, I need to race against other runners at my level. I think most runners are competitive. Most people are interested to see how they compare to others of some related group -- like other women, or others of the same age. Some runners are avowedly non-competitve, however. They say something like: "I don't compete against others, I compete against myself." Now that seems even more far-fetched than playing a trick on yourself. What kind of duality does competing against yourself take? Is there a you-in-January that can be compared to a you-in-June? If so, doesn't one of you always lose? And if you-in-June runs faster, who's to say that you-in-January wasn't sandbagging? (That would be more like playing a trick on yourself. I do that with workouts sometimes -- go conservative the first couple intervals so I feel like a big man when I can do the later ones faster).

Even for competitive runners, a good strategy is to "run your own race." You hear that a lot, along with "run within yourself." We know what these strategies mean, even if their articulation is problematic. The intent is to encourage a kind of willful ignorance of what other runners are doing, especially in the early parts of a race. When we race the temptation is to assert our desired position relative to others from the start. Others will tend to do the same. If each of us tries to get in front of the other, we'll escalate until the speed is unsustainable. If everyone followed that temptation, we might still have an interesting "battle of attrition," though probably not the best performances possible. If someone has the "run within yourself" strategy, though, and goes out at a more sustainable pace, that runner will be more likely to run strongly for the whole distance, and attain a better performance.

The idea to "run your own race," however, is not always the best one to have in mind. It is a cerebral strategy, requiring a dispassionate assessment of the conditions and oneself. Once disengaged from the race, and other runners, some participants may lose motivation. They may get into a sustainable groove, but it may be slower that what is possible. We are notorious for miscalculating what we can really do. We may perceive our exertion to be at a maximum, and then find "another gear" when someone we feel we should beat passes us. The strategy to keep us involved, and exerting ourselves maximally, can be called "mix it up." A runner employing this strategy should focus on other runners of similar caliber. Lead some or follow some, but stay attuned to what others are doing, and respond appropriately.

So what is the strategy of the runner who bolts to the front and runs "wide open" from the gun? I can think of two possibilities. One is to challenge the other runners. If I take off at a foolishly fast pace, other runners have to either match match my pace or let me go. If they match my pace, they will have to suffer the consequences of that foolish pace. Even though I will also suffer, the fact that I chose the pace potentially gives me an edge. It may seem to them that I feel stronger -- simply because I am in front. I can wait for them to fade, defeated, and then slow to a more manageable pace. The other possibility depends on deeper pyschology. Running from the front assumes an alpha position -- one that a competitor may be loathe to give up. The desire to maintain high position may help keep the runner at a maximum exertion.

So what should you do? Run your own race, mix it up, or run wide open? What do I do? Well, you could probably guess, I'm not going to say. The best strategy depends on the strategies of other runners in the race, and on your relationship with yourself. My goal with this post is to challenge your idea about whose race it is to begin with.

We fall into one or both of two traps when we think about whose race it is. Trap 1: each runner has a specific, physical, potential based on variables like VO2 max, muscle fiber type, or glycogen stores. The race is between those runners with the best attributes, provided they fulfill their poential. Trap 2: at least within certain levels of competition, the race is determined by willfulness -- ie., who wants it more. This way of thinking about persons is intuitive, but unhelpful for a lot of reasons. If we fall into trap 1, we think the outcome of races is determined by factors mostly out of individual control. That makes preparing and racing superfluous. If we fall into trap 2, we think that wanting it badly should be enough. When we don't succeed in our goals, we are led to the conlusion that our will wasn't strong enough. I don't think combining the two approaches helps much, either. We are neither completely constrained by our physical attributes, nor freed by more spiritual seeming ones.

We are multiple, though. I started this post with the anecdote about signing up for a race in order to convince yourself to train. I talked about tricking yourself, competing against yourself, running your own race, running responsive to others, and going out hard to convince yourself to hold on to that position. But who are you, to convince your self? Well, you can't just do it. You have to negotiate, cajole, and trick -- yourself. From one time to the next. From your anticipation of what is coming -- you prepare -- get in position. You enter the race, and then watch yourself prepare. You go out front, and then watch yourself hang on. You can't bluff it -- there are physical laws, and everything you do obeys those laws. But still, you do, and it matters. You are the combined effects of your oxygen carrying capacity, your preparation, and your strategies. It looks like will -- but it wasn't free -- you earned it.

High Country 3-Day in Review

2010-06-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

The Cross Mountain Crew

The run intensity was low by design. Think of it as five 4-hour runs, back-to-back, on technical mountain single track ('cause that's what it was). I designed it to give me some information -- mostly about my readiness to run a 100 mile race in three weeks. I got some information. Maybe I'll share it, along with some flashbacks to my early running career. Maybe not.

I generally take a distant view on things. Always one step removed. Thinking. Some might call me aloof -- does that mean I am? I run alone a lot. I planned the logistics of this 3-day so that I could manage it alone. I cached supplies in Damascus and drove my van to the north end of the course. I ended days 1 and 2 in Damascus and day 3 at my van. I had food and overnight gear in Damascus. I was prepared to "go it alone." That sort of mindset may well be an asset to an ultrarunner. We have to run lots of miles -- and many of them are going to be alone. We have to know and trust in ourselves. But still.

OK, here's a flashback. I started my AT thru-hike in June of 1997 at Springer Mountain. Most hikers start in early spring. That meant I hiked alone. A lot. I can still hear myself creating rhythms with hiking poles, bouncing pack, and shoe strikes. I might add a little beat box, or whistle a melody over the rhythm. I remember the long mental ramblings. I build homes in my mind. I embrace time alone - sail along in my own world, and soak up the miles under my feet. So what happens when I see another hiker, headed the opposite direction? I still remember some of them. A pair of Canadian hikers, southbound. A young couple. We all stopped, immediately occupied with a chance encounter. Someone to talk to, share with. We swap information about the trail ahead, but mostly just spend a few minutes in each others' company. And then we part, refreshed. Someone else we know, even if only in that one brief encounter.

I let a handful of people know about the high country 3-day. Byron Backer had run the Tour De Appalachia I hosted a few years back, and he threw his hat in for this one. I spoke with Annette Bednosky, another veteran ultrarunner, during the Trail Days Half-Marathon in Damascus two weeks ago. She expressed interest in running some mountain trails with me in preparation for her run at Western States. And Fast Girl. Jenny Nichols jumped in with both feet. She's been running trails, and now ultras, for about a year. She's into it. She'd run Saturday and Sunday and help with shuttles and supplies. "I'll have a whole spread!" she told me. Well she did. She had so much that she was able to feed all the thru-hikers who passed while she waited for us.

The surprise was David Horton. He calls me Thursday night to find out what I've got going on for the weekend. So I tell him and he says he will probably show up and help crew (!). Well he did. Crews and takes me and Beth Minnick (who, along with Joey ran the second 4 hour run that day) out to dinner after day 2. That's where it gets really good, because we sit next to a bevvy of thru-hikers at the Whistle Pig in Damascus. Horton loves thru-hikers. A big part of his trip here is to meet and offer "trail magic" to them. Weeks of resisting gravity puts people in a state of perpetual deprivation. Hikers are especially grateful for things most people take for granted -- like a cold soda. Or cookies. But mostly Horton just likes to talk to them, tease them, find out what they're up to. Ultimately, he loves to give -- everything. No one accuses Horton of holding back.

I'm not so wide open. I do hold back. I analyze. I postponed scheduling this trek for weeks because I was unsure about the strength of my achilles. The results should help me decide about Mohican and Burning River -- two summer hundreds I may run. I could relate my thinking here, but honestly, I have not been inclined to think much about it. I've mostly thought about the people I ran with over Memorial Day Weekend. Of course I'm grateful for the help through a rigorous set of runs. Someone accompanied me, after all, on each of the five parts. And I did enjoy the interactions and conversations we had. Mostly, though, I have this sense of elevation. And not just from being perched on Buzzard Rock. I've been buoyed by a spirit of boundlessness -- one that seems especially at home in the body of an ultrarunner.

HIgh Country 3-day in Progress

2010-05-30T03:44:00.001-07:00

The picture is from midday of day 2 -- about 43 miles in. We ran another 20 miles to get back to Damascus on the Iron Mountain trail. In an hour I'll start the final push from Damascus north over Whitetop and Mt. Rogers.

The Distance-Only Experiment

2010-05-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

About 40 minutes before the start of the 1982 Trinity Invitational in Louisville, KY, coach Worful took me aside, looked me in the eye, and said: "I talked to the coach at Floyd Central. He told me about two of his freshman. He said they're animals." I absorbed the information, like most things, with little more than a raised eyebrow. Coach Worful, who I can call Steve now, already knew me better than most ever have. He knew he didn't need to say much.

It had been his idea to enter me in JV meets even though I would have been 3rd man on the varsity team. This was my first freshman-only race, and he knew -- even if I didn't -- that it would be important for me to see how I stacked up with others my age. The 3K course started with a loop around a baseball field, proceeded across a valley and back, and then looped around a large flat rectangle of a park. In the middle of the long side of the rectangle, with about 3/4 mile to go, I was running in front. One of the "animals" pulled up beside me and said "you're dying boy." I turned my head toward him, furrowed my brow, and retorted, "the hell I am." Then I picked it up.

In the summer before my junior year, coach gave me a training book by Arthur Lydiard. I soaked it up. We conferred about workouts, but I generally planned the training for myself and teammate Dave Lawhorn. In retrospect, I see that he expected it was my time to shine -- and that I'd be out front at the varsity level. The season opener, as always, was the St. Xavier campus run. Several strong seniors from the region took it out hard. I cruised, well off the pace. I made up a lot of ground in the same final 3/4 mile that had marked the end of the freshman 3K. I did not win, however. Again, coach took me aside. He told me about how much he thrilled in the showdown races between Joe Beuchler and Jim Sapienza, who graduated the year before I started high school. Neither was content finishing behind the other. They pushed each other to remarkable performances. I didn't need to respond; coach had not criticized my race. Still, the image of Joe and Jim racing gnawed at me -- exactly as Steve had intended.

The next big invitational race was Covington Catholic in Cincinnati. The race attracted runners from a wide area -- so we could expect good competition. The start was one of those high school monstrosities -- stretched across a vast field of thick grass. The start strategy for front-runners in high school cross country is fairly simple. Get out fast enough to stay clear of the stampede. I did that, along with a small group of others with the same strategy. I didn't have to think, "oh, time to take control of the race." But I found myself in front, and unwavering. I didn't bring to mind the footsteps behind me, or my willingess to go into greater oxygen debt. I just felt my fingers tingling, and heard the steps behind me grow fainter.

Coach approached me after the race, smiling. He said he had looked at my face when I passed him along the course, and that "he knew." Steve was expert at knowing. He had good success as a coach - because his main concern was knowing his athletes.

He knew the conventional wisdom about training, too, and was relatively conservative about sticking to it. Conventional training wisdom went (and still goes) something like this: on some days run longer and slower than race pace, and on other days run shorter and faster than race pace. So like every other high school cross country program, that is what we did. Daily runs of 6-9 miles alternated with interval workouts. Long run on Sunday.

We were talking one afternoon -- as we always did -- when coach wondered outloud, "what would happen if your training consisted only of distance runs?" He knew I did not readily accept convention of any kind, including training wisdom. I did, however, accept most of his carefully reasoned and articulated arguments. And his answer to his own question was one of these. Considering the success I was enjoying, he argued, it wouldn't be worth the risk to answer the question with an experiment. That reasoning has held for me ever since.

Until now.

Things work a little differently after the age of forty. First -- I've got kids, and the first two are getting big enough to start carrying the torch. Second -- I've got a professional life. I work with young people who are ready to launch teaching careers of their own. Third -- my connective tissue has become persnickety. That means it reacts quickly to overwork and slowly to rehabilitation.

If you've read this deep into my post, you probably have kept up enough to know my achilles tendon woes since Western States last year. Yes, I've had nearly a year of difficulty dealing with the connective tissue at my heels. I've tried lots of things, and actually trained a fair amount in the intervening time. In my quest to find habits that will allow me to keep running, I've eliminated speed. I've not run faster than 7:30 minute/mile pace in months. I've resisted all temptation to run fast, including by avoiding races. My first race since February will be the Mohican 100 in June.

Even though Mohican is a very long race -- and performing well does not depend going fast at any point -- it will be the first time I have entered a race having trained with distance runs only. Steve and I will finally have some data pertinent to the question he asked a quarter century ago. And I will report those data here.

Why do people train for races by sometimes running faster and shorter than the race? Why not just train at race pace? Well, I'm not really going to answer that here -- because better technical explanations can be found elsewhere. [Try "The Lore of Running" by Tim Noakes.] I will comment, though, that I have valued variety in my training, and that the most simple variable is speed. So in the past I have made sure to do workouts with sprints, workouts with tempo running, quality distance runs, and slow distance runs. If for no other reason, varying speed keeps running fresh, fun, and motivating.

Speed isn't the only variable, though, and I have had to focus on different kinds of variety the last few months. I have run more gravel roads, found new trails, run more pavement, and of course, traveled to "the mountain" a couple times each week.

That brings me to my original intent in posting today: tomorrow a small group of us will start a 3-day 100+ mile run through the high country north and south of Damascus. We will cross White Top, and circle Mt. Rogers, the highest peaks in Virginia.

View High Country 3-day in a larger map

We will be running slowly, but the terrain is varied and interesting, and I haven't done a stage run since the "Tour De Appalachia" several summers ago. Byron Backer came along then, and is back to run this "3-day high country 100." Annette Bednoskey, Jenny Nichols, and Jenny Anderson are coming along for at least parts of the run -- and I'll report back on the results.

I look forward to spending a few days on the mountain. The days are long, the sun is hot, and the air is thick. The trees promise shade, though, and the valleys water, and the mountaintops wind. And I will add thousands more strides -- all slow -- to the experiment posed by my high school coach.

Testing and worthiness

2010-05-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

The nasty twinge about half way down my back on the right side has abated today. I was forced to curtail my wood splitting session yesterday because of the pain. The remnants of three big locust trees are stacked in a line along the edge of our property. I felled them because they were dying and infested by ants. Now they are dead -- and infested by ants. I need to split and dry the good wood, and burn the rest. The large logs resist my efforts to move them, though, and sometimes they win. We love our home -- built in the 1960s by a professor at E&H. He built it on the ridge at the edge of the woods at the perimeter of the college campus. He built it out of timber salvaged from a Saltville train trestle. We are surrounded by trees. The sun is already raging this morning, but we are protected by our trees -- their leaves like countless miniature umbrellas hoisted above us.

To me trees are the most majestic of nature's creation. I feel most connected when traversing a trail deep in a mature forest. Everything feels buffered by a stand of big trees. They are also a big pain. Every season has its own kind of tree litter that we have to deal with: pollen, flowers, leaves, and branches. The ants and termites that live on trees also try to live on and in our house. Simply because of their height and mass, trees are dangerous. This brings me to my main point (and, I will eventually relate that point to running) that the height of trees is, in at least one sense, a waste.

Trees live on sunlight. Trees grow upward to reach the sunlight. The light is just as potent at ground level, though, as 50 feet up. So a tree can just as effectively harvest sunlight at the ground as 50 feet up at full canopy height. And staying low would be a more efficient use of the tree's resources. It could commit more of its energy to making leaves and reproductive organs and less into making wood. Never mind that people generally like trees better than bushes, bushes are more efficient organisms. So why don't trees settle for being bushes?

Competition.

A tree doesn't settle for being a bush because trees beat bushes. A bush is literally overshadowed by a tree. You've probably heard of ecological succession. An exposed hillside will become populated with nice, humble, efficient bushes. Eventually, though, slow-growing organisms will invade and begin to build big, fancy, tall trunks upon which, eventually, a mighty canopy will rest. The stature-challenged bushes will be displaced, and the shadow of the large trees will cover the forest floor. That's not the end of the story, though.

Trees don't really win. The competition is ongoing, it's just between trees and other trees, or trees and their parasites. Trees have to strive to get taller and taller, and more and more vulnerable, just to obtain the same resources. The escalation is a biological arms race. Organisms adapt to their immediate environment, including the competition. They don't have a long-range view. We are in a special position to see that trees would all benefit if they could just agree to cap their height at something reasonable -- say 25 feet. They can compete through other means -- make more efficient leaves, or really agile spermatophores. This business of growing to dangerous heights could all be contained -- and everyone would be better off! (Again, I'm not concerned with the aesthetic appreciation of tall trees, which has its own biological explanation).

OK, so trees compete, and runners compete. Is that all I got? What's the connection? First, another digression...

Did you take a college entrance exam when you were in high school? Maybe you took it seriously, maybe you didn't. If you were blessed, as I was, with benignly negligent parents, you probably didn't worry about preparing. Do you know what kids do now?

Maybe there are some tests that seek to answer a simple question, something like: has this person learned what they need to know? A driving test is like that. You get an answer, up or down. Some state licensure tests might be like that -- for plumbing or electric work, say. These tests have passing scores, so you either make the grade or you go back to study some more. College entrance exams may seem to be like that, but they aren't. Like most tests, they are designed to show differences between people. Colleges compete for the best students, and college entrance exam scores array students hierarchically. Colleges can most easily compare students using the scores on a college entrance exam.

'In the beginning' the test was a measure of the capacities of students as they had developed through the standard K-12 school curriculum. Assuming students have similar classroom experiences, the test will accurately reflect the variation between students in readiness to continue schooling through college. Students (and their families), like trees, adapt. There are test-taking strategies, after all, that can bump your score up a little. Simple things like getting a good night's sleep and eating a wholesome breakfast. Just slightly more strategic things like "go ahead and guess if you can eliminate two of the choices." Not only might those things raise your score, but if you do them, and others don't, you will probably score a little higher than others -- even if they are equally ready to continue schooling through college. When it comes to college admissions, you will have an edge over your equals.

More power to those kids, you say! The motivation to do well on tests is all part of it. Maybe it means they actually are better prepared for college -- since they know how to be at their best for a test. I think that's a stretch. Call me traditional, but I think the valuable stuff in school is experienced in class when there is no test, and no test looming. A good test would measure that stuff -- not the ability of the test-taker to prepare. Come on, you say, we're just talking about common sense stuff -- like getting a good night's sleep! Everybody should do that anyway. Fair enough.

The students in school now who care about college, though, go way beyond that. They take dual credit college courses while in high school, and they take test preparation courses. They buy books, take practice tests, go to tutoring, etc. The intent isn't enrichment. The point is to improve one's score on the test. Again, we can respect the effort that young people make toward improving themselves. The unfortunate consequence that we also need to recognize, however, is that other students will be compelled to prepare to the same extent. And when they do, no one will have gained, and everyone will continue to pay the added cost in time and energy of test preparation. It's a treadmill.

Finally, running. If you are like me you will run headfirst into a menacing thunderstorm before you'll go to the gym and get on a treadmill. Even if you can get a good workout that way -- it just doesn't feel right to run and not get anywhere. Getting somewhere -- even just experiencing the natural world for an hour -- is a virtue. It's worth it, even if nothing else is gained.

Much of what athletes can do to improve performance is like the test-preparation that students use. The common sense stuff is even the same -- eat and sleep well (if possible). The use of performance enhancing drugs is a problem because it escalates the kind of preparation that others must make, just to stay even. We want athletes to prepare, and try to separate themselves, through hard work. If they all have to work harder, so much the better. There isn't much to value about athlete's figuring out the best steroid recipe. Likewise with a test-prep course. We value the application of energy into one's studies over the course of years -- not the strategic memorization of strategies and likely questions in the weeks before a test.

Some kinds of striving are worthy. The simple test goes: "I did it, but didn't achieve what I hoped. It was still worth it." I couldn't say that about taking a test-preparation course. I couldn't say that about taking performance enhancing drugs. I can say that about the 5 weeks I spent running in Colorado last summer to prepare for Western States, and about every run I am doing now. Especially the ones under the grandest trees in the mountains of southwest Virginia.

Enhancement

2010-05-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

Chris Rock did a routine calling out women for wearing high heels and bras. "You ain't that tall!" he said. He called women liars for trying to pull one over on us. "When you date a woman," he went on, "you don't date the woman, you date her agent." The routine was funny. The charge, though, is serious. He exposed systematic cheating -- by a whole sex!

I remember when I was in middle school and the girls were starting to wear makeup. Feeling helpful, I explained that I preferred natural beauty. Well, responded the girl still willing to talk to me, I wear makeup for me. It didn't help to point out the flimsiness of the argument. Isn't it obvious that girls make themselves look pretty for boys?

Boys and girls are expert at arranging hierarchies. Boys figure out who's dominant and girls figure out who's pretty. They make lists. It's pretty straightforward in elementary school. Clear skin, straight teeth, symmetrical features, etc. determine prettiness. Boys settle dominance with sports and/or fights. The boys know who is the fastest, strongest, best. Girls know who is prettiest.

Having the opposite sex arrayed from least to most desirable helps define your aspirations. It may not be in your best interest, however, to have your own position fixed. That's where middle and high school comes in. Those unhappy with positioning within a group can move to another group, or start a new one. Cliques form around some definable subcultures: preps, punks, nerds, jocks, etc. As they reposition themselves within groups, young people tinker with self-improvement. A kid in band might take private lessons and practice routinely. A skater may spend every afternoon working on tricks at the concrete steps down the road. A young lady may take medicine for acne, get braces for her teeth, and spend Saturdays shopping for the style that fits her best.

And, some of us take up a sport.

If you were like me, you ended up in a sport in which you were most likely to excel. I spent middle school playing soccer. I had a reasonably defined group of friends who also played. I was not among the best players. When I started high school, I didn't immediately have to worry about going out for the soccer team because soccer was a spring sport. The cross-country coach was recruiting runners, though, so I went out for the team. It was clear from the start that I would be among the best runners my age. In the spring when I had to choose between soccer and track, I chose track.

We feel that it is wise to choose activities that play to our strengths. It enhances our standing by defining a group with whom we favorably compare. I gave up being a mediocre soccer player to be a top runner. We respect decisions like that.

Suppose that my high school didn't have a cross country team, and so, at age 14, I continued to play soccer. Further, imagine that I have an uncle who is wealthy and an avid soccer fan. He takes an interest in my play and offers to pay for private coaching, soccer camps, and a personal trainer who manages my overall conditioning and nutritition. I enjoy the attention of my private coach, I love going to soccer camp, and my personal trainer gives me great tasting shakes that keep my hunger down and my energy up. My play improves, of course, and as a sophomore I start for the varsity soccer team. Only one other sophomore starts. The rest of the group, among whom I had been mediocre, is now relegated to start behind me.

Again, we respect that kind of self-improvement. I may not have figured it out on my own, but I did put in the time. It may not have been a struggle (my coaches and trainer were pleasant people) but it certainly took energy to complete the assigned tasks. Something troubling, however, lurks behind this imagined scenario. I'll describe two monsters -- one an insubstantial ghost -- but the other, I think, more threatening.

I can imagine two versions of myself as a soccer player: one who emerges with the help of my uncle (and his cadre of professionals), and one who develops without that intervention. It seems safe to say that, at least at the level of high school sports, my standing among the team is significantly altered depending on which self we examine. So which one is the "ghost" and which one is "real?" You may be tempted to say both are me, because the real person is deeper than athletic performance. Let's be mindful of the effects of athletic performance, and particularly athletic standing, on other life pursuits. We have hierarchies for a reason. Which me is going to have a better chance at dating the homecoming queen? Which me is more likely to pursue a high paying career? I think it matters whether I get the help of my uncle. I don't think it's a threat, though, to how real my improved self is. We are all improved versions of who we might have been. We don't worry that our improved vision is pretentious because we had to get prescription eyeglasses.We don't worry that our improved health is false because we immunized ourselves against debilitating diseases. Our pursuit of self-improvement is, in fact, one of our defining qualities, and one that we value in ourselves and others. Our improved attributes are as real, and worthy, as any.

The other monster is more problematic. That is: what will happen when the other soccer players catch on? They see me improving, after all, and not just in absolute terms. I'm improving my standing relative to them. One used to beat me in a one-on-one drill, and now I beat him. Another used to start at left-mid, now I start at that position. Even if the kid can shrug it off, what about his helicopter parent? The dad casually asks my mom "what are you feeding him?" It gets out about my coach. So a couple of the parents, who can afford it, hire the same coach. My friends ask about my soccer camps -- and that summer several show up with me. It doesn't take long to create a monstrous regime that kids will embrace to stay competitive. "All for the better!" you might say. Everyone improves. To what end? If everyone employs a similar training regimen, no one gains compared to the others. It's an arms race.

The most obvious examples of pointless escalation come in the equipment used in some sports. Consider the bodysuits used by swimmers to decrease drag and increase bouyancy. The invention of the suits spurred a flurry of new world records. German swimmer Paul Biedermann beat Michael Phelps and afterwards readily admitted "it was the suit." If the suits had not been subsequently banned, all swimmers would have had to wear them to be competive. So Phelps' coach announced he would not compete unless they were banned. Professional cycling is replete with arms races. Newfangled bikes, for every kind of condition faced even in a single road race, are rolling out all the time. Why don't they issue stock bikes and just compare riders?

One response is that we value innovation and the can-do spirit that motivates people to push at the boundaries of what we think is possible for them, and for a sport. The "me" who showed up first with a personal trainer and coach showed some spunk. That is worth something, even if ultimately it levels back out. And who knew kids could get so much better with a little training?

In that spirit, though, cyclists find potent means of self-improvement. Floyd Landis is back in the news admitting to an entire professional career based on use of performance enhancing drugs. He says he spent $90,000 a year on treatments that included EPO, HGH, and blood doping. Wrapped into that expense is a program for covering up the drug use. If drugs are used in the same spirit of self-improvement as aero-bars, though, why are drugs banned, and aero-bars allowed? If cyclists really just want a level playing field, why don't they all agree to use the same equipment?

When we compare athletes, what attributes do we value? We know Lance Armstrong "has a big engine." We can measure his maximum oxygen consumption, and compare that to other athletes. But then why race? There are many variables during competition, and some things that are hard to know in advance. Don't we value athletes who put it together when it counts, especially when we didn't see it coming? Don't we love it when athletes come from behind, or win in an upset? Athletes need to be able to rally resources in new and unexpected ways. They demonstrate what is possible. Landis' ride to overtake the field when he won the Tour De France was thrilling. So how did he become cycling's pariah?

Drug use is problematic, in part, because we can't know for sure who is doing it. Riders sign on to a ban, I think, because it increases the chances that others won't do it. If they are smart enough to do it, without others knowing, it gives them an advantage. This is like if the fictitious soccer-playing me had been helped by my uncle, but I kept my regimen a secret. The other kids might never have caught on, and I could have maintained my improved standing. Landis blew it. Not by taking drugs, which seems to be ubiquitous at the top levels of cycling, but by getting caught.

The girls who are prettiest in elementary school should prefer that the others never discover the world of enhancements that open up in middle school. And guys like me (at the time) might prefer that girls remain unadorned for convenient comparison. Those girls won't comply, though, and they shouldn't. By tinkering with shoes, clothes, make-up, and ultimately themselves, they keep shuffling the deck. That makes the game less predictable, and more interesting. At least until we get married.

Trying

2010-05-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

Whether or not you know it by this name, you are familiar with the hedonistic paradox. If you try to be happy, you won't make it. Virtue ethicists from Aristotle to the present have noted that you are most likely to attain happiness indirectly, as a result of your worthy pursuits. You should aim to better yourself, therefore, and you will find yourself happy in the process.

'Fine', you say. What you really wanted was to run faster. Who was so concerned about happiness? Happiness is not on my mind when I'm on a mile-long climb on a sun-baked gravel road in the middle of a national forest 21 miles into a 24 mile run. I'm squinting because every drop of sweat burns my eyes. I'm holding my butt cheeks together because of painful chafing. I'm keeping my stride short and light because my left achilles is marginal. Any utilitarian ethicist is going to have to take a step back and scratch his head while ultrarunners pass by. Happiness is not our standard of measure.

The problem for hedonists, however, is no less a problem for those of us who readily dismiss the false allure of happiness. That's because the parodox arises not from trying for happiness; it arises from trying -- for anything.

Many of us are outcome oriented. We talk about goals. We write them down. We sign up for events. We set a training schedule. We shoot for a target pace. We try to PR on a known course. Most running events are contained enough that the flaws in our thinking go unnoticed. If something doesn't go as expected, we "had a bad day." If we get injured, it's because we didn't stick to the plan, or we didn't have the right plan to begin with.

Running ultras is not so contained. The premise is that runners are going beyond. We like to think of ourselves as defiant. People think the marathon is the pinnacle of endurance? Well check this out! We don't just want to defy other peoples' expectations though. We want to run further and faster than we ourselves thought possible. Is it possible to try to defy our own expectations? Wouldn't that mean we really expected we might be able to do it? It doesn't take much introspection to run (so to speak) into some conceptual difficulties with the meaning of 'effort.' It will be more sensible to illustrate.

I spent the summers of '97 and '98 thru-hiking the AT. As I've written here, the original plan called for me to run the length of the trail (self-supported) just that first summer. I started in Georgia. No sooner had I gotten past Springer Mountain (the southern terminus of the trail) than I was confronted with the physics of the situation. That is, the time required to traverse the distance. This is the appeal of sports. I live for the moment of revelation that all sports ultimately provide. Our ideas, our plans, our ambitions, our thoughts -- they can stray away from us like feral cats. Performance is the domesticator. When I strapped 35 pounds to my back and climbed a couple thousand feet on a rocky winding trail my thoughts were rightfully tethered. My initial thought was something akin to "Oh shit." Over the course of a few days, though, I adjusted my goal and "decided" to shoot for Harper's Ferry, and put off the second half for the next summer. A better way to look at the phenomenon, though, is through my relationship to my wild ideas. They settled down around my house. They took the food put out for them. They were tamed. I had claimed them, said they were "my plans" when they were wild, but they weren't really mine until they settled for something more fitting.

Ultrarunners know well the moment of revelation that almost inevitably comes during an ultramarathon. We don't celebrate that moment -- though if handled well -- we do celebrate the protracted recovery that becomes the raison d'etre for our participation. I'm talking about the moment during the event when our plans collapse. My first Mountain Masochist subdued me during the infamous "loop" at about mile 34. Both my calves seized up and I was reduced to hobbling. I raced the Minnesota Voyegeur on an especially hot day and had to drop at mile 45 of the 50 mile race. My ears were ringing and my vision had darkened to a narrow tunnel. These occasions had the immediate effect of deflating my ambitions. They were also both part of my edification as an ultrarunner. They were part of the humbling of my ideas.

Good performances require submission to factors outside our control. Long events will eventually grind down and quiet overbearing parts of our mind. My first Hellgate took me as low as I have been. One knee felt locked up from the incessant overnight toil of breaking through a thin layer of ice on top of several inches of snow, step after step. I was reduced to a crippled plodding as other runners passed me. I had to give up concerns about pace and place, and just submit to the situation, before my pace could quicken and I could make up the places. Many of my runs have been like that -- though less dramatically. We have to get out of our own way. We have to stop forcing it -- stop trying -- in order to, paradoxically, do our best.

But where would we be if we stopped trying? Why get out of bed? Sometimes getting started on a run feels hard. Our muscles are sore, it's raining out, and we feel tired. It certainly seems that we have to rally to exert ourselves. We need goals, target paces, and the possibility of PRs to stay motivated, right? Those seem like good things. And yes, I think they are -- to the extent they are within the fold. Our minds are a lot like our intestines. Digestion depends upon a variety of bacteria that live symbiotically in our guts. Thinking depends upon a variety of ideas that live symbiotically in our minds. Indigestion occurs when wild bacteria infect us and displace our bacteria. Bad thinking occurs when wild ideas infect us and displace ideas that have been calibrated to work for us. Fortunately for ultrarunners -- in either case -- continue to run and it will work itself out.

Run from the Tracks

2010-05-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

I grew up on the railroad tracks. Ours was actually the second house down the street on Bayly in Louisville, KY. We were drawn to the deafening -- yet rhythmically mesmering -- passing trains. My brothers and I stood close enough to feel the shifting turbulent wind. We played on the tracks. We put coins on them as a train approached. After the train passed we ferreted our coins out from among the rocks to marvel at the flattened, distorted figures of past presidents. We walked the tracks to get places. The Crescent Hill pool was one mile up. We would see how far we could get balanced on a rail. The neigborhood bullies used the tracks too. Tommy Shooster was older, and much bigger, than us.

We were playing on the tracks after school with Mike Grabhorn, my best friend when I was nine. My parents were still at work. Mike's parents were home, but his Dad was best avoided for a while after he got off his shift. We saw Shooster and his gang approaching, but we didn't want to give ground. It probably started with shouted words, but soon enough we were throwing rocks. They were advancing, and they were promising to do us serious harm. We realized we were in over our heads. I ran for help. I ran like my life depended on it. Not panicked -- just absolutely committed. I ran clear to Mike's house, about a half mile away, and got his father. He threw his baseball coach's bag, and me, into the car and raced back down the alley to chase away the bigger boys. Then we went back to Mike's house, where his father sawed off a bat for each of us to carry.

As kids we routinely played chase games, either on foot or on bikes. We played kick the can or capture the flag at night. We played team tag across wide swaths of neighborhood. I can almost recall the kind of psychological immersion a child gets when fully engaged in such physical pursuits. I might have paused long enough to notice that I could not only feel, but see, my heart beating in my chest. Yet, physical facts seemed completely secondary. I had to get out of sight. We were playing, but the state of mind struck the sort of familiar note that let's you know -- I'm made for this. For a kid, play is as real as it gets.

I can only recall one adult experience that strikes me as similar. I went with my wife and two young children to a gathering near Harrodsburg, KY. The group, all young and outdoorsy people, hiked some distance to a swimming hole. We were deep in a river valley and didn't see the thunderstorm until it was nearly upon us. We retreated rapidly toward shelter, but we were still a couple miles away when the storm unleashed its full fury. We ran for it. My stout brother-in-law carried my five-year-old son and I hoisted my three-year-old daughter to my chest. She threw her arms around my neck and her legs around chest and clung to me like a baby monkey. I ran along the river bed, up the steep bank, and through the woods with absolute singleness of purpose. All of my capacities were committed to covering the distance between my family and safety in the least time possible. The challenge was all the more demanding because we were bushwhacking in unfamiliar terrain in a torrential thunderstorm. I would not, and could not, wish threatening circumstances upon my family. The state of mind called upon during such urgent situations, however, is best described as "ecstasy."

I put challenges in front of myself all the time, of course, and "rise to the occasion" to a greater or lesser extent. This morning I got up and ran four miles, still half asleep. Day before yesterday I ran through Slagle Hollow in Steele Creek Park in Bristol, TN, for the first time. I let myself get to places where I was uncertain which direction was back. That got me moderately engaged -- I had to focus and decide which way to go and run through some nasty overgrowth and climb in some steep terrain. That took about two hours. I'm currently planning a trek for Memorial Day weekend. I want to take three days to cover 107 miles. I will do a 50K, 50mi, and then finish with a marathon. That will be difficult, because it is on trails in the mountains around Damascus, VA. I likely will not have support. To finish, I will have to rise to the challenge. At some points, it will require an engaged and focused state of mind. I have committed to doing the event, so at some level I must find these states of mind rewarding. They are like the states I experienced as a child and then as a parent, but something is different.

I run for sport. While engaging, sports are always bracketed and placed outside real-life activities. Participation is optional. I've run into potentially life threatening situations during races, but the fact is unavoidable: I brought it on myself. How miserable can I let myself feel? On the flip side, when I run masterfully and overcome difficulty to achieve a great result, how ecstatic can I let myself feel? It is, after all, just a game.

Compared to other sports, running is at least stripped of many modern contrivances. A race demands little more definition than a start and a finish. The simplicity of running helps it resonate through my body like an echo of ancient proclivities. If I cannot always achieve that blissful connection in my races, I can at least take some solace in my childhood recollections. Speeding through the alley behind my house, completely ignited by my imperative, I ran for all I was worth.

Claim Freedom -- Deny Opportunity

2010-04-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

This spring my sails have opened along with the leaves. Take Sunday. I start slowly on a random greenway in Knoxville, Tennessee. It’s called “10 mile greenway” and we bump into it near the hotel where most of my son’s soccer team is staying. We’re not actually staying there ourselves, but Gavin is hanging out before his game and while I run. I’m thinking a 10 mile greenway is perfect, because I would like to run 20 miles. I can just go out-and-back. So I put on my shoes and a waist-pack with water and start jogging. The paved trail meanders pleasantly along a creek, for about a mile and a quarter. That’s it. “10 mile” apparently doesn’t refer to the length of the greenway. I find a “road connector” to another greenway, which runs another buck fifty. After that, I take to the road, and head uphill. I run in a generally easterly direction, judging by having to squint into the morning sun. I’m not accustomed to running on roads, and I start to flow as effortlessly as runoff along the curbs.

I hadn’t meant to run long in Knoxville Sunday. Nothing about our trip, in fact, went exactly according to plan. I make a plan, I like to stick to it. If something sways me from my plan, I lose something. I want to argue that I lose my freedom. We sometimes associate freedom with spontaneity. What is spontaneity? I ran long Sunday because it didn’t work out when I tried to run long Saturday. The list of conditions that intervened on that day is long, but it started with a sleepy wife, had some marital strife in the middle, and ended with an imminent thunderstorm. The result: my run ended after 40 minutes. So I “spontaneously” ran Sunday after Gavin’s first game and before his second. I hadn’t planned to run long then, but ultimately I “had to” if I wanted to get it in. That’s not so free.

The last couple of weeks I have felt the surge of energy that you get when fitness builds on fitness early in a training cycle. After weeks of trotting 30 minutes every other day and focusing on the rehab of both achilles tendons, the bar was set low. That may sound like a frustration, but, in fact, the joy is in the ramping up. The motivation that comes from improving is facilitated by letting yourself get out of shape first. My recently renewed vitality does have a downside, though. I’ve begun to look for opportunities to race – and soon. I’m tempted by The North Face races that pit regional 50 mile race winners in a December championship. There happens to be a regional in Virginia in June. I could be ready in 6 weeks. I can run pretty fast for 50 miles. It would be fun to see what I could do. But what about my freedom?

I set a course for myself after the Western States 100 last year. I did not finish as I had hoped. That particular run has had its way with me 3 times now. What I want – what would prove to me that I have some measure of freedom in this world – is to have my way with the 100 mile distance. Last June I decided to race 100 milers -- until I got it right. I have figured out the 50 mile distance. I’ve got nothing left to prove there. My record at 100 miles is considerably more spotty. I’ve got some work to do. Running 100 miles is not fun for me. I don’t look forward to grinding through the hottest part of the summer day, choking down food and fluids that make me nauseous. I’m not tempted by the competition or the “fame” that come from running 100 mile races. I shouldn’t want to run the things. And that, finally, is why I will. The temptations of the world cannot sway me. I have set my course, and I will run 100s. If I take opportunities that arise to do otherwise, I will be at the mercy of contingencies instead of the master of my own fate.

Is youth wasted on the young, or is wisdom wasted on the old?

2010-02-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

My small duffel bag was packed with just the items I would need on race morning. The black tights I have had for years, wind-briefs I have had for almost as long, a long sleeve thermal shirt, my orange team jersey, the Smartwool socks Rob Shoaf sent me, my Nathan waste pack, 4 Clif Blok packs (2 orange flavor with caffeine), bodyglide, and of course my favorite pair of shoes, the Montrail Mountain Masochist. As we chatted over a light breakfast of plain yogurt, my lifelong buddy Dave Lawhorn asked about my preparation. I told him it was down to a science. I’ve gotten myself ready to run an ultra more than 50 times. I’ve awakened to about 500 race mornings through my lifetime.

I know that I can eat breakfast at 5am for an 8am race if I avoid simple sugars. I know that I can load my bottle with 300 calories from the start because the ratio of water to calories needed for the first 90 minutes will be low. I don’t have to think about it – because I’ve thought about it, and sorted it all out, before. I don’t have to think about the 50 kilometer course that loops through the Jefferson Memorial Forest just south of Louisville, KY. I plotted it out myself after logging many miles of training when I lived a short drive from there. I created the race. I don’t have to think about who else could show up looking to win. I don’t assume that I’ll be 1st, but I do know that I’m already tuned to respond as the situation demands. My playbook has been written.

Admittedly, I was surprised at mile 14 when I asked Joan Wood how far ahead the 1st runner was. Only a mile before I had been mildly surprised to find that I wasn’t myself in 1st place. The 15 mile course had finally diverged from the 50K course, and lo and behold, I was still following tracks in the fresh snow. When I saw Joan, who has helped with the race since its inception, she told me he was a long way ahead. I later adduced that Keegan Rathcamp had an 8 minute lead at that point. I had run the first 14 miles about right, though. The course is difficult in good conditions. There is very little level ground, and more insidiously, the trail meanders as it climbs and descends. Runners are constantly accelerating just to keep the same pace. Compounding that challenge was the unique set of conditions on February 6. The soil was completely saturated from rains the previous week. Then three inches of wet heavy snow fell through the night and early morning. No shoes or shoe device, save long spikes, could have provided a purchase in that slick and soggy mess.

As I began my climb to the ridgeline across which the Siltstone Trail runs, I found myself unusually stirred by the distant scent of a lone front runner. A lifetime of pounding can’t purge the primal instinct to give chase. My attention became riveted by that single purpose – to catch my quarry. All my perceptual apparatus became dedicated to fluid speed. I didn’t “think” about where to put my feet, but they landed in the best possible spots. My body bent, ducked, and swerved along the undulating trail. For about 7 precious miles I dissolved into my body and its purpose. Keegan was coming back to me. I knew it because of where my feet fell compared to his footprints. I was making up 8 inches with every stride. I could feel him on the trail in front of me. Tiring. Slowing.

At the beginning of the 3-mile Scott’s Gap loop, about 21 miles into the race, he was 3 minutes ahead. That loop is a soul killer. I have only done it once before. It winds up a mountain, and descends into a swamp. It was part of the original Love’n the Hills course, but the loop was closed for years, and the course re-routed, because of blowdown from a tornado. Cynthia Heady, who has taken the mantel of directing the race, aptly put the loop back into the course. I ran into it carefully, methodically, with less abandon than my ridge run. The bottomlands toward the end of the loop had the worst footing of the race, and this is where Keegan had become ensnared. As I approached he looked back toward me and said, “this is no joke.” I agreed, and as I passed him I said, “this loop will kill ya’.”

Keegan and I met properly at the finish. I was glad to see him. He had found his survival pace and run it all the way in to finish 2nd. He is buddies with another young runner I have just gotten to know – Michael Owen. They are both part of the running program at Shawnee State University in southern Ohio, although Keegan recently graduated. These guys beam with raw enthusiasm for running and racing. As Keegan explained to me at the finish, and later on his blog, he just went for it. He knew the course would be tough, and he knew that I could be lying in wait behind him. He just wasn’t intimidated. Michael likewise tackled the 15 mile version of “lovin’ the hills.” I think he easily outdid his similar performance at Frozen Sasquatch on January 2. The passion these guys have goes all the way down. You should check out their blogs. The commentary they offer is incisive and inspiring and I think we’ll be hearing more from them in the future.

Competing with Keegan I felt like the wily veteran. Armstrong got 40 seconds on Contador in the 3rd stage of the ’09 Tour by virtue of his experience. Contador had his youth, though. He was so passionate, and so strong on the climbs. Is it a shame that youthful energy cannot be applied more strategically, by someone who could really handle it? Or is it the bigger shame that those with youthful passion don’t manage it as well as they might? Or, and more likely the case, is this a classic dilemma, where movement toward one is necessarily movement away from the other?

What are the odds?

2010-01-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

Thursday was the last chance for a good workout. The forecast indicated the potential for heavy snow, once again, on Friday. A low pressure system from the west was set to perfectly intercept moisture from the south. I usually snicker at the meteorologists who seem to perfectly hedge their bets by confining their predictions to chances between 30 and 70 percent. We could all benefit by responding in this way to requests for information.

“Will you take out the garbage?”
“I’d give it a 70% chance.”

“You won’t forget to call, will you?”
“Oh, there’s a 30% chance.”

It was quite reassuring that in this instance, by contrast, the chance of snow was reported at 100%. That’s heavy odds. Nothing “potential” about that – it was a done deal. I was not nearly so sure about the status of my heels, both of which have been grieving me. Unless I lie there and stretch them first, my first steps out of bed are stiff and painful. I slap the ground awkwardly for the first 20 minutes of every run while my Achilles tendons warm up. I’ve been icing both heels obsessively for a couple weeks now. They have given me problems, off and on, since I started back running in late October. For several months, due to my ankle injury, I turned to the bike. And when I say turned to it…

Cycling is a great outlet for endurance training, and, well, braggadocio. Get a group of reasonably fit guys together on bikes and you’ve got the perfect combination of cohesion and status. You cruise in a well coordinated pace line along the flats, and then try to explode the lungs of every other guy on the climbs. The climbs. Man, I love the climbs. The image of myself as an oxygen burning machine is enhanced by the rhythmic stroking of the pedal cranks, and the radial flashing of the spokes. I hesitate to shake the bead of sweat off the end of my nose because it seems like part of the lubrication. The strain on the bike is apparent in the creaking of the bottom bracket. Less apparent is the strain on my Achilles. The range of motion required of the ankle is greatly reduced on a bike, and I’m guessing that mine adjusted by thickening and shortening.

With the cold weather and my return to running, I’ve once again asked my Achilles to adjust, so I’ve tried to accommodate that by varying the terrain of my runs to include more road and more flats. I have been able to continue training, for the most part, though I have backed off for a few days at a time to curb a downward trend and encourage healing.

Despite that, my last two long runs have finished with significantly sore Achilles. I ran for 3 hours and 3 ½ hours on the last two weekends, respectively. The pain bothered me for 20-30 minutes, subsided for the next 2 hours, and then returned to haunt me for the remainder of the run. So I backed off for a couple days afterward, generally shooting for one tempo-style workout mid-week. Last Tuesday I ran easy in the morning and then again in the afternoon over to the nearby high school track. I did 4 times 400m at a comfortable fast pace. I think of these as long striders – a chance to increase range of motion and turnover without incurring significant debt. I jog an easy 400 between each.

My heels were predictably tender Wednesday morning. Ideally I would have worked out on Wednesday afternoon, run something hilly Friday, and then something long(ish) on Saturday. Instead, Wednesday had to be easy. I might have waited for any kind of workout until Friday, except for the certainty expressed by the 100% chance of snow. In comparison, I was just mildly dubious that my tendons could handle a workout on Thursday.

For the past several weeks my training has been predicated on a series of ultras for the winter and spring. The next in the series is Louisville’s Love’n the Hills 50K on February 6th. I know the course well (I made it up) and it is a good test of an Achilles tendon: short, steep, and constant hills. I have to allow my body some rest beforehand. I’m not going to run a long run or a workout in snow or on a treadmill this close to the 50K. So it was decided: my last workout, both in length and speed, would be Thursday.

I’ve got a new favorite course for just this sort of run. It’s a horseshoe configuration – so I get the feel of a point-to-point with nearly the convenience of a loop (I have to get a ride across the gap). It has 3 clearly definable and balanced portions: a 30 minute warm-up to a turn, a ridge run with a climb at the start and descent at the end that takes 30 minutes of hard driving effort, and a 30 minute warm-down on "the salt trail" to finish it.

I almost bailed out after 15 minutes of running. My heels hurt. I blithely stuck it out. I’m glad I spent 30 minutes warming up. The ridge run was pain free. I went slower than I wanted – it took 32 minutes. But I completed the workout without, I think, setting myself back. And sure enough, the snow hit Friday – if a few hours late. If I can hold out, today will be my third day off. My heels are much less tender now. I can pinch them without wincing, and I don’t have to hobble to the restroom when I get up in the night.

Contrary to the message of my prior post – I’m adjusting to the circumstance. I’ve avoided running in this snow and I’ve backed off to let my Achilles heal. It doesn’t feel like the stuff of human freedom. I would like to be able to take a principled stand and run, no matter what. Problem is, I’m not that certain.

Is it cold enough?

2010-01-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

This has been some winter. I’ve had to field the question: “what do you do in this weather?” many times. We’ve had several snows, ample cold, and frigid wind. We’ve had many days of just-shy-of-freezing rain. My students find walking to class uncomfortable, and they know that I run regularly, so they ask me thequestion. My coworkers, many of whom exercise for health reasons, have moved their fitness regimes indoors. So they ask me the question. There may even be ultrarunners who enjoy a break from running during the harsh winter, who would ask me the question.

Here’s the thing. I laid off last fall because of injury. I’m my own doctor, and I had not prescribed a time to start back running. I was ambivalent about starting back. Then the bad weather hit. I remember the afternoon well. The temperature dropped steadily into the middle thirties while the rain was driven nearly horizontal by the wind. My first thought? Time to go for a run.

Finishing the aptly named Frozen Sasquatch 50K on January 2. Next up: Love'n the Hills on February 6.

I’m not a mutant amphibian. I dislike running in cold wet weather as much as anyone. My hands get cold easily – and they are impossible to keep warm in those conditions. So why would I choose to start running when the weather is at its worst? Well - supposing instead that I started back on a sunny “Indian summer” afternoon. What caused me to run? Was it the best time to resume training? Or did I start back because the weather was good? The problem should be clear: if the weather determines my running schedule, then good reasons (like actually being ready to start back) don’t. So I needed truly unappealing weather to prove to myself that I really was ready to start back.

I lived and trained in Louisville, Kentucky for many years. The Olmstead Parks there are truly a blessing for outdoor activity, and many runners take advantage of them. I always relished the onset of cold weather, though. The number of runners and cyclists would drop precipitously around mid-November. And on the nastiest days only a very few -- the hardcore -- remained. I enjoyed having the roads and trails to myself. You might jump to the conclusion that I enjoyed proving myself tougher than those who stayed home. I think something else was at work. My family will say that I’m stubborn. I say that I place a high value on my autonomy. When I am alone (or nearly alone), doing something difficult or uncomfortable, I have reason to feel that I’m not being swayed by outside forces. Outside forces are, by definition, outside of my control. Many of these are contingent and variable – especially the weather! I do not want to make myself subject to those forces. When the forces of the world seem to have conspired to prevent my run – pull back your window shade and I’ll be hunkered over on the horizon.

Training Routes

2010-01-10T06:44:00.000-08:00

Here’s a dumb thing you hear pretty often: “he’s got so much talent – if only he used it!” That same idea has many, equally misconceived, manifestations. Like the idea that some people lack talent but make up for it with hard work. I guess we have Descartes to thank for the dualistic thinking that continues to generate faulty notions about what happens with endurance athletes.

In case you missed my attempts last year to comb through the phenomenology of long distance running, don’t worry, I intend to keep beating that horse at least through August 2010. That’s when I’ll once again throw myself to the wolves that gather in eager anticipation of my imminent breakdown in the last 30 miles of a 100 mile race. This time my target is set on the Burning River 100, the site of this year’s national championship. Unlike the athletes of other sporting contests, ultrarunners cannot pretend to be uplifted by their events. We are routinely humbled and in fact (and ironically), have to embrace our own powerlessness to ever perform very well.

OK, let’s take this one sacred cow at a time. Untapped talent. Huh? So where is the talent stored? You want to say “the legs,” don’t you? But that’s just a metaphor for the body, right? And you want to say that the talent is tapped by the mind, don’t you? And where is the mind? Oh, it’s just sort of floating between the synapses, I guess, of the body. Yes, I’m making fun of the position that says mind and body are separate. And really, is it tenable? We line up and run a race to see what we can do. If someone does more poorly than expected, we are tempted to attribute that to poor mental performance. Conversely, if someone does better than expected, we might talk a strong mental performance – as in, how much they seemed to want it. Is this a good way to look at things? Is it true?

Have you heard that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve greatness? Based on a study of violinists at Berlin’s academy of music, those who practiced more were better. And those who practiced 10,000 hours were great! Before you start plugging away at your yet unmet dream of joining the orchestra, though, let’s break down the experimental design. This is a classic case of correlation not proving causation. Yes, the study established that hours practiced correlate to virtuosity. It did NOT prove that practicing causes virtuosity. It might just as well be the case that a third (unmeasured) variable causes violinists to practice more and become virtuosos.

One of my favorite hobbies is to explore new areas for training routes. Part of it is that I like to learn new terrain, and then to share that knowledge with others. Several times this tendency has culminated in a running event (“race”) on a course that I have mapped out. Case in point: I’m set to return to my hometown in Kentucky next month for “Louisville’s Love’n the Hills 50K.” Thankfully others have picked up directing duties and this year’s event is led by Cynthia Heady. I “discovered” Jefferson Memorial Forest, the venue for the event, just south of town when I was beginning my ultrarunning career. (Several ultrarunners in the area had been there for some time before me: Javier Cendejas and Brenda Gutman come to mind.) When I moved to SW Virginia my hobby found plenty of space to expand. The nearby high country has yielded many training loops (see picture) and combined with the trail mecca of Damascus was the inspiration for the Iron Mountain Trail Run.

Runners of these events will, of course, follow well marked (!) tracks. The early stages of exploration, however, can be a messy business. I’ve written previously about some of my forays into the woods. Many ultrarunners can relate to the training run that starts with modest ambitions in a new area and ends, many hours later than expected, having learned much more than we thought we wanted to know! I’m still alive though, and still compelled to try out new routes.

My compulsion to explore is part of what makes me a good ultrarunner. It also makes me put in a lot of hours on the trail. It may seem like I cause myself (?) to go run new routes, thereby put in more hours, and thereby become faster at running trails. I doubt that is a good way to look at it, though. Why can’t my need to explore, and my running proficiency, just be me? If I didn’t have that particular attribute I wouldn’t be as good. Period. The ability to tap your talent, in other words, is your talent. Talent is not somehow separate from your mind – it is your mind. The person who grinds out mile after mile, even if they seem lead-footed compared to their peers, has a good talent – namely the motivation to run! The person who seems quick-footed, but doesn’t put in the miles, lacks an important talent. The violinist who is motivated to play 10,000 hours has a very important talent for becoming a virtuoso. And let’s face it; we are only going to put that kind of work into something that is paying off. Those who don’t see the payoff will stop practicing sooner, and end up with fewer hours practiced.

Maybe another kind of dualism would be helpful here. There are two of “me.” One is the subject writing to you. He thinks, plans, sets goals, and starts races. He decides stuff. He is the one who evaporates like the fog on my sunglasses about 2/3 the way through an ultra. The other of me is the only one left to finish.

Continental Drift

2010-01-04T11:43:00.001-08:00

You likely have heard that continents move. Two related facts strike me as important. First, almost nobody believed this was possible until the late 1960s. This is the GROUND we walk on, and we were WRONG about it – even as we’re landing on the moon. Wow. Second fact, continents move about the same speed as toenails grow. OK, you heard it was fingernails. Same speed though, and this is a post about ultrarunning. We frequently talk about toenails. As it happens, I lost my left big toenail last June during the Western States 100. It hurt. Nothing earth-shattering, nor was it particularly significant to my run. I also sprained my right ankle, though. It hurt too. And kept hurting – for the last 90 miles of the run – and then for the next several months. I was forced to layoff of running. I tried to rush my return and was repeatedly repulsed. I finally relented and took up cycling for the fall. Riding hard up a mountain is almost as fun as running up it.

As you can tell from the picture, my toenail is back. Six months – 1.25 centimeters. And while a transatlantic flight hasn’t gotten appreciably longer, enough of my bodily tissue has regenerated that I can run again. I trained through November and December, in fact, and marked my official return to ultramarathons last Saturday. This inaugural event was aptly named Frozen Sasquatch. The hearty West Virginians were unfazed by the blustery conditions. Volunteers cheerily handed out Heed slushies at the aid stations. First time RD Mike Dolin contrived a 25K loop through the Kanawha State Forest in Charleston. The ultra option was 2 loops, of course. For front runners, this provided more variety than you might guess. On the first loop we got to break trail in the fresh snow, and on the second loop we did our best to stay upright on the compacted – and icy – steep slopes.

In the midst of my hiatus from running I realized that I want to do more local and regional events in 2010. The lure of big national events and great competition has gotten me to cross the continent several times in the last couple years. I’ve enjoyed many runs in California – Quad Dipsea, Miwok, Way Too Cool, American River, and of course Western States. I’ve missed the runs that got me into ultras to begin with, though. Homespun events in the Appalachian States are still my favorite. I felt right at home with Sasquatch. About 100 runners. Narrow single track winding crazily through the woods. Plenty of climbing. Nervous bantering with friends beforehand and relaxed bantering with friends afterward.

Here’s what I like about ultras. We leave our warm cozy homes before dawn on a bleak winter day. We gather together in the woods until someone says “go” and then proceed to chase down two-foot strips of blue flagging hanging from bare tree branches. We climb brutish slopes until every panted breath blows spit that freezes to our chins. After several hours of extreme exertion we wind up right where we started with nothing gained but a voracious need to replenish ourselves. And it feels natural.

The continents drift. That’s how we get volcanoes and mountains and mid-ocean ridges. People run. We use it to show our specially developed talents, yes, but we can do that because running is the birthright of any healthy person.

I enjoyed standing around the finish, trying to stay warm by a small fire, and watching runners finish. They may have been cussing all the way down the remarkably treacherous last descent, but now, to a person, they celebrated. We call it “accomplishment.” I think it represents the collective and emphatic demonstration of what suitably determined people can do. Just give it time (2-3 cm per year).

My First Ultra

2009-07-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

Each knee drove forward, propelled by the fully extended leg on the other side. Even my toes extended, milking all the climb possible out of every stride. Horton’s advice for first time ultramarathoners: power walk the steep climbs. Buck Mountain in the middle of the Mountain Masochist 50 mile Trail Run counts as a steep climb. It starts at a reservoir about 24 miles in and climbs a couple thousand feet. When you hear the theme from Rocky thumping in the distance through the woods, you are getting close to a break in the climbing. If your legs weren’t completely wrecked, you could actually run along the double track as it contours around the mountain before a final, lung-busting, mile-long ascent up a steep gravel drive to “The Loop.” I am on this final climb, driving my legs for all they are worth, when I see the race leaders in front of me.

It makes me laugh now to read the names of the top five finishers at the 1998 Mountain Masochist. At the time the names were completely meaningless to me. Now I know them as icons of the sport – Courtney Campbell, Eric Clifton, Ian Torrence, Tom Possert, and Scott Jurek. I had recently completed a thru-hike along the Appalachian Trail. David Horton’s name, still echoing around the trail from his speed-hike record, was the only way I knew that there was any such thing as ultrarunning. I had a good running resume from varsity track and cross country, but near-zero knowledge of this fringe, but enticing, sport. I have a true love for the mountains of Appalachia, and for extreme exertion. Combining the two was an obvious choice. I looked up the information on Horton’s big 50 mile race, held in October along the Shenandoah Mountains in Virginia. I had eased back into running after completing the AT in August. The event seemed like a perfect way to combine the trail fitness I had earned hiking with my college running background.

I might still have believed I was right after the first 32 miles. Much of the course, up to that point, is runnable forest service road. And save for the steep uphill sections, I had run it. Well past the middle of the race, at the end of the longest climb on the course, I was within striking distance of the leaders. My lesson was about to begin. Ultrarunning eats egos like tattered flesh in a school of piranhas.
The Loop is notorious in Mountain Masochist lore for several reasons. Like many sections of the course, it is longer than advertised. Horton will tell you it is four miles, course notes list it as five miles, but it is probably closer to six miles. It is relatively rocky single track – the most technical terrain on the course. The Loop, like many challenges at Masochist, is primarily difficult because of when it happens. The course, for example, is easy in the beginning, and gets more and more difficult as the runners are less able to deal with it. The aid stations come frequently at first, when the runners are fresh, and then in the final 20 miles, when the weather has turned hot and the runners fatigued, the aid is so spaced that participants are reduced to a desiccated crawl before they reach the next one. Finally, when runners legs have been completely battered by the first 50 miles of running (yes – the run is actually about 54 miles), the course descends a harrowing rock-strewn erosion gully down the side of the mountain into Montebello, where, if they have managed to stay upright, runners stumble across the finish. [note: the descent into Montebello has been tempered since 1998 – it now takes a more contoured, if longer, trail.]

The Loop occurs at 33 miles into the run, and after the biggest climb of the course. As soon as I got off that climb, I knew that I was in trouble. My calves went into spasm. I couldn’t use the front part of my feet to pick my way along the rocky trail. Every step tore like a dagger through the back of my calves. I was reduced to hobbling on my heels – tricky business on a technical trail. I hobbled helplessly as the leaders advanced and those behind me passed. There was nothing I could do. Put one foot in front of the other – try to stay above sensation, like a sponge completely saturated but still floating in a deep pool of pain.

In the final eight miles the course ascends to an old section of Appalachian Trail above Montebello. As I scooted along the ridge, Ed Kostak inched up alongside me, looking equally angst-filled. Each of us gave company to the other’s misery, so we stayed together through the finish, in eighth place for the race. I cared very little, having been reduced by the course to wanting only to complete what I had started.

I didn’t run again for 2 years. It’s probably an overstatement to say that the race caused my early (if temporary) retirement from running. I didn’t walk right for 2 weeks, though, and I prefer to avoid disabling damage to my body. The truth is I had met my future wife, and we soon got married. I worked on, and finished, my work on a doctorate. We started our family. I had other priorities, and running seemed superfluous, even silly. I remember seeing joggers on the road in front of our house and silently asking “why do that to yourself?”

Suffice it to say that I am now eating those words. More than 10 years and 50 ultras later, I have experienced a range of difficulties – and triumphs – only hinted at during those final 20 miles at the Mountain Masochist, my first ultra.

Downtime

2009-07-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

Those stormy and feverish nights after Western States revealed my desire to run again. My training cycle had extended long and deep, and frankly, I was fit. Even a well prepared body will show the wear and tear of a mountain 100, and other than a sore ankle and toe, I felt unscathed. Had the ankle recovered, I would have entered the Burning River 100, scheduled for the first Saturday in August. I was determined. I know, of course, that scheduled downtime is a wise, and generally necessary, component of a sustainable training schedule. The nature of the freedom that I seek, however, sometimes requires a purposeful obliviousness to reason. I was going to run again – period. I am not so free as I would like. Within a few minutes of jogging I’m struck immobile – like Achilles – from a sharp pain in my heel.

Mood disturbances notwithstanding, it takes very little imagination to see this as a good thing. My body is enforcing a perfectly reasonable downtime. I’ve trained long and deep, and run one of the toughest mountain 100s anywhere. I covered 85 miles on a sprained ankle, much of it in blazing heat. I pushed through a difficult late evening of near-delirious dehydration and possible hyponatremia. My reserves were depleted, no doubt, and need time to recover. So what is the problem? Whether I am bound by good reasons, or by my injury, I feel constrained by the binding. Shelter is safe, and comforting, but once you have lived outside for a while, the containment is jarring. It reminds me of times during my AT thru-hike when I passed through town. It just didn’t feel right to pee inside. Can you see how resting right now is like peeing into a toilet? To most people it seems perfectly reasonable. But to the guy who’s been relieving himself amongst the expansiveness of eastern forests for weeks, it’s disconcerting.

When I do start running again I won’t be as fit as when I left off. That doesn’t concern me. The ramp-up to good fitness is the most motivating phase of a training cycle. I remember last year at this time. I hadn’t been able to run for many, many, weeks because of a calf strain. I started back in July. A few later I ran the Christopher Todd Richardson Memorial 10K run. This was a first annual run put on by Jennifer Nichols. It goes out and back along the Virginia Creeper Trail. Good grief, I felt the burn. I was completely racked by the time I passed through the finish. With a few more weeks of training, though, I was able to run nearly that same pace for several miles within my 50 mile race at Tussey. If for no other reason, we should take downtime so that we can be motivated by the improvements as we return.

And that brings me once again back to the only kind of freedom we really have. Motivation isn’t something drawn from a magic well by those blessed with the will to win. We structure into our routines those small steps that create motivating environments. Fortunately, if paradoxically, for me – I’m being involuntarily led through those steps now.

Doldrums

2009-07-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

I put the bread down in the toaster after I crack the eggs into the pan. I’ve got the timing worked out, starting with boiling water for the French press. I’m back on the caffeine. It’s a small bump of joy in the midst of an otherwise flat routine. Other than habit, there isn’t much to compel me to eat.

In the mornings, I open my eyes to daylight, and they close again. No thoughts press in against my senseless dreaming. To get out of bed I feel like I have to reach down, grab my leg below the knee, and pull it from beneath the cover. I have to pull my eyelids upward against their tendency to close again. Even the slog to the bathroom is a chore.

With some effort I can recall the mornings – they seem so long ago – in the spring. I’d wake up before dawn and bolt out of bed like a jack-in-the-box. I’d soon be out the door trotting down the road for the first of two runs scheduled that day. Motivation has the paradoxical quality of dispensing with its own need. Getting out of bed was effortless. I didn’t need to “motivate myself,” I already was. My legs propelled themselves down my drive and across campus. During my training in Colorado Springs, I climbed up toward Pike’s Peak several times. I didn’t have to beat on drums, or slap myself, or imagine myself in any way an external motivator. It flowed like water from a spring.

Where is the water now that I need it? How can I – the one lacking motivation – exert a force on myself? If part of me was up the trail a ways he could cast me a line and reel me in. Instead I have the rod in my own hands, and the line just runs straight and hooks into my own britches. I can imagine the uncomfortable pull – but the physics don’t work out to get me anywhere. Kind of like being in the bumper cars after the electricity has been turned off. You try slamming your body against the inside of the car to keep moving.

Mongold says I need another hobby. This is it. I analyze. I had oral surgery yesterday. I knew the surgeon would inject a local anesthetic, and that I would not feel appreciable pain after that. I got hung up on the injection part, though. That would hurt. A needle in the palate is never comfortable. When I was young, I took pain personally. It hurt me. As I became older, I began to feel pain as happening to my parts. My toe hurt from the bee sting. This is a reassuring stance. It provides some distance, and resilience, to circumstances. Despite my injuries, I will endure. Too bad this is a conjurers dream. Useful in the short term, we will eventually snag the set and be forced to deal with the reality beyond its walls.

I’d like to be able to feel the bite of the needle the way that I feel the exhaustion of a 100 mile run. Not something in the roof of my mouth. Not something either happening to or belonging to me. The feeling, the sting, the bite, the utter exhaustion: that is me. I won’t pretend that I can sit in a chair while a doctor stands over me and pushes a needle into the roof of my mouth and just be the pain. But that is what I’m striving for. It’s similar to the mindset necessary for the “low flow” I described in an earlier post. It’s an important kind of surrender.

Yet here I am, wallowing in my own doldrums. If I am my feelings, how can I ever get the leverage to pull myself up by my bootstraps? I’ve noticed that people who are depressed have trouble realizing that given a little time, they will feel differently. The aphorism among ultrarunners is that “things never always get worse.” That is a handy, if grammatically awkward, reminder. At a given time our feelings are all- consuming. Yet feelings change. What seems hopeless now can often change for the better – and we are wise to provision little reminders for ourselves. Things never always get worse.

I can’t lift myself out of my own feelings as if I had a magical fishing rod. I can, however, be reminded that things will change – that I just need to wait a little while. We know better than to make important decisions just after a major event. You shouldn’t think about the next 100 that you’ll do right after the last one. Don’t do anything rash. Sleep on it. I’m down because I can’t run right now. OK. That’s me – for now. I shouldn’t be pressed for any big decisions. I know better. Give it a while. Let’s take it a day at a time and see how you feel.

Ruptured

2009-07-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

I sat on a kitchen chair. My right foot was buried under the cubes in a cooler of ice water. My left foot soaked dreamily in warm saltwater. I can handle ice water, though it is never comfortable. I submit to it just like the other “good” pains of training. I did wonder, though, how the competing hot/cold sensations would reconcile in my nervous system. This strikes me as an interesting experiment in phenomenology. If you want to participate, stop reading and go try it yourself. That way my results won’t confound your experience. OK. Stop now.

If you are like me, you should have gotten a nice surprise. I was more aware of my warm left foot so that the sensation in my right foot was more tolerable than usual!

The saltwater soak was an attempt to relieve the pain in my left big toe. For the first time I hurt a toenail during a run. The nail turned white in the week after States, and some fluid had leaked out from the nail bed at the top. I suspected pressure under the nail was causing the increasingly acute pain. So I heated a paper clip on the stove top until it glowed red and then bore a hole in the middle of my nail. I expected a spray of fluid as the pressure found an escape, but instead I felt the heat of the metal. Had I cauterized the hole and closed it prematurely? If so, I hoped the concentrated salt water would draw the fluid out. I know just enough to be dangerous. After the soak the pain only intensified. So much for armchair physics. The good news is that my toe has finally stopped hurting.

The right foot was cooling off to counter the pain in my heel that started so early at Western States. At the time I thought the pain would probably shake out after some running, but it persisted and got worse, so that I took aspirin when I met my crew at the Duncan Canyon aid station. This seemed to help the pain for a couple of hours, but I had to take more pain relievers later. I didn’t consider it at the time, but in retrospect I probably added to the burden placed on my system with the anti-inflammatories. The pain in my ankle required it, so I didn’t give it a second thought at the time. I was able to manage that pain effectively, but I may have contributed to the later difficulty in managing my food and fluids.

Even after the run, as my ankle became tender again, I expected that a few days of rest would remedy the injury. After more than two weeks I am still unable to run. The bad news is that I partially ruptured my Achilles in that ankle. It’s now clear that I will have to rest it for several more weeks before I start training for fall races. If I recover and retrain in time I may enter a couple of 50s before a late fall or early winter 100. I’d entertain any suggestions.

Agitation

2009-07-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

Uncle John opened my door, and I awoke. I stood up, my head perfectly clear. We were going hunting. It was my first hunt. I dressed quickly. We drove into the Ozarks in central Missouri. We hiked in before dawn. I sat by myself on a hillside from dawn until dusk, sucking on the bag of hard candies Uncle John had given me. I didn’t get a deer.

Last Saturday I awoke with the same sense of anticipation. My alarm was set for 3 am, but I woke up at 2:45. The stars glistened through the mesh across the top of our tent. I proceeded methodically, as I had the morning of the hunt some 30 years before. I fried 2 eggs on the cook stove. I mixed apple sections in with plain yogurt. Every action was deliberate and in service to the project, finally imminent, upon which I embarked so long ago. Any agitating thoughts, those that circulate and press urgently into consciousness were displaced by the simple demands of getting ready. Those demands occupied me clear through to pinning a small black ribbon on my race shirt just minutes before the 5 am start. There was no question of my taking this time. I calmly looped the minute strip of material and stuck it through with the safety pin. Dan Moores had embraced his perfect rest. It felt right to honor him during this event. There were hundreds of us; each with our own story. What we were doing demands that. There is no inherent value to completing the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run. We were each seeking something that we had invented for ourselves; something resistant, or antagonistic, to the normal pushes and pulls of life on earth.

The goal is elusive. We are governed, after all, by immutable natural laws. I climbed to Michigan Bluff, over halfway through the run, with Erik Skaden. He told me the temperature wasn’t high compared to other years. Meanwhile his face glowed red, sweat dripped from his shirt, and he gulped steadily from the large water bottles gripped in each hand. There was no escaping the work of that climb, nor the need to dissipate the heat generated by that work. We were escaping something else though: the expectation of middle aged men on a hot summer Saturday. I might have been taking my kids to the water after a few chores around the house. If we were feeling adventurous we may have traveled somewhere for the weekend. What no one expects, when they ask about your weekend plans, is that you will be running 100 miles. There is a freedom in that – short lived though it is. I met Gordy Ansleigh in the Auburn Raley’s on Thursday night. He looked well. He smiled and chatted easily. He broke expectations when he completed, on foot, what was then a 100 mile horse race. That was better than 30 years ago. Thousands of people have completed the run since then. We have created our own expectations, and we can’t escape those.

The experience itself creates plenty of temptation to stop or change course. To plan and prepare is certainly a commitment, but it is no guarantee against what will come up. I was on Lyon Ridge within the first two hours of running. I caught myself focused intently on the rocks just in front of my feet. It felt tedious, and I deliberately lifted my eyes 15 feet ahead. I stepped on a rock wrong and popped my foot forward, pinching my Achilles. The pain wasn’t intense, but it was sharp and persistent. That pain would haunt me for the next twenty hours. On the descent into Deadwood Canyon, 45 miles into the run, the big toenail on my left foot began to separate from the rest of my toe. The ensuing pain and tenderness would inhibit all my downhill running from then on.

At Auburn Lake Trails, 85 miles into the run, I was stopped for weighing 7% less than I had at the start. I was forced to drink, and it made me sick. For the next several miles I struggled to steady my eyes on the trail. It constantly shifted horizontally. I knew I was dehydrated. I suspected my blood sodium was low as well, and that any fluid I consumed was stuck on the wrong side of cell membranes, and some of that fluid was putting pressure on my visual cortex causing my perceptual irregularities. I searched the side of the trail for a gap in the foliage in which to curl up. I thought of the aid station workers who would be sent back with a gurney. They would have to hike many miles to the nearest road crossing.

Canadian Gary Robbins caught up with me while I tried to recover my senses at Brown’s Bar, 90 miles into the run. He had staggered from Ruck-A-Chucky, where 78 miles into the run I passed him seated at the aid station, pale, feet badly blistered. He seemed incapacitated except for his voice, which rung out clearly: “I won’t quit!” And here he was 22 miles on, his body like an abused rag doll, his voice still ringing like a church bell: “come with us” he said. I got up, dredged from my own misery, and started moving out of the aid station. Robbins is a guy that men would follow to their deaths.

That is our ultimate hedge against natural forces. We persist, no matter what. Damage to our bodies is the converse of physical pleasure. It represents a natural force that would dictate our choices – except that we have denied that possibility. We won’t be swayed. There is a freedom in that. The finish line at Placer High School looked like a MASH unit. I lay down on a cot next to a young woman, pale and gaunt, hooked up to an IV. I sympathized with her, though I wasn’t as bad off. I had stopped trying to drink in the last 10 miles, and had recovered my stomach and perception. Shortly after I stopped at the finish I was able to drink and absorb my drink mix. After I slept briefly, and the sun came up, I recognized the woman on the cot next to me. Krissy Moehl had pushed the last 15 miles and finished 2^nd among the women, behind another brilliant performance by Anita Ortiz.

We think of freedom as the breadth of choices given to us. I can make an abstract connection to that kind of freedom – mouth my gratitude for the blessings of being born into this time and place. That isn’t the kind of freedom I have sought, though. One definition of freedom is “the capacity to achieve what is of value in a range of circumstances.” I can make sense of that. I placed a value on striving for my best performance at Western States. I had a wide range of resources available to prepare myself, not the least of which was the quarter-century of my own running. I am disappointed. I prepared and ran the best I knew how. I took time away from my family to train at altitude. I did not achieve as I had hoped. As much as we pursue it, freedom eludes us.

I was subdued, once again, by the relentless vicissitudes of the Western States course. It wore me down to a murmur, and left me on the floor of my cell. In those confines, though, the echo of that murmur has resonated into a booming chorus that won’t let me sleep. My blood has been agitated into froth. In the first quieter hours I thought to myself that the hundred isn’t for me. I should rest, regain myself, and train for a couple of 50 mile races in the fall. I’m good at those. That would make sense. Meanwhile the waves of unrest were building, steadily washing across the boundaries that life is so good at preparing for us. I couldn’t compose my experience. The story didn’t sound right in my own head.

We spent the night before last in the mountains just west of Denver. We arrived, and slept, in the clouds. The mist persisted through the night. We left early for the long driving days across the heartland heading east. We camped in Lawrence, Kansas. The thunderstorms were interminable, racking my fitful sleep. The gnats clung to the underside of the pop top of our van. They infested the campground, swarming all the buildings and sites. The hum was audible from a distance, resolving into a buzz only when single gnats found their way into our ears. Swatting them was pointless. They don’t live as individuals. Better to think of them as cells of a large and fluid organism.

A lot of things are that way – significant at a scale we don’t discern. Even our choices, so seemingly intimate with the person we think ourselves to be, cannot always be understood at face value. I have characterized my thinking in the past as “rational.” That is, I applied reason in the pursuit of valued goals. I fooled myself. Of course I can, and do, try to calculate the risks and rewards of my choices. What has always mattered to me, though, is the freedom to smack down the easy choice right in front of me. I will not quit. A strange relationship I have with myself – impossible really. I can’t choose, but I do. I have to calculate, but I don’t. I should put hundred-milers out of my mind, but I can’t. No, no. I will run another hundred. And another. Until I get it right.

Out of the Canyon

2009-06-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

Question: what should you expect if you take your 7-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son on their first overnight backpacking trip down 4000 vertical feet into the Grand Canyon on the unmaintained Hermit's trail in mid-June?

Within 30 minutes of beginning the 9-mile hike from our campsite at Monument Creek back out of the canyon, Catherine threw her hydration pack off her shoulders, let out a big sigh, and starting swinging the bite-valve around, flinging out precious water. She dragged her feet, ambling at about a half-mile per hour pace.

She had held up pretty well on the hike down. It had been unseasonably cool. She did ask how far we had to go a lot. A couple of times she sat down abruptly on a rock. I wasn't sure she would get back up. She did.

Today promised to be hot. We got up at 4am. I gambled that we would make the spring on Hermit's trail in good time, and packed minimal water to save the weight. We packed, had breakfast, and left a little after 5am. I assigned Gavin to lead the first section. I planned to have Catherine lead the first real climb up toward Cathedral Staircase.

She hadn’t eaten much. We packed exactly the food we needed, so when she rejected what we offered her, there were no options.

Now we faced a tough, and potentially dangerous, hike. I pictured baking in the midday sun, short-roping Catherine, and running out of water. I grabbed her bite-valve, lowered my face to hers, and told her she could cause us all potential harm.

She didn’t speak to me for a long time after that. I walked behind her while she moved convulsively in front of me. It was like she was of 2 minds. One wanted to let loose and stride down the slight hill to catch her brother and mother, the other seized her legs with every step. The result was an odd, straight-legged gait, like she was wearing leg braces.

When we started the climb, we put Catherine in the lead. She dragged for a little while, but gradually picked up speed. We were quiet about it, but she put distance on us a few times when we struggled with our packs up some technical sections. Catherine loves rock-hopping. Back home in the high country of Virginia she has proved herself by running from Massie to Rhododendron Gap and back, a distance of about 5 miles. The only catch – we have to let her take her shoes off. More than anything she craves freedom. So we left her alone as she assumed the lead. She turned a few times, told us to get moving.

Well, she never slowed down. We climbed out of the canyon in 4 ½ hours. The hike down had taken much longer. Robin asked what had changed. She said she started singing to herself.

We’re in Williams, AZ. We’ve been too busy with our own adventure to worry over the rest of the world. We are pausing for a few minutes today en route to hotter climes. The elevation phase of my acclimatization plan is complete. Now I need a few days of heat. Gavin likes to gamble, so we’re heading to Vegas.

The final evidence I needed to confirm the efficacy of my altitude training came on the Thursday we left Colorado Springs. I did the team CRUD tempo run for the second time. My first attempt at climbing to within 7.8 miles of Pike’s Peak took over 51 minutes. On my second attempt, after I’d had 2 more weeks to acclimate to the altitude, I was able to run the same climb in just over 47 minutes.

Bring on the heat.

Why?

2009-06-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

I spoke with Robin on the phone on Saturday. She had traveled to Bedford, VA, for a half-marathon trail race. She has run recreationally for the last couple years, with periodic trail races including one full marathon. She was down. The run hadn’t gone well. It was hot and the course was muddy. During the run she repeatedly asked herself: “why am I doing this?” The age group award was little consolation. Robin thinks she was the only woman in her age group. She didn’t feel good at the beginning, middle, or end of the run. She didn’t enjoy any special recognition for having run. Is there any reason left to explain her participation?

My friend Dave is breaking his promise to me. He’s traveling to California to pace me for the last 32 miles of Western States. The last time he paced me I made him promise never to let me run another 100 mile race. I went out at the Vermont 100 in 2006 with all guns blazing. I had decided the downhills of this runnable course were the key to a speedy race. So I blistered all of them, for the first 70 miles. It took about 7 ½ hours for me to run the first 50 miles. About the time Dave joined me, I was reduced to a walk. My quads were shot – every step I took sent a jolting pain from my knee to my hip. And we had 30 miles to go. During the death march Dave struggled with his role. Should he try to talk to me, fill the space, he asked. Should he leave me to my quiet despair? Doesn’t matter, I said. Just don’t let me do this again.

We say lots of things, and think a few more. These things are like the bugs around my house. The ants show up when even a trace of food is left on the counter. The rafters hum with carpenter bees every spring. The first year, when I saw the little piles of sawdust on the deck, I got to work. I fetched the ladder and went to plugging the holes. The ants were menacing to Robin, so we equipped a spray bottle with bleach and kept all the pheromone trails clear. We can’t win, of course. Bugs, like thoughts and words, can be distracting. The best we can do is manage them. They don’t constitute our real motivations.

We think and speak as if we have intentions, but for the most part we fool ourselves. All the real work is done under the surface. We imagine ourselves at the helm of a stalwart ship, charting a course, assessing the wind and waves, and making the necessary adjustments. The ship is actually a toy row boat, and the rudder and oars are dangling uselessly above the water. The bottom of the boat is buoyed not on the water, but on the back of a truly mighty whale. The whale starts to turn, and we move the rudder. The whale picks up speed, and we struggle with the oars, maybe splashing a little water. Depending upon the relationship of the man to the whale, he is pitiful, funny, or tragic. He cannot free himself from the whale. In the face of any real test, there is but one way: the whale’s way. In the quest for freedom there is only one condition: be the whale.

The whale is running Western States. What I think or say about it makes little difference. I will articulate reasons anyway, because that’s what we toy boat captains do. I appreciate most the messages that can’t be completely made up. Everything is made up except when we speak for the whale. We speak for the whale only when we know the whale. The whale reveals itself indirectly. Our intuition may be a conduit for understanding, or for deception. The best way to know the whale is by experiment. Test it. Feel it bump against things. Race it.

Knowing the whale is not the only reason to run long. It is not a static object whose properties exist to be discovered by something else. The introspection – for that is what it is – exerts its own effects. We know ourselves, and in so doing, become something different. More able-bodied. The test reveals our own efficacy. Our thinking can, if not distracted, serve a purpose. We have to work methodically, over time, but we can make a difference. The difference made is a reflection of our human autonomy.

Our friend Jim Harrison was at the finish line when Robin finished. When she expressed her angst, he said simply that he didn’t do things he didn’t WANT to do. Like most ultrarunners, I have a more complex relationship with my motivations. Running 100 miles is not a simple pleasure. Neither is it a perverse pursuit of pain. The challenges faced that day – only a pale reflection of the lifetime of challenges that preceded it – represent what is possible relative to human ambition. Because of the real and unavoidable difficulties, we reveal, by our performances, the human capacity to do better.

Western States '07

2009-06-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

The downhill section of trail let’s my stride unwind. I’m in a groove – not comfortable – but steady. My eyes focus on the rocks and roots about 15 feet in front of me. My legs steer a path of least resistance through the obstacles. I am aware that I am approaching something before I hear the unmistakable sound of distant voices through the woods. It’s the ambient rhythm of intonation, inflection, exclamation, and laughter that echo through the trees even when words are lost. As I approach someone yells “runner!” and there’s a slight shuffling as volunteers assume their positions. I actually accelerate toward the table as I unholster my water bottle. A woman calls out as I approach: “what can I get for you?” I hold out my bottle and ask for water as I come to an abrupt stop. I barely look at the bounty on the table – jelly beans, potato chips, pb&j quarters, oranges – as a younger woman asks what looks good. The first woman still has my bottle so I pick up a potato chip and put it in my mouth before I take my bottle back and simultaneously chew the chip, screw the lid on my bottle and begin to run again. “One chip!!??” the girl calls out to me as I quickly resume my pace.

I’ve run about 50 ultras and so have likely passed through about 500 aid stations. Most of those have been some variation of the scene described above (which is an actual recollection; I just can’t remember which race). When I don’t have a crew that trades me a full water bottle for my empty one, I stop only long enough to fill my bottle. I consume calories while I run, either through a powder that gets mixed into the water or through little snacks that I carry with me, so there is no need to stop for food.

During my first 100 mile race – the Mohican in northern Ohio – I did sit down briefly at one aid station. It was about 50 miles in and the plantar fascia on my right foot had started to hurt. I decided I needed to tape my arch. As I dashed into the aid station, I was greeted by a large crew that included my wife, kids, mother, father, their spouses, and my two half-sisters. I issued the request for the tape I had packed and a chair. While someone grabbed the tape, a boy scout working with his troop at the aid station offered me a hamburger – which I accepted. By the time I took one bite my tape arrived and I taped my foot, around my sock, myself. In a jiffy my shoes were back on and I shot out of the chair like a cannon, carrying my hamburger with me to eat along the way.

Then there’s Western States. The exuberance of the huge crowd at the Robinson Flat aid station (mile 30) has carried me for about 2 more miles. Then the cellular machinery has ground to a near halt. The trail between miles 32 to 38, though offering no obvious impediments, has laid waste to my ambition both times I have run it. My limbs feel like they are filled with the sandy soil I’m dragging my feet through. Runners catch and pass me. My one time teammate Guillermo Medina passes me, his slight physique still and steady, his stride short and light. He encourages me to run with him. It is all I can do. At Dusty Corners (mile 38) I look for something that will help, but I have already lost any desire to eat or drink. What my body wants is to stop.

By the time I get on the scale at Last Chance (mile 43), I answer honestly when they ask how I am doing. It nearly tears me apart. My self-constructed world has been shattered, and I’m not even half way. I try to eat something, and I refill my bottles. I lumber away from the aid station.

The climb to Devil’s Thumb (mile 48) is interminable. Because I am walking, it’s easy to put my fingers on my neck and feel my pulse, which is shockingly rapid despite my languid pace. More runners pass me, either power-walking or mixing short bouts of jogging in with the walking. The climb is too steep to run. When I get there I drag onto the scale, not even relieved to have gotten off the climb. I tell the lady I’m having trouble, and she pulls in another volunteer. He suggests I take a break and talk with him. I take a chair while he gets me a cup. He sits down to talk with me. His sympathy, while measured, is almost more than I can take. I am on the verge of a complete breakdown. He suggests I let myself recover for a few minutes, sip on my drink. It is hard for me to fathom going on, but it is impossible for me to fathom stopping. Eventually the man suggests I keep moving, take things with me. He says he has seen plenty of people in my state again, when they get to the finish line. I accept what he says. He has no way to know that this isn’t me. My plans, my expectations, are gone. My body moves to get up and out of the aid station, but I don’t care anymore.

I have already been stripped bare, but the push to Michigan Bluff (mile 56) empties me. I get the deep ache of utter exhaustion, dehydration, and hunger. As I emerge from another canyon to houses, cowbells, and the sounds of human commotion, I am passed by runners buoyed by the approaching scene. I drag behind, trying to muster the brainpower to think through to the method that will get me moving again. For now I can only turn myself over, once again, to the aid station chair and another man who will tend to me. He gets me to sip on broth, urges me to take on more salt. The camera crew approaches us. I tell everyone that I cannot imagine going on. I’ve got nothing left. I can’t eat – can’t swallow. Drinks don’t feel or taste right. I sit, and drink the broth.

It takes a while, but I start to recover a bit. I will be able to go on. My crew is at Foresthill (mile 62). I feel I can make it there: one (relatively) small canyon between here and there. My wife Robin, who has traveled with me, her friend Melody, my pacer Bradley Mongold, and his friend Kavara are all waiting for me. As I very gradually pick up speed leaving Michigan Bluff, I feel lighter. I’ve shed a lot. It no longer matters how fast I run, who has passed me, or who is behind me. I will have to accept what is possible, not based on anything I might have hoped for or accomplished before, but based on the conditions as they are. The surrender gives me some peace, and I can start to find a rhythm.

By the time I make Foresthill I am running again, and I can eat a large cup of soup. My crew gathers around me. They have not become impatient – though I have made them wait hours longer than they expected. They are not disappointed – though I will not be competing among the frontrunners. They are immediately focused on the task at hand – to get me across the next 32 miles. We take the necessary time, and no more, to strategize before Bradley and I take to the course.

Though far from heroic, the run in from Foresthill was fairly steady. I ran on the edge of what was possible to maintain. I finished well under 24 hours, and placed in the top 50 (45th?). That means very little to me. The meaning of Western States ’07 emerged after I had given up. I wasn’t strong enough. I was powerless. The first 40 miles of the race took everything from me. What emerged in my place, though, was a handful of people. They applied themselves to my project. They didn’t just invigorate me, they became me. I have always thought of the gratitude shown by runners toward their crew as clichéd. That’s because I like to imagine myself as strong, independent, and even unaffected by the influence of others. While that illusion may prove a helpful trick to advance some of my ambitions, it has been burned to ashes in the furnace that is Western States.

If you’ll recall with me one of the many great songs from Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang:

“Grow the roses, grow the roses, from the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success.”

My rose, my wife Robin, will arrive with my kids tomorrow. Our epic trip across the desert will begin on Thursday. I won’t be ruminating as much. That’s probably a good thing.

Turnaround on Pike's Peak

2009-06-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

I don’t like to change course; least of all to turn around. Why cover the same ground? Maybe my motor is generally set to explore. If I run ten miles I want to see ten miles, not five miles twice. Changing course is like that, too. I don’t ever like the idea of wasting work that I’ve already done. I want to use it in getting somewhere – even if it’s not the place I originally intended. I like to think of this trait as “openness” to new experience. This is, in fact, the positive end of one of the five primary dimensions of personality measured by psychologists (as opposed to neuroticism).

No complex human trait exists without a reason, though, including neuroticism. My willful insistence on charting new courses, avoiding route changes midstream, and never (I am a guy) asking for directions, has gotten me into some tough places. At times I have been left with no choice but to get bailed out. The time when I went for “a 15 minute run” in the Red River Gorge at dusk and came back several hours later, I had actually finally stopped at a small house to ask for help. I chose it because it had a swing set out front. I asked to use the phone to tell my wife that I was alright. As the woman put the pieces of my story together – and realized the distance for me to get back – she insisted on giving me a ride.

One afternoon I left work to run a loop from Damascus, VA. I had been looking for ways to connect the Appalachian Trail going south with the Iron Mountain Trail coming back north. These two great trails roughly follow parallel mountain ridges. On a previous run, my buddy Nick Whited and I had descended the AT at Backbone Rock, stumbled around and found a forest service road and some jeep track that ascended back to the IMT. The run took us about 3 hours. My intention that afternoon was to try and replicate the route. It was getting dark by about 7:30, so I made sure to leave work at 4:00 so I could start the run at 4:30. I packed a small penlight “just in case.” The run was proceeding according to plan, and I was making good time. I found the IMT, though at a slightly different place. I threw down the hammer, to make sure I made it to Damascus before dark. As dusk approached, I expected to be descending off the mountain. Instead, I was climbing. My altimeter indicated I was over 4000 feet! I stopped. I took out my Clif Bloks and chewed on a couple to get some glucose back to my brain. It didn’t take long to figure out that I’d done a 180: went the exact wrong way on the IMT. I was deep into Tennessee and it would be dark soon. I was almost out of the small supply of water and food I had brought. And it was getting cold. It felt absolutely wrong to go back the way I had just come, but I had to make up the five miles I had just covered in the wrong direction, and then cover the five miles left to Damascus. In the dark. I tested the penlight. It worked, but the beam was still faint in the ambient evening light. I slowed, to conserve energy, to find my way on the trail, and to watch my footing on the semi-technical terrain. The night was closing in around me. I could feel the faint haunting of my absolute vulnerability -- a wisp as ephemeral as morning mist. Meanwhile I proceeded unhesitatingly in my method. I move fast enough to stay warm, slow enough to make my way. I ration my remaining food and water. I finally turn on the penlight, and hold it low so rocks and roots cast a shadow.

I find the intersection where I went wrong. I see the way to Damascus: five more miles of technical ridgeline in the dark. I’m cold. A sign indicates the trail to the right intersects a highway in 1.5 miles. I take it. I want to run instead of walk, and I think I can at least let Robin know that I am alright. My descent is rapid, and I’m soon at the promised road. Lights show me the way to a handful of houses. I look for something promising (like signs of kids). As I approach a house a large unfriendly dog checks my progress. No luck. I decide to run toward Damascus. The road meanders along the foot of the mountain. More dogs greet me, but they are wagging their tails. Folks inside already know someone is out here, I think. I start to run on, but it’s late, and I want to call home. I turn back, and climb up the steep drive toward the house. I stand out in the drive where I can be seen. A couple of dogs are caged up and continue to bark. A couple more dogs hang around me.

Finally a young man emerges from the house with a spotlight. He’s shining it around, though I’m standing where I can easily be seen, far enough from the house so I’m not mistaken for an intruder. It takes me quite a while to clue him in. Everything I say seems puzzling to him. But he’s hunted on the mountain, and when I describe the trail up top he makes the connection. At first he says he doesn’t have a phone, but I press the case of my worried wife. Finally he gets his mother’s cell phone from the house. I call Robin. It turns out she wasn’t worried. She’s gotten used to this kind of thing. I don’t let on though. I carry on the conversation with the young man listening. I describe what I’ve done so far to her, and how I will “try to find a way” to run back to Damascus, so that he will better understand my situation.

When I get off the phone, thank him, and start – slowly – moving away, he offers to drive me to Damascus. “That’d be really helpful,” I respond. He takes me in his mom’s minivan. I’ve learned to pack a little cash along with my food and water, so I give him money for gas. He doesn’t expect it, says not to worry about it, but I insist. When I finally get home, Robin tells me she got a call from the Mom. She wanted to know who her son was riding around with late in the evening. Robin has a hard time convincing her.

While I’ve been in Colorado Springs, I’ve had come to terms with the out-and-back mentality. Nippert and I have been running together in the afternoons. Nippert doesn’t like loops. He wants to get the minutes right without any guesswork. What do you do at the end of a loop if the time isn’t right? So we run up the canyon and back. He gives me my workouts, and since I’ve been out here, many of them have specific routes; out-and-back routes. He’ll have me go 10 miles out along the Sante Fe Trail, then turn around and come back. I will rarely do that on my own, but I try to follow my training schedule.

Yesterday my workout was an out-and- back, but one that I have been looking forward to since I got here. I was supposed to climb Pike’s Peak via the Barr Trail. I’ve been watching the mountain daily, though, and it has been blanketed in snow. Last Tuesday white-out conditions near the peak turned back all four of the trains that carry counted-on tourists to the top. Yesterday morning’s paper (that I didn’t read before I left) warned hikers against climbing the peak, calling the route a technical climb in these conditions.

The brilliant sunshine bode well for my run, though, and I set off at 6am from near the Cog Railway station. I was determined to get “as far as I could.” The elevation at the start was 6700 feet. I ran the initial climb through the W’s conservatively, knowing it would be a long day. It took a little over an hour to run the section of trail that took 51 minutes during my “tempo run” over a week ago. I didn’t have to burn my lungs and legs to do it, though. I stopped briefly at Barr Camp; they said it was clear to the timberline. I was up over 10,000 feet. My breath got shorter and quicker, and I walked for a few stints, but the impact of the altitude was markedly less than on previous forays up high.

Above timberline the sun was blazing. Even with the strong winds, I felt warm in my t-shirt and shorts. In less than a mile I found myself in snow, and lost the trail. I found a way up toward the top, and stumbled again into the trail, which had switched back to head west toward “the cirque” a large scale erosion gully that scoops down from the center of the mountain. A single hiker was out, trying to make the summit. He looked reasonably equipped. He was making slow progress, post-holing through the snow. I caught him quickly by running lightly on top of the snow. This crust held my weight as I contoured around the slope, moving upward somewhat, guessing the approximate location of the trail underneath. We talked briefly. Like me, it was his first time on the summit approach. We discussed strategies for crossing the cirque, which was completely enveloped in deep snow. The pitch was steeper, and the drop off below it was menacing. He was post-holing with every step. I was beginning to break through the crust myself. The ice scraped at my bare ankles. Snow got in my shoes. Every step sucked the energy out of me.

I decided to go up – instead of across. There were rock outcroppings above us that I hoped would promise better footing. I scampered on all fours for 20 yards at a time, and then had to stop to catch my breath. My altimeter indicated I was over 13,000 feet. I was only 1000 vertical feet from the summit. I could hear the train whistle at the top. I wanted so badly to fight upward – to complete my mission, to see what it was like up there! I had ascended nearly 7000 feet, I didn’t want to waste that. The boulders were spaced apart, though, and immersed in a sea of snow. When I looked down at my own tracks I knew the descent across the snow would be a lot more difficult than the ascent had been. I had started post-holing about every third step. I had been out over 3 hours.

I turned around. I followed my own footsteps backward. For a moment I despaired the lost bid – then I realized the difficulty of my downward traverse. The added downward velocity of every stride caused me to either post-hole or slide – two bad options. For this inexperienced and ill-equipped mountaineer, my best (and safest) technique was the crab walk. I scampered on my feet and hands, keeping my feet pointed down the mountain. I was able to walk the horizontal traverses in places where the snow crust was thicker. In a reasonable amount of time I was back at the 12,700 foot sign, marking the big switchback in the Barr Trail. I was able to get running again. The descent from there took about 90 minutes.

My good friend Dave should be proud – he’s been encouraging the development of a 100 mile “temperament” as I approach the Western States. This is an interesting word, because it honors the dual virtues of stable character and pliable resilience. Those of us struggling to do something difficult surely need this potent combination: unwavering determination and adaptability. I may not have made the summit of Pike’s Peak yesterday, but I had a good adventure, and I turned around in time to ensure that I could tell the tale.

Fair Advantage

2009-06-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

Nippert and I were descending from Cheyenne Canyon on an afternoon run when he dropped back about 30 feet behind me. This is about how far I’d have to be, he said, to blah blah blah. I said he was to far back to hear, so he caught back up and explained the new USATF policy about “pacing” at the national 100 mile trail championships that it sanctions. Pacers aren’t allowed, Nippert told me, because they provide an unfair advantage. [Pacers are runners that aren’t registered competitors, but run along with competitors, generally in the later stages of ultramarathons.] In the interest of safety, competitors may have “safety runners” who must run at least 10 yards back of the competitor. The use of pacers has been much discussed among ultrarunners. I won’t rehash the debate here. I would like to explore the broader question of fairness in sport, though, in particular what constitutes a fair advantage. I am training in Colorado Springs, after all, and so are many other aspiring athletes, including those at the Olympic Training Center. We are here because training at elevation provides an advantage during competition. It is a legal advantage. Does that make it fair? Don’t worry; I’m not feeling twinges of guilt at my strategy. The race I’m training for is at elevation, and I (now) have convincing evidence that those who don’t prepare for this are at an unfair disadvantage.

I grew up three houses from the railroad tracks on North Bayly Avenue in Louisville. The neighborhood has sprung back in the time since we moved out, but in the 1970’s it was on the rough side. My brothers and I cruised the streets on our bicycles, teaming up with other boys for games of bike chase. There were older bullies lingering on the fringes, but for the most part, we settled things among ourselves. My best friend through elementary school was Mike Grabhorn. Like me, he had a dinnertime and a curfew when he was due home. Otherwise, we were on our own. Our families were unusual in the neighborhood. Other kids had fewer things to count on. He was a year older, and had another friend who was the same age named Will Church. We all got along well enough. We organized games of baseball or kickball in the street in front of Will’s House. We played rough at times. Disputes came up, and had to be settled. First we yelled, and then we got in each other’s faces. If that didn’t take care of it, we fought.

We were inflamed by anger or injustice, and likely engaged with all available passion. Still, we knew the rules. We escalated until someone gave up. I remember a fight between Mike and myself. Will hovered nearby as a sort of referee. We were fighting methodically, looking for clean body blows. When Mike threw a roundhouse and caught my cheek I became enraged. “You hit my face!” I screamed and dove into him, tackling him to the ground. We didn’t do head blows. There was no point. A fight between kids, just like the ritualized competition between the males of almost any species, is circumscribed. While our immediate motivations may be visceral, and our means distastefully violent, there is an unspoken goal to preserve the peace, and each other. We were settling disputes, not perpetuating them. There were no tricks to winning. We needed to settle the question of dominance.
Imagine if Mike pulled out a rag soaked in ether. While we grappled Mike could easily have covered my mouth and nose with the rag and incapacitated me, “winning” the fight. That wouldn’t have settled anything. The outcome only makes sense to the extent that the fight was fair. The results aren’t even interesting otherwise. Among kids of my generation there was such a thing as a good fight, and it was a fair fight.

Footraces are as primal as fist fights: open battles for dominance. Good races settle the question. We did these as kids too: across the schoolyard. I was never the fastest sprinter. It didn’t occur to me to prepare to run faster. I already knew where I stacked up compared to the other kids. None of us prepared. The races were fair. We got the information we needed: namely, who ranks 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

What is it about a boy that determines his place among other boys? Is it his talent? How about his determination? Is it different for a fight than for a race? How does that change with the more elaborate, and mature, contests between adults? Most of us will probably say that a schoolyard sprint is mostly a test of God-given speed. There will be variation between kids, and those differences will remain pretty consistent. In the case of fighting, we may want to say “physical talent” (whatever that is) plays a role, but another element is added. Because fights, as I have described them, escalate until someone submits, a fight can be won by the person more willing to risk injury (or at least to bluff that he is!). That willingness, I propose, is the precursor to the “will to win” in modern, adult, athletic competition.

Willingness to risk injury is a kind of commitment. I was stronger than my younger brother, John Leigh. I could pin him, holding his arms down with my knees. I remember using my knuckle to grind into his head (we called this a noogie). There wasn’t much point, though, because no way was he going to submit and “cry uncle.” That’s determination, and it compels respect from others. It says: I’m willing to suffer injury rather than submit to you or your wishes. Athletes show this kind of commitment. Aren’t we compelled by the players who dive to make the save? Not only do they retain possession, but teammates are uplifted and the opposing team is deflated. How can you win against someone who will risk everything? Of course, if they really risked everything, then sometimes they would lose everything. While this may be true in adult fights, sporting contests have evolved to ritualize, and spread out, the risk.

Athletes play with risk. They train to the precipice of injury, and then stay as close to the edge as possible. They constantly break their bodies down with grueling workouts. They prepare rigorously so that during the contest, their performance seems more risky than it really is. For career athletes, risk is managed. The preparation is a way of accruing an advantage over opponents. It is compelling because of its relationship to commitment. We admire, and honor, the commitment that athletes make. It shows the will to win – and it can determine the winner. Wouldn’t it be more fair, though, if we disallowed preparation for athletic contests? Imagine that every contest was something completely unexpected, so that you couldn’t prepare. Wouldn’t that put everyone on more equal footing? I think the answer is yes. I also think that we don’t want fair contests. We want to see who has created the greatest advantage – by his or her commitment. This is the advantage inherited from the willingness to take greater risk than one’s competitor.

you get what you give

2009-06-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

The night was black. We carried flashlights, but never used them. The walk from the dining hall to the cabin was about a half-mile. We followed a wide trail from the parking lot. We were accustomed to getting by with the faintest light – generally by looking up and noting the faint gray gap in the tree canopy. We made the walk every night, after cleaning up from the night activity and meeting to de-brief. This night there was no light. We knew to use our peripheral vision. There was no point trying to see our hands in front of our faces by looking right at them. But we couldn’t detect the movement of our hands anywhere in our field of view. We only knew where to walk by the feel of the trail under our feet. We were mesmerized by our heightened sensitivity to everything around us, even while nothing around us was visible. If we spoke, it was quietly – respectful of our amplified perceptions. When the distance felt right, we felt for the narrow gap in the forest leaf litter that was the narrow trail to our cabin. Mildly surprised at our own intuitive capacities, we entered our cabin and turned on a light.

The days at Otter Lake Conservation School were long, absorbing, and exhausting. Each instructor was assigned a group of 8-10 sixth-graders, who we took responsibility for through the majority of the day. Kids came to us excited and energetic. We matched that energy and raised it. Our kids slept well at night. We took turns sleeping in the dorm. It was one room packed with side-by-side bunk beds. The lights went out at 9:00 for story time. Story time was simple. Start with a vivid description of a comfortable scene and something animate [the sand dunes rose and fell in the distance. A small green lizard warmed itself on a smooth rock]. Allow enough movement to carry the scene, but branch continuously into superfluous details. Speak evenly and slowly. [Ivan, the lizard, turned its head side-to-side. He lifted his left front leg and right rear leg at the same time, and held them in the air. He put them down, and lifted the opposite two legs. Ivan looked left and right again]. Before Ivan could even get off the rock, someone would start to snore. Within a few minutes, he was joined by a full chorus.

Instructors had a short amount of time off just before lunch. This was a good time to collapse after the always-busy morning. It was also a good time for a light jog. Our persnickety nurse said to me one day as I jogged past: “where do you get the energy to run?” Most runners have likely heard a similar question from non-runners. Like me, you probably thought something along the lines of: “running gives me the energy to do everything else!”

Nippert drives the 30 minutes to Cheyenne Canyon almost every afternoon. He does his workouts in the morning. The canyon run is auxiliary. I’ve been joining him for those runs while I’ve been here. We run slowly, but climb out on the Columbine trail for about 1000 vertical feet and then come back. Each afternoon last week we ran to Gold Camp Rd and returned for about 1 hour total. This week, because we have both started to taper, we turn earlier for a 45 minute run. I wrote about yesterday’s delayed workout. I waited until about 9:30 to run a workout that included a handful of surges. The weather never did improve. I wrote my story through the wet afternoon and mechanically put running clothes back on when 5 o’clock rolled around. We drove straight toward the mountain, though all we could see through the rain-soaked windshield was a huge dark grey pillow where the mountain used to be. My eyelids drooped as I slumped back in the passenger seat. Nippert got out at the canyon. I just stayed in my seat, looking forlornly for a break in the clouds. “Let’s go!” Howard had to remind me.

The first few steps were by far the hardest of the whole run. It was like a tug-of-war, but the twist was this: one team had lashed my body with thousands of thin, stretchy filaments that bound me up like a fly in a spider web. The other team tied a rope around my waist and started to pull. I suppose you’ll want to call this my “will.” [and why not the other, inhibiting team?] Over the course of the first 10 minutes, thankfully (and predictably) the filaments stretched, broke, and fell away. By the time I trotted back to the jeep I felt completely revived.

I often have the experience of gaining energy from a run. I don’t think it is the same as an endorphin rush. There is something else that happens, best described as a sense of well-being, either during or immediately after exercise, that I think is related to endorphins. That is often a cue to relax. I get wound up and uptight before big runs or events. Afterwards I feel good, in a peaceful kind of way. That, I think, is endorphins. The energy gain is something different. It is more like two teams, stagnation and effort, have settled their dispute in the tug-of-war, and effort has won.

My runs during the week at Otter Lake were like that. At the time most suited to retreat, the battle was escalated instead. Those runs were of insignificant length and intensity. They kept effort on top, though, so that I’d be ready on Friday after the busses pulled out. Moments after watching our kids, often tearful, waving from the bus windows, I returned to the cabin to change into my running clothes. I ran out the long drive for the camp, and crossed the road toward Crotched Mountain.

whatever the weather

2009-06-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

Two school buses pulled in to the large dirt parking area. Jon Dery, our charismatic program director, climbed on one of them. A few minutes later the buses were gone and 60 to 100 sixth grade graders formed a circle around him, joined by 10 instructors. I was a recent graduate, as were several others. A couple more were taking time off from college. For the time we were outdoor instructors at Otter Lake Conservation School in Greenfield, New Hampshire. It was the most formative experience of my life.

School groups came to stay at camp for the week. Except for a month around the Holidays, we operated throughout the school year. The snow, like the rest of nature, became an object for our instruction and experience. The kids were quickly divided into groups and assigned to one instructor for the week. With as few words as possible, I took my group into the woods. I wound my way around until I found a familiar opening, so we could create our first circle and review the few simple rules. Stay together. No throwing rocks. No swinging sticks. I had to get to the rules quickly, because otherwise the boys would inevitably begin throwing and swinging.

At the end of the week, we had our final circle. I told each in turn how I saw their role in the group, how well I thought they did, and something I thought they could work on. Then I asked them to give me their thoughts about the group and their instructor. Someone would always speak for the group and confess that when they first saw the instructors, they had hoped for a different one. Once we were in the woods, though, playing match-my-steps, or doing trust activities, or facing team challenges, they were really glad for how things worked out. I wasn’t serious, or stand-offish, or boring, like they thought at first glance. Actually, I really got into stuff.

That’s what happened. I challenged my group to go a little further, push a little harder, and take any hardship as an opportunity. And they challenged me. I paid attention to personalities, negotiated, prompted, and facilitated. I tried to give them the minimum input I thought was required so that they could take the initiative, and therefore the ownership, of success at whatever task we had given them. Most, but not all, of the tasks we had contrived as part of the program. One of the culminating activities had the group prepare and eat lunch on their own. We provided the raw ingredients, a pot, and 1 match. The group had to choose a private place in the woods on the opposite side of the lake, and when they were done, leave absolutely no trace. On the next day, we hiked to the summit of Crotched Mountain – whatever the weather.

If it rained or snowed, we dressed for it. DeWayne, the director, taught us a diddy to pass on to our kids: “Whether the weather be sunny, or whether the weather be not, whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot, we’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.”

We liberated our middle school students, not just by going outdoors, but by constraining the options available to them. We defined the groups and instructors. We gave them a fixed set of supplies with which to accomplish challenges. We were determined to do our activities, no matter what.

People often confuse freedom with freedom of choice. Choices are not inherently liberating. We are either led to make the best choice (a matter of calculation) or we stubbornly make a bad choice (and do worse than those who are smarter). If we made calculated, rational choices, these could be bought by the highest bidder. That’s not the kind of freedom I want. It is a central paradox of human experience that we are most free when we give ourselves the least latitude to change our minds. We make ourselves resistant to the temptation of a bidder who would like to influence our behavior. We also make our behavior independent of circumstances more broadly. These can be called “environmental conditions,” or in a word, the weather.

When I woke up this morning, I burrowed more deeply under my covers on the futon. I could hear the wind blowing outside. Rain was spattered against the window. My workout for this morning was 70 minutes with four 2-minute surges. I put on my running clothes, and stood at the window. I allowed myself to imagine cold water pelting my warm skin, with my head hunkered down against the wind, while I struggled to extend my stride for an honest two minutes. I thought of lessons learned from Otter Lake Conservation School and I proceeded to… eat breakfast. Yes, I delayed my run because of the weather. What about my freedom, my resistance to outside influence? Even as I write, I recall the moniker given me by my friend Kristin Duncan in high school. She called me “the stone pillar.” I was unwavering.

I injured my knee playing indoor soccer during the winter of my senior year. I had to wear a cast that immobilized the knee joint for 6 weeks. I “crutched” my afternoon runs. I could actually cover some serious ground with a 3-legged hop-skip-crutch pattern. I gave myself a destination in another neighborhood – frequently it was Kristin’s house. I was attracted to Kristin because she was, in many ways, indifferent. She was interested to have conversations, and she loved to laugh. But she didn’t need to convince me of anything. I was wary of girls – especially the ones well equipped to lure boys. I suppose I perceived any temptation as a threat to my autonomy. I didn’t often go to parties, and I certainly never drank. I went to bed (as I still do) at 9:15.

Have I grown soft, now that I allowed a little sprinkle to delay my workout? Have I lost a little of my freedom? I want to say no, and you can call me out if you think I’m rationalizing, but here’s why. All freedom is measured. We are mistaken when we imagine freedom to be something floating above the physical world – as if it is a set of choices not influenced by natural forces. Our behavior can only be caused by natural forces. Forces can be harnessed in opposition to predictable temptations. This is manifest, for example, by the “whatever the weather” mantra. If the rule against yielding, however, is absolute – like the stone pillar – it is no more liberating than succumbing to the original temptation.

I like to think I can be reasoned with. My schedule in Colorado Springs is flexible. I can eat first, then run, as easily as I can run, then eat. In fact, I want practice eating then running because I will have to run with food on my stomach in order to complete a 100 mile race. There are things we should be determined to do, no matter what. Right now it doesn’t have to be to run first thing in the morning – in nasty weather.

The Peak

2009-06-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

There is a looming presence in this town. We are under threat all the time. We are also reassured. We know where to look for orientation. We know how to find our way. We know what’s important. Ultimately, we are drawn upwards; by the looming massiveness, by the promise of a better perspective.

Three weeks ago I first approached Colorado Springs from the East. Pike’s Peak appeared suddenly on the horizon as I drove the gradual slope up from Kansas. As the road meandered slightly north or south, my focus remained centered on the mountain.

Left to my own devices I likely would have found a way to proceed all the way to the peak by now. I met with Nippert first, though, and he gave me a schedule. Not until June 6th does it say: run up to Pike’s Peak and back from Cog Railroad. He had reasons for me to wait. I needed to acclimatize to the altitude, for example.

Even the first several easy runs at 6400’ left me more winded than I would have guessed. After 10 days, my first climb up to 10,000 feet was a real wake-up call. Climbing at these elevations is hard work for lowlanders. After two weeks I was lured up the Barr trail to the 7.8 mile sign. That means I still had 7.8 miles to go to get to the summit. Paul DeWitt calls the timed event a “tempo run.” I call it a lung buster. My diaphragm was still sore as of yesterday. Two and a half weeks in, we went up to 9000 feet for my long Sunday run. I would circle Rampart reservoir twice, and add a side-trip to Nichol’s reservoir.

Though still exhausting, the run at that altitude didn’t have the edge of earlier runs. I didn’t struggle to catch my breath as I had on earlier runs. The most striking element of the run was the continuous view of Pike’s Peak. Its stare, at times inviting, had become an icy glare.

The biggest reason for me to wait to climb Pike’s Peak, it turns out, is the snow that still covers the trail over the last 4000 vertical feet. Each day the warm temperatures melt snow. Each afternoon, and several nights, precipitation falls across the peak, and often in the form of more snow. At midday I can look up to the mountain and see where the snow has receded. The whiteness is less monolithic – brown fingers reach up and point to the summit. When I look again the next morning the mountain has brazenly donned a fresh coat of snow. The gleaming reflected sunlight pierces my ambition to get to the top.

This past Sunday I received an e-mail update for Western States 100 runners. The theme was: welcome to your taper. I have written before about the downsides of tapering. As little credence as I give to the power of mind, it may be a useful way to look at the attitude problem created with the “four-weeks-to-go” window. Namely: what do I have to look forward to? Yes, I have a race in less than four weeks. It will surely pose a challenge, and I do look forward to it. But what’s everything about between now and then? It’s about doing less and less, less and less intensely. It’s about staying safe, not getting hurt, and recovering. That’s not exciting. That’s not conducive to a racing state of mind. A mind ready to embrace flow needs immediate challenges. We have to reconcile the real need to recover from months of hard training and the need for the “mind” to be occupied and challenged leading into a peak competition.

I’ve got three things in mind. One is the peak. I check it every morning. This morning it is still shrouded in clouds after being pilloried all night. I want to climb it. I look forward to climbing it. It will require over 7000 feet of vertical ascent in about 12 miles. I’ve circled around the base of about 270 degrees of it. The singularity of Pike’s Peak makes it especially regal, as does its white crown. I will run the course of the widely renowned Pike’s Peak Marathon. It starts in Manitou Springs and runs past the Cog Railroad station. The initial climbing is marginally runnable. The wide path switches back and forth as it ascends what are called “the W’s.” I would like to see how much of the climb I can run. I am curious about how difficult I will find it to breathe and fuel my muscles as I approach 14,000 feet. The weather will be different at the top. The wind will pick up, and afternoon rain is likely. I will have to carry a jacket. The run down will feel like a relief at first. The constant quad pounding will take its toll, though. I’d like to see how my legs hold up. I need to bang up my legs.

The other thing on my mind is the Team CRUD tempo run. This is the one organized by Paul DeWitt up the Barr Trail. Last week I could only manage to run it in 51 minutes. It wasn’t my assigned workout, and Nippert wasn’t thrilled that I had gotten mixed up in it. You don’t need to be able to run fast up the side of a mountain, he said, to get ready for States. He’s right, of course. But Scott Jaime ran it in 48 minutes. I want to see how much difference two weeks at elevation can make. Doing the run again will give me a good measure of my acclimatization. And more importantly, it gives me something to look forward to.

The third thing is reuniting with my family. Robin, Gavin, and Catherine will travel in our van from Emory Virginia to Colorado Springs Colorado to pick me up next week. We will proceed on our first cross country road trip. I look forward to watching my kids scramble around the boulders and feed the jays at the crags. I look forward to seeing them race down the sand at Great Sand Dunes National Park. I want to show Gavin the Hoover Dam, because I know he is fascinated by marvels of engineering. Robin and Catherine will especially appreciate the fragile desert wildflowers.

A spirit of adventure leading up to and surrounding an event will help create a mindset for optimal performance. One of my favorite running adventures to recall was my trip to Japan with a combined Brown-Harvard-Dartmouth alumni team. We were invited to compete against Japanese collegiate teams in a championship Ekiden. These are long-distance relay races. Eight-person teams ran legs of varying lengths to cover about 100km. So much of the experience was new to me: chasing the sun on a transpolar flight from the west coast, the vast but low-slung cityscape of Nagoya, lavish attention from gracious hosts, a culture that honors long distance running. We were picked up from the airport in a bus with “Happu” written boldly on the side. For us it was the Happy Bus. We soaked in the novel sights and sounds, and enjoyed the company of the interpreters who had been assigned to us. We spent several days before the race in Japan. We weren’t worrying about how to correct for jet lag, or how to get our digestion on track. We were caught up in the moment, embracing the adventure.

It rained most of the day of the race. We rode sheltered in the Happy bus, though, until it was our turn to run. I ran the anchor leg, the longest of the race at about 21 km (13 miles). Yukiko, my interpreter, got off the bus with me and held her umbrella over my head while we waited for my teammate to enter the transition zone. There were about 20 teams that had qualified for the championship. Going into the anchor leg we were in the middle of the now widely spaced teams. I saw no one close in front of us. My teammate handed me the purple sash and I started running – cheered away by the rest of the team and our Japanese hosts. I was quickly in the rural countryside. I can still recall the faint smoky smell, not unpleasant, of backyard incinerators. I soaked up the miles of road, like I had everything else in Japan. When the Happy bused passed, I waved back at all the smiling yelling faces behind the windows. I ran alone, neither passing nor passed by another runner. Still, when I charged up the final climb to the shrine that marked the finish I found myself in the middle of cheering throngs. I had run a strong leg.

My adventure now lies to the West. Snow-capped Pike’s Peak most immediately, then the desert sand and the Grand Canyon. I’m looking forward to it.

soccer

2009-06-01T09:48:00.001-07:00

Four neighborhood kids crammed into the back of the Sinai’s Volkswagen bug. I had long legs, so I got to share the front passenger seat. Luckily we were both skinny. One of the older Sinai sisters drove barefoot down to the Louisville Water Company fields at the Ohio River. I pulled my socks up to my knees.

Our coach was a ding dong. And he could get angry. I didn’t mind to let him know what he was doing wrong. When he got angry with me I would pull my socks up. Repeatedly. Like all kids, we loved to play, so we worked it out. One time during a game he got frustrated and told me that if I thought I could do better to go ahead and coach: call the substitutions for the game. So I did. At halftime everybody came to me to get in the game, and tell me what position they wanted to play. I was trying to get it straight, which was admittedly difficult, when our coach stepped in and said he was taking back over. Although I could have pulled it off, I was relieved for both of us.

Three men that I got to know growing up represent how I now think of integrity. The first was the referee for Crescent Hill soccer. He had dark hair and a tidy dark mustache. He dressed sharply, with his striped jersey tucked into his black shorts, and his black nylon socks pulled up to his knees. He ran to keep up with play and knew just how to move to stay out of the way. He called the game the way he dressed: crisply. He wasn’t detached, though. He was generous with guidance and compliments for players, once the play was called. One thing I feel sure of in retrospect: he wasn’t thinking of anything else on Saturday mornings.

I was riding my bike down Payne street one afternoon when I saw our referee mowing his yard. The yards, like the houses along there, are tiny. I was surprised at the modesty of his home, but not at the care he took of it. He waved and smiled when he saw me.

Although I didn’t think of it at the time, I reckon now that the referee noticed me because of the way I played: effortfully. I could be gangly and awkward. I wasn’t the quickest, nor did I have the best ball skills. I did not give up on plays, though. I chased down balls that others let go. I ran the field to cover offense and then ran back to cover defense. I don’t know if there was any other way for me to play. Several of my friends who went on to be good at soccer played a more intermittent style. It’s like the difference between the hunting technique of dogs and cats. Cats are sneaky; they get into position and spring with mighty and fearsome speed. Dogs run, in the open, and just wait until their prey is worn down.

Fernando was the best soccer coach I had. A group of us formed an indoor soccer team toward the end of middle school and the beginning of high school. He put me in to run the field at halfback. Run behind the ball to support the forwards on offense, he told me, and run after the ball on defense to give our defenders a place to put the ball forward. On both ends of the field the other team ended up feeling dogged.

It seems obvious that soccer, especially the way I played it, helped to develop a strong foundation for the running career that developed when I started high school. I was already fit when Coach Worful called a preseason one mile time trial for freshman. In preparation, I wanted to see how fast I could run a mile on my own. I knew that it was “a mile” from my house to Field Elementary, where I first went to school. So I started where my street intersected Frankfort Ave and ran as hard as I could to the turnoff for Field. It took a little over four minutes. I told coach my time and he said, “that wasn’t a mile.” When we ran the time trial on the track behind the school I ran about 5:40. He didn’t make any fuss about it, but I know now that any high school coach is going to get excited if a freshman just shows up before the season and runs a 5:40 mile.

It may be a little less obvious that I played soccer, in the style that I did, because of my capacity to run. Understanding this has to go beyond a simple accounting of the volume of oxygen that my lungs can utilize, or the type of muscle fibers in my legs. But it can’t go as far as a mysterious netherworld in which my spirit somehow takes over the controls for my body. I don’t want to say that I played soccer and later ran just because I have an unusually high VO2 max, and so I am not really due any special credit. I also don’t buy that I decided to play soccer the way that I did, and later to train and run competitively, and therefore I should get all the credit.

After cross country my freshman year I had a real choice. I could continue to run and compete in track and field, or I could play soccer. I don’t think the outcome was inevitable. Had some things been moderately different, I might have made a different choice. For example, I had friends on the soccer team. They were good friends, but what if they had been very close friends? What if one of them had made a very strong appeal for me to stick with them? Like many of our choices, this one sat at a fork in the road. One step left or right determines widely divergent destinations.

That we make decisions with real consequences does implicate a being who should take responsibility for those decisions. This doesn’t mean, however, that all options are open. In fact, my decision to run instead of play soccer was based on my relatively low status among soccer players. Other players were quicker and more skilled – likely due to factors beyond our control. Our manipulation of factors that we can control relative to those we can’t gives us the only kind of freedom we can hope for – natural freedom.

The End-of-Season Decline

2009-05-31T18:22:00.000-07:00

Rob Shoaf was a little light haired fellow from Trinity High School. He liked to crack jokes. We were friendly. At any given race, though, I felt I should beat him.

Immediately after the cross country season we arranged to drive together to Bowling Green for the Wendy’s 10K Classic. Dave Lawhorn, my teammate at Atherton, rode shotgun. Shoaf took the back seat. He brought a cooler. For the duration of the trip he cracked beers. He offered them up to the front seat. We declined, of course. I gave a knowing look to Dave. We could add another item to the list of reasons I should beat him.

When track or cross country season ended, I would take a week or so easy, and then ramp back up to a regular training schedule. Shoaf took a month off. I made every commitment to prepare for competition. Shoaf seemed to lag into every season, coaxed along by his coaches.

When the starter gun fired, Shoaf and I ran near to each other, as we had during much of the cross country season. He started to fade mid way through the race. I rolled on, as expected. A mile and a half later, Shoaf runs up alongside me. “I had a little cramp,” he says. He proceeds to pick up the pace. I’m unable to respond.

Shoaf and I traded victories. Mine came throughout the regular season, his came at the championship events. I always liked Shoaf, I just resented that he somehow managed to beat me when it counted. And he partied while I was home sleeping.

I have run many seasons since then. Competitive runners with long careers must cycle through phases of work and rest. Continuous improvement never is. Runners who don’t take a break typically break down. After my first season of cross country in high school, I continued on to the regional and national junior Olympics competition. Although I finished respectably, I felt “stale” at those races. When I continued to run in preparation for indoor track, I was finally forced to take a break because of tendonitis in my hip.

Starting from a baseline of general fitness, but little or no specialized training, athletes can quickly build aerobic capacity. We impose demands on the body, and the body adapts. The increasing fitness can be very motivating. Good coaches know that adaptation really occurs on rest days, as the body restores what has been broken down. They will sometimes have to bridle the horses who push themselves day after day.

Work-rest cycles certainly characterize a typical training week. It is harder to conceive why work-rest cycles must also characterize training at longer time-scales. Several weeks of hard work must be followed by an easy week, for example. And several months of hard work must be followed by an easy month. Why? If you go out on the track and do several fast repeats, not only will you feel tired afterwards, but you will likely have incurred muscle damage. It makes sense that you would need to wait long enough for muscle tissue to repair itself before you do another track workout. Are there analogous processes that occur over longer time-scales?

Conventional wisdom among ultrarunners holds that end-of-season breaks allow connective tissue to heal itself. The idea seems to be that while muscle builds quickly (a few days) connective tissue builds more slowly (a few weeks).

Injury, however, is not necessarily the bane of every runner who refuses to take a break. The more insidious problem is the performance plateau, or even decline, that extended seasons often bring. Rapid improvements in performance are very typical for athletes who have a reasonable fitness base, but are coming off of a period of rest or inactivity. As training continues, however, the rate of improvement will decrease. Most athletes who continue to train without a substantial break, even if they are able to continue running, will see a decline in performance. What, I always wondered, is the measurable index in the body that declines along with performance? Does mitochondrial density decrease? Do the raw materials for metabolic enzymes run low?

The pretext for much of my writing has been to establish natural explanations for human performance. I don’t want to invoke mysterious powers of will or spirit to explain how athletes strive and achieve. I don’t even want to use the term “mind” as if it works in a different way from the rest of what constitutes us. It is understandable, then, that I would search for the physical substrate of declines in performance. I can’t ignore, however, the most obvious index of declining performance: decreased motivation. Athletes who have been training hard for an extended time become lackadaisical. They don’t care as much. I recalled feeling “stale” toward the end of my first extended season. I could continue my search for the physical substrate that explains both declining performance and declining motivation. We can all accept that depletion in the body will cause decreased motivation “in the mind.” [This makes treating the body and mind separately unnecessary] But this would ignore the interesting possibility that we don’t need a physical parameter to explain the end-of-season blahs.

Imagine identical twins (Adam and Bob) on treadmills on opposite sides of a large gym. We have them hooked up to measure oxygen uptake, blood sugar levels, glycogen stores, and skeletal muscle activation. We start the treadmills and run them at the same speed. After a warm-up we tell Adam he has 10 minutes to go and Bob he has 30 minutes to go. We then ask each to rate his level of exertion. Adam reports a higher level of exertion than Bob, although all the measured physical parameters were identical. After the conversation, however, Bob’s skeletal muscle activation decreases compared to Adam’s. Although the experimental set-up is imaginary, it reflects the real results of experiments conducted by Tim Noakes that I referred to in an earlier post.

The critical finding is that what we anticipate at the beginning of a workout will affect our perception of effort, which will in turn affect our skeletal muscle activation. “What we anticipate” is, of course, a state of mind. While I certainly hold that states of mind exist naturally (via physical changes in the brain), the significant feature of these brain-states is their perceptual meaning. The meaning of “you have 10 minutes to go” depends on prior experience (like the last time you ran for 10 minutes on a treadmill), and, importantly, that perception will feedback on how your muscles are activated.

I suggest we look for a similar mechanism governing the experience of seasonality. At the beginning of the season we know there is “a long way to go.” We rapidly improve in fitness. Toward the end of a season, we know that “the end is near.” We have slow or stalled improvements to motivate us. Workouts of similar quality may require more effort (as perceived by the athlete). The result may be a slow decline in performance, even without the depletion of the body.

Our findings may suggest ways to manage our activities so that we can get the most out of them. We may find that the phased training employed by athletes and coaches with seasonal breaks, stumbled on by trial and error, is the best solution possible. Rob Shoaf “accidentally” managed his seasons so that he peaked when the stakes were highest. He took lengthy breaks, starting his seasons slowly, and kept a lighthearted and spontaneous approach to racing and training. I guess I’m hoping that a methodical approach can yield even better results.

Nature's Reasons

2009-05-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

I was fussing around with the countdown timer on my camera when another hiker happened up to the summit of the Crags. So we exchanged cameras and took each other’s pictures. We ended up talking for some time. I’m always more apt to engage in conversation with a stranger after I’ve been alone for a while. It helped that the man was friendly and inclined to share his knowledge of the area. He briefly mentioned that he was hiking to strengthen himself before another round of cancer treatment. Mr. Tyler (I only remember his last name) was easy to converse with. His mind seemed designed to remember and share tidbits of information that others might find interesting. He pointed out mountain ranges and their names in the distance, discussed the geology of Pike’s Peak, and bent the limp pine to demonstrate the origins of its name. Mr. Tyler is a model cultural actor; he is both a product and a purveyor of culture. He is very civilized. We all are, but Mr. Tyler exemplifies it. It’s tempting to oversimplify and imagine his opposite, a caveman who takes what he wants by force and needs little more than to grunt to get across his message. The caveman acts on instinct. His only reasons are nature’s reasons. If clubbing his competitors works to win a mate, he will club his competitors. Mr. Tyler, by contrast, has his own reasons, seemingly independent of what nature intended.

My voice was raspy. After only 48 hours at close to 10,000 feet my sound-making equipment was dried out. After the hike I broke camp and drove back to Manitou Springs. I decided to hang out there and write so that I could meet Team CRUD for the Thursday evening tempo run. The dry sensation in my mouth caused me to drink a lot of water, so several times now I have had to take a break to find some tree cover and relieve myself. Nature, it turns out, is full of nifty inventions that don’t always work. I know when I need to drink because I get a dry sensation in my mouth. If the dryness is caused by lowered humidity, though, I mistakenly drink more than I need. So if I ignore the dry sensation, and reason for myself that I don’t need to drink, have I defied Nature’s reason?

So many of the comments I get from non-ultrarunners about my training or racing reflect the sense that what I’m doing is crazy. Like “that’s abnormal,” or, “I can’t believe your body can do that,” or, “where do you get the will to keep going?” It doesn’t seem natural to run 50 miles, so I must have my own reasons. We imagine that Nature’s reasons are wired into us. We don’t have to think about them – in fact, we are more likely to act on them if we don’t think about them. We act on instinct. When we are hungry we seek food. When we fast, it seems it is for reasons other than nature’s reasons. We think it is for our reasons. The instinct to feed ourselves can get us into trouble. The built-in mechanisms that cue us to eat were designed for a different world than the one we live in -- a world in which procuring reliable and calorie dense foods was difficult. These foods taste good to us – nature’s way of encouraging us to eat them. Nature didn’t anticipate we’d have an unlimited supply at our disposal, however. So we have to create our own reasons to avoid unwanted calories.

Diets, however, are notoriously difficult to follow. People have a sense that they ought to be able to resist temptation. It is just a matter of will. We don’t want to get fat, so we will just eat what we need. Likewise for all human activity that seems to fall outside of what is natural. We mow our yards, hang decorations around the house, or train to race 100 miles. What better evidence is there that we are deciding selves who can take nature or leave it? The model of our autonomy in which we are freed of nature to act as we will is mistaken and problematic. We fall into relationships, addictions, trends, and all manner of patterns out of which we cannot simply will ourselves. Our mistake is putting ourselves opposite of and apart from nature. We know a lot about the wiring that constitutes our nervous systems. We cannot help but imagine, though, that there is something else, something with the leverage to originate messages, cause them to change tracks, or stop them altogether.

Several comments to this blog reflect the basic sentiment that my training and racing mentality demonstrate just the sort of willpower that I keep trying to deny. I seem disciplined, strong, or tough. I can go beyond where others may have to stop. Implicit in these comments is the view that I exist apart from nature, and can act according to my own reasons. Relying on this view can be self-defeating. I want to be realistic. I want to explore a natural account of our capacities. I want to accept all the pushes and pulls on our behavior, not as something we must fight, but as forces that we must reckon with. The self has no leverage – it can only use nature. We may be able to ascribe some reasons as our own, but they can only be composed of nature’s reasons.

Berg called me many times during the Fall of my senior year in high school. He recruited athletes by paying them attention and getting to know them. As I described some of my running habits I can remember him asking: “it gets to be like brushing your teeth, doesn’t it?” We are creatures of habit. Once a pattern is established, it just doesn’t feel right to change it. We are compelled to brush our teeth before bedtime.

Establishing a daily run is at the heart of becoming a better runner. It seems like a perfect demonstration of the willfulness of the committed athlete. What makes the daily run a habit, though, is that no decision is involved. We run, no matter what. When I do my morning runs, I wake up, and automatically start getting ready. I don’t check myself over to gage my energy level, I don’t sample the weather. There are no factors that must be weighed to make my decision. The decision has already been made. I smile when people ask me what I do about my running when the weather is bad. I think to myself that if my running was contingent on the weather I wouldn’t be a runner.

Other features of my willfulness are like this: simple tricks. Many runners enjoy eating rich foods because they feel they have earned it. I bought a dozen donuts after my 3-day foray to the high country. We know that rewards will reinforce behavior. So I can reward myself for running, and increase the likelihood that I will keep doing it.

I have written recently about the natural desire to stand out. We tend to find things we can do well, at least among a subset of people, and then pursue those things. This drive may look like the will to succeed, but it is a natural mechanism for attracting mates that we share with the rest of the animal kingdom. We are a social species, so we also feel the need to fit in. Many athletes will pursue a sport because of the camaraderie. Again, we do things because of nature, not in spite of it. If it takes joining a group so that you will run, because everyone else is, then that is a trick worth pursuing. You still get credit for having the “will” to run, even though you really just tricked your desire to fit in to convince yourself to do it!

People do seem to resist nature sometimes though, even acting counter to their own interests. Where selfishness would benefit them, and was surely programmed into them by nature, they will instead be generous toward others. I have benefitted, as I’m sure you have, from the thoughtful tutelage of selfless coaches and role models. Mr. Tyler, for example, didn’t give a second thought to interrupting his own hike to share his knowledge with me.

That discussion will have to remain open for another post.

Video for Family

2009-05-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

I have kept the poststext-only so far, because you get to use your imagination more that way. I'm at the midpoint of my time away from Gavin, Catherine, and Robin, though, so I thought I'd capture a few clips while I was in the high country west of Pike's Peak. Even though I wrote at length about running solo, I won't ever really be alone. This is just to let my family know that I'm thinking about them even when I'm a thousand miles away.

Running Solo

2009-05-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 27

The snow crunched crisply under my feet as I walked from the tent to the car this morning. I had to give the door a yank to pop its frozen seal. I blew on my fingers to keep them warm enough to set up the camp stove, light it, and get the water on for oatmeal. The sky must have finally cleared, I thought. When I got into the tent last night it was still raining. I watched tiny raindrops pelt the fly over my head. It was early. I lay awake for quite a while before I drifted in and out of sleep.

I would have to get moving after breakfast, just to get warm. I was reminded of mornings on the Appalachian Trail. I’d drape the blanket I used for sleeping around me long enough to cook and eat breakfast. I perfected the quick getaway out of necessity. I guess that was one more good reason to pack the absolute minimum.

Last night I camped off of FS 383 in the Pike National Forest. I wanted to spend some time above 9000 feet. And the Mountain kept staring at me. The weather, which seems to emanate from the Peak, has daily dared me to venture upward. The sun will shine for a couple hours in the morning and then gray clouds build across the mountain. Thunderheads fly from the mountain as if from Zeus himself.

When I took off from Colorado Springs Tuesday morning, it didn’t take long to settle in with my most familiar companion: solitude. I’m not actually anti-social. I can genuinely empathize with most everyone that I spend time with. I like to cook and eat with others. Occasionally there’s even something that I want to say to someone else. Inevitably, though, I feel I can never be quite myself around others. Social emotions exert a strong pull on me. Feelings like sympathy and embarrassment have haunted my development. Most notably, I feel oddly compelled to shun outside influence. What some call stubbornness I consider personal responsibility. If no one else caused me to do something – than I must have caused it myself.

Out for a solo adventure is the closest I come to being myself. Not even bad weather can deter me. I found a site that suited me Tuesday afternoon. It had clearly been used many times before. A wooden bridge spanned the creek that runs between the site and the road. Adjacent to the site is a large boulder – maybe 18 feet high. I set up my tent yesterday evening after my initial foray south and west on the Ring the Peak Trail. I climbed enough to get into snow, and the going was slow. I was soaked by the rain from above and by the sloppy snow from underfoot. I wrote yesterday’s story and waited for the rain to break before I set up the tent.

Because I wanted to eat and get moving today, I walked the first hour. Again I followed the Ring the Peak Trail, this time north and east toward Catamount Reservoir. The trail descends in this direction, and once I was below 9500 feet elevation I was out of the snow and into the sunshine. I shucked my pants and long sleeve shirt, tucked them behind a tree near a prominent boulder, and started to run. In no time I was alongside the reservoir on a service road. “This is money,” I thought. I had wide open running on dirt roads up high and in the sunshine. I wanted to loop around the reservoir. Signs posted showed a trail on the south side that would allow this, but it looked like I’d have to bushwhack for a short stint between two trails.

I got off track. Had I been with anyone, I likely would have conferred and turned around conservatively. On my own though, I tend to forge ahead, look for new routes, and see if there is something unexpected that I might like to find.

All of my biggest adventures have been launched this way. When my family went to Red River Gorge for a New Year’s get-together, we arrived after the long drive shortly before dusk. I needed to stretch out so I said I was going for a quick 15 minute jog. Of course I didn’t take anything, but just started on a little trail that led into the woods. I should have just turned at 7 ½ minutes and come back. Instead I tried to loop around and find a different way back. More than 3 hours later I got back. That was my wife’s first real experience with this penchant of mine, and she was worried sick.

After crossing the Presidential Range in New Hampshire during my AT hike, I looked at the map and decided to take a shorter route to the ridge. I bushwhacked to a gully and followed it upward. No one had a clue where I was. I had made considerable progress up the side of the mountain before the gully became treacherously steep. By the time I was convinced to descend, I couldn’t. The climbs that had been touch and go on the way up were prohibitive going down. I had to go sideways, through gnarly brush. By the time I reached the ridge, I was completely drained, and sobered.

Thankfully my detour this morning was short. I found a new route around the reservoir, and located the clothes I had ditched on the way out. All that was left was to return the way I had come. It’s just not in my nature to make it that easy. I thought I’d try a side trail instead, and circle around the Mennonite camp I had passed during the drive in yesterday. Before long I was climbing a grievous pitch, and realized I was headed up a mountain. I remembered seeing Raspberry Mountain on the map, and that it only had one trail leading to it.

I had most of the water and snacks that I had started with. That’s another advantage of starting right after breakfast. So I decided to see what the top of the mountain looked like. I’m glad I did – it was the highlight of the trip. A metamorphic outcropping at the peak (like a bunch of raspberries?) yielded a true 360 degree view, including my best view yet of Pike’s Peak. The bright sunlight was dazzlingly reflected by ample snow against the blue sky. I’m scheduled to climb the Peak a week from Saturday, but I will be surprised if enough of the snow has melted off.

Most of my training is alone. It makes sense, given that ultrarunners spend a lot of miles running alone during events – even the events with hundreds of participants. Given the large distances and the relatively small numbers of participants, this isn’t too surprising. The difficulty of route finding, however, and the dangers of running alone should encourage runners to stay close together, so why don’t they? Some ultrarunners do run with others, either because they planned it that way or because they happened upon someone who was running about the same pace and who they happened to get along with. On these occasions, however, the runner is generally not performance minded.

I’ll give you three reasons that performance minded runners will run alone for a significant portion of any ultra. The first two are flimsy, the third is tougher to refute. One: if each participant is striving to do the best possible, everyone will have a unique pace and strategy toward that end. Trying to run in groups could only confound that calculation. Two: runners need to focus – on the terrain, on strategy, and on hydration and fueling. Other runners can be a distraction. Three: we compete to sort ourselves out. Competitors will strategize to ensure that groups of runners cannot stay together.

Dave Mackey was somewhere out in front of me, and I had let him go. We were probably about 17 miles into the Mountain Masochist 50+ miler. I had chased Mackey for a while but started to settle into my own pace. At the beginning of the descent toward the reservoir, a couple of guys came cruising past me. I feel like it was Sean Andrish and Paul DeWitt, maybe because they can both roll downhill. I picked up my pace again and ran with them. We were hammering. Climbing out from the reservoir toward the major highway crossing, we caught sight of Mackey. The pace had taken its toll, though, and I had to drop back once more. I didn’t see Mackey again until the finish line. That’s my illustration in support of reason one.

Run for the Hogs 3K was a low-key race with a history of hot competition. It was always on a Thursday night in August in the Butchertown neighborhood of Louisville, KY. One summer I “hopped in it” casually, just like every fast guy around. The blistering pace left me behind, as I played out my typical “smart” race. After the turnaround, and with less than a mile to go, Barry White motors by me, striding long, smooth, and strong. I just fell in behind him; changed my pace. It didn’t kill me. In fact, I found a new, faster groove. I was able to maintain it to the finish, and a spot on the podium. Although maybe this scenario is less likely in an ultra, we can be mistaken about our own capacities. Running with someone else might give us another perspective, and free us from our preconceptions. I don’t think this is likely with experienced runners, but I wanted to include a counterexample to reason one.

In a prior post I described the start of the Stump Jump 50K in Chattanooga. I was running with two other guys around a maze-like set of trails. I followed them off course. Had I been running alone I probably would have been more attuned to following the markings. I would not have been able to depend on others. I could describe many similar situations from other ultras. Running alone forces us to pay attention not only to the course, but to ourselves. We need to eat and drink at regular intervals, and notice any signs that an intervention is needed. Good support for reason two.

On the other hand, I may well not have finished the Hellgate 100K (+) in 2005 if not for the cooperation of the eventual winner, Serge Arbona. Snow and ice covered the course. Many roads were closed, preventing the trail marking crews from accessing early portions of the course. The race starts at midnight, so we were in the dark. The headlight I wore was not up to the task of spotting occasional flagging meant only to clue in the crew that was to hang glow lights. Serge and I traded turns in front, spotting the tree flagging. The person in the back searched alternative routes. When we hit the trail, we yelled to let the other one know. I’ve had similar experiences at other ultras in which route finding was an issue. Zach Miller and I helped each other through Dances with Dirt in Michigan. Sometimes the nature of the challenge, or the shared misery of a tough event, can draw runners together who might otherwise compete. That’s why I will also hedge on reason two. Reason three is more resilient.

At American River in 2006 I ran with the lead group for the first 24 miles. A sharp pain in my knee caused me to walk for a period until the course moved to soft surface. A sizable gap had opened between me and the first two places. Over many miles I closed the gap and then took the lead with about 10 miles to go. When Phil Kochik caught up with me I was indignant. I felt like I belonged in the lead. My attitude was: well if you’re going to make me, I guess I’ll race you to the finish. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t run as fast as Phil over the last two miles. The huge climb out of the canyon in the sun had gotten me overheated, and I just couldn’t keep up. Phil’s move was smart and well played. It’s also pretty unusual. Most races reveal a set of places early on that don’t change much. The biggest drama is typically someone dropping out. That may change the results, but it technically avoids a change in relative place.

The whole premise of competition is to determine a winner, as well as the relative places of everyone else. We want to compare ourselves to others in our demographic. The race is a set of ritualized fights, like rams butting horns. Some go out fast, daring other runners to try and keep up. Others bide time, and make challenges late in the run. Some runners may charge up the hills, challenging others to try and hang. The point, ultimately, is to prevent our running together. The competitive runner wants to know who is first, second, and third. I was indignant at American River because (in my oxygen deprived brain) I had established my place throughout the run, and deserved to win (I realize that this is actually determined at the finish line, BTW). We will strategize to make sure that everyone can’t stay together. Some competitors will routinely exceed their own capacity early (and be forced to slow down or drop out) rather than allow themselves to run together with others who may have similar fitness.

I realize you may just run. You may not think about why you end up alone, and yet you do. Nature has its own reasons. Good ultra runners must be able to handle solitude. We need to know what to expect as the miles and exhaustion make either mutineers or mutes of the voices we so often depend on.

Tuesday, May 26

2009-05-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

The sign for Woodland Park said “the city above the clouds.” Today it is in the clouds. I drove up from Colorado Springs to find some backcountry camping for a couple nights on the west side of Pike’s Peak. As I approached Woodland Park it started raining, and soon I found myself in a thick fog. Fortunately I got my GPS working the other day, so it was counting down the miles until my turnoff at Divide. From Divide I tracked south in behind the Mountain. I found a Forest Service road toward The Crags and headed up. Fresh snow must have accumulated in the last couple nights, because the national forest looked like Christmas. Wet heavy snow clung to the branches of Fir and Pinion trees. I passed the Mennonite camp and waved to the sizable groups working outside. Everybody wore a poncho and carried a shovel.

I pulled off, checked my map, and decided this would be a good spot to park. After a few minutes of tussling around inside the car to trade my boxers for running shorts, I got out of the car and into the cold rain. I swapped my light nylon shell for my hooded Mountain Hardwear jacket. My plan was to run out for an hour, taking it very easy, turn and come back. It was a reconnaissance mission. Today is supposed to be a recovery day.

Yesterday I ran 70 minutes at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. After 45 minutes I ran an uphill stretch of road hard for 1 minute with a jog back down 5 times. It felt good to run fast, but it did burn a little by the time I finished numbers 4 and 5. It took a lot longer than usual to catch my breath. I had been feeling good about my acclimatization. The first 45 minutes I felt like the altitude wasn’t a factor. I like the idea of pushing upward for at least a few periods of time while I am here. The snow is constraining my upward runs, though. It has been making a late-season resurgence. The longer days of Spring have apparently set up a storm pattern that has been dropping afternoon rain on the lower elevations and snow above about 10,000 feet. Last night the rain continued into the wee hours. I think that accounts for the fresh snow I am seeing today.

The Forest Service road is very runnable so I followed it out toward the Crags campground. I continued past and found signs for the Ring around the Peak trail so I followed that trail north and west. It was covered with about 3 inches of snow. I took my time and figured time on my feet was good for both recovery and acclimatization. It was odd to do winter running again, with it being almost June, but I quickly lost myself in the day’s adventure. It may have helped that I had to pay constant attention to my footing and the route.

When I was on my way back, and popped back out onto the road, a vivid recollection came to me:

When I was 15 I spent the summer at Camp Piomingo, working as a counselor in training. There were 16 of us, led by Ann Helm. She had narrow sloping shoulders and big hips. Most everybody at camp thought she was funny. I thought of her as a camp refugee – popular at camp but probably not anywhere else. I developed a bad attitude toward many of the other CITs. I had a full year of strong running behind me, and I had determined to continue my training over the summer. The summer of 1983 was the hottest of any Kentucky summer since I have been alive. We lived in typical camp cabins. The best time to run, by far, was early in the morning. Well, fifteen-year-old kids away from home for the summer are not known for their disciplined sleeping habits. I was an exception, partly because I’ve never been swayed by what most people around me are doing.

My desire to turn in early was not well received. In hindsight this had mostly to do with all the ways I separated myself from most of the group. I remember waking up in a total daze one night, hearing footsteps running from the cabin and suppressed laughter. I felt something unusual around my head and in my bunk, but I went back to sleep anyway. In the morning I found that I had been “powdered” with flour after I went to sleep.

I wasn’t alone, though. Scott Davis and I were united in our opposition to the group-ness that so appealed to everyone else. We were the fringe element, plotting together and talking behind others’ backs. Ironically, our non-compliance came in the form of going to sleep early and getting up for a run before breakfast. When time permitted we would do evening workouts as well. We played hard, and we embraced our role, once it was given, to work with the regular counselors and their groups of younger kids. I had always said that I wanted to be a counselor. Every summer growing up I went to camp – and loved it. I loved the physicality, the variety, and the freedom. I know now that the bonding that occurs between staff members brings them back every year – but that was never what attracted me. I never did go back to camp as a counselor.

The culmination of the bonding that had been designed into our program as CITs was a backpacking trip to the Red River Gorge in Eastern Kentucky. We were dropped off. Two vans loaded with 16 of us, Anne Helm, a second older counselor, and our gear were driven the 3 ½ hours east. The vans were not air conditioned. I remember slouching in my seat, the sweat dripping from the tips of my fingers and nose like I was melting. There was no way to fight it, so I just relented. Like a wilting flower all my muscles just went limp for the ride.

We were, fortunately, well acclimatized by that time. I had already experienced severe heat exhaustion earlier in the summer. The CITs were assigned to sweep out the quarry where the final camp bonfires were held. So on a blazing summer afternoon, there we were, sweeping in the middle of a heat sink. The temperature was probably 115 in the quarry. By then Scott and I were well known for vocally opposing irrational activities. Probably because we were expected to resist, and maybe because the rest of the group was struggling with the task, Scott and I stepped it up and swept for all we were worth. We looked like we had jumped in a pool, because Kentucky humidity precludes evaporation of sweat. We worked defiantly.

Later that afternoon I collapsed in my cabin. I had to lay still, with a fan blowing directly on me, through dinnertime and for the rest of the night. Fortunately, I was better by morning. And though I didn’t think about it at the time, heat trained.

When we got out of the van and found ourselves in the woods we actually felt cool. The 90+ degree temperatures were totally manageable. We said goodbye to the vans and hiked with our gear to Princess Arch, where we would find natural shelter and water; would have found, that is, in years when there hasn’t been a record heat wave and drought. We arrived at our home for the next 5 days to find the stream had run dry. We had water for at least a day though, so Scott and I set to exploring in a way befitting athletic boys. We played commando. Scott introduced me to several games in the time that I knew him. They seemed like good sport at the time. Only gradually did I become aware of the sinister motivation behind many of Scott’s activities. Commando was simple enough – one person ran and the other chased. We ran wide open; over, under, around, through all obstacles. Red River Gorge provided plenty of obstacles: rhododendron bushes are the toughest vegetation, that doesn’t have thorns, to fight through. We had plenty of interesting terrain features as well: hills, knobs, arches, natural gateways, and cliffs. When you’re being chased you find you can do things you would not have thought possible. Only later would Scott introduce still more “motivating” elements into this basic war game.

When we returned to camp we found that the water situation had generated much discussion. Because of the extreme heat, we would be out of water after dinner. The counselors had studied the map, and located an area, somewhat lower, where several streams ran together. The route to this alternative site was several miles down a gravel road and then off on another trail. It was suggested that Scott and I run to the site that afternoon with two gallon water jugs each, and if we found water return with the 4 gallons. The whole group could then make the hike the next day. The task seemed entirely befitting our heroic, if troubled, stature, so we readily agreed.

One of the girls [I’ll call her Connie because I can’t remember her name], who I think had an un-requited crush on Scott, was eager to join us. She followed us for a time but couldn’t keep up, so we took the jugs and went on without her. We ran the route – it may have taken an hour – and found the new site and a running stream. We filled the jugs and began the run back, considerably loaded down (two gallons of water weighs 16 pounds). We were in our element, though, and quite up to the task. It didn’t hurt that we looked forward to a hero’s welcome.

When we had almost made it back – we had only to run from the trailhead down to the campsite, Connie was waiting and begged us to let her carry some of the water into camp. We would have none of it. We had done the work and were certainly entitled to all the glory. We ran down the trail so that Connie couldn’t keep up.

We were indeed welcomed back warmly. The potential consequences of 16 young people in the backcountry for 5 days with no water had probably begun to sink in. We brought water and the knowledge that we had an alternative site within a ½ day’s walk. Connie gimped in behind us. We didn’t pay her any mind.

We had large pots for boiling water. We drank the stream water untreated, but we needed the pots for cooking. The counselors used backpacking stoves, and perched the large pots on top of them. While the group scurried around the center of camp fussing over dinner, Scott and I made considerable progress on the huge bag of GORP each of us had prepared before leaving. The salty peanuts, chocolate M&Ms, granola cereal, and raisins made for an addictive mix. The next thing we knew, our attention was riveted by screaming and commotion where the pots had been cooking.

Connie had tripped over a pot of boiling water. The counselors were gently pulling the shoe and sock off her soaked foot. She was burned, and in extreme pain. I felt badly for her. I’m sure it occurred to me that I need not have added to her misfortunes by denying her the chance to have helped out earlier. In retrospect, of course, I am ashamed at my meanness – regardless of her subsequent accident. Maybe Scott felt the same way. Much later, long after we had returned to camp Piomingo, out of the blue one day Scott threw his arms around Connie, dipped her, and planted a huge kiss on her lips. He let her go. She fanned her face with her hand and said, “wow!”

Camp gives us the excuse we need to let go. We let go of parents, of expectations, of civility. Every trip I make away from the daily conveniences we all take for granted reminds me of that state of mind. Even the brief foray of a daily run is a reminder to let go. A multi-day trip on Pike’s Peak is that much better.

Going Higher

2009-05-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

Daily posts will be on a brief hiatus for the next three days. I am traveling to the west side of Pike's Peak until Thursday. A little tent will dot that vast and high landscape. And the tiny figure emerging from that dot in the morning to complete small circuits along the mountain terrain will be me.

Until Friday, then...

Shucking Selfiness

2009-05-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

I drove to Knoxville by myself for the road half-marathon. The cool, breezy, threatening weather prompted me to fashion a headband out of a black and white checkered buff. I cut a circular section from it so that it was about two inches wide. When I put it on and tucked it above my ears, it curled around itself and looked like a string. I pulled on the Moeben arm sleeves given out at Western States in 2007. My hair curled around the headband. I still had a full beard. I ran out and back along the first mile of the course for a warm-up. A lot of other runners were around, none of whom I knew. I could feel their eyes follow me. I don’t compete in road races anymore. Running this event was part of my preparation to run Way Too Cool. It gave a benchmark to my training.

When the gun finally sounded, a group of young and fit looking runners shot to the front. I followed evenly behind, easing into the gap between the frontrunners and everyone else. Running on the road, and among others, made the quick tempo temptingly easy. I tried to gage my effort by the number of strides I took per breath of air. At three strides per breath, I figured I was running economically, and settled in to the fast pace.

As the front group began to string out, I passed one runner at a time. At three miles out, all the runners in front of me turned around to head back. Now I knew that they had all entered the 10K, run concurrently with the half-marathon. I would run the rest of the way by myself. No more ride, I thought, and no more distraction. I went into my legs, arms, and lungs to settle at the tempo that would carry me the distance. We were entering a river valley, and I noted the undulating rise and fall of the road into and out of the valley. I leaked into the countryside, the farms in the floodplain, the dog running into the road, the police cruiser at a distance in front of me. I played my part, like the baritone in a musical composition. I played at the rhythm that worked to coordinate us all.

The last part of the course was out and back. I was inbound, passing runners who were outbound. I was at about mile 10. As the runners cheered me on, I waved, said hello, or returned the “good job.” I wiped the dried spit from the corners of my mouth. My breathing became unsettled, maintaining my pace more effortful. I slowed somewhat, but maintained a strong pace to the finish.

I was generally shy as a kid, even painfully self-conscious at times. From an early age it was hard for me to just be somewhere, and just do something. I also had to see myself there, doing that. It’s an accursed capacity, self-consciousness, which puts a person at a remove from himself. Like the middle school kids with their backs on the wall at the Valentine’s Day dance. Everyone could have fun, mingle, move on, if only they could get over themselves. We know self-consciousness inhibits us. It keeps us from getting embarrassed, from committing social blunders. Maybe that can be a good thing. It also keeps us from fully engaging a situation. Self-consciousness keeps us from the flow that makes our best performances possible.

Self-consciousness develops into a more insidious adult condition I’m calling selfiness. I can get off the wall now. I can speak in front a group and not get completely muddle-headed. But I carry around a sense of who I am, and I fit the things I do into a story I can tell about myself. I take credit for the things I do well, and I (generally) take the blame for things I do poorly. Philosophers call this agency. There can be little doubt that personal agency is a central feature of accountability in social groups. In order to be rewarded, or punished, for our deeds we must presume the capacity to have chosen. The capacity to choose implies a chooser. There is a captain at the helm: a self.

Selfiness is epidemic. Individuality can be sliced in infinite ways, and we explore all the options. We identify with styles, trends, brands, vocations, religions, hobbies, groups, shows, movies, characters, activities, etc. We identify ourselves. For something as deeply important as self-definition, selfiness is pretty thin. We can change any of these associations, generally with little effort. We can say a few words, trade out for a different wardrobe, or find a new set of acquaintances. We can start a new sport… ah, not so fast.

Sport is another way that people identify themselves. I think sports features so prominently in our culture, though, because it is one of the few things we do that is hard to fake. Sports are set up to put an empirical test on every assertion. Individual endurance sports help to define real limits to human performance. When athletes run faster or farther than we thought possible, we learn something new, and assimilate the knowledge toward expanding our own capacities. We get to know what works, for us, as we strive to improve performance.

We find that selfiness doesn’t work. It is too sheer, too illusory. After several hours of running alone, drained of a ready supply of energy, we can’t just tell ourselves a story about what we are doing. We can’t fall back on the captain we imagine somewhere behind our eyes. When the narrative is stripped away we have an organized, buzzing, mass of tissue that has to propel the oversized orb on top that used to pretend it was calling the shots. What works is to embrace our bicameral nature. We our ourselves, and we aren’t ourselves. We are a coordinated and mechanized set of cells, and we are a lineage. We are a mind, and we are a body.

The selfiness will accumulate like rime on a ship. High level performance will require some means of stripping the selfiness away. My thru-hike on the AT gave me a good overhaul. Long runs in the woods feel like regular maintenance. Marriage and family put a check on selfiness. For some, religious experience helps shed the temptation of the transient. Spiritual enlightenment comes in many forms, but they seem to share a transcendent connection with something bigger than oneself.

It’s hard to imagine that we’d go to all the trouble we do without a reason. All of our reasons (that I can think of ) are ascribed to the self who provides them. This is a central, and to my mind, unresolved paradox. We work in service to a self who we must deny to work at our best.

Kind of Freedom

2009-05-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

The front wheel spun right down the middle of the double yellow lines. The rush of air in our ears was the best indication of our speed – and it was exhilarating. We rode while the city slept. Down Frankfort Avenue in Crescent Hill. Over to Grinstead Drive and up to Bardstown Road. Out Bardstown Road toward Beuchel and our accidental bounty: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

We had to spend the night at my house. Chip’s parents were strict, and wouldn’t have let us get up at 3 in the morning for a bike ride. We thought we’d just sneak out and ride, but I told my parents what we were doing. Our defiance was intact. Everyone else was sleeping. Even kids who got to stay up late, or kids who spent their evenings looking for trouble, had finally spent themselves.

We felt liberated. A bicycle had always been my golden ticket. It started with my star spangled red white and blue bike with the banana seat and coaster brakes. I rode it the mile to Field Elementary during first grade. By the time I transferred to St. Matthews Elementary in third grade, I moved up to a ten-speed. I paid a dime to ride the city bus, or when the weather was good I rode the 4 miles to school with my friend Mike Grabhorn. The traffic along Frankfort Avenue required that we ride carefully, and in accordance with rules that others understood. We had to comply. We occasionally bailed out to the sidewalk. I collided with an older lady and her groceries one time. I realized the responsibility implied by my speed.

I had friends, and childhood crushes, in other neighborhoods. My bicycle took me across the city to those places. I would ride across Cherokee Park and visit Joel Morrill, a fun kid, younger than me. I liked his sister Whitney, who I got to see when I was there. She laughed at my antics, like when I carried Joel piggy-back while running around the block.

Our midsummer’s night ride was free of any objective, and any need to worry over the daytime rules of the road. When we stopped for doughnuts, joining a sleepy policeman, I was reminded of the other sides of the freedom die. This was the second time I had been there. The first was when my family visited my older brother at Boys Haven, after he had run away from home. I can’t recall that he ever lived with us again after that.

Freedom for me is good lungs. When we played capture the flag at camp Piomingo, the counselor for an opposing team warned his kids not to bother chasing me. When my younger brother wrecked his bike a distance from home, or my friend Mike got in a serious rock fight at the railroad tracks, I ran – long and fast – for help. When my family got home from a long trip together, I went running. I just ran until I got tired. Then I turned around and started running back home.

I would regularly ride with Chip to where our friends lived in the Highlands neighborhood. Tyler had a basketball hoop set up behind his house. His buddy Willy would join us for two-on-two. Willy was a wise-cracking, prep-dressing, trouble-causing neighborhood prankster. To this day his compelling personality keeps old childhood friends in touch. At the time, though, I had little patience for his shenanigans. He had an especially annoying habit of getting goofy when the game wasn’t going his way.

I don’t remember what started it, but one time Willy hit my bike with a big stick. It was lying next to the basketball court. We had probably gotten into an argument – I remember often getting angry with him if he was on my team and I thought he wasn’t trying hard enough. He hauled off and hit my bike – the real and symbolic measure of my freedom. I could feel the blood rush to my face and limbs. I ran straight for Willy, yelling “my bike!” He bolted. He ran like he was being chased by a rabid junkyard dog. Down the alley, over fences, and across the yards he had grown up around. He tapped all his athleticism. He needed to. Eventually the pursuit bled off some of my heat. I circled back to assess the damage to my bike.

As I approached the guys I saw a nickel in the alley and picked it up. I tossed it up in the air. My limbs, saturated with blood and adrenaline, were still ready for a fight. I could scarcely feel the weight of the nickel. I said I was glad I hadn’t caught Willy. Tyler still likes to tell that story. My bike was fine.

Altitude and Western States

2009-05-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

The participant’s guide published for The Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run is misleading, if not downright deceptive, with respect to problems caused by altitude.

The trail description on page 2 sounds appropriately ominous: “…the trail ascends from the valley floor (elevation 6,200 feet) to Emigrant Pass (elevation 8,750 feet), a climb of 2,550 vertical feet in the first 4 miles… runners travel West, climbing another 15,540 feet and descending 22,970 feet…” OK. That sounds menacing.

Skip ahead in the guide to John Medinger’s article “Training for the Western States 100.” On page 27 there is a section on altitude problems and snow. It begins, “Even though the first 30 miles of Western States average about 7500 feet of elevation, few runners have significant problems with the altitude at Western States.” The paragraph ends, “For most participants, the worst thing that will happen is that the altitude will slow you down a little.”

I’m convinced otherwise. If you haven’t acclimatized, your initial climb to near 9,000 feet and the effort over first 30 miles will put you in a hole that will very likely cause a dramatic drop in performance in comparison with other, lower elevation, 100 mile races.

My assertion is self-serving, I suppose. I have started Western States twice, in 2005 and 2007. Both times I was reduced to a shadow of my former self. In both cases I felt defeated by the time I reached the Miller’s Defeat aid station at mile 34. I thought I had prepared. Something accounts for my poor performances, though. The central pretext of all of my writing so far has been that on race day there really shouldn’t be, and likely can’t be, work for “me” to do. Any failure is a failure of preparation. If what I say here is true, I don’t have to take the blame for my problems at WS in ’05 and ’07. The two necessary conditions hold: I wasn’t acclimatized, and couldn’t have reasonably been expected to know that acclimatization was necessary. The first condition is non-controversial. The second is substantiated, I’m claiming, because the materials published for Western States participants (which are thorough by any standard) say, implicitly, that acclimatization is likely not necessary.

Now I know. I won’t be able to whine about the altitude after this year’s race, don’t worry. It dawned on me slowly, as I reluctantly reflected on my past two runs at WS, as well as my other ultras. Although several variables are different for States, including altitude, humidity, temperature, prestige, and distance from home, only altitude can account for the disparity between my performances there as compared to elsewhere.

So I formed the hypothesis that lack of acclimatization to altitude caused the disparity. Now I’m doing the experiment. For new readers, I’m now in Colorado Springs, at 6400 feet. I’ll be running Western States in 5 weeks. The sample size (1) is small, and I won’t likely publish my results in a prominent journal. You are privy to my results, however, and they are already starting to come in.

Saturday, May 23, 2009, 5pm. Subject completely whooped.

Following an e-mail contact with former Montrail Teammate Paul DeWitt, I met up with Team CRUD for a jaunt partway up the side of Pike’s Peak this morning. I was assigned to run with Scott Jaime, who is training to run the Hardrock 100. Scott finished close behind me at both the Way too Cool 50K and the Miwok 100K earlier this year. In addition to being well-matched, Scott is also a very companionable running partner.

During my first 9 days in Colorado Springs I had run only as high as about 7500 feet elevation. Today we climbed to over 10,000 feet elevation. We started from Manitou Springs. The most substantial climb was along a water utility road. We started at a little over 7000 feet and climbed up to about 8500 feet. Although we walked all the steep pitches, this climb hurt. I gasped for breath. My heart pounded like an angry fist against the inside of my rib cage. I have climbed similar pitches, running all the way, at lower elevations. This was a far different experience. Scott was unfazed. He lives in Denver, and has come to Colorado Springs twice a week to train with Paul for some time now.

Side note: we were out for about 6 hours. The weather was cool and rainy. We topped out above Barr Camp on the Elk Park Trail, when we ran into prohibitive snow accumulation.

When I made it back to the house, and got a meal, I had to lay down for a spell. The run exhausted me. Similar runs, at lower elevation, would not have put the same burden on me. Of course I’m happy about it. It means I’ll have to respond – acclimatize – to the new demand. It also means that my plan to prepare for the elevation at WS is underway. Finally, it is the first empirical evidence that acclimatization is necessary for a strong performance at The Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run.

Can Do

2009-05-22T14:59:00.001-07:00

Dan Challener told us to run 20 minutes and meet him at the track. The Bruin stadium was a 10 minute jog from campus, so we looped through the affluent neighborhoods on the hill just north of downtown Providence. We knew the workout would be different. We were left wondering what we were in for.

Head coach Bob Rothenberg (Berg) was there, along with Dan. He told us we would run the measured two mile course on the road finishing at the stadium, without pausing we were to run a mile hard on the track. He told me, along with some teammates including our captain, Fergal Mullen, to run the two miles at 5:40 per mile and the mile at 4:40. We were to repeat this twice more, without pausing in between.

I told our coaches that I wasn’t sure we could do that. Berg looked at the ground and gave me a well-worn shake of the head. Dan stared at me, his agitation visible. I knew what they wanted, and Fergal was quick to give it to them. “Ah, we can do that! Come on, guys, let’s be positive!”

We hadn’t done a workout like that before. We’d certainly done mile repeats, though, and a 4:40 was a tough effort. We’d also done plenty of tempo runs, and 5:40 pace was right at threshold. We were getting pretty fit, but I was apprehensive. The guys were starting to bounce, stretch, or do strides. They may actually have thought that believing they could do it was enough. Or maybe they thought that whatever coach said they could do, they could do. Or maybe they just didn’t think deeply about it. Most likely, I suppose, they had learned that expressing a “can do” attitude worked in getting along with other people. I took the task at face value, and tried to get my head around it. It made my heart beat harder and my hands turn clammy.

I wanted to nail that tempo pace, and maximize my running economy. It would devastate our chances to finish if we got carried away from the beginning. When we started we stayed bunched together. When I stuck behind one of the guys I could lower my arm just a bit so that it would swing just under his. My gait was low and quiet. We hummed through the splits right on pace. When we transitioned to the track I kept in mind that the acceleration wouldn’t feel so abrupt coming off the 5:40 pace. Starting an interval from a standstill gives the body a jolt that takes a little while to accommodate. Shifting gears, as we were in this workout, actually made the first mile interval feel comparatively easy.

We were doing the work, though, and it started to show on the second two miles on the road. The guys were having some trouble keeping pace. I clocked off the splits like a metronome, barely deviating even for the slight inclines. By the time we were back on the track the guys were starting to string out behind me. I nailed the second one-mile interval on the track. I transitioned slowly to try and let the other guys catch up for the final two miles on the road. They were coming apart. I went on to complete the workout as prescribed.

Athletes are compelling because they “can do.” They can do things we find difficult to imagine. They respond to competition by striving to do even better. Great athletes, we feel, have the will to win. They emerge victorious, it seems, no matter what. It’s in their bearing. We want and expect our athletes to lower their heads and shake off any challenge. We mistakenly think that it is this self-confident spirit that propels the athlete forward. When in the course of competition he begins to tire, we think, his will to win kicks in and carries him over the threshold.

People may reward such optimism, but nature doesn’t care. I’m reminded of an encounter I had during a run from Damascus, VA. I started south on the Appalachian Trail. About 4 miles out I passed a hiker. He wore a full sized pack. He was also headed south from Damascus. He said he was thirsty, and asked if I had water to spare. I was carrying a hydration pack with enough water for my run. I told him so, but I said I would turn after another 6 miles and when I passed him again, I would give him what I had left.

When I passed the hiker on my way back, I asked him how he was doing. He said he was doing great. After our encounter he had begun to pray to God for water. And God answered his prayer. He sent a group of hikers along the side trail from Back Bone Rock. And they had water for him.

I recommended to him that he make provisions to collect his own water.

I suppose great athletes do carry themselves with a certain self-confidence. It isn’t the confidence which causes them to do well, though. There just isn’t the room inside us for a wild-eyed spiritual stoker. It is the well-advised application of effort over long periods of time, and the built-in wisdom that develops from that, fueling great athletes. That kind of self-knowledge runs deep. Virtuoso performance of any kind is too big to fit inside a person’s head. It extends through the body and out into space and back through time to encompass all the experience that contributed to one’s capacity to do this thing well.

Great athletic performances compel our admiration and respect because they embody the culmination of expansive, and real, effort. Athletes can do. We can talk about the will to win as long as this is what we mean. If we imagine strength of will to be a non-corporeal essence that some people just happen to have, we distance ourselves from what is possible.

Potential

2009-05-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

I paced the hall, looking at my watch. My mother was upstairs. “Let’s go!” I yelled again. We finally got going on the drive from the Crescent Hill neighborhood in Louisville, where I had spent all my years, to Atherton High School in the Highlands. I was going to my first cross country practice. School would start in a couple weeks. At least my mother didn’t dawdle with the driving. She loved her new RX-7. The rotary engine was so smooth. We arrived at exactly 9:00 am in the school’s parking lot. I didn’t know the other kids, but one caught my eye. He rode up on a BMX-style bicycle and wore a white bicycle cap. He was little, but had some attitude. A minute later, a truck drove up with another, older kid. Coach Worful walked over to the truck, and then it turned and drove away.

Coach called us over to the sidewalk sternly. He said David and I had been a minute late. Since we were underclassmen, he would give us this one break. Jeff had also been late, but was an upperclassman, so he was sent home. I said by my watch I had actually gotten there right on time. He said we go by his watch.

We did some stretches for a warm-up, and then coach explained the 5 mile loop we were to run. We started off together. Not all of us knew the neighborhood. It was about 5 miles from my house to the school. I had some friends who lived in the Highlands. I rode my bike back and forth occasionally, but still needed to get my bearings.

About halfway through the run, as we were starting back toward the school, Dave picked up the pace noticeably. He and I had ended up at the front, and the rest of the group was strung out behind us. He bounced along, his heels popping up to his shorts with every stride. I picked it up along with him. It took some effort, but it felt good. It reminded me of the pace lines we learned doing rides with the Youth Bikers of Louisville (YBOL). Joe Ward, an experienced cyclist, sponsored the group, and I participated during middle school. We did several long two-day trips. A group of us would fall into line and take turns leading so that the rest of us could draft. The leader would always push to either keep or pick-up the pace. It felt like we were flying. It was a great way to knock off a bunch of miles in a hurry.

Similarly I followed Dave. I stayed on him, even as the pace started to burn my lungs and legs. We had completely broken away from the rest of the group. I wasn’t sure of the last turns, so I wanted to stay close. When we made the last turn on to Emerson, I relented a let Dave get a few steps ahead of me. This was my first run, ever, aside from some short jogs with a neighbor around the Crescent Hill reservoir. We strode toward the school. David looked back, then signaled me to close the gap. He said we’d finish together. Coach was waiting with the clipboard at the front of the school. He wrote in his book, but he didn’t let on what he was thinking. Neither did Dave. I would find out later.

David was the second man on the team, behind Jeff. He was a sophomore, and had started running in middle school. He was taken aback by this tall lanky new kid, who couldn’t be shaken during a hard run. He wanted us to finish together because he was completely whipped and didn’t want to risk that I would pass him. I found that out much later, after David and I became best friends. Beginning with that first practice, we ran together almost every day for the next four years. David and I still run together, though much less frequently. He has paced me at two of my 100 mile runs: Mohican and Vermont. He will join me for the final 38 miles of Western States this year.

Though coach Worful didn’t let on with me, he did have a talk with my parents. I found out years later, after high school, that Coach had arranged a secret meeting with my parents at a restaurant near the school. He wanted them to know about my potential.

What do we mean by potential? I ran faster than the other kids. But that was true right off the bat, without training. Potential is about what can happen given a methodical intervention. If we cared about improvement, the greatest potential would be with our slowest athletes, because they have the most room to improve. I started out fit and active, so my improvement was gradual. While improvement certainly has value, we care more about kids’ ability to stand out in a chosen endeavor. When Coach alerted my parents to my potential, he meant my potential to stand out among high school runners in Kentucky and beyond.

It is uncontroversial to say that there are wide variations between individual people. Idiosyncratic differences between people allow us to be individuals, and to develop our own talents. Our parents were constantly trying to show each of us how we had something we were good at, whether it was music, art, or science. There are indexes of human performance, though, that are general enough you’d think everyone would wish to “have more” of it. Take intelligence, for example. It’s a good thing for everyone to be able think about and remember things, right, so why should it be that some have more intelligence than others? The capacity to develop aerobic fitness seems that way to me as well. Wouldn’t it be nice for everyone to have more of it? You should feel ripped off if you aren’t able to develop your capacity to use oxygen just about as quickly as everybody else. All of our ancestors, at one time or another must have been tested in just such a capacity. It would have benefitted anyone to be able to work more quickly to find something of value or to avoid danger.

For all our uniqueness, we have strikingly similar morphologies. Surgeons do not have to wait until they have cut into a patient to know what organs they will find in which positions, or how each does its job. They learned by studying a cadaver. Any cadaver. Coaches do not have to figure out the unique physiology of every athlete. Runners respond to training in predictable ways.

Yet, some runners have potential to stand out; potential that compels its own fulfillment. I can tell you that I didn’t wait for my mother to take me to any more practices that summer. I rode my bike.

Low Flow

2009-05-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

The race director abruptly yelled “go!” Jamie Dial bolted out of the school parking lot and made the turn toward the trail. He was quickly out of sight. Three of us formed a chase group, still running very fast for the start of a trail 50K. Since this was the first time I had set foot on the Stump Jump course, I was glad to have two local runners lead the way over the winding trail system on Signal Mountain in Chattanooga. After several miles we realized that we hadn’t seen any course markings for a while, and there were no runners behind us. Reluctantly, but with no choice, we turned around and doubled-back.

At first my attention was focused on finding trail markings, or at least spotting a runner. As it became clear that we had gone about a mile out of our way, and so would not only give the rest of the field a two mile head start, but would also run a race that was two miles longer than everyone else, I felt my already rapidly moving blood start to boil. We stumbled back on course at the back of the field. Instead of slowing to a sensible pace and methodically passing runners, I began to run like a man possessed. I picked up the pace and had to focus intently on the footing as I led our threesome past the other runners. When the trail descended steeply on narrow single-track that dropped off precipitously on one side, I ran faster, yielding completely to gravity. My feet found all the right places to step as we plunged down and around other runners. There was no time to think, let alone consider each foot placement. I was in the zone.

Eventually I was alone, with only a handful of runners still in front of me. The course, and the temperature, was climbing. I automatically filled my bottle at each aid station, and slowed on each climb. I relented to the circumstances that had gotten me here, and gave up the notion that I could control the outcome of the race. The effort to get me 20 miles into the race had stripped my ego away. There was no self left at the helm. Just the rest of me, moving forward unthinkingly. I was surprised to catch and pass Jamie. It snapped me out of autopilot. I had been peeved that he went out so hard. He knew the course well. Had I been able to go with him from the start, I would not have gotten off course. That he paid the bigger price for this decision was come consolation, though I didn’t really savor it. There was too much work left.

I was also surprised when I heard at an aid station that only 1 runner was ahead of me. Glenn Redpath had come in from New York to run the race. I was already running what I could run, though, so I didn’t pick it up, and I was again surprised to catch up with him. When crossed the road at an aid station before the last ascent, I asked for ice. I was beginning to feel overheated. They didn’t have any. As we climbed, I slowed considerably. Glenn pulled away. Halfway up the climb I passed him. He was walking. When I topped the hill I was able to pick up the pace again and finish uncontested.

I have had similar experiences in many, many other ultras. I like to think ahead and plan. When I race, I like to imagine that I am in control of the outcome. Short races, or the rare race in which everyone goes right, can fool me into thinking that I was right. Much more often, things don’t work out as planned. Occasionally some minor adjustments can be made and I can get back on track. A significant portion of my races, though, completely disabuse me of the pretense that I can call the shots at all. I am forced, either by circumstances that don’t fit my preconceptions, or by utter exhaustion, to submit completely. I may pity myself briefly at my bad fortune, but ultimately all I can do is move forward, and let things unfold as they will. The best phrase I can think of to describe this state of mind is low flow.

You probably knew what I meant when I said that I was in the zone early in the 50K. Athletes will experience this when their attention is completely focused on a demanding task. The sensation, ironically, is of near effortless, automatic execution of the skill. Although there is an expanded sense of having time to respond immediately, overall time passes quickly. Psychologists have referred to this phenomenon as flow. It can be one of the greatest rewards of training, or extensive practice with any endeavor. Mathematicians, musicians, visual artists, can experience flow when fully engaged by a challenge for which they are prepared.

The descriptions of flow don’t cover the range of experiences induced by running ultras. We’re lucky to have a small fraction of an ultra “pass quickly” as we are fully engaged in a challenge that we readily rise to meet; running along a technical ridgeline for a few hundred meters, for example. I’d like to introduce the term high flow to describe this kind of experience. We know these experiences are transient over the course of a 30 to 100 mile race. At some point we are very likely to feel, as I described above, that we really aren’t up to the task at all. The task is too big or has deviated too much from that which we expected. We let it go. We shed ourselves of the illusion that we can control the situation any longer. But we keep running. It can seem almost miraculous. We let go of the thinking part of our striving, yet our legs are still moving. I want to call this low flow.

I have come to think that capacity for low flow determines success in ultras. As with high flow, however, low flow isn’t just a state of mind. We still have to do the work. Flow, of both kinds, is possible because of extensive training. We cannot escape the physical demands of running, but we can immerse ourselves in them.

This morning I climbed the Columbine Trail in North Cheyenne Canyon 3 times. Each climb lasted 30 minutes and spanned 1000 feet. After my final return trip, I sat in the North Cheyenne Canyon Creek. The cold rush of water bit into my body. I watched a bird forage for nesting materials on the opposite bank.

Calling Massanutten Runners

2009-05-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

What machine could be making that sound? The thought woke me at 3:15 am this morning. I would have been waking up if I had been in Virginia, but now I really wanted to be sleeping. A distinct and rapid staccato clicking rattled around in my room. I had put the futon on the floor so I could pull a chair up to the large counter that runs the length of the room on one side. An older computer sits on the counter, along with many of the odds and ends that I packed for my month long training camp (and writing retreat). I had to wake up enough to think through the devices (cell phone, computer, mp3, etc.) that might create a noise and then rule them out as the source of the sound that I was hearing.

Although I ran in cold and wind for my 20 mile run on Sunday, the weather has quickly shifted to the warm and sunny climate I expected. So I had opened my window to feel the cool night air. Carried with the air, I finally reasoned, was the clicking of some desert insect. Back home I’ve had to go on the hunt for a stray cricket that found its way to some out-of-the-way corner. It waits until all is quiet and dark and then cracks the night wide open with its shrieking call.

This insect was outside, though, and it’s clicking much more mechanical sounding than a cricket’s call. I wasn’t going to fight it. The outside air was too pleasant to close the window, and the sound was so constant and repetitive that I could imagine wading into it, like it was the short steep ripples disturbing an otherwise placid lake. When I woke back up sometime later, dreaming of escorting my wandering daughter back to her bed, the sound was gone.

I spoke with Bradley Mongold before I went to bed. He explained his decision to withdraw from the Massanutten 100, held last Saturday. He had dedicated enormous resources preparing to win the race. The aggregation of several adverse circumstances in the two weeks prior to the race, culminating in an upper respiratory illness, tipped the scale against starting the run. I had hoped to continue the discussion about the nature of his striving in light of the results of his run at Massunutten. Because of the intensity of Bradley’s pre-race efforts, his legitimate bid to win the race, and our friendship, I was particularly interested in his story.

Adam Casseday placed 5th overall and Robin Meagher placed 3rd woman. These outstanding runs no doubt have compelling stories behind them. The Massanutten is not for the faint of heart on any year – because of the extremely rocky and mountainous terrain. This year was added a spicy variety of weather conditions, from hot and humid at the start to dangerous thunderstorms in the afternoon.

This is a call to all Massanutten runners for your story. I am interested to hear all stories of extreme striving. This platform has a particular bent, though, which may need some explaining before you offer your response. I have expressed skepticism that you have the sort of powers we are tempted to ascribe to you. You have run 100 miles, in difficult circumstances. You have endured extreme discomfort, if not pain and injury. We are tempted to marvel at the sheer power of your will. “Sheer” is an appropriate modifier for this power because it seems not only unaffected by such brute forces as gravity, but it is at the ready to resist the earthly forces that cause everyone else to relax at home.

I do admire you, and your efforts. I just think that all the things you are able to do on race day are explainable. We reap what we sow, so to speak. Karl Meltzer gave himself the best odds to win the race in his pre-race blog post. He knew his fitness to complete the event because of his experience in training and his prior runs at Massanutten. Karl did win the race in a remarkable time given the conditions. The outcome is explainable. I suggested in an earlier post (The Bradley Running Machine) that if Bradley did well in the race his effort would be explainable in terms of his preparation. He made many of the decisions that would come up during the race in advance. That, I said, was his willfulness, in contrast to the image of a levitating essence inside Bradley that could “will” him forward despite his (predictable) bodily difficulties.

All this is not to suggest that we can know the outcome in advance. We have to actually run the race. It is not just a contrived goal in service to all the preparation. We have to actually deal with race-day variables, all of which cannot be known in advance. Prepare for the unexpected.

Bradley isn’t ready to discard his “benign user illusion.” This is the phrase coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett to describe the deciding self we all imagine at the helm of our bodily ship. Bradley wants you to know that he tends to all the details of fueling, hydration, and decision-making in advance so that he is free to focus on what needs attention during the race. My response is: if he did his job right, no work is left to be done.

For Massanutten runners, I would like to offer a parable. I am interested in your interpretation of this story as it applies to your efforts. It happens to be true, as witnessed by Bradley while hunting stone sheep in British Columbia:

Through the binoculars, I saw a lone caribou bull on the run. This unusual behavior caught my attention, and I searched for an explanation. I soon found it. Trailing behind, at an unhurried pace, was a black wolf, followed closely by a gray wolf. The open landscape of the plateau in front of me was dotted by small lakes, about 100 meters across. The wolves didn’t close, but neither did they lose ground. Eventually the caribou slowed as it approached a lake. The wolves gained ground. The caribou jumped into the lake and swam toward the middle. The wolves stopped at the lake’s edge.

The caribou exerted much effort swimming. When it reached halfway, the gray wolf trotted around to the other side of the lake, where the caribou was headed. The black wolf lay down. The caribou approached the far edge of the lake, without seeing the gray wolf, which had also lain down. Not until the caribou was nearly climbing out of the water did the gray wolf stand. The caribou lunged back around into the lake and swam for the near shore where it had first jumped in. Many minutes later, when it had reached the near shore, the black wolf finally rose from its near-slumber. The caribou turned once more. It slowed, fighting to keep its rack above water, and to creep once again to the far shore. The black wolf trotted to the far side to join the gray wolf, and to wait for the caribou, already nearly dead from exhaustion.

The caribou saw the wolves, but could not fight. The wolves closed on the caribou, and killed it. The wolves then trotted off, leaving the carcass of the caribou whole by the side of the lake.

The downsides of tapering

2009-05-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

“The hay is in the barn” coach Worful always said toward the end of the season. The morning runs didn’t feel that early any more. The speed work didn’t leave us limping around after the ride home anymore. The long Sunday runs didn’t require a full day reclined on the couch snacking and hydrating anymore. And now he wants us to take it easy? Early in the season, when I was chasing Jeff Birt up the steep hill behind the school in the middle of a mile interval, I focused desperately on the back of his shirt. My legs were becoming leaden with lactic acid while the air ripped through my respiratory tract. Coach just stood at the finish with his stopwatch. He certainly didn’t exhort us to “take it easy.” A part of me wanted to stop. The grass looks soft, a part of my mind said to me, just lie down. You could have a cramp, it suggested.

The Highland Fling was a cross country race put on by coach Worful in the middle of the season. It was a two-person relay for varsity runners, and a 3K race for the junior varsity. My freshman year I ran several JV races, the Highland Fling included. We ran at Joe Creason Park in Louisville. The steep climb along Trevilian road toward the zoo caused everyone to labor mightily. That day was particularly bad for me. I felt exhausted from early on. My shoulders and arms began to feel almost immobilized. As we returned from a turnaround at the flagpole, we descended a short steep hill adjacent to Beargrass Creek. The inner voice rudely suggested that a fall here would be completely understandable. A runner could easily spend several long moments recovering after such a fall. Fortunately my feet knew well enough how to stay under me. I finished like I was running through a foot of honey. Where was the break then?

“No rest for the weary” is one of my favored sayings. Late in the season, when rest is well-advised, many runners resist it, because they no longer feel weary. They have made the adjustment to heavy training. Additionally, the goal is in sight. Anticipation is high, and it is much easier to motivate for a long or hard workout. Yet, as many coaches have said, “the hay is in the barn.” It is conventional wisdom that the last few workouts of the season can’t help get you fitter, but they can cause you to be fatigued, and so hurt your performance. The solution most often embraced by coaches, and accepted by athletes, is to reduce the length and intensity of workouts in the 5-20 days before the “big race.” In other words: to taper.

And why not? Is there any way a hard workout on Tuesday or Wednesday could help a runner to compete better on Saturday?

Here is some of my running lore that isn’t so pleasant to recollect. Cross country season my junior year in high school I stacked up well compared to my competition. One Kentucky runner finished ahead of me at the first meet of the season. After that none did. Until, that is, the state meet. The one race that really mattered. The meet toward which all our energies had been applied. The race for which I had tapered. I came in 21st. The year before that I came in 24th. In both cases I did much worse, relative to the other runners, than I had previously in the season. Just before and during the races I didn’t feel well. Like I was coming down with something.

When big events approach, I become anxious. It occupies my thoughts. I notice little pains, or a sore throat, and worry that it will develop into a problem for me. I worry that I’m worrying too much. What I need to get my world back in order is a good hard run, but I’m supposed to be tapering! (the hay is in the barn). I don’t think of running as just a mental health modulator, though. The mind-body dynamics of a taper can be hard to decipher.

It may help to anchor our thoughts around two key elements of the taper. First, we’re running less. We’re burning fewer calories. Second, we know that a big event is eminent. I don’t mean “know” in some mysterious thinking way – but in a visceral bodily way. We’re alert and poised, our nervous system on standby, all mediated by very real neurotransmitters coursing through our cells.

I can get keyed up for a hard workout that is coming up. Heck, I can get keyed up by someone looking at me wrong. In the case of a workout – I run it. All the “winding up” beforehand comes unwound with the effort. I am always at my most relaxed after a good hard run. The intense sessions follow on top of each other, so that a cycle of build-up and let-down is established. During the season it is hard to keep up with the calorie expenditure. What little fat we accumulate in the off season is quickly burned away. The body is always hungry for carbohydrates, and quick to stockpile them when it can. The system is in a state of continual stress.

The taper is a let-down. We continue to eat similar amounts, but we burn fewer calories. Extra calories are stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver. The fatiguing stress of long or hard workouts is diminished, and the body may change into repair mode. We may feel more lethargic, and sensitive to cues about injury or illness that had been “waiting in the wings.” With the resources freed up by a taper the body may begin to respond to these lingering problems.

And we do think differently as the season comes to a close. We don’t get the satisfaction of watching our times improve over a given distance, like we did early in the season. The big race isn’t somewhere in the distant future, many weeks out. It is upon us. We shift gears; where we had felt excitement at our own unrealized potential, we know feel threatened by the possibility that all will be lost.
Indeed we may lose. We may fail, as I did at the state meet, to live up to our own expectation. We may get sick.

We still taper, though. To some degree we have to. Training tires us out, and we need to be rested to perform well. We work out a strategy that meets the necessity of rest with the downsides of tapering somewhere in the middle. For me, I like to rest two weeks out, and then start to ramp back up the week before the event. Some avoid tapering too much – running enough to sleep well at night.

What works for you?

Calvin Hobbs

2009-05-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Calvin is contentedly munching the weeds just outside the fence I’m facing. He’s a dark chestnut colored 20-year-old thoroughbred. Nancy Hobbs let him out of the barn. A door slams from across the street, causing his head to jerk quickly upward. After a few moments of vigilance he lowers his head to eat again. I’m enjoying the perspective from the upper deck of Nancy’s house. She graciously rented a room to me for this month. The full weight of my body presses comfortably into my chair. I’ve had my run up the mountain, shower, and plenty of breakfast. I have the rest of the day to rest and reflect.

The incline club meets every Sunday morning. Nancy suggested that I join the group for today’s run. All fitness levels are represented, she said. Among the people who show up are the likes of Paul DeWitt, Anton Krupicka, and Matt Carpenter. Wow, those guys are all here? I liked the idea of getting together with other folks who are training. Although I train alone most of the time, running with people adds welcome variation to my routine. I’ve known Paul for some time now, but I’ve never met Tony or Matt, both of whom have well established reputations among ultra runners. I looked forward to the possibility that we would all show up this morning and pass the run chatting.

Nippert caught wind of the plan and vehemently vetoed it. “You don’t need to get into any pissing contests,” he spouted. “Those guys would just love to get you up at the top of the mountain.” I protested mildly, but eventually conceded. I’ll stay close to the barn, for now. I cannot deny my own nature. At least part of the impetus to train and race is to gain status. Our games are analogous to the battles for dominance common to all our animal brethren. We can give other reasons for running when asked, of course. We may even mean it when we say we love to feel the wind on our faces or the burn in our legs, or that we enjoy the companionship of others who have settled on the same pursuit. But can we really make the case that running ultras is reasonable? Joining a group of birdwatchers would make a lot more sense.

Some will say that they run to test their own limits. Fair enough, but of what use is that information? I never thought of myself as being competitive. I felt no animosity toward other runners. I didn’t focus my thoughts around beating people. I didn’t consciously think about my status as a runner. Before I ran, though, I played soccer. When I started high school I ran cross country. Track and soccer were both in the spring though, so I had to choose. Several of my friends were soccer players, and many of them were better players than me. There were no runners my age better than me. I chose to run track. We want to see how we stack up against other guys. We won’t necessarily quit those activities in which we aren’t the best, but we do want to see where we stand.

Calvin is always on the lookout for a challenge. His handlers must be mindful to keep him out of harm’s way. Even on the racetrack, his passions need tempering. He wants to either be out front or to know that he cannot be out front. For that information, he has to compete.

So for now, I run my workouts alone. This morning I started in Red Rock Canyon, one of the many beautiful open spaces at the base of Pikes Peak. I climbed for 65 minutes and 2000’, and then came back down. This is my fifth day at altitude. My body has certainly responded to the change. The conventional wisdom is that performance will deteriorate for the first five days at altitude as blood plasma volume drops. Acclimatization takes 4-6 weeks and includes several changes, one of which is a higher concentration of red blood cells. The change is demanded by the decreased partial pressure of oxygen at higher elevations.

Athletes who train at higher elevations may have an advantage over those who don’t, even when the race is at a lower elevation. I will explore the ethical implications of this disparity in future posts. The weeks I am spending at elevation, though, are to prepare me for the Western States 100. This is a race that climbs to 9000’ in the first 10 miles. I have tried to run it twice before, and in both cases have been reduced to a shadow of my former (low altitude?) self. So this is an experiment. I’ll keep you posted.

Our Burden to Bear

2009-05-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

The gouge cut into the red soil of the Santa Fe Trail. It meandered back and forth organically, though never far from the center of the trail. It continued as far ahead as I could see. I was clipping along on my 20 mile run for today. Nippert sent me here because it’s flat. My tendons already feel the stretching of running on the gravelly canyons at the base of the mountain. By contrast this section of the Santa Fe Trail is well compacted. My legs seemed to embrace the change. With the strong wind at my back I made good time, a little better than 7 minutes per mile. The altitude didn’t seem like a factor. It takes the added effort of climbing to really notice.

Yesterday afternoon, though, I felt exhausted. I hadn’t slept well the night before. I tossed and turned. It reminded me of the several nights before Western States in ’07. I was in a comfortable bed in a quiet house but just couldn’t sleep. Of course I had just arrived a couple days before, and the house was at about the same altitude as I am here. I was unaware of any direct affects of the change in elevation, though. It was like when I opened a canister of recovery drink before setting out on the run this morning. The can wouldn’t sit flat on the counter. The top was puffed out as well. When I tore open the seal it whooshed with the release of pressure. It would not have done that in Virginia. I wondered, at first, if something inside had gone bad. That didn’t seem possible for a powder, though. Then I realized that I had brought the canister from 2200’ to 6200’. The air pressure outside had decreased but the pressure inside was still the same as that at the lower elevation where it was sealed.

Similarly, my body has to make specific adjustments to the decreased pressure. Gases that have dissolved in the fluids of my body, for example, are going to “come out of solution” at the higher elevation. This didn’t occur to me when I had to apologize to Nippert for my many “lapses” during our first couple runs together. I politely stayed behind him and assured him this was unusual for me. I don’t know the details of changes going on in my body, but I know there is no escaping physics.

I was curious about the cause of the gouge. Someone riding a bike with the kickstand down? The gouge was too wide, though, and the meanderings too jumpy for that. Something made it – fresh gouges don’t just show up on a smooth trail.

“There’s no such thing as bonking” Nippert declared last night. “If you take a muscle cell, put it in a dish with glucose, water, salt, and an electric current, it’ll keep firing forever.” I didn’t object. I don’t think much good can come of crossing Nippert. I knew what he meant. There is nothing mysterious going on when people bonk. Quite likely they have run out of fuel for their muscles. You have to eat, and drink, methodically in very long endurance events. No mystery. Just physics.

The source of the gouge came into view. A dark haired man with a dark blue sweat suit was jogging with a vague grimace. His hands were clasped around the full size cross that he carried on his shoulder. Behind him the tail end of the cross dragged along the trail, leaving a distinct gouge. Two other joggers led the way, just in front of him. They looked businesslike, if a bit pained. One spoke on his cell phone. The conversation was not casual.

Among the intended messages may have been that Jesus died for our sins. I’ve never understood what that means, though, so I thought about another of the still likely intended messages – that we all have a cross to bear.

One might think that ultrarunners are masochists. We do put ourselves in uncomfortable situations. My favorite race is called “mountain masochist.” I’ve had my share of painful injuries, all self-inflicted. I’ve had to stop running during an ultra when my ears started ringing intensely and my vision narrowed to a dark tunnel. Are we punishing ourselves? Assuaging the guilt for our wickedness? No. Speaking for myself and the runners that I know: we are not masochists. Do we have a cross to bear? Maybe, but I don’t think it is the sort of burden metaphorically represented by the cross used to crucify Jesus.

The burden that ultrarunners carry is self-knowledge. Not a New Age sort of self knowledge described by vague and mysterious “energy flows,” but a real understanding of what is possible – and what isn’t. We go to that line all the time. It’s like the gouge along the Santa Fe Trail. No special force intervened to lighten the weight of those 4x4 timbers. The wood cut into the dirt with exactly the force exerted by gravity – minus the intervention of the man who carried some proportion of the weight on his shoulder. We like to think that all of us have a levitating influence like this within us. Some hedge against the determinism of the physical world in which we live. Ultrarunners know better. There is no room for mystery after running for 14 hours straight across 80 miles of snow covered mountains and sun-baked canyons. There certainly isn’t room for effrontery.

This is our burden: our own nature. And gravity. They are inescapable, and yet we have the capacity to reflect, aspire, plan, and strive. The source of this capacity can’t be left a mystery, though, if we expect to get any better.

The Bradley Running Machine

2009-05-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

[Note: I am writing this with Bradley Mongold in mind, but he doesn’t show up until way on down the page. Like many other running friends of mine, he is running the Massunutten 100 mile trail run tomorrow. I wish the best for all of the runners. Bradley is a special case, however. Why? Read on…]

I’ve toed the line to run 100 miles 4 times. The first was Mohican in ’04. My furthest run up to that point was 54 miles (at the Mountain Masochist “50 miler”). I didn’t know the course and I didn’t have a very detailed strategy for eating and drinking during the run. Two things happened that, in retrospect, made my run a success. First, it rained torrentially two days before the run. Many sections of single track along the course were treacherously muddy. The mud, in fact, sucked one of my shoes off my foot about 25 miles into the run. I had to hop back on one foot, stand perched on the side of the mud puddle, and bend over like a crane to extract my completely buried shoe. Second, the front that had created the rain cooled everything. Race day dawned cool and breezy with a relatively low humidity.

We can run long. We can run in the heat. Although some of the attention paid to ultramarathoners is inspired by the awe at our disproportionately long runs, the fact is that we can do it. Aside from reasonably good health, the only obstacle to anyone running 50 miles is the preparation required. Part of the preparation, however, can make people uncomfortable. There is the discomfort of running for long periods of time, or of running in the heat, of course. There is a deeper discomfort, though, more troubling to some. You can’t run ultras and think of yourself in the same way.

The mud at Mohican was helpful because it slowed me down. There is a lot of talk about the importance of “pacing” oneself during an endurance event. For all the common sense understanding of that idea, optimal pacing is surprisingly difficult in practice. I still vividly remember a runner from St. Xavier high school in Louisville. His name is Mike Haggerty. He was two years my senior, and I kept an eye on him because of his reputation as a good half-miler. He ran cross-country to “stay in shape” for track season. His 5 kilometer races unfolded in predictable fashion. He blasted out of the start and into the lead. A mile or so out he died. Many runners who had gone out more conservatively passed him easily. I asked myself, and probably my older teammates, why he didn’t just go out more slowly. “He’s a head case,” was the most likely response. I didn’t buy it, even then. The coach tells you to go out easy. You tell yourself to go out easy. The gun goes off; you blast out into the lead. This doesn’t make sense to us because of our misguided intuition about who we are. Who decides how fast to run? Our intuition is that there is a miniature person somewhere behind our eyes where it all comes together. This homunculus is at the helm, so he gets credit, or blame, for whatever happens. When I mention Mike Haggerty, people who know him will think I mean this little version of him. Yes, they say, he had a lot of talent. Good leg speed. He didn’t know how to use it, though.

Jeff Birt was my teammate and was the same age as Haggerty. I remember his expressing anger when someone accused him of “not running up to his potential” at a particular race. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked me. “My mind and body show up on race day, and what I do is what I can do.” Him; the whole package. There isn’t a user, or owner, of Jeff Birt who can pull in the reigns, or wield the stick the way that a jockey can manipulate his horse. If Jeff wants to improve his performance, he will have to devise some other trick. It may work for him to imagine himself like a jockey, even though he isn’t. There are at least some times, however, when this illusion fails us. It failed Mike Haggerty at every cross country race I saw him run. It fails drug addicts. I want a more reliable model. Ultra runners, almost by definition, are continuously faced with the challenge of getting this right.

At Mohican I was just fortunate that the mud stepped in on my behalf. It made me go slower. Maybe I shouldn’t get credit for my performance because it was really an environmental condition that caused the outcome – not me. But what if I purposely sign up for runs with similar conditions? If I do really rocky, technical trail runs, I’ll have to go slower, so I’ll be able to perform better through a very long race. I get credit for that, right? What if I just happened to start doing trail runs, and because I have to go slower, I perform very well? I have no idea that it is because running trails made me go out slower that I was doing well. Do I get credit for that?
I like to play, and think about, sports. For the venue, a sports contest defines what is of value. Generally speaking, it is of value to win. Even if we have ulterior motives for playing, the contest only works if the contestants “sign-on” to the premise that we will all try to win. Even if we don’t feel we have a legitimate shot at 1st place in a race, we still aspire toward that. We train and strategize to run as fast as possible. Strictly speaking, there may be participants in a race who have no pretense of trying to win, or even of trying to improve. They may run to socialize with a friend. They are not, however, engaged in a sports contest. They have reasons for running, of course, reasons that in the big picture may be more valid than the contrivance of winning. My interest is in understanding the dynamics of striving. For that we need a contest.

The Massunutten 100 is a contest. This year in particular the men’s field is “stacked” with guys who have competed in and won competitive ultras. They have each, in their own way, prepared to win this event. The race will unfold, perhaps dramatically, to reveal a winner. Very likely it will not even be close. In a race this long small differences are exaggerated into disparate results. And we will be able to discuss the results coherently in terms like: “he ran really smart early,” or, “he started pushing at the right time,” or, “he runs really well on rocks,” or “his stomach turned on him and he had to slow down.” Someone may say “he just wanted it more.” I hope not. I fear that sentiment would bolster the impression that there is work to be done by the homunculus on race day. There is not.

The work to be done tomorrow is tediously mechanical. Water, fuel, effort, timing, and the coordination of support have to happen. And for the winner they will have to be done well. There simply isn’t space in some central part of the runner’s brain to process all these details in real time. The work has been spread over time and space, as the runners prepared. Most of the “decisions” have been made already, and will be dispatched automatically in proper sequence. Runners cannot just “tell themselves” to slow down. The cues to slow down have to be processed automatically. Runners cannot calculate the rate at which they are processing calories and weigh out the proper amount of food to take from the aid station. They have practiced it. They grab what they need automatically.

I am privy to the crew plan developed for Bradley Mongold’s race. He sent me a copy via e-mail. I won’t reveal his secrets here – except to say they are detailed. As in, his crew knows exactly which gel goes in which pocket of which shorts. The Bradley running machine is much more extensive than his race plan, though. It is more extensive than his conscious intentions. All of his experiences – competing in cross country in college, running Hellgate, hunting caribou – and his apprehension of those experiences have engineered the machine.

Bradley knows it is bigger than him. He calls it “the Beast.” He sees it as untamed – part of his resistance to civilization and all its conformities. Maybe, but it’s a well-oiled beast.

Less Wind

2009-05-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

I've grown up thinking of the sun as a giver of life. It gets me up out of bed, warms my bones. It's rays trickle through the trees playfully. By comparison the sun felt relentless from the moment I began the ascent from Kansas into Colorado on I-70. The ground was brown. The clouds evaporated. And I got closer to it. There was less atmosphere between me and it. Forget shade. The sparse trees have sparse leaves. Like they have to be careful not to expose too much.

Pikes Peak riveted my attention from the moment it came into view. I am accustomed to watching the daily changing moods of White Top in Virginia. Pikes Peak seems more stoic. It emanates abruptly. Snow still covers much of the top 2000 feet of the mountain. It reflects sunlight crisply in all directions. Where the snow stops and vegetation starts the mountain seems to be in shadow. This mountain will be my reliable gage for the next 32 days. I don't imagine, of course, that it cares. Therein lies its power. It is unaffected by my ambitions. It will not cheer me upward. Neither will it taunt me. It won't collect snow just to thwart me, nor extend itself upward out of my reach. When I am fit enough, I will run up it. When I run up it, I will be fit enough.

I am staying in Colorado Springs. There is an Olympic training center here. I won't be using those facilities. I have no special status. We all come here, though, because of the mountain. I've been here about 24 hours, and already I sense a kind of camaraderie. We come here to train. The work is harder at 6000 feet. The aerobic benefits for those who train at altitude are well documented.

My running improved significantly in the year after I first moved from Kentucky to Virginia. A lot changed in that move, but I chose 3 variables that most likely affected my running: First, I had accumulated more miles, and more ultras. Second, I had moved from 220' above sea level in Louisville to 2200' above sea level in Emory. Third, I drank more beer, and especially homebrew. Until I began to study the effects of altitude training I actually thought the beer consumption carried the most weight. Of course I avoided any scholarly review of the literature. I wanted an excuse, after all, to continue my empirical case study. In my defense, I really thought the mountains were too small in Virginia to cause any physiological adaptation.

I can see now that living at 2200' with occasional runs at 4000' adds a significant dimension to training. Part of the problem with running at altitude is that it is harder to run fast. Anything over about 6000' can be prohibitive of good quality speed work. I ran 90 minutes this morning, for example. The pace was easy, and there were only very short and mild climbs in the "Garden of the Giants" park where Nippert had taken me. I noticed that even these short climbs caused my legs to feel a little "thick" or "heavy." I know the sensation -- I remember it from track workouts when I was young. I don't get that feeling much anymore. Likewise for the associated feelings of being "out of breath," or "sucking wind." The sense I got was that I had to consciously take in more air. I wasn't demanding more oxygen than the air and my lungs could provide, I just had to breathe more than usual to get it! Our bodies get tuned up for the specific conditions in which we train -- and most of that tuning is completely subconscious.

So we've still got enough partial pressure of oxygen to get it done here, but it's harder. And the body has to adjust. Not just by accumulating more red blood cells, but by fine tuning the nervous system to respond to the increased demand of running faster, or climbing higher. And those changes, although subtle in the move from 220' to 2200', were likely significant for my improved running performances.

My two train wrecks at Western States ('05 and '07), especially when viewed in comparison to a very steady career of running over many years, calls out for explanation. The elevation at States, while not as severe as some of the mountain ultras, certainly has played a role in my troubles. The heat and the low humidity have also likely been factors. I'll save the story of those runs for the coming days. Now that I'm reasonably settled, the posts, like my runs, will come daily.

Out, for the day, from CO Springs.

Changing Winds

2009-05-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

I had to put both hands on the wheel after St. Louis. I had slouched deeper and deeper into the seat, twisted slightly to the side, and hooked a couple of fingers of my left hand around the bottom of the wheel. My eyes had started to droop slightly. It was the afternoon of my second full day of driving. The ominously roiling gray clouds revealed themselves as I approached Kansas City. To appreciate the topography of Kansas you really need to include the wind in your reckoning. The picture perfect skies in Louisville this morning fooled me briefly into thinking I was leaving the unsettled weather in Virginia behind. Graduation at Emory & Henry College had to relocate indoors on Saturday. After more than a week of day and night thunderstorms, the college’s president quipped, at least we can officially declare the drought of the last 2 years over.

The thunderstorms woke me up, mostly because I was concerned that my kids would be scared. I turned on the hall light for them – but they never woke up. I wasn’t scared of thunderstorms as a small child either… until April 3rd, 1974. That afternoon I was skating in the gym of the Baptist Church on Frankfort Avenue. It had been stormy, and then it went quiet. Through the high windows I could see the strange yellow hue of the atmosphere. In no time we all were hustled down two flights of stairs to the basement. Gym mats were laid across the steps so we didn’t even have to take time to take off our skates. We heard an explosion and the lights went off. They handed out candles – the kind you carry into church for the twilight Christmas service – with the cardboard around it to catch the melted wax. I still wasn’t scared – I was in good hands.

It’s hard to see a thunderstorm coming from a holler. We had trekked to a swimming hole – buried deep between the steep banks of a small river in eastern Kentucky. The temperature dropped suddenly, the sky darkened, and we could see the lightning approaching fast. My burly brother-in-law slung my son over his back while I scooped up my 3-year old daughter. I zipped her into my jacket as she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my middle. We ran for our friend’s house. The sky ripped open while we plunged through the river and across to a sketchy trail. We ducked around trees and vines and contoured the inside of the precipitous ravine. We climbed handhold to handhold up the steep banks and made our way out straight into the brunt of the storm. Catherine’s head stayed buried against my chest.
When I finally burst indoors, I unzipped my jacket. I was prepared to slowly ease a petrified zombie back to life. Instead, my daughter bounced down to the ground laughing.

That was me before I saw what the tornado had done. After I saw the devastation along Frankfort Avenue the next day, I would for years associate that with the thunderstorm that had preceded the explosion. Any storm induced terror. A child faced with a looming threat has only two choices: blissful trust or agonizing fear.

I never fully confronted all of my fears until I hiked the AT. I was following the ridge that divides Tenessee and North Carolina. It was a beautiful evening and I found myself in a meadow on top of a mountain. I wanted to lie under the stars, so I laid my pad and fleece on the ground. I drifted off to a restful sleep. I awoke with a start when a drop of water landed on my forehead. I couldn’t see stars, or anything else. I could hear thunder in the distance. I scrambled to find my small headlamp (very dim by today’s standards) and I quickly packed my bedroll and untied my food bag from the tree where I had hung it. I tried to orient myself. Most of the light from my headlight reflected back into my eyes from the tiny water droplets of the cloud that had blanketed the mountain. I found a white blaze and began my hasty, but careful, descent.

Meanwhile I could just make out the faint flashes of lightning. I counted the seconds until the thunder that followed. The storm was approaching. It was a long way down the mountain. My mind was completely focused on the task of finding the trail and keeping my footing. I didn’t allow any room for panic, even after I was at last in the relative protection of the forest. Some miles after I had set out from the mountaintop at midnight I saw the shelter. It was completely empty. I threw my pack inside and climbed in after it. Moments later the woods were engulfed in a raging thunderstorm. I had exercised the prerogative of an adult: I had chosen to hike, and to sleep unprotected on top of a mountain. And while the circumstance was self-imposed, I had acted competently to get myself out of harm’s way. Of course the night wasn’t over.

It was about 1:30 in the morning. I laid down, but the metal roof just amplified the rain and thunder like I was inside a drum. The flashes of lightning showcased the outlines of giant trees surrounding the shelter. Should any one of them fall on the shelter, I realized, it would be crushed. The thought, however, was fleeting. I was a child again – completely powerless. I exhaled. I breathed in the smell of the lush woods, and let my bones sink into the wood planks of the shelter. I drifted off to sleep – the trees were the massive arms and the thunder the pounding heartbeat of my fate.

Miwok 100K

2009-05-04T05:53:00.000-07:00

We drove through the Bunker Road tunnel and continued in enveloping pre-dawn darkness to the start of the 2009 Miwok 100K. The sense of descending toward something primal was unmistakable, yet I was not consciously aware of it. I was thinking about something topical, like the start time, or filling my bottle. When I got out of the car it almost literally washed over me. Wave after wave -- the amplitude was overpowering. We were across the road from Rodeo Beach, but we may as well have been right in the surf -- at least to my mid-continental sensibilities. The sea, though shrouded in darkness, beckoned me home. The siren song of the ocean: be carried, fed, bathed, lovingly drowned -- yes, yes, submit!

And then it was 5:40 am, and we turned our backs to the water. We started our long ascent. Very gradually the fog yielded light. We weren't thinking about the audacity of the day's journey. Just little things, like lifting feet quickly out of the sand, or avoiding branches across the trail. I was aware of several runners ahead, but felt completely untroubled. Can we really conceive of all the steps that are required? I never would gain much perspective, because we remained in fog for the day, but we climbed away from the ocean and then ran along the precipitous Pacific coastline. We ran all day. Climbed 10,000 feet. Faced off against a seemingly furious ocean. For all the world yet oblivious -- we suffered. Because we could? We could also have stayed at the beach. At every step we could have just stopped. Did our trespass onto the land open a world for us to plunder at will? Have we emerged from our confinement?

Michael Phelps book is "No Limits: The Will to Succeed." The pool may contain the water through which he swims, but apparently it cannot contain his spirit. Physical laws may constrain most of the world's inhabitants -- but we as humans aspire to transgress our physical limitations. Phelps' African American teammate on the Olympic 4 x 100m relay, Cullen Jones, may have an even more compelling story. He is only the third African American to medal in an Olympic games. He started swimming at age 5 because he almost drowned in the water at an amusement park. His mother decided he needed to learn how to swim. Jones had limits. He was nearly killed. So he learned how to swim.

One runner had surged to the front early but 6 miles on faded and was overtaken by the group of 3, myself among them, who assumed the lead for much of the race. What can we conclude other than that a limit had been reached? The group of 3 was led by Geoff Roes, my Montrail teammate from Alaska, followed initially by Todd Braje of California. We climbed 3 "hills" (of about 800' each) within the first 15 miles. Roes powered up, his bulging calf muscles popping, putting distance on both me and Braje. On each downhill, though, we caught back up with him. From Muir Beach at mile 16 we climbed steadily for 6 miles and better than 1600'. Braje dropped off the back, and I didn't see him again. I guessed he had reached a limit. He could be holding back though, I thought, biding his time for a later surge. I knew he had run a 50 miler in 5:30. Why not bide a little time? Because how could he know that it was possible?

From the Pantoll aid station we followed the coastal trail, terracing around the contour of Mt. Tamalpais. As soon as we emerged from the protection of the noble trees on that slope, however, we were confronted with the full fury of gale force winds racing up from the Pacific and blasting over the ridge. We had turned our backs on our own origins and now she felt scorned. We were pelted by rain born from below -- perhaps from the ocean itself. The thick grasses hung across the trail like countless fingers grabbing at our feet, soaking our shoes, filling them with water, beckoning us home.

When I looked up, Roes was one step of the trail. His feet were spread and his hands were on his knees. His head hung in front of him. I passed quickly, but asked if he needed anything. He said he was good. I wondered if another limit had been reached. I plugged on, clinging sometimes to a narrow muddy track that dropped abruptly into the steep grassy slope. I repeatedly pulled my hat lower and tighter to keep it on my head. Roes caught back up and shot once again into the lead. To hell with it, I thought. I didn't try to catch up on the downhills anymore. What was I, pushing countless times against this mud? Gravity, the inescapable, would have its way with me. We passed through the Bolinas Ridge aid station. I didn't pay much attention, but I did hear my crew say they would see me back in 14 miles. That's a pretty good run in itself. I wasn't looking forward to it in the middle of my race. The pain in my left hamstring was pulling the muscle tighter, like a wire tensioner. The hip flexor on the same leg hurt as well. I kept moving -- but it was less obviously me. I cussed a couple of puddles that were impossible to avoid. The mud wasn't as soft as I expected.

I thought "the turnaround" would be halfway. I expected it sometime not long after 4 hours. The time between 4 hours and the turnaround expanded into menacingly long dimensions. My mind simply wasn't the same as when I started. I was fatigued, and it changed my perception and judgement. Perception of effort depends upon apprehension of the distance yet to be traveled. The closer the destination the more difficult the effort. I had in my mind the turnaround -- it was my destination. The closer I got to it, the more difficult the work. But we are ultra runners. Surely we have demonstrated the human potential to transcend these mechanistic forces. We left the water. We resist gravity. We don't care if we're exhausted -- we move relentlessly.

I spoke with my buddy Bradley Mongold (ER doc, world class bow hunter, ultra runner) from the airport after the race. He is preparing for an assault on the grueling Massanutten 100. He said he is planning in advance for the calories he will need. His crew is instructed to give him those calories, and he will drink them, no matter what. He said his fatigued mind can't be trusted to choose what his body will need. So he'll have to do the choosing in advance. That, I thought, is the will to succeed. We can't possibly act like we don't have limits. We are bumping into them all the time. Our own minds can be limiting. So we negotiate. We anticipate who we will be under later conditions and plan for dealing with that person.

When the course turned to descend from the ridge I determined that the route back was shorter than the route out. As the painful descent continued I formulated a plan. I would carefully provision at the aid station at the bottom. I would be able to see where Roes was (I had started referring to him as "Roesie" by then). I would be able to see how far behind the next runners were. I would go easy but steady back up the ridge, eat a caffeine-laced Cliff Blok, and take an ibuprofen. Mostly I would re-set my clock for "less than halfway to go." It was the start of another race.

I kept my head and did as planned. Roesie was a minute up, Braje was nearly 8 minutes back. Other runners followed quickly. Seeing them re-centered me. Miwok is an event, not just a solo run. The women looked amazingly strong, and serious, as they passed. Anita Ortiz was first, then Kami Semick. Caitlyn Smith must have been close behind. Almost back on the ridge, I actually stopped for an uncharacteristically discreet pee break. I had gone several times already, but with the trail to myself I had been able to keep running. I just couldn't see confronting the charging downhill runners with a full frontal.

The return trip on Bolinas Ridge got me back up to speed. I could feel myself making up ground, and I started looking for Roesie on the hilltops in front of me. When I passed another Montrail teammate, and VA buddy, Russel Gill, he said the leader was within a minute. I was charging hard by the time I got back to the aid station. My crew handed me water and Bloks, and I was off in a flash. Out of the corner of my eye I just caught sight of Roesie, hunkered over the aid station table. He told me later that he tried to load up on the calories he had been unable to consume. He headed out but made it only a short distance before he vomited again. He returned to the aid station and dropped from the race.

My wife's lifelong friend Melody, a Mill Valley resident, and her boyfriend Grant had signed on to, and fully embraced, helping me for the day. We had discussed the kind of motivation that would be helpful. I had said the first half of the race I might actually need "anti-cheering." Sort of a reminder to stay relaxed and low-key. The second half, I said, feel free to be more evocative. On my way out of the Bolinas Ridge aid station I heard Grant say, "you've got steel wheels." The image stuck helpfully in my mind. I rolled all the way down to highway 1.

I wasn't eating much anymore, though, and I had actually gotten cold on the descent. I wasn't aware that two more large climbs and descents loomed between me and the finish. The climbs seemed interminable and I had trouble staying on the rail -- keeping my stomach together, keeping some calories flowing, and moving well uphill. I wasn't particularly concerned with getting caught from behind, but I certainly didn't want to crash and burn. So I grabbed pretzels, crackers, or potatoes from the last couple aid stations and nibbled on them to keep my stomach settled. Sweets became repulsive. At Tennessee Valley I emptied the water from my bottle and filled it halfway with Coke. I would sip on it to get me over one last gnarly climb.

The ocean made me catch my breath. The final descent of the run back to Rodeo Beach afforded my first real view of the day. She seemed tamer somehow. The waves broke between arms of rock and lapped up to the beach. The coast presented a soft bosom, as if to say, "Welcome home, son. We love for you to visit."

All the Elements in Play at Miwok

2009-05-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

Horizontal rain I've experienced. The rain blasted from the Pacific across Bolinas ridge in Marin County today struck me from below. We were socked in by fog for the whole 100K. As we like to say in the ultra community, 'it was epoch.'

As with so many long ultras, this was another battle of attrition. Despite my foresworn testimony to run "from behind" (as practice for WS!) I found myself among the three leaders from early on. Geoff Roes took the front followed by Todd Braje and myself. Todd fell off first as a symptom, I believe, of an uncharacteristically bad day. Geoff charged powerfully up the "hills" (strongly resembling mountains) but took it relatively easy on the descents so that I caught up with him by the bottom. He didn't slow until the long climb up to Bolinas ridge on the way out. He was just in front of me when he stopped abruptly and emptied his stomach of substantial contents. Although he seemed to bounce back, at 42 miles in he found he couldn't hold anything down and called it a day. That left me to lead for the remaining return trip to Rodeo Beach. I was fading though, and fortunate to hold off late-charging Victor Ballesteros and Scott Jaime. My finishing time was 8:35.

The women's race looked to be very competitive, and was won by Kami Semick.

This event merits a complete post, that I will have to write at another time!

Why "Explore Fatigue?"

2009-04-30T05:39:00.000-07:00

The windows were wide open and the school bus bounced lightly, like a kids carnival ride. I was wedged between the high-backed seats, but inhaling the freedom in the air. The class I taught at Valley High School in Louisville was on a field trip. We were were headed down I-65 toward Murray State University. It was the Spring of 1997. I had already enrolled in a full-time doctoral program at U of L for the Fall. I was completing my second year of public school teaching. I enjoyed my students, especially on days like this. We were giving them a preview of the possible. The chatter and excitement was to be expected -- and encouraged. I found my own imagination wandering. I had made no plans for the summer. School would let out in June but my own classes wouldn't start until August. For us on the bus, the atmosphere was catalytic.

I thought I would run across Kentucky. That seemed like a big feat. Maybe I could push a small buggy that had my stuff in it. I would try to do it fast, of course, set some kind of mark. I knew Brad Swope, a Louisville cyclist. He had cycled non-stop across Kentucky to raise money, and awareness, for melanoma. In my first duathlon (called a biathlon at the time) I bolted to the front after the 10K run, and then jumped on my bike to pedal for all I was worth for the 30 mile ride. Although I likely had a solid 3-4 minute lead on him after the run, Brad -- who I didn't know at the time, promptly caught up with me and then encouraged me to ride with him. Of course I couldn't keep up his pace on the bike. Afterward he was exceptionally gracious, though, and helpful. He left a big impression on me.

I didn't make immediate specific plans for my state crossing, though. I didn't have time to. The night of the field trip another thought caused me to wake in the wee hours of the morning. I was in my first home, a bachelor pad in the Butchertown neighborhood. My eyes opened wide. Of course. I would run the length of the Appalachian Trail! I knew very little about the AT, and nothing about "speed attempts" along it. But for 3 nights I could barely sleep, and I knew that running the AT would be my big project. I enjoyed being on trails, and I knew the AT was about 2000 miles long. An easy running pace for me was 7 minutes per mile. So I did the math. Roughly I could do a run in the morning, a run in the afternoon, and cover the full distance in 60 days -- about the time that I had. I found out the trail was actually about 2200 miles, so that just meant I needed to run 37 miles per day. Two runs of 2-3 hours each. It would be a challenge, of course, but one that I fully embraced.

I prepared. I bought a pack, and on the advice of the outfitter, bought trekking poles. I took the thru-hikers guide. I took a water pump/filter. I did NOT pack a sleeping bag, stove, pillow, tent, etc. The term hadn't been applied yet, but I was certainly fast-packing. In June my then girlfriend gave me a ride to Amicalola State Park in Georgia, where the approach to the southern terminus of the AT starts. We agreed that I would just run the first 28 miles and meet her at Woody Gap, where I would continue on with my full pack. That would give me a good jump start! Twenty eight miles is just over a marathon, so providing for some climbing I told her to meet me in about 4 hours.

Lest you think that I actually am superhuman, I can tell you that my disillusionment was fairly rapid. I had run trails before, but in general those had been trails that developed over time as ways to get from one place to another on foot. The AT is special. I believe it was first drawn on a map to connect the dots of the highest peaks between Georgia and Maine. With the exception of a few sections, it is not particularly amenable to running. This has been steadily changing with re-routes that add switchbacks and contour around mountains rather than heading straight up, but I frequently cussed the gratuitousness of yellow blazing that seemed to go out of it's way to insure maximum climbing.

I did make it to Woody Gap, just a little worse for wear. I was still quite excited, but a realization had already crept in. I would not be able to "run" the AT with my pack and cover 7 or 8 miles per hour, as I had planned. A fast pace would be 4-6 miles per hour. I also had already gotten a whiff of a new brand of fatigue. Not the purple-lipped, burning-throat, numb-forehead fatigue of middle-distance sprints, but the full-body, mind-numbing, uncertain emptiness of all-day slogs. I got to Woody Gap almost desperate for water and food. Given those things, and a little time, though, I was right back on the trail.

The idea was developing in my mind already, and would become a staple of my brain's diet for those 12 hour work days. I can remember hiking a particularly long segment that ended at Fontana Dam, just before entering the Smokies. I was about 160 miles in and felt completely exhausted. My legs were shot, I had no energy, and my head was listless. And I kept walking. I was completely exhausted, and I kept walking. I didn't fight it, or avoid it. More interesting to me even than all the varieties of plant and animal, and people, that I encountered, was this: my own fatigue. Although I didn't believe that my bodily resources were unlimited, or even particularly mysterious, I was fascinated by the changing landscape of my experience as I tired, and then revived. More times than I could count I would approach a destination, such as a shelter where I intended to stay, and feel that I had spent all that I had for that day. Then I would discover something unpleasant, like a mosquito infestation, and decide to go 'another 8.' I would soon recover my rhythm and find myself well able to cover the additional mileage. That's interesting -- worth exploring.

By the time I reached "the friendliest town on the AT," Damascus, VA, I had settled on my mantra for my thru-hike. I bought a hat at the outfitter and decided to try and stitch the words onto it. I ambled into "Nell's Place," an arts and crafts shop (unfortunately no longer in business). Nell was sitting working on something. I asked how I might get my phrase stitched onto my hat. She said she could take care of that. Then she gave me a Coke. She gave me both those things, and wouldn't accept payment. I have to pause, even as I write this now.

So I wore my "Explore Fatigue" hat out of Damascus and on to Harper's Ferry, my new goal for that first summer. I would go on and hike the northern half of the AT during the summer of 1998. That fall I would run my first ultra -- the Mountain Masochist, directed, appropriately, by the guy I heard set the speed record for hiking the Appalachian Trail -- David Horton. It would take another 2 years before I was willing to run my 2nd ultra. My mantra, however, hasn't changed.

The Body Knows... [Miwok in 3 days]

2009-04-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have the sense of what it might be like to be a robot. There's this faint buzz barely agitating all my limbs -- like the transformer mounted in our garage. I woke up at 4:45 this morning and the same vibration was in my gut, like it was poised for something. Our cat, Tonks, has serious cognitive dissonance now that I put her food outside for the summer. She wants to be inside, and to have her food. So she gets caught on the threshold, completely torn. My gut is like that right now. It remotely knows to be wary. Food is good, but so is emptiness. We get it, somehow, that 3 days from now something big will go down.

So I got up and drank a protein shake. No run this morning. My running this week is sharply curtailed. I did run 3 x 400m on the track yesterday. Nippert said "don't time them." He probably thought that would temper any strong desire I might have to run fast. That's not the way it works for me though. A racehorse trapped in the gates doesn't care about the clock. It wants to be free, and in front. That's how I ran my 400s. Had I timed them I think I would have gone slower. I would have controlled the effort and matched it to my expected time.

That is the promise, and the pitfall, of our expectation. We calibrate it. I'm reminded of my first real distance race. I had never even witnessed a footrace beyond a schoolyard sprint. I joined the cross country team at my high school because the coach wrote me a letter, explaining that I'd be good at it. At the time I didn't realize that he sent all incoming freshman the same letter. He also told me that at my first race I'd run the junior varsity 3 km event. I didn't really know how far that was so it didn't worry me too much when he told me a few minutes before the start that I would actually be running the 5 km course. It was the St. Xavier Campus Run in Louisville, KY. It was called the campus run because the course started in a field along Trevilian road and then wound up and around the steep hill at the foot of the Bellarmine College Campus. None of that mattered to me because when the starter pistol fired I was a horse. I ran fast, free, and at the front. Until I died. Two St. X runners passed me and so did my teammate, Dave. I ran the remaining distance, as we liked to say, as if I had picked up a refrigerator.

I also placed 4th in my second cross country race. My pace, however, was relatively constant across the 3.1 miles. I got it. I knew what to expect. A track is ideally suited to the calibration of effort. You can literally see what has to be done in one glance. Get to the end of the straightaway for the 100, to the other side of the track for the 200, once around for the 400. I spent many a workout circling the track at various speeds for varying lengths of time, all the while noting my effort and checking my watch. I got to be like a metronome, clocking off laps at precisely even times. In the longer events I would tire, of course, but I knew that. I figured that into the equation (subconsciously, of course). In effect, I built a wall around my effort, containing it to what was sustainable. We all do that. We have to, because otherwise we couldn't sustain our effort.

Which brings me, finally, to my buddy Nick. Nick got in touch with me shortly after I moved to SW Virginia. We've run together at least occasionally ever since. Nick has dedicated a lot of resources to the improvement of his ultra running. He doesn't hesitate to drive the hour across the mountain to my house so that we can drive another 1/2 hour to a trailhead for a run. He has demonstrated many times a willingness to suffer through exhaustion, dehydration, and nausea in order to train. Nick placed 1st at the inaugural Iron Mountain 50 mile Trail Run. Although he is training better than ever, Nick has had a string of DNFs in the past many months, the latest at the Bull Run Run 50 mile. This despite his feeling that he is very fit and uninjured.

I'm attracted to sport, and in particular ultrarunning, because it cuts down on BS. There are real outcomes that are reasonably indisputable. There are limited cases where a person can legitimately say things could have gone differently. We all agree that what counts was how things did go. If you start out a 50 mile race running 7 minute per mile pace, and then drop out of the race at 30 miles, it doesn't make sense to assert that you could have run 50 miles in 5 hrs 50 min. How do you know you could have maintained that pace? Runners feel more tired after 30 miles than when they started. How much more tired? That depends on how much further they think they have to go. Perceived level of exertion depends upon the apprehension of the distance yet to be run. The greater the distance remaining, the lower our perceived level of exertion. The data emerging from research (google Tim Noakes of "Lore of running" fame) is compelling, but it corroborates personal experience. How many races have we finished and immediately collapsed in a heap, barely able to move? Up until the last step we were in full stride, trying to hold off competitors or finish under a certain time. What changed? Our apprehension of the remaining distance went to zero, so our perceived level of exertion went to infinity!

We should reserve the DNF for real crises. We want the outcomes of events to line up reasonably well with our expectations. We expect to run 50 miles, we should run 50 miles. Otherwise, we won't learn what it means to run 50 miles in those conditions. If dropping out becomes a viable option (as perceived by the athlete) we'd expect his perceived level of exertion to increase as he approaches the point in the run at which he can imagine dropping out. I do not say this as someone who will slog on "no matter what." I have dropped out of several races, both in college cross country and in ultras. There are times when dropping out is the right choice, and times when it is the only choice. Neither of these applies when the situation is that I am in the middle of a run and feel more tired than expected. For me, that has proved to be the best time to re-calibrate. The walls weren't built close enough in, and I have gone across a buffer. I know that I have to slow down.

Athletes are not revered for their ability to proscribe their own limits, however. They are icons of human possibility, constantly pushing the edge of performance. They find ways to go faster and longer. Our knack for building walls around our effort is a pitfall in this pursuit. We may be needlessly limiting ourselves. So it seems, at least, to those who believe that "the will to win" is all that stands between the athlete and greatness. For my part, I will continue my taper this week in preparation for Miwok. My performance depends on real, physical parameters such as stored glycogen. I will also start slow.