Sir Walks-a-Lot's "Slog Blog"

Room for Desert

2011-09-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

The ancient Native American woman I was conducting business with was seated next to a teenage boy wearing a hoodie and a ‘New York Yankees’ ball cap. He had an empty hot-dog wrapper in front of him and was lingering over a donut. He seemed to be there mainly for the sake of companionship but he also served as an interpreter.

“She wants you to know that she made all this jewelry herself” he said, and then added, following a flurry of additional language from the old woman, “including that bracelet. She also wants you to know that the silver came from these hills.”

“That’s amazing” I replied. “Please tell her that I think this bracelet is beautiful”. But before he could translate the woman shot me a full-faced toothless grin and said in perfect English “Thank you”. “She understands more English than she speaks” the boy explained. “She knows what beautiful is. She hears that word a lot”.

“I bet she does.”

I was standing at a parking lot on a widened portion of road just south of Flagstaff Arizona. The old woman and the boy, who could possibly have been a grandson or a great-grandson, had chosen this spot, along with several other Native American Artisans who were located a few feet away, to sell their crafts. I was vacationing with my Dad, his wife Dorie, and my two sons. We had passed several locations like this in the past day and stopped here to stretch our legs.

I wasn’t just being polite. The bracelet really was beautiful. The old woman showed me how it unfolded to fit around a wrist of any size. As she placed it on her wrist, bronzed skin contrasting with silver plating, the art came alive. It was clear that she valued it. I immediately wanted it for the wrist of a loved one. “She says twenty four dollars but she will take less” the boy reported. “Please tell her that that is a bargain. I don’t want to barter” I replied. The boy relayed this information, which brought another smile.

I had been advised to always negotiate with these artisans. I was told that they expect you to barter and, in fact, if you don’t try to craft a better deal they will think that you are a sucker. I considered this for a moment and decided that she could think what she wanted about me. I felt a surge of guilt as things currently stood for paying so little for something that could have sold for hundreds of dollars in another setting. Besides, I figured that as an Anglo tourist, clambering out of the back seat of a car wearing broken sandals, a white coffee-stained Green Jewel shirt, and a yellow Jegs Automotive hat there wasn’t a single chance in all of the world that she didn’t already assume that I was an asshole.

It was disconcerting to realize that even here, out on the farthest fringes of our culture, people still needed to deal with assholes in order to make a living. The thought interrupted my vacation mind-set for an instant before I recalibrated and toddled away, the happy and temporary owner of something wonderful.

The chilled and pine scented air in the elevated region of Flagstaff was a relief, I suppose, from the scorching August temperatures of the Sonoran Desert that surrounded this oasis on all sides. I loved Flagstaff. It was green and it was hilly. It reminded me of a slightly hypoxic Mohican. But I was happy as we descended the mountain on our drive to Phoenix. In the next hour, as our altitude dropped and the oxygen content of the air climbed, the temperature changed from 72 to 104 degrees. We drove through the heart of Indian Reservation country for most of the remainder of the day.

I came to the desert for the first time just a few years ago and it immediately felt like I had come home; a feeling that seemed baseless at the time. I had never been near a desert and no one in my lineage had either. Dad, as the family’s wanderer, moved from Ireland, raised five kids in Cleveland, and later moved further westward to the desert. Maybe he has found his permanent place and maybe he hasn’t. I would never bet against his ability to move and expand and learn.

When I first came to the desert I came simply to visit Dad and Dorie. I presumed I would hate the desert and I believe I recall the moment when the seed of distaste was planted.

The Berea City School District had a particular rhythm to its curriculum in the early 1970’s. We pledged that we would have allegiance to a flag. We learned that we were all created as equals. We learned that the proper move during a nuclear attack was to crouch under our desks and hold our heads between our knees. We learned that America was the land of innovation. We learned that it was destiny that caused us to occupy the land from one shining sea to the other shining sea. We learned that any of us could become wealthy and famous if we tried hard enough (Horatio Alger was referenced). We learned that we could become president, or an astronaut (!). We learned that if we raised our hands in class we could be ignored but if we appeared to be bored we would be called upon every time. We learned that excellent readers and spellers belonged in the “Doodie” reading group and the lesser skilled belonged in the “Raspberry” group.

I believed that I could be president because that was what I was told. But no one ever told me that I might, as a Raspberry, some day aspire to achieve the rank of Doodie. I struggled with spelling and assumed that this was a Raspberry birthright. One day, while reviewing a spelling-test-catastrophe with my third grade teacher she pointed out that I had spelled dessert with only one‘s’. “When you spell it that way Mark it means a desert…like a place with a cactus. Always remember that dessert, like something you get as a treat, has two s’s and the nasty hot desert has only one s. Remember that you use a longer word for dessert because you want to linger over a treat and enjoy it. In a desert it is hot and there is nothing there. Therefore you want to be there for as SHORT a time as possible…so only one s.”

I have been working in education for 14 years and it seems to me that learning is, at best, about 80% efficient. We work hard to learn things and that knowledge hopefully refills a tank that is functionally leaky due to things we learn that are incorrect, and thus must be relearned.

I needed to relearn the desert. And so I did. When I visit Dad and Dorie I can ramble on the fringe of the desert that lies just outside of the last house in the housing development where they live. It always amazes me how little ramp-up is needed between a full-on housing development, complete with a homeowners association and zoning laws, and the wilderness of the desert. I have seen rattlesnakes, javalinas, roadrunners, scorpions, and huge jackrabbits within a few hundred yards of someone’s front yard. I regularly hear coyotes. And Dad reports that he saw a mountain lion once and that a neighbor spotted a bobcat drinking from his swimming pool.

The desert, far from being a place “with nothing there”, is completely filled with living things…and most of them can kill you. Against old advice I linger over runs in the desert. Sometimes I tell Dad and Dorie that I will be back in 45 minutes and show up back at their door 2-3 hours later. Who can blame me? Running through the side streets of Delaware I am a traffic hazard…a possum…but in the desert I am Caballo Pecoso (the freckled horse) lone runner of the purple sage...

...apologies to Micah True : )

I’m not alone. I have found that most of my running friends love the desert. At least we love to visit. Maybe the desert represents the best in us. It is reminiscent of a survival game. The desert evaporates away everything from me that is not necessary to live and leaves in my mind the tiniest and most efficient byproduct: an emollient of amazement that life exists anywhere that it possibly can and that we can live with so little. I spend my days so crushed by modern culture that it is enlightening to be reminded that I can live without it after all.

I need to admit that I leave the desert at the conclusion of the runs. Pabst Blue Ribbon, air conditioners, swimming pools, and ‘Ice Road Truckers’ reruns await. Walden Pond did not make an outdoorsman of Thoreau and the desert does not make a nomad of me. But I do leave the desert requiring little and knowing that I can live with less.

And so I do.

Maybe we aren’t as enamored by the desert as we are with the frontier. Possibly the desert is one of the last hold-out frontiers because it is not easily exploited. It is difficult to carve a profit from the desert. And so, in terms of measurements used by modern culture, it fails to exist. The desert is empty only in terms of profitable resources. There is little in the desert that can be owned, or stolen, or used up before moving on. Land is often bought and sold for less than one hundred dollars per acre. And historically this lack of conformity to Wall Street earned the resources of the desert the title of “nothing”.

When we preserve a desert or a wild place perhaps we are seeking to preserve the surprise that comes with learning that some of our life lessons have been inaccurate and that our culture is expendable. I have heard claims that the youth of our nation no longer seek physical activity. But I will tell you that I have never seen a child brought to a geographical place requiring struggle that didn’t see the adventure in the experience. Upon leaving the wilderness a child, like Thoreau, might return to creature comforts but surely the lesson remains. A donut and a ball cap need not signal the end of Native American Culture any more than the return to Wii means that my Anglo children are ruined. Both can hold the truth that their culture is their choice and not their boss if they are taught as much.

Our children are not broken.

Neither is our need to learn, or relearn.

I believe that I should hold the legends, inventions, and success stories of American culture as sources of pride. And I do. Our nation does not lack heroes. I have a friend who is currently stationed overseas away from his wife and daughters so that our way of life (and the lives of innocents around the world) can be preserved. This man is a hero. We should always learn of our heroes and admire heroism. But we should also be honest about our successes and failures. The truth is that much of our nation’s wealth and infrastructure was built on the backs of slaves. While we can be proud of ending slavery we should recognize that the sharecropping system that immediately replaced it was a functional evil as well. We should not forget that our parents and grandparents almost certainly saved the world from evil during World War II. But we should be humble about the economic boom that followed, which was surely the result of hard work but also came as the result of the bomb- induced destruction of nearly every industrialized country in the world…except ours. Now that the world is catching up to us corporate leaders have taken to moving manufacturing overseas where unfair wages may be paid to uneducated and desperate citizens of third world countries. I suggest that this practice is as evil as sharecropping.

Individuals who are currently unemployed as a result of this practice are at times called out by politicians, corporate leaders, or members of ‘the greatest generation’ for lacking spirit or work ethic. They are encouraged to pull themselves up by their boot straps. They are asked to exude national pride while bearing the stigma of losing their homes in the worst economic crisis since the great depression. If we are not honest about the sources of success and failure then hope is replaced by shame. And without hope our paths become nearly impossible. Former factory workers and members of the armed services who are now homeless are invisible to our culture because they cannot be exploited for their resources. If they do not exist then how can they be human? And if they are not human then why should they have human rights?

Native Americans were moved from the Midwest onto “other lands reserved for them” in the west. As I drove through these “Reservations” I saw that they were America’s wastelands; lacking in resources. I had to stretch my mind to imagine scraping out a living on them. In fact many of the Indian reservations in Arizona are older than the state itself. Arizona only became a state in 1912. Compare this to Ohio, which became a state in 1803, or the original 13 colonies which date back to the famous year of 1776. Westward expansion slowed things somewhat, of course, but states well west of Arizona are much older. For example California became a state in 1850 and Oregon in 1859.

Why the delay? Why did we skip Arizona to move to other states? According to a website dedicated to Arizona mining:

Since 1910, Arizona has been the nation's top copper producer — producing more copper than all the other 49 states combined. Two to three generations later, in 1996, about one out of every eight jobs in our state still depended on the copper mines.

Arizona became a major copper producer in 1910 and a state in February of 1912. Economic reality seems to equal physical reality in our culture. Perhaps prior to copper production Arizona did not exist in the eyes of politicians or industrialists because there was nothing to exploit.

Zanesville Ohio suffered an opposite fate for a similar reason: An environmentally friendly but economically disastrous law was passed in the late 1970’s that ruled that the high sulfur content of most Ohio coal was unfit for burning. An arithmetic problem yielded Zanesville, a major coal mining town, economically non-feasible on the day that it was calculated that high sulfur coal PLUS scrubbers needed to safely burn such coal EQUALLED a higher cost than low sulfur coal alone. It was the day that Zanesville began to cease to exist as an asset to corporate America.

Zanesville is not alone. Nearly all of eastern Ohio has been economically damaged to a point that it may never recover. Zanesville was once a town of white picket fences and black metal lunch boxes. It was a town of churches and clean streets. Now, along with unemployment, alcoholism and domestic violence are up. The population is down, as are school achievement scores and graduation rates.

A cynic might suggest the United States is truly only great when it can operate in unfair environments. I hate cynicism. What a message it could be to tell tales of greatness that were accomplished on even playing fields.

What if we took a fraction of the credit that industrialists received for building fortunes by exposing workers to unsafe conditions and place it in the hands of the less-than-greatest-generation that insisted that poisoning our children with air borne sulfur was wrong, regardless of the economic impact it had?

At the very least can we not unclench our iron fists from some of our less true legends? What a great thing it could be to admit to past sins and release the unsuccessful coal miner from Zanesville from the yoke of guilt they personally feel for failing? We could admit that the closing of the mines was not caused by a lack of work ethic or a character flaw on his part. We could tell him to hold his head high and that there is no need to resolve his heartbreak with a bottle or with his fists.

We could tailor a similar message to former steelworkers in Youngstown, family farmers in Illinois, and the white collar worker from Medina who has lost, or soon will lose, their home. But the message cannot be believed if we insist on identifying our place as a place of endless opportunity where hard work always leads to success and failure can always be traced to one of the seven deadly sins. Our myths can inspire us but they can also break a person’s will.

Our people are not broken.

John Denver sang of coming home to a place he had never been before. It has taken me a few years but I think I understand why I felt immediately at home in the desert. When I am at my best I am desert-like. When I run I lose water, my temperature rises, I become salty and dirty. Mainly though, I become limited in what I can carry. If this condition represents me at my best then why would I not feel comfort when presented with a matching geography? There has to be a natural attraction to all of this. I don’t need to be in the desert to experience the desert.

I believe that God communicates in metaphor. God went to the desert to think and to pray. Why would he not want us to do the same?

Our culture should not determine our value. We should determine our value and we should determine our culture. But myths held sacrosanct offer no room for self-analysis. Our culture is a choice. I need to understand that I can choose some elements of it and reject others.

Our spirits are endless. Horizontal expansion always ends but our self discovery will not ever be limited or defined by anything outside of ourselves. Not even a shining sea. We are perfectly renewable resources and can never be used or used up unless we allow it. When the last frontier on the planet has been occupied we will still have our own internal deserts. We are not broken unless we choose to be.

Maybe I should have bartered with the old woman. Maybe she does not need my pity. Maybe its okay to be at peace with taking less. Remove profit from our culture and it ceases to exist but remove a native and ancient people from their lands and they produce art.

Who do we want to be?

Widow's Walk

2011-07-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

There was this one time when I had to write a really really really long paper. It took me like, a long time and some of my friends and family wondered, while I was writing it, where I was at. It was 180 pages long and the guy that was grading it wouldn’t let me do things like end a sentence with a preposition or use the word like. Unless I meant that I liked something. The guy that was grading it also said I could only use the word really one time in a row. The guy that was grading it was really really cool even though he had that hang-up about me using up all of my prepositions early.

When the paper was done I handed Bowling Green State University the 180 pages and 30,000 dollars and they gave me a cool wall hanging. And now I can write whatever I want and no ever grades it.

It took me 2700 miles to write my dissertation. At least that’s the joke I tell myself. Its not really a very funny joke.

But it is true.

Technically I write while sitting down at a keyboard but the reality is I need to be moving to think and I need to be thinking to write. Sometimes I think that my brain must be wired directly through my hind-end because I cannot think and sit at the same time. I barely made it out of elementary school for this very reason. Sitting in a chair being lectured to was a sure recipe for a trip to the principal’s office and a reserved spot in the lowest reading group. High school was a tiny bit easier than elementary school because we changed classes every hour or so. College was better yet and physical therapy school was like a dream come true. By the time I hit my forties and was writing the dissertation I discovered that a niche existed within the academy that allowed me to go for a twenty mile run and come back home with 10 new pages of content, for which I would receive academic credit. That skill set, mixed with a big wad of cash, and several hundred cups of coffee, earned me one of those terminal degree thingys.

Writing the dissertation wasn’t really that hard because I love to write. I still love to write and I still come home from long runs with pages of content. Some of that content ends up here and some does not.

I started to write a lengthy piece, for this blog, about the negative characteristics of arrogance, and pride, and obsession as they relate to the positive characteristics of commitment, and patience, and persistence. They all are, I think, a similar breed of cat and somehow symbiotic and yet in conflict with each other. I also think that they might be related to Jacob’s angel but each time I resume the writing the words get stuck because I have been sitting on my butt more than usual and, knowing what you now know about my ass-mind connection, you can imagine the writer’s block I have going on.

The reason that I have been less active is because my legs have gone absent without leave. Win, lose, or draw it is not even a little bit unusual for me to have dead legs following Mohican. The fact that I only made it 65 miles this year hasn’t relieved the disconnected feeling I have after the event. It just makes my daydreams while awaiting the return of my legs less happy.

My runs since Mohican have been short and unpredictable. I spent an entire year believing that I was building an unsinkable ship only to learn that there is no such thing. I was supported by the world’s largest, most experienced, and most loving crew and still foundered.

I’m disappointed but I am not embarrassed. I have learned to not take myself seriously enough to feel humiliated. Maybe those that live in greatness can be disgraced by failure but those of humble dwellings, like me, have a short trip home and very little explaining to do after a fall.

Not having a buckle burns a bit but the part that really troubles me most is that I do not know where I went wrong. Figuring out why I fell short will take some time and some thought. But I am not thinking well these days. Maybe when my legs come home I will regain purposeful thought and solve the problem.

Until they return I will run a bit each day and watch the horizon, awaiting their return.

In days of yore the captains of seagoing vessels were highly respected members of their communities and could become quite wealthy. The wealth could come at a high cost in terms of safety and the wife of a Captain spent her life worrying and watching for her husband’s return. Sometimes the vigils lasted for years; long after the time when most would have abandoned hope. Apparently these women ignored the “watched pot never boils” platitude. They actually had walkways built, complete with guardrails, along the tops of their oceanfront homes where they could stroll and watch the sea for signs of a mast in the distance. These structures were known as ‘Widow’s Walks’ and can still be seen on the mansions of the east coast today.

My runs since Mohican have, almost exclusively, been on very short trails measuring a mile or so. I run these trails because I never know when my ghost legs will simply grind to a halt, forcing me to walk back home. I hope that one day, on one of these runs, I will spot a mast in the distance and some spring will return. I hope it happens soon because YUT-C will be here on Sept. 17 whether my legs are ready or not. My legs are no longer sore. The muscle aches ended a few days after the race. The symptoms of my lost legs these days are simply due to their refusal to take orders from my mind. They aren’t speaking to each other.

Again though, this isn’t unusual. I feel certain that my legs will return. I have just completed the best running year of my life, after all, and so maybe they are on a beach somewhere with an umbrella drink taking a much needed break. Maybe Henry Kissinger is sitting next to them urging them to forgive my stomach and open a meaningful dialogue with my mind…or maybe he is just chain smoking and bitching about how Nixon was misunderstood. Who knows?

They will come home when they get hungry. They know that no amount of nagging will get them there. They know their limits.

My personal widow’s walk is Seymore Woods Nature Preserve. It’s a tiny plot of land identified by a two foot by three foot wooden sign that is hidden by the forest it is meant to advertise. The plot of land, donated to Delaware County by a farmer many years ago, lies partially buried in weeds and contains a trail that is approximately one and one quarter mile around. I go to Seymore Woods when I want to see more woods. Its another little joke I tell myself. I also go there on occasions when a run is simply a run. The run I took there last week was neither a training run nor a recovery run. It wasn’t a taper and it wasn’t a tempo run. It wasn’t a pre-race “shakeout” or a heat adaptation run. And for the first time in a long time it was a good run. A run doesn’t need a title to be a success and neither, I suppose, do I.

At the conclusion of each loop I would decide whether to do another one or not. I was pleased that for several loops in a row I decided to keep going. I noticed, for the first time ever, the stone base of a homestead built in 1830. I also noticed a side trail leading into the unknown. I will take that trail someday when my legs can join me.

The trail at Seymore woods is pretty rough. I guess if I was required to describe the venue it could be called ”technical”. But since I had no need to categorize this run or the trail I simply thought of it as rough.

At one point I took a tumble and ended up directly under a very small tree. The part of the loop in which the tree existed was so heavily canopied that it appeared to be dusk even though it was noon on a sunny day. There were few other small trees that managed to survive in the gloom of this part of the woods and so this tree’s presence was notable.

The tree’s existence really made no sense. The lack of sunlight should have signaled the end of its life. I scanned the canopy for a source or light that simply had to exist and saw a tiny patch of sky high in the trees fifty yards distant. As I lay there I realized that that patch of light must sweep the forest floor as the sun moves accross the sky, arriving at my small tree some time each afternoon on sunny days. Then I noticed a trail of small green weed-like plants that traced the path. This tree used a small spot of light that existed for moments each day to progress slowly toward the canopy. I presume it lays mostly dormant not only during the winter months but at shady times as well. It grows when it can grow, even if those times are rare. I imagined it as a tall, mature tree at some time in the very distant future. I also imagined that it might take it a while to get there at this rate, and then I imagined that it will hit its goal in time.

I also imagine that all of the planning and worrying in the world won’t speed the process up one bit.

Mohican 1997

2011-05-31T09:15:00.000-07:00

Most of 1997 had been a blur to me. Most news was lost on me. Timothy McVeigh had recently been sentenced to death for blowing up a Federal Building in Oklahoma City; an action that was called the greatest act of terrorism in American history.

But I largely did not notice.

I kept looking for profound answers to the inequities of the world and I was receiving none.

For the past five months I had struggled to put together one day at a time and at times I was struggling to get through individual moments. And the moments I was living on this Saturday in late June were proving to simply be more of the same. More pain. More worry. More strangeness. I had come to the Mohican Trail 100 Mile Run looking for answers. I was looking for something cathartic, something that would make me understand why there could be so much hurt in the world and how it had been masked from me for so long. I had heard that long mystical trail runs were supposed to be the place where these truths were revealed. But so far I had met no mystics. Instead I met strange, seemingly unathletic, people complaining of insect bites, humidity, and sore feet. I considered myself to be a solid runner and yet I had battled a man all day long who looked like he should have been selling grilled cheese sandwiches at a Grateful Dead concert. And I was being followed around the course by a woman I had never met before. She had a lisp and was repeatedly cautioning me to calm down.

As I ran down the face of the dam toward the covered bridge aid station in the fading twilight at 65 miles I came to the conclusion that no answers would be found among this weirdness. I would have loved to have stopped, grabbed a shower, gone home, and forgotten this whole freak show. But walking through the front door of my home and confronting my troubled family with the news that things got tough and so Daddy quit was absolutely out of the question. I particularly could not convey that message to my son Colin, and so I kept running and kept questioning. Why me God? Why my family? Why would you do something like this to an innocent child? What is it you want from me? Where is the good in this? There were other questions as well.

Most immediately: Why can I not drop this pesky hippie?

Life is a series of memories. Some very clear and some buried. For example I have almost no memory of my senior prom but I can easily recall the first time that I heard of the Mohican Trail 100 Mile Run. It was 1995 and I was trying to complete my first 50 mile race at Owen-Putnam State Forest. I had paid my dues; I had completed more than 20 marathons and a 37 mile trail race by that time. I had been a runner for 18 years and I had trained well for the event. Despite all of this it had been a tough day. The temperature was in the 20’s. My camelback had exploded leaving my sweatpants soaked, and my Power Bars (my only food) had frozen solid. The forest was beautiful but the shortened November days were already beginning to darken and I had not thought to bring a light. There were fewer than forty people in the race and I had not seen another runner for hours. Walking up a hill at approximately the 42 mile mark I suddenly saw smoke. “Oh my God” I thought, “The woods are on fire”. I became immediately despondent. I assumed that it was my duty to leave the course, find a house, and report the fire. I figured that by the time I returned to the course the time cutoff would have passed. I was about to DNF my first fifty mile run. I started to tear up and then to sob. As I cried I noticed the swirls of smoke were in sync with my heavy breaths. The “smoke” I realized, was really just my condensed breaths. “Wow” I thought, “I better just sit down right here and pull my shit together”. I parked on a log and gnawed on a rock solid Power Bar. Eventually another runner came by and asked if I was OK. I admitted that I was actually pretty concerned for myself and asked if he could maybe slow a bit and let me hang with him for safety. He slowed to a walk and nursed me toward the finish line. He asked me where I was from and I told him central Ohio. “Hey!” he said, “That’s Mohican country”. I responded “”What do you mean?” He said “That’s where the Mohican 100 miler is held.” I told him that although I was familiar with Mohican State Park I had never heard of the event. “Well you should run it” he said…

“You will love it”.

And I did love it. And I do love it. And this story is about my first Mohican. Mainly though it’s a story about how I came to love this event. This is my longest post ever. It has been a tough one to write. Several people know part of the story, a writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer even covered a bit of it once, but I have never told anyone all of it. The events are described here exactly as I remember them. No artistic license is taken. Lying about things like this would be wrong. It has taken me 14 years to begin writing it. It is very personal but I am afraid that if I don’t get this story written I will someday forget elements of it. And that would be wasteful. I thought of dividing this posting into a few installments but each time I do that it seems to confuse people. Instead all parts are included here together. It is written for me and a few who love me, but available to anyone with internet access who cares to know the story.

Part One:
I will always recall the morning of January 5, 1997 for a number of reasons. I was 33 years old, married with two perfectly healthy children. Ultra marathons had revived my running and I was training for my first 100 mile run. I owned a physical therapy practice in the fastest growing town in Ohio. I employed nine physical therapists and three physical therapist assistants and was making plenty of money. I spent my days working with individuals with disabilities and so I assumed that I understood the psychosocial impact of poor health. I believed that my success in life was due to hard work and I believed that opportunities existed equally for all individuals. I felt that lack of success in life came from living wrong; a lack of will power, or a character dysfunction. As far as I was concerned those who were less successful than me simply hadn’t tried as hard as I did.

Trust me, you would have hated me.

For years I viewed the morning of January 5, 1997 as the date of a tragic event. Now I recognize that it was the final time that I could justify the militant ignorance that had shadowed me for my entire life.

On that morning I was in the basement of my home celebrating my daughter Emily’s fifth birthday. The house was crowded with children and littered with bits of streamers, wrapping paper, plates of melting ice cream, and party favors that obeyed a 101 Dalmatians theme.

And then everything changed.

A panicked call came from upstairs that my 2 ½ year old son Colin was choking. I raced up two flights of stairs to find him shaking, unconscious, but breathing; not choking. The grandparents took over the birthday party as my wife Jenny and I accompanied Colin in an ambulance to the hospital where we learned that he had suffered a seizure. It probably wasn’t a big deal, we were told. We learned that seizures were not uncommon in kids and it was likely a singular event.

But it wasn’t.

Another seizure followed, followed by another ambulance ride and another consult. Then more came. Soon the seizures came hours, rather than days, apart. Still we were reassured that seizure disorders were quite treatable with medication and so there was no need to panic.

But treatment proved ineffective.

Over the next several weeks the seizures increased in frequency. At first there were dozens of seizures per day. Then the number topped 100. Then they became so frequent that they really could not be counted; only estimated. The closest estimate was 300-500 seizures per day. Often times Colin would have more than one seizure in a single minute. And even more problematic: there were five different seizure types. Some would cause a spasmodic episode; a minute or two of full body shaking. Others involved staring into space. Some involved a simple but disturbing head drop. The scariest were the “drop attacks” where Colin would suddenly throw his head up, body into full extension, and drop to the floor with no notice whatsoever. Despite the helmet he was required to wear, supervision needed to be constant. It was dangerous for him to walk across a room unaccompanied. The problem with multiple seizure types, we were told, was that a medication used to treat one type might increase another type. Colin was placed on a massive cocktail of seizure medications that impacted his ability to communicate. The doctors admitted that the constant adjustments to the dosages were guesses.

X-rays, MRI’s, and CAT Scans were all negative. We learned that most types of epilepsy were idiopathic; the cause unknown. We were told early on that it was not necessary to call for an ambulance any more unless a seizure lasted longer than four minutes. We were on our own.

Colin’s face and body became bruised and he had an enormous bump on the back of his head from the falls that accompanied the drop attacks. I saw an electroencephalogram (EEG) that was taken at the Cleveland Clinic and it offered no patterns at all. It looked as if a small child had taken a pen and scribbled randomly and forcefully on the paper. The diagnosis brought the worst possible news. This was Lennox –Gastaut Syndrome; the worst type of seizure disorder. It was considered to be incurable and, largely, untreatable. We were told that if Colin lived to see his fourth birthday the risk of death from that point on would be reduced…we would have to wait and see.

Friends disappeared. Colin suddenly had few playmates and, after the initial flurry of casseroles that appeared at our door, most of our circle of friends vanished without comment. I received a telephone call one night from a friend who invited Jenny and me to a party at his home. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while and he was unaware of our situation and so I updated him. After a long uncomfortable pause his only response was “Well, stop by if you can”. Jenny predicted we would never hear from him again. And we didn’t.

In the midst of all of this my mother died. I wasn’t able to make it to the first of two sets of calling hours because Colin was being released from a hospital stay, but at the second set I was approached by a woman I knew only peripherally through a family member. She explained that she sold life insurance and could, if I acted quickly, “slip the paperwork for Colin in before the medical records hit the system” at which time he would be denied. That way we could get some money if he died. I said no thanks. To this day I consider it, given the setting and the circumstances, to have been the most callous comment I have ever heard. But she wasn’t the last opportunist to visit us. I was approached by an individual who sold vitamins from her home. Others demanded that we see a faith healer and another told me that the bible states that “The sins of the father are visited upon his children”; clearly, she thought, this must be justice administered due to my past transgressions.

Being angry was easy. And so I was. It was hard to go five minutes without internally rolling my eyes at someone who complained about the amount of time they spent driving their kid to select soccer practice, or complaining that their kid’s teacher was less accessible due to the amount of time that was being spent on the special needs children in the classroom. Despite all of this I understood, even then, that the hatred and laziness that I was experiencing was really ignorance. My family now lived in a formerly secret world, separated like ghosts from the rest of society by a thin layer of lace that should have been so easy for everyone to see, and so easy for everyone to accommodate…and yet our situation remained completely and utterly invisible, or at least misunderstood.

Then again, who could I really blame for these attitudes and lack of caring? I had spent years making money treating individuals with health problems. I had been in their homes. I had looked directly into their eyes and never bothered to adopt any of their pain. The worst sin I committed was in convincing myself that I understood their pain. The evil lay in my ability to use my credentials as a health care professional to offer an “expert opinion” on anything from taxes to education to socialized health care plans. Now I was forced to realize that a secret world exists, and has always existed, in which those who need to be served often have no voice. The reason they have no voice is because they are trying to survive. They are trying to make it to the next moment. They won’t write letters to their congressional representatives or confront a school board or sue an insurance company because their time, energy, and money are spoken for. They rely upon others to do this for them. They had, for years, relied partially upon me. And I let them down because I didn’t care. And the kindest thing I can say about myself now is that I didn’t care because I was ignorant. Slowly it dawned upon me that if I couldn’t see a world that I was living in and making a living with…if I hadn’t understood the world of the disabled, then how many more things did I simply not understand?

I was, and am, a white, anglo saxon, protestant, middle aged, middle class, heterosexual male. My group rules the roost. I had never experienced prejudice. I had never experienced hatred. I had never been marginalized and yet I was given free reign to make decisions for those who were. What else did I not understand? I didn’t know what it is to be homeless. I didn’t know what it is to be unemployed for a long period. I didn’t know what it is to be a person of color. I didn’t know what it is to be an illegal immigrant. I didn’t know what it is to be homosexual. Although there was no spare money in my youth I did not have to escape the poverty culture. I imagine now that all marginalized groups live under similar veils of lace that should be visible, and fragile, but instead serve as prisons. I had never been discriminated against or hated but I now had a front row seat to observe those who were.

My daughter Emily…was a champion. I won’t tell her story because I cannot know what it was/is. Some day she may choose to tell it herself but I will tell you that I saw a five year old girl living in a world of struggle and bias and hatred who handled the situation precisely the way Jesus would want us to handle it. I will always believe that Emily understood what was happening. The response that I believe I saw was one of acceptance. She was a perfect friend to her brother. She was loving and supportive. Surely her life was impacted in ways that I will not ever know. Our attempts to provide normalcy must have been minimally successful at best. But what I saw was grace and strength beyond what a five year old should ever have to offer. She was the only person that I saw in our entire world who saw through the lace prison and brushed it aside... an option that was available but ignored by all of us…except her.

The world needs more five year old girls.

I also will not endeavor to tell Jenny’s story. If I do not know what it is to be marginalized, and if I do not know what it is to be epileptic, and if I do not know what it is to be hated, and if I do not know what it is to be a five year old girl, then I also do not know what it is/was to be Jenny. I will tell you how things seemed to me, however. Jenny and I handled things differently, she reached out for support and I withdrew from the world. In hindsight I think that her approach was the healthier path.

As a young man I thought there should be some way for me to protect my family, but I was powerless. I would awaken each morning and hope for an instant that this was a bad dream and then realize that it wasn’t. Sometimes I was awakened by the sound of Colin having a seizure. Jenny or I would rush to him out of reflex but arrived to find that we were useless. We weren’t invited into his world. We couldn’t understand it any more than anyone else could understand ours. I remember feeling very alone. I would speak to people about things on occasion but there were never any answers, even from those who people in my life who had ALWAYS provided answers.

Because waking up was so unpleasant I, more or less, stopped sleeping. Running stopped completely. I watched basketball far into each night. I became an expert on the sport. I could tell you the probable outcome of nearly any matchup, especially the midnight matchups between west coast teams, no matter how obscure the teams might be. I could tell you, for example, Why St. Mary’s should easily have been able to defeat New Mexico State. I was a servant to my job and a servant to my family. I was accepting of the former responsibility and sadly proud of the latter. I was otherwise of no use to the world. I never bothered to become alcoholic because I never knew when service would call. Instead, after everyone was in bed, I watched basketball, or infomercials, or old war movies, or whatever useless shit happened to be on. It didn’t matter. Any sound in my brain other than my own thoughts was welcome.

One night someone I loved very much stood between me and my TV and asked

“Why don’t you run anymore?”

I answered honestly. “Running doesn’t matter.”

“Well then what about Mohican?” She inquired.” Are you giving up on that too?”

“Yes I am” I said. “There is no chance on earth that I can run 100 miles.”

“Ok, that’s fine” she replied “But I think that if you can’t do it you should drop out on the trail in June rather than on the couch in February.”

If this was Hollywood the theme to Rocky would have blared forth and I would have done a bunch of pushups or something. But this was life and so I went out into the rain and ran myself to exhaustion in 17 minutes. Then I walked home.

And then I went to bed.

Part Two:
The training runs for Mohican 1997 were completely unpredictable, and inadequate, and very nearly perfect. I would slip out of the house at about 11:00pm on most nights and run for a while. Often I ran for 45 minutes but sometimes I ran for hours. Looking back I realize that absolutely nothing about the runs ever bothered me or caused me to alter their being. I could do a 20 mile run in a freezing rain or a 15 minute run on a temperate night. It simply didn’t matter. I knew that my usefulness to the family was limited at this time of night and so I ran without a schedule. If I got tired I walked, or sat down. I love the running scenes in Forest Gump. I love that he ran when he felt like running, ate when he was hungry, and stopped when he was tired. That was exactly, precisely, how I recall my runs in the spring of 1997. They were always done alone and always in the middle of the night. I knew the location of every soda machine and drinking fountain in Delaware County. I found that Saturday nights were especially freeing. At first I simply carried a few dollars and if I became thirsty I would swing back into town and wait in line at the Delco Drive- Thru, between cars filled with drunks, and buy a cherry Coke…then I’d run more and maybe come back again later…or maybe I wouldn’t. After a while I learned that if I preplanned a route I could drive it in advance and throw a can of pop out the window every four miles or so. I’d then run from can to can, sometimes all night long.

I had a Walkman and listened to 70’s music. I realized that the lyrics of Barry White’s “My First, My Last, My Everything” could be a prayer. And so I would sing them aloud to God and then ask for a miracle. The Hale-Bopp comet was in the sky and on clear evenings I could see it standing starkly on the horizon near a tree line or near the darkened silhouette of a grain silo and the beauty would almost overcome me. And then I would become angry and ask God, if he was capable of such majesty, why he couldn’t (wouldn’t?) save my son? Why did he ignore me? I pledged my life to him. I accepted him as my savior. And I complained angrily to him. I waited for a response but each night I would return home and realize that my respite from the world changed no one for the better.

I didn’t run this way out innocence, or naivety. I could riff on about Lydiard and fartlek and intervals and lactate thresholds for hours if needed…but I couldn’t have been bothered by any of that. I wasn’t even particularly worried about finishing Mohican. I figured that that wouldn’t happen. I once drove to Mohican and ran around on the roads for five hours, then realized that all this run was proving was that I had no idea what I was doing. I climbed in my car and drove back home.

One morning I was eating breakfast with Colin. He was seated in a high chair that he had formerly outgrown and wearing his helmet, a horrid brown thing that I hated for its ugliness and symbolism, but loved because it protected him the way I wanted to. Colin was eating a bowl of Cheerios. He would stab at the bowl and after several attempts he would get a few on his spoon and, time after time, just as he was getting the cereal to his mouth he would have a head drop seizure and lose them again. It was incredibly painful to watch. No matter how many times I would try to help him he INSISTED on doing it himself. It occurred to me that Colin was strong, and patient, and accepting, both at this breakfast and throughout his days. I realized that I was the only person at that breakfast table who was unhappy. I decided that I needed to be more like Colin. I needed to be patient, and strong, and determined.

Part Three:
The sun set precisely as I arrived at the covered bridge, the 65 mile point at Mohican fourteen years ago. I flopped into a lawn chair and started fumbling through my drop bag for my headlamp. It was a massive thing that required 3 “D” batteries that were inserted into a case that rode on the back of my head counterbalancing a single incandescent bulb on the front. It had cost me 45 dollars and I was proud of it. I also had my Walkman strapped to a waist pack that I filled with spare batteries, audio cassette tapes, snickers bars, and homemade salt pills, made by emptying the contents of B-12 capsules and refilling them with table salt. I was completely and utterly exhausted from trying to break the hippie. I noticed that he was slouched low in a lawn chair 25 feet away and was being attended to by a young girl. I recall thinking that this was possibly the toughest character I had ever encountered in my life and hoped that I had at least given him some sort of beat-down since I had likely blown my own race trying to drop him. He was laughing, smiling, and putting on fresh shoes for the night. He seemed perfectly fine…and perfectly at peace. I would have loved to have changed into fresh shoes myself but I was afraid to remove my current pair. Several hours before I had examined my feet and found that my feet had swollen and my wet road shoes had caused blisters that covered the entire underside of both feet. The blisters had since popped and I simply didn’t want to know how bad they had gotten. Instead I took a knife and sliced the front of the toe boxes so that my feet had a bit more room. The lady with the lisp approached me for the third time in the last 20 miles and announced. “You are doing great! Take care of yourself and go easy…you are intenth”. The two previous warnings had an effect on me and I was touched by the pure sweetness of this kind soul who had, for some reason, taken an interest in me. But this time I wasn’t listening. I remember thinking that I can be intense if I want to be intense. I wanted to be calm for her but things were getting desperate.

Throughout the day I looked around me and I saw people laughing and cheering and being joyful. I thought of Colin and how I really didn’t care to be a part of any society he could not belong to. For months I felt guilt about feeling any pleasure. I had grown to hate any part of the world where I imagined that he might not be welcome and felt resentment toward residents of those exclusive places. And as I passed the 80th mile and headed down a very long asphalt hill I felt guilt about even being on these very roads.

My feet painfully slapped the pavement sending a shooting pain with each step. My tired mind did the math and realized that I had 30,000 more shooting pains left before the finish line. The day had been miserably hot and I was sunburned, and chaffed in unmentionable places. Dead bugs were held to my body by the congealed Vaseline I had used to rub myself down. I ran a hand through my hair and the dried salt collapsed into my swollen fingers. It occurred to me that entering this race was likely a mistake. As painful as the downhill was on my feet I immediately regretted seeing it go as I took a hard right turn and began to climb a very steep gravel hill. I was lost in a world of misery. I wished I was at home and able to walk down our air conditioned hallway. I wanted to enter Colin’s room and give him a kiss on his cheek and sit for a while and listen to him breathe. Instead I was here running. And as I took several more painful steps to the top of the hill it occurred to me that I was likely running away. With each painful foot slap I asked God Why? Slap. Why? Slap. Why? Slap. Why? Slap. Why? Slap.

And then everything changed.

I hit the top of the climb and the most delightfully cool breeze hit me. Good heavens! I will tell you now that I can still remember that breeze to this day. It felt wonderful. And I looked out across the farmland and I saw millions of fireflies in the trees on the edges of the field. The sky held a trillion stars and the Milky Way was visible despite the crescent moon in the sky. In the distance a single light burned in a farmhouse. It was, and still is, the most beautiful scene I have ever witnessed. Once again I asked God why, if he could create such beauty, he could not heal my son. I asked him again…why?

And then God spoke to me. I’m not being metaphorical. I am being literal. I have had hallucinations at Mohican since that night. I once saw a gnome fishing along a river bank for instance…he was clear as day and I witnessed him for several seconds. I also saw a couple having sex in the middle of the trail in the middle of a mud puddle in the middle of the night once. Both of these situations were nonsensical and immediately evident to me that they were hallucinations. They were also wildly out of context. But God’s answer to me was real. I know it was real because of my faith but I also know it was real because the answer was so perfect in context and so unexpected in its nature. Over the previous months I had imagined that when God eventually answered me he would tell me that he was going to cure Colin, or that he held a magnificent plan of which Colin was a part. Instead he told me what he told me…and it was perfect. And it might upset poets or mystics or bible bangers everywhere but I’m not going to misquote God. I heard his answer.

God told me that it was none of my business.

I was more than a bit taken aback. How could it be none of my business? This had destroyed lives! Then God told me in a loving but firm voice that I was his servant. He reminded me that I had agreed to serve him and to do his will, and that my role was not to know his plan or to help him with his plan. He told me that my job was to raise Colin. My job was to care for my family and to serve him. Then he told me that he loved Colin and that he loved me and that he is with us.

And that was how it went. Some reading this might be doubtful and that’s alright with me. It really is.

Epilogue:
Since God was present he might have healed my feet or my rash. But he didn’t. I forgot to ask and maybe it didn’t occur to him to offer. I don’t know. And that’s alright with me also. It really is. I progressed toward the finish line by walking to one telephone pole and then aiming for the next one.

Telephone poles have become symbolic for me. As I made my way toward the finish line I realized that life has good patches and bad patches and my job is to keep moving…even if one telephone pole at a time is all I have in me.

It also occurred to me that, just as I had missed the hidden world of the disabled I had also managed to miss an awful lot of beauty in the world. Its okay to love beauty, I realized. And its okay to celebrate the good things. In fact it might be a sin to fail to celebrate when we are given a reason to do so.

After the race my family did not greet me as a returning hero. To them it was just another day. Dad was home and that was good. But everything really was different because this time I also noticed that it was good that I was home. Mohican had, as predicted, changed none of our problems but it completely changed how I saw them.

I also learned that things don’t always get worse. As the finish line drew near I was joined by two young women who thought I looked lonely and jogged along with me. They told me that I was in 9th place. The woman with the lisp, dressed head to toe in purple, was Colleen Theusch. And she did not have a lisp after all. She had not been telling me that I was intense; she had been telling me that I was in tenth place. Colleen is the heart and soul of Mohican and has become one of the best friends I have ever had. There will be a big loving blog post about her soon. I love her. She is amazing and the post will not do her justice. But I’m going to write it anyway.

The hippie turned out to have a name as well. Roy Heger has become one of the best known and most decorated ultra runners anywhere. He is also my friend. He called me a couple of weeks ago from the National Mall in Washington D.C. where he was loitering following his twelfth finish at the Massanutten 100 Mile Run. He told me he was smoking a cigar in a public place “before they decide to make this activity illegal too”. Roy is one of the good guys. I was wrong about him though…He is only the second toughest character I ever met.

A couple years after Mohican ‘97 Colin’s seizures slowed, and then they eventually stopped. He was the only patient in the history of the Cleveland Clinic with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome to ever stop having seizures. He has been almost 100 percent seizure free since that time.

His helmet was used as a toy for a while thereafter. It lingered around the house and he and his brother Caleb (born in 2000) used to pretend it was a space helmet.

He is now 17 years old and has a high functioning type of autism. He has five Special Olympics State Championships in 2 separate sports and I cannot, under any circumstances, dribble a basketball past him. Nor can I outshoot him. Or outswim him. Or hang with him in any activity that even remotely includes electronics. He will graduate from High school in 2013. He is tall and he is strong and he is handsome.

After the seizures stopped they performed an EEG at the Cleveland Clinic. His Doctor, the world’s foremost authority on childhood epilepsy, the woman who had (literally) written the go-to book on the subject, looked at the electroencephalogram report, peered over her glasses at me and said “Its normal”. How did this happen? I asked. But I knew the answer before she said it.

“God touched him.”

Grit and Greatness

2011-03-12T19:46:00.000-08:00

Shaun Pope was gone before I got there, but then again so was everyone else.

Getting to the start of the Green Jewel 50 km run had been challenging. And missing the start, even by a few seconds, added to the nightmarish quality of my morning, which included wind, cold rain, a malfunctioning Garmin, a missed bus, and a reported zombie sighting.

There really shouldn’t have been any reason for me to have been late for anything. I knew every inch of this course. I had literally grown up here. My earliest steps as a runner were along this very path 34 years ago and I had returned to this place so many times since then that I know the route as well as I have known any place. The starting line is located in a location now known as “Scenic Park” but old-timers still call this place by its former name…”Eddie’s Boat Dock”. This is hallowed ground for me. This is the place where Mac Tar and his buddies met for Saturday morning time trials. It was also the site of the CWRRC 30 km run; a viciously competitive race in the days before Ohio had a fall marathon. Everyone seemed to race so hard back then. I recall once seeing my father standing in a restroom located yards from the starting line of today’s race pissing blood following the 30K. The lost blood was later replaced with beer in celebration of his new personal record.

I couldn’t quite pull it together on this race morning. One moment I was leaning against the race director’s truck, removing my sweatpants and listening to him give final pre-race instructions and the next instant I was bobbling around, frantically trying to get my shoe un-jammed from my sweats, and watching the field head off for Brecksville without me. In hindsight the missed start really wasn’t any big deal. It only cost me a few seconds and honestly, in a 50 kilometer race spanning 1/2 of the Cleveland Metroparks, what would they matter? I dislodged my shoe, tried not to get bothered by the fact that my GPS wouldn’t start, tossed the torn sweatpants into the back of the truck (because it was closer than a trashcan) and threw an unimpressive surge to pass the thickest part of the pack prior to entering the narrow bike path.

As I passed the group I took a quick look around for Art Moore. I didn’t see him. If Art was really running today, as was rumored, he was surely the most legendary runner in the field. Running with a living legend is a boon to karma. Still though, as I headed into the 43 degree rain and gusty headwind I hoped that this time…just this one time…the great man had awakened, looked out the window and rolled over to return to sleep. Perhaps he would rise in a couple of hours and take his lovely wife of fifty years, Edina, to breakfast. Maybe for once he would read the Saturday Plain Dealer by the fireplace and leave the battle to others. This would be a tough day to run quickly but a dangerous day to run slowly.

I shouldn’t have wondered, or worried.

Art awoke on race morning and did what he has done on nearly all mornings for most of his 73 years; he put on his running shoes. Today he planned to run from one end of his domain to the other with the community that he started so long ago. The newest runners in the race couldn’t have known that the man unassumingly walking away from the start, holding a bottle of chocolate milk in one hand and an umbrella in the other, was indeed planning to be in Brecksville by the day’s end. They also might not have known that there was no runner in the field who was a surer bet to make it; this would be his 590th race of marathon distance or longer. But what they really couldn’t have realized were the ways in which Art changed the way we run and how we approach our sport. As incongruous as it may sound Art is probably one of the reasons why 22 year old Ultra-star Shaun Pope decided to throw a smile and a wave to the wet and chilly souls at the 4.9 mile aid station as he cruised in…and out again…leading the race at 6 minute per mile pace.

The early miles of the race flew by so quickly and with so few non-labored breaths that they really don’t need a description. Someone told me once that I occasionally write something that makes them feel like they are running along with me. They said that they can experience the run through the writing. In this case, gentle reader (you know who you are) please go stand in a freezing shower and hold your breath until it becomes painful. You will get the idea! During the early miles I listened to Kevin Landis tell a great pizza delivery story, stared at Brad Polman’s back, and tried to use my blunt/blind faith/denial strategy to keep moving forward. I also daydreamed. It was easy. After all, this course passed the sledding hill where my brother Steve learned that the cold-feet–relief that comes from pouring hot chocolate into your boots is a temporary and fickle thing with a price to pay when it, like everything exposed to 10 degree air, freezes. It passed the spot where Steve and I raced across a semi–frozen lake, fragile ice popping with each step, to escape an angry motorist whose car we hit with snowballs. It passes the old haunts of Walking Willy, a local character who put in more foot-miles than I ever have, and toboggan chutes where my 14 year old friends and I set the all-time record for descents. It passed so many memorable places; so many of the things that make me who I am. This might be a reader’s last chance to escape before I go into full-on reminiscence mode…

I was, for a while, a scout. I never made it to any level of scouting higher than the rank of “cub”, partially because I didn’t have the right stuff and partially because I could not, and still cannot, spell Webalow. The Trailside Interpretive Center marks the 10 mile point on the Green Jewel course and was the site of one of my greatest scouting memories. I was a member of Den 5. We were a troubled Den, never holding our own in the athletic competitions that were a part of our monthly pack meetings. Den 2 always won those. The reason we never won was because we were somewhat un-athletic and also terribly unruly. There wasn’t any such diagnosis as attention deficit disorder back then but I can tell you with perfect certainty that every single one of us would have been diagnosed with it today. Den 5 meetings always began with everyone chasing a boy named Dillon around and helping the den mother(s) to give him his “nerve medicine”. The meetings usually kinda went downhill from there. Sure there was the occasional success story: we made some ashtrays from clay and Christmas ornaments from coffee can lids and glitter. But mostly meetings were a time for yelling and learning new swear words from our den mother(s). We went through five den mothers in two years and there was talk of disbanding den five and spreading us, like refugees, among the more successful dens. That’s when my Dad stepped in…and became our den mother. Our actual mothers were either too busy, too afraid, or had already failed the assignment. Even though I earned a few ass-kickings on our school playground because of his new role, my father was the greatest den mother ever. No more crafts. Instead we played baseball, went on a tour of the nut and bolt factory where he worked, and went for hikes in the woods. He didn’t give a shit about earning badges and he taught us that we shouldn’t either. We had a blast! And I recall the greatest moment of all came on one beautiful fall day when we took advantage of Dad’s inattention during a smoke break and took off to the top of the cliffs at the Interpretive center…inches away from plummeting to our death. I still smile when I think of Dad looking up at us clambering toward heaven. I can still hear him yelling “Get down owathere!” I tried to forget the fact that we were running wayyyy too fast and had wayyy too long yet to run and escaped into the memories in the order in which they presented themselves.

Next on the memory parade was the Berea Lagoons. The Lagoons were the backdrop of our high school home cross country course and also the site of my unsuccessful attempts to kiss several girls. I remember very clearly a race in 1981 in which Rick Bechtel and I spent 2.4 miles of a 2.5 mile race trying to kill each other, until he simply destroyed my with his kick in the last 0.1 mile. I can still see him, in his Fairview Park/red-and-white-pinstripe jersey (It was the 80’s) running away from me, all foggy looking due to the cerebral anoxia he laid on me. Rick and I still race and the result is usually about the same. In fact he was running the Green Jewel this year and, despite my overly fast pace, was so far ahead of me that I could not even see him. Some things never seem to change.

By the time Art made it to the Trailside Interpretive Center Aid Station at 10 miles the temperature was still in the 40’s and was now accompanied by a steadily increasing headwind that would rake the entire length of this point-to point course. Ten miles ahead, one of the frontrunners, chilled to the bone, called it a day and climbed into a friend’s car. Today’s race, Art conceded, was going to be all about forward motion and avoiding hypothermia. He purposefully slowed his pace, zipped his windbreaker to his chin, and added increasingly frequent walking breaks ...Art earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College at the University of London prior to moving to Cleveland in 1966 where he worked in research for Union Carbide and raised three children with Edina. His jogging hobby grew into a passion that eventually brought him to the finish line of 38 races of 100 or more miles in length.

The land-bridge separating Wallace Lake and Baldwin Lake in Berea is currently famous for being the half-way point of the Green Jewel 50K. Before it was the halfway point of this race it was the site of the Strongsville Invitational, a massively important high school cross country meet back in my school days. My senior year I placed 63rd. If Rick Bechtel had overslept that morning I would have finished 62nd. Alas…

Anyhow, before it was the site of the Strongsville Invitational it was the place where Dad taught my brother Steve and I to swim. And before that it was the site of the Berea Sandstone Quarries. At one time Berea produced more sandstone than any other place on earth. Many buildings and bridges in New York City and Chicago, as well as most of the old buildings in Cleveland were built from Berea Sandstone. Next time you run the fender of your car into one of those CCC era parking barriers at Kendall Lake in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park you can know that your car has been the victim of a brush with…you guessed it…Berea sandstone! I was told by a high school history teacher that the base of the Eiffel tower was made of Berea sandstone but I dunno. What I do know is that James Wallace became very rich and famous as a result of these quarries. He later partnered with a previously failed academic, John Baldwin, and founded Baldwin-Wallace College. Major cities received building materials from this place, Berea was left with two beautiful lakes, Wallace made a fortune, Baldwin finally got his college, and I got some swim lessons. But the workers that mined the stone from these quarries were woefully underpaid. Conditions were abhorrent and the stone pits operated all year-round regardless of weather. Some of the cutters died in rock slides or explosions, others from pneumonia, and many of them succumbed to grit consumption. The workers would, over the years, consume particulate matter from the stone into their lungs where it would form into cysts and collect fluid, effectively drowning them. These men received absolutely no health care or compensation for this. There was an island in Coe Lake (Berea’s third quarry) where a base of a building used in the quarries still stood. My brother and I used to swim out to the Island on occasion. Our town’s official history was entitled “Men of Grit and Greatness” to commemorate the stone cutters.

We aren’t the toughest breed who have trodden this path. Not by a long shot.

After Art waded through shin-deep water at the Eastland Fjord and then passed Pearl Road at mile 17, the winds were whipping; runners unprotected for the moment as the valley floor began to rise. A couple walking their dog exchanged greetings with the older gentleman wearing a number. He appeared to be in some sort of race. But if that was the case, where were the other runners?...I was always amazed at Art’s ability to cover great distances with remarkable efficiency. In fact I used to kid with myself that Art reminded me of a zombie. It is a universal fact in Zombie lore, and demonstrated in all zombie movies, that if you are running from a zombie, you will always fail to get away. It mattered little that the person in the movie can fly along in a full sprint while to zombie moved at a slow lurching walk. Upon turning around the victim always found that the zombie was immediately on their tail. Art had the same effect. I would zip past Art and run and run and run for 30 or 45 minutes, only to turn around and find the legend 20 yards behind me…and WALKING! Art always said that the secret to ultra running was relentless forward progress.

Between Berea and Strongsville the course passes the former site of Roehm Junior High School’s home cross country course. It also passes the exact spot where coach Joe Ferlin made us stop on our first ever run so that he could tell us jokes. Coach Ferlin believed in us and taught us to believe in ourselves. I can recall no unpleasant experiences from Jr. High cross country. There was never a tense moment. Mr. Ferlin taught us that running should be fun. And it has been for 34 years. Thanks coach! His teams went six straight years without a single loss. Surely there is a lesson in there somewhere for the pressure mongers who seem to run youth sports today.

As Shaun Pope crested the big hill going into the final aid station at 24.5 miles he, rather unexpectedly, had a challenge on his hands. Another runner was trailing him by just 45 seconds with 6.5 miles of challenging roads remaining before the finish. Despite this stressor Shaun did what we do in our sport in this region; he smiled and tossed a lighthearted comment and a word of thanks to the frozen aid station workers.

Then he dropped it two gears and, literally and figuratively, headed for the hills.

About the time that Shaun was rolling into the finish in a course record time of 3:32 Art was making his way from Berea into Strongsville, far behind the other runners and bit behind the cutoff times for the aid stations… Arthur Moore was born in Newfoundland in 1938. He helped to organize, and competed in, the first Mohican 100 Mile Trail run in 1990 and was the second man to earn the 1000 mile buckle. He finished the race ten times in ten attempts and missed only once, to attend his daughter’s wedding. Art would warm up for each of these finishes by completing the mountainous Laurel Highlands 70 mile run the WEEKEND BEFORE Mohican. One year he completed the Laurel Highlands course and then turned around and ran back to the starting line again; a distance of 140 miles.

Heading toward Brecksville I took a downward glance at my poor old pink legs. Honestly, there are times when I wonder how they could still be turning over after all of these years. God, I love this sport and I am thankful for what the sport has made me. I’m also thankful for the hard times that it has seen me through. I took a look at my watch and realized that, against all odds, today would be a good one. And at 46 years of age I take the time to appreciate the good ones. I realize that a day will come when I won’t set any more personal records but today it looked like I would get one. And when a PR is on the line I can push very very hard, and so I did.

Heidi Finniff appeared from the gloom at mile 18 and handed Art a bottle of Coke and went on to the Stuhr Woods aid station to inform them that he was still in the race and ask them to keep the aid station open a while longer. They were happy to do so…Go to any ultra marathon anywhere in the United States and mention Art’s name, you will almost certainly find that he has friends in the field. Go to the finisher’s history of nearly any major 100 mile trail race, and you will find his name. Art claims that he has found joy in the act of running and friends in the people he has grown close to on the roads and trails. He also claims that after he achieves his 600th race he will slow down (then again he said that about the 500th). He recently joined a walking club with Edina and states that he has no wish to overstay his time in the sport like (to use Art’s words) “A fighter who has stayed in the ring too long”.

Brecksville! It was good to be arriving!! Unfortunately my only running memory from Brecksville is a shameful one. I was a sophomore in high school and we had a cross country meet against their local high school. In the race I found myself behind Ann Henderson. Ann was State champion in both cross country and track and she was much faster than me. As she was pulling away I imagined the ribbing I would get from my 15 year old friends about getting beat by a girl…then she took a wrong turn…and I let her go without correcting her. I told you it was a disgraceful story! Hey, I never claimed to be St. Francis.

A friend handed Art a 16-ounce bottle of Muscle Milk at the base of the big hill after he crossed Bennett Road. Roy Heger was still working the final aid station and provided a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for his old friend… Roy has finished nearly 50 one-hundred mile races himself and describes Art as one of the greatest influences on his running career. The great Regis Shivers always described Art as his Mentor. Look into Art’s performance history and you will find world class times and slow finishes. Art competed on roads, trails, tracks, deserts, swamps, and snowfields. He also ran races comprised of laps around stadium parking lots or construction zones.

Art was still running at the end even though the electronic course clock was not. It, being a less reliable machine than Art, had fritzed out in the rain. He came across the finish line in a time of 7:49. At the finish he was carrying another bottle of chocolate milk, a Snickers bar, and a bottle of V8. He would call Edina shortly and give her the good news.

At some point in life, if we are blessed, we will become who we are supposed to become. The experiences that make us who we are and the places that leaven us are sometimes not appreciated at the time and some of them are likely cast aside or forgotten. Sometimes we forget the grit and the greatness of those who built the places we now reside.But not always.

Art has run 24 hour runs and six day races. He ran a marathon in every state in the union and when he was finished with that task he completed a marathon in every Province in Canada, leaving one runner to ponder “I mean, how do you even find races up in the Yukon or the Northwest Territories?”

The greatest thing that Art did for us though, was to show us the way that our sport could be. He showed us that trail running could be a metaphor for life and a base around which a community could be built. He shared his fame and never used it to personal advantage. Cleveland really is the best Ultra running community in the United States. And it is the greatest ultra running community in the United States because Art modeled decency and humanity and kindness. The first time I arrived at the starting line of an ultra marathon, Art walked up and welcomed me. Then he led me around the parking lot and introduced me to his friends, who became my friends. Art and the others later met me at the finish line with encouragement, stories, and information about the next race.

This is how we do things in these parts.

This type of behavior is not universal in our sport, even though we would like to believe that it is. Travel to other parts of the country, race, and notice the difference if you don’t believe me. And the reason we do things in this way; the reason that the winner of one of our races looks out for the slowest runner, is because Art and Regis taught us to behave in this way. Others followed this example. The Godale brothers behave in the very same way. So does Roy Heger, and Fred Davis, and Terry Hawk, and Ron Ross. In fact all of the legends have an ethic of care about them. And the lesser known runners do as well. Most of us do; its who we are. And we teach it to the newer and younger runners by way of example. And it really did start with Art and a few others like him. Art raced hard and, on occasion, he raced to win, but the poor chilled souls at the aid stations always received a smile and a wave as he blew through.

I have not yet found out if Shaun and Art were able to meet this day, to shake hands on a race well fought; the first, the last, an original, a newcomer, history and history yet to be written. I hope they did.

God, they would love each other.

Atmosphere

2011-02-25T10:53:00.001-08:00

I am typing on my laptop on an airplane that, they tell me, is traveling at 34000 feet. This means that I am 34000 feet above any type of soil. I have spent the last few months apart from dirt and 34000 feet of altitude represents the most recent barrier. Even the trail shoes jammed into my carry-on bag have been scrubbed suspiciously clean by miles spent in the deep snow and ice of the past months. I can look out of my window and admire the clear ground below me. I can see dirt. I can also see scraps of jagged rock interspersed with winding roads leading to and from tiny doll-scale villages that occur occasionally in the distance. Mountains separate these towns. In some ways, they seem utterly alone in the universe and in other ways they seem like the very essence of community. It seems like they are spaced far enough apart to provide excellent weigh-stations for a pack of foot travelers. I imagine that it might be common for runners to see the world as one big opportunity to host an ultra. I seem to project this image onto nearly any landscape that I view. Or maybe I just dream about my preferred atmosphere when I am held captive in another.

I really do miss the feel of dirt. I miss the smell of mud. The other night I was doing some laps around the Delaware County Fairgrounds because the roads there tend to be nearly abandoned and yet, for some reason, reliably plowed. For about 50 yards on each of the 1.5 mile loops I was able to catch the scent of horse manure and it filled me with a longing for the trails at Mohican.

Dirt tends to attract trail-folk. Even though there are a lot of group runs happening in the area they differ in quality from the runs we have in warmer weather. No one stands around the parking lot for a long while visiting after a cold weather run and we are less likely to head off on an unexplored trail when the temperature is in single digits. This means we don’t get lost or dehydrated. Which means that we don’t get to live the best stories. Which means that the best stories don’t get told. Which means that our community grows on a smaller scale.

The sun is disappearing in the west and, even though our airplane is traveling toward it at a mighty speed, I feel certain that it will leave us soon. The communities below are beginning to turn on their lights and the entire effect reminds me of a small model village that I bought for my mother one year for Christmas. It consisted of 12 dollars worth of ceramic and paint modeled into a setting that Charles Dickens might use as the backdrop for a story that would both charm and depress the hell out of me.

She absolutely loved it.

In fact the Christmas village was placed front and center among the holiday decorations in our house and it became a bit of a tradition each year for family members to buy new buildings to add to it. After a decade or so it grew to an almost absurdly large size, occupying the better part of a room. It grew to have an ice pond with skaters that moved around the metallic ice utilizing technology borrowed from 1970’s electric/magnetic football games. My brother Steve used to climb into the middle of the village and take naps. Mom said he did it because it created a peaceful atmosphere.

The towns below kind of look like that. But mainly they look like quaint refuges from loneliness. Flying across the country reminds me that there are vast expanses of our country that are essentially unpopulated and looking down at the spaces surrounding the Dickensian communities fills me once again with charm and homesickness for places that I have never been. They seem so vulnerable…

The towns are likely not as peaceful as they seem from a distance. Reality can appear more palatable when we unfocus our minds, blur our vision a bit, and allow ourselves to be comforted by illusion. The villages below likely have wonderful inhabitants. But some of them might have hatred in their hearts. No doubt illness is a resident. And divorce. And envy. And sloth. And pride. Yet the residents must feel an attraction to each other and to their tiny corner of the world or they would not likely stay. From a distance my brother was attracted to the peacefulness of a nap in a lighted, miniaturized paradise but from a closer proximity he could notice that the buildings did not match each other in scale or in style. Some were made of plastic, some of ceramic, and some didn’t even fit the Christmas theme. None of this bothered Steve at all. But as the pioneering founder of the Christmas village it troubled me occasionally that we didn’t do a better job of civic planning. Why couldn’t we have a village that matched? Why would Santa’s workshop be located across the street from the train station? And why were there two sets of reindeer, one set languishing on a rooftop and another safely tucked into their stable on the other end of town? Furthermore, if baby Jesus was being born in a manger on the west side of town, how would it be possible that a Christian church, complete with carolers and a large crucifix on the steeple, was concurrently in full operation 2 blocks away? Steve was the biggest culprit of the lack of zoning and as the village’s most loyal trustee, he was also the largest donor…buying trees, train models, covered bridges and tiny citizens that clearly represented different eras (Why would a paperboy be delivering to a wise man?). I asked Steve once why we didn’t break the town up into one old town, one new town, and maybe one biblical town.

He told me to shut up. And so I did.

The only thing keeping me from becoming a rather flattened member of one of the communities below is about 8 inches of plastic, steel and insulation. I am flying along in a Tylenol shaped tube that weighs many thousands of pounds. The plane can, for reasons that have been explained to me dozens of times but still strain my ability to find faith in them, stay aloft and warm. It seems like this aircraft must be the most fragile housing unit on the planet. Catastrophe lies inches away and yet I have convinced myself to climb aboard anyway. I managed to book and keep this flight the way I manage to do most scary things. I blunt my mind to the coldest facts and top this obtuseness with a large dollop of denial. In this way I can convince myself that I am being perfectly safe and logical, even sophisticated, though catastrophe lies inches away. I passed a billboard on the way into the airport that depicted a successful and happy couple sitting in comfortable seats on their aircraft, sharing what appeared to be a Nescafe moment. That would be nice. I am now at a closer proximity to an actual aircraft though and from up-close I notice that my lap tray has 2 loose bolts. It didn’t seem like the successful, happy, in-love couple needed to hold their tray table up by propping it against one of their knees. I wonder if there are any other, massively more important bolts that are loose. But I only wonder this for a moment before successfully applying my blunt/blind-faith/denial strategy. I also notice that the other passengers on the airplane aren’t smiling or laughing. The flight attendant came along a while ago and I asked for a Nescafe just to see what he would say.

He handed me a coffee. And so I drank it.

This isn’t my real environment. That’s why I don’t like it. My own environment is highly imperfect and uncomfortable, even dangerous at times but I feel an attraction to my tiny corner of the world or I would not likely stay.

A few weeks ago I met four friends and we did a six mile run in the cold. The temperature was four degrees below zero and for the first mile we trudged through deep snow and no one spoke. It seemed crazy. But then the expected happened. We warmed up. We knew we would and we were, once again, correct. Conversation melted into a drip and then became a flow. The woods turned beautiful; we had them to ourselves. Only distant parking would be available at the mall today and lines would form for the treadmill at the health club, but this world was ours. We had created our own environments. Aside from our chatter the woods were completely silent. All life other than us was in torpor and if I allowed myself to look from a closer and less blunted vantage point I could easily see why. The cold really was deadly. We had each created approximately a ½ inch atmosphere around our bodies that was sustained by our running. We might as well have been wearing space suits. I suppose that in a way we were. Everything around us was harsh and cold and lonely. Everything was forced to a standstill except us. We were the only exception that existed in the entire woods.

We were mismatched. Two of us were former football players and still had the build for it. One runner was in his first year at the sport and was flourishing. Another was into his 34th year and creaky as a wooden ship. Two were beautiful women, one younger than the other but each completely lovely and tough.

And it was wonderful.

Many years ago a severe hip injury took my running away and I was fearful that it would never return. My search for an alternative led me to mountain biking and it wasn’t a bad place to land. I put a lot of time, effort, and money into it. For a few years mountain biking was fantastically popular. The Trek bicycle company put large amounts of money into ads that showed young, strong athletes careening downhill and “catching air” off dirt ramps. Throngs of people went out and bought mountain bikes only to discover, when they had a closer perspective, that for every air-catching moment on a mountain bike many miles are spent grinding away on a muddy uphill with a clogged derailleur; an activity akin to mixing concrete with your legs. This activity suited me fine and so I kept at it but others left the sport to reside in alternate imperfect environments. The cycling eventually healed my hip and I went back to my world of torn windbreakers and broken shoelaces. I trekked the icy sidewalks of my hometown and looked longingly at the pictures of trail running magazines that depicted photos of a world where all running was performed downhill with the wind at your back. In our world trails, when not icy or buried under snow, tend to be muddy, or occupied by horseflies. Yet we must feel an attraction to each other and to our tiny corner of the world or we would not likely stay. My friends and I fit more uniformly into our workaday environments. But for some reason each of us can agree that when we are in those segregated places we daydream of the woods and our mismatched friends.

I believe that one of the benefits of having free will is that we get some amount of say over the environment in which we can exist. To some degree we choose our environments. We choose what we should cloak ourselves in. And our cloaks will become our barrier against the coldness, tragedies, and peril that can exist just outside of them. One of the things that I dislike about flying is the enclosed cultural space in which I find myself while waiting for my plane. No matter which airport I am in I find precisely the same atmosphere and it always reflects perfectly our modern culture. It is a world of USA Today and Good Morning America. People and Skymall magazines help us to pass the time. It occurs to me that if we don’t choose our cloak then someone will help us to choose it. In fact I wonder how much of our culture exists to assist us to create a space in which we feel like we are part of a community. I love America. My parents risked everything to come here to provide a better life for us. And they succeeded. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. But the distant stars and stripes, bald eagles, and stories of cherry trees being chopped down can give way, during a close proximity inspection, of the imperfections that exist. Berndt Heinrich wrote that America might essentially be an experiment, the hypothesis of which is: a nation can be built on the notion that free enterprise and consumption can sustain order. Education, jobs, laws, and infrastructure exist, at least in part, to support our means of selling to one another. And the basis for many of these sales seems to be consumption of products that will help us to demonstrate, through our style, where we belong in this place…how we shield ourselves from the coldness of being alone.

When we are born we are free from sin. And we are, for a while, free from temptation. Then we start the journey into the coldness. At some point we will decide upon a protective atmosphere and we will grow to become the inhabitant of that atmosphere. It will be who we are.

I have been told that I came from dirt and, they tell me, that I will return to it. What they didn’t tell me is that one option that I can choose in life is to never be far from it. That’s the choice I am making at the moment and so far it suits me fine.

Steve adopted the Christmas town after Mom passed away and kept it until his own death last year. My sister Noelle is the current owner. She offered to give each of the four remaining siblings a part of it. We all declined. We thought it would be wrong to segregate such a well established and successful community. The imperfect environment works for its own strange and mysterious reasons and it might be a sin to edit it.

Us and Them

2010-11-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

To be very clear: I am receiving e-mails from early readers who are offering sympathy re: Mac's death. This is very sweet but Mac is a bit of a composite character. There is some artistic (I'm using the word loosely) license taken. Mac is absolutely based on a real guy. But that guy is still alive and running well and as cranky as ever....and he does love Shaun Pope. Who doesn't? Peace. --Mark
Oh, and while I'm at it...the Frank Shorter stuff in this article came from plenty of other authors, mostly Kenny Moore. I remember watching the race, but not in that kind of detail : )

Mac Tar died at 11:32 a.m. on Tuesday, September 26.

Well, his “clock time” was 11:32, but his “chip time” was 11:26. Mac had been a runner forever and ever and ever. He was kind of old but runners live to ripe old age unless they fall over cliffs or are killed by angry spouses. And so the funeral was crowded. In fact it was so crowded they had to use a wave start to accommodate all of those who wished to pay their respects. I arrived late and so I was placed in one of the later waves but, despite this, I was there when the honor guard came through and placed the thin silver mylar blanket across his coffin; an honor reserved exclusively for veterans…of many races. When the blanket was in place the most senior officer gave Mac’s widow a 3-inch piece of rounded metal that stated that Mac had completed a course that began on August 18, 1946 and concluded on September 26, 2010. It was his final finisher’s medal. Some of the mourners told stories of Mac’s many adventures. Some even risked telling a joke or two. Some of them simply stretched their gastoc/soleus muscle groups and sobbed. They each, in turn, passed the refreshment table, quickly downed a cup of punch, and threw the cup on the floor. They were who they were and so they did things in this way.

Mac Tar was a roadie.

Mac was always a roadie I suppose. But back then, back in my childhood when I met Mac, back when I had never met anyone like him before, back before Frank, and Bill, and Fred Lebow, and back before the Galloway-zation of his beloved sport, there really wasn’t any such term. Actually all runners were roadies…well almost. There were the track guys, but they mostly kept to themselves, wouldn’t condescend to speak to a road racer, and ran for medals, awards, and records. They ran for schools and when they graduated they were usually done. The track guys became cross country guys in the off-season…but they were trackies nonetheless. Other than this small sect nearly everyone ran road races.

Being a roadrunner wasn’t what made Mac stand out. The thing that made Mac stand out, the thing that made him unusual, the thing that made him fascinating and, well, odd, was the fact that he was a marathoner.

I remember as a kid my Dad would, twice a year, load me into our family car and we would drive to Medina to hoard up on meat at a packing plant there. Back then there wasn’t really anything in Medina and so we would drive into the country; Dad throwing Pall Mall butts out the window every now and again. It was a 25 mile round trip and Dad would always tell me that Mac could run to the meat packing plant and back if he wanted to. It was almost too much for my 8 year old mind to grasp. Mac lived just down the street from us and I would sit on his lawn mower in his garage and visit with him occasionally. He wore a very tiny bicycling hat and he had a lengthy beard. He also wore John-Lennon-Granny-Glasses. Unlike every other adult I knew, he was extremely thin. He would do bizarre stretching exercises involving very rapid movements and he would talk about how, out on the road, in that space between the physically possible and the physically impossible, during the miles that the body traveled mysteriously without fuel, he would have (and I’m using his exact language) a “mind blowing, freak-out journey” where he would connect with the universe through his acts of unexplainable endurance. My Dad liked him well enough and used to say “He’s OK … I wouldn’t loan him any money or introduce him to my sister…but he’s harmless enough.” My Mom, on the other hand, was scared shitless of the guy.

Mac had a handful of friends who ran marathons as well. They didn’t live near each other but they would meet at Eddie’s boat dock in Lakewood on Saturday mornings and race each other for 10 miles, after which they would do a ten-mile warm-down run. Mac once finished in third place at the Heartwatcher’s marathon in Bowling Green in a time of 2:38. Heartwatcher’s was considered to be one of the most competitive marathons in the Midwest, but it was nothing compared to Boston. Every spring Mac and his buddies would travel to the Boston Marathon where HUNDREDS of runners would practice his craft. I imagined it exactly as Mac described it; a gathering of practitioners of the art of super-endurance. Mac was known for having these abilities and for living on the line between the physical and the spiritual, and he wore the reputation well.

He was our town’s hippie-monastic-marathoner.

Then one day in September of 1972 Mac’s world changed a bit. Mom was out of town and so Mac was over at our house drinking cans of POC with Dad and watching the Olympic Marathon on TV. The field of Olympic marathoners, Mac explained, was loaded. The defending champion, a mysterious runner from Ethiopia, was back, and there was a guy from Australia who held the world record for the marathon and bragged of running so hard that he “pissed blood” after workouts. One guy from Great Britain had once won the BOSTON MARATHON (!) and came to the line dressed, head-to-toe, in a special metallic-looking outfit designed to deflect heat. There was also an American runner, Frank Shorter, who was running so well that the TV network decided to televise the entire race live. Mac explained that Shorter was terrific but he was really a track guy and shouldn’t be expected to compete with the marathon superstars running through the warm streets of Munich. To add to the drama, the network brought in Eric Segal, one of Frank’s classics professors from Yale, to describe the poetry of the marathon to the American viewers. Segal was a marathoner himself and explained the concept of “The Wall”. He told the story of the ancient battle on the plains of Marathon and explained, in a more poetic way than Mac could, that the marathon was a race of attrition. Runners would place the dial exactly on the line between cruising and overheating, and the last one to run out of fuel was the winner.

Segal was most famously known as the author of ”Love story”, a book-turned-movie-turned-box-office-runaway-hit. The most famous line from the movie was “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”.

At the 15 kilometer mark in Munich Shorter demonstrated that he must have been paying attention in Segal’s class as he unapologetically threw down a 67 second quarter mile, followed immediately by a 68, then another 67, then another 68. At which point he was 150 yards clear of the field. Mac was shaking his head at the tragedy. “You can’t do that man!” cried Mac. “He is blowing his glycogen out. He’s gonna run out of fuel and the big boys are gonna eat him up when he crashes into the wall at 20 miles”.

Surges like this, Segal explained, were common in the late stages of a marathon, but what Frank was doing was risky, may be too risky. This was the stuff you would see in track races. Frank was a track man and this was a mistake. Shorter seemed unconcerned as he ran the same pace as his chasers (steady five minute miles) and held his lead.

Three miles later he repeated his surge and doubled his lead.

And three miles after that he did it again and put the race completely out of reach.

Segal spoke poetically of the mysticism of the marathon but his words were in stark contrast to the ass-kicking that America was watching on the screen. Sure, Shorter was delightful to watch. His stride was perfectly balanced and smooth as silk …but then again so was one of Mohammed Ali’s knockout punches. Frank didn’t look monastic at all; he looked athletic. And with the race a foregone conclusion, and many miles to cover, the USA and the world were allowed to witness the flow of power that represented what marathon running could be. It looked natural. It looked attainable. It looked…beautiful. It looked like what humans, normal people, were meant to do.

Later that night my Dad put on his loosest pair of pants, and a green softball windbreaker, and went for a jog. So did millions of other Americans. Soon there were marathons and marathoners everywhere. A few years after Shorter’s win we had several marathon runners on my block alone. Heck, my old man could now run to the meat packing plant and back if he felt like it.

And at the same time America’s track guys, the only people watching the Munich race that comprehended why Shorter was surging, began to put in long Saturday morning runs themselves.

The marathon went haywire. It seemed like everyone in the world had an aunt or an uncle or a sibling who could run a marathon…and not all of them were slow. The track guys came in and turned the race into a stiff 20 miler followed by a 10,000 meter race.

Mac ran hundreds of marathons after that and he had many adventures. But he never really seemed the same. Something was now different and you could see it in Mac’s eyes. He was still a leader in his community but his community was now huge. He never turned bitter and he never stopped running, or being loved. But I believe that for the rest of his life he felt an emptiness that he couldn’t ever completely identify.

The last time I saw Mac we had a good chance to visit. And we had a lot to talk about. I had completed the Youngstown Ultra Trail Classic (YUT-C) 50 Kilometer run the day before and then drove to Cleveland to volunteer at the North Coast 24 Hour Run, which was serving as this year’s USATF National Championship. After having run the Youngstown race, failing to shower, and staying up all night I wasn’t looking or feeling well. Mac joked with the hospice nurse that I should “pull up a bed and get hooked up to the laughing gas”.

I told Mac about the 24 hour race but he was in some pain, or maybe just disinterested. I was unsure whether he wanted to talk at all and I was considering whether or not I should simply leave and allow him to rest. Then he asked about Shaun. Mac never actually met Shaun Pope but he did attend the Run for Regis 50 Kilometer Trail run last winter. He came to the race to see me run. Mac always said that I was “reformed” because I left my “Trackie” ways behind for the marathon. He didn’t quite get this trail running business, though, and wanted to witness the weirdness first hand. Mac caught one look at Shaun running far ahead of the rest of the field at Regis, protected from the ice and snow by only shorts and a T-shirt and an ear-to-ear smile, and became an instant fan. “That kid doesn’t see the need for those water bottles you seem to have developed an addiction to” he said, peering accusingly at my fanny pack. “Yeah, Shaun is amazing but if he crashes with no warm clothes or water he will be in trouble” I said. “Guarantees!” grunted Mac. “Everyone wants a guarantee. That kid guaranteed his success while he was training, so he knows he WON’T crash.” Mac saw Shaun as the real deal and he smiled when I told him that I was barely past the finish line, with most of an EIGHT MILE lap still ahead of me at YUT-C when I heard the siren go off and the crowd cheering for Shaun as he won the race. “See?” he said, “I told you that kid was the gen-u-ine article!”

I also told Mac some of the things that were bothering me about the weekend, and about the sport in general. For one thing there were now so many races that the competition was getting spread thin. Worse yet most of my friends were attending different races and we never seemed to see each other anymore. I told him that I was afraid that it was killing our community. Mac told me that he knew just what I meant. “It used to be” he recollected “that in a nothing race like the Rocky River 5 Mile you’d have to break 25:30 to get into the top twenty. What was your time that year when you came home from college and got third?” he asked. ”I ran a 25:45” I admitted “And I see your point. There must have been five other races in Northeastern Ohio that weekend”. Mac nodded “Well its even worse now. These days there must be 10 races each weekend in Cleveland alone, all of them 5K’s it seems, and you can win plenty of them if you can string three sixes together. It seems like having more races would provide more opportunities and lead to faster times, but when the fast guys never race each other they stop needing to be fast. Know what I mean?” I nodded “Yeah, I got 7th at YUT-C but if you threw all of the ultra-folks racing in Ohio that day into one race, like it would have been several years ago, I wouldn’t have likely cracked the top forty. Shawn won the race by close to an hour. Imagine what he would have run if he was pushed!”

I told Mac that during the Youngstown race I took an epic fall. I fall down occasionally when I race, I suppose everyone does, and Mac knew this. But this fall was a bad one. I tore up my elbow, scraped most of the skin from my shin, and for several minutes thought that I might have fractured my kneecap. As I was standing up I noticed that my very good friend Terri Lemke had chosen the exact same moment to take a similarly serious spill just ahead of me on the trail. The runner who was running between Terri and I simply sidestepped her and continued on down the trail. I had never seen this type of behavior in a trail race before and it made me furious. We have a tradition in trail running of looking out for one another. If a runner gets hurt you help. If a runner has no water you share. If it means that your race is slightly slower that’s OK.

We are who we are and so we do things in this way.

But this guy just ran right on past. “Its all of these roadies invading the sport Mac, they just don’t get it! There’s litter all over the trails as well. I volunteered at the Towpath marathon last year and you wouldn’t have believed it, thousands of paper cups everywhere. People just throw them on the course. And they all seem to complain if there aren’t trophies and expensive T-shirts. Heck, its 65 dollars to enter a race anymore because of the swag that the roadies expect. And there are so many of them that if you don’t register for a race several months in advance it sells out.” Then I realized that there are bigger problems in life and added “Sorry to whine.” Mac responded “Hey friend, no sense in breaking an old habit now; Not on my account anyway.” Then he smiled and said “ But I know what you mean. Back the first year your old man ran Cleveland they shut the course down after four hours. Now you got folks walking the thing in 7 hours and stopping to shop for dress shoes along the course. Do you suppose that they would have let our boy Shaun run at Regis if he didn’t have his money in quick enough?” Now it was my turn to smile “I don’t know Mac. Everybody loves Shaun so maybe, but a slower or less charming guy might get shut out in favor of a window shopper with a fast internet connection.” The nurse came back into the room to turn Mac and heard this part of the conversation. Mac winked at her and said “Well then this guy better stay near the mailbox because he hasn’t won a race or a congeniality contest in years.”

We talked for a while longer about running, then about friends, and family. After awhile I noticed the nurse giving me the skunk-eye and figured that was my sign to leave. “Hey, tell your Dad hi”. He said. I promised that I would. Then he said “About the roadies Mark. Forget it man. If they start to bother you spend that energy running. The track guys?… shit. And housewife marathoners attending aerobics classes at the starting lines of marathons used to drive me nuts. But after awhile I figured that as crazy as the world is, they might just as well be out running somewhere instead of sitting in a bar, or a crack house, or a prison. Everybody is a little bit fucked up you know. It just depends which flavor of weird you prefer.” I nodded “Its OK Mac I’m not all that bothered. I figure if I went from a trackie, to a roadie, to a trail guy I can become something else if I need to. I hear there’s a trail around Mt. Ranier that is like 95 miles. They don’t give T-shirts but the entry fee is free if I decide to attend.”

“I should have hit some of your trails Mark. If you go to Ranier you better bring that fanny pack along. But seriously dude, no aerobics at the start. A man does need to draw the line.”

I bought a house last spring that sits on my estate, which measures 1/10th of an acre. Sometimes I like to feel like I’m in the country so I burn sticks in my fire pit and look up at the stars, and think about life. When stars aren’t available I look up into the streetlights, and think about life. A few days after Mac died I was sitting by the fire burning pieces of a box spring mattress that wouldn’t fit up the stairs when I moved in. There were no stars out and some kids shook the streetlight so it wasn’t on. And so I looked into the fire and thought about life. I felt kind of bad about burning the wood pieces of the box spring. That was some lucky wood. I figured it could have survived maybe 50 years if I had left it alone. On the other hand if it had remained a tree it could have been toppled, of it could have lived hundreds of years. Who knew? I wondered if it would be better to be dead with a guaranteed future or alive with a chance of catastrophe at any time. There are some large trees in my neighborhood and I started thinking that the best thing might be to be alive but part of a very well established tree. Most of a larger, older tree would be made of inner wood…lots of rings. The wood on the inside of a tree did its growing years ago and now seems to be safe from the harm that a small fire, or a mild drought, or a kid with a crush and a pocket knife might cause. The wood on the inside would be safe. It would be alive but it would no longer be growing. It occurred to me that the world is full of people like this. And the running world is filled with runners like this as well.

Mac used to say that when it comes to success in running that “Maintaining is easier than attaining”. His point was that it could take years to get your training right, your aerobic level built up, and your racing skills honed. He said that after a runner hit this level they could actually do much less work, and virtually no experimenting, and maintain this level. Mac didn’t believe the old adage that we are either improving or growing worse, but never static. He told me that he knew plenty of folks who were, and are, static. As I looked into the fire I figured that these people would be the inner rings on a tree; alive but not growing.

The older I get and the more years that I run the more I believe that Mac might have been correct. I have noticed that all of my friends who are new runners, or at least runners who are new to trail running, are those who are doing the most extreme work. My newish running friends always seem to be those who are doing the crazy shit like running back-to-back 50K’s, or running with no shoes, or staying out for six hours in a freezing weather…maybe with only a T-shirt and a smile. These new runners, many of them new to the trails or, if you prefer “reformed roadies”, seem to be the hungriest. These individuals, like the outer ring of a tree, are exposed to the harshness and uncertainty of their environment, but they also seem to be the runners, the people, who are improving. I know far too many seasoned and accomplished champions of industry, or champions of the academy, or champions of immigration reform, or champions of the trail who would be inside by a fire talking about the old days and defending their ever encroached-upon turf while the newbies are out producing growth and sending up new branches. Even though Mac preached of the growth that comes from newness I think that he only really recognized its truth near the end. And I think he saw it in Shaun.

I don’t know why people always seem to divide into tribes. Why do we always defend the status quo? If we are actually improving then why would we ever miss the past? Maybe we are lazy and wish to exclude newcomers. Maybe we are hoarders of glory.

Then again maybe we aren’t so very evil. Maybe we miss the old days because we miss the exclusivity of it all. Maybe we just miss our youth.

October is prime marathon season and so it was recently time for the Towpath Marathon again. I was running it this time and I was running along pretty well, all things considered. It was, as expected, chaotic and crazy and you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a cross trainer. Near the end the temperature started to climb and I started to lose it a bit. The clock was ticking and time is a worthy opponent, especially when a course lacks the accustomed adversaries: roots, rocks, mud, and hills.

And so I took a quick swig of punch from the table and threw the cup onto the trail. This was where I found myself and so I did things in this way.

Calling it Quits

2010-09-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

Munson Fisher didn’t let out a victory howl. He didn’t throw his hands into the air and he didn’t perform an end-zone dance. But he did smile. The smile took a while to spread across his face but after it was in place it remained for another while. Then he reached into his mailbox and withdrew the contents.

Munson’s mail isn’t like my mail and maybe it doesn’t resemble your mail either. For starters there was lots of it. The box was about ½ full. And it was comprised of letters, and cards, and two small packages. My mail typically consists of coupons and a few bills from companies who cannot or will not send them to me electronically. My mail is so dull that sometimes I forget to check for it. But Munson is 82 years old and he doesn’t like the idea of Facebook or e-mail. He told me that when he receives a message he likes to see the handwriting; he likes to know that his loved-one held the paper in his or her hand. His mail is his link to all those that he loves. And by the look of the pile there seemed to be a lot of them. With mail in hand Munson took a long pull on his oxygen canula and began the 45 yard return trek up the driveway.

I was Munson’s physical therapist and a couple of times a week, for a couple of months this summer, I would go to his house to work on his balance, strength, and endurance. Munson was patient with my advice but he really only wanted to do one thing; he wanted to walk. And so on most days he would reject my suggestions for core strengthening exercises and instead we would head straight for the mailbox. I always asked him to use his walker. I told him that he could lean on it and take rest breaks. But he never brought it along because he figured he would need a free hand to carry the mail on the return trip. And so twice a week for most of the summer we would get part way to the box before running out of steam and returning to the house to report the disappointing news to Dear.

Mrs. Fisher probably had a first name but I never learned it. Munson simply referred to her as Dear and she referred to him by the same name. They had the kind of love that every single person on this earth seeks. And they had had it for better than 60 years. They always called each other Dear even when speaking in a third person narrative. “Dear thinks I should be able to make this trip any time I want to, but I know my limits” he would say. “No amount of nagging is going to get me there.” And then we would smile because the man hadn’t been nagged twice in 60 years and we both knew it.

It wasn’t that the Fishers hadn’t had some rough times. Sixty years can serve up its share of troubles and the Dears hadn’t been spared. Munson told me tales of health problems involving family members, periods of unemployment, work stressors, meddling in-laws, and crises of faith that could ruin a family. I asked him how, then, did their marriage survive? His response was “Divorces happen at the courthouse and we swore that we’d never go through the front doors of that place”.

When Munson arrived home Dear peered from out the kitchen and spoke in a whisper “Well the prodigal son returns!” Munson responded by holding up the fistful of mail for her to admire. Her response came in the form of a wink after which she added “Well its about time”.

My habit for most of the summer had been to stop at the Fisher’s mailbox after our appointment and jog the mail back up the driveway. This time, though, I drove past the mailbox and smiled at the good Karma I had just been exposed to. I was on my way to the Burning River 100 Mile Endurance Run and I figured Munson’s success bode well for my own chances. “Yepper” I thought, “It seems like a good weekend for going the distance”.

Burning River was perfect. A world class field was on hand to compete for the USATF National Championship, the trails were well-marked and dry, and the temperature was even reasonably low after a month of scorching heat. The aid stations were well-stocked and humming with enthusiastic volunteers. A very astute person could look far and wide for a reason to fail and not be able to find one. I even had great company. Suzanne Pokorny and I ran together for hours and hours. Everyone knows Suzanne and everyone loves her. It was like running with a celebrity. Suzanne had the dual role of runner and volunteer coordinator to fill on this day and so we tended to linger just a bit at aid stations…but the love we absorbed from the volunteers made it time well spent.

Despite all of this goodness I was suffering. As early as 25 miles something was wrong and I knew it. I was tired. Lightning Strike tired, and by 55 miles I was into a familiar but dreaded pattern:

It always starts with a spray of sweat. I sweat all day long during an ultra marathon but my sickness-sweat feels different; it is copious and not in line with the normal cooling-function that sweat serves. In fact the sickness-sweat is accompanied by chills that, if not addressed, very rapidly develop into full-on hypothermia. Terrible nausea is a consistent companion. The only solution that I have found is to bundle up in winter hat, light jacket, and light gloves, walk very slowly, and not eat or drink anything. Sometimes I can walk it off in about 10 hours or so. At Boston Store Suzanne was taking time to visit with friends and change clothes. We were hours ahead of the cutoff times but I knew that my night would be reduced to walking 20-25 minute miles and so, despite our comfortable time cushion I felt a need to save every possible minute. I pressed on alone.

Shortly after leaving Suzanne I heard the horrible little internal voice that told me it would be OK to stop. I swatted it like a fly. I knew how to get to the finish and I intended to make it. The cold grew around me as the sun went down. I shuddered when I saw shirtless runners cruise past me. One moment I was burning hot so I would take my hat off. The next moment the chills would be upon me and so the hat went back on. The walk became especially hard heading into Happy Days Aid Station. The love and good will I was able to absorb going through the Pine Lane Aid Station was present at Happy Days but by that time I was so sick that I couldn’t participate and allow it to refuel me. The walk through the ledges was beautiful but endless. I stopped at one point to vomit for perhaps the 12th time and couldn’t recognize the material that I produced.

It looked like salt.

My high school cross country coach always told us that there was a moment in any race when a runner would, consciously or subconsciously, decide to accept the challenge, accept the pain and discomfort involved, and actively engage in the race. The sad alternative was that when the decisive moment came a runner could withdraw from the challenge; allow the pressure and discomfort to convince them to back off. The idea that this moment exists has always intrigued me. I have tried in races, over the years, to identify the moment when it came. I have always wondered what series of thoughts, or bits of happenstance, would cause us to commit to the race. I have equally wondered why we would ever choose, after training for hundreds of hours and thousands of miles, to call off the challenge on a moment’s notice.

At Kendall Lake I stopped to look at the heavens. As I raised my head skyward sweat that had been collecting in my toboggan hat broke loose and trickled down my spine in an icy rivulet. There were a million stars out and somewhere lovers marveled at them, but all I could see was coldness. Space is a cold and vast place and as I peered up I saw steam rising from my face into the light of my headlamp; my sacrifice to the void. It wouldn’t matter though. All of my body heat could never raise the temperature of space by one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a degree. By this point the doubts were surrounding me and I was doing my best to fend them off. The lone plaintiff voice seeking a DNF ten miles before had turned into a jury of demons that chose to convict me of the sin of pride:

“Who do you think you are?”

“You asked God for a buckle at Mohican and you got one. Now you are here seeking another?”

“Why should you deserve it?”

“Couldn’t your energy over the past six weeks have put to less selfish use?”

“You have jettisoned friends on this very trail on this very day, and you have jettisoned loved ones in your life for this. Those aren’t the actions of a strong man.”

I have come to expect these voices. They seem to have become more pointed and accurate in their assertions in recent years but I am aware that they only get a vote on the outcome if I give them one.

Instead of listening I formed my own counter debate:

“I am a good man.”

“I was one of Elmore Banton’s Bobcats.”

“I have run 80,000 miles in preparation for this and I have succeeded in a similar endeavor 10 times.”

I had been speaking to myself like this for miles and miles and miles. Sometimes I spoke silently and sometimes I spoke aloud. But as I headed back into the woods from Kendall Lake I began to realize that none of it mattered. Not my PR’s, not my 34 years in the sport, not the buckles, ribbons, or trophies; I was alone and I was sick. Each piece of trail now required a decision.

I have often wondered what will eventually end my running career, and I suppose each person wonders on occasion what will end their life. I always figured that my connective tissue would go first. I have many aging friends who are now hikers and cyclists. They carry with them a torn ligament or permanently scarred tendon from their years in the world’s simplest sport. It seems in my case that my end might come as a result of my stomach. It takes 60-70 miles for my stomach to go out on me. And so for the moment my stomach only effects my performances in 100 mile runs. But it effects me a bit earlier every year and soon it might invade my 50 milers and then my marathons. The thing that I love about 100 mile races is the fact that they represent the absolute limits of my physical ability. I don’t know if anyone really knows how difficult it is for me to finish one. The distance exposes every physical and mental weakness that I have. Most runners don’t run this far and so most runners don’t truly know what their weakest link is. They are simply surprised one day when the final injury occurs. I think now that I know how my ultras will end. And as I walked along through the freezing 68 degree night it occurred to me that all of us, even the superstars that were already past the finish line, warm and rewarded at that very moment, will ultimately become persons trying to function well enough to stay in contact with their world despite its geographical boundaries… be they mountains, rivers, or 45 yard long driveways.

When I was younger I kind of half believed the platitude that “Pain is just weakness leaving the body”. That was before I really knew anyone who was in pain. I no longer believe that such a one-to-one correlation exists. My brother Steve died of cancer last spring and Steve wasn’t a weak man. The pain he went through was such a maelstrom that there couldn’t possibly have been enough weakness to fuel it. I also think that Nietzsche waswrong when he stated that “That which does not kill you makes you stronger”. I think that there are plenty of things that will not kill you and yet will leave you weaker. If you don’t believe me spend a few nights on the neurology ward at Children’s Hospital.

That’s the type of experience that will calibrate your shit.

There is a place for optimism in 100 mile runs though. In fact I don’t think I could ever finish one without it. One hundred mile runs are metaphors at best. When we speak of dying during a race it is not meant to be disrespectful to the natural and very serious act of actually dying. The pain we feel in a race isn’t remotely comparable to the pain of a cancer patient or the tortured hearts of broken persons or families. Only through analogy do 100 mile race reports have any business on the same page as writings about death or divorce. Platitudes and mental models have their place as well. But 70 miles into Burning River I couldn’t get my sick chilled being to absorb their nutrients. I wondered if it is all so simple. I wondered if Munson was right. Is keeping a marriage alive really as simple as refusing to quit? Is not quitting really as simple as refusing to make the trip to the courthouse?

I have absolutely no idea.

After leaving Kendall Lake I took more steps into a patch of woods, then into more open field. The bad patches and good patches were coming more rapidly now, sometimes each would only last a moment or so and I began to see each step as a choice. I thought about Steve. I was with him when he took his final breath and I recall feeling certain that he took that breath by choice as well. In the hours leading to the end Steve would occasionally falter, and then begin to breathe again. I found myself wondering why he didn’t let go. I will always believe that even though he was unconscious he must have held some hope. He and I were team mates for one year in high school and he knew about the moment of decision; well, at least he was familiar with its lesser version. Now he was experiencing it. I wanted to go on for Steve. But I suspect that when the true moment comes there is nothing in the world that can prevent it.

I brushed past a singular piece of wheat grass that had, under the weight of its dew, bent out into my pathway. The coldness of the wet dew on my leg caused me to shudder uncontrollably. It was, quite literally, the straw that broke my back.

And just like that it was done.

I will tell you this: The moment that I decided to quit, the VERY INSTANT that I knew I would stop at the aid station my journey went from very difficult to nearly impossible. Up until the moment of decision I had been sick and weak and slow but I moved forward with purpose nonetheless. The instant after the decision I turned into a stumbling wreck. I was nearly incapable of covering the ½ mile to the aid station. The experience makes me believe that on the longest and most arduous journeys we are held aloft by even the thinnest filigree of hope. Once hope left me I was left to absorb each tiny spot of uneven trail, every cold patch in the night air, every inner voice that tells me that the world is a poor environment for the development of my soul. There was no shield between myself and the hardness of my path. Physiological changes don’t produce such dramatic drop-offs. This crash came from a deeper place. Perhaps the Dears never divorced because they never lost hope. Perhaps the world is failing because so many have.

My pacer, Nick Longworth, met me before I got to the aid station. He was sitting under a tree in the darkness but out of all of the hundreds of runners and pacers I knew it was him because I knew that he would be looking for me. I know Nick well and so I knew that it was the only place he could have been. If you know Nick then you know what I mean. Nick had gotten me through Mohican and he would have ruined his own health to get me to this finish as well. We are very good friends though and I believe he knew that there weren’t any words or actions that would provide an answer. He knew that no convincing, no rational talk regarding cutoff times, no amount of nagging was going to get me there. He knew that I knew my limits.

Instead he provided care. He and the aid station workers tried to feed me. They provided blankets, soft reassurance, and finally support for my decision.

The day after the race, and even now- months later, I wonder; was there ANY POSSIBLE WAY that I could have continued? I don’t know and I guess I never will.

Last fall I hit a deer while on my way to Mohican to meet friends for a run. The entire front end of my car was bashed in. It all happened so quickly that I didn’t even tap the brakes. One moment I was looking through my windshield at a predawn sky and the next moment the journey was ruined for all parties. I never knew what was in my path until I hit it. It has occurred to me since that time that quitting is a lot like hitting a deer. The morning after I hit the deer I realized that there would never be a time when I would know if it could have been prevented. Could I have been more vigilant? Could I have slowed down? Was I tired from life, consumed by goals, or too eager to get to my destination? Did I take my eyes off the road? And if I had kept my eyes open could the crisis have been averted?

Life is a case study. Ultra marathons are as well. So are marriages. So are car rides. A sample size of one will never yield a statistically significant finding. I can project and hypothesize but I will never know if I could have changed in a way that would have allowed me to make it to the journey’s end. Similarly, I will never know how much of the crash was caused by me and how much was caused by the dear.

Then again…

Munson had the advantage of a lifetime worth of successes and failures on which to draw. And the plan he developed in response to these experiences was to wake up the morning after a failure and embark on another hope-filled attempt.

Who am I to question such a strategy?

Quick Burning River Result

2010-08-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

I was able to make it to the 70.8 mile point of this year's race. I had an amazing time and spent a terrific day with many friends. I'm a little bit disappointed in not finishing but I think that I know what went wrong and I think I can fix a few things and succeed in the future. The sun doesn't shine on the same dog every day and I've had many many many ultra-blessings this year. It was an amazing race!!! I will post a report very soon. In the meantime, if you were one of those lovely people that kept me moving down the trail, or cared for me when I could no longer do so, THANK YOU!

Prequel

2010-07-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

Burning River is in 2 days!!!! Every year is a separate race, a different story, and a new adventure. I will write about this year's race next week, but for now I want to share with my friends what this race means to me. The following is a cut-and-pasted re-issue from part of my lengthy race report last year. Forgive the apparent laziness of not writing new material. I forgive myself because I think its important that I remember why this race is important and why we should all learn from its lesson. Wish me luck, and pray that I don't lose sight of how blessed I am to be able to try this adventure once again. Peace. --Mark

One day in the winter of 1953 my Dad decided that he had had enough of being poor. He had grown up in Dublin Ireland in the 1940’s and during that era, in that country, you grew up to do whatever it was that your father did. When my dad was 15 years old his father was killed when a ditch that he was digging with a hand shovel collapsed, burying him and leaving his wife and ten kids penniless. My father, being the oldest child, dropped out of school, hopped a boat to London, and worked piecemeal as a longshoreman, sending whatever money he could back home to his mother. This kept everyone fed, more or less, but there was no reason for hope. There would never be a connection to employment in Ireland and in London he was treated as a second class citizen. It seemed he would indeed follow in his father’s footsteps and scramble to scrape together survival wages until his own death occurred. There really wasn’t a way out in sight…until he heard about Cleveland.

Dad had an uncle who had come to Cleveland a few years before and he sent my dad a loan to buy a plane ticket. He was promised that there was so much work in Cleveland, in fact in all of northeastern Ohio, that no more advanced planning than this was necessary. He turned out to be correct. Dad got a job at the Ford Motor Company plant in Brookpark and, six months later, sent a ticket to his girlfriend, who joined him and they married later that year. Dad went on to work for other companies, finished school, became a tooling engineer, and eventually moved half of his Irish family to Cleveland where they similarly prospered.

We love to tell this story at family reunions but the truth is that the story is not even remotely unique or even particularly interesting to those outside our immediate family. By the 1950’s Cleveland had been a city of dreams for over 150 years. Untold thousands of immigrants came to Cleveland and flourished. Oil, steel, tooling, shipping, salt, and dozens of other industries flourished. Wealth was created and shared. Generations lived and died in this place of ample opportunity.

By the 1960’s things began to change. Unemployment was rampant, industry was dying out and a sort of hopelessness had enveloped the city. I was five years old in 1969 when the Cuyahoga River caught fire. I remember almost nothing from that year but I do remember starting kindergarten and I remember the moon walk and I remember the fire… or maybe I don’t. Do I actually recall it or do I think I remember because as a Cleveland native I was never allowed to forget?

Growing up in Cleveland in the 1970’s I learned to love the city the way one loves an abusive relative. I was always cheering for it. I was always hoping that Cleveland would win but I was always also being told that it was no good. I hated it for the bad things but I also saw the good parts and wondered why no one else could. The stand-up comics on television had only just begun to get warmed up on the river fire when Mayor Ralph Perk set his hair on fire while giving a fire-safety demonstration downtown. The critics never stopped for a breath. “Of course Cleveland’s football team is called the Browns; the sky is brown, the water is brown, the buildings are brown, so why not the football team?” they said. The city appeared to be dying. Even Cleveland’s tallest building, they pointed out, was “Terminal”. The basement of Terminal Tower had homeless individuals living in it and outside on Public Square storefronts were boarded up. Mayor Dennis Kucinich (yes, he was Mayor of Cleveland after Perk) battled to keep the city from bankruptcy. Shipping slowed and the once busy docks in the flats were now places where the Mafia dumped bodies. Crime was rampant; domestic violence and drug use were up. The Browns lost the AFC Championship in heartbreaking fashion three years in a row, Cleveland State was denied a trip to the NCAA final four when David Robinson tipped in a last second shot for Navy, the Cavs were chronically in last place, and the even the free tickets that the Indians gave to schoolchildren went unused for lack of interest.

This was when I discovered running. We used to run through the metroparks for miles and miles and wonder why no one else could see the beauty. I won’t speak for Joe Jurczyk but I remember Joe from high school cross country meets. He went to school in Parma, just a few miles away from me. He must have seen all of this as well.

In hindsight the tower wasn’t really terminal and neither was the city. You don’t take the hardest working and most diversely talented gene pool ever assembled on this planet and hold them down for long. These folks were of good stock. Their work ethic and ingenuity created a rubber industry in nearby Akron, a collection of Universities and museums unrivaled outside of New York City, and a faith in their ability to succeed fueled by the stories told at their own family reunions. If they could dig the canals they could dig out of this mess as well.

And they have.

The basement of the Terminal Tower now boasts ‘The Galleria’ one of the most beautiful shopping malls in the country and the only people sleeping in the Tower these days are paying top dollars to The Ritz hotel to do so. The flats are now the place to experience the city’s night life. The Lakefront boasts parks and athletic facilities that are the envy of nearly any city and just try getting a ticket to a Cavs game these days to see LeBron! (remember, I wrote this last year : ))

The jokes still remain though and they have become annoying in their inaccuracy. When the time came for Joe Jurczyk and friends to put together the first one-hundred mile trail race in the region they decided to call it “The Burning River 100 Mile Endurance Run” and gave it the motto “eracing the past. Moving forward.”

To me the name issues a challenge: “Hey funny guy, haven’t been paying attention?...you should see us now! The Cuyahoga River Valley is now a NATIONAL PARK, and one of the most beautiful places in the world. Care to join us for a little jog? We’ll arrange to have some of our local runners show you around…they are, after all, one of the most talented and decorated communities of ultra runners in the United States and you can just entertain them with your little jokes for as long as you can keep them in earshot. OK?” And one more thing, “In case you have heard that Clevelander’s are rude, we are going to blow you away with our goodwill and hospitality”.

A few days after my DNF at Mohican in 2009 I knew it was time to return home. I may or may not have another ultra in me, I figured, but if I had one left I wanted it to be Joe’s race. Besides, if Dad got a second chance, and Northeastern Ohio got a second chance, and the Cuyahoga River Valley got a second chance, well then why not me?

And this year the national 100 mile TRAIL RUNNING championship lies on a course, through the wilderness, between Cleveland and Akron...the thought never ceases to amaze me. Thank you God!

Mohican Report: Part 3

2010-07-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This post is really really long. I suspect that there will be a high dropout rate so be sure to pace yourself. In fact this posting isn’t even the whole story. This is part 3. If you want to start at the beginning g’head and scroll wayyyyyy down to part one. Be sure to drink plenty and stay in the shade so’s you don’t get the heaves. Also, I want you to know that this part of the story was compiled based upon 5 different race reports, my personal observations, and several interviews (some with beer, some without). I feel certain that the facts are correct. Its an amazing story and I have endeavored to tell it accurately. You might be relieved to know that even though I paint myself into the tapestry (like a very unskilled Hitchcock) the story is not just about me for once. Please enjoy. And remember to shut off your cell phones and keep you children under control. And while you are at it, diversify your investment portfolio a bit as well. Peace. --Mark

If one were required, for some odd reason, to go to Port Columbus International Airport and identify a person whom they had never seen before, but who was described as having finished Grandma’s Marathon that morning, and had followed it up with a long, delayed plane ride, they could be excused for not correctly identifying Starshine Blackford as being that person.

Star looks like a runner. She is five-foot-nothing as my neighbor Bob used to say, and she is fit looking. But a marathoner should be hobbling around wearing a proud, painful, wincing smile, possibly a finisher’s medal draped around their neck. Star, on the other hand, was bobbing up and down in front of the baggage terminal belt wondering why it wouldn’t just speed up already. In her mind she was probably working out a sixth grade proficiency question that went something like:

“Your airplane leaves Minneapolis at 8:00 P.M. traveling at 500mph. The plane lands and then you dispatch a car and drive 60mph for 70 miles. Meanwhile your runner leaves the 65 mile point of a race at 8:00pm traveling at 3 mph. At what mile mark on the trail will you meet the runner (please allow for slow luggage belts and pee breaks)?”

The answer might surprise you. Then again, if you have ever run 100 miles, it might not.

Star and her husband Darris came rolling in to the Bridle Staging area aid station, gravel flying, at precisely midnight, to find that David Huss was sitting in a chair looking like death, and being ministered to by his wife Katie and Steve Zeidner’s wife Leigh. He had gone 7 miles in four hours. He was moving but unable to eat and the iliotibial band in his right knee was irretrievably inflamed. He had 30 miles to go and a cutoff clock that was ticking loudly.

They might have made it a few minutes earlier if Star had driven. Darris insisted on accompanying her even though he was due at work in Columbus by noon the next day. On the way up from Columbus Star wanted to drive. But Darris has been in ultra-land before and so he knew that there was no way his wife, scheduled to pace David Huss after a morning marathon, was going to be safe in a post-marathon/sleep deprived state circumnavigating drunks and deer. Both of whom would most certainly be sharing the twisting roads around Mohican on a Saturday night in June.

Michael Patton sat in a chair nearby. He was doing just a bit better than Dave but still lacked the energy to walk the 30 feet over to Dave’s chair so he sent his pacer, Kevin, with the following message: “Mikey wants you to walk out of here with him”. Dave accepted, and all four hiked out into the most feared section of the Mohican course. Seven-point-three miles to Rock Point. Three river crossings and a sea of mud and horse shit lay in front of them. It was a heck of a place to try to limber up a knee.

Meanwhile Ted Nieman stood near the CB radio located at Rock Point and suddenly found himself with a free Saturday night on his hands. Ted didn’t know Steve Zeidner prior to this race but had been connected to him through Michael. Ted had agreed to pace Steve from Rock Point to the finish but when the message that “Number 160 is out” crackled across the airwaves Ted realized that this was Steve’s number and that it was officially over. He then did a noble thing. He picked up another needy runner and headed down the trail with a new and unexpectedly grateful friend.

Steve actually had made a valiant effort to reach the Bridle Staging area. He left the Covered Bridge at mile 70 with Dave, walked halfway up the monstrous hill and turned around to walk back down to the bridge. On the way down the hill he ran into Michael who begged him to turn around. Mike told me later that Steve gave a firm “No” and continued downhill without stopping.

By the time I got to the Covered Bridge Steve was sitting in a chair, covered by someone else’s towel, shivering, and miserable. I asked Steve to walk out with us. He looked at me and said softly “I just can’t do it. Its my stomach”. I looked into his eyes and could see straight through to his spinal cord. There was nothing there. I had been in the place he was now and had never been able to come back from it. In 100 mile races there are down periods, there are near-death experiences, and there are Jesus-as-my-witness “Cannot’s”. Cannot go on. Cannot think straight. Cannot regain homeostasis. Steve meant it. He was done. “God bless his poor heart but there is nothing he can do”, I thought. My pacer Scott, told me later that he saw Steve’s eyes and knew the look as well. I muttered some advice anyway and headed up the trail. Steve deserved better than this but I had seen this scene so many times today I was sadly numb to it.

And that’s when Mohican’s magic presented itself.

The magic makes a visit every year and this time it took the form of two attractive, committed, and loving young women who were prepared to offer some gentle persuasion, or kick some ass; whichever it took.

Katie Huss and Leigh Zeidner had been dispatched to the bridge, on Dave’s request, to give poor old Steve a ride back to the hotel. Instead they walked up to Steve, told him they were there for him. They also told him to rise and walk. Steve told them that it was too late. He had already officially dropped from the race. The women responded to this by walking up to the dumbfounded radio jockey and telling him firmly that Steve was “un-dropping” from the race. After a few radio communications with race headquarters it was decided that the rules said…well, they didn’t really say anything…actually. This had never happened before.

Well then, that settled it!

And so for the first time in the 21 year history of the event, a death certificate was revoked and an officially DNF’ed runner “dropped back in” to the race, with just a few minutes to go on the cutoff.

Immediately after leaving the covered bridge I heaved. Actually I expected it and was surprised that it had taken me this long to puke. I was ready for it. Way way way back hours and hours ago when I was approaching Hickory Ridge at mile 60 I had a hint that the stomach would be closing down for the night and I was delighted that I was able to pop and hold down three no-doze. The problem with not being able to eat or drink all night (as has been my pattern in recent years) is that not only don’t you get fluid or calories, but you also can’t have anti-inflammatories or caffeine. I’m becoming a reluctant expert on calorie-free running. I find that no matter how weak or thirsty I get I can still move slowly. But only slowly. No running, no fast walking, and rest breaks are required on uphills. It’s a crappy way to spend an evening but I really wanted this buckle and so I bent myself to the task. I have found that I can walk the nausea off in about 10 hours. A guy does get thirsty in that time though and so I rinse my mouth out and sometimes manage a small swallow.

Dave and Star were approaching Rock Point when Star found what she described as an “awesome” walking stick for Dave. His knee was ready to collapse on every downhill step and so the walking stick was used to cushion the blow. The uphills were going a bit better. Star entertained Dave with stories of old races, how she met her husband Darris, etc. and tried to keep the conversation light and upbeat. This is important for a runner.

On my way to Rock Point my own pacer, Casey, was employing a similar strategy. Casey never nagged me. He thought of hopeful things to tell me. He pointed out when I was walking well and reminded me that the bad patches wouldn’t last when they presented themselves. I didn’t speak much and he was fine with that. At one point we started to talk about some family troubles that I experienced this year. Then we decided not to speak of anything negative. The stars were out, a gentle breeze was blowing and we were moving. That was a wonderful thing, moving. Casey and I decided that we would concentrate on the beauty. We would produce good Karma. Meanwhile my other pacers, Scott and Nick, were seated in lawn chairs at the Sand Ridge cemetery sharing recipes for homebrew and holding a contest to determine who could produce the most pornographic shadow puppet on the wall of the abandoned church by the light of their headlamps.

Pacers are, after all, only on duty when they are on duty.

Steve arrived at The Bridle Staging area hours later than he originally planned. In fact he should have already been at Rock Point according to his original schedule. His current pacer, a friend named Ashley, agreed to stay with him through the rugged path to Rock Point. This was going to be a longer night than she banked on.

Meanwhile Katie and Leigh raced to Rock Point to try to notify Ted Nieman that Steve was back into the race. Katie, sprinted up the hill into Rock Point, breathless and searching for Ted, only to receive the devastating news that he was gone. The ladies knew that Ted had done the right thing but they also knew that this would leave Steve alone from Rock Point until the finish line. They immediately began to search for other pacers. They also began to rummage for running clothes…just in case no one could be found.

As I headed into Rock Point I was worried about cutoff times. It was 3 am and we were holding an hour cushion on the cutoff but we were really moving slowly. My experience at Rock Point was an odd one. Michael’s dad, Tom Patton, warmly greeted me and I was nearly non-responsive. It was almost coma-like. It was as though I didn’t realize that I could have chatted with him, or thanked him. I saw David sitting in a chair having a bandage applied to his foot and I was delighted to see him…internally. But I was unable to reach over to the other side and speak with anyone. It was like I was watching the scene on TV. I left the aid station a few minutes after Michael and a few minutes ahead of Dave. I also learned that Steve had rejoined the race. My heart leapt for joy at this almost unbelievable news. But I spoke with no one of it.

I don’t ever want to relive that experience.

When Steve arrived at Rock Point he was very nearly in last place. There were simply no pacers to be had and he couldn’t be left to wander the woods on his own…he was starting to fall asleep. So Ashley refilled her water bottle and decided that this was a night she would remember as her personal record for mileage.

Leaving the South Park Aid Station at mile 84 I decided it was time for another mouth rinsing. I grabbed what I thought was a bottle of ice water, took a huge swig, and vomited so loudly that it stirred sleeping birds from the trees. “ITSSSHHEEED”. I yelled to Nick between heaves. “What”? Nick Asked. “Itshheed” I replied. “What are you saying?” asked Nick again. “Its Heed. Oh God, its Heed”. Someone had put Heed in my bottle, and at that moment nothing could have made me more violently ill. I was actually using filthy language DURING my heaves. A couple of runners went by and I apologized “Hey man, its part of the sport” was their response. For some reason that made me happy. Very very happy. Nick and I joked that any chance we had for a Heed endorsement deal was irrevocably gone but that’s OK. As the mystery runner pointed out this was normal. And normal felt good.

Meanwhile, Steve was actually starting to do better. He could now break into an occasional shuffle…when he wasn’t sleeping. Ashley had finally run out of steam at the South Park aid station and so Leigh, a woman who must have been paying attention during the “Better or worse/ Sickness or health” part of the wedding vows, pulled on a spare set of Steve’s overly large running togs and decided that it was time to join her husband on this journey. She had never run 18 miles before and really had no plan regarding how she would achieve it now. But that plan could be formulated later. Now it was time to move forward with faith. She shuffled with Steve when he shuffled, woke him when he fell asleep on his feet, and gave him gentle shoves back onto the path when needed.

Up ahead Star and Dave were both falling asleep. They were motivated back to wakefulness when Ron Ross and his daughter Tracey passed by. I was wide awake but really needed sugar. There were three massive climbs to get to the fire tower and I didn’t have any fast burning power to climb them. Nick had procured an enormous bag of orange slices at South Park and I put one in my mouth at the start of each climb, tried to suck in sugar through my gums, and spit it back out at the top. It worked! The third climb was a hill that Nick and I ran powerfully in a workout last fall. Since that time we have determined that it is “our” hill. We crested it, gave a manly fist-bump and headed for the fire tower.

The sun came up just as we hit the fire tower at mile 88. Suzanne Pokorny walked out the trail to greet us and when I saw her my heart leapt, and then exploded. It was like fireworks. I was so happy to see my friend, until the sudden realization that her presence here meant that she was no longer in the race. I assumed all night long that she would pass me. Instead she fought terrible heat exhaustion all the way to Hickory Ridge where she simply was too ill to go on. Instead of sleeping she came to find us. This sort of caring is why I love Mohican. This is why the world needs to learn from us.

The walk down to the bridge should have been easy, with the daylight and net downhill path, but I almost collapsed with exhaustion. I don’t know why, but this simple little downhill leg was almost my undoing. I was so confused when we got to the bridge that I had to beg Nick to stay with me, even though the bridge was supposed to signal the end of his duties. He jumped at the chance. Nick is such a wonderful person. He has been having health issues and hasn’t been running much. A 23 mile run through the night was too much to ask. But I asked anyway because I needed it. Nick was able to provide. More Mohican Magic.

At the fire tower Katie Huss, dressed in street clothes, jumped in to pace Steve. Leigh would need a break, they reasoned, if she was going to hang with Steve until the finish. Meanwhile Ted Nieman, Steve’s originally scheduled pacer, finished pacing his runner to the finish, and learned from Michael’s wife that Steve was back in the race. Despite the fact that he had not slept and despite the fact that he had 23 miles on his legs, Ted Immediately headed to the covered bridge and found Steve. He agreed to pace him to the finish line. He arrived in the nick of time because Steve was only ten minutes up on the cutoff time was facing a steep six mile climb up Hickory Ridge. He needed to start running…and Ted was the man who could make that happen.

”Twenty minute miles. They have to be 20’s”. Star was carefully monitoring the clock, which was now ticking loudly in their ears. She was terrified they would “time-out” at the Hickory Ridge aid station. Dave was staying cool though. He was willing to risk a photo-finish at Hickory Ridge if it meant he could then risk jogging on the knee during the last 5 miles. He reasoned that a jog now, if it failed, might take him out of the race…and so they walked…and lost time. And Star worried. And Dave never blinked.

Nick and I ran more than we walked on our way to Hickory Ridge. I was able to eat and drink again and was feeling…OK…for the first time in forever. Despite our well-being we learned that we were only 21 minutes ahead of the cutoff and so we ran nearly the entire rest of the race.

Just out of Hickory Ridge Dave had an episode that I will quote directly from Star’s account of the race:

“…His IT band had locked back up and his leg was straight and he could not walk. I asked him if it was like before and he said it was worse. We stood there, stuck in the moment. He tried to put weight on it and he simply couldn't. And my heart broke for him, for the miles and the hours and the fight and the ugliness of it all. Because it was over, five miles from the finish. I think he told me he couldn't get there. I honestly had no idea what to do. What to say. Even what to think. I just stood there, lost and hurting for him.

And then he lurched forward. And lurched again. And the lurch became a walk, and the walk became the fastest it had been in hours. And I stood up and I walked behind him and I prayed without words.

And then he ran.

And he kept running.

And suddenly, I had to get up there.”

Steve was hitting full stride as well. After arriving at Hickory Ridge in last place and with only 2 minutes to spare he peeled off a 12 minute mile on his way to a scene that I did not witness but would have given anything to see. Steve caught up to his friend Dave with 2 miles to go and the two runners became so jubilant at the unlikely sight of each other that Star and Ted found it necessary to eventually break up the party and goad them into running again.

Closing in on the finish the heat of the day was on us again. I heard “Wooooooo Hoooooo, one mile to go”. It was Tracey Ross, leading a smiling Ron to another finish. This race has been a part of Ross family lore forever and I was delighted to be included in this Father’s day celebration.

It seemed like everyone I knew was at the finish line and the cheering was as loud as I have ever experienced. Finishing very late in a race is a lot like dying young. The funeral of a young person is crowded because everyone they know is alive, and thus available to attend. The earliest finishers are running ahead of all of their well-wishers and actually have a lonelier finish. In fact, one of the people cheering for me was Jay Smithberger. Jay won the 50 mile race in a course record time of 7:55 and was greeted at the finish line by precisely…no one. In fact he had to go find a race official to let them know that he was finished. He was the first finisher on the day and all other runners were still out on the course. There is a U-tube video of Jay’s finish floating around that is both hilarious and sad all at once. I guess it really is lonely at the top. It seems unfair but I was moved by the support nonetheless. I crossed the line and powerfully hugged Nick. There was no way I could have made it without him, and Scott, and Casey.

I received a long awaited kiss from my dear friend and the woman who represents the true spirit of the race. Colleen Theusch, a.k.a. “The Lady in Purple” is perhaps the only person who has attended all of the Mohicans since the beginning. She lends a life force to the race that simply needs to be experienced to be believed. She is loved beyond measure and loves without limits. I knew she would greet me at the finish no mater how slow I was and the reunion was as rewarding as the buckle she pressed into my hand.

This was my ninth finish and so now I can dream of the big buckle, God willing. I stood at the finish for a few minutes.

Then it happened.

David and Stephen crossed the line together in 56th and 57th place. It was the happiest scene I have ever witnessed at this race.

The 2010 version of the Mohican Trail 100 Mile Run had 133 starters and 58 finishers. Half of the finishers came in during the final 2 hours of the race. Among the final runners to finish were Michael, myself, Stephen, David, The legendary Ron Ross, who tied the all-time Mohican record with 15 finishes, and Fred Davis who has 12 Mohican Finishes.

This group was capped off by Mike Heider, who earned his 1000 mile buckle with this, his tenth finish. He also earned the “Last of the Mohican’s” award for being the final finisher. The “Last of the Mohican’s” award is an honor possibly more valued than the Champion’s Trophy in this race, where perseverance is prized and rewarded like no where else.

Epilogue:
About ninety minutes after my finish I was sitting in the shade with my friend, Shannon Fisher, when Karen Ray (K-Ray), the woman who shared her light with me on the way into Mohican Adventures the night before, appeared. Karen was smiling ear-to-ear and accompanied by her husband as she crossed the finish line in 31 hours. Karen had “timed out” at the Hickory Ridge aid station but chose to complete the final miles with the love of her life. I had believed that Stephen’s and David’s actions were the bravest story of the year, but I believe K-Ray shares this podium with them. She promises to return next year.

In last year’s blog post I stated my belief that Mohican-world sadly returns to torpor when the Last of the Mohicans crosses the finish line. Karen’s presence at the finish line as morning turned to afternoon proves that I was wrong. Mohican isn’t about race administrators and it isn’t about aid stations. In fact I’m not even sure that its about the trail. Mohican doesn’t go away when the clock strikes 30:00:00. Its still here. Mohican is about magic and Mohican is about us.

Mohican Report: Part 2

2010-06-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

If you want advice on how to finish a 100 mile run you could very easily find several thousand sources more reliable than me. I do know a few things about getting a middle age body to a finish line though and I believe that the most important thing that a runner can do…more important than nutrition, more important than shoe selection, even more important than training or fitness…is to maintain an optimistic mind; an even-keel mentality. A 100 mile participant should prepare for tough times but hope for the best. They should have an easy, light feeling of confidence augmented by a bottomless cup of hope. A 100 mile buckle-seeker will be alone on the trail with their own thoughts for a long, long, long (LONG) time. And so it is necessary that their mind, their companion, be a good traveling mate. No one wants to drive across the country with an individual who does nothing but bitch about the heat, or about the traffic. Or about the government. No one wants to be reminded over and over again that the gas tank is running low, or that the “check engine” light is on (Its probably just an oxygen sensor thingy, so try not to get too upset right?). And no one wants to ride along in a body for one hundred miles with a mind that is being an annoying jerk.

I know all of this. But as I headed into the Buckhaven aid station I couldn’t shut my brain up. I was worried and, in all honesty, probably a bit irritated.

So far everything was going OK. I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep the night before. Terri and Mark Lemke hosted several of us at their house. The hospitality and friendship calmed me and the headlamp-lit excitement of the starting line made me smile.

I wonder do lemmings have a feeling of camaraderie in the moments before they plunge over the cliff? I ask this because I know of no other species that seems as peaceful, happy, and excited than a group of runners heading out into a day that will bring a 50% chance of failure and a 100% chance of pain. The tension is wonderful. Any joke brings laughter and all exchanges bring sincere, heartfelt wishes of wellness. I feel certain that the mechanics of our day-to-day culture are faulty. I feel equally certain that the culture that exists on the starting line of a 100 mile run is some kind of solution. In fact, I believe there is a thread to all of this; the running, the growth, the friendships, the care. It might be that if we think about who we are long enough, and appreciate it, and analyze it, we might have some sort of large-scale answer to our world’s troubles. Could the answer to the world’s problems be born in the light of headlamps on the trails of North Central Ohio? Something is afoot. I have suspected this for a while now.

But heading into Buckhaven I was starting to get irritated. Physically I was doing fine. I was in the best shape of my life. I was an experienced Mohicanite (Mohicaner?). I had all of the correct types of tape, shoes, and lubricants. I had a medicine bag that would have put a shaman to shame. I had a special hat that was designed to suck the heat out of my head (that’s what the advertisement said), and just in case it didn’t, I had it loaded with ice. I was doing everything right…but my chances of getting to the finish line were being reduced nonetheless, and for no noble reason.

This year’s course included a section of largely open road from miles 19-42. You will never hear me complain in any meaningful way about heat, or hills, or mud, or bugs, or river crossings. But I’m going to say it here and I’m only going to say it once: putting a group of individuals out onto largely open roads in the middle of a day that would reach 92 degrees, for 23 miles, is the wrong decision and, on the surface, seems to lack an element of care. I will complain about it because I can. I finished this year’s race and so my concerns should not be misconstrued as sour grapes. Call me a wussy if you want to but I’m a wussy who finished. I finished due to the grace of God. So many others did everything right and did not finish. Their complaints could be misconstrued as defensive.

I was fortunate.

I heard no one complain about the heat and pounding sun during the race. Ultra marathoners are a notoriously tough breed. Complaining brings along its own heavy karmic baggage and so it should, and generally is, and was, avoided. In fact one would have been hard pressed to find an individual to complain ABOUT. Don Baun designs the race course and he has designed it every year since the inception of the race. This year Don faced a problem. The race could no longer start at the Mohican Wilderness Campground and the road sections had to go SOMEWHERE right? Don should be applauded and credited for his efforts regarding the race over the years. I hope that some day a statue of Don will be placed at the base of the North Rim trail. He deserves the recognition. This year he saved things by hastily redesigning the course. The problem is that last minute changes that occur when relationships erode rarely allow for creativity. There were other ways in which the course could have been routed that would have helped to prevent the mass implosion that occurred at this year’s race. But such planning takes time, and communication, and I believe that Don worked through his solution without adequate access to either.

It was hot this year. That’s a fact and heat is never anyone’s fault. But it has been 92 degrees and sunny at Mohican before. In fact it has been this hot several times. And the race never faced the crisis (I know it’s a harsh word but I’m using it anyway) that we faced this year, because in a woods one has an ability to slow down, regroup, get the core temperature under control, and move on. No such ability exists under an open sun. And for those who might sniff and point out that “This is nothing compared to Badwater” I will point out that Badwater, a race through Death Valley in July, requires its runners to have unlimited personal aid in the form of a vehicle that must stay with them at all times. The vehicle can be air conditioned and provide shelter and respite and easy access to ice. At one point on the road section of this year’s course runners were required to go more than 14 miles with only one aid station (and no other access to water). Furthermore they were banned from accepting aid from crews or vehicles during that section. Badwater also ADVERTISES itself as just exactly what it is…a race of survival. Does Mohican need to be a race of survival? Is that the race’s mission? And, if so, is it advertised as such? It is generally described as a very tough but wonderful choice for a first-time 100 mile experience. And as I ran down the hot roads, equipped with a hat filled with ice, 55 ounces of fluid, and a head full of the type of experience that 14 one-hundred miles starts (and several failures) can bring, I wondered how our first-time friends were doing?

Stephen Zeidner was a first timer. He was doing…OK. He should have been doing OK. After all, he was young, strong, fast, well trained, and had a personality ideally suited to this sort of adventure. He finished in the top ten in a prestigious 50K race a few months ago. Furthermore he had respect for the distance. He was running well but not doing anything stupid. The same could be said for his friend, David Huss. Dave finished Mohican last year as did their buddy, Michael Patton. All three were, in a word, ready. I did a training run with all three of them a few months ago on the Mohican course and severely strained my right quadriceps. I didn’t jar it, I didn’t trip, in fact I didn’t do anything to it…other than try to keep up. My connective tissue could not hang with these guys on a short training run. If they are the future of our sport then our sport has a fun, fast, strong future ahead of it. Despite this, by the beginning of the road section Michael was suffering from nausea, and by the end of this section Steve was feeling hints of the same. David had knee surgery in January and the knee was holding up fine. But his OTHER knee was aching a bit. Strange stuff. Rob Powell had more experience but only a bit more success. He could be found along the road, naked except for running shorts, sitting submerged in a drainage culvert trying to cool down.

Others suffered quietly.

According to a volunteer at the Rock Point aid station, the end point of the road section--the 42 mile check in, saw dead-eyed runners slumped in chairs, ill, considering dropping out. The volunteer told me “This was the type of stuff you would expect to see at 3 O’clock AM, not three in the afternoon”.

As for me? I was saved from my own mind by the sudden appearance of a friend who has developed a recent habit of saving me from my own mind. Suzanne Pokorny and I trained together for this race. We were in similar shape and so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that we would run a similar pace on race day. But 100 mile races seldom turn out that way. Runners leap-frog each other. Suzanne and I SPECIFICALLY decided, before the start of the race to NOT run together. Our reasoning was that any agreement to stick together would be a detriment to both of us. If Suzanne stuck with me during my inevitable bad patches, and I did the same for her, then simple math would dictate that we would be slowed by TWICE the number of bad patches. So the deal we made was “no deals”. Harsh but caring; that was our agreement.

Fate stepped in and made our agreement moot for a while. We happened to be moving at the same pace. We each had mini-bad patches and mini-good patches but were within hailing distance of each other for many miles. We tried to ignore the elements and instead challenged each other to name the worst song ever written. There were many candidates but the winner was “We Built This City on Rock and Roll” by Starship. The decision was based more upon the shameless sell out of the artist rather than the quality of the song (Shame on you, Grace Slick! I hope you spent the money on something that produced some good : )). We also talked about life, and past Mohicans. We visited with Roy Heger as he passed by and connected briefly with Ron Ross at an aid station. We learned that Fred Davis was somewhere behind us. We had a wonderfully long visit with Joe Jurczyk. Joe is a past race director of Mohican and the current race director of Burning River. I have known Joe forever and it was uplifting to see him back at his sport, in the event that he helped to make great. I wondered aloud about these legends being way back here in our part of the pack but chalked it up to some sort of wisdom on their part. We wondered how our other friends were faring. Neither of us spoke aloud of our fears that the race was eating its young. We didn’t know for sure and we didn’t want any confirmation if it was true.

Suzanne and I stuck together through the road section and into the green loop, past Rock Point at mile 42, and into South Park at mile 46. The trail into South Park was difficult for me. Suzanne moved out a bit ahead of me. I caught her and then she slowed a bit. Our bad patches were no longer in sync and my heart began to hurt. We would soon spend less time together. We would likely continue to leap frog each other but it would be at increasingly longer intervals. We had both danced this dance before and we knew that we were going to soon be disconnected. Neither of us spoke but, instead, as she passed me on a long downhill after South Park we decided to take five minutes and pretend that we were not in a race of any kind. We decided to be simply two friends walking through the woods on a beautiful summer day. And it was peaceful. And for a few minutes there was no worry. And we allowed ourselves to believe that this is how it would be. But soon the running started again, and then the leap frogging. We were separating and it was lonely. Like George and Lennie in Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ the partnership was the only thing separating us from the other desperate, solitary, individuals around us. And it would end soon. To my absolute amazement it was Suzanne who dropped back first.

I arrived at the Fire Tower and walked into the heart of the Lemke family. They were gathered around Terri. Terri Lemke is the strongest runner I know; mentally the toughest runner I have ever known. And she was cramped and heaving and desperate. She had done nothing at all wrong. Its just how things were. I spoke with her. I wanted to do some good. I failed. I knew that she would recover so I felt empathy, not sympathy. But I also felt fear. If Terri could hurt like this what hope was there for me, really? When would it hit? I also saw the Pokorny family. They were ready to revive Suzanne. That was good. And Suzanne was a much better night-runner than I am. I told myself that she would pass me in the night and that it would be nice. I told myself these and other things. But mainly I just missed my friend.

The Fire Tower and the Covered bridge aid stations brought the first real news in a while and none of it was good. Horror stories were everywhere. So many of my friends were out of the race, others were alive but dying.

The sun was starting to fade and I was alone. It seems I’m always alone when the sun starts to fade. My own brand of nausea began at the 60 mile mark. I was alive but only because I had gone so slowly. And that meant that I had far less cushion than usual on the time cutoffs. The race basically had three types of runner left; the elite runners, the runners who had imploded and were marking time until their DNF, and runners whose conservancy led to time cut-off pressures. I was firmly ensconced somewhere between the latter two types.

And then I began to see ghosts.

And then I wasn’t alone any more.

And then it turned beautiful.

I began to see unexpected appearances of runners who had dropped from the race; individuals who had eschewed a shower and a meal for a bag of ice and a pair of sandals. They began to appear on the course. They cheered. They advised. They walked with the alive but wounded for a while. If the esprit-de-corps at the starting line signaled a solution for all that is wrong with the world then this behavior must be a symptom of everything that is already right in the world.

Runners on the course were caring for each other as well. No one seemed to ever pass anyone else without a solid conversation and a clear commitment from the runner being passed that everything was OK. I saw one runner give ALL of her water to another who was struggling. I saw food change hands. I overheard soothing talks, and uplifting messages from runners who were, themselves, in the depths of despair. Someone produced a piece of lamb’s wool and another produced a pair of scissors to cut it with. Together they fashioned a cushion for a third runner’s blistered foot. I saw Michelle Bischell at the Hickory Ridge Aid Station. She was getting her 2nd wind…or possibly 3rd or 4th wind…of the day. We exchanged encouraging words. Everything that might have been wrong with the race was being corrected by everything that was right about the race.

Running the last couple of miles into the Mohican Adventures aid station at 65 miles I was in dire straits. I was hours behind schedule, night was falling, and I had lost my light. A runner by the name of Karen Ray appeared. She invited me to call her K-Ray, and so I did. She was running powerfully but slowed to my pace and shared good advice, companionship, and a light with me.

My crew was there. I knew they would be. Before the race I told them to meet me at the Bridle Staging Area, another ten miles up the path. They correctly ignored me and made a plan to form a relay to pace me from this point on. Scott Wolf. Casey Clark. Nick Longworth. Holy Cow do I have good friends or what? We stood in the dark for a few minutes and for the first time ever I realized that I can no longer run 100 miles….by myself. I need help. Lots of help. And there’s something very beautiful about that.

We had no time to spare and so we quickly set out. I was too nauseous to eat or drink anything but seven-up and the aid station had run out of that. Nick was dispatched to buy some and meet us at the Bridle Staging area. I saw Mike Patton leaving the aid station as I walked in. He had a look that suggested that thoughts of stopping had invaded his mind. He was, however, accompanied his pacer, Kevin Martin, a recent MMT finisher (!) who wore an equally intense look that seemed to say “No way in hell!” My money was on Mikey buckling. What a tough tough dude. I tried not to listen to news but what I did hear was horrendous. I was informed that Steve was dropping out at the bridge. I also heard that Dave’s knee had locked up. There were conflicting reports about Dave. Some said he had left the aid station and was on his way to the bridge. Some said he was done. But no one seemed to believe that it made any difference. Dave was as tough as they come but he was a dead man walking. And his only real hope, the only person who could possibly motivate him to the finish line was stranded at an airport in Minneapolis.

I’ll post part three in a few days. This is very long but I will like reading it when I’m 70. If anyone is still reading you are welcome to come back. Some of the endings in this story are happy ones. I promise

Mohican Race Report: Part 1

2010-06-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

One hundred mile trail races have defined starting places. They usually start in campgrounds on the edge of a beautiful wilderness. But STORIES of 100 mile trail races can begin anywhere. They can choose to start at the beginning of the run, sharing the physical starting point of the race. They can begin at the moment that a runner stops marveling at the work of others and finds him or herself thinking “What about me? I wonder…what would happen if …? ” The story can start at birth, or rebirth. The story can be one of personal redemption or spiritual seeking. I know of one very accomplished ultra runner whose career started as the result of a bet made in a tavern.

We’ll find a starting place for this story eventually. Sometimes a beginning comes when we are least looking for one.

The Mohican Trail 100 Mile run started in 1990. A small group of runners from the Cleveland area decided to emulate the Western States 100 Mile Endurance run and created their own event, consisting of two 50 mile loops. About one-half of the distance of each loop was comprised of roads. At the time there were only eight 100 mile trail races in the country, and there were only three ultra marathons of any distance in Ohio. The race was an immediate success. The race developed and grew; adding more trail sections and more aid stations and more volunteers…many more. By the time I first ran the race in 1997 the ratio of volunteers to runners was nearly three to one. In the days before Facebook and Blogging Mohican was like a sorely needed family reunion. It was the only time all year that endurance-freak-outliers could reconnect. At least it felt that way.

I was speaking with a runner a few weeks ago who described Mohican as “Everybody’s first ultra”. I agree that more runners in the Midwest in the 1990’s first dipped their toe into the extreme distance waters at Mohican than at any other race. The trails at Mohican seemed to produce miracles. Lifelong love affairs began, dead legs revived for no knowable reason, fantastic back-from-the-dead finishes seemed commonplace. This pattern of unearned blessings, this presence of grace, took on a name of its own. It was called “Mohican Magic” and many a runner depended on it to pull them through when it seemed that training, or toughness, or gummie bears would not be enough.

In 1997 I was struggling with a very sick child. A chat that I had with God on the Mohican Trail during the race provided no answers but it did provide understanding and faith that God has a plan. It also instilled in me a belief that sometimes God’s plan is none of our business. The chat that I had with God that night wasn’t in the form of a still, quiet voice that one reads about in Hollywood scripts. It was a sit-down meeting about how things were and about my role in this world. It changed me. So many runners have so many reasons to love Mohican, and I have mine.

More magic.

Trail running is currently the fastest growing participant sport in the country. Run100s.com, the “Go-to” site for 100 mile race information currently lists 79 different 100 mile runs. There is a flourishing community of ultra marathoners in Ohio. The state’s Ultra-epicenter, Cleveland, hosts the wildly successful Western Reserve Trail Running Grand Prix, a series of ten well organized and prestigious races. If you’d like to run one you had better register early. Nearly all of them fill to capacity several months in advance. And the region isn’t limited by this series. You can now find an ultra marathon within 100 miles of Columbus, Ohio nearly any weekend of the year. These are sophisticated races. Sponsorship money is available and often times a runner will collect enough “swag” to make the entry fee seem like a bargain.

Ohio runners aren’t even limited in terms of 100 mile trail races. The “Burning River 100 Mile Endurance Run” is held six weeks after Mohican. It has been named the USATF National 100 Mile Trail Championship for 2010. This race has sponsorship, hundreds of volunteers, a sophisticated website including live race updates on EVERY runner that operates until the final runner finishes.

Hopefully if you read this blog at all you have come to realize that Mohican is the central event of my year. I love the race like no other. But Mohican has, in many ways, failed to keep up with the times. Burning River is a magnificent race. I ran it last year. I was treated like a king. My father followed the web cast from Colorado and knew the moment I finished. Mohican continues to use walkie-talkies to communicate. The race has no website of its own and one has to search on a website dedicated to mountain bike racing to find the link to the race. Often this link has not been updated to contain current race information. Race results often aren’t posted on this site until long after the race has been completed, and this year the race start/finish and headquarters was moved from its traditional starting place into a different, more crowded, campground.

These words are not meant to be read as a criticism. I can only imagine what a logistical nightmare it must be to keep track of 250 runners, over the course of 50 or 100 miles of trail, utilizing seven separate aid stations, for a duration of thirty hours. Those who host the race, and most especially the volunteers, have a passion for the race and an ethic of care that smooth the rough patches.

The sense of community is there. Mohican is as cool as ever. But…

I heard someone ask a few years ago if Mohican was still as necessary as it was two decades ago. Then last year I heard a few people ask similar questions. The racing schedule is so crowded now. There are so many races in so many places seeking to overwhelm their racers with glitz it might be easy to wonder if Mohican still has it. I even wondered it myself once. Then I put it out of my mind because the thought made me sad. But it has crept back into my head once or twice since.

This year I found my answer. And I wasn’t even looking for the answer when I found it. The answer was sitting in a chair at the covered bridge at midnight, shivering under a discarded towel.

To any of you who might ask if Mohican is still unique, to those of you who wonder if it still connects us, to those of you who wonder if Mohican is still a source of adventure and self-discovery, to those that wonder if Mohican still has its magic…I present to you Mr. Stephen Zeidner.

I don’t want to discuss Steve just yet. For the moment lets leave him as we found him; a twenty-something Mohican rookie who succumbed to the heat and distance and dropped out at the 70 mile mark. Let’s also not discuss his best friend, David Huff, who was concurrently throwing in the towel a few miles further along the trail due to a bum knee.

I think that we have found our starting place for this story. We will start our story with Steve and Dave. But since this blog is a loop course, and since Dave and Steve aren’t going anywhere anyway, let’s get back to them in several pages.

The hour is late and I’ve been tired lately. I’ll write more tomorrow. In the meantime please know that I love Mohican and can’t wait to tell you about it. About us. I hope you come back to read it.

Quick Mohican Result

2010-06-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

I ran the Mohican Trail 100 Mile Run on Saturday and finished in 29:26:27. I am very happy about it! This race was one for the ages. I have started Mohican 13 times and I have seen some bad conditions but I have never, ever seen it like this. Not even close. The heat, coupled with a new course configuration that seemed to hit runners with the toughest parts of the course at the toughest times of day yielded a finishing percentage of only 38%. Because of this I had many friends...fine, experienced runners in wonderful condition, who were taken out by the heat. It made the day a sad one in many ways.

I have also never seen such cooperation, teamwork, and comaraderie among the runners. No one seemed to finish on their own. I saw many runners slowing down to help ailing friends and strangers. I saw people with only a few swigs of water left in a bottle offer it freely to someone who needed it worse than they did. It seemed that no one actually had any property or crew of their own. Rather, any resource, renewable or not was freely offered. Many of the runners who succumbed to heat exhaustion remained on the course to assist those still in the race.

It was our community at its best.

As for me: Wonderful friends like Suzanne Pokorny and Joe Jurczyk kept me company during the early miles and Scott Wolf, Casey Clark, and Nick Longworth poked, prodded, encouraged, cajoled, and cared for me in the late night hours. Nick was supposed to run eight miles with me. He ended up running 21 miles with me...and do you know why?

He did it because I needed him to.

It was grace. I mean that literally. It was an unearned blessing, an act of korima. I accepted it because I simply could not have succeeded without it.

Thats the kind of day it was. I will write several thousand words about the race over the next week or two. I'll do it in several installments. As usual I will write it so that I will remember it when I'm 70 years old. But you are welcome to read it if you like. Peace. --Mark

Brother Donkey

2010-06-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

"I regard my body as I regard brother donkey. I feed him, and I care for him, but I ride on him and he does not ever ride on me". --St. Francis of Assissi

That is my favorite ultra running quote.

Tomorrow I go to my favorite place on earth, to be with some of my favorite people on earth, to do one of my favorite things in life. Why then the stress and fear? I need to remember that this is all a gift. The fact that I'm standing on the starting line of a 100 mile run necessarily means that I have the health, security in life, spare time for growth, and financial means to do so. I need to remember that this is a blessing and I need to be grateful. I also need to remember that a person can go a long long way on a pair of blown legs but will crumble without joy.

Thank you.

Believe, believe, believe.

Tapering

2010-06-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

I know that I said that I would never include traning advice in this blog but I am going to cut-and-paste a note that I wrote recently to a friend re: tapering for the upcoming Mohican Trail 100 Mile Run. I should be forgiven for not keeping my word on this because: 1. noone wants my opinion anyway and so this one will go unused, and; 2. Sometimes I don't keep my word; this is one of those times.

Here is the note. I may or may not have changed the identity of my friend to protect her privacy.

Dear Terri Lemke of Loudonville, Ohio,

Thank you for writing to me and specifically asking my opinion regarding tapering. Thank you, also, for insisting that I go on at great length about this important subject!

Tired legs are one thing, but...

Really truly what we are doing in a 100 mile run is processing a slow trickle of poison for hours and hours. This is a tremendous stressor on our endocrine system (kidneys, liver, adrenal glands, spleen). The endocrine system adjusts chemicals so that we can digest food, maintain blood pressure, have an even level of electrolytes. Running 100 miles is really all about the endocrine system. When is the last time your heard of a runner dropping out due to being "tired" or having "sore legs"....almost never!!! Instead you hear of people becoming nauseous, hypothermic, overheating, becoming confused or disoriented.....these things are signs that the ENDOCRINE SYSTEM isn't operating well...signs that it has gone haywire.

You have got to go into 100 miles with a few weeks of having not been exhausted, or dehydrated, or suffering electrolyte imbalances etc. In other words your endocrine sytem needs 3 weeks of near total peace and quiet.....so even if your legs feel good you have to taper.

If you are doing Mohican you need to REST NOW!!! And I mean 50 miles this week, 40 next week, and 10-15 in the week before the race. No more runs over 20 miles and only 2-3 more runs of 10 miles or more. I know you will be climbing out of your skin and you might gain a pound or two but this is what you should do.

I will write more later regarding my opinion on that investment you made recently in the factory that makes solar powered flashlights.

All my best, --Mark

Monkeys, Maize, and Marathons: Part 2

2010-06-03T21:31:00.001-07:00

Twenty miles into the “Forget the P.R.” 50K I knew that I was into uncharted territory. I knew it and my buddy Luc knew it too. He was standing at the covered bridge aid station and, when he saw me, he gave me a startled look that might have meant “Kudos to you my friend. You are running well and I see that on this fine day your years of training have paid off handsomely and your ship has come in”. Then again, the look might have meant “You have screwed the pooch this time buddy. You went out to fast. You know it, I know it, and the 18 calories worth of glycogen remaining in your liver know it as well. Have fun on the climb to the fire tower”.

The reason they build covered bridges is to cross rivers. They tend to locate rivers in low lying areas, such as river beds. The reason for fire towers is to spot fires. They tend to place fire towers in the highest spot possible so’s a person can scan a lot of ground at once. Race director Rob Powell is a nice enough fellow and I’m sure that his decision to run us from the lowest spot in the park to the highest spot in the park in just over two miles was a simple oversight at best, and latent malevolence at worst. He would never intentionally try to hurt a person.

At least that’s what I thought when I started the climb.

Twenty five minutes later I crested the last part of the hill and found Rob, whooping, hollering, and doing his best impersonation of a 1970’s track coach, pointing to his stopwatch and howling for greater effort. Rob likes to give his racer’s their money’s worth and today he was holding his own Blue Light Special on lactic acid…and loving it! I felt like my head was going to explode. But it didn’t. And I felt like my legs would seize up, but they didn’t. Instead I took an enormous gulp of air, ran past the aid station (surely Terri wouldn’t stop here and so neither would I; I didn’t want to let my species down) and automatically switched the quads from concentric contractions to eccentric contractions as we began the long, winding, swoop back down the hill to the bridge. Throughout this section I tried to get myself to forget that I could not do this. The idea that I could not run this hard and get away with it wasn’t negativity; it was an historical fact. It was 53 degrees and I had never been able to do this. Both of those were facts.

Actually I love the run from the bridge to the fire tower. I like it even better when we run it in reverse and have a long downhill on which to recover and chat. I remember running this section during the Mohican 100 mile run in 1997 with a good friend of mine who was and is a recovering alcoholic. My friend told me some pretty harrowing stories of his life of addiction. When I asked him if he thought that maybe he had traded one addiction for another by becoming an ultra runner he paused for a long while and then told me that he didn’t think that it was that simple. He told me that he had become an alcoholic for reasons that no longer mattered to him. He also told me that the act of transforming himself from an alcoholic into something different, anything different, forced him to create a skill set that he had used to morph into a Christian, and a better son, and a caring lover, and a runner.

Over the years I have noticed that the participants in our sport skew toward individuals who have lived difficult and troubled pasts. Others have noticed this as well. I once read the work of a theorist who believed that depressed personality types self-select into endurance sports for the endorphins they provide. Other theorists paint this picture in a more positive light; they believe that perhaps endurance athletes achieve a state of Zen or an inner peacefulness through the act of running. I heard ultra running once compared to the act of self flagellation...the claim was made that we are masochists.

I’d like to suggest that my fiend came closer to the truth. I like to believe that possibly the reason that our sport is populated by a higher than normal percentage of individuals who have experienced psychosocial challenges is because these individuals have mastered the art of change. Darwin said that the species that survive are those that adapt best to change. Why then, shouldn’t survival sports be populated with change artists? And why shouldn’t those who have experienced stress also be among the best users of stress as a change agent?

Stress IS a change agent in organisms you know. I wrote the following paragraph in a very old and boring posting that no one ever read, here it is again:

In the body, stress is needed for growth. Without stress there is the opposite of growth; atrophy. As tissues are stressed, an inflammatory reaction occurs which leads to environmental changes including increased temperature, a lack of blood flow to the affected area, a buildup of damaging acids, an accumulation of waste products, and a lack of oxygen. This environment, though unpleasant, does have beneficial side effects. If the body is stressed, cells called osteoblasts spring into action and repair an area using collagen; a bony material which makes the tissue stronger. Osteoblasts only function in a hot, acidic, low oxygen environment and so stress is always needed to strengthen tissues. There is no growth without inflammation and no inflammation without stress. The next time the tissue is stressed it takes more stress to cause the area to become inflamed because the body is now stronger and more stress resistant. Continued mild stress applied to tissue being repaired causes it to form itself to new job demands. This process is known as remodeling. It’s a great system.

I wrote it then and I’ll write it again now: It is a great system. And I believe that it works not only for tissues but, metaphorically, for the mind and the soul as well.

The final mile of the “Forget the P.R.” race turns cruel. I arrived at the base of the North Rim Trail nearly 40 minutes ahead of my predicted time. Even though the race leaders finished over 4 miles ahead of me I was having the race of my life….all I had to do was keep it ‘rubber side down’, and I managed to. But the last mile of the race brought cramps into my inner thighs that felt like high voltage electrical shocks, my balance was thrown off and I repeatedly stumbled over rocks and tree roots. I had absolutely nothing left. None of it mattered, of course. I slowed to a crawl, lost a minute or so, and met a smiling Rob Powell at the finish for a hug.

The immediate joy of the finish line remained, but was soon accompanied by a realization that my race, as strong as it had been by my standards, showed a need for growth and change before I could expect to finish the Mohican Trail 100 Mile Run in two months. I would need to become patient; no more howling nasty words into the woods about poor old Rob Powell when I become tired of the hills. I would need to take care of the details; no running 12 miles with a rock in my shoe. That sort of thing produces bloody socks in a 100 miler. And I would need to learn to handle the slow trickle of poison that my body would produce better than I had in the 50K. Dehydration, low blood sugar, and swinging blood pressures make for a good post-race story when they happen in the final miles of a 50K but they make for sober sounding excuses when told by a runner seated in the back of an ambulance at a 100 miler.

My long winter runs with Terri had turned me into a better 50K runner. And I now need to leave those skills behind and change again if I am going to survive those same trails in June.

That’s OK though. I can change. I know that I can.

I have been asked to change so many times this year, and in so many areas of my life, that at times I can almost forget what my old life was like. I might be stronger and I might be weaker. I’m probably a bit of both I suppose. But one thing is certain. I’m here. I’m not extinct. I’m alive because I have been given a gift that allows me to change and to adapt. It is a gift that is so unique to us that I wonder if God even needed to warm up to the idea.

The Old Testament is chock full of stories of God telling us what to do. In the stories we routinely DIDN’T obey him, and then we were punished. And God didn’t mess around either. We aren’t talking about getting grounded or not being allowed to watch TV. We are talking plagues, boils, locusts, floods. And still we didn’t learn. God doesn’t seem to operate this way anymore.

This is going to sound blasphemous but I like to think that maybe God didn’t understand us.

Maybe God sat up in heaven and realized that we were different. So he took on the form of a man and came down to be with us. And maybe God then realized that being human is hard. After all, God is perfect. This means that everything that God does is Godly, which means that nothing that God ever does is a sin. And that’s absolutely perfect and unchanging…like sweet corn. But the problem is that if God never sinned then this means that maybe God was never tempted. Maybe God didn’t understand envy and greed and lust. Maybe God didn’t understand guilt. Maybe God didn’t understand stress. And if these things are true then God wouldn’t understand how we couldn’t follow VERY SIMPLE ORDERS, no matter how many times he punished us. I like to think that after God became man he understood all of these things. It seems like it. The relationship sure is different than it used to be, at least that how I see it.

So why doesn’t the North Rim Trail get easier after I ask God to allow it to? Why do families break apart if God loves us? Why do healthy young people die horrible deaths and wretched sinners prosper? Where is God at these times? Maybe God is practicing his new sense of empathy. Maybe God is cheering for us and watching us grow, and watching us change.

Maybe God is proud of us.

Monkeys, Maize, and Marathons: Part 1

2010-05-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking corn does corn stuff.

It grows. It produces pollen. It lines nearly the entire 70 mile route between Delaware and Findlay. And because, for the past 6 years, I have routinely driven this route, I believe that I have come to gain a serviceable knowledge of corn and its doings. I believe that sweet corn is one of the surest signs that God loves us. During August I stop at roadside stands, buy corn, and eat 3-4 ears every day. I’m enthusiastic about August sweet corn because I know that in just a few weeks the corn will be gone… except for that stuff they have in the grocery store. Oh, I know that I can get corn in May. I saw some in Kroger yesterday. I know that that stuff is supposed to be corn but I also know that it is not the real deal. That corn is grown somewhere in Central America and I believe that it is insincere. God doesn’t get corn in Central America and he doesn’t buy it in the grocery store. I believe that God stops at a roadside stand in Ohio and loads up. And so I do the same.

Corn is noble. Corn is completely and utterly dependable. It is nearly always “knee high by the 4th of July”. Sometimes it is even taller. In July corn begins to change the landscape of Northwestern Ohio from an endless expanse of nothingness into a mini-woodland. From late July until early November drivers have to actually stop their cars at road crossings to check for traffic, because the corn obstructs the usually endless views in this part of the state. Corn makes this area, formerly the site of the ‘Great Black Swamp’, into a cozy and homey place. In the fall corn mazes pop up. Cross country races run between the partially harvested rows, and hunters begin a ‘secondary harvest’ of the fattened corn pilfering deer in the area.

And it happens this way every year.

Rotary dialed phones have come and gone. Hand cranked windows are no longer placed in new automobiles. I no longer need to get newsprint on my fingers to learn of race results and stock prices. But corn still does corn stuff. That’s comforting isn’t it?

I was thinking about corn as we came roaring into the Hickory Ridge aid station at the “Forget the P.R. 50K” a few weeks ago. I was thinking about corn because I noticed that the enormous cornfield visible from Hickory Ridge hadn’t been planted yet. In fact it hadn’t even been plowed. It seemed to me that it was getting just a bit late in the year for a cornfield to lay fallow and this caused me a bit of vague discomfort. But it didn’t cause me as much discomfort as Terri Lemke was causing me. And the discomfort that Terri was causing me wasn’t vague at all. Terri had her chin pressed against her sternum and was administering the anaerobic word of God to anyone attending her Sunday morning service. A pack of 5 of us held on, sucking wind on uphills, holding on for dear life on downhills, while Sister Terri testified. I had never, in my 33 years of running, been lulled into such a recklessly fast pace so early in a race. If it was too late in the year for a field of corn to lay fallow then it was too EARLY in the season, and very certainly too early in this race, to be pushing this hard. But we were pushing hard anyway, because this is what we have become. It would have been so easy to drop off the pace, have a Hammer gel, a sip of water, and walk a bit. But I couldn’t because I knew that this is who we now were, this is what we had made ourselves into.

I guess that developing our strange ability has been a PERSONAL evolution of sorts, although Charles Darwin would disagree that there is such a thing.

Darwin never said “Only the strongest of the species survive”, even though everyone thinks he did. He also never said that the smartest of the species survive. What he said was that the species that survive are those that adapt best to change.

Darwin never believed that an individual organism could evolve. He suggested that it takes many generations for a species to change its form. Natural selection involves the weeding out of some species as a result of the success of other species. The species with the greater advantage takes over that phylogenetic niche, forcing the less adaptable species into extinction.

Fundamentalist Christians tried, in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, to outlaw the teaching of the theory of natural selection in public schools, by disproving Darwin. They failed. Even today, in some parts of the south, fundamentalists argue against such teaching in schools. They ultimately fail as well. But Sister Terry was doing one mighty fine job of proving Darwin wrong. I know she was beating the Devil out of me!

If human beings cannot evolve within their own lifetime then how on earth was Terri doing this? Terri was built for speed. She was an elite 5K and 10K runner in college. She would be the first to tell you that a 30 mile jog back then would have landed her in bed for days. Nowadays a hard and fast 31 mile run doesn’t even get enough respect out of Terri to earn a stop at the six mile aid station…she ran right through it! And if human beings cannot change then how does one account for the strange behavior of Casey Clark?

Casey was racing his first ultra marathon and he was doing it in style. Casey is one of my running buddies from Delaware. He’s not a newbie. He finished the Mohican 50 mile run last summer with another friend of mine, Scott Wolf. But they jogged and walked in that event. They grazed at aid stations, and more or less enjoyed the day. What was happening here was extreme. We were running the toughest 50K course in the Midwest and covering uphill miles at just over eight minutes apiece. Casey was breathing through his nose and looked perfectly at ease despite the 25 miles (!) that lay before us. Casey was a basketball player in high school. He can jump. I’ve seen him do it. And he’s fast. He’s a cross country sort of fellow and can lay down a nasty-ass kick when the occasion calls for it. But over the past few months Casey had turned himself into a fine and fit runner of long trails.

And that’s something, despite all of its glory, that corn will never do.

The comparison might seem unfair. Corn has no legs, which might put it at a disadvantage in a race. I’ll give you that one. So let us compare Casey to another runner. Let’s compare him to a Quarter-horse. No matter what sort of bounce Casey has in his legs he’d get his ass kicked by a quarter horse...for a quarter. Is this comparison still unfair? “Quarter horses are sprinters” you might correctly claim. Fine, then lets compare Casey to Secretariat. Casey loses again. But Casey would nail either of them in a 50K trail race, and here is the thing: A quarter horse will ALWAYS beat a thoroughbred over a quarter mile and a thoroughbred will ALWAYS beat a quarter horse over eight furlongs. And neither of them will EVER beat Casey in a 50K. These fine animals, in fact all fine animals, cannot change their form on the fly. Except one…

Casey could train for a few months and become a pretty serviceable 400 meter runner. He could also become a good miler. I’d bet he could get his jump shot back if he wanted to. Wilt Chamberlain finished a 50 mile race several years ago. Do you know how he did it? He trained hard and TURNED HIMSELF INTO AN ULTRA MARATHON RUNNER!

We are the only species with the ability to change our form to follow our chosen function. God gave us this gift to use. It’s a miracle and it’s a miracle unique to us.

Only us.

Isn’t that amazing?

The fundamentalists have it wrong. They needn’t worry. Evolution doesn’t disprove the existence of God. Pure happenstance wouldn’t produce a rule that exists for every species except for one. Maybe we need to stop thumping our bibles and start reading them. The Old Testament states that God favored mankind above all other creation. What greater act of favor could there ever be than to allow us freewill and couple it with the latitude to develop our own tools so that we can pursue our own dreams? What good would free will be if we cannot move in the direction that our will drives us? Perhaps no other animal has this (adapt)-ability because no other animal has been granted free will. We can become who we want to be.

That amazes me.

I have other thoughts on this. I think that God gives us this ability to change, and couples it with the greatest change agent possible, the gift of stress. I’ll continue on in a few days. I love that a few people read this blog. I’m sorry that I have been so infrequent with the postings. I’ve had some stress and some change recently, as well as some changes to my form and function. I promise that part 2 of this post will be out in a few days. I hope you come back and read it. Peace. --Mark

The Cover of the Rolling Stone

2010-04-05T19:43:00.000-07:00

I was watching the ground ahead of me. I was looking for a shadow and scared that I would see one. The blazing sun was directly overhead and so shadows were short, but dear God this leg was long. And it was not going well. Not well at all. My buddy Paul leaned, from the waist, out of the passenger window of the Isuzu Trooper and poured water, from a gallon jug, over my head. “We’re driving ahead to drop Barry at the exchange point. That guy is right behind you and coming fast. Pull your shit together!” And with a crunch of wheels on gravel the Trooper pulled ahead. I could see, for a moment, into the back of the truck. Stu lay prone, in a sweaty pile, recovering from his leg. Barry sat, paralyzed, knowing that I was pissing away any chance he might have had to hold off Paul Aufdemburg on the upcoming leg. My other pal, Willy, was driving the follow-up car. He was a bit calmer. “Just hold steady Mark. You can lose some ground- just no catastrophes please”. But a full-on catastrophe was underway. I had managed to lose an eighty second lead in 2.5 miles. I had 5.5 miles left to run, and this race allowed no time-outs or substitutions. I was losing it and I was losing it for all of us.

We were the “Low Budget Athletic Club”. We were a group of largely untalented, hard training guys. All of us were post-college. None of us had any place to go athletically, so we roamed the central Ohio road race circuit, garnering top-five or top-ten finishes. Sometimes we would find an open cross country race. We had hand-lettered cotton jerseys, plain white with the words “Low Budget” arching over the letters “A.C.” We wanted the jerseys to look exactly like those of our heroes in the “Summit A.C.” We trained furiously, got injured often, cheered for each other when not racing and tried to kill each other when we were. More than anything else we loved to be together.

On this occasion we found ourselves to be the only non-Michigan based team in an inaugural event. The year was 1990. Nine other members of the Low Budget A.C. “Fighting Amish” and I were running in a relay race across Michigan. The race covered 330 miles in 3 days and ended at the Mackinaw Bridge. It sounded like a lot of fun when we signed up. It seemed like it wouldn’t be very competitive…more like a chance to drink some beer, camp, and get some miles in. The reality was that we found ourselves perfectly matched, almost eerily so, against a team from Michigan, who seemed to be our mirror image in terms of ability. The first day our team managed a 53 second lead over the course of 110 miles. The average pace was under six minutes per mile and the temperature was in the nineties. Being young guys, we figured that we needed to defend the honor of our home state. And we were defending it by the slimmest of margins. Every leg yielded a gain or loss of a few seconds, but I was poised to lose several minutes. My exhalations started to sound less like breaths and more like small sobs. Panic was setting in all around.

After running through soybean fields all morning, the upcoming town promised respite. There could be shade. There might be a kind soul with a garden hose. Someone might notice and acknowledge the struggle. Instead of relief I got Christmas music. I suddenly heard Dean Martin singing a Christmas song…that horrible one where some poor gal wants to leave his apartment and he’s refusing to take her home due to the weather. I thought that it was all in my head. When I saw the Christmas trees and garlands strung across the street I was certain I was hallucinating. I also heard the van full of Michigan runners approaching with their hoots, hollers, and cheers for their runner. At least they were drowning out Dean “Baby its cold outside” Martin whose smarm was, as it turned out, being pumped from public address speakers.

We were about 70 miles into day two when we entered Frankenmuth. I had never been there before and so I didn’t know what to expect. Frankenmuth makes itself famous, and presumably makes a few bucks, by maintaining a Christmas-year-‘round environment. I was caught and passed on the main street, right in front of a concrete snowman in the town square with a cement icicle hanging from his ceramic carrot nose. Down the street I could see a much sunburned man mowing his lawn.

“Don’t race him just run with him” called Willy from his front row seat. Willy was about two years older than the rest of us but infinitely wiser. I settled in, stared at the other runner’s back, and tried to use as little effort as possible to stay with him. For a moment I wondered why runners, given a two-lane road, will still choose to stay inches apart. But mainly I just stared. “This isn’t a race man, huff huff, its a tempo run” I said to my own mind. “Be cool and hang, puff puff, let HIM worry for a bit”. And from that moment on everything changed. We left town and it was two runners and the curve of the earth, visible in all directions through the waves of heat. A buzzard hovered overhead, and two cars hovered nearby, but these things didn’t exist in our universe. The other boy decided to force me back into the lead and I simply took it. Soon he was gone. People were yelling but I didn’t pay attention to them. Heat was my friend, sun was my friend, and pain was my close personal buddy. Soon I could hear only my own team mates and the predicted catastrophe came true. But it occurred several hundred yards behind me, then minutes behind me.

And that’s all I remember about that.

It was easily the best race I ever ran in my life. Nothing else that I have ever done has come close. Not even remotely. And I have absolutely nothing to show for it.

On the other hand, I DO have a trophy as tall as my waist, that I won by finishing 4th place in my age group in a race in Zanesville, Ohio. I chickened out early in that race and jogged in…but sponsorship, and trophies, were plentiful. And so I got a beauty.

I also once won a shrub at a race where I finished mid-pack. I put it in my back yard and forgot to plant it, or water it, and it died. Alas. I won a pair of shoes for running 4 minutes slower than my P.R. in a 10K. I ran my fastest-ever road marathon in 1986 and my prize was a congratulatory form-letter from Dick Celeste mounted in a frame (I’m not making that up). I finished 10th place in a race once and learned at the finish line that I was the sixth master’s runner to finish…so no hardware that day. Once I finished behind 7 guys in the 50-59 division but still managed to win the 40-45 age division. That time I won a plastic foot bath. It was cool because it created bubbles. But it broke and I no longer have it. There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere but I can’t think about it now. Its just too sad.

There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to awards. Its hard to know what they really mean, isn’t it? Ancient man didn’t run for awards. Maybe we shouldn’t be running for them as well. Ancient man would run to bring messages or track game. He was probably considered to be valuable to the community and thus was likely to be revered. As a proven provider he would possibly attract a wonderful mate. But no awards, no trophies.

Actually, on second thought, we are getting screwed!

After all, if winning a race would bring me riches, respect, and my choice of the ladies I would train like the wind! Instead we get trinkets. And not cool trinkets like socks with toes, or body glide. But large trophies for modest performances and congratulatory letters from the man who reduced my college financial aid package for good ones. If they are so unreliable in their value and prestige can ‘things’ be considered to be awards at all?

I won a trophy in college for placing high in the “Open” race at the Malone Invitational in 1984. The reason that I was in the open race was because I was not a top-seven runner for O.U. and, thus, did not qualify for the varsity race. My third place time in the open race would have netted me 63rd place in the varsity race. Strangely, my team mate Dave won the varsity race and received no award of any kind. I tried to sneak the trophy onto the bus in my gym bag but my team mates found it and razzed me mercilessly all the way back to Athens. They each took turns presenting the award to me by making increasingly more audacious and outrageous presentation speeches. It was wonderful. And hilarious. It also summed up our attitudes about awards.

No one cared about them at all.

And when you think about it that’s a beautiful thing.

We didn’t run for awards. That’s what we said and I believe that’s what we wanted to mean. Our cross country team at Ohio U. was ranked 18th nationally for a while but we knew that the football team, with a 1-9 record, would still get all of the attention and money. It had been that way for all of us…and for all of our lives. The truths of the inequalities and unfair nature of fame had been pounded into our psyches so many times that the concept had lost all of its integrity. I have spoken about this with so many runners, at so many events, covering so many distances, over so many years and spanning generations, that I have come to believe that the enmity we have for awards is nearly universal. And sincere. And yet incomplete.

We must desire awards for SOME reason or races would not have them. I have to admit that I love getting a trinket at the end of a race. I do now and I secretly did then. It’s a guilty pleasure. I know that at my level any award that I receive is as much a matter of who DIDN’T show up as it is a matter of who I finished ahead of. But really you can say the same thing about awards at any level.

Maybe what we are really seeking is peer review. Maybe we want an honest assessment; an outcome measure of our hard work. I recall that occasionally, on LBAC training runs, we would spontaneously break into song…and it was always the same song: ‘The Cover of the Rolling Stone’ by Dr. Hook. Geeber would sing harmony while Kevin and I would perform backup duties. We thought it was a goofy song and I don’t recall it having any particular meaning for us at the time. But all of these years later I wonder if we chose it accidentally. Sing along please:

We’ve got lots of little teenage, blue eyed groupies,
who’ll do anything we say.
We got a genuine Indian guru,
who’s teaching us a better way.
We’ve got all the friends that money can buy,
so we never have to be alone.
And we keep getting richer, but we can’t get our picture, on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

The song was ultimately about a band that had everything but the thing it most desired, the respect of its community. Did we choose that song accidentally? Twenty-some years later I believe that there was absolutely not a chance that our collective consciousness didn’t choose it for us. We were a bunch of young guys blowing every last cent we had on running shoes and entry fees. Pounding away on concrete sidewalks, and for what? I have come to believe that we did it for the same reason ancient man did it; for respect. And ancient man did it for the same reason a bus load cross country runners gave up the bars on Friday nights; for standing within their community. Were the tales told around a campfire thousands of years ago any grander than the tales told around a tailgate of an Isuzu Trooper parked near the entrance gait to the Mackinaw Bridge? Were the rites of manhood bestowed upon a young hunter really worlds apart from the taunts, which told a beaten down college sophomore that “You don’t need a trophy. Screw the trophy. You showed a spark of life today…and we noticed…and the reason we noticed is because you are one of us”?

I recently had reason to clean out my basement. In a dusty corner I found a piece of poster board, encased in a picture frame protected by cracked glass. The award was evidence that I was part of a team that ran across the enemy's state in 1990. The poster states that the Low Budget Athletic Club finished in second place, by a total of 65 seconds, over a distance of 330 miles. I will never throw this award away. It is a modern-day eagle's feather. It has meaning because it is evidence of a time when I counted coup with my tribe...maybe other awards are as well.

The evening after the third day of the Michigan relay race the two tribes sat around a public park, sneaking beer from brown paper bags. Suddenly it was just one tribe, a cluster of individuals who could understand the thrill of the hunt. Winners and losers didn’t matter any more.

These are nice memories. But they do not make me sad and they do not make me nostalgic. We are blessed with the best reward of all. If thousands of years didn’t erode the sense of community that runners can share then surely 20 years can not possibly make a dent at all. The community and sense of peer approval that echoes across years and generations, when we test ourselves on the field of battle, will never end. It’s the reason why the winner of the Mohican 100 mile run can jog along with a runner who finished in last place, they can compare their buckles, and they can share stories, and they share a bond. I believe this connection exists in no other sport.

Just ours.

Chances

2010-02-25T23:11:00.001-08:00

Just a short while ago I was out running in the dark, down one of the sidewalks on Lake St. I was hopping over piles of brown ice, and an old muffler, and someone’s lost (and late) cat. Normally I run in the street during a “pre-melt” period because, no matter how dangerous cars might be, it seems like my chances of breaking bones are still less than if I slipped on an icy sidewalk.

Lake Street changes the odds though.

Lake Street includes a 200 yard stretch of State Route 42, as it dog-legs through Delaware. You have probably been on this piece of road all of the times that you have had occasion to drive from Plain City to Ashley. Lake Street contains three bars, a pizza shop, and a tattoo parlor. One of the bars has been in business since 1888 and they have never once, in all of that time, cleaned the bathroom. That bar used to have a very beautiful barmaid named Terrii. She ran off with a man with a small heart and a large Harley and no one has seen her since. I asked her once why she spelled her name with two i’s. She told me “Well, because I have two eyes silly!” It made perfect sense to me at the time.

I still miss her.

Running on a sidewalk on Lake Street is a good idea because the patrons typically own awesome motorcycles but bad cars. There’s no reason to invest in windshield wipers when spring will be here eventually, you know. Late February means that car seats fill with dead skin, half used matchbooks, and the scrap of paper with the number of a faith-healer you’ve been meaning to call. Sometimes floorboards have chocolate milk cartons and bottles rolling around. As I ran down Lake Street’s sidewalk I imagined a bottle lodging under a brake pedal. And then I imagined me and my new pet cat going to meet Jesus. I looked at the shadows slouched in the front seats of the vehicles and ciphered that about half of them were drunk. I imagine that more than half of them thought that I was stupid. Since I believe that being stupid is generally more dangerous than being drunk, I wasn’t casting the first stone. But I wasn’t taking any chances either. I hopped fluffy and took a left on Central Avenue. Soon I would be at the river, then over the bridge and back to the safety of my 600 square foot apartment. My apartment smells like the guy that lived here before me. But he smelled better than Kintz Liquor’s bathroom so it was my destination of choice.

To get there though, I had to battle the wind roaring along the frozen surface of the Olentangy River. As roaring winds go it wasn’t all that bad. But it signaled that more snow is on the way and, on February 25th, snow has lost most of its charm for me. I love to run but I was glad that this run was only going to be four miles. I was running easily because I am tapering.

I am tapering because I want to throw a final punch at February. February and I don’t get along. This year I have fought my opponent with all that I have in me. If this was a 28 mile trail race February and I would run the last three miles together, give a manly fist-bump at the finish, and figure it had been a battle well-fought. But February isn’t giving in until the final round and so neither am I. The other day, while on a 13 mile run, I argued aloud with February. “Screw You February!” said I, “In 5 days you will be gone and I will live on”. February is hurtful though and responded “Go ahead and beat me. We both know that you lost the only thing that is important in life.”

February is a mean motherfucker. But I know that I could have filled the hole that was blown through me with drugs, or booze, or hatred. But instead I filled it with children and work and running. Lots and lots of running. And that is why this Sunday I will try to create a silver lining on the last day of the worst month of the worst season of the year, and of my life.

This Sunday I am going to try to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I’m going to go to Dublin, Ohio and run around an office park, on a one mile loop, 26.2 times. I’m not making that up. Such a race actually exists and, of course, it could only exist in February. February is nasty and so it will, of course, serve up another snowstorm tomorrow. I hope the City of Dublin has some road salt left. It seems like Delaware ran out weeks ago.

Boston intrigues me. My hometown used to hold a road race each spring in association with a large Sports Exposition hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College. Each year they would bring in a star runner and in 1978 they brought in Bill Rogers. At the expo Bill sat at an autograph table and, despite the fact that he was in the middle of a year in which he would win 50 of the 53 races he entered, he was ignored, while Bingo Smith, of the Cleveland Cavaliers, sat at a table next to him and had a line of autograph seekers 100 yards long. I was a shy 13 year old and, after I worked up the courage to approach Bill, we chatted for a while. He asked me about my running. He asked me what my favorite subject was in school. After a few minutes he looked around and said “You know Mark, I’m not needed here right now so lets take a break”. And that’s when I went for a 20 minute walk with Boston Billy. I asked him what it was like to win the Boston marathon and he told me that it was fun. That’s the word he used. Fun. He told me not to worry if my cross country times were slower than my track times. He told me they were supposed to be. Then he bought me an ice cream cone. Two weeks later he beat Jeff Wells by two seconds in a frantic lunge for the finish line in Beantown. Boston and its race have always seemed magical to me since that time.

I qualified for Boston 12 times when I was younger. I never actually ran the race though because I never had the money. I also never went because my “competitive” (I’m using the word loosely) marathon days coincided with the days before timing chips were invented and so I figured that losing 10 minutes at the start would wreck my race. Mainly though, I never went because I figured that I would always be able to. Youth makes you think that things will always remain constant. I was 23 years old when I ran my best marathon time. I was still gaining things in life and had never lost anything. My leg speed was intact, I grew stronger each year. Everyone I loved was still alive. All relationships were intact. Everything was growing and improving. Life’s stripping away process didn’t exist yet.

Twenty three year olds don’t write life’s scripts, however. Hip injuries, weight gain, and family health concerns took my running away and, several years later, when it returned, I could only run slowly. I could run long and so I did. But it was slow. Too slow for Boston. I was in Boston for a conference 12 years ago and jogged across Boston’s finish line. I teared up because I thought my last chance to run the race had passed.

The race on Sunday is called the “Last Chance for Boston” Marathon. It is traditionally held on the last day on which an individual can achieve a qualifying time. This year the Boston Marathon filled up very early. This caused the race directors to post a statement on their website stating that this year’s race would be a qualifier for Boston in 2011. They stated that “…because of this, our marathon is the ‘Last Chance for Boston’ in name only”.

I don’t know though. This one might be it for me. I run trails fairly well but I am very arthritic. Long runs require several days of recovery. Fast runs take even longer. Pavement just kills me. I am a physical therapist and, despite my ability to constantly shore up a weak area or shift pressure on one part of a joint to another location, I am running out of healthy places to lean. I am also 45 years old. Forty-five year olds get a ten-minute time increase rather than the typical “five-minute-per-five-year correction” offered at Boston. I feel certain that I am in my final years as a runner. It might be now or never for me. I am fit, I am relatively thin, I have no injuries and, most amazing of all…I am kind of fast in a relative sense for the first time in a long time. My main goal for the year is a Mohican finish. I will be doing heavy mileage on trails as soon as the weather breaks. That will be the end of my speed, however modest it may be at the moment. And, as I have learned so very many times lately, life offers just so many chances.

The day that I set my marathon personal best in 1986 I was trying to qualify for a marathon. It wasn’t Boston but it was a very prestigious race nonetheless. I lost my will at 24 miles and narrowly missed what I thought was an opportunity of a lifetime. I was wrong though. I guess I never thought that life could be so long. I don't regret missing the qualifying time for that race, but I have always regretted not running Boston. In the final minutes before the start of that race in 1986 my mother, who was in the late stages of lung disease, held my sweats while my Dad tied my shoes. I couldn’t tie them myself because my hands were shaking with fear and excitement. On that day I thought the race I was trying for was the most important thing in life.

This Sunday I will stand calmly at the start knowing that there is absolutely nothing important about running the Boston Marathon. The important thing is that in the middle of life’s coldest and loneliest times, and along its ugliest paths, we are given gifts. It is beautiful that the worst times can produce strength and the greatest challenges can be (if you believe Bill Rogers—and I do) “Fun”. I’m happy because for the first time in a long time I can try. And I’m grateful that I have come to believe that failing to celebrate, when given an opportunity to do so, might be a sin.

Regis

2010-01-18T14:05:00.000-08:00

The first time I had a real chat with Regis was in the middle of a very dark night. It was during one of the Mohicans. I don’t recall which one and it doesn’t matter which year it was. I’m convinced that memories are supposed to blend into one another.

The Mohican Trails Group has done such wonderful work on the trails in the Mohican State Park and Mohican Wilderness area that it almost seems like a different place today. The trails still get muddy, but years ago a good rainstorm would wreck them. The year Regis and I connected was a wet one. I was sick and my race was reduced to a slow trudge. I walked for hours from the Bridle Staging Area, making my way toward Rock Point. I had seen no one in forever, and I was walking down an eight foot wide strip of six-inch deep mud and horse shit that stretched on for as long as my headlamp would allow me to see. Miles and miles earlier I had given up on my strategy of keeping to the edge of the trail. The edge wasn’t any firmer than the middle of the trail and at least the quagmire in the middle wasn’t full of thorns.

I was young and I was angry. I was angry at the mud and I was angry that it had rained. I was angry that my goal of breaking 24 hours was broken, and I was probably angry at God. Regis appeared from the gloom with his pacer and walked up beside me. He had given up on the edge of the trail as well. Then he told me that he was thinking of dropping out. I couldn’t have been more shocked if we had seen a UFO land. Even though I hadn’t chatted with Regis Shivers before, I knew him well enough to know that HE didn’t quit. Regis couldn’t quit. Regis was a legendary strong-man. He was a pillar. He was fast and he was tough. He had a daring nature and a glint in his eye. Superman was fictional but Regis was real.

Yesterday a bunch of Regis’ friends, and people who would have been Regis’ friends, gathered to run an annual race held in his memory. The run was 50 kilometers, or a bunch of other distances including a half-marathon, an 18 miler, a 21 miler, or a marathon. One runner decided to run 24 miles because that is a fine fine distance. Regis would have approved.

Race director Tanya Cady created the perfect environment in which we could remember our friend. Some runners jogged slowly, some raced their hearts out. Old and new friends reunited and ran together through heavy, slippery snow, slush, and ice. After the run most didn’t seem to want to leave. Regis would have loved the unique ultra running community that has grown in northeastern Ohio. I believe that he would also love the Western Reserve Trail Running Series, of which this event was a part. Facebook and Blogging unite this community today. But just a few years ago this community was held together by Regis, and a few others like him, who liked to run but enjoyed their friends even more than they enjoyed their sport. Runners are forgotten, records are re-written, but love lasts a good long while. That’s why Regis hasn’t left our hearts.

The last time I saw Regis was also at Mohican. It was several years ago. I have always been honest about my successes and failures at Mohican and I can honestly say that the last time I saw Regis I was simply carrying out a planned DNF. I was working on my doctoral degree and my training was nearly non-existent. I entered simply because I wanted to be a part of the event. I planned on running 30 miles and I made it to the 45 mile mark at the Bridle Staging area near where Regis and I had met years before. Regis was well into his battle with cancer at that time. He approached me as I was sitting on the ground, under a tree, waiting for a ride. Speaking through an electronic voice simulator, he urged me to get up and go on. I explained to him that I had met my goal. He smiled at me and told me that I should continue if I could. I now imagine that Regis knew that life’s opportunities can be limited. Regis really wanted me to continue toward my ten-time finisher’s buckle. He would have continued, but I didn’t. I smiled back at him and said “Nope. I’ll finish it next year and so will you. We’ll run it together”.

Regis died later that year. Every single runner I knew grieved. What kind of man must he have been when, at virtually every gathering of ultra runners people tell stories about him, quote him, and just generally miss him? Being a good runner isn’t enough to achieve such status. Sadly, being a good person isn’t even enough. Being famous will carry you for a generation or so. We remember Regis because he served, and loved, and supported. We loved Regis because, to him, life was fun.

I ran really hard yesterday. I figured that Regis might have enjoyed how tough this race was. I imagined, several times during the race, that he would have been happy that I was doing well. I ran hard because I needed to pound on a few demons that have been trying to latch on to me lately. Regis passed away after a courageous battle with cancer and I learned a few days ago that my brother has cancer and his prognosis doesn’t appear too promising. I’d love to chat with Regis about it, but I can’t. So I ran hard instead.

Regis never quit fighting the cancer. The night we met Regis didn’t quit either. I mumbled some sort of advice to him about how he should stare at his pacer’s back and just keep moving. He offered me some kind words as well, and in this way two guys with nothing left exchanged the gift of energy. If that sounds smarmy to you then you simply haven’t experienced life on the trail. Care creates energy. I don’t know why. I just know that it does. The next morning, and for years after that night, Regis credited me with getting him to the finish line. Regis always gave the credit away.

The things I will always remember about Regis are different from the things I originally thought I knew about him. He was a terrific runner and he really was very tough. But Regis was human. Humans sometimes want to quit. God came to earth as a human and, for at least one moment, he wanted to quit too. I think that Regis knew enough to live life for every minute that he was here. I have memories of Regis in motion but the image that I hold closest of this man were the times when he was very still. He seemed overwhelmingly in love with his wife, and he seemed to be surrounded by his kids and grandkids at all times. I have an image burned into my mind of him, seated in a lawn chair, surrounded by those that loved him. At these times he would speak of any topic other than himself. He knew that his running would end but his family would not. I recall closing in on him at the finish at Mohican another year while he walked slowly toward the finish with his young grandson, who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old. Regis must have been desperate to finish…I know I was. But instead of pushing for the finish a couple of hundred yards away they stopped to look at a bug on the ground. Then they held hands and walked along as though they were spending time on a playground. In hindsight I suppose they were.

... North Coast 24 Hour Run; Part 2

2009-11-16T21:23:00.000-08:00

WARNING: This post is VERY long. I could have broken it into pieces but didn't. Take an aid-station break if you need to. Sorry to test your endurance : )

The sport of ultra marathoning is changing. It is becoming more organized, more popular, more mainstream, and at the same time way way way more laid back. The epicenter for this national change is Cleveland, Ohio. I mean this literally. Cleveland is changing the sport and I think I recall the moment immediately before the big-bang occurred. I was talking to Joe Jurczyk many years ago when he was the race director for the Mohican 100 mile run. Back then the race had a stipulation that any runner must have finished a 50 mile trail run to gain entry. Joe told me that he didn’t care so much about the 50 mile distance as much as he cared that runners knew what they were getting into when they ran on a trail. He told me that he was going to waive this requirement in the case of two brothers who were impressive enough in their own right. “These guys are amazing and they really get trails…so I’m letting them run if they want to”.

Mark and Steve Godale took ultra running by storm. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the Godale brothers but I will tell you what I have seen and I will tell you what I believe they have accomplished. Inside of their first couple of years the nation knew the name Godale. They both ended up as Mohican Champions, both have had success in national class and national championship races. The have represented the USA in world championship events. Mark was Ultra runner of the year in 1999. The most amazing thing about the Godales, though, wasn’t their speed. It was their inclusiveness and approachability. The Godales would beat you by several hours in a race, then sit around a campfire with you afterward and talk about YOU. They developed a reputation for running with or racing anyone, anywhere, at any time, and at any distance. They clearly loved the sport and they loved their friends, fast and slow alike. Their approach was refreshing. It was cool. It was emulated. And it became the expected norm for trail running in this part of the country. The training clatches centered in northeast Ohio continued to grow and supportiveness led to participation and participation led to increased numbers of events, which led to COMMUNITY. And the northeastern Ohio ultra running community is like no other. You can talk about San Francisco or New York or the Rocky Mountains all you like and I’ll sit and listen. But Cleveland is where community is happening.

This sense of community allowed Terry Hawk and I to catch up on each other’s lives even though we had never actually met. Terry was the first Ohio runner to win Mohican and he has had a terrific career. Terry is a legend. I am an also-ran. And yet when we met during our crossing-guard shift change we learned that we both knew of each other. In fact we found it to be somewhat amazing that we had never met. We spoke of past races and training for an hour before he left the road crossing and the conversation was not that of two strangers. It was more like two college friends reconnecting after several years apart. That is what I mean by community. I believe that this exists no where like it does in Cleveland, and I believe that is what makes us special.

When Terry left I was joined by Dan Bellinger and Mike George. We had a great time catching up. Mike decided to go get his truck and blast music as the runners passed by. Over the next several hours the three of us, chatted, cheered, occasionally ministered to an ailing runner, and generally had a blast.

At first glance the runners seemed to be machines. They trickled by. This one was walking, that one was running, those three are near each other but don’t seem to ever talk. Here comes one eating a ham sandwich. Some would disappear for a while and return. Others were bent to the task at hand. I wanted to cheer for each one and I did. Some just LOVED the applause. Others seemed to want to be left alone; in these cases I still applauded but otherwise remained silent. Jill Perry ran by several times before I realized she was a competitor. She was pretty, smiling, seemingly carefree and ran with a bounce in her stride that one might expect from a college half-miler, not a mother in the lead in the 16th hour of a 24 hour national championship race. It was clear that Jill was focused but she seemed to be having fun. The regulars were there as well: Roy Heger, Fred Davis, Ron Ross. They represented the tried-and-true ultra runners among us. They were up in the top 25 runners or so and practicing their craft in yet another event, in yet another location, in yet another year of their illustrious careers. They had been in this situation so many times before that it was as comfortable as an old shoe. They socialized, they thought deep thoughts, they relaxed…and they never, ever, ever took their eye off of the ball. They also never showed any signs of fearing the ball. Anna Pekoska, Debra Horn, Kim Martin, and the legendary Connie Gardner tried to keep Jill Perry within striking range while contending amongst each other for a spot on the national team. Similarly, Wyatt Hornsby, John Geesler, and Phillip McCarthy contended with several other runners for both the crown and the plane ticket. Suzanne Pokorny came by each lap with a HUGE smile and usually a funny comment. I once made a conscious effort to not return her infectious smile, just to see if it could be done. I failed. Other runners were more serious, but none were surly or rude.

One runner nearly intimidated me in his alone-ness. I came to think of him as “self-contained-man”. He seemed to be at peace. He was most certainly polite. He would easily and willingly make way for a faster runner. But it could not have been clearer that he wished to be left alone. Each lap he drifted by, cut the road’s tangent perfectly, and disappeared into the night. Other runners made musical requests of Mike or me, but self-contained-man wore an ipod. Self-contained-man looked neither left nor right. He did not look up or down. He never changed his shirt. He never added a jacket or a pair of gloves despite the night’s chill. His stride never changed. He did not move fast but I never saw him walk either. It was impossible to tell if he was running well or not. He was tall and he was thin and he was… alone. He had a crew cut. Perhaps fuller hair was too much to bother with. And the strangest thing of all was that he wore a hydration pack. In a race where the runners passed an aid station every 0.9 miles I saw no other runner carrying so much as a spare square of toilet tissue. And yet self-contained-man seemed to need only himself and 24 hours. I cheered for him but in a way that didn’t interfere with what he was doing…whatever that might have been.

At first a few runners seemed taken-aback that we were enthusiastic about their efforts. One of them asked me “You aren’t going to clap all night are you?” I responded “If you can run all night then I can clap all night”. And that was when I realized that I had given my ethics talk 16 hours too soon. Because I tell you from that instant-on the ethic of care (There is such a thing: look it up) arose from the light mist and came to envelope our outpost. I could look over my shoulder and see the buzz of race headquarters several hundred yards away. But the race was happening right here. The ghosts weren’t dead and in fact they weren’t dying. They were becoming more human each time they passed and I began to have affection for each of them. The runners thanked us for the music so many times that it tugged at my heartstrings. One runner wanted to hear some Willy Nelson and so we dug and dug into Mike’s collection until we found some. Most runners wanted upbeat goofy music. Little Richard was an unexpectedly HUGE hit, as was Johnny Cash, and the Bee Gees. I have volunteered at races before but there was something about seeing the runners again and again that was simply beautiful. We witnessed 100 deaths and 100 resurrections. At one point a runner to whom I had not ever spoken walked up to me and told me that he didn’t think he could go on. I told him to enjoy the night and that I would see him in 15 short minutes. Soon thereafter he came by and gave me a grin and called out 14:53!! Every lap thereafter he sailed past and we celebrated every sub-fifteen minute mile.

Another runner approached me and told me that he was going to take a short nap but wanted to know if I would still be there when he came back. I told him that wild horses could not pull me from this post and, in fact, when Race Director Dan Horvath came by to make sure I was OK I told him that I wasn’t leaving until the race was over and so he didn’t need to send anyone. He warned me that that would mean a 9-hour shift. I didn’t care. By 3:00 am the ghosts had turned fully human and needed affection. Well, self-contained-man didn’t seem to need any but most did. Runners began to share bits of themselves with me. I have been in races before where just a bit of care could carry me forever and it was wonderful to be a source of positive energy for some runners. Many included me in their count-downs. “Mark, I have only 9 more laps until 100 miles” was a typical newsflash from a new friend. From that point we would count together until they hit their mark. Others would announce that they would not hit a mileage goal and needed to chat for a few minutes about why this was OK.

Ron Ross hit 100 miles and took a break before continuing. So did Fred and Roy. Jill continued to expand her lead and Connie and Kim, the lionesses of Ohio Ultramarathoning for so many years ran well but dropped back. Neither of them gave up. Similarly something was wrong with Wyatt. He ran with a pained expression and ever stiffening gait. For hour after hour he churned out steady miles and moved up through the field but something was wrong. Wyatt won Mohican this year and he will most certainly win many races and make a national team in the future. But today was not to be the day. Despite his discomfort Wyatt never stopped, never complained, and competed until the gun fired to stop the race. Despite his struggle he finished very well, in 7th place, and I will recall him making something of nothing in the final hours of this race for as long as I live. Its going to be fun to watch this man’s career unfold. Up front a relaxed Philip McCarthy took over the lead and kept his cool despite the aggressive running of John Geesler among others. Of all the runners in the race the veteran Geesler was the only runner who struck me as a racer. I believe I saw surges thrown, displays of strength, and strategies unfolding in the early hours of the morning. Geesler was implementing a plan as others slept. Meanwhile self-contained-man drifted by. He was so slow and silent and steady he might have been a wave lapping the Lake Erie shore.

As the late night hours approached some runners began to drift off for a few hours of sleep. In some cases these rest breaks were part of a careful strategy and in other cases they were an unavoidable consequence of a long day and many miles. As night wore on Leo Lightner was slowly but surely evolving into the big story of the race. Eighty-one year old Leo was rolling steadily around the course and zeroing in on a national age-group record. No runner in Cleveland is more loved, or more deserving of love, than Leo. Leo has been a servant on the Cleveland running scene since the days when the “Cleveland” marathon started in Hudson. Leo was never a star. He was never famous. He just showed up and gave…and gave…and gave. And now Leo, in his 9th decade was on the road to fame. And EVERYONE (EVERYONE) was holding their breath and hoping beyond all hope that he could hold on and pull this off. Leo reports and sightings were everywhere:

Leo had to sit down!
No, Leo Planned to sit down.
Leo is struggling!
Leo is rallying!
Leo should be eating more.
Do you think we should encourage Leo to put on warmer clothes so that he doesn’t get chilled and crash?
And so on…

Every runner on or near the course was praying and wishing that they could run the race for Leo.

Meanwhile, Leo listened to advice. Leo chatted with friends. Leo ran and walked and did precisely as he pleased. He never appeared to worry about the record that he eventually shattered by running 82 miles. Word spread around the course, from croaky throat to happy ear, the moment Leo got the record. It was my happiest memory of being a runner from Cleveland.

Meanwhile the relationships between runners continued to strengthen. The strong and the struggling shared a bond and it was my selfish pleasure to be a peripheral part of such love. Liz Bauer traveled from Georgia to Ohio to run in this championship and every lap seemed to be a celebration for Liz. Her race was what every single race should be. Liz seemed to be pushing hard. Liz seemed to be enjoying the challenge. And Liz and I were getting to know each other. Each lap she would give me a bit of news about her progress. Liz was not bragging. She knew I was interested and she knew I wanted to be included. She shared her race with me and by morning I felt that I had gotten to know someone a bit. Meanwhile self-contained-man ran by and gave me a ‘thumbs-up’….at least I thought that’s what I saw.

Dawn on Lake Erie is murky. This one was as well. A million seagulls appeared with the first rays of light and someone not related to the race began to feed them, creating chaos. Sleeping runners ambled back onto the course. Mike Keller continued to pound out mile after mile while keeping an eye peeled on his young daughter, Autumn, who decided to forego tent and sleeping bag and, instead, aid and charm runners all night. There is surely a service gene in the Keller mix and Autumn adopted it. Cars began to arrive to watch the end of the race and for the first time all night my traffic patrol duties became real. Most drivers were friendly but one man, who seemed to have cornered the world’s hair-gel market, rolled into the park at 60 mph and howled at me for keeping him waiting. By this point in time I could have killed him for putting “my” runners at risk. I let him sit a couple of minutes beyond what was absolutely necessary…because…you know…this story can’t ALL be about good Karma : ).

With about an hour to go self-contained-man shocked me out of my socks by stopping right in front of me and saying “Mark, I have three laps to go to get 135 miles and I’m in the top three! I think I can make the team!” I was stunned. I had watched the entire last 1/3 of the race and had no idea that he was moving up through the field in this way. I was also surprised that he knew my name. I had been cheering for him and fascinated by him all night long, and now I felt absolute anxiety that he should keep moving NOW (!) so as not to lose any ground. Self-contained-man’s real name was Dan Rose and he had driven in quietly from Washington D.C. and entered the field of all-stars. He had hoped to pull off a huge upset and now here he stood, on a bike path in Cleveland, Ohio about to earn a USA jersey as a result of doing what Leo had done, and Wyatt had done, and Mike had done. But today he had been perfect. And he needed someone to know. And he chose me. And I realized that Dan was why I had come to Cleveland. I needed to see the improbable happen. I needed a dose of hope. I needed to see a wonderful upset. And here it was. Dan wasn’t self contained and I wasn’t sent to help Dan, I was sent to see someone crash through adversity and come away shining. Dan and I began the three lap countdown after which he learned that another runner was within a lap of him and closing hard. Despite the pressure Dan made some small celebratory gesture each lap as he held on, held on, held on.

As fate would have it Dan happened to be within sight of me as the gun fired to stop the race. He football-spiked his wooden marking-chip to the ground as he slowed to a stop and for the first time slumped, then knelt, then smiled, then teared up.

I likely won’t ever see Dan again, and that’s OK. He was going somewhere exotic to run against the world. I was going back to Delaware, Ohio to get ready for the Run With Scissors Double Marathon. My palate felt like it might stay cleansed for a while this time.

I like this sport.

Give and Take: Holding Up Traffic at the North Coast 24 Hour Run; Part 1

2009-11-15T21:20:00.000-08:00

Isn’t it funny where you find yourself sometimes?

At 7:00 p.m. on October 3 of this year I found myself standing by my car, completely naked despite the 50 degree weather, pouring water over my head from a plastic bottle, and scrubbing mud from my shins with my sweatshirt. I was in Cook Forest, Pennsylvania and the truth is that I never really planned to be there. I surely hadn’t planned to put in the 20 mile run that I had just completed. The day started in State College, Pennsylvania where I presented a paper at an ethics conference. The conference was nice. Sometimes I write very good ethics papers but the one I presented that morning was average at best. I didn’t find the subject matter particularly interesting and the room gave me the praise I deserved. Then we went to the basement and ate prime rib at 11:30 a.m. After the prime rib they brought out some sort of pudding, or yogurt or some such thing and I had to use a different fork than we had used on the prime rib for some unspoken reason. I didn’t want to use a fork at all. I wanted to use a spoon but that would have been wrong for the same reason I suppose. Everyone seemed to know about using the different fork, including me. I also knew to wear a necktie and I knew that I should open with an ethics joke, but not one about priests, or rabbi’s, or nuns, or popes. Really though, when you exclude that group the ethics joke universe shrinks a bit. I told one about a bear and a rabbit. It was a poor joke but everyone laughed a little bit and then those with glasses draped on chains took the glasses off and settled in to my talk, where they learned that the joke was kinda gonna be the highlight. Everyone was so darn nice. The ethics world is kind of like the ultra world because there aren’t many of us and so we all kinda know each other. It was nice seeing everyone. I’ll go back to the conference next year if they let me because I’ll want to see my friends again. After I was done with my pudding they handed me a mint. It was given to me to cleanse my palate. It worked I guess but I’ve found that cleansing your palate is a lot like making your bed. It doesn’t last long.

On October 3rd my car drove itself more than I drove it. In fact it took two unplanned turns. The first unplanned turn was the sudden right I took to get to Cook Forest. When I was a kid we passed through Cook Forest and I remember almost nothing about it except that my Dad bought me some Mexican jumping beans. We weren’t really poor but there really wasn’t a lot of money either so I learned not to ask for things. But Dad bought me the jumping beans and the forest was dark and the leaves were green and life was mysterious and it was perfect and I never forgot it.

Standing naked by my car didn’t cause me the least bit of concern or fear of arrest. For one thing I couldn’t be arrested for public indecency since I hadn’t seen the public in well over three hours. For another thing I was a man with not much to lose. This blog is about running and it will remain about running. But I have a non-running life and part of it has been troubling and hurtful and as a result I had no place to go where I was particularly needed. Thus the planned 45 minute run turned into an hour and then two hours, then three. The air was pine filled and the forest trails were endless and soft. Everything was calm and still and perfect. It was self centered. But self-centeredness in less evil when said self is not requested by others and so Cook Forest worked its magic on me again.

The second turn that my car took was, plainly and simply, a brain-stem response. The impulse to turn never made it to my mind. The sign said that I could go I-76 toward Akron and then on toward home, OR that I could stay on I-80 by veering right and go to Cleveland. The car veered right and, after it did, I figured I’d go say hi to Mike.

My buddy Mike Keller was running in the North Coast 24 hour Endurance Run and I knew that it was in progress at that moment. I hadn’t thought about it all day and here it was, 10:30 P.M. and I was headed to the race where I would, I imagined, give Mike an attaboy and go home. The North Coast 24 was serving as the National Championship this year and there was a lot on the line. The first three runners would make the national team that would go to the world championships, provided they also ran a minimum of 135 miles. The idea of three runners covering the distance seemed virtually assured given the entry of U.S. National Record holder Mark Godale, seven-time Western States 100 mile winner Scott Jurek, and a virtual who’s-who of the nations best vying for the title and a spot on the team. By the time I got there, shortly before midnight, Jurek and Godale had decided to leave their best efforts for another day, which just goes to show that even the greatest runners on earth can have an off day. None of the ghosts that drifted by me as I slowly walked a loop of the 0.9 mile course seemed troubled by the absence of these stars.

It was actually a bit macabre walking in the silent darkness as faceless runners whispered past me on their way to the once-per-loop aid station. The gentle breeze off the cool lake seemed to make the loop a lonely place, until the runners hit the bright lights, companionship, buffet of food and drinks, and overall sophistication and well-being of the race headquarters. A moment later, however, they were out on the furthest reaches of the loop, 0.45 miles removed from love and comfort. The race energy seemed to me to be a quasar; when the energy pulsed on it was all-powerful and when the energy pulsed off it was the loneliest object in the Universe. I ran into Mike, walked another lap with him and, purely on a whim, asked Joe Jurczyk if I could help in any way. Joe didn’t get to be the best race promoter in Ohio by turning down help and so, moments later I was introduced to Shannon Fisher, the volunteer coordinator. Shannon is really one of the loveliest people one could ever hope to meet and, I imagine, it must be hard to say no to her. It might have been Shannon or it might have been the “use whatever fork you want” nature of the event, or it might have been my need to be around other lonely people but I simply jumped at the chance to relieve T.J. Hawk at the course’s only road crossing, which marked, almost precisely, the halfway point of the loop.

I will write more soon. There were so many people, so many stories, so much good Karma in this event that even writing up the 1/3 of it that I saw will take another installment. I need to tell you about Connie and Kim
and Philip and a couple of Dans and John and Jill and Anna and Debra and Suzanne, and Ron, and Liz. I’m gong to love telling you about Liz. Also I think you should know about Wyatt and Mike and so many others that visited me, time after time, throughout the night. I’ll get to it soon. I hope you come back and read it.

Dr. Pepper: My RWS Race Report

2009-11-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

Consider the peak of a very high mountain. It is usually very beautiful and it is usually very hard to reach. It can be the most beautiful part of the mountain. From the peak you can attain a perspective that is impossible to gain from a lower place. The peak can be, and often is, a risky place; windblown and crumbly. The path to the peak can prevent you from reaching it and if you do manage to get there the inclement weather or wear and tear of the journey can do you in. You cannot hang out at a peak for long without risk overtaking reward.

If these things are true of a literal peak then the peaking that occurs in our sport is a near-perfect metaphor. Most seasons end without a peak due to injury, exhaustion, poor planning, or bad luck. The peak is a beautiful place but when you attain it, by definition, descent follows almost immediately.

Standing at the starting line of the Run With Scissors Double Marathon-plus I definitely felt like a man who had reached a peak. This year has easily been my best year as an ultra marathon runner. The Fools Run, held in early April along parts of this same course, seemed like years ago, as did the Forget the PR 50K. I failed to finish Mohican in June but, in so doing, I decided that despite my 14 years in this sport, it was time to become a student of long distances. I spent the rest of the year experimenting with running form, diet, and mental attitude. I read of the resilience and looseness of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico; I decide they had the correct approach and tried to copy it. More than any other change, though, I made ultra running friends this year. They encouraged me and I grew to truly love them and this sport. Standing on the starting line looking at 53.4 miles I felt fit, fragile, peaked, and hopeful that I could squeeze one more race out of my body. I felt like the day could end in success or in injury…and it did.

In one of my first blog posts of the year I mentioned that if you don’t know Roy Heger you need to get to know him. If you haven’t gotten to know Roy yet, make it a goal in the coming year. Roy is a beatnik. Roy is a genius. Roy is hilarious. Roy is soft spoken. Roy is wise. Roy is kind. Roy will throw your ass out of his race for littering (he really will). Roy has ten buckles from the Massanutten 100 mile run, eleven buckles from Mohican, has well over thirty 100 mile finishes overall, has finished in the top ten in a national championship race, and yet does not feel that competition is reason enough to run ultras. Roy can command the attention of a large crowd but just as often gets lost in a crowd of three. Roy can finish an hour behind you in one race and an hour ahead of you in the next. Roy drives a beautiful but somewhat unreliable vintage pickup truck. Roy suffers no fools. And Roy is the race director of the Run With Scissors. He doesn’t talk much but when he does you should listen. Sometimes he speaks with his actions and examples, and when he does you should pay attention.

Did I mention that Roy believes in safety? He does. But Roy doesn’t particularly feel that discomfort is dangerous. For this reason the Run With Scissors started at 5:00am on October 25 (2.5 hours BEFORE sunrise). It also traversed a course that had it all: freezing cold at the start, shirtless running by the finish, it was hilly, it was flat, it had fields, mud, and sections where ankle deep fallen leaves covered human-head sized rocks, it had river crossings. It also had wonderful aid stations and terrific volunteers. The course was spectacularly beautiful…one aid station was a covered bridge…and it had peak fall foliage. In trail ultra-running, unlike road marathons, evenly distributed energy expenditure is not always the best way to run, and on a course like the one we were running, such an ‘Even-Stephen’ strategy might do you in. On this course its best to “make hay” on level, safe sections and ease-off on highly technical terrain…saving the legs for the next run-able portion.

This was my last race of the year and, just this once, I wanted to run with the leader for a little bit to see what it was like. I kept pace with Dave Peterman for about 200 meters at what I felt would have been a good 10k pace for me before immediately backing off. I ended up running in about 15th place with Terri Lemke and three men for the opening miles. They were moving too quickly for me but the group’s five lights combined to make the forest floor well lighted and safer so I figured that staying with them for the first 13-14 miles was energy well spent. At daylight I dropped back a bit and the first 26.7 mile loop went pretty uneventfully. I felt sluggish but was moving well nonetheless.

Sometimes I need to remind myself that although a few others read this blog, the main reason that I write it is so that I can remember what ultra marathons were like some day when I cannot run them. I will say here that I want to remember the second half of this race for as long as I live, because it was all so strange…

I hit the midway aid station feeling OK. I was tired and beat up and dehydrated. I had another marathon ahead of me but I was PERFECTLY relaxed and confident that the energy would come from…somewhere. I had cramps and fatigue but no worries at all. In fact, what I had was euphoria. I had danced through leaves and around invisible rocks all morning and had not fallen or stumbled. My trail legs were tired but my trail legs were somehow just fine as well. There is an old adage in ultrarunning that says “It never always gets worse”. That’s what the second half of this race was like. I pushed along at a fairly decent pace and awaited the oncoming crisis. It never came. I recently read an article on an elite marathoner who described a perfect race when the miles flew by as being like “catching lighting in a bottle". Today my lightning in a bottle was more like the miracle of a car running on empty for mile after mile after mile without ever stalling. No fuel, just power. My form never dropped off. I suffered for hour after hour and the crash never came. I realized, as the hours rolled by, that I wasn’t feeling better, I wasn’t slowing down, I wasn’t going to slow down and, in fact, I didn’t slow down. During the worst of the pain and feelings of dessication I would look down at my legs and there they were, churning away and seamlessly shifting gears as terrain moved from uphill, to downhill, to rutted, to smooth. It felt like a trance.

At one point I knocked the head off the skeleton that was placed in the middle of a creek holding a book that we were required to cut a page out of with scissors. I stood for a moment and watched the head begin to float downstream and wondered, if littering would earn me a DQ, what the punishment would be for committing a skull-ectomy? Another time I ran off-course for about 18 minutes. And do you know what? I didn’t care at all. I didn’t mutter any cuss words, I didn’t roar into a new gear to catch up, I didn’t whine. And when I regained the course and realized that the turn I missed was marked by almost ridiculous amounts of ribbon and multiple pie plates (seriously, you could have spotted the turn from the space shuttle) I didn’t get mad at myself for missing it. It was as though the act was more important than the result. I was concerned with completely emptying my tank before the finish line and beyond that simple goal any other outcome did not matter. After the finish I realized that this must be what the Tarahumara feel a trace of when they talk of "racing not to beat each other but to be with each other". I think I might have become a real ultramarathoner in Roy’s race.

A few miles from the finish line I jettisoned the last of my water and gave my waist pack belt a tightening tug. I had lost a good bit of weight and was running shirtless, an absurd act in 60 degree weather but on October 25th, I figured, there was no sense using sense. I was hot for some reason involving a poor thermoregulatory system but with 30 minutes to go in the season I simply didn’t care. I stopped briefly to toss a gu packet into the trash. In the trash bin there was a nearly empty can of Dr. Pepper and in the can were a few bees clambering for the low quality sugar along the rim of the can. If fireflies signal the arrival of the main part of the ultra marathoner’s year then perhaps bees signal the end. These bees had no access to pollen. They had somehow survived a few frosts. They were past their peak and running on empty. The were seeking energy in the lowest places they could look. They could surely not survive much longer. I should have seen this as a sign.

I felt a thrill at this particular finish line that I have not felt before. I believe I have run better in races but I don’t believe I have ever pushed through nothingness for so long and so utterly without panic. And all of this happened in the final race of the Western Reserve Trail Running Series. It was perfection. I’ll ask other readers to please forgive my indulgence or any appearance of arrogance. My performance was only impressive to me but I want to remember it when I am 70 and so I am writing of it here. I felt that for the first time in my life I used every part of myself utterly and completely up. 2009 was a terrific success.

Two days after the race I awoke with a lump in my right groin. Two days later I was diagnosed with an inguinal hernia, and yesterday I had surgery to repair it. The doctor asked me how I strained it. I told him of the race and he told me that rather than injuring it with one single tearing motion I most likely fatigued the inguinal ligament by repeated stressing it. He used the analogy of bending an aluminum pop can back and forth until it finally fatigues and breaks.

I wondered how the bees were holding up.

Winging it

2009-10-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, March 2, 1143 B.C., 9:13 a.m., Isle of Crete
Daedalus was nearly finished with a project that been many months in the making. The final construction took only a few hours and the gathering of feathers was easy. It was the constant tinkering with the base material that had troubled him. All types of wood had proven too heavy, animal bones too fragile to bind reliably, and bamboo simply wouldn’t hold the feathers.

It was going to have to be wax.

Wax took bees and bees took time. But time was no issue. He and his son had little other than time in this island prison. The worrisome thing about the wax was that it could melt, but only if his son, Icarus, flew too close to the sun. All the lad had to do was play it safe. All he had to do was maintain the status quo, walk the line, stay well above sea level, but not too high above sea level, and get the job done. If he pulled this escape off he would have the rest of his life for adventure. Surely the boy would do the right thing. Wouldn’t he?

Friday, March 4, 2:04 p.m., 1143 B.C., One mile off the coast of the Isle of Crete
The freedom was too much. Years of confinement left Icarus as he did another loop and let out a final yelp of pure unbridled joy. He soared to impossible heights and then he plunged to his death.

Thursday, May 28, 1983, 3:27 p.m., Athens Ohio
“Every morning when you wake up this summer there will be a certain amount of training that you should do to attain fitness by fall. Too much is not good, too little is not good. Your job is to wake up every morning, determine what the proper amount of work is, and go out and do it.” –Elmore Banton, Head Coach, Cross Country and Track, Ohio University.

Saturday, July 11, 1983, 8:37 a.m., lying beside a dumpster behind Marathon Gas Station, Berea, Ohio
I lay on the ground on my back looking straight up at my feet propped against the dumpster. I’d averaged 112 miles per week for the past six weeks and this is where it brought me. I was beaten into oblivion in the Berea “Between the Lakes” 4th of July race by a pack of mugs, including J.V. runners from my old high school. The answer had to be more mileage and so I was attempting to cover 150 miles this week. I ran to work, slept in my lifeguard chair all day long, ran home, slept, and went out for another 10 miles at night. Today I stared at my shoes for 45 minutes before I put them on. I was moody, thirsty at all times and, strangely ONLY felt good when I was running. Trashed, tired, depressed, but hopeful when running; ill at all other times. Now I was 4 miles from home and staring at my shoes again. The sun was getting high in the sky and scratchy summer heat was becoming a factor. My gaze shifted to the Marathon logo and the irony hit me. I stood up, wiped the gravel from my bare back, found a dime on the pavement, went into the gas station, bought three tootsie rolls, and ran home. The next time I had a weekly total over 40 miles was three months later.

Tuesday, October 8, 2009, 10:23a.m., The University of Findlay, Findlay, Ohio
“Collagen based tissues, such as tendons, ligaments, and bones, hypertrophy at a much slower rate than muscle tissue or vascular structures. Furthermore they have poor sensation. If you are not careful your patient’s fitness can outstrip their skeletons and stress reaction injuries will result…you really have to progress training slowly, methodically, and in response to their symptoms. It pays to be smart.”—Me, lecturing physical therapy students at UF

Tuesday, October 8, 2009, 8:17 p.m., The North Rim Trail, Mohican State Park, Ohio
I am climbing a mud-slicked hill on my hands and knees, flashlight clenched between my teeth, to guard against the pitch-blackness. There is no defense against the pouring rain or 52 degree temperature. I am 16 miles into a 20 mile run and I’m feeling more certain than ever that the pain in my left foot, specifically the ventral aspect of my 5th tarso-metatarsal joint, must be a stress fracture. I’m trying to regain the lost trail, and despite it all I am at peace. This is killing me. It must be good training for…something.

As I was climbing the hill I flashed back to my time behind the Marathon Station. I also recalled that my shoes were the Nike Pegasus. What is it with our sport and Greek Mythology? Pegasus was a winged horse, Nike the goddess of victory, Marathon the legendary battleground that resulted in the death of a messenger and gave birth to the most epic race on earth.

Nothing is named after Icarus though. Alas.

I guess that tragedy as a result of bad judgment doesn’t make it as a brand name in corporate America. It’s a pity though isn’t it? If Icarus was tragic and Icarus was irresponsible, wasn’t he also passionate and adventuresome? Shouldn’t that count for something? Was there something even remotely noble in Icarus’ failure? Do I get a simple attaboy for the drive that led to my crash behind the marathon station? Was my risky run in the rain completely without honor just because it was stupid?

If our sport is rife with examples of bad judgment can we, or should we, improve our decision making skills? I have heard ultra running described as an “extreme-sport” but I doubt that I will ever see it televised on MTV’s “X-Games”. I cannot decide if our sport is truly extreme or if it is not extreme at all. Surely running all day and all night in all temperatures, sometimes without adequate oxygen, sometimes in high humidity, always on poor footing doesn’t place it in the middle of any bell-curve. But don’t we also achieve what we achieve through a careful and miserly meting out of our resources? Doesn’t patience and wisdom usually prevail? Then why does the compulsive behavior and drive that can push judgment to the bad side of the tracks seem to reside in nearly all of us?

I don’t know the answer to these questions and I have recently decided that I no longer care. I’m not foolish. I don’t court injury but I don’t yet fear injury either. Everyone seems to know the story of Icarus. Most of us remember the part where Icarus was warned against “flying too high” but the part that struck me upon re-reading it was the warning to also avoid flying too low. I wonder if other cultures recall the metaphor of not excelling too much and forget the part about keeping well above sea level the way we have. I wonder if we fear success more than we fear failure. Icarus was a fool. There is no doubt about that. We can say that Icarus should have known better and we can extrapolate this need for conservancy to risky business ventures, unwise love affairs, or going for a touchdown when a field goal seems like guaranteed points.

But I don’t think knowing is enough. After all, let us never forget that Icarus was warned.

On the day of my Mohican 20 miler I stood on a sore foot and lectured about stress reactions. After the lecture I grabbed my gym bag and sped to the Mohican forest. I knew my situation well enough to name the injury in detail. And yet sometimes my soul needs to fly no matter how unwise. That’s how it has been lately. I needed to take off the tie and grovel in the mud. I had so much fun being borderline hypothermic and lost that I wonder if my mind didn’t lead me, literally and figuratively, down the wrong path so that I could have the adventure my heart needed. Maybe someday I will fear injury. I feel certain that someday my running will fall to earth. But in the meantime I have to acknowledge that it might be sinful to ignore the miracle of flight.

This paradox dooms me to a life of monitoring softening wax.

Coaches speak of building character and tolerating pain. Nike’s own commercials show athletes heading out to train in the rain, Hollywood makes a movie about a guy pounding raw beef with barely bandaged hands in a meat locker. If such behavior is considered heroic on celluloid shouldn’t our real life heroics be admired in some sense as well? Perhaps the passion is part-and-parcel with who we are…and how we should be. Maybe its evil to try to bottle passion.

I wonder if Icarus would admit to any regrets? I like to believe he wouldn’t.

I like to believe that I won’t regret a moment of it either.

Since time moves too quickly, race me instead.

2009-09-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

I have been writing this thing about a dead guy from Greece, but I can’t get time enough to think clearly and finish it, so let me keep that one on the back-burner and tell you about 36 hours ago…when things were so simple that I didn’t need to think much at all. I was running down the trail yesterday, my heart rate pushing 190 and my core temperature probably climbing into the triple digits, and I was thinking three things:

A. Lemme see if I can get out of this without splitting my head open on a rock. AND

B. This current activity is both VERY difficult and VERY simple…I like it. AND

C. When will that sumbitch in the floral shorts finally crack? One of us has to die soon…and I want it to be him.

I wasn’t always who I am today. I was never a terrific runner but I wasn’t always the guy who was walking down the trail vomiting and worrying his friends and relatives, either. Most of my running friends don’t know this but I actually have a competitive streak. Its okay by me that they don’t know. Most of my friends figure that being slow is just fine and dandy by me. I haven’t ever lied about my competitive nature…I just never mention it. Its easy to seem non-competitive when you are very very slow and somewhat good-natured. The very best part of being an ultra marathoner is spending time outdoors and meeting both new and old friends on the trail. I’m not lying about that either. If I relied on fame and fortune to motivate me I would have run out of that particular type of fuel and ground to a halt many years ago.

I love my friends, I really do. But I also believe that every so often, even if very long intervals of time pass between occurrences, it is healthy to give your friends the beating they so richly deserve. Yep, its OK to put your chin to your chest and administer an ass-kicking. That way, when you are exchanging pleasantries at the club’s ‘Secret Santa’ cookie exchange everyone knows exactly who’s-who. I like to be humble but how can I be humble if no one has ever, not even once, seen me do something to be humble about?

Most folks probably figure that I would be a bragger if only I had something to brag about. But that’s not true. Let me write that again…its not true! And just because I’m about to brag here and now doesn’t mean that I am a bragger. I’m still humble I’m just going to pass on this rare and valuable opportunity to display my humility for the sake of this posting. Its because I love you.

You are welcome.

I almost never race ultra marathons. Or do I? If racing means leaving everything out on the course and finishing feeling as though you could not possibly take another step then I race ALL of my ultras, because after each race I am more wasted than cooked carrots at a Viking feast.

Does finishing tired mean that you raced? I believe that it does. I also think that the two most rewarding things that you can race are yourself, or a clock. But you can compete against yourself or run a time-trial any time you want to. So why race?

I went to run the Youngstown Ultra Trail Classic 50K yesterday. It was a very cool race. Everything about it was awesome. They had terrific swag, great food, neat t-shirts, and wonderful volunteers. The course was marked such that if you paid sufficient attention you wouldn’t get lost. I got lost three times. The reason I got lost was because I wasn’t paying attention, and the reason I wasn’t paying attention was because I was tired, and this time…this time…the reason I was tired was because I WAS RACING!!

I didn’t start out racing. I started out trying to be polite. I was in a long conga-line of runners on a long stretch of single track trail and everyone was flying. There were 25K runners mixed in with the 50K folks which might have been part of the reason for the fast pace. But EVERYONE was flying, and no matter how many times I stopped to let a runner who was nipping at my heels go by, there were always more people whose path I was blocking. The only polite thing to do was to go fast.

And, as I now recall, going fast is fun.

After a while the runners strung out, of course, but by the time they did I was up in a part of the pack that I never visit. I found myself running with Nick Billock and Jeff Musick. On a normal day these guys can chew me up and digest me before breakfast. I knew this, and I knew that I should back off but they were so fun, so entertaining, and so skillful that I went into debt to stay with them for as long as I could.

Running behind Nick is a lesson in what proper trail running form should be. Watch Nick for a while and you will note that he runs with a full stride through the roughest terrain. The fact that he doesn’t twist an ankle or catch a root seems, at first, to be dumb luck. Watch him a while longer, though, and you will see that luck has nothing to do with it. Nick runs with his foot strike directly below his center of gravity, lands on whatever obstacle may be there, and makes constant tiny, almost unnoticeable adjustments in his hips, shoulders, and arms such that the sum line of gravity of all of his body mass always falls between his feet…regardless of the terrain they find. Run behind Nick for a while and its impossible not to duplicate the stride. And if you manage to duplicate his stride you will not fall often, and you will appear to be as lucky as he seems to be.

Running behind this fine runner showed me that some of my slowness is not due to
fitness but due to running form. My current form, developed by me over many years and
many miles, was crafted and practiced under the banner of “safety”. I figured that it is better to be safe-and-sound, even if the pace had to slow a bit. The irony is that while watching Nick I realized that jumping for spots between obstacles is neither safe nor efficient.

If Nick was the master of the terrain then Jeff was the master of maintaining an
even keel. Jeff ran mile after mile seemingly without a trace of effort or any unnecessary expenditure of energy. He rarely walked, he rarely slowed down, and he never strained. On two of the occasions when I ran off the course it was because I had gotten ahead of Jeff and sacrificed judgment for speed. Fast runners have skill and I learned that from Nick. Fast runners also have flow and I learned that from Jeff.

And for what its worth, fast runners DO point out beautiful sights and they DO chat. They DO enjoy the moment. Nick, Jeff and I talked up a storm. Trail skills, and a proper mental outlook, allow a guy to multi-task I guess.

Another thing about running fast that I already knew, but had forgotten, is the simple fact that pain is a symptom. It’s a warning sign, but in the case of the circulatory and muscular system of a trained person the 'pain alarm' goes off far before we need it to. Because of this you can run in distress for hours on end…and sometimes you can get away with it. I did. I was so tired at 18 miles that I wanted to cry. So I settled in behind Jeff and he pulled me along for a while at a FASTER pace and I snapped out of it. The pain remained but it became a curiosity rather than something to be feared. My ability to keep on keeping on was a surprise to me, and I love surprises…even in ultras.

Now, before I go off the friggin deep end please allow me to calibrate things. Racing
must be defined by the individual. Although I was delighted and surprised by my race I need to tell you that the race winner came within minutes of LAPPING me on an 8 mile loop. I will also point out that my 10 minute miles aren’t going to earn me invited runner status at any race. But being in a race with other runners allowed me to know that 10 minute miles on this course were pretty good. Running alone I would have wondered if I was running well or merely suffering due to having a bad day.

But, regardless of pace, racing is racing and I did race the man in the flowery shorts…and he raced me back…and this time I won, and it was awesome. I raced another guy as well, he had goose bumps and he was kinda red all-over. He looked awful, and he dropped me so hard on a sloping uphill that the vacuum created by his vanishing mass caused me to slam my chest into a rock. That guy, and that rock, pounded me, and it was equally awesome. I also skinned my knee somewhere and it hurts today. I don’t remember doing it. And when you really think about it, isn’t that awesome as well?

So to answer my original question, if we can compete against ourselves or the clock any time we like, should we race? And if so why? I have absolutely no clue whether or not you should race. But since you have been kind enough to take the time to read my question, I ask you to please consider my opinion. My opinion is that we should race, at least occasionally, because it brings out the best in us, because we can make new friends in different parts of the pack, because each experience is a learning experience, because it gives us another thing to daydream about on cold winter days, because it doesn’t TAKE AWAY from our love of friends and love of the outdoors. And finally and most importantly, because surprising yourself is fun.

All my best (at least occasionally), --Mark

Werewolves, Teen Idols, and Us.

2009-09-04T22:42:00.001-07:00

I just finished a run under a shining full moon. It was a perfect reminder that fall is just around the corner. I love fall. I guess all runners do. Thinking about fall got me thinking about Halloween which got me thinking about werewolves and you probably have already guessed that thinking about werewolves got me thinking about Hannah Montana. Its all so perfectly linear isn’t it?

I recently had occasion to watch Hannah Montana’s movie. I can’t remember its name because I wasn’t paying close attention but I think it might have been called ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. Anyhow, I thought that it was just going to be another poofy meaningless tweener movie such as ‘Secret Agent Cody Banks’ or ‘The Godfather III’, but boy was I wrong!

Warning: I am going to give away the plot to Hannah Montana’s Movie here so if you haven’t seen it and don’t want me to ruin it you should go see it before reading on.

OK. Well like I said I didn’t pay close attention but the movie is about these two girls, Hannah and Miley. One of the girls (Hannah) overcomes the debilitating handicap of a dreadful singing voice to become famous and rich for some reason that I missed. The other girl (Miley) is fabulously beautiful and fun but is still, for some reason, picked on and misunderstood by all of the other children. I absorbed all of this while folding laundry and keeping up on dishes and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches mind you, but the end of the movie was a shocker….THE TWO GIRLS ENDED UP BEING THE SAME PERSON!!!! I kid you not!! I have no reason to lie to you. They were the same person all along!! No one could possibly have seen that ending coming.

So really, when you think of it, ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’ had essentially the same plot and story line as ‘Fight Club’.

I don’t know who wrote and directed ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. I could look it up in about 2 seconds because I am currently on the computer. But I am tired from my run and from life so I’m not going to look it up. Instead I will simply assume that it was Quentin Tarantino.

We mustn’t be too hard on Quentin Tarantino for ripping off the plot of ‘Fight Club’ and using it in ‘The Hannah Montana Movie’. Divided personalities and dual identities are commonplace throughout the history of literature and the duality of man has been portrayed in every form of media from the caped crusader, to Judas, to werewolves, to the Phantom of the Opera, to Hannah Montana.

Take Dr. Jekyll for example. Dr. Jekyll worked very hard to earn his doctoral degree from a prestigious university. In so doing he took out cripplingly large student loans, spent seven years in a dysfunctional relationship with an undergraduate modern dance major, and put up with a scaldingly abusive dissertation chair. After graduation the poor chap whips up a little celebratory homebrew and turns into Mr. Hyde, a man who is lacking a terminal degree and is, therefore, fearful and loathsome. Don’t we all relate to Dr. Jekyll on some level? Haven’t we all dated a lithe, gorgeous, total-nut-job dance major who is too crazy to live with and too sexy to leave? And if we haven’t, haven’t we always wanted to?

You see, I believe we are drawn to tales of the two faces of man because nearly all of us are two people. We see evidence in the news all the time. The loving nanny who steals from the children she is caring for, the husband who, after 20 years of love and nurturing, tells his wife it was an act all along, the priest who has performed 40 years of kind acts while also abusing children.

School started back 2 weeks ago and we’ve been having fun. I gave a 4.5 hour long lecture last Tuesday on zygapophyseal joints. The students loved it and so did I. I put on a nice comfy necktie and stood under fluorescent lights and we talked about back pain. You should have been there. But you weren’t because you were probably doing your other life somewhere as well. I’m a pretty good professor. Hardly anyone at work knows that I run. Dave Essinger knows though. He’s an English professor at Findlay and he finished Mohican this year. I see Dave every now and again and we speak in hushed tones of mud and carbohydrates and also of a mist we saw rising above a river. Then he puts on a tie and teaches writing. Dave told me he reads this blog. In my professor life it scares me that an English teacher is reading this. But my runner side doesn’t give a hoot. I hope that runner-Dave is reading this and not writer-Dave.

So if I can be a professor I wonder what else I can be? I can be a bad singer I guess. I could be an alcoholic if I decided to but I don’t think I could be violent or abusive. I can be polite in trying circumstances and I can hold my tongue in a staff meeting. I guess I could be, or pretend to be, nearly anything I like. In my life I have been a lifeguard, a pizza delivery guy, a land-crew worker, a boyfriend, a dad, a husband, a business owner, an overnight “guest” in the Summit County Jail, an alter boy, a brave, a bobcat, an oiler, a physical therapist, a recipient of an eviction notice, a professor, a patient, a race director, a faculty senate chair, a philanderer, a spendthrift, an enemy, and a friend. But in all of these roles, I held the dual identity of runner. In fact on very nearly every day that I ever portrayed any of those roles, I also ran.

I quit soccer and I quit the trombone, I quit chewing tobacco and I quit buying Volkswagon Jetta’s. I quit boxing and wrestling and basketball and football. But I never quit running. And more to the point I never quit running hard. I did, progressively and by sad degrees, stop running fast but I never stopped running to the point of exhaustion.

So if I use to be all of those things and now I’m not…and if I could be lots of other things that I currently am not…maybe I’m really a runner. It’s the only thing about me that has lasted.

I think some of you may be runners as well. You are probably other things but I bet the running has lasted the longest…or will endure the longest. Not everyone runs for a long time though. Some people run for a few months, finish that 10K or marathon, get their silver blanket and medal and head back to the handball courts. God bless their hearts. I really mean that. I hope they enjoyed their time in our sport. But the lifelong runners, the ‘identity’ runners that I know are different. They all have one thing in common. They all have suffered and will suffer again. They don’t like suffering but they do see the value in it. They go to great lengths to avoid cramping, chaffing, hypoglycemia, and anoxia. They use intervals, lubricants, tinctures, and orthotics to be pain free.

And yet…

And yet they do suffer. They have suffered and I believe that in that moment of purest suffering, that piece of aloneness, they see clearly the one and only person that they are. No necktie can ease the pain, no pep talk can lift them, its just them and eternity.

And its beautiful. And its peaceful. And it can be scary. Once many years ago I shared the lead in a small but locally important race with a friend. With one mile to go I looked over at him, sized up his long legs and bouncy stride, told myself I could never outkick him, and proceeded to set a goal of removing every molecule of oxygen from his bloodstream with an increased pace. I actually relished in the pain I was causing him. After the race I was alarmed that I could be so cruel. I have also marveled at how defeated or how lonely I can be when suffering…and how much I can love life and love God.

Some people are cynical regarding the concept of a sinner having a deathbed conversion. I’m not though. I believe that some unfortunate individuals only have the alone moment that suffering can bring on the day of their death. How sad that they might learn who they are and change only in the last moments of their lives. And how happy for us that we don’t have to wait that long. We all have the darkness and lightness that come with and from the duality of man. But some of us can, when we want to, synthesize the two by burning away the superfluous. And when we do the real us emerges. And it turns out to only be one person after all.

Summer Breezes

2009-08-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Two paths diverged in a wood…and I took the one less traveled by…

…and then I looped around and checked out the other path, because I am an ultra marathoner. I became one for real this summer. But summer is now over and its time to head back to the University of Findlay on a more regular basis starting tomorrow. There will be meetings and free donuts all next week and then the week after that the students return and things will be fun again, but there will be no free donuts. Life is like that sometimes.

The family and I just came back from Disney World and I drove all night long, which is a very ultra-like thing to do. Yep, all night long I drank coffee and listened to music. Then I listened to this guy on the radio talking about UFO’s. Then I listened to music again. It rained for a while then it didn’t rain anymore. The driver’s side windshield wiper was ineffective and the passenger side windshield wiper was in perfect shape. Alas. Then I stopped at a convenience store in Charleston W.V. to get more coffee and interrupted a lovers quarrel between two clerks. I tried to start polite and healing conversation by telling them of my experiences in the Rattlesnake 50K run, which is their local ultra. They weren’t interested.

Driving all night is a lot like running all night except that I find that there is much less puking. And the aid stations charge you money. And no matter how much money you are willing to spend they never have pierogis. Also, they try to get you to buy Lottery tickets, and the T-shirts that you can buy all have dirty words written on them.

I guess that driving all night really isn’t like running all night at all.

But I wish it was like running all night because I miss it already.

Disney World was awesome except for the smothering heat and the part where I hemorrhaged cash day after day. The kids had a blast and everything was well done. The entertainment was great. It was all packaged up for you, just like a present; an expensive present that you buy for yourself….but a present nonetheless. I got in some impossibly awful runs. Every runner knows what its like to go to an amusement park all day long and then run after getting home at 11:00P.M. But I did the run anyway because I became an ultra marathoner this summer and so running is what I do.

I spent a lot of time this summer seeing patients and rewriting a course that I teach. I also spent a lot of time this summer chasing belt buckles. Back in 1977 I spent the entire summer pursuing Halle Stordhouse. I was so unsuccessful that, even to this day, she has no idea that I was pursuing her. This summer I was unsuccessful until I finally did succeed. Sometimes you win sometimes you lose.

Actually spending a summer pursuing something isn’t that unusual for me. I have pursued other women and I have pursued other buckles so this summer was normal. The difference this time is that I didn’t just put on some shoes and set out to conquer Mohican, with every race and training run devoted solely to it. This year I met a lot of people and made a lot of friends. I had a few very good and wonderful people that I ran ultras with before this year but I never bothered to meet anyone new. This summer I think I finally learned some new things about the sport. This summer I grew to love the idea that I am an ultra marathoner. This summer I noticed that there are lots of other ultras and lots of beautiful places to run and lots of great adventures and friendships to be had. I still love Mohican and it will be a goal in 2010. But I now also love Burning River…and there’s this running with scissors thing this fall…or maybe that one in Youngstown. The whole gang will be at each of them. Hopefully I will be too.

Ahhhh

2009-08-08T19:44:00.001-07:00

I just finished a slow 60 minute crawl. The only way you would have been able to tell I was running was the concentration on my face. What with all of the tapering and then 100 miling and then recovering I had forgotten how good a simple jog can feel. Physically I felt terrible but I feel like a million dollars mentally. I can't wait to do another one just like it tomorrow. Are we lucky or what?

Burning River Report (Part 5)

2009-08-06T20:22:00.000-07:00

When a problem comes along
You must whip it…
Get straight
Go forward
Move ahead…
--Devo

We were now closer to Akron than Cleveland. It just somehow felt like we were into Zips territory. I thought about my wife Jenny and my kids and I figured they would be happy to know that I was still moving. This section of the course mercifully included a couple of miles of paved bike path and road so I took a nap. I didn’t lie down, I just went to sleep. This is a trick I learned by accident and if you have never done it you surely won’t believe me but it is possible to do a controlled sleep walk, and so I did. I kept one eye open and let the rest of my brain sleep. I don’t mean I relaxed and I don’t mean I coasted. I’m not speaking metaphorically. I literally slept. I don’t recommend it because its dangerous but the truth is I can grab a couple of dozen ten second winks on a mile of road and, don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but it helps! I finally woke up when Fred Davis passed me. As he passed he said “I just keep looking at my feet…they are moving forward and so am I”. I tried this but I imagined my feet flipping me the bird and hating my guts so I went back to listening to Neil Young singing about rust and about how it never sleeps. I imagined that I could still show rust a thing or two. Then I smiled. Then I vomited.

Coming into the Happy Days Aid station I once again learned from everyone that I looked great. Yay. I look great. Someone notify Revlon and get me a f%&ing contract. By this point I was defiant. Go ahead stomach, turn turn turn, this is apparently the time for your purpose under heaven. But guess what stomach? I’m still moving. You do your thing and I’ll do mine you mother! Suddenly Nick appeared and put his face right in front of mine. “Mark!, Mark listen, listen to me!” he’s saying. “Yeah Nick I know I look terrific yada yada. I love you man so don’t bullshit me” I’m thinking this not saying it but Nick isn’t stopping. “Listen!” he says and turns me toward him, “you need to picture that finish do you hear me?” I know it sounds hokey and corny but honestly I felt like he was talking to me while underwater. But he was so persistent. “You need to think of that finish and think of that finish and don’t stop thinking of that finish. Do you hear me?” And you know what? I DID hear him. He didn’t tell me a lie. He didn’t tell me I looked good. He told me how to get home. And I used it, just as Freddie was using his feet to lead him home I walked along for the rest of the night, through the ledges and into the oncoming rain picturing the finish.

After that things got better and worse. With each mile I grew weaker but with each mile I started to believe. During one down patch Ron Ross appeared at my shoulder. At first I thought that I was asleep again or that Ron had dropped out and come to find me but neither of those things was true. Ron is like some sort of guardian angel to me but he wasn’t here on a mission of mercy. He was here because he was suffering too. Seeing him helped and seeing him suffer helped too. God forgive me for that but try to understand that it gave me hope; Ron was sick but Ron always finishes. We walked together up the sound of music hills and I had the strangest sensation that we had done this already. At the top I lay down in the mud and tried to sleep…for about a minute. I let the rain begin to fall on my face and felt the ground pull on me. This is it, I realized. If I can stand up now I will finish and if I don’t I won’t. I pictured the finish. I got up and walked out. Ron slowly inched ahead as I had encouraged him to. The rain started coming harder and a deep fog arose. The last I heard from Ron he was calling up from the bottom of a valley, “Mark are you there?” “Go get ‘em buddy” I called back, “I’ll see you at the finish” and for the first time in hours and hours I began to wonder if that might actually be true.

As I approached the 80 mile mark and the covered bridge I found I could take a mouthful of seven-up and gargle it and spit it back out. It helped. I still heaved but I thought maybe I was getting some sugar. The Covered bridge Aid Station looked like an infirmary and Captain Tanya Cady looked like Florence Nightingale. I walked in, she looked at me, we chatted for an instant and she gave me a smile and said “You’re fine” and moved past me to someone sicker than I. She didn’t tell me I looked good. She didn’t offer any platitudes. Tanya is too loving for that. What she did was flunk me in triage, at least thats what it felt like, and this is gonna sound messed up but it thrilled me. Proceed, she seemed to say. Tanya knows her stuff and if she told me to scamper then scamper I would. I also saw Steve Godale, a past Mohican winner and national class ultra runner. He could have been tucked into an after-hours club or pancake house celebrating his brother Mark’s win but instead he was at the temple of ugliness, the temporary dropout capital of the Midwest, the covered bridge as 4 a.m. neared. “Looks like you are gonna finish” he said. He had been cheering me on all day. I told him “Steve this is weird I haven’t been eating or drinking but I’m still moving”. He was, at that moment, distracted by someone else and called back over his shoulder “You can do anything you want to do”. He didn’t mean me, I was convinced, he meant human beings. Mike Keller was there as well and helped me remove my filthy, digusting shirt and jacket and my filthy, disgusting shoes and listened to my filthy, disgusting, but now psyched-up language. Mike gets it and Mike knows about despair and he knows about lost hope and he knows where to find it. It was no mistake that he was at the bridge in a pre-dawn rainstorm 40 minutes before the time cut-off. If you know Mike then you know that he wouldn’t be anywhere else. He is some of God’s greatest work.

The Bridge-to-bridge loop on the Perkins trail was so hard and gnarly and muddy and steep that it defies description. It just does. To top it off it was pouring rain now and the hills were mudslides. I stopped to puke and as I stopped puking I looked up and stared into the fog. I couldn’t see the bottom of the hill I was running down, just mist rising into blackness. Then I saw the finish. I saw myself running across it. I saw Rob Powell standing there just to the left of it. I didn’t imagine it this time, I actually saw it. I felt the buckle being pressed into my hand. I heaved and coughed and the cough turned into a laugh and the laugh turned into a howwwwl. This was off the friggin charts. At that moment I knew I would clear this loop and I knew I would finish. I had broken through.

The final miles of the race ran along the towpath again. Groups of Sunday morning joggers whooped and hollered for us as we jogged and walked past them. One man slowed his car almost to a stop, rolled down his window and yelled “Hey you! Are you one of those 100 miles guys?” I admitted that I was. He pointed to me and called out “Good for you! Good for all o’ youse!” It felt, for the hundredth time in 100 miles, like coming home.

A couple of miles before the finish I told a lie and prepared to commit a crime. I was running with a pair of runners from Wisconsin and told them that I felt wonderful (the lie) and that I would be pushing ahead. I ran until they were out of sight and then unpacked the secret I had been carrying with me the entire race, in a baggy in the bottom of my waist pack. The finish would be here soon and Rob would be at the finish line, just to the left of it exactly as I had pictured. I would pick up the phone to call home. Instead of calling I would find seven text messages and 3 voicemail messages. The family had been watching the web cast of the race and knew just when I finished. Dad watched it from Colorado and broke down in tears during his voice message. I would sleep in the van for 4 hours in a shopping center parking lot before driving home; my buckle and a bucket of KFC beside me. But all of that was in the world beyond the finish. For the moment I looked around, made sure I was alone, took out the small package of wooden matches that I had carried with me, lit one, and tossed it into the Cuyahoga. It fizzled and bobbed on the current on its way to Lake Erie.

We win!

Burning River Report (Part 4)

2009-08-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

At fifty miles I knew that everything about this race was perfect except me. The last few hours brought the slow realization that I was tired. Lightning-strike tired. Maybe it was from Mohican, maybe from Rattlesnake, maybe from life. Despite this I couldn’t get over the course and the race volunteers. Every aid station felt like an Indians game tailgate without the baseball. I had the feeling that the entire world was cheering for me.

The whole world might have been cheering for me but only one man was fully committed to making sure that my sad butt ran its way to Cuyahoga Falls. Since 50 miles Nick Longworth cheered, advised, and cajoled. Then he drove God-knows-where to get me a burger that I first asked for, then refused, then unceremoniously ate and, finally, threw up. Nick was pacing another runner but managed, from mile 50-70 to somehow handle both of us although a fair bit of distance separated us. At one point I asked Nick for something…God-knows-what…perhaps a spare kidney or maybe a seat on the space shuttle…and he went SPRINTING to his car to seek out the backscratcher, or perhaps it was a helper-monkey, or an application to Boston University or whatever else it was I thought I needed at that moment. What Nick needs to know, and what ALL handlers need to know, is that the decency and love at moments like this are truly more helpful than any sort of ginseng extract, or hydraulic Gu-pack opener, or any other physical thing ever could be.

Sometimes not knowing a course in advance can be a great blessing. For example, I had heard of the “piano keys” but didn’t really know what they were other than some sort of steep hill. I crested the 88 steps on the way to the Boston store thinking that I was merely going up yet another of the endless hills we had been on for the last 13 miles. My ignorance also allowed me to literally stumble onto Brandywine Falls without any prior knowledge that it would be there. I have always heard ultra runners talk about the climb being worth the view from the top. This talk is usually nonsense but I tell you here that Brandywine Falls was the prettiest sight I have ever seen in an ultra and a climb five times longer than the one we just took would have been a bargain. I stopped for a minute to simply soak it in, and then I took a few steps and felt a wave of humidity hit me. I began to sweat. Gosh when did it get so hot? Then it occurred to me. “Oh God no!” I said and began to wretch violently.

Nausea had forced me out of Mohican and I spent the last 6 weeks carefully devising a plan to count my milligrams of sodium, avoid solid food during the heat of the day, eat ginger candy, and otherwise avoid stomach troubles at all costs. Now, despite everything, I was sicker than I had been at Mohican and it was occurring 10 miles EARLIER than it had at Mohican. The walk back to the store and the 60 mile mark was a slow realization, emphasized by repeated puking, that it was all just like it had been before. I sat on a log and started to cry. Before the race I had promised myself that if the nausea started I would simply drop out immediately. But that was then, years ago and this morning. That was before I had fallen in love with this race and with my past and before I had grown old. I have known for several years that some day these ultras will all stop. I could accept that this morning but I didn’t want to accept it now. The toughness had skipped a generation. My Dad was tough and my kids are tough but I sat weak and shaking and vomiting as lovers walked by. God, I did not want to quit here, especially not here, in Mike’s old neighborhood.

Mike Bunsey was my room mate and team mate at Ohio University. He grew up right around here and graduated from Walsh Jesuit High School. Mike had two lives; both of them too short. After Ohio University he earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from Cornell and within a few years had established a reputation as a world class researcher. He sifted through offers from several elite Universities and chose to become a professor at Kent State because of his love for this area. Most of Mike’s academic friends had no idea that he was a runner and most of Mike’s running friends had no idea how famous he was in his field. An individual of strikingly average talent he worked and willed his way into elite-runner status, finishing fifth at the Cleveland Marathon one year and winning the presigious ‘Elmirathon’ 10K in Elmira, New York five years in a row. Mike had been a friend during the formative years of my life. The late night talks, long runs, struggles with injury, lost loves, and hangovers that make people who they are happened to Mike and me concurrently. In his mid twenties Mike won a 5K road race on a Sunday morning and died of a heart attack while on a training run a few days later. These were his trails. I wasn’t going to quit here.

I walked into the Boston store again and tried to acknowledge all of the claims being made that I looked good. “I love these people” I thought. I figured I’d drop in some quieter place so I wouldn’t let them down. I knew the temperature swings between boiling and freezing would start soon so I left Boston store ridiculously clad in a toboggan hat, a coat tied around my waist, and bare-chested. “Good Lord” I smiled through my nausea, “All I need is a keg of beer and some body paint and I’m dressed for a Brown’s game in the 'Dawg Pound'”.

The next miles were lonely ones. There really wasn’t any reason for hope. I was strangely alone. I hadn’t seen another runner forever, the sun was setting and I knew from past experience that food and water wouldn’t be possible for …maybe the rest of the race. There was no way I could go 40 miles heaving every 20 minutes. But I kept asking myself “Can you just not drop here? Can you just do a bit more?” Each time the answer was yes. And that made me feel good and tough and somehow worthy of what this race represents. “Go down fighting” was my new motto.

I walked until nightfall and as I walked I noticed that there was some sort of weird static coming out of my ipod, which was turned up to its maximum volume in an attempt to drown out my own inner voice. “Great” I thought “first my stomach goes and now my ipod”. I took an earpiece out to see if it was sweat that was making it sound fuzzy, but when I took it out of my ear the sound strangely got louder. Much Louder. This sound wasn’t coming from my ipod at all. It was coming from the woods. Someone was screaming. No wait, lots of people were screaming…no…they were cheering. And since I was the only person in this neck of the woods they could only have been cheering for me…and ringing cowbells. I have no idea how they even knew I was coming but they must have because they were actually calling my race number. This could only mean that I was arriving at the Pine Lane Aid Station run by “Red” …and the Summit folks…

The Summit A.C.!

Thirty years later the name still causes a chill to run up my spine. In the 1970’s eastern road racing was monopolized by a few groups of diehard fastmen. There were Bill Rogers and company from the Greater Boston Track Club, Frank Shorter, Jeff Galloway and friends from the Florida Track Club, and unlikely as it may seem, a group of hard nosed kids from Akron known as the Summit Athletic Club. I recall an issue of Runners World arriving in the mail that had a picture of the lead pack of the AAU cross country championships. In the picture were Frank Shorter, Gary Bjorklund, Jeff Galloway, and FOUR members of the Summit A.C. They were on the upper slopes of the distance running world. Jeff Hlinka had recently set the national record for the one-hour run and had beaten Frank Shorter for a top ten finish in the Gasparilla Classic on Frank’s home turf. In 1981 my hero, Olympian Craig Virgin, came to Berea to run a 12 kilometer race just three weeks after winning the world cross country championship for the second time. After beating the world, this race in Cleveland’s west suburbs should have been nothing more than a chance to stretch his legs. But I recall standing on the course with one mile to go watching Virgin, eyes wide with surprise, gasping for breath and desperately trying to hold off a fast-closing Ric Sayer from the Summit A.C. The other invited runner, 1976 Boston Marathon winner Jack Fultz, had been dropped miles before. I can still recall the look of horror on Virgin’s face and the wild animal look in Sayre’s eyes, the frothy spittle spreading across his bearded face and his shoulder length hair flowing crazily in the wind he created with his ferocious stride. I stood in awe. Numbly my allegiance shifted and I heard my own voice call out “Kiss his ass Ric!”

Ric Sayre went on to win the inaugural Los Angeles marathon in a time of 2:11and the club’s accomplishments would fill too many pages to include here. These days the club, now known as the Summit Athletic Running Club, is a large, family friendly organization open to all ages and abilities. They are fun, friendly, and well organized. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t still open a can of “whup-ass” if the occasion calls for it. For example, at this moment one of their own was winning this very race. Mark Godale, 1999 Ultrarunner of the year and current national record holder for the 24 hour run, had taken a commanding lead over a national class (and almost entirely local) group of frontrunners. Many states were represented but those runners were strung out behind the Ohio contingent. Similarly, Connie Gardner from Medina, one of the most decorated woman ultra runners over the past ten years had taken the lead over an equally talented group of women. In fact, she found herself in fourth place overall with only three men ahead of her; all from Ohio.

Yep, Northeastern Ohio runners; world-class and home-grown.

I walked slowly into the aid station to sincere applause. I’m embarrassed to admit how much this helped. I had never met Red but I have been a fan of her Blog (see link under “My Blog List” on this page) and I was excited to meet her in person. She was delightful. It hurt me to no end that I couldn’t try one of her pierogis, or even any of her water for that matter. Although this aid station was open for business my stomach was not. Instead I filled up on affection, turned on my headlamp and headed into the night, feeling better for reasons that must have come from someplace outside of my wrecked being.

Still reading? Gosh, I should send you a belt buckle :). Thanks , I'll post one more entry soon and that'll be it. This is cathartic for me!

Burning River Report (Part 3)

2009-08-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes “Cleveland Rocks” and if you have any doubt about that you should have seen the crowd gathered in the square in Cuyahoga Falls the night before the race. The “Rockin’ on the River” event was rounding into full gear as the registration/dinner/bag drop off was ending. Northeast Ohioans like their music and they like their beer and they see no reason to hide either of these facts. Despite all of this I managed to get an hour of sleep in the back of my van and made it to the bus stop by 3 A.M.

The Burning River 100 Mile Endurance Run is a point-to-point race and logistically the easiest way to get from place to place is to leave your vehicle at the finish, catch a ride to the starting line, and then run back to your car. The bus drive was one of the most amazing parts of the race. Some runners slept, some listed to music, and some quietly chatted. I looked up at the stars from the school bus window and marveled that we actually were, no kidding about it, being driven from friggin’ Cuyahoga Falls to bleepin’ Willoughby and that the actual plan (not just on paper this time) was that we would RUN back. Suddenly it seemed absurd and impossible and irresponsible. And the bus wasn’t making a return trip so once you were on the bus you were committed. And here is something that I need you to read and to understand: NO ONE other than me seemed remotely concerned about the wisdom of this plan!

I don’t know who “Squire” was but he sure had a nice castle. The starting line was right on his front lawn and off we went at 5 A.M. sharp. Knees and elbows and headlamps. There was the inevitable bustle at the start but it was not your mall-at-Christmastime variety of haste. It was rather, more of a subdued ‘Late-for-detention’ kind of rush into the pre-dawn darkness. The first 13 miles were on flat roads to the Polo field. The roads were fast, paved and absolutely spectacularly beautiful. The sun rose as we passed lovely mansions and equestrian farms glistening in the morning dew. This entire stretch I spent running with Michelle Bichsel, a friend of mine who was taking it out easy. She benefited from the slow pace and I benefited from the great company.

My main reaction to the entire first 37 miles of this race was one of shock. I had grown up around here, how could I have missed so many beautiful places? We ran through woods, fields, along single track trails and horse paths. We saw lakes and deer and I even think I may have seen an eagle. Was it really possible that it would be this beautiful all the way to the finish? I kept recalling the lyrics of a ‘Pretenders'’ song that complained that the Ohio that singer Chrissie Hynde had known had been over-developed and ruined “From Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls”. I felt like the opposite was true. My trip to Cuyahoga Falls was one of constant wonder at how much more beautiful it was than I had recalled. And how easy…at least until Station Road…

Here’s a useful ultra marathon tip: If you ever want to run 100 miles and not feel sorry for yourself run along an 1800’s era canal for most of it. Heading into Station Road we ran in the hot sun for about 3 miles. It really was pretty tough. But there, right next to us, was the canal. Immigrants, including many many Irishmen, dug that canal for one dollar plus a jigger of whiskey per day. I don’t know how much a jigger is but I imagine its approximately the same as a 5-pack Gu dispenser. I would either need more money or several jiggers of whiskey to do that work. At any rate the thought of those men toiling in that hot sun made my walk to the virtual picnic-party occurring at Station Road more palatable. And when we got to Station Road what a party it was! The place was a hive of activity as some runners came through at 37 miles and other runners came through a second time at 43 miles. Many family members and spectators were there watching and cheering and on top of that the usual string of regulars, having nothing to do with the race, were out biking and jogging along the path. Despite all of this I got my own personal volunteer who attended to my every need for every moment that I was at the station. People seem to just love to volunteer for Joe and also for Lloyd. Captain Lloyd ran this aid station like a freshman meet-and-greet and it couldn’t have been a more pleasant environment.

I'll write more soon and, if you have the endurance, you are welcome to read it : )

Burning River Report (Part 2)

2009-08-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

One day in the winter of 1953 my Dad decided that he had had enough of being poor. He had grown up in Dublin Ireland in the 1940’s and during that era, in that country, you grew up to do whatever it was that your father did. When my dad was 15 years old his father was killed when a ditch that he was digging with a hand shovel collapsed, burying him and leaving his wife and ten kids penniless. My father, being the oldest child, dropped out of school, hopped a boat to London, and worked piecemeal as a longshoreman, sending whatever money he could back home to his mother. This kept everyone fed, more or less, but there was no reason for hope. There would never be a connection to employment in Ireland and in London he was treated as a second class citizen. It seemed he would indeed follow in his father’s footsteps and scramble to scrape together survival wages until his own death occurred. There really wasn’t a way out in sight…until he heard about Cleveland.

Dad had an uncle who had come to Cleveland a few years before and he sent my dad a loan to buy a plane ticket. He was promised that there was so much work in Cleveland, in fact in all of northeastern Ohio, that no more advanced planning than this was necessary. He turned out to be correct. Dad got a job at the Ford Motor Company plant in Brookpark and, six months later, sent a ticket to his girlfriend, who joined him and they married later that year. Dad went on to work for other companies, finished school, became a tooling engineer, and eventually moved half of his Irish family to Cleveland where they similarly prospered.

We love to tell this story at family reunions but the truth is that the story is not even remotely unique or even particularly interesting to those outside our immediate family. By the 1950’s Cleveland had been a city of dreams for over 150 years. Untold thousands of immigrants came to Cleveland and flourished. Oil, steel, tooling, shipping, salt, and dozens of other industries flourished. Wealth was created and shared. Generations lived and died in this place of ample opportunity.

By the 1960’s things began to change. Unemployment was rampant, industry was dying out and a sort of hopelessness had enveloped the city. I was five years old in 1969 when the Cuyahoga River caught fire. I remember almost nothing from that year but I do remember starting kindergarten and I remember the moon walk and I remember the fire… or maybe I don’t. Do I actually recall it or do I think I remember because as a Cleveland native I was never allowed to forget?

Growing up in Cleveland in the 1970’s I learned to love the city the way one loves an abusive relative. I was always cheering for it. I was always hoping that Cleveland would win but I was always also being told that it was no good. I hated it for the bad things but I also saw the good parts and wondered why no one else could. The stand-up comics on television had only just begun to get warmed up on the river fire when Mayor Ralph Perk set his hair on fire while giving a fire-safety demonstration downtown. The critics never stopped for a breath. “Of course Cleveland’s football team is called the Browns; the sky is brown, the water is brown, the buildings are brown, so why not the football team?” they said. The city appeared to be dying. Even Cleveland’s tallest building, they pointed out, was “Terminal”. The basement of Terminal Tower had homeless individuals living in it and outside on Public Square storefronts were boarded up. Mayor Dennis Kucinich (yes, he was Mayor of Cleveland after Perk) battled to keep the city from bankruptcy. Shipping slowed and the once busy docks in the flats were now places where the Mafia dumped bodies. Crime was rampant; domestic violence and drug use were up. The Browns lost the AFC Championship in heartbreaking fashion three years in a row, Cleveland State was denied a trip to the NCAA final four when David Robinson tipped in a last second shot for Navy, the Cavs were chronically in last place, and the even the free tickets that the Indians gave to schoolchildren went unused for lack of interest.

This was when I discovered running. We used to run through the metroparks for miles and miles and wonder why no one else could see the beauty. I won’t speak for Joe Jurczyk but I remember Joe from high school cross country meets. He went to school in Brecksville, just a few miles away from me. He must have seen all of this as well.

In hindsight the tower wasn’t really terminal and neither was the city. You don’t take the hardest working and most diversely talented gene pool ever assembled on this planet and hold them down for long. These folks were of good stock. Their work ethic and ingenuity created a rubber industry in nearby Akron, a collection of Universities and museums unrivaled outside of New York City, and a faith in their ability to succeed fueled by the stories told at their own family reunions. If they could dig the canals they could dig out of this mess as well.

And they have.

The basement of the Terminal Tower now boasts ‘The Galleria’ one of the most beautiful shopping malls in the country and the only people sleeping in the Tower these days are paying top dollars to The Ritz hotel to do so. The flats are now the place to experience the city’s night life. The Lakefront boasts parks and athletic facilities that are the envy of nearly any city and just try getting a ticket to a Cavs game these days to see LeBron!

The jokes still remain though and they have become annoying in their inaccuracy. When the time came for Joe Jurczyk and friends to put together the first one-hundred mile trail race in the region they decided to call it “The Burning River 100 Mile Endurance Run” and gave it the motto “eracing the past. Moving forward.”

To me the name issues a challenge: “Hey funny guy, haven’t been paying attention?...you should see us now! The Cuyahoga River Valley is now a NATIONAL PARK, and one of the most beautiful places in the world. Care to join us for a little jog? We’ll arrange to have some of our local runners show you around…they are, after all, one of the most talented and decorated communities of ultra runners in the United States and you can just entertain them with your little jokes for as long as you can keep them in earshot. OK?” And one more thing, “In case you have heard that Clevelander’s are rude, we are going to blow you away with our goodwill and hospitality”.

A few days after my DNF at Mohican I knew it was time to return home. I may or may not have another ultra in me, I figured, but if I had one left I wanted it to be Joe’s race. Besides, if Dad got a second chance, and Northeastern Ohio got a second chance, and the Cuyahoga River Valley got a second chance, well then why not me?

I’ll talk about the race in the next post, I promise.

Burning River Report (Part 1)

2009-08-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

Just a very quick note to say that I finished Burning River!!! I believe that I am one of the happiest guys on earth right now! I had stomach problems again, about as bad as at Mohican, but I handled them differently. I also had so much help from so many friends and so much good fortune that my head is spinning from it all. It felt like the whole world was cheering for me and giving me a soft shove in the small of my back to help me down the trail (don't disqualify me; I'm using meataphore...kinda).

The course was spectacularly beautiful and very rough. The scenery constantly changed from one type of beauty to another all day and all night long. The weather varied as well. We had heat, we had rain, we had fog, we had perfect blue skies and sun dappled rivers.

The volunteers were saintly and I have to say that Joe Jurczyk must be the best race director on earth. I heard someone say that they knew the race would be a good one because it was "A Joe Jurczyk event". I guess that makes Joe a brand name. He deserves it. The event can be described in one word: perfect. My finish requires two words: Ugly and Ecstacy.

I'll write much more in a few days.

To all of you who got me to the finish line (and there were many of you): Thank you and I love you. Chat soon. --Mark

Gratitude

2009-07-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

Forty-eight hours from now, if things are going well I will be running Burning River. I just want to say that the nicest thing that has happened to me this year has been the new friendships that I have made in ultrarunning...and how new and exciting the entire sport seems to me.

I have been the recipient of so many well-wishes and encouraging comments regarding BR that I'm stunned. Thanks everyone, for all of it. My status is that I don't feel quite as fit or as sharp as I did before Mohican. This is OK though. I have a plan and I have my health and I have more love than any one person can process.

I'm already blessed...so this one is for others. This one is for Rob who deserved a Mohican buckle this year more than anyone I ever met. This one is for Nick who is having a banner year. And this one is for Luc who inspires me every time I think of him. This one is for Kim and for Michelle who will be on the trail with me. This one is for Red who I am going to meet at the 64 mile mark. This one is for Scott and Casey...you got me to this new starting line more than you know. This one is for Ron for being so kind and Roy for being so wise and Colleen for being so beautiful. This one is for Jenny and Emily and Colin and Caleb because, my efforts aside, Carroll's really are tough after all. This one is for my beloved Delaware County Special Olympics Racers..the last time we went to Northeast Ohio you guys won state. I'll try to go there now and win a buckle.

This one is for Mom who will be watching and for Dad who could finish this thing twice while drinking beer and kicking a soccer ball, if only he had two good feet.

This one is for fun and this one is for real. This one is because I can and because I'm grateful that I can...I'm grateful that I know that I can and I'm grateful that I'm grateful.

And all of that business about this being a science experiment? Forget all of that. I want to finish.

Thanks.

Baggage

2009-07-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Did you know that I have a pontoon boat? Yep, I own a leisure-time-vehicle. It’s a 20 foot, 1989 Mercury outboard and it was a beautiful boat, back during the Reagan administration, when it was new. Nowadays it sits in the sun, uncovered, all year long, except for the times when it sits in the rain, or snow, or dark, also uncovered. I imagine that my boat appreciates air flow and enjoys the out-of-doors as much as I do so I let it enjoy these things. My favorite times are when the boat and I are sitting in the sun together, with an inner tube hauling several kids along behind us. I keep the boat docked at Delaware State Park and when it is not serving as a refuge for my weary mind it serves as a refuge for various animal species. Seagulls and hornets are common in the summer and raccoons and squirrels in the winter.

The engine always works except for when it doesn’t. Just a while ago it didn’t work until I goofed with it, and then it worked again...and will for a while I imagine. It was the starter again. I can never tell when the starter will go until it goes. I can tell it’s the starter because of the sound of grinding gears and smell of hot metal. The first time it happened I worried that I would be stranded but now I simply pull the engine cover, take the popsicle stick spacer out, trim it, and wedge it back under the drive gear to move the teeth back into proximity with the other gear (the non-drive gear?). Then I don’t worry about it until it happens again. No sense planning for every single thing that can go wrong in life. Have a plan for the big stuff and figure out the rest when it arises. That’s what I always say…

Well, I don’t always say that…

I bought the boat 8 years ago and one of my favorite things to do is to sit on it and gain weight during the months of July and August. This is an especially enjoyable time after a Mohican finish. I can reflect back on the accomplishment and tell myself that I am a terrific endurance athlete as I eat another bag of Cheetos. This year, though, I am still bent toward the task of earning a belt buckle. Today the boat ride got cut a bit short because I need to pack my drop-bags for Burning River. And, despite all of my “fix life’s problems as they arise” platitudes, packing my bags for a 100 miler now takes the better part of a day.

I hate packing the bags for a 100 miler. I mean I really hate it. I used to think that I hated this activity because it was time-consuming but I no longer believe that the time factor is the chief irritant. I now believe that the thing that I hate most about the entire bag-packing process is that it is an extended exercise in imagining all of the things that MIGHT go wrong. The truth of the matter is that all year long I imagine running ultra marathons and, in my mind’s eye, I envision things going well. I imagine myself running powerfully and cleverly diagnosing and treating small maladies before they become killers. These thoughts are always pleasant, and I believe that this type of mental imagery makes us better athletes and better people. I believe that negative thinking yields negative results and that positive thinking ennobles us. But to assume that everything will go well while packing drop-bags is to render the entire activity useless.

The truth is that if everything goes well I will need 2-3 shirts, maybe 2 pairs of shorts, 5-6 ibuprofen tablets, 6 batteries, a spritz of bug spray, a dab of Vaseline, 8-10 Hammer Gels, a headlamp, and a few endurolytes. Beyond that I can rely on the aid stations and God’s love.

The problem is that I can’t be sure that things will go well. I know that I will always have God’s love but if things don’t go well I need to augment this with my gigantic pile of stuff, bags and bags of it, all gathered under the banner of “just-in-case”. I need some things just in case I get hypothermia, other things just in case I get hyperthermia, some things for high blood sugar and others for low. Let’s not even get into all of the things that can happen with minerals but instead mention that "they" say that pain caused by inflammation can be treated with ibuprofen but non-inflammatory pain might be better served with acetaminophen…so wouldn’t it be wise to have access to both? If I have no blisters I have no problems but if I do I need lots of things. The same could be said for gastrointestinal distress, or sleepiness, or chaffing.

Now, add to this list of possible tragedies the fact that I don’t know WHEN any of these problems might arise, and so I need to have access to EVERYTHING ALWAYS. But since I don’t own that much stuff and not every aid station allows drop bags I must sit around IMAGINING when each unfortunate event might take place. I will come home and, whether the race goes well or poorly, I will unpack my bags and find that 90% of their contents are clean and unused. The inefficiency can be chalked up to nerves and registered in the race ledger of my mind under the depressing line of “insurance”.

And that, my friends, is the worst part of ultramarathoning.

The worst part of ultramarathoning isn’t the blisters or nausea or muscle cramps. It isn’t even the loneliness or self doubt. These things are real and thus have earned their place in the pantheon of possible experiences that make ultras a challenge. The worst thing is the negative imagery that comes from trying to control the uncontrollable.

Isn’t it possible for me to just adjust my thinking? Grab the reigns? Possibly get myself on some antianxiety medication? The answer to these questions is that yes, these things are possible. But I have observed at the finish line of many ultra marathons and from what I have learned excusing myself from this painful imagery, while possible, wouldn’t be terribly bright. I have never heard a runner at the end of an ultra say “My legs just could not go on” or “I just ran out of energy”. I have learned that you can go a long long way on a pair of blown legs but you cannot go very far without a light at night, or when your body temperature drops (or soars) to dangerous levels, or when you cannot process food and water. Things like a sweatshirt, or an aspirin, a contact lens, an asthma inhaler, or a Tums can, if available at just the right moment, remove the “d” and the “n” from a “dnf”.

I love the spontaneity of our sport and nothing is less spontaneous than packing drop-bags. And so I must, if only for today, ignore my image of myself as primal-man, moving relentlessly across the landscape on a heroic mission to save my community, never knowing how my mission might end but moving forward using my strength of will and drinking from whatever stream might be available. Instead today I must play the role of primal man’s anal retentive nanny, making primal-man put on galoshes and wear a sweater. And on the way out the door perhaps a spoonful of castor oil “just-in-case”.

All of this is, of course, an effort to help me to stay afloat. Alas. Perhaps I should look into getting a higher quality popsicle stick for my boat.

Using Stress

2009-07-18T07:13:00.001-07:00

Burning River is approaching and I guess I’m starting to go into ‘Caveman Mode’. The reality of things is settling in and this means that I am both scared and very excited. I get a bit myopic at times like this and creativity shuts down.

Because of this, and also because I have wanted to write about osteoblasts for a while now, I’m cutting and pasting an article that I wrote a few years ago for ‘The Academic Leader’. The article speaks of stress within organizations, although it could easily be tweaked to discuss stress within personal relationships or in other areas.

You might enjoy this and, then again, you might not. The publisher now charges poor graduate students, with deadlines approaching, seven dollars to access this on-line; strangely it was free when it was new—go figure. Its not worth seven dollars and so I present it to you here for exactly the price that I think its worth. The only thing I ask is that you do not read this and start quoting Nietzsche. Niezsche was the guy that coined the phrase “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”. That’s not what I’m saying at all. Lots of things can not kill you and yet do not make you stronger. Nietzche ended up taking his own life…many know the quote but few seem to know that this was his outcome…so apparently he found his limit. Lets not follow his example.

Here it is:

Using Stress to Create Change; Just as Nature Intended

Organizations are often anthropomorphized; attributed with the characteristics of living things. One might describe an organization as strong or weak. Organizations might be said to flourish or wither. They might be said to experience periods of peace or other periods in which they are under attack and in a position of mortal danger. We might describe an organization as a family or as a team. The stock price of a company may be said to dive or to soar. Organizations are said to be born and, sadly, they often die.

Organizations are, of course, not living things. You will not find them listed in any biological text. They do, however, behave in ways which are analogous to living organisms and nature is often an effective teacher.

The terminology used to describe stress in an organization is nearly identical to the language used in physiology to describe the body’s reaction to both appropriate amounts of stress and stress overload. A comparison of organizational and physiological adaptation to stress yields an important lesson.

In the body, as in an organization, stress is needed for growth. Without stress there is the opposite of growth; atrophy. Overstress leads to breakdown. As tissues are stressed, an inflammatory reaction occurs which leads to environmental changes including increased temperature, a lack of blood flow to the affected area, a buildup of damaging acids, an accumulation of waste products, and a lack of oxygen. This environment, though unpleasant, does have beneficial side effects. If the body is stressed cells called osteoblasts spring into action and repair an area using collagen; a bony material which makes the tissue stronger. Osteoblasts only function in a hot, acidic, low oxygen environment and so stress is always needed to strengthen tissues. There is no growth without inflammation and no inflammation without stress. The next time the tissue is stressed, through exercise or mild trauma, it takes more stress to cause the area to become inflamed because the body is now stronger and more stress resistant. Continued mild stress applied to tissue being repaired causes it to form itself to new job demands. This process is known as remodeling. It’s a great system.

The only problem is that the osteoblasts have no intelligence. The cannot say “Gosh that seems like plenty of collagen; let’s stop the repair (change) process now”. Instead they will continue to lay down bony tissue as long as their environment tells them to. This can lead to too much bone on a joint surface (osteoarthritis) or in a muscle (myositis) making the joint surface operate less smoothly or making the muscle less pliable. Since the muscle and joint then do not operate efficiently they tend to become inflamed more easily. This, in turn, leads to continued hot, acidic environment, which leads to even more bone being laid down by the osteoblasts. The system is cyclical and what was once a promising repair system is now the cause of the injury; often long after the original cause of damage is gone.

Change in the body or in an organization can be due to healthy overload (such as increased business in an organization or exercise in the body) or trauma (such as an organizational crisis or a fracture in the body). In either case, even though the environment produced is unpleasant, the repair (change) process can make the organism stronger. In order to do this the process has to follow a sensible pattern of overload followed by rebuilding. In either case total absence of activity is never the answer. Without stress the tissues or organization will not remodel themselves to their new demands. They will simply become scarred. The trick in either the body or the organization is to allow progressive overload to occur without creating an environment which proves to be chronically toxic; leading to a cyclical breakdown. This can be done through well planned, progressive growth (through exercise or progressive change) or through a sensible healing and remodeling phase (following bodily or organizational trauma). The rate of change should not stress the damaged tissue or organization to a point where chronic overload causes a state of repeated breakdown and scarring.

Change is inevitable. Study of physiology and study of leadership show us that organisms and organizations are rarely static; at any moment they are either becoming stronger or becoming weaker. Appropriate levels of stress are needed to elicit growth. Stasis leads to atrophy. What is needed for either organizational or physiological change, however, is careful monitoring of the environment to ensure that the results of change land between weakness caused by atrophy and inflexible scarring caused by a chronically inflamed environment.

http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_al/21_8/news/597748-1.html

Almost Heaven

2009-07-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

The Appalachian Mountains are old. I don’t know exactly how old but that’s OK because no one really expects me to know. Geologists, who absolutely should know, do not know either. They say that the Appalachians are between 420 and 496 million years old. I would be willing to forgive geologists for this 76 MILLION year ‘rounding error’ if they had been willing to curve the final exam just a tiny bit in GEOL100 at Ohio University back in 1983. But they were not willing to be reasonable then and so neither will I be now. Get your act together geologists. An 18% margin of error is OK for you guys, I suppose, but I miss a “C” by two points and you question my character when I ask for a pitty bump? Be gone! We will finish this conversation without you!

Now that the Flintstones have left the room lets just sit back for a moment and consider how old the Appalachian Mountains really are. They are much, much older than the Rockies and the Alps and virtually every other mountain range on earth. How much older? Who knows? Not me and also not you-know-who. But lots older. Like hundreds of millions of years older. They also used to be just as high as the highest mountain ranges on earth today. Erosion has, over the course of untold millions of years, eroded the former jagged rocky peaks into the chlorophyll choked safehouses of life that we know today. We might consider the rocks that lie exposed today on the trails of this region to be some pretty tough characters. This is the rubble that could not and would not be beaten into submission by numerous ice ages, billions of rain storms, heat, wind, and earthquakes. The shale and sandstone disappeared long ago. A rock that has survived all of that isn’t going to bend easily. It won’t even be beaten into form by contact with its own kind, which is why a small sampling of trail within these mountains (lets say, randomly, 31 miles of such trail) contains millions of rocks in all shapes and sizes. And if they survived the forces of hundreds of millions of years I don’t guess that an ankle or a head will have much impact if they strike them full force.

Dennis Hamrick and a handful of his buddies from Charleston, West Virginia decided 15 years ago that it would be a good idea to hold a race over this terrain. They could have given the race any name they liked, but they are down-to-earth folks and wanted to promote tourism. They wouldn’t want to name the race anything that would scare people away such as ‘The Ankle Breaker 50K’ or ‘The Heat Exhaustion Derby’ or ‘The Squeal Like a Piggy Ultramarathon’. No, this was to be a fun, family sort of race run by fun, family sorts of guys so they decided to call it something nice….and “The Rattlesnake Trail 50K” was born.

This is a brief report of my experiences in this year’s edition:

I pulled into the pool parking lot at Kanahwa State Forest and Dennis walked right up to me to introduce himself. I believe that he sees this event as his personal party and feels a commitment to making sure that each of his ‘guests’ feels welcome. I believe we all did. Rattlesnake has a family reunion feel. The event has grown and become prestigious over the years. It has been called the toughest 50K in the eastern United States but that doesn’t mean you can’t sit around with the race directors and listen to tall tales and bad jokes. There were piles of pizza and coolers filled with pop. I registered and told Dennis that I was heading out to find a hotel. He told me that camping was free and it seemed that a lot of runners were sleeping in their cars and that I was welcome to do the same. The night before Mohican I rented a hotel room and didn’t sleep a wink. This time I took all the stuff out of the trunk of my car, let the back seat down, climbed in and slept so soundly that I almost missed the start of the race.

At 6:15 A.M. I pulled the emergency latch on the inside of the trunk and emerged into a group of runners congregating at the start. I swear any other group on earth would have screamed in horror but all I got were a few ‘Good mornings’. Ultra runners are accustomed to strange behavior I suppose. As I scrambled to get ready for the 6:30 start I realized, to my absolute shock, that I had not packed any running shorts. I pulled every single item out of every single part of the car but they simply weren’t there. Five minutes until race time and no shorts, and to make matters worse I was absolutely groggy from TOO MUCH sleep. Well, what’s a guy to do? I grabbed a pair of Khaki semi-dress shorts out of my suitcase and slipped them on, grabbed my waist belt, and made the start just as the gun fired.

We ran 50 feet and began to climb. Rattlesnake has 10 major climbs. All of them have a uniquely tortuous nature. Some climb straight up like a cliff wall, others are more like a staircase. Some are gentler but endless. They all share one characteristic, however; as you are tackling one type of hill you find yourself wishing it was some other type. The long ones make you sentimental for the short steep ones and vice versa. The downhills ranged from steep and dangerous to gradual and dangerous. All of them were rock strewn. The locals run down them like they are skiing on invisible snow. I pray, jump from rock to rock, and apologize to those whose path I am blocking, which is everyone. Rattlesnake is the only race where I have ever ended up with blisters on my HANDS from grabbing trees in order to stay rubber-side-down on the descents.

Passing through a campground at what might have been the 8 mile mark I was sweating and the cotton shorts were starting to weigh me down so I panhandled a hunting knife from a camper, disappeared into the woods, doffed my shorts, cut three inches from the bottoms of each leg, returned the knife, got a confused look from the camper, and was on my way. It took 2 minutes flat. Indianapolis has never seen a more concise pit stop.

Rattlesnake was my very last chance to goof around with food and water and equipment prior to Burning River. So far the shorts were really truly wonderfully comfortable. They made me feel kinda tough and low-tech. Snooty runners avoided me and grizzled old veterans gave me knowing nods…but I’m wearing regular shorts at Burning River because I’m not insane. I also decided to experience sodium depletion. I took no sodium of any kind for 5 hours then took about 80mg per 30 min. for the last 90 minutes. I felt the sodium kick in and man-oh-man it was like someone handed me a new set of legs. I won’t go into detail but I will say that if my problem in 100’s is sodium I think I have it figured out. If its not sodium and I simply cannot run 100’s for some other reason then so be it, but this was a valuable lesson.

The race, by and large, was spectacularly, lovingly, deliciously uneventful. Tragedies make the best and the longest stories I guess. The Rattlesnake was brutal but not tragic. Everything went according to plan, and by this I mean that I ran on a tough course and suffered accordingly. The aid stations were terrific. They seemed to be staffed by folks who were genuinely interested in our well-being. The course was beautiful. It was just a perfect hot sunny summer day. There wasn’t a single place on earth that I would have rather been.

There were, of course, some runners who badly misjudged the race. By-and-large these people kept their misery to themselves. The only exception that I saw befell the family from Parkersburg who had the misfortune of choosing a picnic shelter at the base of hill #8. For all the world their family picnic looked like an aid station. They soon learned that the actual aid station was located about 100 yards away and it became their unofficial duty to explain this to each and every runner as they passed. They were kind people however and apparently not beyond offering some aid to a truly needy runner. As I ran by, a woman who appeared to be the matriarch of the clan walked up to a runner calling out “I WAS able to find a hammer after all”. As she said this the poor wretch proceeded to vomit within 5 feet of the pavilion. I’m guessing that he thought this was the aid station and asked for some sort of Hammer product since they were the race sponsors. Another Rattlesnake casualty I suppose. I will never know whether or not I could have been of some sort of assistance…because I didn’t stop to ask. I was too busy getting myself back to the swimming pool for a dunk prior to my drive home.

The final half mile of this race turns flat and perfectly runnable. I was surprised and really really really grateful. I finished in 6:37…over an hour faster than my only other attempt at this race, in 2004. I crossed the finish line with a huge smile on my face and was handed a water bottle and a glass sculpture that was either a replica of a Hershey’s Kiss or some sort of bird. I don’t know what it is but I love it to pieces and I’m keeping it forever, or until the last rock in the Appalachian Mountains has turned to sand, whichever comes first.

Rattlesnake

2009-07-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

This sport has grown so much that its hard to not be amazed. The Buckeye trail 50K is next weekend and I cannot run it because its SOLD OUT. In fact it has been sold out for many months now. How cool is that?....the sold out part, not the 'I can't run it' part. I ran the BT once waayyy back in 1997. As I recall it was a fun run in conjuntion with Joe Jurczyk's birthday. I distinctly recall that the race instructions called for us to show up on time....but please JUST on time. We didn't need people milling around attracting attention since the park didn't exactly 100% know that the race was being held. Sometimes its easier to get forgiveness than permission. But its always best to simply not get caught. I might be recalling things wrong but thats how I remember it. At any rate, the race is now full-fledged bonafide and downright prestigious. Good on ya mates. May the trail rise to meet you. Godspeed and good luck to my friends who planned ahead.

I'm off to do the Rattlesnake 50K in Charleston, WV on Saturday. I ran it once before and sat in a cave for a while waiting for a lightning storm to pass...lightning seems to be a theme this week. Oh well. This race is a toughie. Five thousand feet of elevation (which also always means another 5000 feet of de-levation). The course also has 85 million rocks, each the size of a human head. I'm using bug spray, watching my step, and sticking to tapwater and wonder bread.

Peace friends. --Mark

Burning Question

2009-07-08T00:10:00.001-07:00

I remember when I was in eighth grade and just starting to fall in love with cross country running. I proudly ran for the blue and dirty-gold of Frederick Roehm Jr. High School. Just across town there was another junior high school, and another cross country team, and another runner who was also just starting to fall in love with cross country running. His name was also Mark. That’s where the similarities ended though. I could pound Mark at any distance, any time, anywhere. So could a lot of other guys. He was a nice guy and an OK runner but anyone could beat him if they tried hard enough…until he got hit by lightning and got fast.

That’s just the order in which it happened too. One day we were saying “Did you hear about Mark? He got hit by lightning!” and the next thing you know he was kicking the tar out of all of us.

In hindsight I can see that getting hit by lightning and getting fast are two separate events, but you couldn’t have convinced any of us of any such thing back then. We had read enough comic books to know darn well that getting hit by lightning gives you special powers. And if you needed to see any more proof then you better look fast because there it goes now, disappearing over yonder hill!

Even now if I’m out running and a thunder storm kicks up, the fear I feel is mixed with just a tiny trace of hope. I think of Mark every time I see lightning. But I think of lightning after every ultra I run and I’ll tell you why I do in just a bit.

Did you know that you can get hit by lightning and be walking around feeling just fine-and-dandy and bragging about it? You don’t have to believe me, just pay close attention the next time you get hit by lightning and you will see that I am correct. In fact, maybe you could even get a sympathy date. “Hey, I got hit by lightning and lived. You should date me because I am just that kind of man” you might say. But if you do get hit by lightning you should insist that the date happen pretty soon, because a day later you might be feeling queasy. Then a couple of days after that you might be dead. And no one wants to date a dead guy…not even Demi Moore.

That movie was awful.

See, what happens is that the lightning can travel along your nerve tracts. They are built to carry electricity so a little lightning isn’t such a huge deal to them. If you are really lucky the electricity can pass right on through and maybe just give you a little exit burn and leave a taste like old pennies in your mouth. I don’t know why it tastes like pennies so don’t interrupt me by asking. This I do know though; you really should get that copper taste out of your mouth before your big date. What you won’t discover for 24 hours or so, is that you may have killed one or more vital organs and not even know about it. You can live for a while without a functional liver, or kidneys, so the real symptoms don’t show up for a while. If you time it just right you can stick your date with the check at the fancy restaurant you take her to.

I’ve always felt that running an ultramarathon is a lot like getting hit by lightning. In an ultra your endocrine system, which is responsible for maintaining your body’s homeostasis, can take a real hit. Sometimes, if you haven’t beaten your legs up too badly, you can fool yourself into thinking that no damage has been done. This might happen after a race like Mohican. You feel great but then the mystery injury or illness arises…usually right in the middle of that charity 5K that your co-worker challenged you to. If you don’t plan your recovery properly you will have to suffer the effects of the injury and/or listen to that jerk bragging around the office for several months or more.

I felt good for a few days after Mohican this year. I had been here before though so I settled in and awaited the lethargy, moodiness, and sleep disorders. But they didn’t arrive. In fact I kept feeling good. I might be deeply tired and I suppose I must be. I did run 80 miles after all. But this has been weird. I did 50 miles last week and just ran a hard 10 miler and felt terrific. No cough, no weird odors, no mystery-rash. What gives? After all, if I had spewed just a few more times at Mohican I could have been offered an employment contract as a geyser at Yellowstone. Those are just the type of symptoms you’d expect from a flawed endocrine system. But those symptoms went right away and weren’t replaced by other mystery signs. No weird painless swelling, no breaking into profuse sweats for no reason, no crying while watching “You’ve got mail”.

That movie was awful too.

So anyhow I got to thinking which, for purposes of this conversation, we will not consider to be a weird symptom. Here’s what I was thinking: Once you screw up your endocrine system you can’t just unscrew it. It stays screwed up for a while. So, using the transitive property of ultragoggery, if I’m not screwed up, it can’t be the endocrine system. So then what in the heck happened at Mohican? I was all set to give up on ultras. I was going to switch to shorter distances and win 3rd place ribbons in my age group at 5K’s hosted by festivals that exist in order to honor vegetables. That was the plan…and now I just don’t know.

Could it be sodium? I was not drinking and yet managed to spew crazy amounts of …stuff. Where was it coming from? Maybe salt buildup was causing reverse osmosis …pulling liquid from my body into my stomach instead of vice-versa. That would explain the loaves-and-fishes quality of my stomach contents on the long crawl back to the bridge.

Then I heard from Ron Ross. Ron hooked me up with some studies on sodium and one day, instead of doing my job, I read all about salt. How much sodium do we need? How much do we use? How much is too much? Then I looked at the amount of sodium I took in during Mohican and I did some cyphering and learned that at about the time I was arriving at the Mill aid station on the night of Mohican I was one of the saltiest things on the planet. In fact, the exact order was:

1. The Dead Sea
2. Me
3. Gatorade
4. The Bonneville Salt Flats

So really there could be several different things at work. It could be that I just can’t do 100 milers any more. If that’s the case then so be it. It could be that I am a pansy, but I don’t think so. A pansy couldn’t handle the amount of heaving I did. I heaved so hard I strained an intercostal muscle (“I heaved so hard that I strained an intercostal muscle. You should date me because I am just that kind of man”).

Or it could be.
Yes it could be.
Something special.
Just.
For.
Me.

That movie was awesome!

Or it could be salt. But I cannot train through sleet all next winter just to have another DNF. I am trained now and I need to know now. I’m going to do Burning River and if I monitor the salt and live then Mohican is on for next year. If I don’t then maybe its time to be the scourge of the West Jefferson Squash Festival 5K Run/Walk.

I’ll try to finish BR but mainly this is a science experiment. Data collection really. I'm going to check my ego and my Gatorade bottle at the door.

And if that doesn’t work I’ll just get myself a rainy day, a kite, and a key.

All my love, --Mark

Mohican Report Part 4

2009-06-29T00:52:00.000-07:00

“Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper ‘I love you’
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me”
--Mama Cass

“Basically you are OK. Get some sleep, stop vomiting and you’ll be alright. Hey, I hope we see you at Colleen’s dinner party in January!”
--Paramedic at covered bridge 4:30am

Mohican is the only day all year long that my urine really gets the attention that is deserves. Its color, volume, and frequency are as spellbinding to me as an “Ice Road Truckers” marathon. I hate to brag. I really do. But so far my urine had been the type of stuff that could inspire poetry. Hemingway would have described it as “Dependable pee. Strong and true. The kind of ‘number one’ a man could live with”! It really was kinda beautiful there, all silhouetted against my headlight as I stopped on the climb to Hickory Ridge. There just didn’t seem to be nearly as much of it as there was before but that’s OK right? Sure it was. Besides there really wasn’t any time or need to worry. I was walking behind Dick Canterbury and he was looking as good as I felt. My pacer Kevin had my back and we were coming up on 68 miles and the bright lights of the Hickory Ridge aid station. That meant that we were entering the realm of the Mansfield Running Club. These folks are fun, and knowledgeable, and dependable. If the people at the Rock Point aid station were the type that you would choose if you were looking to do a little homesteading then the attractive and fun bunch at Hickory Ridge would be your admissions department if you were going to start a college…a fun college. They had cute women who thought that it was interesting and acceptable that a man was lacking, say, skin on his feet, or a stomach lining. They knew how to treat these maladies and also had smiles and tomato juice and salted potatoes. I hated to leave but the Mill beckoned. I promised to join them on one of their famous Tuesday night runs in the future and boogied out into the night.

The only unpleasantness at all, in fact, at Hickory Ridge was that when I asked how their team-mate Michelle Bichsel was doing they looked a bit glum. “She’s kinda sick” said a cute one. “Yeah but she’s gonna finish up just fine because she’s tough” said a fun one. Then everyone smiled.

At about this time Michelle was at the Mill arguing with Rob Powell. Rob was testing his recent surgical scar tissue just a bit by crewing for Michelle, who had been suffering gastrointestinal distress all day. Michelle wanted to drop out; Rob was having none of it. In fact Rob had taken the identification strip off of Michelle’s race bib so the she COULD NOT legally drop out. Backing Rob up was Don Baun who had decided to leave his best effort for a better day and then, in true Mohican fashion, eschewed a warm bed for an all-night crew position. Michelle argued the point but her friends were most likely only presaging what her own mind would have told her given a moment of silence. She wasn’t going to float this time but she wasn’t going to sink either.

Kevin and I passed a sign that told us that we had only 4 more miles of bike trail left. That means that we were three miles from Hickory Ridge which means we had gone…..ummmm…68 plus 3 equals….about 70 or something like that. Yeah seventy. “Hey Kevin guess what? We only have like 33 more miles to go! I feel great”. Five steps later I was bent at the waist heaving loud enough to stir birds from their nests. “Whoa. That was weird” Said I. “Let’s get out of these woods. We’ll just go nice and easy and it’ll all be BLEEEHHHHH!”

At this point in the race Wyatt Hornsby must have been running a bit scared. Wyatt had just done something that he must have envisioned on a hundred training runs over the past year. It was bold and it was ballsy and it was unlikely. He had run well back from the frontrunners all day long; keeping them just within range. This was a wise strategy. But just a while ago his patience, alertness, and knowledge of the course allowed him to take over the lead from Mark Tanaka of San Francisco and he was now irrevocably committed to pulling off his goal of winning the Mohican Trail 100 Mile Run. This was the work of a believer. Wyatt was a good runner. In fact he had finished in the top five in a local 50K race on this very course a few months ago. But this was Tanaka’s race and everyone knew it. Well, almost everyone. Tanaka was the genuine deal. He was a member of the famous La Sportiva Mountain Running Team. Wyatt was running ruthlessly. He refused to walk on even some of the steepest climbs and increased his effort time and again over the final miles. Think of Rocky climbing off the canvas for a knockout. Wyatt crossed the line to the delight of all skinny-low-heart-rated Ohioans, in first place in 19:52.

[Quick editorial note here: By all accounts Mark Tanaka is a genuinely wonderful person and a terrific athlete. In no way do I mean to paint him into the "bad guy" role here...I just love an upset/local-boy-makes-good story : ). Nothing but all-around respect intended. In his blog Wyatt spoke in the highest terms of the talent and courage displayed by both Tanaka and Matt Aro. All three runners gave ultra fans one of the best races seen at Mohican in many years. Maybe ever.]

I stumbled down the final mile of the bike path and into the campground parking lot. I lay right down on my face and went to sleep. Kevin woke me up saying “Its only one mile to the Mill, pull your shit together”. “Tough titty Miss Kitty” said I. I lay there while the inconsiderate bastards in the truck parked nearby kept asking me over and over again if I was alright and did I need any help at all? Wasn’t there something they could please do? “I’m fine!”

I guess I wasn’t portraying “Fine” as well as I thought I was.

About an hour earlier Nick the Brewer, Nick the Philosopher, Nick the runner-at heart who lives in kid-like joy at his ability to run long distances had set a P.R. Nick arrived at the Covered Bridge aid station at 64 miles after battling muscle cramps for the last 43 miles, blistered feet for the past 10 hours, low blood sodium all day long and, straight from the “Insult to injury” file, a headlamp that picked the treacherous green loop to wink out…then on again…then out...then kinda on…in the pitch black darkness of the toughest stretch of woods in the toughest 100 miler in the Midwest, since nightfall. The problem with the light (and this story tells its own tale about being a mammal in lousy weather conditions) was that it was shorting out because Nick was sweating into the battery compartment. He stopped to drain it and continued. No belt buckle but, on the bright side, no self-administered electro-shock therapy either. Nick’s road to the finish line at Mohican will continue into 2010 and on this road lies the Javelina 100 this fall, and many miles and many good stories and a few finely crafted homebrews as well perhaps.

“No worries man. There is absolutely no way that I am dropping out. My kids have gone through way worse than this and I’m just going to have to suffer. I don’t need to eat. I can do the whole thing on body fat if I need to. I did last year.” I explained to Ron Ross. Ron has finished more Mohicans than nearly anyone and he is just about the fittest and nicest human being anywhere. “That’s great Mark.” He said using “great” as convincingly as I had used “fine” 1 mile (and 45 minutes) earlier. “You can do it” he said. And this part I am convinced he meant. Man it was good to see Ron. Kevin meanwhile had gotten me half a cup of some sort of soup and strained everything solid out of it. I was sitting UNDER a picnic table at the Mill, had gotten 5 minutes of sleep and was wearing the fleece vest that I bought at Salvation Army 2 days ago for three dollars. I think of EVERYTHING. Yep. Things were better. Then I walked a quarter of a mile and threw up half a gallon of broth.

I often find it odd that when I go to remote but beautiful places, such as Mohican, for training runs that there aren’t more local runners out on the trails. In fact there seem to be none at all. I asked a college team-mate, Mitch Bentley about this once. Mitch was from the town of Plymouth in the Hocking Hills region and won the state cross country championship in High School. Mitch explained it by telling me that there are, after all, an awful lot of trails and odds of seeing anyone aren’t great. Yes, I argued, but I NEVER see ANYONE. Mitch then let out a loving ‘You just don’t get it’ sigh and told me. “Some of these folks have real world problems and don’t give a shit about us or our jogging programs. Keep that in mind”. The Mohican area is not as remote or economically depressed as the Hocking Hills region but I still have wondered “Why no local Mohican runners?” All of that was about to change. Late in the race Terry Lemke, who lived three miles from the course and had decided to enter the race just weeks before was running strong 10 minutes behind the leader. Mohican has been a family affair for the Lemke’s. They have worked an aid station as a family in past years and now Mom was in the mix in the middle of the night being paced by her son. Terry went on to finish as the second place female in just over 24 hours…and she may or may not give a shit about my jogging program. One can never be sure.

I stood and wavered from foot to foot and stared at the hill in front of me. Mohican has 11,000 feet of elevation gain but this 5 foot pitch was straight up and involved me grabbing onto one tree and climbing under another. This was trouble. I made it up and over the North Rim Trail but that involved legs which, despite having no access to quick burning energy, were holding up pretty good. I hoisted myself up. Sat at the top for a moment and stared down the other side. It was an equally steep 5 feet back down to the river and if I didn’t grab that sapling at the bottom I was going right into the river. I barely hooked the sapling and slung myself to the ground. Face down. Asleep for the fourth time in 2 miles.

I will spare you the horridness of this stretch. Suffice to say that it involved horrendous nausea, weakness, and flu-like symptoms that I have not experienced before. Over and over I told myself that my kids would never quit. I pictured myself walking in the front door and handing them my buckle and telling them to always remember that Carroll’s are tough. Kevin told me I was weaving, staggering, tripping, and talking nonsense. When we got to the bridge he called in the medics. It turns out that they knew me from past years. That has to be some sort of warning sign—having a personal relationship with medical personnel at your favorite race—but I’m not going to think about it now.

Kevin drove me back and I climbed into the back seat of my car, covered with the feces of different species, Vaseline, mud, Gatorade, vomit, dead bugs, sunscreen, and layer after layer of dust. I had no emotion. I let out one huge sob. Then sleep took me.

Twenty-nine hours, fifty-six minutes and twenty-nine seconds after the start of the race 36 year old Jennifer Broton crossed the finish line. She will return to Pennsylvania with the final belt buckle of 2009 and the title “Last of the Mohicans”. With Jennifer’s crossing, Mohican-world returns to torpor for another year. The water will continue to fall over Big Lyons falls every moment of the next twelve months and if I awake at, let us say, 2:17 am on a midwinter’s night I can be sure that Hickory Ridge is still there. I can roll over, and go back to sleep. But Mohican won’t exist again until next year, no matter how many blogs and training runs and photo albums are devoted to it. It won’t exist because we are not there. The truth is Mohican needs us to breathe life into it as much as we need Mohican, for thirty hours each year, to turn you, and him, and her and me, into us.

Its one week later and I am in the stands at the Ohio Special Olympics Summer Games. For three days, each June, thousands of Special Olympics athletes from every county in the state monopolize Ohio State University’s gigantic campus, filling many of its dorms and requiring the support of thousands of volunteers as they compete in 19 separate sports spread across thousands of acres connected by an intricate system of shuttle buses. On this evening Jesse Owens Stadium is filled to beyond-capacity with nearly 20,000 athletes, coaches, volunteers, friends, family members, and press corps. The evening climaxes as the Olympic torch, which has traveled the state of Ohio for an entire week (beginning at the approximate time that I was passing Hickory Ridge for the first time last Saturday) is escorted into the stadium. The torch is guarded by a dozen State Highway Patrol motorcycles, sirens blaring, and escorted by 100 highway patrol cadets, a military color-guard, and dozens of high-level politicians. As the torch circles the track the roar of the crowd crescendos, turning physical; shaking the foundations of the stands. As the Olympic flame is ignited a chopper buzzes the stadium but it, as well as the announcer’s voice, are unheard, overwhelmed by the shouts of joy as so many individuals, too often marginalized in daily life, announce that for this time they are the center of the universe.

More fireflies.

The Special Olympics Oath is:

“Let me win.
But if I cannot win,
Let me be brave in the attempt.”

Maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe the thing connecting the strands that comprise Mohican isn’t a belt buckle. Maybe the only thing that Wyatt and Jennifer, Luc and Scott and Casey, Dave and Michelle and Terry and Nick and Ron and Rob and Don have in common with me and Dick Canterbury and Mike McCune and the ultra-punks and the other Mohicans is that we all did, in our own way and according to our own circumstances and abilities, try.

Mohican Report: Part 3

2009-06-25T21:31:00.001-07:00

“We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.”
--Pink Floyd

“If I hadn’t been cut from the pole vaulting squad in the seventh grade I wouldn’t be here. Screw you, Coach S., wherever you are!”
--Me, while climbing the North Rim Trail, 1:45am

Race Day: Three A.M. The alarm clock goes off but I’m way ahead of it. Shower, shave, brush, spit, rinse, tape, more tape, just a little more tape, sunscreen, lube, cold coffee, Little Debbie, car keys, lie on bed for one more minute because its my last time to do so for a long long time. There are drunks in the parking lot wearing ball caps with numbers on them. They are getting ready to go to an all day race. So am I. They haven’t slept yet. Neither have I.

Forty five minutes before the 5:00am start the sky opens with a roaring downpour that threatens to force my car to the roadside. I prepare myself mentally for a 30 hour slog through hopeless rain. Then, miraculously, impossibly, as race time draws nearer the rain vanishes and I see a star in the sky. The rain is gone forever, replaced with clouds that sulk into the distance, repeatedly drawing nearer and yelling threats before finally shrugging and surrendering to perfect skies and light breezes as dawn greets us for the first of two times on this unusual day.

I decide to jog at the start. This simple act puts me into the top 30 runners and I let it happen because, by being up front, I can avoid the clog at the trail leaving the campground at the half mile point. In doing so I find myself behind Michelle Bichsel. Floating. Always floating. Does Michelle never land? Does she ever struggle? I’ve never seen it. I’m certain that if the race has an elite runner in the field this year it is Michelle. I’m equally certain that she’ll float to the finish. It’s the nature of things. After the clog I immediately slow way way way down. I gently walk the first long hill and, in so doing, get to greet many friends as they pass me. There’s Dick Canterbury, going by for his tenth finish. Scott and Casey, my pacers from last year, jog past. They seem to be having fun. Here is Terry Lemke. Terry doesn’t know it but I copied a picture taken of her on a training run by Michelle Bichsel a few weeks ago. In the picture 40-something Terry is leading a group of the young-guns down a rocky cliff wall as they struggle to hang on. That picture has been my computer screen saver since I got it. Way inspirational. I get to run with Don Baun for several minutes. Don was one of the founders of this race and he’s a constant source of energy. Don offers to slow down and run with me but no matter how slow he goes I am slower. Don moves past, along with most of the field. I am totally at peace.

At Rock Point the road turns to trail and we experience mud. Some of it kinda bad and deep. For some reason it doesn’t bother me. I have my trail legs on and I negotiate it well. Early morning in the deep woods is a quiet time and other than whispered well wishes the runners do nothing to disturb it. By this point the groove of the early day is upon us. Lightly fuel. Sip. Gently step. Breathe. Adjust a sock. A pebble in the shoe now could be a wound tonight. Get rid of it. Chat. Pray. South Park passes and then the firetower. These are the good times. All is well. All starters are still among us. I get my traditional fire tower kiss from Colleen Theusch and plunge into the lovely, gentle downhill to the covered bridge and into the purple loop at 21 miles.

The purple loop; exhausting, but dangerous. Everyone loves the purple loop. I love it too but make no mistake, this innocent family hiking trail can break you like a twig. The many jumps over and around scenic logs and boulders can trash-compact the finest pair of quadriceps over the course of just four miles. Because of this I walk nearly all of it. God has blessed us, once again, on the sunny and hot climb up Goon Rd. with Avery’s presence. Avery, a local resident, ancient and attentive, sits on the porch of his house softly calling out encouragement to runners on this murderous climb as he has for longer than anyone can remember. For the first time ever I call back to him telling him that I notice him every year and that I appreciate it. Avery beams at this, takes a pull from his oxygen cannula, and calls out “See you next year”. I hope that God blesses us both enough to make that prediction come true. The purple loop is poorly marked. Possibly the rain has washed away the chalk arrows, although this doesn’t seem to have happened on any other part of the course. I know the course well and guide some runners through it, past Lyons Falls and back to the 25.1 mile mark. Here I see Scott and Casey, looking tired. They both have an alert look, like someone ‘playing chicken’ with a freight train. Scott sits in a chair content to want nothing until the time comes where he must rise and, once again, want everything. Casey is nearby, shopping at the food table, looking for the right fuel to make it to Hickory Ridge. Scott will rally; he always does. And when he does Casey will be with him; he always is. I would bet my house on them finishing their first ultra. And they do, with stories enough to last the summer and miles enough to feed the addiction they do not yet know that they have.

Behind me Luc has taken a wrong turn. He completes several miles of the purple loop but knows when he returns again to the covered bridge that he must not have completed the whole loop. This has put Luc into a bit of distress with the time cut-offs but rather than compromise the race in any way he peacefully and uncomplainingly decides to do the ENTIRE brutal Purple loop again, from start to finish. Now Luc needs to make up some time but rather than rushing ahead he chooses to walk the loop with a woman who is attempting to walk the entire 100 miles. Luc safely guides her through the course but has only minutes to spare on the time cut-off when he returns to the bridge. Furthermore he needs to push on because the exhausting climb to Hickory Ridge lies ahead. Many other runners take a wrong turn on the blue loop but none that I know of handle it in the gentlemanly and sportsmanlike way that Luc has. I could go on for thousands of words about who Luc is and how he lives. But I don’t have to. By reading this, and taking my word that this is typical behavior, you already know.

At the bridge I salt some watermelon, grab a fist full of cookies and head toward the long climb to Hickory Ridge. Summer is in full bloom. Life is everywhere it can possibly be. The trails crawl with tiny insects and the sky is filled with birds. Weeds sprout improbably from the tops of chunks of granite. This feels good, all of it. I run through the Hickory Ridge Aid station, pausing just long enough to grab a sandwich, and run more comfortably than I ever have to the 36 mile point and the exit of the mountain bike trail.

The truth is that I have never enjoyed the run into and through the “Old Mill” (circa 2003). The run along Route 3 is hot and noisy and somewhat dangerous. I have always accepted that this part of the route was a tradeoff to promote tourism into a region that welcomes the race with open arms and needs a favor in return. The race brings business and exposure to the Mill and the community and so it’s a mutually supportive arrangement. The high point of the run to the Mill is seeing Dave Essinger. Dave is a co-worker and new friend of mine from the University of Findlay. Although it is his first 100 miler he runs like a veteran...all the way to the finish! Go Oilers!

From the Mill I made my way up back to the Covered bridge and the 42 mile mark along a lovely, if root and rock covered, trail along the river. The river crossing at the Bridge was delightful. I happened to wade across the river precisely as a group of tough-looking teenagers were floating by on inner tubes. One of them looked at me and said “How far are you running?” I told him “100 miles” and the entire group clapped and wished me well. Way way way too cool.

At about this time my friend Luc, who had managed to stay moments ahead of the time cut-offs that his good nature had placed upon him, sat at the Mill Aid station desperately trying to lower his body temperature and refuel in time to get back onto the course. Surely if he had the time (nearly 2 hours) that he lost on the purple loop, first through poor course marking s and then through an act of kindness to a stranger, he could have regrouped and gone the distance. Instead Luc’s day ended sitting in the sun with a throbbing head and a core temperature that made eating or drinking unappealing although those were exactly the things he needed. He never complained once. In fact Luc believes he had a good time out there. Luc, if you are reading this lets do many runs this year. I could learn a lot from you.

From the Covered Bridge it was straight up hill to the Bridle Staging area. It was hot by this point but I wasn’t feeling the heat. I had picked up distant acquaintance turned fast-friend Mike McCune. It has taken me years to realize that Mike is one tough sumbitch. He appears, at all points in any race, to be badly sunburned, sweaty, exhausted, and…happy. In my minds eye I see Mike walking along the trail every year perhaps holding a small empty hand-held water bottle in one hand and perhaps a thick black cotton T-shirt in the other. Mike would appear to be in the final throws of desperation were it not for the smile on his face and willingness to share his adventures with any new or old friends he might find along the way. Mike has smiled and toughed his way through some of the toughest ultamarathon’s in the Midwest in just such a manner. Mike and I run together for several more hours. We pick up runners, get passed by runners, pass runners, and yet never lose each other. I run past the half way point in about 12 hours still feeling ridiculously good. Entering the Rock Point aid station at 52 miles I am once again reminded that the volunteers make Mohican, and the volunteers at the Rock are consistently the best. This is a rugged outpost on the course. Tough to get to, even by car, difficult to re-supply and open longer than any other aid station on the course. And they still manage, somehow, to offer the best food on the course and the most comfort, the most love, and the most Goodwill-Karma-Mojo on the planet.

From here it is a run into the early and endless dusk that only the deep woods on the longest day of the year can provide. I pass the South Park Aid station again and Mike and I and a few intermittent friends move toward the hospitality of the firetower and my pacer, Kevin. The good part is about to start.

Note: If you are still reading please understand that this blog is, more than anything else, a diary and is written for myself. If I have offended anyone or have facts wrong about course markings or the Mill aid station please feel free to defend them by making comments below. I’d welcome a more positive outlook. For now its late and I have the joy of attending the State Special Olympics Summer games the next three days. I’ll be staying in a dorm with some boys the entire time and it’ll be a blast. I’ll write more for myself…and for you if you care to read, when I return. Peace. --Mark

Mohican Report: Part 2

2009-06-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

“I really have to use
my imagination
to think of good reasons
to keep on keeping on.

I’ve got to make the best of
a bad situation
ever since that day that
I found that you* were gone

Darkness all around me
blocking out the sun
friends call to me
but I just don’t feel like talking to anyone

Emptiness has found me
and it just won’t let me go
thought I had no limits
but now I just don’t know…”

--Gladys Knight
*In this case “you” being my endocrine system’s ability to maintain homeostasis

“This really is the sport of kings, isn’t it?”
--Kevin Krupp, my pacer, as he counterbalanced me at 3:45am while I heaved

You can understand what running means to me by understanding what Mohican means to me. Mohican came to me as a savior during the darkest period of my life and showed me that wonderfulness can be found in the direst circumstances and that God is watching always. Mohican is where I learned that, as harsh as it sounds, God’s plan for us is not necessarily any of our business. Mohican was where I realized that this life is for service and learning and that joy is where you find it. Its where I learned that a breeze can be the perfect reminder that we are missing a constant bombardment of love because we are seeking rather than being.

If none of that makes any sense to you catch me on a very long run some time and, for the price of a few Gu Packs and a long slow swig from your camelback, I’ll tell you about tragedy and miracles. But for now take my word for it. I was on a top-twenty ranked cross country team in college. I was a good marathoner in the mid-80’s. I’ve run cross country, track, roads and trails. I’ve run in minus-26 degree actual temperature (minus-56 degree windchill) and 106 degree heat. None of that ever held a candle to Mohican.

Mohican has been the centerpiece of my running existence since the day in 1997 when my wife told me that if I was going to drop out I should drop out on a trail in the woods at Mohican in June rather than out of life in February. That year I strapped a 15 ounce miners lamp to my head, packed as many snickers as I could into a waist pack, made my own salt pills by emptying vitamin B-12 capsules and refilling them with table salt. I came out of that blazing day and starry night knowing that my challenges hadn’t changed but my mind had forever. We became instant lifelong lovers, Mohican and I. I run other races but only to prepare for Mohican.

I think that might all be over now though and I think that’s OK. I really do.

I went on to finish Mohican seven times in a row. Since then I have managed to finish once in my last five tries. I think my body has changed. This year I did everything right. I started last August by dieting until, by Christmas, I had lost 30 pounds. Then I started the best buildup of my adult life. Steady mileage, more long runs than ever, consistent sleep, no illness, no injury, great mental attitude, and a smart taper. My pacer, Kevin, has been a lifelong friend since College, he was in our wedding party, and is a terrific runner himself. Yep, having old Kev along surely took care of the Karma piece. So here’s how 2009 went:

I got a room near I-71 because, even though I love nature, 30 hours of loving is all I am into these days without a prescription. I stopped off at my room on my way to the race and taped my feet. Good old elasticon. If you have blisters and don’t use this stuff get ahold of me.

Pulling up to the bag-drop and dinner the night before the race is always wonderful. Mohican-world has erupted from its cocoon and all the players are flitting around, so happy to be there that we could all just pop, and yet all too nervous and giddy to have real conversation. Buzzes and grunts, hugs and gentle plaintiff requests for merciful news. Has anyone seen the trails? They are dry right? Do you think my new socks will work? The church ladies aren’t handling dinner this year...that’s not going to affect us right? I see Colleen Theusch. The only woman that has my wife’s full permission to kiss me. She has no idea how much she means to me although I have told her a hundred times. I stand back and see that everyone else has the same relationship with her. Its wonderful. If Mohican could ever turn human for a moment it would choose to be Colleen. I also see Luc who looks like a man who is about to do something wonderful and, if you read on, you will see that he does. I see Rob Powell, the fittest man that will not run. Back surgery has taken yet another Mohican from him but this man has a love for this event that might even surpass my own. No spinal injury can keep him from this and I make sure to shake his hand to get some of his energy. Nick is there. Nick the brewer, Nick the philosopher, Nick the man who consistently seems surprised that he is a runner. I don’t see Michelle Bichsel, my new friend who has been winning every race she touches this year. I see another friend, Terry Lemke, who warns me not to get stuck in the mud as I drive past. She might have meant my car or my race. I didn’t ask. Terry decided to run the 100 miler a couple of weeks ago. She virtually lives on the course and she is making the right move. I see my pacers from last year, Scott and Casey. They told me I was nuts at the finish line last year and then went ahead and signed right up for this year’s 50 miler. They are talking to West Coast ultra-star Mark Tanaka who flew in to challenge the sharp hills, mud, and roots of the toughest 100 miler in the midwest. I see Leo Lightner and Ron Ross and Roy Heger. I see Art Moore and I see the young ultra punks. The new generation thrills me. They are wild and carefree. A hand-held bottle and cotton T-shirt is fine thanks. Just some tap water and an ipod and an open trail. Move aside sir, we’re here and your sport will thrive forever because of us. One of them wanders the floor with a hand-lettered shirt that reads “I’ll show you a 2.5 Gallon Bag”.

Its too much joy. I go to the hotel to lie wide awake all night too happy to sleep.

I’ll get around to talking about the race in my next post. I promise.

Mohican Trailer (Part 1)

2009-06-22T15:47:00.001-07:00

Hi. Very briefly here’s how Mohican went:

I had six months of perfectly flawless training. I went into this race 30 pounds lighter than EVER before. I had more long runs in than ever before. I had solved the blister problems of years past (Nick, we have to talk man…contact me), solved the hypothermia of years before and had my mind fine tuned into a zen-tarahumara-franciscan-buddhist-hippie-yippee-trippee Peace machine.

And for 70 miles I floated along having the time of my life. They said it was hot but I didn’t notice. They told me I was ugly but I felt handsome. I rolled along dispensing ibuprofen, vaseline, ginger candy and goodwill to those less prepared than I.

Then at 70 miles I became violently ill and suffered wave after wave of relentless nausea that defied all intervention. It took me 4.5 hours to make it from the Mill to the sweet tender mercy of the time cutoff at the bridge and the relief that only 4:30 am at 80 miles can bring.

This morning I ran three miles on legs that were just fine and didn’t puke once. Hooray!

My friends all kicked butt. Much much much more (several thousand words at least) is on the way…probably in installments. Stay tuned or avoid this site, depending on the amount of self centered drivel and false modesty you think you can absorb.

All my love, --Mark

P.S. Michelle Bichsel wins the toughest human award, Luc wins the greatest-gentleman -ever -to -do -this -sport award, and Nick and Rob win the nicest guy awards. Terri Lemke wins the MAN-OH-MAN this is the coolest news ever award. Why? Tune in later.

Fireflies

2009-05-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

Its been a busy week. Too busy for blogging and almost too busy for slogging. Its a good thing that the hay is in the barn for Mohican. Brother Donkey is as ready as he's going to be. I guess I haven't told you about Brother Donkey and so I will...very soon; I promise. But I'm just too busy to write about him now. He's eating oats and awaiting orders so in the meantime I have some incredibly happy news to report:

I was slogging along, tired and lonely late Thursday night and it happened. I saw my first firefly of the season. It was just one lonely little lightning bug. Flashing his little bug-light, avoiding kids with mayonnaise jars and trying to find a friend for a late night dance. I didn't see any other lightning bugs and so maybe he didn't either...sometimes that's how love goes. I predict, however, that if he hangs in there and continues to be patient, and keeps shining his light, that he will soon be surrounded by the love and energy of so many of his kind that he won't be able to absorb the vibe of his fleeting but expansive community.

Fireflies are creatures of the month of June. They exist all year long of course. Sometimes they are active and sometimes they are passive but June is when they come out to shine.

My Thursday run was lonely. I don't have many local friends that do what I do. My Mohican community consists of individuals who exist all year long but truly only come together fully for a brief time...each June. Soon we will seek and find each other. We will share the woods with the lightning bugs, their lights and ours illuminating the night. It won't last. Nothing so beautiful ever does. But Thursday I saw promise that our time has come again. The physical changes that took us a year to achieve are in place. All that is left is to seek that which we prepared for...and to enjoy it...and to enjoy each other.

And I couldn't be happier.

Rest well and believe friends. Our time to shine is almost here.

Peace. --Mark

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

2009-05-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

Today I ran for several hours.

I did! Honest.

Well, except for the times when I walked and there were plenty of those. Here’s the thing though: I ran for several hours today and if not for this posting it would pass without comment. All of the other people that I ran with ran for several hours today as well…except for the parts where they walked. After the run we stood around a parking lot and dripped and sipped bottles of tap water and talked about the Cavs and said goodbye and left. Then I went home and set up the sprinkler in the yard for the kids.

What on earth? When did running for several hours become something that passes without comment? Mohican must be near. The entire cultural flavor of my life skews toward the absurd as the big day beckons. If I run for several hours in December you will darn sure hear me commenting on it…..but when Mohican is in the air its just life.

In the last 8 weeks I have run the marathon distance twice (including today’s run) two 50K’s and a 60K. I hope that’s going to be enough. Some years it has been and other years it hasn’t but I can tell you this much: its not considered a large amount of work or an excessive amount of preparation among the crowd I hung out with today. I have met some amazing and lovely people through this sport. Some of the people I ran with today, including Michelle and Damian and Terri, ran 20 miles last night as a warm-up for today’s run and will run 17 more miles tomorrow. This is the annual Mohican training weekend; time to show up, run, lather, rinse, repeat…and not make a fuss about it. Rob and Don went to some other state that is hillier than Ohio so they could put in 50 miles all at once. They told everyone that that’s what they were going to do but only so we wouldn’t worry when they didn’t show up for today’s MARATHON.

I struggle with how I should use this cultural hardening as a tool as Mohican approaches. On one hand it is undoubtedly a good thing to desensitize myself to the numbers. The miles covered, the hours elapsed, the calories consumed, to temper my consciousness for the annual all-out reach for the finish line.

The truth of the matter is that I can’t “practice” running 100 miles. What I can do is condition each system: The muscles, the places that chafe, the stomach, the endocrine system, the mind. Then on one day they all get stretched to their limit and, given a good solid dose of God’s love, hopefully all goes well. But all of these systems also have to be HEALTHY on the day of the race or nothing good is going to happen. So really it is all one big inoculation. A trace of the poison put into the system so that when the real killer arrives my system has been expecting it. But not so much poison that they are naming a hill in my honor somewhere out on the course for next year’s race.

Since I cannot practice running 100 miles should I be trying to be confident about the fact that, because I have bent myself to the task, I will be able to do so? Is it good for me to be blasé about running a marathon? Is fear a tool or the enemy? Can I be overconfident? I thought of these things a lot today out on the trail.

When I finished Roy Heger was standing there waiting for me as though we had an appointment scheduled with each other. If you don’t know Roy I have two pieces of advice: First, get to know Roy; Second, listen to what he says. Roy has done it all. He has ten-time finisher’s buckles from BOTH the Mohican AND Massanutten 100 mile runs. He has finished Burning River and so many other ultra marathons that it would be impossibly cumbersome to list them all here. Yep, Roy has seen fire, and he’s seen rain. He has seen cold, heat, hail, lightning, ice, tears, and joy. He has seen hypothermia, hyperthermia, nausea, and borderline organ failure. He has placed very high in national championship races and has been beaten into submission in obscure events. He has the type of slow-spoken wisdom that can’t be ignored. And today, as we spoke in the parking lot after the race he told me that finishing this race is all about respect.

This man, who is so tough that he is revered by a community of individuals who pride themselves on grittiness that defies comment, told me that the answer lies not in toughness or mind-over-matter commitment, or in fitness, or in the ability to handle pain…but in respect.

Roy and I didn’t speak for too long but after we spoke I felt better. I believe that he meant that no matter how well trained a runner is, no matter how experienced, and no matter how tough, 100 miles can chew a person up and spit them out. No one really beats Mohican. The course always wins. But if I am gentle, and caring, and pay attention to the demands of the task, perhaps I can gain the finish line one more time. In the weeks leading up to the race I’ll spend very little time thinking of shoes or salt pills. No more very serious challenges to the endocrine system. Instead I’m going to try to have my mind in a place where I believe that nothing can stop me, and at the same time and with the same intensity honestly believe that there are things that can stop me. I don’t really know what you would call that, maybe Zen. But I’m not going to spend any time worrying about what its called either.

I don’t need to practice running 100 miles because I cannot run 100 miles no matter how much practice I get in. The mystery of how I sometimes finish Mohican can remain one. I’m at peace with not knowing. I will strive to be gentle. I will strive to be honest. And I will strive to find a way through the challenges. I believe that in our sport tough often needs a ride home after midnight.

Relative Speed

2009-05-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

Relative Speed: You won’t generally find me using those two words in such close proximity. I have plenty of relatives but not plenty of speed. Most of my relatives aren’t particularly speedy either, though some of my relatives have done speedy things. My Uncle Brendan has a Black Belt in Karate. That takes speed. The fact that he only got around to taking the sport up when he was in his forties, however, does speak of slowness and patience. My kids have shown some speed. My daughter can swim like a fish, my sons can run quickly and with agility when they want to…though everyone credits my wife’s side of the family for that. Carroll’s, though skilled in many regards, are not known for their speed.

In my case I have always believed that I am not a fast fellow. On several occasions I have tried with all of my might to be speedy. I had a boxing career that lasted for three months. For two months, thirty days, twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes, and forty-five seconds of that time I trained like crazy. I even used this thing called a speed bag. The other fifteen seconds of my boxing career were spent having my sense of smell permanently adjusted by a kid from Brookpark in a box-off for a spot in the Cleveland Golden Gloves Championship. This lack of smell came in handy in my next sport, wrestling, since this activity involved me spending an entire winter lying on my back with one shoulder struggling mightily for any sign of vertical and my face stuffed into too many armpits to recall. “Well”, you might say, “maybe those kids were super speedy and you were merely fast”. Thank you for allowing me to imagine you saying that, but I don’t think this is true either, because the kid that beat me to get into the Golden Gloves was beaten unmercifully about the ring by a kid from Shaker Heights in the first round of that tournament…and then that kid went on to lose his next match. I will add for the record that none of the guys that beat me in wrestling ever went to the Olympics.

Running was a bit kinder to me but even in that regard I was limited. My college coach once told my girlfriend “If you threw Mark out of a window he would drop at five minutes-per-mile; its his maximum speed”. I never married that woman. There were reasons other than speed involved and I don’t want to talk about it. Its too painful… even for me, and generally I handle pain really well. If you have a bit more endurance, and are still reading, I will tell you why I handle pain well two paragraphs from now.

They say that certain things, such as speed and intellect and eye color, and the ability to block a left hook, are genetic and I don’t doubt it. I watch Kenyan runners and I am in awe. They train so hard and achieve such sustained speed that I can barely recognize what they are doing, and what I have done, as belonging to the same sport.

If Kenyans gained their genetic gift for hard training, or natural speed, or the ability to train hard enough (without breakdown) to become fast, by living on the plains of Africa, then what gifts did God give to the Carroll clan? We are Irish and we have been Irish for a long long time. No one knows how long for sure. We are looking into it but research such as this takes time, and we don’t generally rush things. One thing for certain is that we have been Irish at least since the times of the potato famine. Since I’m typing this, at least one Carroll must have survived that horrendous period of history. To do so my ancestor had, I imagine, the ability to store body fat and endure misery. I don’t mean to brag but these are two things that I do exceedingly well. I have used them to moderate effect in ultramarathons for several years now. This is why I don’t feel sorry for myself. The Lord has given me many gifts; but speed isn’t one of them…or is it?

After all, how does one define what it is to be speedy? Are you speedy if you beat other people? I am old enough to remember the very first Cleveland Marathon (at least the first year that they moved it downtown from the old Hudson-Cleveland course). I was 13 years old and my Dad was running it. He had started jogging six months earlier and it was his first marathon. I actually managed, with the sort of nothing-to-lose-ballsy-ness that only 13-year-old boys and death row inmates can muster, to walk right through a VIP luncheon being hosted by Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich on the upper floor of one of the buildings at Cleveland State University, and out onto an adjoining patio overlooking the finish line. To avoid further detection I climbed onto a ledge, crawled around the corner of the building and sat, several stories above street level, and watched Tom Fleming storm to the finish line ahead of the (then) unimaginably large field of 1200 runners in a time of 2:15. Surely this man was the embodiment of speed. I waited several minutes for my father and began to be concerned when an entire half-hour went by and he had not arrived. As the three hour mark came and went my Mom began to check the medical tents and registered her concern with race officials. I breathed a mighty sigh of relief to see my three-pack-per-day father roll in just over three hours and thirty minutes. Was Tom Fleming fast? He sure looked it. But the truth is that if he were racing Haile Gebrselassie during his world record run he would have finished nearly two and one-half miles behind him. So have runners gotten faster? It seems that they have but the winner of the 2009 Cleveland marathon defeated over 3000 runners in a time of 2:27. This would have been, in turn, over two miles behind Tom Fleming if they had raced each other on that spring day in 1978. My poor old slow father’s time seems to me now, many years and many pounds later, to be spectacularly fast. I look back on the fact that a newbie jogger who smoked like a chimney ran a time that would have nearly qualified him for the Boston Marathon if he ran it today. This is now a goal that I aspire to. And, yes, when I think about a 3:30 marathon it does indeed seem speedy.

So, as we have learned, those that appear fast might actually be slow and those that are slow might truly be fast. Even the bible says that the last shall be first. Next time I’m walking up a hill and you jog past me, slowly but inexorably inching ahead, just give me a quick little wave and move on past. Don’t mention the differences in our relative speed…because no matter how you assess the situation someone will think you are wrong.

Welcome to my Blog!

2009-05-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

There have easily been 15 occasions during the past when I have stated that I am glad that the internet wasn't utilized for chat rooms and blogging so much when I started to run ultramarathons back in 1995. By 1995 I had already been a runner for 17 years. I had run cross country and track in high school and college and I had completed several marathons. I even ran pretty well in some of them. In fact I had a lot of 100 mile weeks behind me. But ultras seemed different...and they were.

I couldn't quite figure them out. By 1995 I was feeling past my PR's and I had put on a lot of weight during a few down years. But the problem wasn't fitness, it was juggling. When I ran long it took me so long to recover that my fitness suffered. Gradually, over time, I started to figure things out. Fourteen years later I still don't quite get it...still learning. But the salient point in all of this is that if I had read what is available on Blogs today back in 1995 I would have become intimidated and quit the sport. I would have looked at the training programs some people post and run (jogged) off screaming. I still read Blogs today where people speak of running 50 miles one day and a marathon the next....then speedwork on Tuesday and a 40 mile training run the next saturday morning. Good heavens! The only reason on earth that I think that I can run a 100 mile run on 50 miles per week and some carefully planned long runs is because I have done it. But I did it before reading of the horrors that some people put themselves through.

Sometimes I wonder if some of it isn't false. Sometimes I wonder if the "expert" advice offered on-line isn't more damaging than helpful. I actually believe that some of it is. Thats why I always swore I would never have a Blog.

But then....I started reading Rob Powell's Blog. Then Kim's, then Nick's. These writings helped me to get out the door on tough snowy nights. They inspired me. I read several other Blogs that were not helpful at all. Some were obnoxious... but I read still others, including Don's and Michelle's and Lucas' and found them to be inspiring as well. I started to feel kinda bad that I was getting a kick out of their sites but not adding my own thoughts or entertaining anyone myself.

The funny thing about the group I just mentioned is that some of them are very fast...others are quite slow. Some train very very hard, others are more moderate. But none of them are arrogant. None of them try to hold themselves out as experts. All of them convey a sense of continued development...and dag-gonnit they are just nice and encouraging people. Don't take my word for it. You can access their Blogs from this site. I won't ever place a link to a Blog on this site that will connect you to a self-described expert (or a peer-reviewed Know-it-all).

So here I am. I hope you check this space from time-to-time. I hope it gets you to run in the rain now and then instead of sitting indoors. I hope that you become an accomplished runner and loan me some sorta fancy salt-pill out on the trail some day when I really need one.

You will get no training advice here. I can't really tell you what kind of shoes to wear, and I firmly believe that no person on this earth should ever accept advice on their own gastrointestinal system from someone other than themself...so no dietary advice to be sure. Just some stories, some observations, some wonderings, and hopefully a burgeoning friendship or two.

Peace. --Mark