My Duel with the Raccoon: An Unconventional Approach to a "Podium" Finish Followed by a Stern Warning to Raccoons Everywhere
What I will remember most is the moment at mile 80. It was 7:48 pm in Hunstville, Texas, and my world-view as an ultrarunner was turned upside down. For a very slight moment, almost imperceptibly short, it spun frantically at high speed and then stopped just as quickly.
Suddenly, everything was clear. Though the tent was lit only by Christmas lights, camping laterns and whatever could run on a generator in the woods, the light was bright. The colors were clear and the outlines sharp. Everything came into sudden, stark relief, and finally, finally, I knew.
And I could never have imagined that I had so very much more left to learn.
****
I’m spending way too much time on this IT band; way too much time managing the pain. Four hours and ten minutes. I have four hours and ten minutes to break 19. I can do this. I can do this.
By the first aid station, the painkiller had kicked in last time. 40 miles ago. Can that be right?
Down the gauntlet, stuffing my face with chocolate and coffee. Wondering if I should have waited to eat until the painkiller kicked in; maybe it would have worked faster on an emptier stomach.
No math, Skinny always says. But this thing just hurts so bad. Twenty years of running and I’ve never had IT problems, never, never, never …
The world’s tiniest violin, right?
I do a little math, walking the gauntlet, stuffing my face.
Four hours and ten minutes. I will walk the first ten minutes. Run down the clock, try to get this loosened up, but keep moving forward. Give it time to kick in, at least take the edge off. If it could take the edge off whatever’s creeping up my left calf as well, that would be fan-frickin-tastic.
It’s the fastest damn walk you’ve ever seen. This is no meander. I don’t have time to meander. I’m taking a gamble, a gamble that I’ve got just enough time to spare myself a little relief. God, I am so sick of hurting.
When my watch reads 15:00:00, I run.
Not a damn thing has changed. I’ve got 80 miles on my legs, and I’ve been in pain for more than 40 of them.
I keep running.
The music is annoying me, hardly driving me along. I think about yanking the phones out, but realize it will require too much energy. I’ve got 55% of my energy going to my IT band and 55% of my energy forcing me forward, and I’m quickly realizing that my left calf is making a play for its own percentage.
Night.
It’s dark now, finally, and I must keep running. This section is flat, these sections leading to DamNation are so flat, so very flat, so entirely runnable. I can’t waste them. I cannot waste them. I tune the music out, I tune the calf out, I tune out, I tune out, I tune out.
Nausea is creeping in. To be expected. I’m at the Nature Center in 40 minutes. The work of a badass considering that ten minute walk thing.
I head straight through, hold on to the coffee, hold on to my stomach. I’ve got 3.5 miles to DamNation now, and I’ll be damned if I don’t run in.
I don’t know where these roots came from. This music is driving me crazy. My IT band is ruined. My left calf doesn’t want to push off.
Lights. God, please, no more lights.
These lights, these lights, they are ruining the night. I know they mean I’m getting closer, closer to the out and back into the aid station, but they’re freaking me out. They come towards me and wipe out my vision. Like driving to Mohican on the two lane road against someone’s brights. The trail is illuminated, then blacked out. Every two minutes, three minutes, blinded. Blinded, readjusting. And dizzy. All these lights are making me so damn dizzy.
God, this IT band. Every other word, every other thought, just pain. This is new, so new. It’s not tired, it’s not sore, it hurts. This is pain. This is different. This is different. This is …
LIGHTS!
Fuck, I can’t see!
God I’m dizzy.
Nausea.
Ouch. God. OWWWW.
Why is this fucking music still on?
Where the hell is DamNation?
Why didn’t it work? God this hurts.
LIGHTS!
Pain. Lights. Dizzy. Nausea. LIGHTS!
Out come the earphones.
Step one.
What do Star’s footsteps look like?
Do the math, Star. Do the math.
Okay. DamNation. 16:02. You ate a little of the time. You can get it back. Do you need it back? Wait. You had four hours and ten minutes ...
STOP. No math.
LIGHTS!
No, no. Finally. Finally. DamNation.
I hand in my water bottle, have them rinse it out and fill it up with Gatorade.
These guys at the far end of the aid station are the bomb. God I love these guys.
Good. Calories in the Gatorade. No more food. I can do this. I can handle this.
I ran the last 50 miles of Burning River on less than 1000 calories. I just ate an hour ago. I’ll get through the loop and force down a gel when it’s over.
13.5 miles. 2 hours, 30 minutes. Is that right?
I can do this.
It’s so beautiful out here.
Night.
Nausea and night. I’ll make the turn soon and be away from the lights.
It’s so peaceful now. Like watching myself from the inside out. I’m imagining Umstead in the back of my head, the literal back of my head. I feel like I’m thinking from the back of my head, underneath my ponytail.
“That’s why it didn’t work!” I think.
Umstead. Fire trails. No pain, no roots, no lights. Here I’m concentrating, have to concentrate. I can’t drive the IT band, fight the roots, figure out the mud, battle the lights. Not with all that noise in my head. THAT’S why I hate the music so much tonight.
Why does figuring that out make me feel so much better?
Night.
I still can’t figure it out. I’m fading. I know there aren’t any real hills out here, but I can’t seem to figure out where the fake ones are. I know I’m on them, because the minute I hit one, my IT band screams first, followed by my new friend, left calf.
Just. Get. To. The. Chip. Mat.
Mud.
Everywhere. I’m stuck in it. Just – mud.
It’s Perkins. It’s going to be 13.5 miles of Perkins.
I force what running I can. It’s not pretty. And then I make the discovery that I truly dread.
Walking is faster.
Well, it’s more of a march, but it’s faster. So much faster. And I have to deal with the “hills” and the “mud” and the …
LIGHTS.
Another re-evaluation.
Power walk back to DamNation. Don’t fool around with it. Don’t get greedy.
Power walk it back to DamNation. Then run the life out of yourself. Break the IT band, tear the calf, deal with it all later. Get to DamNation by 17:45 and it’s a fast seven miles in anyhow.
Rest now, Star. Rest well. Because I’m about to beat the living hell out of you.
Why is my water bottle so tight on my hand?
Wait, when’s the last time I peed?
No, it was only about four hours ago. I’m good. Where’s the lake?
March. March. March.
Maybe this will work. Maybe this is just enough rest for this god-forsaken IT band. I’m gathering steam.
Lake. Less than a mile.
LIGHTS.
Wait! Lights!
No. No, no, no. My hands. I look down at my hands.
They are swollen up like marshmallows.
And I’ve been dizzy. And nauseous. And spacey. And …
Oh.
No. Eight miles, Star. Just the morning loop. Just that blasted morning loop that you bossed how many times, how many times, how many times these past three months?
Marching.
I try my best to run into the aid station, but it’s more of a stumble.
I grab a cup of Ramen, hold out my bottle and ask for water to the top.
The volunteer starts to pour water into my Ramen.
“No!” I say dejectedly – “water to the top of the water bottle.”
It’s not fair to forget that the volunteers are tired too.
“I need someone with a medical background,” I hear myself say. My voice sounds so weird, so foreign and far away.
There’s really no answer.
I ask again and someone pulls me over.
“It’s my last loop,” I explain. “I’ve only got eight to go, but I’m worried about my hands. I just need to know … are we looking at dehydration or hyponatremia?”
He’s looking at my hands.
“I just need to know what to do. It’s only eight more miles.”
“When’s the last time you peed?”
“Four? Four-ish? Four hours ago. But I could go now.”
“Go,” he says. “Go behind that tree and don’t come back until you pee.”
I really did have to go, I wasn’t making it up. He raised his eyebrow when I came back. I should have offered to show him the puddle.
He hands me my water bottle. The Gatorade is gone, it’s straight water.
“Drain this. Drink this entire bottle over the next three miles and you’ll be fine.”
I’m out.
I walk the long straight-away out of the aid station and it’s time. Come hell or high water, I’m running home.
FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!
IT and left calf have fully joined forces and are determined to out and out hobble me.
My IT band is crunching when I land. I’m scared. I’m actually scared I could do permanent damage.
And I can no longer push off of my left calf. I can feel where it’s torn at the base.
I summon the beast.
“Beast,” I say out loud.
“Beast, you can’t leave me now.”
“I’m right next to you,” he says.
“But Beast. We have to run.”
“Star. No.”
“Beast!”
“Star. Honey. “
“No, Beast. No, no, no. There’s no time left to spare. Beast, we have to go NOW.”
SPLAT.
Mud. Covering the shoes, above the ankles. Plowing through the mud.
It’s going through my mind, I’m feeling it now. I’m feeling the brunt of it.
I let him talk to me, because I’m too gone to talk to myself. I hear him. I actually hear him, talking to me, or hear myself, talking to myself, or someone, saying something, but there are words and they’re confusing me but the feeling makes sense. The words confuse me but I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now and DAMN IT I understand it now. OH MY GOD I understand it now. I understand it now.
*********
The alarm went off in the middle of the night. Darris coaxed a few sips of hotel room coffee into me and I started creeping around getting ready.
Sometimes, you just know. You just instinctively know.
Of course I didn’t want the rain. I think there were about 750 people in Huntsville that morning that didn’t want the rain, that had been worried about the rain for a week. And yes, all you die-hards, I know there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. And I know you can check the weather forecast obsessively for a week and learn nothing. Yes, the truth is that if you want to know what the weather’s going to do on race day, you get up that morning and go outside. And there’s your answer and you’ll just never know for sure until then.
I checked. I checked regularly. I said I checked to be prepared; to be prepared mentally for the conditions and to make sure I had the proper gear with me. But the truth is, I was holding out hope. And right up until that last minute, we were supposed to have rain throughout the day on Friday and into Friday night, but it was to stop – miracle of miracles! – around midnight. We were to have an isolated hour or so of rain about two hours into the race, and that was going to be it.
Nah. I should’ve just waited to open the door that morning.
There had actually been thunderstorms for two days, terrible thunderstorms and dark skies all day Friday. Through Friday night. And right into Saturday morning.
Yes, I opened the door to a torrential downpour and thunder and lightning that even the best Hollywood studios couldn’t possibly replicate. That kind of lightning that rips the sky apart and almost lets you see what heaven (or the heavens) look like.
I skulked about and opened the door a good half dozen times over that 45 minutes. If there is a word stronger than “torrential,” I could have used it that morning. But as I got dressed, as I pulled together my water bottle, my first set of gels and snacks, and pinned my race number on about seven different times, something occurred to me.
I asked for it. I told the raccoon to bring it. I told him to bring it for months, and here it was.
And I was ready for it.
Nothing would bother me.
Just as we landed at the door, I stopped and looked Darris in the eye.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Nothing will bother me today. Do you hear me? Nothing bothers me today.”
“Okay,” he said. “Then nothing bothers you today.”
We met Liza, Paul and Darrin on the balcony and made the run for the car.
It was enough to soak us.
We got the heat on and drove (hydroplaned?) our way to the start. Darrin and Darris, as medical and race directors, declared the start was already delayed. That there was no way they could safely send us out in that.
Liza, Paul and I reminded them that this was a trail race, an ultra, and that it was entirely possible we were getting sent on our way.
To punctuate our theory, there was a deafening clap of thunder and great illumination.
“Yep, we’re delayed,” said the guys.
When the rain slowed to pouring, I decided I was making a run to the bathroom just in case. It was 5:42 am.
We all exchanged those “what can you do?” looks with each other in line. Eventually I asked if anyone had heard of a potential delay.
And heard in return that they had sent the early start off promptly at 5 am.
I was shocked to find myself relieved. I mean, if we were going to do it, what use was there in waiting?
We made our way to the tent and in mere minutes, we were running. We were running through a (more than) torrential downpour, soaking wet, making bad jokes about not needing our headlamps because of the lightning and generally delighting ourselves by continuing the seedy and perverted sex discussions we had been having pretty much since boarding the plane. One of us shushed another one for saying “semen” too loud, at which point another runner in the vicinity begged us to go on.
It had to have seemed quite the performance for those we ran by. The fine doctor, the tall blonde and the petite brunette making every conceivable bad joke about pillows, lube, peanut butter (don’t ask), chafing, leaking and far worse for a solid ten miles.
What rain?
We were hitting the aid stations far too quickly; Darrin and I both knew. Liza is more of a rogue runner, just getting out there and running and seeing what happens. Darrin and I have charts and spreadsheets and carefully plotted graphs, and we were not adhering to them properly. (See: sex talk, above.)
We got to DamNation for the first time, ran the six mile loop. I was quickly falling in love with the course. Really digging the course. I was soaking wet, worried about more rain and needing to slow down, but there was nothing that would bother me.
Coming out of DamNation after the loop, we got to see Darris for the first time, clad in the SPAM t-shirt and grinning to see our little crew. We all stopped for a quick minute, where I distinctly remember telling him how much I was “digging the course” at least three times. Soon enough we were on our way back, desperately trying to “find hills” to walk and doing enough math to know we were hitting the stations on the back half of the loop way too quickly as well.
It was a fast eight miles home from DamNation. I made sure to note that for later. Easy on the way out. Relax and slow down on the DamNation loop. Fast run home if there was juice in the legs.
Liza and Darrin both couldn’t believe how quickly the first twenty miles had passed by. We ran the gauntlet into the start/finish and checked in at 3:35.
Naughty, naughty girl.
Fifteen minutes up on where I should have been.
Fifteen minutes over 20 miles.
I know better than that!!!
I mentioned to Darrin in the start/finish area that I wasn’t doing that again. He assured me he was slowing down as well. I dug through my rain drenched plastic bag and the tarp covered with puddles, had three quick handfuls of Combos and grabbed a Pop-Tart to eat on the way out.
“I’m walking!” I called, mouth full of Pop-Tart.
But I stopped for a minute – just a tiny one – when I realized they were playing “Hey Ya” and gave a little shout-out to my friend Sara. You know people are thinking of you when you’re out there, but those little signs, like a shared song or the perfect word, make it feel like they’re really there, right there, for that tiny little minute.
Darrin and Liza caught me soon after, and we hit the Nature Center aid station in just under 32 minutes. I had told Liza I was worried about the fast start too; running a different race, she wasn’t concerned at all. “It’s no big deal,” she said, “just one mile walking.”
Heh. I like to do my walking during the first 50 miles.
“Darrin!” I said between clenched teeth, as we approached the station.
“I know,” he said, looking at his Garmin. “We’re still barely over tens.”
I stayed with them, listened as they continued to banter on. By the time we reached DamNation, I was in a piss poor mood and really curious about my right IT band. I remembered it bothering me a little bit toward the end of Burning River last year, but that was well after mile 90, when I’ll pretty much give anything a free pass to hurt. This was … mile 26?
There was this other thing too, seeing all these runners all over the out-and-back sections of the course. And everyone’s talking to each other, calling out “good job,” “way to go,” “looking good,” every time you pass.
And I am so not into it.
Liza is, she’s feeling great and calling out to or responding to each runner. I’m thinking “Seriously? I just can’t do this all day. No way in hell am I in the mood to personally acknowledge each and every runner as they go by. Isn’t anybody else working out here?”
Then I remember … it’s almost time for me to crash.
It comes without fail, somewhere between 25 and 35. My first crash comes early and hard, and then I’m usually good for the next 30 or so miles. I’m still in a piss poor mood, I’m still worried about my IT band, and I’m nowhere near as chipper as I was in the pouring rain four hours ago, but at least I know what I’m dealing with. And I’m not going to let it bother me. Because nothing bothers me today.
I grab a couple of Velveeta (?!?!) cheese quesadillas with Liza and the three of us head back out for our second DamNation loop. We have lighthearted talk about the Velveeta (?!?!). I see the large, high chair on the trail that I noticed earlier and tell Darrin it must be Plutarch Heavensbee’s. Darrin, Liza and I have the conversation about how no one can feel bad about dropping back or moving ahead. Darrin says it’s time for him to drop back to 12’s and obey his Garmin. Liza says she’s staying with him. I know I can’t afford to get comfortable at 12’s, so I keep moving. Liza’s on my shoulder almost instantly. My IT band is throbbing and I’m trying to process running another 70 miles on it.
She does her best to tell me a story, but I’m crashing. I’m out of the game, crashing hard and hurting to boot.
“POP!” I keep howling at my IT band in my head. It just needs to “pop,” to settle back in where it’s supposed to be.
I have to pee as well, and I kind of realize this is all for the best.
I duck into the woods to pee and let Liza get ahead. And then I don’t try to catch her.
I love Liza, but my misery wants no company.
I feel the pain shifting. It moves around like a nasty little snake, from the side of my knee to my hamstring, up to my glute, to my inner thigh. Back to the side of my knee. It settles in my hamstring for awhile. I stop to get excited. Surely this means it’s about to work itself out, that everything is about to just “click” and settle back in where it belongs. Hope springs up, briefly and quietly, on the way back to the Park Road aid station. I meet a girl running her first 100 miler; she tells me she’s really hoping to break 24 hours. There’s a part of me that wants to gently ask her why she’s already running a 19 hour pace, but I manage to keep my mouth shut. I mean well, but I know it’s not always taken that way. And hell, like most people react well to me explaining that I’ll negative split the 100. We make small talk for a few minutes, and she pulls ahead.
I let her.
I’m still having trouble clicking in at all, fighting through the crash, fighting with the IT band, just in an ugly mood. So I ask myself what my footsteps look like. It’s early, and after running with others for so long, I need to remember how I do it. How Star runs 100 milers. So I ask myself.
What do Star’s footsteps look like?
I slow down, get choppy. The right kind of choppy. About five minutes later I notice I’m too fast again, striding out too much too soon, so I ask it again.
What do Star’s footsteps look like?
I slow down, get choppy. I think about Berkley, my tiny little two-year old inspiration. I see her running and tripping around her living room, jumping off her fireplace. “If you can’t find your footsteps,” I think, “run like Berkley.”
The two mix in my head, and between my footsteps and visions of little Berkley, we get it right. I hit Park Road with a bit more than four miles back to the start/finish. I’ve got the footsteps right, but the IT band just won’t relent.
“POP!” I stop to scream at it.
I look around. I’m alone for the minute.
“POP, DAMN IT,” I scream, trying to stretch it out on the side of the trail.
Ummm … nothing bothers me?
So I take a couple of minutes now, really do a good stretch on it, and hope for some relief. There is none. So I decide to take more drastic action. I start pounding it.
I land as hard as I possibly can on every stick, every rock, every divet I can possibly find. I think of all the stories about people landing in potholes or tripping during races and having an injury magically fixed. And I just pound on it.
And then the rain starts again, not as heavy as before, but enough put me back under. Enough to make me doubt.
“Miles 40 to 70 will be the hardest,” Jay wrote to me before Burning River. I try to cheer myself up by thinking I’m getting the hard miles out of the way early. Because nothing bothers me, right?
The IT band is locking up bad, and I decide I’m going to gamble. I don’t like taking painkillers during 100’s. When I do take them, I push them off as far as I can, and I’ve never started them before mile 80. Or done them more than once.
I don’t want to do it.
But if I don’t do it, I’m out anyway. As sure I’m sitting here typing this now, two weeks later, I tell you that IT band could not get through another 60 miles.
I remember the time I tore my adductor and tried to medicate during a marathon; the painkillers didn’t even make a dent. So I know that if I get to the point of injury, I’ll know, because this won’t even be effective. And a single low dose, when it’s not hot, isn’t something I haven’t done before.
And I’m already putting 80% of my energy into managing the pain with 60% of the race to go.
It’s done. The gamble is made.
I get back to the start/finish for a second loop in 3:47. Much better than 3:35, and right where I need to be in spite of the stops.
Darris is there. He has dropped after two loops, completing 33 miles of the 50 miler. His hamstring was bothering him from all the mud, he said, and he spent too much time rehabbing his injury to risk it.
I am sad he has dropped; I am so happy he is there.
We get me in a chair real quick; I have all kinds of sticks and rocks and debris in my shoes from the mud puddles. While I do a quick sock change, he brings me my first Cokes and helps me dig for my food. More Combos, some crushed potato chips, a handful of Reese’s, all washed down with sweet, syrupy Coke. I explain the IT band; we theorize it’s the mud; he agrees with my decision to take the painkiller early. I grab another chocolate Pop-Tart and head back out on the gauntlet. Tiny steps, but jerky. Just kind of galloping around that IT band.
But between the Cokes and seeing him, the clouds in my head go away.
And about halfway to the Nature Center, I feel it happening.
It’s fading.
I reach the Nature Center in 31 minutes. Way too fast. But with brand new legs.
I have no idea how people live with chronic pain. Tears of relief slipped from my eyes leaving the aid station, running pain-free for the first time in four hours. It reminded me of slipping into a warm bath, laying on the beach half asleep, trying to get off the table after a massage. It’s … blissful.
I am singing now, singing to myself as I run along. It’s one of Cindy’s spinning songs. I’m singing and still running too fast.
“What do Star’s footsteps look like?” I ask.
I conjure up my visions of Berkley and get choppy.
Chop, chop, chop.
“I’m so messed up, I’m so out of line,” I sing.
Chop, chop, chop.
“Yeah, I know, it’s stupid …”
I’m heading into DamNation. Other runners are headed the other way.
“Great job!” I’m yelling at them, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
I realize that if I don’t have the energy to talk to the other runners, I’m probably going too fast. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because nothing bothers me.
I head to the DamNation loop. I sing. I splash through puddles. I am thinking in poetry. I am gliding, I am flying, I am soaring.
“I can see clearly now the rain is gone …”
I am running back into DamNation, and I see the most amazing thing.
The sun has come out, and the sky is almost … almost … a shade of blue.
“And we even got some sunshine!” I exclaim, to no one in particular.
A nearby runner looks at me as if I just might be insane.
But we’re never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy.
I’m headed back to Park Road now, and the tears are slipping out again. I am in heaven, I am literally in heaven, my own private heaven. It’s all come together, here, today. It’s just so … perfect. Finally, it’s all clicked in and I have that feeling. That feeling.
That feeling that I could literally run forever, and maybe even faster.
I get to Park Road with a little bit of a hungry tummy and decide to look around. I’ve had a couple of gels and blocks since I left Darris back at the start/finish, but nothing too substantial.
They have wafer cookies.
“WAFER COOKIES!” I exclaim, making one of the volunteers grin ear to ear. I munch two down straightaway while they fill my bottle, much like a raccoon or chipmunk. I have a third and they’re all still grinning at me when I get my bottle back, take one last look at the plate, and grab two more saying “I think you should come with me.” I munch my fourth and fifth cookies on my way out, knowing I have just that fast four miles back to the start/finish. I take off too fast; realize it immediately, and adjust my pace to choppy as I cross the street.
“Good girl,” says the very fit, probably ultra-runner guy who’s been watching me all day.
I chop my way back through those fast miles. I am stunned to realize it’s almost 5:00 at night and giggle to myself sarcastically thinking “Wherever has the day gone?”
And I think of exactly what I need to say to Darris about this next lap, and what I need him to tell Jay, so that everyone knows that I know exactly what I’m doing.
Because the beast and I, we’re going hunting.
I run that gauntlet back to the start/finish like a brand new woman, with Darris cheering the loudest. 3:45 for loop 3.
He has my bag ready.
“Okay,” I say. “My feet are holding up so no sock change. I need Ramen and Coke if you can grab that for me.”
He does. I stuff a fresh baggie of Combos in my shorts and start suiting up in my headlamps. One on the head, one around the waist, one around the water bottle.
The Ramen and Coke arrive.
“If you could get Gatorade in this, then we’ll talk for a minute.”
I slurp Ramen and chug Coke. The salty/sweet combination is electrifying. I get my ipod set to go.
“So next loop,” I say. “I’m going to do a sock change first to make sure my feet don’t bother me. I’m going to need my coffee, my chocolate brownie and have the ibuprofen ready just in case.”
“But how are you feeling now?” he asks.
“It’s good. I’m good,” I say. “The pain is gone, it’s amazing.”
“But …”
He pauses, tries to be sensitive. I don’t know what he’s asking, but I’m hoping.
“Do you have your other gear? I mean, do you think you can go …”
“Faster?”
“Well,” I say. “You just ruined it a little bit, because I had a question for you.”
“You did?” he asks.
“Yeah. I was going to ask you if Katniss dropped the bow and arrow off.”
He looks at me quizzically.
“Because in seven miles, I’m going hunting.”
His eyes light up like a Christmas tree. Nothing more needs to be said by either of us.
I grab another chocolate Pop-Tart and say “back in a few hours. Oh, and text Skinny and tell him I know exactly what I’m doing.”
I will keep it steady for the next seven miles. Steady for the three miles to the Nature Center. Steady for the 3.3 miles to DamNation. And at DamNation, I am putting that ipod on and I am running. Because I am ready to race that last 30 miles within an inch of my life. Because this thing is happening.
And that’s just what I do.
I turn on my lights, I put on the ipod, I chug some more Ramen, and as Eminem kicks things off, I run.
It’s happening.
I am flying through the night. A soft chill is settling and the air is getting smoky, and underneath the headphones, I hear the gasps and the questions as I go flying by.
My eclectic little ipod mix has every imaginable thing on it. Prince. Seal. Eminem. Madonna. Kanye. Even some Miley Cyrus.
“I throw my hands up, they’re playing my song, the butterflies go away …”
Breathing, moving, floating …
“I got my hands up, they’re playing my song, I know it’s gonna be okay …”
The tears start falling, again. Whatever happened to cold execution?
It’s sheer gratitude. I just can’t believe it’s really happening. That I feel this good. This late.
“Welcome, Beast,” I whisper.
As we work our way back, past the turn at the porta-potty that will take us to the Park Road aid station, I feel it seeping back in, that IT band pain. It doesn’t phase me.
It’s late. Remember? I’ll give just about anything a license to hurt after almost 80 miles. I decide to at least make it to Park Road before I start thinking about it.
Leaving Park Road, I’m thinking about it for sure, but it still can’t bother me.
Super Bass cues up on the ipod just in time, and I’m back in Cindy’s class. It’s just a Wednesday night again, I’ve just run 21 miles and gone straight into a brutal spin class, and I can’t help smiling whenever she busts out her favorite tune. And somehow, subliminally, she pushes herself into my head, I hear her screaming at me in that way that only she can.
“It hurts after 80 miles? Good! ADD!” she says.
So the beast and I, we ADD.
But I’m spending too much time on the pain, and I know it.
Those 4.5 miles back to the start/finish, we have to stop a few times. We stop, we stretch, we try to work it out. When we run, we run fast, but we’re stopping. We’re working around it.
“POP!” we scream at it together.
We start slamming it on roots and rocks and divets again.
“It’s okay,” he tells me. “Whatever you might be losing stopping you’re making up on the run.”
We decide. Twenty miles out, and we haven’t had any in 40 miles now. We’ll take two more, just enough to take the edge off. We’re tired, but we’ve got coffee coming and we’re going to get wired and get the edge off and get back to that private little head party we’ve been having.
We’re a little shady, but we’re in absolute control.
I run that gauntlet yet again, start looking for Darris. I spot him with Gwen, with Paul.
And Darrin, in his blue sweatshirt.
I am torn. So distressed that it’s been another rough day for him. So relieved to see another familiar face.
They’re all looking at me. Looking at me with this gleam in their eye. But I don’t know. I haven’t been paying attention, and I never wanted to know. So I ignore it, because the day has taken a bit of a toll on me anyhow, and I get straight to business with Darris.
He’s getting me Ramen. He’s dumping the diluted Gatorade from my bottle and getting the coffee in it. My brownie and the socks are ready. He comes back to see me.
“I’m spending too much time on the pain,” I say. “I had to stop a lot the last four miles to stretch it out. It’s pretty bad.”
“Star, it was a 3:48 loop. You’ve got more than four hours to break 19.”
“I know, I know, I’m just spending so much time on the pain,” I say.
I take the two ibuprofen, and Darrin can no longer resist.
“Do you want to know where you’re at?” he asks.
“I’m cool,” I say, starting to explain that it’s not about that today, that the fact that he’s asking must mean I’m at least top five, which was my outside hope, that I just want to focus on getting …
“YOU’RE SECOND!!!” he shouts at me.
“Stop messing with me,” I say, somewhat tired.
“Star, you’re in second,” Darris says.
“I just double checked with the timing people,” Darrin says. “You’ve got second by over an hour right now.”
“Then I better get the hell out of here!” I exclaim.
And that’s exactly what I do.
I had no idea how much more I had to learn.
****
And here I am, at mile 92, begging. Begging him to just let me run.
I hear him, actually hear him, talking to me, or hear myself, talking to myself, or someone, saying something, but there are words and they’re confusing me but the feeling makes sense. The words confuse me but I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now and DAMN IT I understand it now. OH MY GOD I understand it now. I understand it now.
I’m not going to break 19 hours today. It’s simply not going to happen.
And it’s okay.
I flash back on something Skinny said to me once, when I was trying to make sense of Burning River. I remember it in the back of my head, under my ponytail, that most of the time, the best performances don’t come when we’ve trained for them, but when our body is ready for them.
My body isn’t ready today. It might have been without the mud, it might have been, it might have been. But I’m out of real estate. And I didn’t do anything wrong. But I have to make a choice, right here, right now. For some it might be difficult. For me, no.
I have to decide if I am willing to risk forever for this race. Because bravery and foolishness can too often go hand in hand.
I know the difference between discomfort and pain. And this is pain. There is something very wrong with my IT band. I have numbed it for almost 60 miles now, and I don’t know if it can fixed.
And this calf is nothing to mess with either.
And I’m dizzy and nauseous and cold.
And I realize I did everything I came to do. And this girl – this “third” – will not pass me.
This is ugly. This is going to be a slow, ugly, and very unglamorous finish.
But this third – she will not pass me.
No one has passed me. For 30 miles now, no, no one has passed me.
Nor will she.
And it will still be ugly, and it will be okay.
And I hear him again, back at the back of my head, underneath my ponytail. And his voice is morphing into mine and I understand even more than I thought I understood, and Courtney’s email already made me cry and now the tears well up again, just thinking of her, my beautiful friend, who I see so little but who knows me so well. I think back to that 40 miler at home last summer, that beautifully unexpected day when girls who had thought they misunderstood each other fell in trail love and became sudden allies. My mind wanders, wanders behind the cloudiness and the clouds of air coming from my breath in the cold night air.
Night.
Silence.
I understand now.
And when the words become clear, they come right to the front of my head, lucid and clear.
The beast and I, we say them together.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I’ve been so good at this, so good at this all my life. The beating myself up, the punishing myself, the evaluating myself, holding myself to standards I would never expect anyone else to bear. But here, tonight, in this cold air, on this ruined IT band, on this broken calf and in this cold, cloudy night, I stop.
And all I can think of is the stupid, cheesy teeny-bopper movies Darris and I still get sucked into.
“Second place? Hell yeah!”
It’s mere maintenance now, I know this. And so I march.
I’m cold. I’m so cold and this water is making me so nauseous. That guy was wrong, had to be wrong. My hands – oh my God, my hands! They’re worse, swelling more. It’s salt. I need salt. Oh my God, three quarters of this bottle and no wonder I can’t think straight … MUD SOUP … think straight … no, Star, think straight, STAR!
I’m weaving. I catch myself, I’m weaving through the mud, sticks in my shoes, shoe off, underwater, don’t lie down, don’t lie down, so cold, pull it together, pull it together, pull it together.
LIGHTS.
“Clothes?” I yell out. They are going in the other direction, towards DamNation. I need clothes. I am too cold. I can’t run and I don’t have enough clothes.
And he stops. He understands.
The girl’s pacer, he understands. Says they are on the third loop, fighting the cutoffs. He has to push her hard. He brought too many layers, he’s overheated. She’s walking ahead, and her pacer has come back to walk with me in the other direction. These, my friends, these are ultrarunners. This is our family.
He gives me his jacket, walks with me just a bit more. Tells me I’m probably only ten minutes or so from the aid station. Congratulates me as he knows I only have about 6 miles to go. I promise to leave his jacket for him at the finish and just like that, this stranger and I go our separate ways.
Family.
The jacket is damp with his sweat. As I warm up, mine blends with his and it ceases to matter. That I’m the fricking second place woman in the field and I just had to bum clothes off of a stranger’s back while I “marched” it in. It doesn’t matter.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I stop drinking the water. I march and I wade through mud soup. I march and I wade through mud soup. I stop shivering and I will not let myself weave. It is not pretty, but I march.
It’s there. It’s really there. The last aid station. 4.5 miles to go. “GO,” I think. “Just get the Gatorade and GO.”
I stop at the table. I’m underneath the tent, where the lights and the people are. I’m wobbling. Dizzy, woozy, washed out, wobbling, I’m weak and spacey and ...
“So I’m going to sit down for a minute,” I say.
They ask if my pacer is coming with me the next lap.
Heh.
“I might pass out but this is my last loop,” I say. “Food.”
“Food?”
“I don’t know. They said hyponatremia but I think it might be salt but I’m nauseous and cold well I’m really nauseous I know I’m going to be okay I’m still in control oooohhh do you have any bananas?”
An awesome Asian guy with a number on his shorts brings me a banana.
“Shouldn’t you be running?” I ask.
He had dropped several hours before and then decided to volunteer for awhile.
Yeah. Ultrarunners. That’s our family.
He gets me Gatorade. The banana is like crack. Next I want crackers.
He asks me how fast I’m walking, offers to come with me, walk with me to the finish. He’s wearing sandals and I don’t want to be a burden. I’ve got this thing, and he’s tired, and WAIT A MINUTE. WHY THE HELL AM I SITTING HERE FIVE MILES FROM THE FINISH?
I get up and stumble a little. I’m chilly from the sweat in the night air. I go the space heater for about five seconds and wonder anew what the hell I’m doing.
One hour and thirty minutes and I’ll still break 20 hours.
Second place? Sub-20? HELL YEAH.
I’m marching down the trail and I’m cold again, so cold. My teeth start chattering. They chatter more. They chatter fast.
We make these decisions in a split second, because bravery and foolishness can too often go hand in hand.
I almost turned around and asked him to walk with me.
Instead, I run.
Because the fastest way for me to warm up – is to run.
And I run. I am five miles from the finish line and I run. I run in excruciating, near debilitating pain. I run literally crying out from the pain. I run for an entire minute, straight into a mud pit.
Shoe off. Left calf. Mud soup.
And the mud appeases me.
Because I won’t let you hurt yourself.
It is not pretty, it is so not pretty, but I march. On and on and on, I march. I do not look at my watch. The pain is almost non-existent. And with the course now thoroughly trashed by 20 straight hours worth of 700+ people plowing through the mud, I make that always dreaded discovery that the marching is actually faster than the running. Even if I could. Run. Because this is one long straight mud pit that no one’s running through anyway.
Bridges. Oh my God, I’m hitting the bridges.
The bridges mean only two or three more miles.
Oh my God. I did it.
Me.
ME.
It’s my ugliest, most unglamorous finish ever, but I did it. It’s in the back of my head, the very back of my head, underneath my ponytail, and I know it, I understand it, I did it.
All that, all that, all that training all those miles all those days all that rain all that mud all that nausea back at Burning River all that hope all that hatred all that fear all that …
All that everything.
Clarity. Brief passing clarity that I can’t hold onto, because my hands are huge and I want my pajamas and I need to see Darris but God I need Darrin to tell me I’m going to live.
Long bridge it’s the long bridge, do you know what that means, Star?
“STAR!” the beast says.
“STAR!!! It’s the long bridge!” he says.
“I know!” I say, more energy than I’ve had in hours. “I know! We cross the road and it’s a flat mile home, muddy but flat. We did it beast, it was ugly but we did it. BEAST! Second place!”
I look behind me for the dozenth time in the past two hours. There is no one to be found.
I’m imagining it now, underneath my ponytail. I test out my damn IT band with just a couple of dizzying nauseous steps, just enough to make sure I can run that last quarter mile gauntlet. The pajama pants and sweatshirt are too much to think about, they nearly bring me to my knees. My hands are huge now, bigger …
I should be at the road soon, shouldn’t I?
My hands are bigger and I really need Darrin. My hands are huge, so huge and swollen and I’m still so dizzy and nauseous, just hanging on, marching, marching and hanging on. I will run …
Okay, seriously. Where’s the damn road?
… I will run that gauntlet, I will hang onto it long enough to hug Joe, get my award, hear that I’ve done it, me, today, here, I was that good. I was that good, glamorous or not. I see it all underneath my ponytail, I will hug Joe, Darris will be there and he will cry. I will not alarm him, first he will cry and hug me and I will say “Second place? Hell yeah!” and he will know exactly what I mean. Then I will quietly say that I don’t feel so well and I will ask him to get Darrin and once Darrin comes I’ll just put my hands out, quietly tell him I’m very nauseous, very spacey, I think we mistreated the hyponatremia and I need my pajamas so bad maybe I can get the pajamas first and now I’m off in another place, fantasizing, fantasizing about my green pajama pants and the hooded Oregon sweatshirt that’s like my second skin so maybe I should do award, hug Darris, then pajamas before Darrin and the hands …
That’s weird. I don’t remember that timing mat. No, am I?
Nope. Good. Streamer! Streamer in the tree. Right on course. Just confused.
Marching, marching, marching. I don’t remember that big chair being there either … well I bet they put the timing mat out here because it’s night now and there’s less volunteers … or maybe it’s so they know right before people are finishing like at other races, doesn’t matter, march. March.
No, no, no. I should be at the road now. I should be at the road now.
I finally look at my watch. It’s 19:40-something. And that’s why you don’t do math, fool! You got it wrong. You messed up the math, keep marching, soon, soon, soon.
I don’t know where I am now, and I don’t have any idea how long I’ve been out because I don’t know if I looked at my watch wrong or if I did the math wrong.
And when I realize that I don’t know how much is left, when I lose the adrenaline of being just those few turns from the finish, I realize how very, very sick I am.
And then I see the lights.
And then I see the lake. And there is not supposed to be a lake. And the water is not supposed to be on my left. And there is not supposed to be that right hand turn onto that slippery, sandy hill that means DamNation is about a half mile out.
And I am not supposed to be screaming, crying, too weak to really make any noise, but yes, screaming, crying, really just wimpering “no.”
I’m back at DamNation. The timing mat means I recircled the second half of the DamNation loop, which is just over three miles. Added to whatever it took to land me back on the DamNation loop. I’m hovering somewhere around 104 already, hyponatremic and borderline hypothermic in this borrowed, wet Gore-tex jacket hanging to my knees.
I stop my watch at 19:51. I am at DamNation. A few minutes later, after my four extra miles, the new second place woman finishes.
I fight with the volunteers, who want me continue, to run the seven miles back to the finish. “You can do this,” they tell me.
I am proud to tell all of you that I could not. No amount of coaching, cajoling, pacing, pleading, begging or bargaining would have been enough.
I had rationed out every drop of my energy.
Since 6 am on Saturday morning, when I set off into a thunderstorm with Darrin and Liza, I had rationed my energy. I rationed it a bit poorly through a fast first loop; carefully through a painful second loop; beautifully through a blissful third loop; like a hunter through a wild ride of a fourth loop; and like the second place woman holding on for dear life through the fifth.
I had nothing left.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I had run my 100 miles. I was the second woman to finish 100 miles out there, at a major race, on a very difficult day.
And my body had nothing left.
Ten minutes after I got to DamNation, a volunteer finally got the scope of the situation and lent me a phone to call Darris.
Between shallow and exhausted breaths, I told him the story. I told him if he would meet me three miles away (at the Park Road aid station), I would find a way to walk it in.
“Star. You’re done,” he said softly.
And really, I’ve never been so relieved.
He understood. All of it. Even these things he hasn’t read quite yet.
I had already finished the race, and done a damn fine job of it.
I don’t want to focus on this part. I don’t want to focus on how I got back to the finish, or how the one volunteer said she had talked to Joe or someone and I was still going to get a time and be in the results, or how I found out that half a dozen people had missed that same turn in the daylight.
I don’t want to focus on this part. This isn’t the important part.
I know what I did out there. I know what I did to get myself there, I know what I have to do to get myself there again, and I know that that was just the beginning of what I can ultimately do.
There will be challenges. Maybe time off for a baby, other bad days like Burning River and maybe even more real and metaphorical wrong turns. But there will also be great days – days like Umstead and days like Rocky Raccoon, where no matter what the entry lists might say, I show up and run my calculated best – and it’s enough.
And I will never again be surprised by that.
Instead, I’ll be remembering that moment at mile 80. When it was 7:48 pm in Hunstville, Texas and my world-view as an ultrarunner was turned upside down. That moment when everything came into sudden, stark relief, and finally, finally, I knew.
Surprise, Star.
You’re really good at this.
And somewhere, a wily raccoon has night tremors.
I just can’t wait for the rematch.
Suddenly, everything was clear. Though the tent was lit only by Christmas lights, camping laterns and whatever could run on a generator in the woods, the light was bright. The colors were clear and the outlines sharp. Everything came into sudden, stark relief, and finally, finally, I knew.
And I could never have imagined that I had so very much more left to learn.
****
I’m spending way too much time on this IT band; way too much time managing the pain. Four hours and ten minutes. I have four hours and ten minutes to break 19. I can do this. I can do this.
By the first aid station, the painkiller had kicked in last time. 40 miles ago. Can that be right?
Down the gauntlet, stuffing my face with chocolate and coffee. Wondering if I should have waited to eat until the painkiller kicked in; maybe it would have worked faster on an emptier stomach.
No math, Skinny always says. But this thing just hurts so bad. Twenty years of running and I’ve never had IT problems, never, never, never …
The world’s tiniest violin, right?
I do a little math, walking the gauntlet, stuffing my face.
Four hours and ten minutes. I will walk the first ten minutes. Run down the clock, try to get this loosened up, but keep moving forward. Give it time to kick in, at least take the edge off. If it could take the edge off whatever’s creeping up my left calf as well, that would be fan-frickin-tastic.
It’s the fastest damn walk you’ve ever seen. This is no meander. I don’t have time to meander. I’m taking a gamble, a gamble that I’ve got just enough time to spare myself a little relief. God, I am so sick of hurting.
When my watch reads 15:00:00, I run.
Not a damn thing has changed. I’ve got 80 miles on my legs, and I’ve been in pain for more than 40 of them.
I keep running.
The music is annoying me, hardly driving me along. I think about yanking the phones out, but realize it will require too much energy. I’ve got 55% of my energy going to my IT band and 55% of my energy forcing me forward, and I’m quickly realizing that my left calf is making a play for its own percentage.
Night.
It’s dark now, finally, and I must keep running. This section is flat, these sections leading to DamNation are so flat, so very flat, so entirely runnable. I can’t waste them. I cannot waste them. I tune the music out, I tune the calf out, I tune out, I tune out, I tune out.
Nausea is creeping in. To be expected. I’m at the Nature Center in 40 minutes. The work of a badass considering that ten minute walk thing.
I head straight through, hold on to the coffee, hold on to my stomach. I’ve got 3.5 miles to DamNation now, and I’ll be damned if I don’t run in.
I don’t know where these roots came from. This music is driving me crazy. My IT band is ruined. My left calf doesn’t want to push off.
Lights. God, please, no more lights.
These lights, these lights, they are ruining the night. I know they mean I’m getting closer, closer to the out and back into the aid station, but they’re freaking me out. They come towards me and wipe out my vision. Like driving to Mohican on the two lane road against someone’s brights. The trail is illuminated, then blacked out. Every two minutes, three minutes, blinded. Blinded, readjusting. And dizzy. All these lights are making me so damn dizzy.
God, this IT band. Every other word, every other thought, just pain. This is new, so new. It’s not tired, it’s not sore, it hurts. This is pain. This is different. This is different. This is …
LIGHTS!
Fuck, I can’t see!
God I’m dizzy.
Nausea.
Ouch. God. OWWWW.
Why is this fucking music still on?
Where the hell is DamNation?
Why didn’t it work? God this hurts.
LIGHTS!
Pain. Lights. Dizzy. Nausea. LIGHTS!
Out come the earphones.
Step one.
What do Star’s footsteps look like?
Do the math, Star. Do the math.
Okay. DamNation. 16:02. You ate a little of the time. You can get it back. Do you need it back? Wait. You had four hours and ten minutes ...
STOP. No math.
LIGHTS!
No, no. Finally. Finally. DamNation.
I hand in my water bottle, have them rinse it out and fill it up with Gatorade.
These guys at the far end of the aid station are the bomb. God I love these guys.
Good. Calories in the Gatorade. No more food. I can do this. I can handle this.
I ran the last 50 miles of Burning River on less than 1000 calories. I just ate an hour ago. I’ll get through the loop and force down a gel when it’s over.
13.5 miles. 2 hours, 30 minutes. Is that right?
I can do this.
It’s so beautiful out here.
Night.
Nausea and night. I’ll make the turn soon and be away from the lights.
It’s so peaceful now. Like watching myself from the inside out. I’m imagining Umstead in the back of my head, the literal back of my head. I feel like I’m thinking from the back of my head, underneath my ponytail.
“That’s why it didn’t work!” I think.
Umstead. Fire trails. No pain, no roots, no lights. Here I’m concentrating, have to concentrate. I can’t drive the IT band, fight the roots, figure out the mud, battle the lights. Not with all that noise in my head. THAT’S why I hate the music so much tonight.
Why does figuring that out make me feel so much better?
Night.
I still can’t figure it out. I’m fading. I know there aren’t any real hills out here, but I can’t seem to figure out where the fake ones are. I know I’m on them, because the minute I hit one, my IT band screams first, followed by my new friend, left calf.
Just. Get. To. The. Chip. Mat.
Mud.
Everywhere. I’m stuck in it. Just – mud.
It’s Perkins. It’s going to be 13.5 miles of Perkins.
I force what running I can. It’s not pretty. And then I make the discovery that I truly dread.
Walking is faster.
Well, it’s more of a march, but it’s faster. So much faster. And I have to deal with the “hills” and the “mud” and the …
LIGHTS.
Another re-evaluation.
Power walk back to DamNation. Don’t fool around with it. Don’t get greedy.
Power walk it back to DamNation. Then run the life out of yourself. Break the IT band, tear the calf, deal with it all later. Get to DamNation by 17:45 and it’s a fast seven miles in anyhow.
Rest now, Star. Rest well. Because I’m about to beat the living hell out of you.
Why is my water bottle so tight on my hand?
Wait, when’s the last time I peed?
No, it was only about four hours ago. I’m good. Where’s the lake?
March. March. March.
Maybe this will work. Maybe this is just enough rest for this god-forsaken IT band. I’m gathering steam.
Lake. Less than a mile.
LIGHTS.
Wait! Lights!
No. No, no, no. My hands. I look down at my hands.
They are swollen up like marshmallows.
And I’ve been dizzy. And nauseous. And spacey. And …
Oh.
No. Eight miles, Star. Just the morning loop. Just that blasted morning loop that you bossed how many times, how many times, how many times these past three months?
Marching.
I try my best to run into the aid station, but it’s more of a stumble.
I grab a cup of Ramen, hold out my bottle and ask for water to the top.
The volunteer starts to pour water into my Ramen.
“No!” I say dejectedly – “water to the top of the water bottle.”
It’s not fair to forget that the volunteers are tired too.
“I need someone with a medical background,” I hear myself say. My voice sounds so weird, so foreign and far away.
There’s really no answer.
I ask again and someone pulls me over.
“It’s my last loop,” I explain. “I’ve only got eight to go, but I’m worried about my hands. I just need to know … are we looking at dehydration or hyponatremia?”
He’s looking at my hands.
“I just need to know what to do. It’s only eight more miles.”
“When’s the last time you peed?”
“Four? Four-ish? Four hours ago. But I could go now.”
“Go,” he says. “Go behind that tree and don’t come back until you pee.”
I really did have to go, I wasn’t making it up. He raised his eyebrow when I came back. I should have offered to show him the puddle.
He hands me my water bottle. The Gatorade is gone, it’s straight water.
“Drain this. Drink this entire bottle over the next three miles and you’ll be fine.”
I’m out.
I walk the long straight-away out of the aid station and it’s time. Come hell or high water, I’m running home.
FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!
IT and left calf have fully joined forces and are determined to out and out hobble me.
My IT band is crunching when I land. I’m scared. I’m actually scared I could do permanent damage.
And I can no longer push off of my left calf. I can feel where it’s torn at the base.
I summon the beast.
“Beast,” I say out loud.
“Beast, you can’t leave me now.”
“I’m right next to you,” he says.
“But Beast. We have to run.”
“Star. No.”
“Beast!”
“Star. Honey. “
“No, Beast. No, no, no. There’s no time left to spare. Beast, we have to go NOW.”
SPLAT.
Mud. Covering the shoes, above the ankles. Plowing through the mud.
It’s going through my mind, I’m feeling it now. I’m feeling the brunt of it.
I let him talk to me, because I’m too gone to talk to myself. I hear him. I actually hear him, talking to me, or hear myself, talking to myself, or someone, saying something, but there are words and they’re confusing me but the feeling makes sense. The words confuse me but I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now and DAMN IT I understand it now. OH MY GOD I understand it now. I understand it now.
*********
The alarm went off in the middle of the night. Darris coaxed a few sips of hotel room coffee into me and I started creeping around getting ready.
Sometimes, you just know. You just instinctively know.
Of course I didn’t want the rain. I think there were about 750 people in Huntsville that morning that didn’t want the rain, that had been worried about the rain for a week. And yes, all you die-hards, I know there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. And I know you can check the weather forecast obsessively for a week and learn nothing. Yes, the truth is that if you want to know what the weather’s going to do on race day, you get up that morning and go outside. And there’s your answer and you’ll just never know for sure until then.
I checked. I checked regularly. I said I checked to be prepared; to be prepared mentally for the conditions and to make sure I had the proper gear with me. But the truth is, I was holding out hope. And right up until that last minute, we were supposed to have rain throughout the day on Friday and into Friday night, but it was to stop – miracle of miracles! – around midnight. We were to have an isolated hour or so of rain about two hours into the race, and that was going to be it.
Nah. I should’ve just waited to open the door that morning.
There had actually been thunderstorms for two days, terrible thunderstorms and dark skies all day Friday. Through Friday night. And right into Saturday morning.
Yes, I opened the door to a torrential downpour and thunder and lightning that even the best Hollywood studios couldn’t possibly replicate. That kind of lightning that rips the sky apart and almost lets you see what heaven (or the heavens) look like.
I skulked about and opened the door a good half dozen times over that 45 minutes. If there is a word stronger than “torrential,” I could have used it that morning. But as I got dressed, as I pulled together my water bottle, my first set of gels and snacks, and pinned my race number on about seven different times, something occurred to me.
I asked for it. I told the raccoon to bring it. I told him to bring it for months, and here it was.
And I was ready for it.
Nothing would bother me.
Just as we landed at the door, I stopped and looked Darris in the eye.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Nothing will bother me today. Do you hear me? Nothing bothers me today.”
“Okay,” he said. “Then nothing bothers you today.”
We met Liza, Paul and Darrin on the balcony and made the run for the car.
It was enough to soak us.
We got the heat on and drove (hydroplaned?) our way to the start. Darrin and Darris, as medical and race directors, declared the start was already delayed. That there was no way they could safely send us out in that.
Liza, Paul and I reminded them that this was a trail race, an ultra, and that it was entirely possible we were getting sent on our way.
To punctuate our theory, there was a deafening clap of thunder and great illumination.
“Yep, we’re delayed,” said the guys.
When the rain slowed to pouring, I decided I was making a run to the bathroom just in case. It was 5:42 am.
We all exchanged those “what can you do?” looks with each other in line. Eventually I asked if anyone had heard of a potential delay.
And heard in return that they had sent the early start off promptly at 5 am.
I was shocked to find myself relieved. I mean, if we were going to do it, what use was there in waiting?
We made our way to the tent and in mere minutes, we were running. We were running through a (more than) torrential downpour, soaking wet, making bad jokes about not needing our headlamps because of the lightning and generally delighting ourselves by continuing the seedy and perverted sex discussions we had been having pretty much since boarding the plane. One of us shushed another one for saying “semen” too loud, at which point another runner in the vicinity begged us to go on.
It had to have seemed quite the performance for those we ran by. The fine doctor, the tall blonde and the petite brunette making every conceivable bad joke about pillows, lube, peanut butter (don’t ask), chafing, leaking and far worse for a solid ten miles.
What rain?
We were hitting the aid stations far too quickly; Darrin and I both knew. Liza is more of a rogue runner, just getting out there and running and seeing what happens. Darrin and I have charts and spreadsheets and carefully plotted graphs, and we were not adhering to them properly. (See: sex talk, above.)
We got to DamNation for the first time, ran the six mile loop. I was quickly falling in love with the course. Really digging the course. I was soaking wet, worried about more rain and needing to slow down, but there was nothing that would bother me.
Coming out of DamNation after the loop, we got to see Darris for the first time, clad in the SPAM t-shirt and grinning to see our little crew. We all stopped for a quick minute, where I distinctly remember telling him how much I was “digging the course” at least three times. Soon enough we were on our way back, desperately trying to “find hills” to walk and doing enough math to know we were hitting the stations on the back half of the loop way too quickly as well.
It was a fast eight miles home from DamNation. I made sure to note that for later. Easy on the way out. Relax and slow down on the DamNation loop. Fast run home if there was juice in the legs.
Liza and Darrin both couldn’t believe how quickly the first twenty miles had passed by. We ran the gauntlet into the start/finish and checked in at 3:35.
Naughty, naughty girl.
Fifteen minutes up on where I should have been.
Fifteen minutes over 20 miles.
I know better than that!!!
I mentioned to Darrin in the start/finish area that I wasn’t doing that again. He assured me he was slowing down as well. I dug through my rain drenched plastic bag and the tarp covered with puddles, had three quick handfuls of Combos and grabbed a Pop-Tart to eat on the way out.
“I’m walking!” I called, mouth full of Pop-Tart.
But I stopped for a minute – just a tiny one – when I realized they were playing “Hey Ya” and gave a little shout-out to my friend Sara. You know people are thinking of you when you’re out there, but those little signs, like a shared song or the perfect word, make it feel like they’re really there, right there, for that tiny little minute.
Darrin and Liza caught me soon after, and we hit the Nature Center aid station in just under 32 minutes. I had told Liza I was worried about the fast start too; running a different race, she wasn’t concerned at all. “It’s no big deal,” she said, “just one mile walking.”
Heh. I like to do my walking during the first 50 miles.
“Darrin!” I said between clenched teeth, as we approached the station.
“I know,” he said, looking at his Garmin. “We’re still barely over tens.”
I stayed with them, listened as they continued to banter on. By the time we reached DamNation, I was in a piss poor mood and really curious about my right IT band. I remembered it bothering me a little bit toward the end of Burning River last year, but that was well after mile 90, when I’ll pretty much give anything a free pass to hurt. This was … mile 26?
There was this other thing too, seeing all these runners all over the out-and-back sections of the course. And everyone’s talking to each other, calling out “good job,” “way to go,” “looking good,” every time you pass.
And I am so not into it.
Liza is, she’s feeling great and calling out to or responding to each runner. I’m thinking “Seriously? I just can’t do this all day. No way in hell am I in the mood to personally acknowledge each and every runner as they go by. Isn’t anybody else working out here?”
Then I remember … it’s almost time for me to crash.
It comes without fail, somewhere between 25 and 35. My first crash comes early and hard, and then I’m usually good for the next 30 or so miles. I’m still in a piss poor mood, I’m still worried about my IT band, and I’m nowhere near as chipper as I was in the pouring rain four hours ago, but at least I know what I’m dealing with. And I’m not going to let it bother me. Because nothing bothers me today.
I grab a couple of Velveeta (?!?!) cheese quesadillas with Liza and the three of us head back out for our second DamNation loop. We have lighthearted talk about the Velveeta (?!?!). I see the large, high chair on the trail that I noticed earlier and tell Darrin it must be Plutarch Heavensbee’s. Darrin, Liza and I have the conversation about how no one can feel bad about dropping back or moving ahead. Darrin says it’s time for him to drop back to 12’s and obey his Garmin. Liza says she’s staying with him. I know I can’t afford to get comfortable at 12’s, so I keep moving. Liza’s on my shoulder almost instantly. My IT band is throbbing and I’m trying to process running another 70 miles on it.
She does her best to tell me a story, but I’m crashing. I’m out of the game, crashing hard and hurting to boot.
“POP!” I keep howling at my IT band in my head. It just needs to “pop,” to settle back in where it’s supposed to be.
I have to pee as well, and I kind of realize this is all for the best.
I duck into the woods to pee and let Liza get ahead. And then I don’t try to catch her.
I love Liza, but my misery wants no company.
I feel the pain shifting. It moves around like a nasty little snake, from the side of my knee to my hamstring, up to my glute, to my inner thigh. Back to the side of my knee. It settles in my hamstring for awhile. I stop to get excited. Surely this means it’s about to work itself out, that everything is about to just “click” and settle back in where it belongs. Hope springs up, briefly and quietly, on the way back to the Park Road aid station. I meet a girl running her first 100 miler; she tells me she’s really hoping to break 24 hours. There’s a part of me that wants to gently ask her why she’s already running a 19 hour pace, but I manage to keep my mouth shut. I mean well, but I know it’s not always taken that way. And hell, like most people react well to me explaining that I’ll negative split the 100. We make small talk for a few minutes, and she pulls ahead.
I let her.
I’m still having trouble clicking in at all, fighting through the crash, fighting with the IT band, just in an ugly mood. So I ask myself what my footsteps look like. It’s early, and after running with others for so long, I need to remember how I do it. How Star runs 100 milers. So I ask myself.
What do Star’s footsteps look like?
I slow down, get choppy. The right kind of choppy. About five minutes later I notice I’m too fast again, striding out too much too soon, so I ask it again.
What do Star’s footsteps look like?
I slow down, get choppy. I think about Berkley, my tiny little two-year old inspiration. I see her running and tripping around her living room, jumping off her fireplace. “If you can’t find your footsteps,” I think, “run like Berkley.”
The two mix in my head, and between my footsteps and visions of little Berkley, we get it right. I hit Park Road with a bit more than four miles back to the start/finish. I’ve got the footsteps right, but the IT band just won’t relent.
“POP!” I stop to scream at it.
I look around. I’m alone for the minute.
“POP, DAMN IT,” I scream, trying to stretch it out on the side of the trail.
Ummm … nothing bothers me?
So I take a couple of minutes now, really do a good stretch on it, and hope for some relief. There is none. So I decide to take more drastic action. I start pounding it.
I land as hard as I possibly can on every stick, every rock, every divet I can possibly find. I think of all the stories about people landing in potholes or tripping during races and having an injury magically fixed. And I just pound on it.
And then the rain starts again, not as heavy as before, but enough put me back under. Enough to make me doubt.
“Miles 40 to 70 will be the hardest,” Jay wrote to me before Burning River. I try to cheer myself up by thinking I’m getting the hard miles out of the way early. Because nothing bothers me, right?
The IT band is locking up bad, and I decide I’m going to gamble. I don’t like taking painkillers during 100’s. When I do take them, I push them off as far as I can, and I’ve never started them before mile 80. Or done them more than once.
I don’t want to do it.
But if I don’t do it, I’m out anyway. As sure I’m sitting here typing this now, two weeks later, I tell you that IT band could not get through another 60 miles.
I remember the time I tore my adductor and tried to medicate during a marathon; the painkillers didn’t even make a dent. So I know that if I get to the point of injury, I’ll know, because this won’t even be effective. And a single low dose, when it’s not hot, isn’t something I haven’t done before.
And I’m already putting 80% of my energy into managing the pain with 60% of the race to go.
It’s done. The gamble is made.
I get back to the start/finish for a second loop in 3:47. Much better than 3:35, and right where I need to be in spite of the stops.
Darris is there. He has dropped after two loops, completing 33 miles of the 50 miler. His hamstring was bothering him from all the mud, he said, and he spent too much time rehabbing his injury to risk it.
I am sad he has dropped; I am so happy he is there.
We get me in a chair real quick; I have all kinds of sticks and rocks and debris in my shoes from the mud puddles. While I do a quick sock change, he brings me my first Cokes and helps me dig for my food. More Combos, some crushed potato chips, a handful of Reese’s, all washed down with sweet, syrupy Coke. I explain the IT band; we theorize it’s the mud; he agrees with my decision to take the painkiller early. I grab another chocolate Pop-Tart and head back out on the gauntlet. Tiny steps, but jerky. Just kind of galloping around that IT band.
But between the Cokes and seeing him, the clouds in my head go away.
And about halfway to the Nature Center, I feel it happening.
It’s fading.
I reach the Nature Center in 31 minutes. Way too fast. But with brand new legs.
I have no idea how people live with chronic pain. Tears of relief slipped from my eyes leaving the aid station, running pain-free for the first time in four hours. It reminded me of slipping into a warm bath, laying on the beach half asleep, trying to get off the table after a massage. It’s … blissful.
I am singing now, singing to myself as I run along. It’s one of Cindy’s spinning songs. I’m singing and still running too fast.
“What do Star’s footsteps look like?” I ask.
I conjure up my visions of Berkley and get choppy.
Chop, chop, chop.
“I’m so messed up, I’m so out of line,” I sing.
Chop, chop, chop.
“Yeah, I know, it’s stupid …”
I’m heading into DamNation. Other runners are headed the other way.
“Great job!” I’m yelling at them, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
I realize that if I don’t have the energy to talk to the other runners, I’m probably going too fast. But that doesn’t matter anymore, because nothing bothers me.
I head to the DamNation loop. I sing. I splash through puddles. I am thinking in poetry. I am gliding, I am flying, I am soaring.
“I can see clearly now the rain is gone …”
I am running back into DamNation, and I see the most amazing thing.
The sun has come out, and the sky is almost … almost … a shade of blue.
“And we even got some sunshine!” I exclaim, to no one in particular.
A nearby runner looks at me as if I just might be insane.
But we’re never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy.
I’m headed back to Park Road now, and the tears are slipping out again. I am in heaven, I am literally in heaven, my own private heaven. It’s all come together, here, today. It’s just so … perfect. Finally, it’s all clicked in and I have that feeling. That feeling.
That feeling that I could literally run forever, and maybe even faster.
I get to Park Road with a little bit of a hungry tummy and decide to look around. I’ve had a couple of gels and blocks since I left Darris back at the start/finish, but nothing too substantial.
They have wafer cookies.
“WAFER COOKIES!” I exclaim, making one of the volunteers grin ear to ear. I munch two down straightaway while they fill my bottle, much like a raccoon or chipmunk. I have a third and they’re all still grinning at me when I get my bottle back, take one last look at the plate, and grab two more saying “I think you should come with me.” I munch my fourth and fifth cookies on my way out, knowing I have just that fast four miles back to the start/finish. I take off too fast; realize it immediately, and adjust my pace to choppy as I cross the street.
“Good girl,” says the very fit, probably ultra-runner guy who’s been watching me all day.
I chop my way back through those fast miles. I am stunned to realize it’s almost 5:00 at night and giggle to myself sarcastically thinking “Wherever has the day gone?”
And I think of exactly what I need to say to Darris about this next lap, and what I need him to tell Jay, so that everyone knows that I know exactly what I’m doing.
Because the beast and I, we’re going hunting.
I run that gauntlet back to the start/finish like a brand new woman, with Darris cheering the loudest. 3:45 for loop 3.
He has my bag ready.
“Okay,” I say. “My feet are holding up so no sock change. I need Ramen and Coke if you can grab that for me.”
He does. I stuff a fresh baggie of Combos in my shorts and start suiting up in my headlamps. One on the head, one around the waist, one around the water bottle.
The Ramen and Coke arrive.
“If you could get Gatorade in this, then we’ll talk for a minute.”
I slurp Ramen and chug Coke. The salty/sweet combination is electrifying. I get my ipod set to go.
“So next loop,” I say. “I’m going to do a sock change first to make sure my feet don’t bother me. I’m going to need my coffee, my chocolate brownie and have the ibuprofen ready just in case.”
“But how are you feeling now?” he asks.
“It’s good. I’m good,” I say. “The pain is gone, it’s amazing.”
“But …”
He pauses, tries to be sensitive. I don’t know what he’s asking, but I’m hoping.
“Do you have your other gear? I mean, do you think you can go …”
“Faster?”
“Well,” I say. “You just ruined it a little bit, because I had a question for you.”
“You did?” he asks.
“Yeah. I was going to ask you if Katniss dropped the bow and arrow off.”
He looks at me quizzically.
“Because in seven miles, I’m going hunting.”
His eyes light up like a Christmas tree. Nothing more needs to be said by either of us.
I grab another chocolate Pop-Tart and say “back in a few hours. Oh, and text Skinny and tell him I know exactly what I’m doing.”
I will keep it steady for the next seven miles. Steady for the three miles to the Nature Center. Steady for the 3.3 miles to DamNation. And at DamNation, I am putting that ipod on and I am running. Because I am ready to race that last 30 miles within an inch of my life. Because this thing is happening.
And that’s just what I do.
I turn on my lights, I put on the ipod, I chug some more Ramen, and as Eminem kicks things off, I run.
It’s happening.
I am flying through the night. A soft chill is settling and the air is getting smoky, and underneath the headphones, I hear the gasps and the questions as I go flying by.
My eclectic little ipod mix has every imaginable thing on it. Prince. Seal. Eminem. Madonna. Kanye. Even some Miley Cyrus.
“I throw my hands up, they’re playing my song, the butterflies go away …”
Breathing, moving, floating …
“I got my hands up, they’re playing my song, I know it’s gonna be okay …”
The tears start falling, again. Whatever happened to cold execution?
It’s sheer gratitude. I just can’t believe it’s really happening. That I feel this good. This late.
“Welcome, Beast,” I whisper.
As we work our way back, past the turn at the porta-potty that will take us to the Park Road aid station, I feel it seeping back in, that IT band pain. It doesn’t phase me.
It’s late. Remember? I’ll give just about anything a license to hurt after almost 80 miles. I decide to at least make it to Park Road before I start thinking about it.
Leaving Park Road, I’m thinking about it for sure, but it still can’t bother me.
Super Bass cues up on the ipod just in time, and I’m back in Cindy’s class. It’s just a Wednesday night again, I’ve just run 21 miles and gone straight into a brutal spin class, and I can’t help smiling whenever she busts out her favorite tune. And somehow, subliminally, she pushes herself into my head, I hear her screaming at me in that way that only she can.
“It hurts after 80 miles? Good! ADD!” she says.
So the beast and I, we ADD.
But I’m spending too much time on the pain, and I know it.
Those 4.5 miles back to the start/finish, we have to stop a few times. We stop, we stretch, we try to work it out. When we run, we run fast, but we’re stopping. We’re working around it.
“POP!” we scream at it together.
We start slamming it on roots and rocks and divets again.
“It’s okay,” he tells me. “Whatever you might be losing stopping you’re making up on the run.”
We decide. Twenty miles out, and we haven’t had any in 40 miles now. We’ll take two more, just enough to take the edge off. We’re tired, but we’ve got coffee coming and we’re going to get wired and get the edge off and get back to that private little head party we’ve been having.
We’re a little shady, but we’re in absolute control.
I run that gauntlet yet again, start looking for Darris. I spot him with Gwen, with Paul.
And Darrin, in his blue sweatshirt.
I am torn. So distressed that it’s been another rough day for him. So relieved to see another familiar face.
They’re all looking at me. Looking at me with this gleam in their eye. But I don’t know. I haven’t been paying attention, and I never wanted to know. So I ignore it, because the day has taken a bit of a toll on me anyhow, and I get straight to business with Darris.
He’s getting me Ramen. He’s dumping the diluted Gatorade from my bottle and getting the coffee in it. My brownie and the socks are ready. He comes back to see me.
“I’m spending too much time on the pain,” I say. “I had to stop a lot the last four miles to stretch it out. It’s pretty bad.”
“Star, it was a 3:48 loop. You’ve got more than four hours to break 19.”
“I know, I know, I’m just spending so much time on the pain,” I say.
I take the two ibuprofen, and Darrin can no longer resist.
“Do you want to know where you’re at?” he asks.
“I’m cool,” I say, starting to explain that it’s not about that today, that the fact that he’s asking must mean I’m at least top five, which was my outside hope, that I just want to focus on getting …
“YOU’RE SECOND!!!” he shouts at me.
“Stop messing with me,” I say, somewhat tired.
“Star, you’re in second,” Darris says.
“I just double checked with the timing people,” Darrin says. “You’ve got second by over an hour right now.”
“Then I better get the hell out of here!” I exclaim.
And that’s exactly what I do.
I had no idea how much more I had to learn.
****
And here I am, at mile 92, begging. Begging him to just let me run.
I hear him, actually hear him, talking to me, or hear myself, talking to myself, or someone, saying something, but there are words and they’re confusing me but the feeling makes sense. The words confuse me but I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now. I understand it now and DAMN IT I understand it now. OH MY GOD I understand it now. I understand it now.
I’m not going to break 19 hours today. It’s simply not going to happen.
And it’s okay.
I flash back on something Skinny said to me once, when I was trying to make sense of Burning River. I remember it in the back of my head, under my ponytail, that most of the time, the best performances don’t come when we’ve trained for them, but when our body is ready for them.
My body isn’t ready today. It might have been without the mud, it might have been, it might have been. But I’m out of real estate. And I didn’t do anything wrong. But I have to make a choice, right here, right now. For some it might be difficult. For me, no.
I have to decide if I am willing to risk forever for this race. Because bravery and foolishness can too often go hand in hand.
I know the difference between discomfort and pain. And this is pain. There is something very wrong with my IT band. I have numbed it for almost 60 miles now, and I don’t know if it can fixed.
And this calf is nothing to mess with either.
And I’m dizzy and nauseous and cold.
And I realize I did everything I came to do. And this girl – this “third” – will not pass me.
This is ugly. This is going to be a slow, ugly, and very unglamorous finish.
But this third – she will not pass me.
No one has passed me. For 30 miles now, no, no one has passed me.
Nor will she.
And it will still be ugly, and it will be okay.
And I hear him again, back at the back of my head, underneath my ponytail. And his voice is morphing into mine and I understand even more than I thought I understood, and Courtney’s email already made me cry and now the tears well up again, just thinking of her, my beautiful friend, who I see so little but who knows me so well. I think back to that 40 miler at home last summer, that beautifully unexpected day when girls who had thought they misunderstood each other fell in trail love and became sudden allies. My mind wanders, wanders behind the cloudiness and the clouds of air coming from my breath in the cold night air.
Night.
Silence.
I understand now.
And when the words become clear, they come right to the front of my head, lucid and clear.
The beast and I, we say them together.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I’ve been so good at this, so good at this all my life. The beating myself up, the punishing myself, the evaluating myself, holding myself to standards I would never expect anyone else to bear. But here, tonight, in this cold air, on this ruined IT band, on this broken calf and in this cold, cloudy night, I stop.
And all I can think of is the stupid, cheesy teeny-bopper movies Darris and I still get sucked into.
“Second place? Hell yeah!”
It’s mere maintenance now, I know this. And so I march.
I’m cold. I’m so cold and this water is making me so nauseous. That guy was wrong, had to be wrong. My hands – oh my God, my hands! They’re worse, swelling more. It’s salt. I need salt. Oh my God, three quarters of this bottle and no wonder I can’t think straight … MUD SOUP … think straight … no, Star, think straight, STAR!
I’m weaving. I catch myself, I’m weaving through the mud, sticks in my shoes, shoe off, underwater, don’t lie down, don’t lie down, so cold, pull it together, pull it together, pull it together.
LIGHTS.
“Clothes?” I yell out. They are going in the other direction, towards DamNation. I need clothes. I am too cold. I can’t run and I don’t have enough clothes.
And he stops. He understands.
The girl’s pacer, he understands. Says they are on the third loop, fighting the cutoffs. He has to push her hard. He brought too many layers, he’s overheated. She’s walking ahead, and her pacer has come back to walk with me in the other direction. These, my friends, these are ultrarunners. This is our family.
He gives me his jacket, walks with me just a bit more. Tells me I’m probably only ten minutes or so from the aid station. Congratulates me as he knows I only have about 6 miles to go. I promise to leave his jacket for him at the finish and just like that, this stranger and I go our separate ways.
Family.
The jacket is damp with his sweat. As I warm up, mine blends with his and it ceases to matter. That I’m the fricking second place woman in the field and I just had to bum clothes off of a stranger’s back while I “marched” it in. It doesn’t matter.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I stop drinking the water. I march and I wade through mud soup. I march and I wade through mud soup. I stop shivering and I will not let myself weave. It is not pretty, but I march.
It’s there. It’s really there. The last aid station. 4.5 miles to go. “GO,” I think. “Just get the Gatorade and GO.”
I stop at the table. I’m underneath the tent, where the lights and the people are. I’m wobbling. Dizzy, woozy, washed out, wobbling, I’m weak and spacey and ...
“So I’m going to sit down for a minute,” I say.
They ask if my pacer is coming with me the next lap.
Heh.
“I might pass out but this is my last loop,” I say. “Food.”
“Food?”
“I don’t know. They said hyponatremia but I think it might be salt but I’m nauseous and cold well I’m really nauseous I know I’m going to be okay I’m still in control oooohhh do you have any bananas?”
An awesome Asian guy with a number on his shorts brings me a banana.
“Shouldn’t you be running?” I ask.
He had dropped several hours before and then decided to volunteer for awhile.
Yeah. Ultrarunners. That’s our family.
He gets me Gatorade. The banana is like crack. Next I want crackers.
He asks me how fast I’m walking, offers to come with me, walk with me to the finish. He’s wearing sandals and I don’t want to be a burden. I’ve got this thing, and he’s tired, and WAIT A MINUTE. WHY THE HELL AM I SITTING HERE FIVE MILES FROM THE FINISH?
I get up and stumble a little. I’m chilly from the sweat in the night air. I go the space heater for about five seconds and wonder anew what the hell I’m doing.
One hour and thirty minutes and I’ll still break 20 hours.
Second place? Sub-20? HELL YEAH.
I’m marching down the trail and I’m cold again, so cold. My teeth start chattering. They chatter more. They chatter fast.
We make these decisions in a split second, because bravery and foolishness can too often go hand in hand.
I almost turned around and asked him to walk with me.
Instead, I run.
Because the fastest way for me to warm up – is to run.
And I run. I am five miles from the finish line and I run. I run in excruciating, near debilitating pain. I run literally crying out from the pain. I run for an entire minute, straight into a mud pit.
Shoe off. Left calf. Mud soup.
And the mud appeases me.
Because I won’t let you hurt yourself.
It is not pretty, it is so not pretty, but I march. On and on and on, I march. I do not look at my watch. The pain is almost non-existent. And with the course now thoroughly trashed by 20 straight hours worth of 700+ people plowing through the mud, I make that always dreaded discovery that the marching is actually faster than the running. Even if I could. Run. Because this is one long straight mud pit that no one’s running through anyway.
Bridges. Oh my God, I’m hitting the bridges.
The bridges mean only two or three more miles.
Oh my God. I did it.
Me.
ME.
It’s my ugliest, most unglamorous finish ever, but I did it. It’s in the back of my head, the very back of my head, underneath my ponytail, and I know it, I understand it, I did it.
All that, all that, all that training all those miles all those days all that rain all that mud all that nausea back at Burning River all that hope all that hatred all that fear all that …
All that everything.
Clarity. Brief passing clarity that I can’t hold onto, because my hands are huge and I want my pajamas and I need to see Darris but God I need Darrin to tell me I’m going to live.
Long bridge it’s the long bridge, do you know what that means, Star?
“STAR!” the beast says.
“STAR!!! It’s the long bridge!” he says.
“I know!” I say, more energy than I’ve had in hours. “I know! We cross the road and it’s a flat mile home, muddy but flat. We did it beast, it was ugly but we did it. BEAST! Second place!”
I look behind me for the dozenth time in the past two hours. There is no one to be found.
I’m imagining it now, underneath my ponytail. I test out my damn IT band with just a couple of dizzying nauseous steps, just enough to make sure I can run that last quarter mile gauntlet. The pajama pants and sweatshirt are too much to think about, they nearly bring me to my knees. My hands are huge now, bigger …
I should be at the road soon, shouldn’t I?
My hands are bigger and I really need Darrin. My hands are huge, so huge and swollen and I’m still so dizzy and nauseous, just hanging on, marching, marching and hanging on. I will run …
Okay, seriously. Where’s the damn road?
… I will run that gauntlet, I will hang onto it long enough to hug Joe, get my award, hear that I’ve done it, me, today, here, I was that good. I was that good, glamorous or not. I see it all underneath my ponytail, I will hug Joe, Darris will be there and he will cry. I will not alarm him, first he will cry and hug me and I will say “Second place? Hell yeah!” and he will know exactly what I mean. Then I will quietly say that I don’t feel so well and I will ask him to get Darrin and once Darrin comes I’ll just put my hands out, quietly tell him I’m very nauseous, very spacey, I think we mistreated the hyponatremia and I need my pajamas so bad maybe I can get the pajamas first and now I’m off in another place, fantasizing, fantasizing about my green pajama pants and the hooded Oregon sweatshirt that’s like my second skin so maybe I should do award, hug Darris, then pajamas before Darrin and the hands …
That’s weird. I don’t remember that timing mat. No, am I?
Nope. Good. Streamer! Streamer in the tree. Right on course. Just confused.
Marching, marching, marching. I don’t remember that big chair being there either … well I bet they put the timing mat out here because it’s night now and there’s less volunteers … or maybe it’s so they know right before people are finishing like at other races, doesn’t matter, march. March.
No, no, no. I should be at the road now. I should be at the road now.
I finally look at my watch. It’s 19:40-something. And that’s why you don’t do math, fool! You got it wrong. You messed up the math, keep marching, soon, soon, soon.
I don’t know where I am now, and I don’t have any idea how long I’ve been out because I don’t know if I looked at my watch wrong or if I did the math wrong.
And when I realize that I don’t know how much is left, when I lose the adrenaline of being just those few turns from the finish, I realize how very, very sick I am.
And then I see the lights.
And then I see the lake. And there is not supposed to be a lake. And the water is not supposed to be on my left. And there is not supposed to be that right hand turn onto that slippery, sandy hill that means DamNation is about a half mile out.
And I am not supposed to be screaming, crying, too weak to really make any noise, but yes, screaming, crying, really just wimpering “no.”
I’m back at DamNation. The timing mat means I recircled the second half of the DamNation loop, which is just over three miles. Added to whatever it took to land me back on the DamNation loop. I’m hovering somewhere around 104 already, hyponatremic and borderline hypothermic in this borrowed, wet Gore-tex jacket hanging to my knees.
I stop my watch at 19:51. I am at DamNation. A few minutes later, after my four extra miles, the new second place woman finishes.
I fight with the volunteers, who want me continue, to run the seven miles back to the finish. “You can do this,” they tell me.
I am proud to tell all of you that I could not. No amount of coaching, cajoling, pacing, pleading, begging or bargaining would have been enough.
I had rationed out every drop of my energy.
Since 6 am on Saturday morning, when I set off into a thunderstorm with Darrin and Liza, I had rationed my energy. I rationed it a bit poorly through a fast first loop; carefully through a painful second loop; beautifully through a blissful third loop; like a hunter through a wild ride of a fourth loop; and like the second place woman holding on for dear life through the fifth.
I had nothing left.
I won’t let you hurt yourself.
I had run my 100 miles. I was the second woman to finish 100 miles out there, at a major race, on a very difficult day.
And my body had nothing left.
Ten minutes after I got to DamNation, a volunteer finally got the scope of the situation and lent me a phone to call Darris.
Between shallow and exhausted breaths, I told him the story. I told him if he would meet me three miles away (at the Park Road aid station), I would find a way to walk it in.
“Star. You’re done,” he said softly.
And really, I’ve never been so relieved.
He understood. All of it. Even these things he hasn’t read quite yet.
I had already finished the race, and done a damn fine job of it.
I don’t want to focus on this part. I don’t want to focus on how I got back to the finish, or how the one volunteer said she had talked to Joe or someone and I was still going to get a time and be in the results, or how I found out that half a dozen people had missed that same turn in the daylight.
I don’t want to focus on this part. This isn’t the important part.
I know what I did out there. I know what I did to get myself there, I know what I have to do to get myself there again, and I know that that was just the beginning of what I can ultimately do.
There will be challenges. Maybe time off for a baby, other bad days like Burning River and maybe even more real and metaphorical wrong turns. But there will also be great days – days like Umstead and days like Rocky Raccoon, where no matter what the entry lists might say, I show up and run my calculated best – and it’s enough.
And I will never again be surprised by that.
Instead, I’ll be remembering that moment at mile 80. When it was 7:48 pm in Hunstville, Texas and my world-view as an ultrarunner was turned upside down. That moment when everything came into sudden, stark relief, and finally, finally, I knew.
Surprise, Star.
You’re really good at this.
And somewhere, a wily raccoon has night tremors.
I just can’t wait for the rematch.
I'm so proud of you Star!!! I can see your mental strength growing in each of your blogs. Way to represent Ohio! =)
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Mandie Hayes
mandie.hayes10@gmail.com