Ultramarathon Man (21 page)

The kids at the party wanted to know what those funny marks on my face were all about. I explained that it was called frostbite—“kind of like sunburn, only for the opposite reason,” I told them.

That night I read
Charlotte's Web
to Alexandria and Nicholas. They fell asleep before I finished the second page, just like old times. I carried them to their beds, tucked them in, and quietly kissed them good night. Julie and I shared a toast and ordered Thai food from our favorite restaurant.

“You look good,” she said—“vibrant.”

“You're not looking too bad yourself,” I said with a wink.

“Are you flirting with me?”

“No, I'm making a full-on pass at you. I've been living in a refrigerated tent for the past month in the middle of nowhere.”

“Come here, Iceman,” she joked.

And for the first time since leaving home, I began to thaw out.

The next morning I awoke before dawn, doing my best not to wake Julie, and went for a run out to the Golden Gate Bridge before work. The sun was coming up, the fishing boats were heading out to sea, the birds were chirping. It'd been a month since I'd heard a bird sing, and I realized that going close to the edge gives you a newfound appreciation of the familiar. Nothing gets taken for granted, and you see the world through fresh eyes. Running beyond the limits was my form of renewal.

Would I ever return to Antarctica? I've returned plenty of times in my mind. It's not the kind of experience you soon forget. Would I ever physically return? In a heartbeat. I've stayed in close contact with Doug, and he's always planning the next grand adventure.

I'd run across Death Valley in the middle of summer, and now I'd run to the coldest place on earth; it might be tough bettering that. But I kept searching for something even more intense.

It's just the way an ultramarathoner's mind works.

—Jim Vernon

Just as the boundaries
of technology are being pushed at an accelerated rate, so, too, are the frontiers of human endurance. The big difference is that the gains in human physical achievement are going largely unnoticed.

Even while participation in 10Ks and marathons is on the rise, 100-mile footraces remain almost unknown to the general public. The level of corporate sponsorship and media coverage of just one major U.S. marathon, like Boston or Chicago, would dwarf that of all ultra-endurance events combined. And when comparing any running event to a popular spectator sport, like football or baseball, the level of endorsements isn't even a blip on the radar.

And I like that.

Runners are real people. They don't run for money or recognition, they do it out of passion. Most have day jobs that pay the bills, and running is a labor of love. Ultrarunners take it to the next level. Training to run 100 miles while working nine-to-five requires a phenomenal level of commitment and determination. It's a select breed that can withstand the tremendous physical and emotional toll that performing on such a level demands. Without discipline to rise before dawn and pound out the miles, you'll never make it. If the fire in your heart isn't strong, there's no point trying.

Most ultra-endurance races are staged on a shoestring budget by people who do it because they love the sport. Unlike a sanctioned marathon, with frequent water-stops along the way, most ultramarathons have limited access to supplies. I remember one gritty 50-miler I participated in where the only support on the course was a water hose at the halfway point. A new ultrarunner griped about having to wait in line to get water. “If you don't want to wait in line,” the race director suggested, “get there first.”

Over the years, I've developed numerous friendships in the ultra-endurance underground. Many of these athletes are reserved and keep largely to themselves. Running for twenty-four hours at a time doesn't lend itself to a robust social schedule. Some are running from the bottle. Some are running from past transgressions. Most are just hyper-energetic adrenaline junkies out to savor life to the last drop; life's super-users, if you will. Whatever the case may be, all have an internal fire that burns strong, for one reason or another.

John Medinger, the president of the Western States Endurance Run Foundation, hosts the annual 101st Mile Party to honor those “astounding studs and studettes” who have successfully completed a 100-mile endurance run in the past season. The celebration kicks off with a “casual” 9-mile trail run. Over the years, I've noticed an emerging trend at this gathering: Many of the honorees have completed not just one 100-mile endurance race during the year, they've completed two or more. This past season, for instance, I completed six events of 100 miles or longer, making it effectively a 788th Mile Party for this kid. That's like racing from Washington, D.C., to Florida. If you follow the traditional running adage that you need one week of recovery for every mile you race, I should be spending the next fourteen and one-half years resting from this past summer alone.

Guess it's time to start drinking.

Like most others at the party, I was a recreational drinker with a running problem. As I entered Medinger's house and searched for beer, the energy emitted by the crowd was bouncing off the walls like electrons. The place was buzzing with endorphins. Yet a certain humility also pervades the group, as though these people don't need to express their prowess publicly. Their achievements speak for themselves.

“Hey, Med,” I address the host, “seen Rocket?”

“No, Karno.”

That's how we seem to converse—in compact sound bites, as if using whole names and complete sentences requires too much energy expenditure. Better to conserve it for use elsewhere.

“Check food table,” he concludes. “Probably there.”

I never do locate the man, because once I find food and drink I scarcely move an inch—except to stuff another nugget in my mouth. It feels bizarre elbowing people and fighting for position around the food table. The competition is fierce. As soon as something new arrives, all conversation ceases and every last crumb is ferociously devoured. We stand about gorging ourselves like grizzlies, yet no one in the room has body fat in excess of single digits. Where does it all go?

On the trail, no doubt, chasing some unprecedented feat of endurance.

 

 

 

The 101st
Mile Party is for the hard-core group, but over the years I've also inducted a handful of new recruits into the ranks of ultra-endurance running. Sadly, most are now excommunicated and have never forgiven me for dragging them into the sport. One ex-friend ran 60 miles with me all night. He hasn't run a day since. That was four years ago.

But those select few that have persisted have developed into remarkable endurance athletes. Topher Gaylord first ran with me for a brief stretch during my attempt to run 199 miles nonstop. He got hooked and signed up for a 50-kilometer race shortly after that. When he asked me how to run an ultramarathon (defined as any distance beyond a marathon, which is 26.2 miles), I instructed him to puff out his chest, put one foot in front of the other, and don't stop till he'd crossed the finish line.

“That's it?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said, “nothing to it.”

Running his first ultramarathon temporarily crippled him. The pounding left him unable to walk up stairs for days. Still, he completed the event, which showed promise. Most people in his condition would have bailed long before reaching the finish line. His progress during the latter part of the run was so slow that nearly the entire field passed him, and he finished near the back of the pack.

He's worked hard to live down that moment. Now that he's completed the Western States Endurance Run a fourth time, I think he has.

Even among the fittest of the fit, ultra-endurance athletes remain a freakish anomaly. People can understand running a marathon, but running four or five back-to-back, running for forty-eight hours straight, or running in the hottest and coldest places on earth transcends rational thought. It contradicts people's sense of what is possible.

“Why haven't I ever heard of this before?” is a common response. “It's remarkable.”

The mainstream press doesn't focus much on ultra-endurance sports, probably because they're relatively new and the media are doing just fine covering baseball, basketball, and football, thank you. But this is changing. Slowly.

How
Sports Illustrated Women
found my name remains somewhat of a mystery. Of all the athletes profiled in their “Sexiest Men in Sports” issue, I was the only runner. One would think they'd choose some mainstream track star—a sprinter or hurdler—not some obscure extreme-endurance dude most Americans have never heard of whose sport is beyond comprehension.

My running friends certainly gave me plenty of grief for appearing in the
Sports Illustrated Women
's “swimsuit issue,” as they called it. And the one time that
Runner's World
magazine decided to mention my participation in the Western States Endurance Run, it wrote that the big question is: “What will he be wearing?”

Maybe being an underground athlete isn't such a bad thing after all.

The fallout from the “Sexiest Men in Sports” appointment, however, was entirely confined to my training pals poking fun at me. There are no “endurance groupies,” as far as I can tell. The women in the sport are just as tough as the men. Sometimes tougher. They're more interested in getting to the finish line before me than getting my phone number. The few times I have been hit on, it's been for a PowerBar or some extra water. And if I didn't produce the desired request quickly, they were gone. No time for a man to slow them down.

Sports Illustrated Women
's “Sexiest Men in Sports” issue

When it gets right down to it, the levels of commitment and devotion required to excel as an ultra-endurance athlete are all-consuming. Beyond running 80 to 120 miles per week, along with mountain biking, surfing, and windsurfing regularly, my routine consists of 200 push-ups, 50 pull-ups, and 400 sit-ups—twice a day. Sure, I'm cut, but not for the sake of vanity. A chiseled build comes as a by-product of my passions. I couldn't see the utility of having such brawn if not to put it to good use pushing the body to inconceivable extremes.

Excessive as my routine may sound, there are others who are just as fanatical. I know of runners who've trained for Badwater by doing a thousand sit-ups daily,
inside a sauna!
That may sound overzealous, but when you're standing at the start of some daunting ultra-endurance slugfest, it's psychologically comforting to know that you haven't skimped on your preparation. Anything less than total commitment won't cut it.

It's also important to train your body to run all night, and still go strong the next day. Once I ran from our house in San Francisco to the start of the Napa Valley Marathon (100 miles in eighteen hours, straight through the night), arrived five minutes before the start, and then ran the marathon (not superfast—3:15—but decent). These are the sorts of things we do as ultrarunners.

Fathering two kids hasn't slowed me down. Quite the contrary, it's kept me on my toes. Now I really have something to prove: that it's possible to be a loving, caring, and responsible father and a competitive athlete at the same time; that nice guys can finish first.

Sure, there have been sacrifices along the way. Regrettably, I've lost touch with many old friends and acquaintances, never having time to connect any longer. And often I find myself living on four hours of sleep a night for weeks on end, trying to keep the dynamics of family, work, and running in balance. Forgoing sleep is the only way I've figured out how to fit it all in. I'm not willing to compromise my family time, but I'm not willing to let my level of conditioning slip, either. Yes, I confess, there is a certain level of selfishness involved. A lot of what I do is for my own personal fulfillment. Still, I think I'm a better man for it. Over the years, I've only missed one of my son's basketball games on account of my running, and I've made every soccer game—even if sometimes I've run there.

Truth is, I view running as the savior that's brought my family together. Not only has running provided my restless energy with an outlet, it has given us a common goal to rally around. The kids love traveling to events and helping with the preparation and crewing. They've joined in my victories and shared in the disappointment of defeat. They've witnessed firsthand the struggles and sacrifices required to achieve success. “Dreams can come true,” I've told them, “especially if you train hard enough.”