Just Because It Burns Doesn't Mean It'll Keep You Warm (Mendon Trail Run - 50k)

I have been training for today for the last four months, but the reality of it goes way beyond that.

When I came back to running a little over 2 years ago, I swore that I would never run more than 3 miles at a time. I had enjoyed racing XC in high school, but I never trained well and the inevitable post-race nausea resulted in an aversion that took 20 years to cure. But with careful training came a string of successes, and the distance I was willing to run gradually ballooned to the point of 'ultramarathon'. This is how I found myself in Pittsford, NY this morning, toeing the starting line at the Mendon Ponds Trail Run 50k. In the end, I finished in 4:47:40 and in 9th place... not bad for my first time out. It was a grueling run, but despite that I got a lot more out of it that than a cup of soup and a finisher's medal (both of which I was very happy to receive).

The day dawned cold and rainy, and we shivered as the RD gave his instructions and sent us off. As planned, I began at around 8 minute pace, a good bit off the lead group but well within myself. The course is a 10k loop that rolls constantly and for the first three laps everything was great. I was putting in an honest effort without redlining and grinding slowly up the few short, steep hills in low gear, a skill that I've had difficulty with in the past. I was waving to volunteers and enjoying a day out in the woods. The Mendon course is mostly made up of a trail that winds its way over eskers, geological formations that are like little ridges and being among them is both beautiful and isolating. During the fourth lap, my muscles started to tighten up and I got some salt into me, just in case, but I don't really think that was the issue and by then I'm not sure that there was anything I could have done.

Not far into the fifth and final lap, muscle and joint pain slowed me to a walk. I would try to get going again, only to be reduced to walking a few hundred meters later, legs screaming. My mood was black. I got passed. And so I called upon what's always gotten me through:

I have to confess that I've often fueled my running by burning off pain and frustration from my life. Sometimes it feels like the running is what makes everything else possible, the locomotive carried along by the power of the fire within. I've met lots of people who do the same or similar. And while there's nothing wrong with or quite like an honest 5 miler to clean the slate, the mistake I made was thinking, "I have known such darkness and always found the dawn on the other side - this is what I will use to get me through a difficult race." Dragging myself around the course I called upon it... and it only took me further down. I could see what was happening, but couldn't find the way out. I had to be led.

***

He came up slowly on a slight incline and I looked over and gave the standard trail runner greeting, "Good job." He half smiled and shook his head as he passed, wincing with each step. He was clearly hurting, but he just kept going, growing the gap between us... until I realized he wasn't getting any further away. I had unconsciously begun mimicking him. When he walked, I walked, and when he broke into a shambling run, I did the same. His bright yellow rain shell bobbed up ahead, always about fifty feet away. I began to realize that although it was painful to run, there wasn't anything specifically wrong with me. Once the pain had reached a certain point it didn't get any worse. And while turning this over in my mind I realized something else.

I was gaining on him.

When I finally caught up to him we talked a little. This race had been his first 50k, and since then he'd done it seven times consecutively. I mentioned that the first three laps had been easy, and he grunted in agreement,

"Yeah, I always tell newbies to take it real easy the first two or three laps or by the last one they'll be sucking, and look at me now. I'm sucking. But at least we can run."

I pointed out that the worst of the climbs were behind us and he laughed,

"Smooth sailing from here on."

Then we reached the aid station midway through the loop where he stopped and I went on. He didn't look back and by then I was afraid to lose the momentum. Because while we were talking I had begun to move pretty well again, like I had been caught in his orbit and then flung off in another direction. Or more likely, that I had been given something I could really use to help me along: a little human connection and the bond of shared adversity. I ran the rest of the loop, clocked a few better mile splits and finished with a smile on my face, despite coming in half an hour past my goal.

It took a while to struggle into some dry clothes and banish the bone-deep chill that had settled in during that last lap and I didn't see my new friend again, but I hope I'll get the chance to thank him someday.

[OK, spoiler. It's a little more poetic to say that, but these days it isn't difficult to look somebody up, and say, point them to the story you wrote about them. So thanks a million, Ted, for getting me out of a really tough spot. Maybe one day I'll be able to repay you.]

That afternoon brought the first snow of the season and with it thoughts about the upcoming Beast of Burden. How much easier would it be to run on a dead flat course even if I had to stuff myself into a parka to do it? But that was secondary to this:

Maybe we don't need to burn the darkness. Maybe it just dissipates along the way. And if I can get this locomotive cranking with crap fuel, just think of what'll happen when I stoke the fire something good.

Introduction: A step or a precipice?

I'm Tim. Hi.

I came back to running a few years ago and kind of surprised myself. What happened in the past- that's a story for another time, but when I came back I found that I actually was having fun this time around, and maybe because of that it was pretty good for my head, too.

I kind of eased into the act of training, but I devoured books, articles and movies on it, anything I could get my hands on; and I developed these strategies about how to approach it. I coached myself. I wanted to control everything, to do it perfectly. And it actually went pretty well. It's easy to keep improving your PRs at first as you start to get fit, but I continued to improve in a pretty linear fashion. I started to run longer races. I didn't get hurt. I tried a couple of cross country races that made me nostalgic for high school XC, and so I signed up for this trail race...


It was 9 miles long and I was completely unprepared for it. I mean, I knew the course profile and I had the fitness, but I was unprepared for how I would feel about it. My friend Steve, an avid trail runner, has described running technical trails as a 'different kind of athleticism' that's somewhat removed from road and track running, and when I was out on the singletrack I knew immediately what he meant. If you want to run on the trail, particularly at speed, evaluating each footfall needs to be involuntary, and doing it came so naturally... like an instinct that had been waiting to be expressed. It was visceral. It was fun. And then in the last mile, the course began to zigzag downward through a dangerously steep rock garden section - and then it became revelatory. Not only could I put concern for myself aside and scream down those harrowing switchbacks, I delighted in it. I jumped around other runners, picking new lines off of the trail, legs and arms wheeling.

But I didn't fall. I've fallen since then, but in those first moments everything was perfect. I was letting go completely and there was a sense of rightness about it. We are all gifted with things we are perfectly suited for in this life, but it's not often so clear to us. I didn't have to muster up the courage to bomb down that hill. I just acted. But the memory of that experience has helped me when the way in my life is not so clear, not so dependent on physical intuition and muscle memory. That experience changed me. It changed how I relate to the world and to the constant challenges it throws at us, and it changed how I think about running.

When I first started up again at 37, I set this arbitrary goal for myself: I wanted to qualify for and run the Boston marathon before I turned 40. The spring after that first trail race I ran my first marathon in just over 3:05 and realized at least the first part of that goal with a small smile. It was hard, but no clouds parted and there was no great emotional moment. I don't mean to diminish it or anyone else's journey, but it's not the same as that unplanned revelation in the woods. In some ways it feels like I was born out there.

This weekend I will run my first trail 50k. Training for it has gone the way most of my training does: cautiously, methodically, and more or less perfectly. I've had some great results in shorter distance trail races along the way (including a repeat experience at the 9 mile race (a top-notch and flawlessly run race called EVL9 in Ellicottville, NY, if you must know) despite running it while sick). But I can't help but wonder what's in store for me out there in Mendon, running hard for much longer than I've ever done before. Will it simply be something to tick off the list like the marathon, after which I regroup and plan for whatever adventure comes next? I hope not.