I was scared.
Since my first 50-miler in 2007, I've never been scared to start an ultramarathon. But on MMT 100 eve, as I writhed uncomfortably in the slightly-too-warm back seat of my Honda Civic (now seeming much worse as "Plan B" in action than it did in my mind, when I thought that I wouldn't have to use it), I wasn't having trouble sleeping from the typical pre-race nerves, or excitement, or even bug bites. I was just plain scared.
Since Badwater last July, my races have turned out mediocre for the most part, and the one ultra that I did attempt (Speedgoat 50K aside), ended in a disaster, the way only a race like Hellgate can. So, just hours away from lining up for a 100+ mile quad-thrashing rock-stomp, I felt nothing but fear.
I was certainly in much better health than last year. Debatably, I was in similar or better shape. But not having successfully attempted this sort of distance in far too long, I had no idea how my body was going to respond. I tried to suppress visions of collapse in the woods, feeling totally broken, but I knew they were there. I didn't even want to think about what this might mean for Badwater in July.
But in other news, most other things were under control. New headlamps and new handbottles (to replace the lost and stolen ones), drop bags set, warm clothes pre-positioned at the finish line, the dozens and dozens of actual important things to do outside of this silly race at least temporarily taken care of . . . on a very practical level, there wasn't really anything to worry about. At 3 am, I made deliberate, yet efficient work of my pre-race preparations, and then it was off to the starting line with 10 minutes to spare, to mingle with 200-ish other runners and try to feel like I belonged there.
The semi-circle at the starting line, the same as in 2010, was there with about 2 minutes to go until race start. Although there were quite a few legitimate contenders (probably even more than last year), nobody wanted to take the lead. This time, I didn't either.
At exactly 0400, off we went, and I settled in with what ended up being the lead pack as we held a comfortable pace over the first few road miles. We turned off onto our first trail, I switched my headlamp to high, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I wasn't losing ground. I was also an indeterminate kind of surprised that while I was running near Jason Lantz, he brought up my New Jersey Marathon blog entry, and asked me if I was going to try to qualify for Boston 2014 again (most likely, yes). Sometimes I forget that some people read this thing.
Before I could really think too hard about anything that was happening, it was daylight, and I was motoring along a technical downhill trail section to Edinburg Gap with the rest of the lead pack. As we came through the aid station, I looked at my watch - right at 2 hours. Having studied splits from previous years, this was about on pace to go sub-20 hours, which, in my fear-filled mind, was too fast.
I backed off a bit in the next section, not as much because I had to, but because I wanted to, and a few more people passed me. I was still making decent progress, picking through rocks and enjoying the scenery that I could within the motion blur, but I was also gradually starting to feel worse. By the time I hit Elizabeth Furnace, the 33-ish mile mark, at just over 6 hours, I felt as though the wheels might already be coming off. My stomach wasn't feeling right, my legs were feeling weak, and if somebody had told me that I could stop at that moment, I would have done it without hesitation, curled up in a ball, and fallen asleep right there, on top of rocks, dirt, bugs, whatever.
People at the Elizabeth Furnace aid station were saying that I looked okay. I felt awful. As I forced myself into a very uncomfortable jog out of the aid station, distinct thoughts of "this is a cruel, sick endeavor" and "why on earth would anybody subject themselves to this?" were first and foremost in my mind. I tried to convince myself intellectually, rationally, that I could do this, but my body was protesting loudly about going beyond the marathon distance. I tried to figure out why on earth I felt this way. Had I accidentally ingested some sunscreen? Maybe something bad in last night's dinner? Lack of sleep? I had no answers, other than to keep moving forward.
I reached Veach Gap, not-so-fresh off of a gravel road slog that I desparately wanted to walk, but compelled myself to mostly run, to find Jon Loewus-Deitch working the aid station. He came towards me to give me a hug, and then, barely touching me, recoiled with an unabashed "ew, you're gross" . . . which, that far into the race, was probably pretty true. Still, the whole incident amused me enough that I was at least a little bit distracted on the ensuing climb out of the aid station. That didn't last for the entire climb, though, so the best I could do was hope that the drop down the back side of the mountain to the Indian Grave aid station would be a welcome break. And it was, if you count stubbing your toes on multiple rocks and struggling not to fall on your face a "break" from a never-ending uphill grind.
And there I was, just past Indian Grave, on an almost 4-mile road section, feeling more and more broken by the minute. The race director passed me in a truck, heading towards me. I tried to smile and wave, but my walking a flat road section betrayed the very strong instinct to beg for a ride back to camp in the truck. Matt Bugin passed me on the road section, and, in reference to the Hammer Nutrition shirt that I was wearing, quipped "C'mon! It's Hammer Time!" It was at that point in the race that I couldn't understand how anybody could do this sort of thing, let alone be so cheerful doing it. I let Matt pass, and when he said "I'll see you again later," I responded with a very definitive "maybe."
Sometimes, knowing the course is a bad thing. When the road finally ended, at Habron Gap, I knew what was next - a 10-mile stretch between there and Camp Roosevelt, the easiest drop-out point, containing dozens of nasty rock-ridden surprises. On the one hand, I wanted to drop at Habron Gap. I wanted to drop at the previous three aid stations. On the other hand, dropping at Habron Gap meant a much longer drive-of-shame back than dropping at Camp Roosevelt. The 10 miles ahead were somehow the lesser of the evils.
As I trudged up the mountain, it took every bit of willpower to make forward progress. Near the top, the only thing that worked was to focus on a patch of ground two feet in front of me, and tell myself to put my foot there, again, and again, and again. When I reached the top, exhausted, I sat down on a rock for about two minutes to collect myself. Nobody else was around. I closed my eyes and I felt my entire body tingle and buzz. I was close to blackout. I was close to failure.
But, sticking to my easy drop-out plan, I couldn't stop there, so I stood up, and somehow felt a little better, so I kept moving towards Camp Roosevelt. Somewhere on the interminable yellow trail to the Camp Roosevelt aid station, Keith Knipling, who has finished this race something like 13 times, passed me and asked how I was. I told him bad, and that I was feeling slow. He said "well, just keep moving forward," and he kept moving forward. It was at this point that somehow, the apparent pointlessness of this endeavor had lifted. Keith had done this many times before. He had most likely had bad days here. I had a bad day here in 2010. Somehow, I was going to find a way to do better, if for no other reason than for the sake of doing better. That was the logic, and that was the plan. I started to run again. Before long, I had caught Keith, passed him, and reached the aid station.
When I arrived at Camp Roosevelt, at around quarter after 5, I found myself, time-wise, in nearly the same situation as I had been in last year. And last year, I had run under 24 hours. Last year, I had come through feeling much more under control, but I wasn't totally out of this year's race yet. Mark Rodriguez said that he thought I normally came through there around 2 pm. Z said that I looked a lot better at this point in the race than I did back in 2010. It's all relative, I suppose. Being on the edge of a total breakdown, the best commentary I could manage on my condition was "hangin' in there," which became my go-to line for the rest of the race whenever anybody asked me how I was doing. And before too much navel-gazing could take place (or before Keith could beat me out of the aid station, for that matter), I was off and running again.
At this point, the race blurs quite a bit. My focus shifted from the impossible to the plausible. I had somehow come in under 24 hours last year, with a similar start time-wise, so it had to be plausible to do it again. I distinctly recalled sections of the race where I had walked when I could have run instead, and about how much time I estimated I would have saved by running. I reasoned that there was margin under the 24-hour line if I just stuck with it. And I really wanted to be under that line, because I didn't want to be out there any longer than I had to.
I kept moving forward, and I kept focused. I was going to have to keep trying things with pace and nutrition until something stuck and I didn't feel so terrible. I tried to enjoy the pleasant things - the breeze on Kerns Mountain was refreshing, and I kept both of my contact lenses this time around. At the Visitor Center aid station, Jackie Palmer and her friend found me some Listerine strips, so that I didn't have to taste stale Gatorade (at least for ten or fifteen minutes). The momentum kept building. And I kept passing people. By the time I reached the Picnic Area, Mile 90-ish, I was in the aid station with two people who were ahead of me still there. The thought of getting out before they did, and gaining ground, was too exciting to prevent me from rapidly downing two cups of water, a banana chunk, and a cup of Coke, then nearly throwing it up a quarter-mile later. (I dry-heaved three times, then rode the adrenaline surge all the way down the trail to the road crossing.)
After one more mountain crossing, as I hauled down the road to Gap Creek, just over six miles to go, somehow running comfortably, it occurred to me that this was pretty much the definition of "hanging in there," which is a thing that my Dad says a lot when somebody asks him how he's doing. I used to look at it as a way of deferring a "real" answer to the question. At that point, I had a profound realization that a lot of the time, it probably was the "real" answer to the question. "Hanging in there" is definitely a state of being, where clear "good" and "bad" don't exist, but you keep going anyway. In this case, all the way to Gap Creek, where I did actually see Matt Bugin again . . . sitting by the fire. Maybe he had gotten there ahead of me and was resting briefly, maybe he had dropped hours ago. I didn't know which. I didn't want to find out right now. I wanted to finish the race.
And, with a huge surge of energy, I attacked the last section. Up Jawbone Gap one more time, much more briskly than the first go-around, even though it wasn't very much cooler at almost 2 am, down the rocky backside, and on to the gravel road to the finish.
I hit the gravel road running strong. The night was dead-silent, save for the crunch of gravel under my feet. The only light was my headlamp. Nobody was nearby. As I scanned the horizon, looking for the next reflective confidence marker, my footsteps quickened. Impossibly, after hours of pointless suffering, I had found a way. It took only 99+ miles of forward progress on foot to re-discover the pure physical pleasure that running can be when it's done just right. And, for the first time ever in the last few miles of an ultra, I didn't really want the race to end. I felt as though I could have kept on running down that dark road for hours.
So I had to make do with finishing strong, in 22 hours, 54 minutes, and 48 seconds, nearly 40 minutes faster than last year's time, 7th place overall, with Mark Rodriguez and Chris Avedissian, who's been a fantastic crew person since Old Dominion 2008, waiting for me at the finish line. Since I was in the "solo" divison, they couldn't help me during the race, but they were immense help afterwards, even though I didn't collapse into a ball on the ground or throw up in a trash can, as is customarily the case. I tried to sleep, but all of the energy that I had suddenly found at the end of the race refused to be pent-up, so I hung out with Mark and Chris until they had to sleep, then hung around the finish line and watched more people come in - in particular, Sniper, for his 10th finish, and Shannon MacGregor, sticking out a tough race to come in under the 36-hour cutoff.
And that, I'd say, is the day that I learned the true meaning of "hanging in there." Thanks, Dad, for that one. Considering how poorly the Club Challenge 10-Miler went at the end of February, it's hard to believe that in the relatively short interim, I've been able to turn things around so much. I'm starting to feel excited about Badwater (cautiously excited, of course). The plan, as it were, seems to be working. That's the power of "hanging in there."
And finally, related to Badwater, just a reminder that you can make donations to G-PACT, my Badwater charity, here: http://www.firstgiving.com/G-PACT/david-ploskonka-badwater . . . it'd make my pointless suffering just a little bit more meaningful, and I'm sure that my little sister, who suffers from gastroparesis, would appreciate it, too!
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