50/50 (27 page)
The Otter Creek Marathon is grueling under the best of circumstances. Another trail marathon, it combined a highly technical route with more than twenty-seven hundred feet of hill climbing. The path was tricky, mostly singletrack, with plenty of roots and trail debris—loose rocks, stumps, broken branches—strewn across it. The flat sections were few, the descents were treacherous, and the climbs were arduous. Worst of all, it had rained the previous night, and a steady drizzle continued to fall throughout our struggle to survive the course. As a result, the large slab rocks that dotted the trail were as slippery as sheets of ice.
Runners began falling before we had even lost sight of the starting line. In the third mile, despite every precaution, I put my foot down in the wrong spot and felt it slide out from underneath my center of gravity. I fell backward, landing hard on my rear end. More than anything, it upset me.
Why were we running these technically challenging and difficult marathons as part of the Endurance 50, let alone back-to-back, not to mention as marathon numbers thirty-nine and forty? Rage bubbled inside me as I resumed running. It seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel, because running fifty marathons in fifty days on smooth roads was punishing enough; unusual, because there were plenty of marathons on smooth roads that I could have run instead of these.
What if I fall and tear a ligament or break a bone?
I kept asking myself. It seemed like a very real possibility, and my mind was reeling at the implications. The Endurance 50 could come to a screeching halt with one misstep.
Stay Positive, Heal Faster
It has always been my nature to deal with setbacks internally and resist urges to complain about my suffering to others. A recent study suggests this habit is healthier than I’d realized. Researchers from the University of Missouri found that injured male soldiers who scored higher on a test designed to assess “traditionally masculine” psychological traits (including unwillingness to complain about internal pain and suffering) tended to heal faster. The authors of the study speculated that men who are more reticent to communicate their suffering to others may also have a stronger belief in their ability to overcome suffering on their own, and that this belief is to some degree self-fulfilling.
The takeaway? Try not to wallow in your misery. Instead, channel the discouragement you may feel into a renewed commitment to overcome your setback. Fight harder and you will heal faster.
My anger got the better of me and I began to run recklessly, flying down steep, muddy descents and hurdling obstacles like a steeplechaser. I was disappointed in myself for not having scrutinized each of the marathon courses more thoroughly to make sure they weren’t this difficult, especially at this late stage in the game. I was upset that we had chosen trail marathons at all. Mostly, though, I was furious that the unexpected difficulty of these last two marathons was causing me to doubt my ability to complete the challenge of running fifty consecutive marathons in fifty different settings. Now I had something to prove!
I ran like there was no tomorrow. A group of exceptionally strong runners separated itself from the primary pack with me, and we pushed one another to the brink. It was crazy to be running at a 4:16 marathon pace in these conditions, yet we proceeded with wild abandon, bounding down steep declines and powering up abrupt hills. Luck was on my side and I made it to the finish line with a few fresh cuts and bruises, though otherwise sound. The Finish Festival looked like a MASH unit. Almost every runner in our forty-five-person field had fallen at least once, and many had fallen multiple times. Blood was visible on the arms and legs of soggy, exhausted men and women all around me.
QUICK TAKE:
QuikClot is a consumer version of a rapid blood-clotting sponge already used by the military and EMTs to help stop bleeding and instantly cauterize your wounds. You can purchase it at many pharmacies.
At the first opportunity, I pulled aside Robin and told her confidentially how unacceptably treacherous the past two marathons had been.
“You’re right,” she said, immediately detecting both my physical condition and my level of mental anguish. “We messed up. I’m going to check out the rest of the marathons left on the schedule to make sure there are no more surprises.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“You look strong, Dean,” Robin added. “You’re going to make it, and we’re going to do everything in our power to help.”
Suddenly my angst was replaced with a deep feeling of gratitude. The weather was still wet and chilly, but thanks to these welcome words of encouragement, my mood was now warm and bright. I would not have been so easily cheered if I had known what was awaiting us the next day.
Day 41
October 27, 2006
Georgia Marathon
Atlanta, Georgia
Elevation: 1,050'
Weather: 59 degrees; rain
Time: 4:08:00
Net calories burned: 130,667
Number of runners: 50
Robin meant what she said when she gave me that pep talk. There was just no way she could have anticipated the disaster that lay in wait for me in Atlanta. The Georgia Marathon racecourse travels through some of the busiest streets in the large city of Atlanta, which is not a problem when those streets are closed to automobile traffic and turned over to the thousands of runners who participate in the live event in late March. Our fifty-person, late-October re-creation was another matter.
There was a logistical debacle right at the start, and our police escort never materialized. A critical miscommunication had occurred, and as a result the roads we traversed would remain open to vehicle traffic; we were forced to fend for ourselves without the protective shield that normally surrounded us. Cars and trucks whizzed by us one after another, their sideview mirrors coming within inches of whacking our elbows as we strained to take up as little space as possible on the narrow shoulders. For the third consecutive day, it was raining, reducing visibility for motorists, many of whom obviously did not see us until their bumpers were almost on top of our heels. Dirty puddles of rainwater obstructed the roadway and shoulders, leaving us no choice but to clomp through them, soaking our shoes, and leaving drivers no option but to blast through them, splashing and soaking our clothes and bodies.
At mile six, we passed a construction site on the right side of the road, materials from which spilled onto the shoulder, squeezing us even further. I caught my toe on a rusty piece of rebar that was extending into the pathway and went flying forward headlong onto the asphalt, landing with a gruesome-sounding thud. It happened so quickly, I had no time to get my hands out in front of me. My right forearm hit first and suffered a nasty gash. My face must have hit next, because my mouth took in a gulp of puddle water that tasted of grit and gasoline. I came to rest on my stomach with my right arm tucked under my body in an unnatural position. Almost immediately I became aware of a disturbing numbness in my right hand. Had I broken my forearm?
Shocked and concerned faces loomed above me.
“Are you okay?” asked one of them.
“Somebody call an ambulance!” shouted another.
Before I knew it, and without any conscious intent, I was back on my feet and struggling to remember how to run: left leg–right arm, right leg–left arm . . .
It was one of those moments when instinct took over and made decisions for me. Actually, it wasn’t instinct, but rather a second nature developed through many years of trying to faithfully practice the advice of my father: “It’s not how many times you fall down that matters; it’s how many times you get back up.” Since he first spoke those words to me, I have tried to accept the inevitability of failure and setbacks in every part of life and to focus on overcoming them when they occur. Yes, you will fall in life; it is inevitable. The strong fall just like everyone else. But the strong always get back up. This particular case of falling down and getting back up was just a little more literal than most.
My first coherent thought was a simple question: How was I going to complete the remainder of this marathon with a bone sticking out of my arm? As I clumsily continued running along under the amazed looks of the other runners, my mind was already going through possible strategies I could use to somehow get to the finish. Stopping was not one of them.
I have taken a lot of tumbles as a runner, though none was nearly as severe as this one. I didn’t want to look down because I knew it was bad, and I was afraid to see just how bad. Somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious mind, the thought that I risked jeopardizing a dream five years in the making must have been percolating, and more than anything else this thought compelled me to keep numbly placing one foot in front of the other. And that’s what I did.
Blocking out the pain and doubt, narrowing my focus to the next step, I dragged myself through the remaining distance to complete the Georgia Marathon. A team of paramedics met me at the finish line and essentially glued my forearm back together after I refused to be taken to the hospital for stitches. I wasn’t trying to be cavalier. It was a purely tactical decision. If I went to the hospital, how long might it take to be treated and released? We might not make it to Florida in time for marathon number forty-two. And if I missed marathon number forty-two, the Endurance 50 was over. I had fought too hard to get back up to now lie down and surrender voluntarily. No bones had been broken during the fall, nor had my fighting spirit been fractured.
Bring it on
, I thought, as we began the long drive south:
Bring . . . It . . . On!
Second Wind
Day 42
October 28, 2006
Florida Gulf Beaches Holiday Marathon
Madeira Beach, Florida
Elevation: 10'
Weather: 76 degrees; breezy
Time: 4:09:41
Net calories burned: 133, 854
Number of runners: 50
E
very runner has experienced
or at least heard about the phenomenon of the second wind. You’re running along, when you begin to feel the first signs of fatigue: heaviness in your legs, an increase in your breathing, and usually a general loss of energy throughout your body. You keep running and the feelings intensify, which is a problem, because you still have a long way to go. Hoping for the best, you push onward.
Then, just when it begins to seem that you’ll never be able to reach the finish line, you experience a sudden infusion of energy that propels you forward with renewed vigor. It’s as though you’ve been given a new set of legs, and you bound onward with confidence that you will finish strong. Chest heaving, muscles aching, drenched in sweat, you do.
Sometimes a second wind has an obvious cause, such as a muscle cramp that dissipates slightly, a few big swallows of a sports drink, or passing by a group of spectators who shout the right words of encouragement. Other times its source is mysterious. One minute, you’re sure you are about to fall on your face—the next you’re running as well as you were in the first mile. Yet nothing in particular seemed to happen to cause this change.
Until recently, exercise scientists had no explanation for the second-wind phenomenon. In fact, many exercise scientists denied that the phenomenon even existed. Obviously, these researchers were not runners, because sooner or later every runner experiences an undeniably real recovery from fatigue in the middle of a run. Studies involving repeated maximum- intensity sprints, usually done on a stationary bike, have confirmed the phenomenon of a second wind. In one such study, performed by researchers at Charles Sturt University in Australia, subjects performed best in the initial sprints and a little worse in each subsequent one, but then summoned a little something held in reserve and performed better in the last sprint—a classic second wind.
It’s now generally believed that you don’t slow down because your muscles have hit a hard limit, such as running out of fuel. Instead, you slow down because your subconscious brain decides that you really
should
slow down—perhaps because it’s worried that your muscles will
soon
run out of fuel. But if your brain receives new information that allays these fears, it can instantly reverse its decision and allow you to run harder again—in other words, it can choose to give you a second wind. What sort of information might have this effect? Seeing the finish line ahead of you is one good example. Discovering that, despite everything, you’re still on pace to meet your time goal is another.
Most often, a second wind is what happens when, in the middle of a run, your brain changes its assessment of how fast you can safely run between where you are now and the finish line. Many different factors can cause this type of reassessment, but perhaps the most common one is simply hanging in there until you’re a little closer to the end. The more experience you gain as a runner, the more accurately your subconscious brain will be able to calculate your body’s actual limit, and the more reliable your feelings will become as guides for your effort. For example, the first time you run a marathon, the level of suffering you reach at mile twenty might cause you to panic and think,
I’ll never make it!
And yet, you somehow do make it, perhaps even to your own astonishment when you reflect back on the exhaustion and self-doubt you felt at mile twenty. The next time you run a marathon and reach that same level of fatigue, you don’t panic, because you know you can get through it, as you have before.
Running to the Beat
Many runners like to listen to music through an iPod or other such device while they run. They feel that the right kind of music gives them a sort of continuous “second wind,” an extra boost that enables them to run harder or longer. There may be some truth to this perception. For example, research by psychologist Peter Terry at the University of Queensland, Australia, has shown that exercise performance is enhanced by music with a faster beat. In fact, back in 1998, the great Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie set a world indoor record for the 2,000 meters by synchronizing his stride to the beat of a song called “Scatman.”