50/50 (4 page)

Number of runners: 17

I
deally, on the day before you run a marathon
, you do a short jog in the morning to release some pent-up energy, relax the rest of the day, eat a healthy dinner, and turn in early. On the day before I ran the re-created version of the St. Jude Memphis Marathon on Day 2 of The North Face Endurance 50, I had a predawn blood draw, ran a marathon in the morning, signed autographs for two hours, rode three hundred miles on a bus, and checked into a hotel at 1:00
AM
.

Shortly after sunrise, I joined the crew back on the bus. English then drove us downtown in search of the official starting line near the corner of Fourth and Beale streets. After a while, I realized we were repeatedly circling the Memphis business district.

“There’s nowhere to park.” English said calmly, almost cheerfully.

The St. Jude Memphis Marathon is normally run on the first Sunday in December. Today was September 18. A Monday morning. Rush hour.

Dean’s Routine

Each day of the Endurance 50 was scheduled to follow roughly the same time line:

Repeat 50 days.

At last we ditched the bus in a place of dubious legality and dashed blindly to the starting area across an intersection with no crosswalk. Awaiting our arrival were the seventeen runners who had signed up to run with me, race director Wain Rubenstein, and a large contingent of Memphis police officers who had just witnessed our death-defying group jaywalk (or “jayrun,” as it were).

I shook Wain’s hand and expressed my sincere gratitude for all the hard work he had done to make this event possible. Thanks to Wain, my new running friends and I would complete a formally sanctioned marathon this morning, with a certified course and an official race clock.

Staging marathons is a tough job. It demands long hours and with few exceptions is not especially high paying. Race directors take pride in giving most runners a great experience, and they grieve over the complaints they receive from a small number of participants who missed a turn or couldn’t find their favorite sports drink flavor at an aid station. Race directors, their staffs, and their race-day volunteers are the unsung heroes of our sport.

Sign Me Up

The number of runners in each Endurance 50 event varied considerably, from just one (the re-created Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon in South Dakota on Day 10) to forty-two-thousand (the live Chicago Marathon on Day 36). The eight live events were the largest, of course, because they had all of the infrastructure in place and permits lined up for mass participation. Most of the forty-two re-created marathons were capped at fifty participants, because that’s the largest number we were able to obtain permits for. When support from local event organizers and officials allowed it, we were sometimes able to accommodate more runners. Other times, local authorities required us to cap the field at fewer than fifty runners.

Few of the early Endurance 50 marathons sold out. Interest steadily grew, though, and after a couple of weeks most events filled to capacity, with long waiting lists forming for some. None of us could believe it. In fact, many of the later marathons saw their share of “bandits”—non-official participants who missed the cutoff but wanted to run anyway. I had no problem with that during the re-created marathons. Many of these folks made generous donations to our charity to cover their participation.

After introductions were made, we turned our attention to the commanding officer, who gave us the game plan. His team would not close the roads entirely for 26.2 miles, as they do during the live marathon, he explained. Instead, they would create a sort of roaming road closure, using motorcycles to contain us runners in a manageable pod and sending patrol cars ahead to stop traffic as we ran through intersections.

“Can we order food?” one of the runners joked.

“Only if it’s doughnuts,” an officer shot back, drawing laughter.

I’d been on group runs before and was aware of at least some of the challenges this format would present. First of all, not everyone runs at the same pace—especially over such a great distance. How would the group hold together? Beyond differences in people’s running pace, shoelaces come undone and need retying. Overheating occurs, and layers of clothing must be shed. Chafing arises and demands prompt attention. Also, what happens when nature calls? How welcome would the watchful eye of a police escort be then? There were bound to be more bumps in the road along the way. I just hoped these would be molehills and not mountains.

As they would at many of the daily marathons throughout the Endurance 50, Alexandria and Nicholas started us off by shouting, “On your marks . . . Get set . . . Go!” While we runners spent the next four hours sweating, the kids passed the morning by participating in homeschooling (or was it roadschooling?) under the tutelage of their grandmother, now retired from classroom teaching. They would break for lunch in time to hold up the finish line tape, hang out with us at the Finish Festival, and then usually do some sightseeing with my mom and dad while we packed and got ready to drive to the next state. All in all, not a bad routine.

Scarcely fifteen minutes after the first strides were taken of our inaugural re-created marathon, sure enough, it started raining heavily. Some of the runners had tied rain gear around their waists in anticipation of the inclement weather, but most had stashed their extra clothing in the SAG wagon that was trailing us.
SAG
stands for Support and Gear, although neither of these things was being provided at the moment, because the Toyota SUV that was serving this role was stuck in traffic well behind us. The rain had snarled intersections, and it was all the patrol officers could do to keep the runners moving along. The SAG wagon was caught at a red light. Fortunately, its crew had a GPS system on board called “Never Lost.” Unfortunately, it didn’t work. After the device sent its occupants the wrong way several times, we started calling it “Never Found.”

When It Rains

Some runners don’t like running in the rain. Others do. Including me. Running in the rain will do you no harm as long as you avoid totally saturated feet. Once your socks become soaked, your chances of getting a blister increase. Gore-Tex shoes can help keep your feet dry, up to a point. But when it’s really coming down, be mindful of potential blistering, and stop, if possible, as soon as you feel a hot spot emerge. When running in the rain, you’ll find it most comfortable to use breathable rain gear, such as the North Face Diad jacket, designed especially for this use. It will keep the water out without trapping your excess body heat against your skin.

By the time the SAG wagon caught up, the damage had already been done. Most of us were soaked to the bone. Putting on rain gear at this point was useless, so no one even bothered.

Manning the vehicle were Garrett Greene, from the Squires Sports Group, and Koop, whose role in this operation seemed to be expanding by the minute—and thankfully so, because as a runner himself Koop understood exactly what I needed and when I needed it.

Garrett, on the other hand, was not a runner. He looked more like a lumberjack. A stocky and muscular figure with a laid-back demeanor and a Louisiana drawl, he was officially serving the Endurance 50 in the role of course manager, though currently he seemed more like a mobile vending machine, dispensing dozens of energy bars, bottles of fluid, and energy gels from the window of the SAG wagon as we traveled the next two blocks. As quickly as these goodies were handed out, they were snatched up by the runners and consumed. Empty packaging was then returned to the vehicle.

Back in the real world, Koop and Garrett held jobs that looked nothing like this one, yet here they were busting their tails as high-speed food and beverage servers without a hint of complaint. I felt my heart swell with gratitude for the second time this morning.
Where would we be without guys like these?
I thought.

The rain eventually lightened, the streets began drying out, the sun poked through the clouds, and the runners started sharing their stories. What I heard blew my mind.

“Where are you from?” I asked a tall guy in his early thirties who reminded me of the actor Zach Braff.

“Mexico,” he said. He didn’t look Mexican. Or sound Mexican.

“How long have you been in the United States?”

“No, I live in Mexico,” he clarified.

“Oh. So what are you doing here?”

“Running a marathon with you.”

His name was Brad, and he was indeed an American expatriate, originally from Nebraska. He explained that he had flown in from Mexico City for the express purpose of taking part in this event. He had arrived last night and would leave tonight. Over the next few miles, I learned that Brad had started running only within the past year, after he quit drinking. This was his first marathon. His dream was to create a foundation to help others use running as a tool to overcome addictions.

“That’s a great idea,” I said, and I meant it. There’s no cure for an addictive personality. If you’re going to express a compulsive tendency, it might as well be through running. As Lily Tomlin once joked, “Exercise is for people who can’t handle drugs and alcohol.”

The next runner I spoke with was Wally, an elementary school education director from North Carolina.

“Today’s my twentieth wedding anniversary,” he said.

“Congratulations! How are you going to celebrate?” I asked.

“I’m celebrating right now.”

I laughed, thinking he was making a joke about his current state of suffering.

“I’m not kidding,” Walter said. “My wife surprised me by signing me up and buying two round-trip tickets from Charlotte to Memphis.”

I was speechless.

Another runner had taken a day off from work and driven all night to be here. Later, a big fellow named Paul, from Arkansas, told me he was planning to run three of the fifty marathons with me.

“You’ll see me again in Oklahoma and Kentucky,” he said.

“Wow! How long have you been planning for this?” I asked.

“Actually, I just decided to do the other two marathons now.”

My jaw dropped.

Our tidy little pod began to disintegrate at mile twelve, as a couple of the first-timers found themselves struggling to hold our pace of roughly nine minutes per mile. This wound up happening at most of the subsequent events, and in the majority of cases it didn’t cause major problems; Koop and Garrett did a terrific job shooting back and forth among the various splinter groups to provide needed aid.

The sun now had an unobstructed view of our progress, and the air was warming. Worse, my wet socks had softened the skin of my feet. As we shuffled past Sun Studio, where Elvis made his first recordings, I could feel a blister developing along the arch of my right foot, and I mentioned it to Koop.

“Do you want to tape it?” he asked.

“Nah. Let’s just wait till we reach the finish.”

Bad call. We got separated from the SAG wagon again, and that little hot spot on my foot developed into a nice baby volcano. By the time the finish line came into view, it was ready to erupt.

Aid Station Etiquette

Without the support provided by the volunteers who manage fluid stations and perform other essential duties, running events wouldn’t happen. Make their jobs easier and more enjoyable by observing these points of etiquette:

• Call out what you’re looking for as you approach the aid station. For example, “Water!” or “Sports drink!”

• Make eye contact with your chosen volunteer and extend your arm toward the cup being offered several paces before you reach him or her.

• Thank the volunteer who hands you your drink.

• Try not to stop or slow down in the flow of runners. Instead, pull off to the side to drink, if necessary.

• To avoid potentially spraying other runners, don’t throw your cup across the way, but drop it straight down, preferably in one of the trash cans provided along the course.

I quickly forgot about my foot, however, when I saw Alexandria and Nicholas stretching the finishing tape across the road. A couple of dozen spectators lined the streets, shouting encouragement as we made our way down the final stretch.

We runners spontaneously joined hands and lifted our arms in the air as we took our last few strides together. Cameras flashed, hands clapped, bells clanged, and police sirens wailed. My kids greeted me with big hugs.

Now the second marathon began. Hopps ushered me over to the media area (or “mosh pit,” as I began calling it). The television networks were given precedence. CBS was first. Then Fox. Then came a barrage of reporters from newspapers, radio stations, and magazines. After doing my best to remain coherent throughout the interviews, I staggered over to the huddle of tired runners who had been waiting patiently for me at the Finish Festival.

The Rub

A lot of people thought I would be getting lengthy rubdowns and massages during the Endurance 50. I should have been so lucky. The reality is that there just wasn’t any idle time for such niceties. Upon completing a marathon, many of the runners wanted to have me sign their finisher’s certificate or book, and perhaps snap a photo or two. Most were tired and sweaty, and wanted to get to a shower. I didn’t think it would be fair to make them stand around for an hour waiting while I got a rubdown.