Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness (17 page)

The most important metric to me was how I finished in the Western States 100. I’m not superstitious, but I do believe in developing good habits and the power of repetition. So every year in late June, a week and a half before the race, I would pack my sleeping bag, my race kit, and my canine training partner, Tonto, into my faded, off-white VW Westfalia.

I would also stuff the van with jars of bulgur wheat, cans of lentils and beans, containers bulging with homemade pressed almond butter, tofu cheese spread and carob tofu pudding, and my Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted-grain bread, so named because this Bible verse talks about bread made from a combination of six grains and beans.

Packed, with my buddy Tonto sitting in the passenger seat, I’d drive south to the Sacramento airport, to pick up that scourge of cops and friend to young women worldwide. Ian was a terrific pacer and my friend, and he had helped me win my first bronze cougar, but Dusty was . . . Dusty. Since that first Western States victory in 1999, whether Dusty was working construction in Oregon, waxing skis in Colorado, or tossing pizzas in Duluth, he was the guy I wanted next to me on that last 38-mile stretch of the revered Western States Trail.

He has paced me at the Vermont 100 and the Leadville 100 in 2004 and at countless other races through the years. I’ve paid his travel expenses, but he’s paid for just about everything else, not to mention the time he had to train and the time he took away from his life. He owns a house in Duluth, and as much as he likes everyone to believe otherwise, he has commitments. To his mortgage. To various bosses. To girlfriends.

I always knew Dusty had more natural talent than I did. I suspect he thought so too. Whether I worked harder or wanted to win more or whether Dusty just wasn’t interested in the life of a top ultrarunner, I didn’t know. And we never talked about it until much later. I don’t know if I could have had as much fun or accomplished what I did without Dusty. Luckily, back then I didn’t have to find out.

Other runners paid for hotel rooms in Squaw Valley. Dusty and I camped out high in the conifer-forested foothills 50 miles outside the finish line in Auburn. We pitched my tent in my favorite spot, a rocky overlook surrounded by rodents and lizards, deer and bear (and cougars, whose tracks we would occasionally stumble over). For water we drank from my favorite well at nearby Robinson Flat. Other runners jogged in the relatively cool morning hours. We lazed around camp until the afternoon, when the California sun was beating hardest. That’s when Dusty, Tonto, and I made our way to “the Canyons” and ran with the rattlesnakes.

A lot of people gave me grief for the food I ate, and none more so than Dusty. I would make a huge kale salad and tempeh tacos and fresh guacamole and salsa and warm, fresh corn tortillas. I’d heat it all up on the gas stove in my VW bus, and Dusty would say, “Oh, gerbil food again? We’re going to run out of toilet paper, with all that roughage!” His postmeal critique: “Better than a kick in the balls, dude.”

The truth is, Dusty is a closet vegetarian. He eats healthier than just about anyone I know, but he likes to pretend he doesn’t, and he used to call himself a certified Dumpster diver. My other friends and family from Minnesota are another matter. When I would return home for holidays and big meals and someone asked why I’m not having the ham, I would just say I already had some or I’m full. I don’t like making anyone feel uncomfortable.

We didn’t bring computers or cell phones. I read a lot—Eckhart Tolle’s
The
Power of Now
and Dan Millman’s
Way of the Peaceful Warrior
and
Bone Games
by Rob Schultheis. Dusty spent his time making fun of me and scouring the surrounding area for women. One year we were approached by a couple of girls who turned out to be Mormon. One of them asked Dusty if he believed in anything, and he said, “Oh, yeah, most certainly. I believe in the almighty butt.”

On another trip, we stopped near the Sacramento airport to buy a blow-up sex doll, which we mailed to an older accomplished ultrarunner buddy named David Horton—a devout, supercompetitive guy—who was chasing the speed record on the Pacific Crest Trail. We sent it to a P.O. box in Sierra City, California, where we knew he’d be picking up supplies. “We heard you might be lonely,” we wrote.

In Seattle, I continued to run with abandon, but I measured the results. The more I measured and adjusted, the more I trusted my instincts. Running as we were born to run is great, and I believe in it. But we live in the twenty-first century, and we have tools our ancestors never did. I wouldn’t ignore those tools any more than I would ignore my impulse to get outside on a sunny morning and just run for the sheer joy of it. What I learned during those years in Seattle was that I could run—and eat—with wild, primitive abandon, the way our ancestors had, and that by checking the results of my natural impulses, I could hone those impulses even more. By combining instinct and technique, I searched for that small zone where I could push myself as hard as possible without injury and the unraveling of the body’s systems. Accessing and staying in that small zone is the key to success.

In my second Western States, in 2000, I thought I had identified the edge between pushing my body to the limit and going over it. I thought I knew exactly how hard to push, exactly when and how to refuel, and what moments I could, as my once and future pacer Dusty said, “fuck technique.” But I learned what every marathoner learns: When you’re searching for the edge separating your best and breakdown, it’s easy to step over.

In 2000 it happened to me on the same 16-mile stretch of trail where I had gotten so sick the previous year. This time I had monitored my water intake more closely, had eaten a few potatoes and half of a banana and a Clif Shot. But at mile 70, halfway down the American River canyon, I started puking again. This time, my stomach was pumping so violently that I fell to my knees. (While certainly a sign of distress, vomiting in an ultramarathon is not entirely novel, either. A friend of mine and a top runner himself, Dave Terry often said, “Not all pain is significant.” He was known for projectile vomiting without breaking stride while running downhill at a 7-minute-mile pace.)

Dusty was pacing me at the time, and he looked back. There was no gentle pat on the back, no promise that everything would be okay.

“Do that shit standing up,” the Dust Ball yelled. “C’mon, let’s get running.” Later, when Dusty thought I had more speed in me, he told me that two women were in the top ten, approaching fast. “They’re gonna chick you, Jurker! Do you want to get chicked?” (Dusty had coined the term when he was in high school. It’s now part of the ultrarunning lexicon).

I won that race in 17 hours and 15 minutes, almost 20 minutes faster than my previous effort. When I returned to Seattle, Jeff Dean told me I was now a “cult figure.” He knew about the Californians’ fierce tribalism, about their running prowess, and as eccentric as he sometimes was, I think he was delighted that a fellow Northwesterner (even if born in Minnesota) had defended the title.

I wanted more—more victories, more speed, more spiritual development. I wanted more answers, and I thought ultrarunning could provide them. I pored over texts, exploring the link between endurance sports, altered states of consciousness, and wisdom—books like
Running Wild: An Extraordinary Adventure of the Human Spirit,
by John Annerino;
Running and Being: The Total Experience,
by George Sheehan; and
The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei,
by John Stevens. The monks call their practice of Tendai Buddhism
kaihogyo,
an extensive daily pilgrimage through the mountainous terrain that encompasses hundreds of remote shrines, sacred peaks, stones, forests, glades, and waterfalls. To these monks, the sacred is everywhere.

The most devoted complete a 25-mile run every day for a thousand consecutive days. They wear straw sandals and carry a knife at their waist, to be used to kill themselves should they fail to continue. After five years, they conduct a nine-day fast, after which their senses are heightened to such a degree that they can hear ash fall from an incense stick. In the seventh year of their pilgrimage, the monks undertake the “Great Marathon” of 52.5 miles a day every day for a year. This extended circuit includes not only the rarified holy sites on Mount Hiei but also the crowded streets of downtown Kyoto. Each monk, as he runs past noodle bars and strip clubs, stops to give his blessing to the people in the city hurrying about their business. Each of the writers spoke of rewards beyond speed, beyond endurance, beyond victory.

While I was changing from Minnesota outlier to two-time Western States champion and fledgling ultrascholar, a massage therapist who often came into the store told me that a vegan diet was nice, but if I really wanted prime performance and maximum health, I should go raw. Gideon was in her forties but looked twenty-five, and her eyes shone with intensity and vitality. She once lived on a commune, and every time I saw her, she would tell me that as good as I had felt after cutting out meat, I’d feel even better cutting out cooking. She gave me a book called
Raw Power,
and as daunting as it seemed, the salad recipes intrigued me. I’d already won two Western States as a vegan. Maybe I could win even more going raw.

So I tried it. I made salads with walnuts, I ate a lot of almond sauce and young coconuts. I made raw tacos, with “meat” made from sunflower seeds and tomato and fresh guacamole wrapped in cabbage leaves. And that’s when I perfected smoothies, which I still always have for breakfast.

Eating raw, I discovered that cooking, steaming, and roasting weren’t the only ways to prepare or to radically transform foods. I had never thought of black kale (aka Lacinato or dinosaur kale) as something I’d want to eat, especially uncooked. It has a scaly, almost black, bubbly texture, like dinosaur skin. I thought I was doing pretty well chowing down on raw romaine lettuce and spinach. But this fibrous stuff? Uh-uh. That’s until I discovered that when you add salt and vinegar and lemon juice, almost pound it into the thick leaves, and slice a little avocado and tomato in and massage that, what you have are tender, delicate leaves with wildly intense flavor. Raw food taught me how bland much of my cooked diet had been.

There were challenges. I had to plan how I was going to get enough calories. Eating at restaurants became tricky. Potlucks weren’t easy, either. But food had never tasted so vibrant. Going raw helped me get more in tune with freshness: I could tell from one taste when a carrot had been picked.

At my third Western States, other runners were coming after me. That’s what happens when you win a race, especially twice in a row. You become a target.

There was a strong competitor, Chad Ricklefs, who was using his road speed to tear up the ultra circuit. He had talked about how he was going to stay with me, then outkick me at the end. I couldn’t hold his bragging against him. I had been confident when I was a rookie, too.

Ricklefs held to at least part of his plan. He stayed with me. He stuck with me. When I sped up, he sped up. When I slowed down, he slowed down. When a black bear lumbered onto the path in front of me, and I stopped in my tracks, so did Ricklefs. (Though when I yelled and waved my arms at the beast until it slouched away, Ricklefs remained still; there were apparently limits to his mimicry). I couldn’t believe it, but when I stopped to piss, Ricklefs stopped to piss. He was a small guy, and he wore gigantic sunglasses. According to Dusty, who greeted us at the Robinson Flat aid station, at mile 33, my shadow resembled an insect.

“Hey, Bug Boy,” the Dust Ball shouted, “run your own fucking race.” And, “Hey, Bug Boy, what are you going to do when we drop your bug ass?”

I don’t know if it was Dusty’s insults, my pace, the bear, or just the manzanita-scented brutality of the Western States, but shortly thereafter Ricklefs dropped back and then out.

I was in third place, pumping up dusty trails to snow-packed ridgelines where I could hear the snowmelt-engorged river below but not see it.

It was almost exactly the race I had visualized. Then came another Western States body blow, this time a literal one. I had just left the mining encampment called Last Chance and was descending into Deadwood Canyon, alone on a sandy trail dotted with rocks. I was lengthening my stride, making up time, when I stepped through a gap in two rocks that was covered with small oak leaves. I heard a pop and ripping, like paper being shredded or clothes being torn, and then I felt it. Beyond the jolt of pain was the awful knowledge. I knew I was screwed. This wasn’t a roll or even a sprain. This was torn ligaments. It was mile 44, 56 miles to go.

Two years earlier I might have just gritted my teeth and gutted it out. But I was smarter now. I knew my body better. I knew ultras better. Most important, I knew that will wasn’t just a matter of strength but a matter of focus. The health of my body was critical to running an ultra. But to run it well, my mind was what mattered.

My first step was to allow myself to feel hurt, and bad, and sad, and all those emotions that unexpected loss—whether in an ultramarathon or a relationship or a job—inspire. So that’s what I did while I continued running a mile downhill, then 1,800 feet uphill to the Devil’s Thumb aid station 4 miles away. I felt bad, but I kept going.

My next step was to take stock. Was I going to die? Could I put weight on the foot? Did I break it? The answers were no (at least not immediately), yes (at least some), and no. Sometimes you need a doctor or nurse to help you determine whether you’ll be doing permanent damage if you continue with an injury. But I’d had some experience. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t think it was dangerous.

Step three: What can I do to remedy or improve the situation? Stopping and putting ice on it was not a good option. That was partly because it would cost time. More critical, I knew that the swelling would make the ankle more stable. The inflammation would create a natural cast. I thought it would be extremely painful but that I could get through.

Then the final step: mentally separate all my alarmed and distressed thoughts and emotions—“Why did this happen?” “This is going to really hurt,” “How will I continue?”—and plop them someplace where I wouldn’t dwell on them. One way to do that was to focus on the tasks at hand and on the benefits of the situation. The tasks: Keep my stride rate high and my foot landings light. The benefits: The agony in my ankle helped distract me from the garden-variety exhaustion, thirst, and soreness of the Western States 100.