Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness (19 page)

Or was the sum of a plant-based diet greater than its parts? Vegetarians are likely to have healthy habits outside the kitchen as well as more active lifestyles and less smoking. A major study shows that vegetarians watch less television, smoke less, and sleep more per night than meat-eaters.

I wasn’t sure of the answer, but my diet seemed to be working. So when I came across naysayers—and there were plenty—I weighed my experience against their theories. When I read
Eat Right 4 Your Type,
by Peter D’Adamo, right before my first Western States and learned that my blood type, O, was the least suited of all types to vegetarianism, I worried a little, but not too much. According to D’Adamo, my ancestral profile made me a “canny, aggressive predator” who preferred baby seal meat to bean burritos. But those burritos had fueled me through that first Western States as well as two others. (I wasn’t the only one who didn’t go along with matching diet to blood type. Dr. Fredrick Stare, founder of the Nutrition Department at the Harvard School of Public Health, calls this book “not only one of the most preposterous books on the market, but also one of the most frightening. It contains just enough scientific-sounding nonsense, carefully woven into a complex theory, to actually seem convincing to the uninitiated.”)

I maintained my smoothie habit. I made more friends at farmer’s markets. I soaked beans, baked bread, rolled oats. I entered other races, searched for new training routes. Even though I knew the Western States would be more challenging than ever, I was confident.

Before the race, Dusty had bet an old friend of his in Minnesota, Rod Raymond, one of the standout endurance athletes of Duluth, that I would win a fourth consecutive Western States. Rod took the bet. If Dusty lost, he would have to landscape the Raymonds’ front yard, a job worth $2,000. But if Dusty (and I) won, Rod had to give Dusty his 1984 Suzuki Tempter motorcycle.

The race was tough but not close. The last 20 miles, Dusty ran beside me, repeating over and over: “
Vroom, vroom,
c’mon, Jurker, gotta get my motorcycle.”

Later, Dusty called Rod and got his voicemail. He yelled into his cell phone. “You owe me a motorcycle, bitch!”

I won a fifth Western States in 2003 in 16:01, another 20 minutes faster, and
UltraRunning
magazine called it “Performance of the Year.” During that race, Dusty, behind me, screamed something as we were descending a dried creek drainage, headed to the American River, but I didn’t pay attention. It was 72 miles in and I was gliding, effortlessly. “Dude,” he said, “do you realize you just stepped on a rattlesnake back there?”

That was the race when Tonto died. He had been spending the week with Dusty and me, running every day. During the race, Tonto stayed at my friend Shannon Weil’s ranch, which was on the course. I saw Tonto at mile 55 when I passed the ranch. The next morning, after I had won, Shannon called to tell me Tonto was gone. After the awards ceremony, Dusty, Scott McCoubrey, and another friend and runner named Brandon Sybrowsky helped me bury Tonto just outside of Michigan Bluff, right next to the Western States Trail.

I won again the next year, in 2004, and set a new record of 15:36 (9:22 per mile pace), earning another “Ultrarunner of the Year” honor and, more importantly, accomplishing what I had set out to do six years earlier. Brooks Sports hired me that year to work with their design team on a new trail shoe called the Cascadia and to do presentations and store appearances. In 2005 I won a seventh consecutive Western States, something no man had done before (or since). I also trimmed off 14 inches of my hair to donate to Locks of Love, for children with cancer. It was no big ceremony, but it felt better than any other haircut I had ever received.

I treasured those races, but just as much I treasured the weeks before the competition. The local press sought out Dusty, and he always had a quote ready. In 2003, the
Auburn Journal
accidentally ran Dusty on the front page with the caption, “Scott Jurek 5-time winner of WS100.” We laughed about it and even had him go up at first to accept my award. The WS board wasn’t happy. But we loved it.

At night, at the campsite Dusty and I had set up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the temperature would drop into the 30s, and before turning in we’d look at the sky. Neither of us talked about the way Dusty had inspired me to run or the success that accrued to me because of that running. We didn’t talk about how being with each other was in many ways an escape for both of us. For Dusty, those weeks took him away from his peripatetic life, his wanderings in Minnesota and Colorado, chasing snowflakes and trying to eke out a living through odd carpentry jobs. For me, it was a refuge from a life of responsibilities I had never anticipated.

Not even ten years earlier, I had been trudging snowmobile trails, dreaming big and spending big. I had planned on running hard, counted on winning. What I hadn’t anticipated were sponsorships with Brooks, Pro-Tec, and Clif Bar, delivering presentations, and attending trade shows in between races. But, as I had discovered, those were flags on the path of ultrarunning, markers on the path Hippie Dan had urged me to find. Or were they warning signs? I didn’t know.

I wanted more. I wanted to push myself, to crack myself open and discover something fresh. I wanted a new challenge.

Tamari-Lime Tempeh and Brown Rice

The big concern I hear from people about a plant-based diet is difficulty. It takes too long. It requires too much focus. For those folks I make this dish, which—if you cook the rice beforehand—you can have on the table in less than 20 minutes. The brown rice gives the dish a nutty texture and provides essential amino acids. Tempeh contains 3 grams of protein for every gram of fat, which makes it one of the leanest, most protein-heavy of the soy products (which was invaluable when I was cranking up my training, looking for more protein). Better, it’s fermented and easily digestible, even for people who have trouble with most soy products.

Add the brown rice and water to a pot and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat for 30 to 40 minutes, until the water evaporates and the rice is tender. Fluff with a fork and cool.

Coat a large skillet with the oil and heat over medium-low heat until a drop of water sizzles when it hits the pan. Saute the tempeh for 3 to 5 minutes on each side, until lightly browned. Remove from the heat. Squeeze the lime or lemon over the tempeh and sprinkle with the tamari or shoyu.

For each serving, place a cup of brown rice on a plate or in a bowl. Crumble several pieces of tempeh on top and drizzle with 1 to 2 tablespoons Red Curry Almond Sauce. Enjoy with a side of Indonesian Cabbage Salad (see recipe,
[>]
).

MAKES
4
SERVINGS

14. A Hot Mess

BADWATER ULTRAMARATHON, 2005

Fall down seven times, get up eight.

—
JAPANESE PROVERB

On August 3, 1977, the hottest day of that year, a fifty-year-old named Al Arnold tried to run from Badwater, California, through and across Death Valley to the summit of 14,000-foot Mount Whitney. Six-foot-five and 200 pounds, he had tried the feat twice before, failing both times. This effort would be his last. He succeeded (and thus was born the Badwater Ultramarathon) and said, regarding the last 40 miles or so: “It was like all tranquility that can exist . . . existed for me.” He said that photographs taken of him after mile 100 show an unearthly glow coming off his body.

Today, the 135-mile course starts in Death Valley, at 280 feet below sea level, and arrows on a paved road straight to the portal of Mount Whitney, at 8,300 feet. It was the crazy race Rick Miller had told me about four years earlier.

The Badwater Ultramarathon (or simply the Badwater) is big overseas and has been the subject of more than one documentary film. Part of the reason is that the race director, Chris Kostman, is something of a publicity genius. The press material calls it “the world’s toughest foot race,” which I seriously doubted, as it was on roads and (for ultrarunners) relatively level. Most untough of all, the cutoff time was 60 hours. You could
walk
the thing and finish. I had run in hot weather before, at the Western States. I had climbed (and descended) 10,500 feet on my training runs on the Twelve Peaks. I caused despair in others, not the other way around, so the Badwater didn’t scare me, but it did intrigue me. It was not as obviously difficult as other events I had won, but there was something perversely challenging about it. I aimed to find out what. Most serious runners wait at least a month between ultras. But less than a week after winning my seventh Western States, I flew to Las Vegas. A lot of people said I was crazy to enter another race, especially
this
race, especially so soon.

When I arrived in Death Valley, I took a training run that singed my nose hairs. I felt as if a branding iron were pressing on my skull—from the inside. I drove to a Home Depot and purchased an industrial-strength sprayer. I helped Rick and Barb Miller rig up a coffin-sized cooler, which would be filled with ice water. I had, of course, asked Dusty to pace me. (When he felt the heat, he said he would do it only if I promised to take him to Las Vegas for a few days afterward, strippers included.)

My main competition would be last year’s second-place finisher, a Canadian baggage handler named Ferg Hawke, who said things like: “The first half of the Badwater is run with the legs, the second half with the heart.” He sounded interesting. Not a threat, but interesting. There was another guy, a fifty-year-old named Mike Sweeney. He had brought vests of synthetic ice packets that he had duct-taped together. He had also stored—on dry ice—small Tupperware bowls inside larger Tupperware bowls, anchored by an inch-thick layer of ice between the two. He planned to wear the device (he had three) on his head, duct-taped around his chin. Sweeney dove off cliffs for fun and smacked his head a lot. He said it made him and his skull stronger.

Also competing would be a trio of large German men wearing floppy garden hats, who, recognizing me before the race, chanted, “Vee vill overtake you!”

Ultramarathons tend to attract obsessive people. To undertake a race of over 50 miles requires training that can occupy 3 hours a day, a routine that involves cramps and pain and loneliness, not to mention the inevitable moments of doubt and maybe even a little self-loathing. Ultras seem to attract seekers of all kinds, including recovering addicts and alcoholics, seers, sages, some very wacky engineers and poets, and assorted windmill-tilters. Not to mention the monks and holy men.

Consider Sri Chinmoy, who, after arriving in New York City in 1964, taught meditation and a lifestyle of personal transformation in which athletics featured heavily. He attracted thousands of followers, among them Carlos Santana and Carl Lewis, and maintained a center in Queens. He demanded that his followers practice celibacy and vegetarianism and abstain from drugs, alcohol, and smoking. Many of them worked for Chinmoy in his associated businesses, such as the Smile of the Beyond Luncheonette in Jamaica and the Oneness-Fountain-Heart in Flushing.

The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, founded in 1977, has gone on to promote and compete in numerous ultras. The most famous is the 3,100-mile Self-Transcendence Race, the longest footrace in the world, held on a city block in Queens—164th Place to Abigail Adams (84th) Avenue to 168th Street to Grand Central Parkway. The 3,100-mile distance honors the year (’31) of Sri Chinmoy’s birth. Runners must complete 5,649 laps of the .5488-mile course in fifty-two days (extended to fifty-four in 2011 due to extreme heat). It is tantamount to running two marathons a day. Many run for 17 or 18 hours a day. The experience is so grueling and repetitive that few even undertake, much less complete, the race. In 2011, ten runners competed and eight finished.

But the most famous (and infamous) contemporary band of allegedly spiritual long-distance runners is probably the group known as Divine Madness. Members make a monthly financial “commitment” to the group. Its founder and leader, Marc Tizer, aka Yo, encourages communal living, ultrarunning, and free love. He will tack on extra miles in the middle of the group’s training runs to keep them “adaptable.” He has runners hold out their arm and he presses against it, then diagnoses their problems, what kind of running shoes they need, and who they should sleep with. They eat and sleep on the floor and work at subsistence jobs. Two former members of the group filed a civil lawsuit against Yo in 1996, joined in 1997 by a third, alleging mind control through sleep deprivation, fasting, and isolation. That case was settled out of court. One woman lodged a sexual assault case with the police. Mark Heinemann was an apparently healthy group member who dropped dead of pneumonia after a 48-hour race. He was forty-six.

Mike Sweeney passed me at mile 15, but I wasn’t worried. Even if he hadn’t been a head-smacking, ice helmet–wearing cliff diver, I wouldn’t have been worried. I was looking forward to the uphill at 40 miles—that’s when I would reel him in. That’s when I would claim the Badwater as mine.

A few miles later I dropped from second to fourth place. Ferg had passed me, and a guy I never heard of named Chris Bergland did, too. I felt as if I might puke. One of my crew members said to slow it down, to take it easy, but I was getting my ass kicked by a bunch of underdogs. I was hearing reports that Sweeney was ahead by 25 minutes.