Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness (33 page)

MAKES
6
CUPS
, 10–12
SERVINGS

Epilogue

World 24-Hour Championships, 2010

Sometimes the best journeys aren’t necessarily from east to west, or from ground to summit, but from heart to head. Between them we find our voice.

—JEREMY COLLINS

We all lose sometimes. We fail to get what we want. Friends and loved ones leave. We make a decision we regret. We try our hardest and come up short. It’s not the losing that defines us. It’s how we lose. It’s what we do afterward.

I decided I would make another attempt at a 24-hour race, and chase a new American record. So I flew to France for the 2010 IAU World 24-Hour Championships.

There were hundreds of other runners, never farther than a few feet away, all circling (in this particular event) a 1.40-km (0.9-mile) course of pavement and hard-packed dirt through the village of Brive-la-Gaillarde. The course was shaped like a snake twisting its way through the park (even doubling back on itself with hairpin corners), and on its longest stretch, it passed a street filled with bars and restaurants. There were two tiny rises that added up to 10 feet of elevation change per lap. Barely noticeable to a spectator, the hills would feel, after a few hours running, like constant, painful pinpricks.

People—even many ultrarunners—wonder why anyone would run a 24-hour event. The overarching question people ask usually takes the form of one word: Why? The more particular questions in my case, as articulated on Internet message boards and blogs, in magazine articles, and sometimes put to me by friends and acquaintances, were more pointed: Why now? Do you have something to prove? Are you running away from something?

The answers were more complicated. I did want to win again. (But I wasn’t all that worried about a single year without a major victory, especially in the context of my career.) I did want to find that place of egolessness and mindlessness that only the monotony of a 24-hour race can produce. But mostly I wanted to run because of my mother. If she, after decades of losing nearly all her muscle control, in the last hours of a grueling last week could proclaim her toughness, then I could do my best to live up to her example. Much of her life, she couldn’t walk. I would run for her.

Jenny and I arrived nine days before the race, and spent six of them in a tiny village outside Paris called Boutigny-sur-Essonne, 5 hours and two train rides from the race site. I wanted to re-create at least the spirit of my Western States preparations. I wanted the quiet and the solitude.

We stayed in a garden apartment owned by some friends of ours. It had been a mill hundreds of years ago, built above a small river next to multicolored vegetable gardens and a field of rapeseed yellow as egg yolks. The streets were narrow and cobblestoned, and the night sky was brilliant with stars. Jenny spent many of those days climbing in nearby Fontainebleau, and I loped through the outlying fields—of more rapeseed, of wildflowers, of young wheat and rye. Together, we slacklined in an area of Fontainebleau called “the sea of sand.”

Except for the tiny travel blender I had packed—and our computers—it was a quiet, simple existence. We would wake and have smoothies every morning with fresh whole-grain bread from the small bakery in town, then run and climb and take walks together, and catch up on e-mail in the evening before we went to bed and talk about food and music and life and death and meaning and love. We fell asleep to the rushing of the stream and the cool spring breeze wafting through the window.

Most mornings I would run 6 miles through the woods to the nearest village with a natural food store. I prepared simple meals from the local produce and traditional French herbs. I love how the French value good food and the basic necessities of life. The rustic cobblestone village felt like stepping back in time before we overcomplicated our lives.

By the time of the race, on May 13, I had done my best to empty my mind of everything but my goal—to run as hard as I could for 24 hours. I wanted to push my body as far as it could go without going too far. Once again, I was seeking that elusive edge.

The city buses carried signs blaring details of the event. Teams brought acupuncturists, physicians, and athletic trainers. The patrons at the bars and cafés on the long stretch of the course cheered whenever we passed. I was part of the U.S. men’s team, made up of seasoned veterans and solid newcomers. We would be competing against the Japanese, South Koreans, Italians, and runners from twenty other countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Australia. The Japanese were the perennial favorites, although this year many of their top runners would be competing in a 48-hour race the following weekend, so a lot of unknown runners were ready to shake things up.

A Spaniard I didn’t know jumped out in front and I—along with 228 others—followed. After just a few miles, the Spaniard had dropped back, and the lead was changing hands every lap around the twisted course. With that many runners on that short of a course, misunderstandings are almost inevitable. But this international crowd kept the peace. Since I didn’t know anything but English, whenever I passed someone, I would just shout the international Nordic skiing words for passing: “Hup, hup.”

I started out too fast (I could tell because the timing chip triggered the clock, and my splits were just over a 6-minute-mile pace), but after a few miles I fell into an easy rhythm of 7-minute miles.

Lee Dong Mun of South Korea lapped me around the marathon mark, along with Shingo Inoue of Japan a few laps later. I let them go. I wasn’t racing against them. I was racing with myself and against the ticking clock.

The next 6 hours my life was stripped to its essentials—eating, drinking, and running. I avoided music for the first 8 hours because I wanted to be open to everything around me and because when the monotony became too much, I would need music. The thought of tunes became something to look forward to, the snowcapped mountain that marked the forward progress in my mind.

Researchers speculate that music suppresses pain by, basically, focusing the brain on something else—tunes. In one study, researchers found that listening to music created the same pain-easing results of taking a tablet of extra-strength Tylenol.

An ultrarunner needs a finish line to stay sane, but if it obsesses him, he’s doomed. I avoided thinking of the hours ahead. I avoided thinking of Shingo. When memories of my mother coursed through me, I used them to press me on. I wanted to lose myself and by doing so to discover new limits and to go beyond them. I wanted to pry myself open, going beyond the body and beyond the mind.

Shingo stayed two laps in the lead, and even when shadows lengthened and beers and wines replaced the small cups of espresso at the streetside tables, I stayed with my pace. Revelers shouted and cheered all through the night.

The rhythm continued until it wasn’t even a rhythm. It was just being. It was everything and nothing. The great Yiannis Kouros—who holds the world record of 180 miles at 24 hours on the road—has spoken and written of looking down on himself as he ran. I didn’t leave my body. But I saw my father in the woods and watched him mime God letting dirt slide through his fingers. There was my mother, laughing, ladling my plate of mashed potatoes with butter. There were blindingly orange carrots, tomatoes redder than fire trucks. There were mouthfuls of guacamole so rich that I started salivating. I heard Dave Terry opening a bottle of beer, watched him lean back in his kitchen and tell me that not all pain is significant. There was Dusty, beckoning me to keep going, keep going. I saw the electric blue of Silvino and the majestic stride of Arnulfo, and I didn’t wonder how they did it anymore, I
understood
their secret. We can all understand it. We can live as we were meant to live—simply, joyously, of and on the earth. We can live with all our effort and with pure happiness.

I ran for 8 hours before I listened to music. The piercing clarity had left me by then. Would it return? I put on my iPod then, but I didn’t know what songs were playing. I ate noodle soup as I ran, and as much as I loved food—as much as eating brought me unmitigated joy—there were times when I couldn’t taste it. I had never been so lonely. On the edge of the course away from the revelers, there was only the sound of the river massaging the rocks, the wind combing the leaves of the trees, and the birds about to welcome a new day.

Nine hours. Ten hours.

Our past makes us, and we can’t help but plan for the future. Some days I feel my mother’s warm, strong hands on mine. Some days I envision the time I’ll slow down, even stop and rest.

Fourteen hours. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen hours.

The next month, I would deliver speeches, attend conferences, and accept accolades. In June of 2010, Jenny and I would drive to New Mexico and pull weeds on Kyle Skaggs’s organic farm, then on to Boulder, Colorado. Shortly thereafter Dusty would show up, and we would eat together and train together and repair our friendship. In September I would visit U.S. military troops in Kuwait and run there, and tell soldiers about running and listen to their stories about war. But on the snaking French course, the future didn’t matter. The past was gone. There was only the trail, only movement. There was only now. And now was enough. It was more than enough. It was everything. I ran. I ran and I ran.

Dawn would come. It had to. The race would end. I would finish. I knew all that. But what should have been self-evident truths felt like prayers.

Seventeen hours. Would clarity ever return?

Wise Buddhist teachers advise pilgrims to chop wood and carry water until they encounter blinding, transformational epiphany. After that moment of electric bliss, the teachers say, chop more wood and carry more water. Running had brought me peace and clarity, and I kept running. Then the serenity was gone, and there was only the sad, sighing wind. I kept running.

I knew my feet were moving, but I couldn’t feel them. I thought of the Taoism I had studied, one of the many teachings that had nothing—and everything—to do with running. Specifically, I wondered if I was at that moment practicing wu wei, or “doing without doing.”

I kept running. I thought of Jenny, and Dusty, and my family, and Hippie Dan and Ian and Dean Potter and all the people I had met through running. I climbed the mountains of Colorado and slogged through the valleys of California and jogged through the markets of Japan and the vineyards of Greece, and I saw all the people and places running had given me. I thought of pain, too. I thought of my recent yoga sessions, when my teacher, Big Bill, saw me struggling and said, “This is what you came for!”

Eighteen hours.

“This is what you came for.” I repeated it like a mantra. Nineteen hours. More soup. Another Clif Shot. More bananas and big gulps of water. “This is what you came for.” As I said it, I realized that it sounded a lot like “Sometimes you just do things.”

At the end of 19 hours, I saw Team USA Coach Mike Spindler yelling times and lap counts for the American record. If I kept up my pace, I had a shot. Twenty hours. Twenty-one hours.

Twenty-two hours, 23 hours. The announcer called out my mileage. Other runners glanced over their shoulder as I approached and moved aside. A few French runners shouted, “
Allez,
Scott.
Allez,
USA!”

I hit 162 miles with a half hour left, and a Team USA coach handed me an American flag. I held it proudly overhead for the last five laps, the last 30 minutes.

At 10
A.M.
on Friday I finished, a mile and a half ahead of Ivan Cudin, who set a new Italian record, and 4 miles behind Shingo Inoue, who set a new Japanese record (by only 300 meters).

I had run 165.7 miles—an American record. No other North American had run farther in 24 hours. I had done what I had set out to do. It was time to rest. Then I would eat. And then, run again.

They are simple activities, common as grass. And they’re sacred. Pilgrims seeking bliss carry water and chop wood, and they’re simple things, too, but if they’re approached with mindfulness and care, with attention to the present and humility, they can provide a portal to transcendence. They can illuminate the path leading to something larger than ourselves.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in deadlines and debt, victory and loss. Friends squabble. Loved ones leave. People suffer. A 100-mile race—or a 5K, or a run around the block—won’t cure pain. A plate filled with guacamole and dinosaur kale will not deliver anyone from sorrow.

But you can be transformed. Not overnight, but over time. Life is not a race. Neither is an ultramarathon, not really, even though it looks like one. There is no finish line. We strive toward a goal, and whether we achieve it or not is important, but it’s not what’s most important. What matters is
how
we move toward that goal. What’s crucial is the step we’re taking now, the step
you’re
taking now.

Everyone follows a different path. Eating well and running free helped me find mine. It can help you find yours. You never know where that path might take you.

Xocolatl (SHOCK-o-laht) Energy Balls

A good meal—like a good story—deserves a satisfying ending. After working on this one for years, I think I finally perfected it. The natural caffeine in the raw cacao nibs delivers a jolt, and the subtle blend of chili flakes and cinnamon will gratify the most demanding dessert lover. It’s a tasty treat and an energy boost, perfect for after-dinner relaxation or on a long run.

Mesquite powder was first used by native people, including the Shoshone of Death Valley. You can find it in natural food stores in the raw section or online. It can be omitted, but it adds a subtle sweetness and robust finish.