Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness (6 page)

Apple-Cinnamon Granola

The secrets to this recipe are the soaked oat groats and the hemp milk. Soaking the oat groats (the whole-grain form of oats) promotes the release of enzymes that aid digestion. Hemp seeds are high in omega-3 fatty acids, and hemp milk creates a creamy, light accompaniment to the crunchy granola. It’s perfect for before or after a morning workout or race.

Preheat the oven to 250°F. Grease two baking sheets with the oil.

Process the oats, apple, coconut, cinnamon, sweetener, vanilla, and salt in a food processor for 30 seconds. Scrape sides, process for another 30 seconds, and repeat one more time. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and combine with the almonds, pumpkin seeds, and raisins. Mix thoroughly with a spoon.

Spread the mixture in a thin layer on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 2 to 4 hours, turning the granola over a few times with a spatula, until dried and crisp. You can set the oven temperature higher and reduce the baking time, but be sure to check frequently to avoid burning.

Cool and stir in the raisins. Serve with non-dairy milk and sliced banana or fresh berries. Keeps for 3 to 4 weeks in an airtight container.

MAKES
8–10
SERVINGS

Hemp Milk

Place the hemp seeds, water, and salt in a blender and blend on high for 1 to 2 minutes, until smooth and milky. For sweeter milk, add agave nectar or maple syrup to taste. Hemp milk keeps for 4 to 5 days in the refrigerator.

MAKES
5
CUPS

5. The Pride of the Cake Eaters

RUNNING AROUND WITH DUSTY, 1992–93

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

—
KURT COBAIN

Dusty’s dad spent his days at the bars, and his mom—who worked at the Lutheran church—would give Dusty a quarter and tell him to go play. That was when he was
five years old.
He rode his BMX bike to the Y and spent the day there, swimming, running around, getting into trouble. When Dusty was twelve, his dad drove the family car to a bar and never came back. Soon after that he divorced Dusty’s mom, and Dusty didn’t see his father for years. His mom started dating a guy who hated Dusty and kicked him around. Dusty didn’t spend much time at home.

I, on the other hand, was either studying, helping my mom around the house, skiing, lifting weights (something I learned about at ski camp), or hanging out with my girlfriend. (It seemed that girls liked athletes.)

Dusty drank. All the kids knew that. We also knew (or thought we knew) that he mouthed off to cops and seduced not just high school girls but barmaids and coeds. He didn’t just beat people in races but called them names, laughed at them, and insulted their families when he did it. He had no discipline and was wasting his prodigious talent. We all knew that: cake eaters, greasers, and rural rednecks alike.

But in the spring of 1992, when Dusty and I were seniors, I learned how much I didn’t know.

Dusty and I stayed together at the USSA Junior Nationals in Rumford, Maine. There were cross-country skiers from every state where it was a sport. The conditions couldn’t have been worse. It was 55 degrees, and the snow was like frozen yogurt. The next day it rained 2 inches, and a cold snap the following night froze the trails into skating rinks. But every day the coaches would put us through training exercises. And every day Dusty would talk back. He wanted to know why we were doing this drill or that drill. He wanted to know why we weren’t doing more kilometers. He told all of us that the coaches were a joke. He told the
coaches
they were a joke. I couldn’t believe they didn’t kick him out the first day. I had never talked back to an adult. I had never questioned a coach. He read my face and told me to relax, they were just a bunch of pussies anyway. He called me “Jurker” and a “dumb Polack,” but the way he said it, I didn’t feel insulted.

The first day of competition, in a 10K race, Dusty took a really bad fall on an icy hairpin turn with only 2K to go. He took some time getting up, and I knew something was wrong because he was in third place and closing. He calmly announced that he had broken his ankle. The coaches told him to suck it up, no one had broken an ankle. They knew all that they needed to know about Dusty. He was just trying to get attention. They told him to get a good night’s sleep and to be ready to race the next day.

In his room that night, when he took off his boot, his foot was so purple it was almost black. It looked like a black volleyball, but Dusty didn’t say anything. There were no wisecracks. I was actually a little disappointed. Maybe the guy wasn’t such a badass after all. When he showed up for his start the next day, his ankle was so swollen, he couldn’t even pull his boot on. But he tried. He didn’t say a word, just tried to yank that boot up so he could race. Finally one of the coaches from another team, who happened to be a doctor, saw what was going on and yelled at him to stop, that they were driving to the hospital. Dusty got X-rayed and sure enough, it was broken.

That’s when I realized I had been wrong about Dusty. He was one tough bastard.

The rest of the week was vintage Dusty. First he snuck into the Alaskan team’s room and stole their Nintendo game. When they found out, he told them they were pussies and launched a water fight with them that lasted all week. Every night Dusty would hold forth at the hotel bar over Cokes and ginger ales. He told stories about getting chased through the woods by cops and their K-9 units. He talked about all the women he’d slept with. He told us about how he had befriended a guy who knew which janitors’ closets were open at the University of Minnesota at Duluth and how he’d steal ninety rolls of toilet paper at a time, then TP the houses of people he wanted to piss off. He said he never ran out of houses. He said he once ran 18 miles from his house to the start of the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, then ran the marathon, then ran the 5 miles home.

I said “yes sir” to adults and Dusty asked coaches, “Why the hell are you making us do this?” I wore button-down shirts and Dusty shaved half his skull. Our differences were obvious to anyone who was looking. What wasn’t so apparent was the hunger we shared, the way we defined ourselves by our effort. When Dusty regaled everyone with outlandish tales of superhuman endurance, they all hooted and hollered. Except me. Dusty was hilarious, but everyone thought he was totally full of shit. I wasn’t so sure. He had something that allowed him to keep going when everyone else stopped. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I wanted it.

When graduation rolled around, with some money I’d saved from the Dry Dock Bar I bought my grandpa Ed’s beige Toyota Corolla so I could drive the 2 miles to work rather than run or ski. I was president of the National Honor Society, and I had read Solzhenitsyn and Thoreau. I was thinking about life beyond Proctor and Duluth and Minnesota—life way beyond our house on the dead-end road—but I couldn’t quite see it. I definitely didn’t know how I’d get there. I wanted to ski cross-country in college and to study physical therapy. I had become pretty good at helping my mom and had become friends with her physical therapist. Steve Carlin was a real down-to-earth guy, not like the doctor who wanted to put me on blood pressure medicine. Steve would help get my mom up, and when she didn’t want to, he would help me motivate her. She had a big wound on her hip from the surgery after her fall, but that didn’t scare me. Steve said that was another reason I’d be good at physical therapy—I wasn’t squeamish.

In my valedictory speech I said, “I would like to leave you with four messages to help you and others benefit from life.” (I still have the speech.)

“First of all, I ask you to be different.

“Second, find a way to help others rather than thinking solely of yourself.

“Third, everyone is capable of achieving. Never let anyone discourage you when trying to pursue a goal or a dream.

“And finally, do things while you’re young. Be sure to pursue your dreams and goals even if they seem impossible.”

It all sounded good, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure what my own goals and dreams were beyond skiing and a job as a physical therapist. I knew I wanted to go to college, but my dad had made it clear I would have to pay my own way. I dreamed of going to Dartmouth, but the Ivy League was financially out of the question. I ended up choosing the College of St. Scholastica, my mom’s alma mater. It was a small private liberal arts school and had a highly regarded physical therapy program. Best (and worst) of all, it would allow me to stay at home, to continue helping around the house. Mom’s spasticity was getting worse, and Steve had stopped coming as much. There just wasn’t a lot he could do anymore. When I started taking classes, it was a relief to be out of the house. (That might sound like an awful thing to say, but it was the truth.)

Only one in five kids from Proctor attended college, so most of my friends stayed around and took jobs. I took a job, too, at the NordicTrack shop at the Miller Hill Mall in Duluth. I would put on a polo shirt and demonstrate and sell NordicTrack machines. I was polite, and I knew about the movements of cross-country ski machines. Nick the Greek, who worked a few evening shifts, wanted to fix me up with his daughter. I took medieval history and chemistry and freshman composition. I ate at McDonald’s at the mall at least four times a week. I’d get two McChicken sandwiches, extra-large fries, and a Coke. As a kid, I had rarely had fast food. Between my mom’s dedication to cooking and my dad’s dedication to saving, it was a luxury we couldn’t afford. So being able to buy a burger or chicken sandwich whenever I wanted felt like freedom. And it tasted good. While salads and veggie stir-fries might have been okay for some people, I was an athlete, and everyone said serious jocks needed serious protein. That meant meat.

I ran cross-country in the fall but only lasted about half the season, three meets. It was a total junk show. The baseball coach was coaching the team. We wore uniforms that the girls’ team had thrown out a decade or two earlier. To stay in shape for the coming ski season, I ran on my own or, more and more often, with Dusty.

We would drive to ski races in my car, and while I would be getting gas, he would be shuffling out of the convenience store attached to the station with a package of baloney or potato chips in his pants. I’m surprised we never got arrested. While I drove down the freeway in my old wagon, Dusty would hang out of the passenger window and high-five fellow skiers on their way to races. He loved the all-you-can-eat buffets. He taught me how to stuff my jacket full of slices from Godfather’s Pizza after our stomachs could hold no more.

When Dusty wasn’t stealing stuff, getting into trouble, or running, he was working at the Ski Hut, which sold ski gear. He would ride his bike to work (his skis strapped to his bike) in –15-degree weather. That guy could endure.

And of course Dusty always beat me on our runs. He was faster and stronger, and I—I remembered that broken ankle—would never be that tough. We both knew it. But we both knew that I was changing. Dusty skied a 90K training day every year during winter break, the week after Christmas. It was called “the 90K Day.” The guy who organized it was Rick Calais, the coach at St. Paul Central High School, whom everybody called “the Ricker.” Only the hardest of the hard-core skiers did it. The last year of high school, Dusty asked if I wanted to join him. Of course he beat me, but afterward he told me that he and the Ricker had been looking back every minute or so of the last 10 miles, amazed at how close I was. He knew I had never had blazing speed, and he couldn’t believe I was keeping up. To this day the Ricker says, “The 90K Day is what made the Jurker!”

Dusty still gave me shit—about college, about what a nerd I looked like in my polo shirt at NordicTrack, about how straight I was. I envied him. I wondered what it would be like to have no responsibility, no worries. I wondered what it would be like to have his life.

One night in March of freshman year, I came home a little later than I had said I would. My dad had told me that when I said I would be home at a certain time, I had better be home then. I told him he had to realize I had a life outside the house. I was working full time and going to school and I had a lot going on, but he didn’t want to hear it. He said, “If you don’t like it here, you can go live someplace else. This is the way we do things around here.”

I was sure he wasn’t serious about my living someplace else. But he was. He really meant it. He said, “I don’t want you around here anymore.” We were both yelling at each other and Mom was crying. Even when she was well, I don’t know if she could have intervened. I had a chemistry test the next day, so I grabbed my books—I didn’t even take any clothes—and threw them in my bag and walked out. I drove to an overlook at a nearby rise called Thompson Hill, pulled into a rest area overlooking Duluth, and just sat there. It was freezing. I didn’t think about where I was going to live or how my life was changing. I knew what I had to do. I pulled my car below one of the rest area lights. I pulled out my chemistry book and opened it. I started studying.