Ultramarathon Man (2 page)

 

 

 

Although that
conversation was just a few hours ago, it now seemed like a long time back. Nearing midnight, they would now all be happily asleep inside the Mother Ship as I made my way through Sonoma and continued west toward the town of Petaluma.

Known for its thrift stores and bowling alleys, Petaluma isn't a bustling metropolis. But to its credit, the town does have a Round Table Pizza, one of the greatest franchises on the planet.

You see, other pizza companies are not as flexible as Round Table. Most of them have complicated delivery rules and policies—picky little things like requiring you to provide a street address in order to have a pizza delivered. Imagine that—you actually have to tell them exactly where you are! Round Table, on the other hand, will deliver a pizza to just about anywhere.

Over the years, I've pushed the envelope with Round Table, and they've consistently outperformed all other pizza chains. I was so confident in their pizza-delivering prowess that I once even had them bring one to my house.

Cresting the peak and seeing that my cell phone now had service, I dialed. The signal was weak.

“Round Table,” a young voice answered. Loud rock music blared in the background.

“I need to order a pizza.”

“What's that? You need a pizza?”

Why else would anybody be calling the Round Table delivery line?
“YES, I NEED TO ORDER A PIZZA! I NEED PIZZA!”

“Okay, dude, no need to scream.”

“Sorry.”

“That's all right. I know how edgy people get about their pizza.”

“I'm not edgy, I'm just hungry,” I said in a very edgy tone.

“Whatever, dude. Just be assured that we're going to get you the tastiest grinds imaginable. I'm the manager. Now what's it gonna be?”

“I'll take the Hawaiian style, with extra cheese. Extra olives. Extra ham. Oh yeah . . . extra pineapple, too.”

“Extra everything? I'll throw it all on there. What size you after?”

This was a tricky question. I didn't have the means to carry any uneaten portions, but if I ordered too little, I'd run out of fuel and never reach Marin before sunrise.

“How many does a large feed?”

“Five, with all those extras. How many in your party?”

“It's just me. I'll take the large.”

“Cannonball, dude! You must be operating on some kind of hunger.”

If you only knew,
I thought. “Do you have dessert?”

“Cherry cheesecake. It's killer—I tested some earlier tonight.”

“Okay, I'll have one.”

“One slice?”

“No, I want the whole damn thing.”

“Dude, this is epic!”

“How long do you think it'll take?”

“Twenty, thirty minutes. You in some kind of rush?”

“No rush, really, I'll be out here a while. I just need to know how long it'll take so I can to tell you where to meet me.”

“Okay . . . I guess. Let's say twenty-five minutes.”

“Then I'll meet you at the corner of Highway 116 and Arnold Drive.”

“What, right on the corner?” he asked. “That's a pretty lonely stretch of highway. What color's your car?”

“I'm not in a car,” I said. “But I'll be easy to spot. I'm the only one out here running.”

“Running?” There was a brief moment of silence. “Is someone chasing you?”

“No,” I laughed.

“But it's midnight!” he said.

“Yes, it's late. And that's why I need pizza. I'm starving.”

“Got it.” [Long pause.] “Makes perfect sense. Is there anything else I can bring you?”

“Is there a Starbucks in town?”

“Yeah, but I'm sure they're closed by now. But I've got my own stash of beans right here. I'll brew some up while the pizza's cooking. You just keep running straight on Highway 116 and we'll track you down.”

After giving him my cell number and hanging up, I put my head down and kept plowing into the darkness. If they were going to locate me along the route, there was no need to wait on the corner, which was a good thing. Standing idle in the evening air was a sure way to invite a debilitating leg cramp.

Replacing my cell phone in the back pocket of my pack, I pulled out the picture of a little girl. Even with tubes and needles stuck all over her body, her face looked vibrant. But she
was
sick; in fact, she was near death, and I was running to help save her. I took one final look at the picture and tucked it carefully away again.

Exactly twenty-five minutes later, a dusty pickup truck with oversized tires came barreling down the road. My pizza had arrived. To my surprise, the young manager was behind the wheel.

“Dude!”
he cried, jumping out of the car. “You're mad. This is awesome!”

He pulled the pizza off the passenger seat and opened the box. It was masterfully crafted, almost as high as it was wide, with lots of pineapple and olives piled on top. It looked like something you'd feed a rhinoceros. I paid the tab, thanked him, and prepared to charge on.

“You're gonna keep running?” he asked. “Don't you want a lift?”

“Now that I've got some fuel,” I answered, holding up the food, “I'm going to put it to good use.”

“But how far are you gonna go?”

“I'm headed to the beach,” I said.

“To the beach!” he cried. “Dude, Bodega Bay's at least thirty miles from here!”

Actually, I was heading to the beach in Santa Cruz—over 150 miles from here—but I didn't think either of us was prepared to face up to that reality.

“I can't believe it's humanly possible to run thirty miles,” he gasped. “Are you like Carl Lewis or something?”

“Ah . . . yeah,” I replied. “I'm like Carl Lewis, only slower.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“I won't.”

“You're running straight through the night? This is insane. I love it!” He jumped back in his truck. “I can't wait to tell the guys back at the shop.” He sped off.

I liked this kid. To most non-runners, running is at best boring and at worst terribly painful and senseless. But he seemed genuinely intrigued by the venture, and we'd connected on an almost primal level, though I didn't sense he'd take up the sport anytime soon.

With the cheesecake stacked on top of the pizza, I started running again, eating as I went. Over the years I'd perfected the craft of eating on the fly. I balanced the box of pizza and cheesecake in one hand and ate with the other. It was a good upper-body workout. Fortunately my forearms were well developed and had no problem supporting the added weight. For efficiency, I rolled four pieces of pizza into one big log like a huge Italian burrito. Easier to fit it in my mouth that way.

Just as I was finishing this first course, I heard the manager's truck approaching again. The loose muffler was a dead giveaway. He'd forgotten to give me the coffee. We filled one of my water bottles with the dark brew and I drank the rest. I tried to pay him for it, but he wouldn't take any money.

As he was about to drive away again, the young man tilted his head out of the truck window and asked, “So dude, do you mind me asking
why
you're doing this?”

Where to begin? “Oh man,” I replied, “I'll have to get back to you on that one.”

 

 

 

And now's
the time to ponder his question. Millions of Americans run. They run for the exercise, for their cardiovascular health, for the endorphin high. In 2003, a record-setting 460,000 people completed one of the country's many marathons. They pushed the outer limits of their endurance to complete the 26.2 miles.

Then there's the small hardcore group of runners, a kind of runners' underground, who are called ultra-marathoners. For us, a marathon is just a warm-up. We run 50-mile races, 100-mile races. We'll run twenty-four hours and more without sleep, barely pausing for food and water, or even to use the bathroom. We run up and down mountains; through Death Valley in the dead of summer; at the South Pole. We push our bodies, minds, and spirits well past what most humans would consider the limits of pain and exertion.

I'm one of the few who's run beyond 100 miles without resting, which I guess makes me an extra-ultramarathoner. Or just nuts. Whenever people hear that I've run 100 miles at a clip, they inevitably ask two questions. The first is “How can you do that?” The second, and much harder to answer, is the same one that pizza guy asked me:
“Why?”

It's an excellent question, though addictions are never neatly defined. When asked why he was attempting to be the first to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory offered the famously laconic, “Because it's there.” That seems to satisfy people enough for it to have become a famous adage. But it's really not much of an answer. Still, I can understand Mallory's clipped response. When people ask me why I run such improbable distances for nights on end, I've often been tempted to answer with something like, “Because I can.” It's true as far as it goes, and athletes aren't always the most introspective souls. But it's not a complete answer. It's not even satisfying to me. I've got questions of my own.

What
am I running from?

Who
am I running for?

Where
I am running to?

Every runner has a story. Here's mine.

—Plato

I've been running much
of my life. I grew up the oldest of three kids. My brother Kraig is a year younger than I am, and my sister Pary came along two years after him.

Some of my earliest memories are of running home from kindergarten. We were a working-class family living in Los Angeles, and my father worked two jobs to make ends meet. I didn't want to burden my mother with getting me home from school every day, so I started running.

At first, my route was the most direct path from the school back to our house. In time, however, I began to invent diversionary routes that would extend the run and take me through uncharted territory and new neighborhoods. Running home from school became more enjoyable than attending it. Running gave me a sense of freedom and exploration that school never did. School was about sitting still and trying to behave as someone explained what the world was like. Running was about going out and experiencing it firsthand. I watched buildings go up, witnessed the birds migrating south, saw the leaves falling and the days shortening as the seasons changed. No textbook could compare to this real-life lesson.

By the third grade, I was participating in organized running events (some of which I organized myself ). The distances were short, often only the length of a football field. Sometimes it was hard finding other kids to run with, and I found myself constantly campaigning for classmates to join me. My relatives from the Old Country frequently reminded me that the Greeks were great runners. The marathon, after all, was conceived in Greece.

“Constantine,” they would say, using my given name, “you will be a great Greek runner, just like your ancestors.” Then they would down another round of ouzo and seal my fate with a collective
“Oppa!”

Never mind that Pheidippides, the Greek runner who ran from the Plain of Marathon to Athens with the news that the Athenians had defeated the Persians, dropped dead from exhaustion after delivering his message. That part of the story never got mentioned.

As I grew older, I became more passionate about pushing my small body to extremes. Advancing the limits of personal endurance seemed part of my hard-wiring; I found it difficult to do anything physical in moderation. By age eleven I had already trekked rim-to-rim-to-rim across the Grand Canyon, a weeklong journey carrying all my supplies on my back, and had climbed to the top of Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the contiguous United States.

For my twelfth birthday, I wanted to celebrate with my grandparents, but they lived more than forty miles away. Not wanting to burden my folks to drive me there, I decided to ride my bike. I had no idea how to get to my grandparents' house. But I didn't let that dampen my sense of adventure. I tried to talk Kraig into joining me, but there was absolutely no way. Even a bribe with allowance money didn't work. So I stuffed the money in my pocket, told my mother I was going to the local mall, and set a course for Pasadena.

I got a lot of confused and worried looks when I asked for directions.

“That's gotta be over forty miles from here,” one gas station attendant told me.

“Which way do I go?” I asked.

“You can get on this freeway and go to the 210 North, I think,” he replied doubtfully.

Of course, I couldn't ride my bicycle on the freeway. I'd need to take surface streets.

“Are you sure you don't want to call your parents?” he asked.

“That's okay,” I said nonchalantly, pointing at the freeway. “So you think Pasadena is that way?”

He nodded, though not with a great deal of conviction.

“Thanks,” I smiled, and set a course for the closest surface street in the direction he had indicated. This was going to be good.

Ten hours later, I arrived in Pasadena. The course I'd followed meandered haphazardly through the Los Angeles basin, and there was no telling how many miles I'd covered along the way. I stopped a couple times at other service stations to ask for directions, and also to buy a soda and use the restroom. My money was entirely depleted, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that I made it to Pasadena. Now what?