*Heavy breathing* *Heart beating*
"
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
" - Carl Jung
Pain. It's a fact of life, and a misunderstood, frequently-fought friend in the sport of ultra-running. It is something that grounds us universally in this reality. Buddhists believe as one of the core tenants of their philosophy that "to live is to suffer". Although I'm not Buddhist myself, I feel we can all find meaning in this concept. It's not to say that all of life is constant suffering, but rather that suffering is connected to happiness and "suffering" often comes from being without the things which make us happy, or satisfied. So, in a sense, all the things that make us happy are directly connected to the things that make us sad, or in a state of suffering. Regardless of the meaning and philosophy behind it, which I can go on and on about, I like the saying, as a reminder that pain is inherent in who we are as human beings. We can try to avoid it all we want, but it'll be there as long as we are alive. That's not necessarily a bad thing though.
Pain is how we know this is all real. As subjective as it is, it is objective in its reality-grounding effect. When we are in disbelief of something, we might ask the people around us to "pinch me, so I know I'm not dreaming". It grounds us, and reminds us that we are alive. Being a person who suffers from the tormenting phenomenon of Sleep Paralysis, I've been forced to become mindful of the differences between when we are having a really convincing dream and when we are conscious. If you aren't familiar with Sleep Paralysis (seriously, you need to look it up, it's crazy), it's a a situation where you are awake before your body is awake. That's how the Western scientific world describes it anyhow. From an experiential perspective, you sometimes feel like you are in the deepest sleep of your life, while having a horrible nightmare, and every time you try to wake yourself up you find yourself in another dream -- and each time you "wake up", you are convinced you are actually awake and it is in fact reality. Other times it is the closest I have ever come to believing entirely in paranormal activity. I've felts ghosts, I've also seen them watching me as I slept at night, as I watched them from a different part of the room. It's a really scary experience, to say the least. In the episodes in which I am forcing myself awake from one dream into another dream, I eventually find myself actually awoken, sometimes gasping for breath. Hysterically, I remain unconvinced that this is actually reality, so in an attempt to gain a grasp of reality I'll wake up whoever is nearby and force them to help me make sure this is real. I'll ask them questions, like "What are you doing this weekend? What are your plans for today or tomorrow?". Sometimes the only response I'll get will be a confused half-awake "huh?", or some muttering, which sends me into a mini-psychotic episode where I start panicking because they are refusing to answer me in a way that lets me know that I'm actually awake. Sometimes I'll start yelling or crying, "Oh my God, oh my God, this is not real, this is not real, I NEED YOU TO ANSWER ME WAKE UP!". It's a really terrifying experience when you don't know what's real and what's not. You feel like you'll be stuck in this never-ending cycle of waking up.
I had a episode of sleep paralysis the week after Old Goat 50. In it, someone was killing me in a most bizarre way of which I cannot recall the details. I sometimes feel pain in these dreams, and though obviously different than the kind of pain you feel when you're awake, it can still be pretty convincing when you are in your dream. It's hard to convince yourself that the pain you are feeling is not real, because you are convinced that you are conscious. When you are actually awake however, you become clearly aware of the fraudulent pain you experienced in your dream. Pain is something that is incredibly hard for me to explain, but it is something you
know when you feel it. In fact, in my opinion, it is one of the only things we can truly know. "I hurt, therefore, I am, and this sucks", if you will.
My point is that although I was being killed in my dream, and although I felt immense "pain" during it, the real-life experiences of immense pain that I experienced at the Old Goat 50 gave me such a grounding in reality that I was much more able to recognize the pain in the dream for what it actually was -- not real. Although I was still experiencing the pain in my dream, the pain was lessened if only because the part of my brain that processes real pain couldn't be fooled as easily as when large episodes of pain weren't as frequent in my life. It helped me "get a grip", on reality if you will. I feel like there are a couple of things to take away from this. 1) Pain is a spiritual teacher that can give you a better control over what is real and what is not, which can help in issues related to mental illness and 2) The thing besides pain that separates reality from a really convincing dream is shared memories with others. I feel like making memories with others to recall back on at a later time is such a crucial part of our sane existence here on Earth as human beings. This too can help with mental illness-related issues.
"First thing's first I'ma say all the things that's in my head,
I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been, oh - OOOO oooo.
(The following will make more sense if you first watch the music video for Imagine Dragons' "Believer". In other words, go watch it.)
I woke up at 4:00 am. The race was supposed to start at 6:30 am, or whenever there was enough light out that would eliminate the need for headlamps. The plan was to get there 45 minutes to an hour before the start of the race so I left Escondido at 4:30 am and got to Blue Jay Campgrounds in Lake Elsinore around 5:45. Due to rain damage, there had been a last-minute course change for the 50 mile option (50k and 30k runners were unaffected) that eliminated Holy Jim trail, a crucial climbing aspect of this race. Having paced Teyana at Chimera 100, I was familiar with the latter two-thirds of the race course and although I was happy to hear that this climb was going to be removed from the course, I also knew that there's no escaping the "up" that comes with going up to Santiago Peak. I knew we would make up for it somehow and the way we did that was going up Horsethief with the 50k people. Now, if you don't know Horsethief, it is a notorious part of the Saddleback Mountains that is roughly 1.8 miles at an average grade of 15%. We were also told in the email before the race that we would be going back the same way we came which means back down Horsethief and up Trabuco (which is a pretty gnarly (rocky) although more gradual ascent. Well, on race morning, we were subtly told that there was another (real) last-minute change to the course. I know it was April Fool's, but I mean come on! With 5 minutes to go, we were just now hearing about this. Instead of going back the way we came, we would just go down Main Divide all the way to the Trabuco Aid Station, in a way to relieve the slower finishers from having to go down the steep (although surprisingly not technical) Horsethief in the dark. I hadn't actually done Horsethief prior to this race so I was looking forward to seeing what all the hype was about. Well, I saw. It's pretty steep, although climbable and even runnable if you're up for it. I'm pretty sure everyone walked it this year though.
Off we went, running up the 1 mile of asphalt that leads into the campground and we took a right, down into the single-track descent that leads into the Candy Store Aid Station. This part of the course is pretty technical, though it's not nearly as bad as Conejos Trail in Cuyamaca. I'd say it's like PCT technical, with a little more narrow single-track, soft dirt, and cover from the trees to eliminate exposure for a chunk of it. There are also parts of the trail the have boulders that require you to really watch how you descend, and one or two cases where use of hands would be appropriate. There were some water crossings because of the heavy rain we got in the previous months and the most efficient was of crossing was, well, straight through it. They were usually never higher than shin-deep and never more than 6 steps, but they were there. I enjoyed the cool respite for my feet, which is always a welcome shock to the system that probably has more scientific benefits than we realize. It's just unfortunately you're left with soggy shoes for about a mile, but they eventually dry up.
I had no overt goals going into this race, although I thought it would be doable for me to hit around 9-10 hours given the training that I had been doing. Having experienced some setbacks with my hydration-electrolyte balance in previous races, I decided to try to limit the amount of salt-pills, or electrolytes, I took in. In previous races, taking in one scoop of Tailwind in 20 oz of water every half hour seemed to have reeked havoc on my GI system causing a blockage of nutrients, including water, from getting absorbed in my system. So, in a traumatized over-compensation, I decided to go from one extreme to another. "Moderation has its place, it ain't here!" as the finish line banner says. I had read some things (on the Internet! It's this great place, have you heard?) and mentally decided, I probably don't need salt pills as much as I think I do, and I will only take them if I start feeling fatigued before I should start feeling fatigued. So I didn't take any until mile 19.5 when we finished the first loop back at Blue Jay Campgrounds. I also started feeling dehydrated a little at this point so I decided to stop for about 5-10 minutes to take in fluids in a reasonable time-frame so that my body could readily absorb it with the salt pills I was taking. I'd rather take my time here and get my hydration back in check rather than deal with the consequences of haste later on, I reasoned to myself.
This guy named Nicolas, from France I believe, was running with me into the Aid Station and although he took off before I did, he was moving leisurely so I managed to catch up to him. We started talking about our goals and although his accent was thick and conversational fluency limited, we managed to carry on a conversation as we started up the Trabuco climb. I forgot to tell the Aid Station people not to fill up my hydration bladder to its entire 70 oz capacity. Wanting to have as little weight on me as possible, I started sucking water and spitting it out, probably looking like a freak in the meanwhile. In the Ultra world however, giving all the compromising situations we often find ourselves in, I remember that it's hard to come off as a "freak" to a fellow runner. Pissing, pooping, pissing while walking, pooping while walking (I dunno about that one), puking, blood, guts, glory. We've seen it all.
When we were going up Trabuco, mile 21-ish, that's when I started feeling the cramping. It started in my left quad, and it was the kind of cramping that stops you because the muscle seizes up and tightens like a Charlie Horse. Having experienced this before, I realized I need to stop, try to massage it out, and maybe get some more salt pills in me, along with an appropriate amount of water (which I feel like I had gotten about 2 miles ago. "This early?" I thought to myself. Gah! Maybe I drank too much water and flushed whatever little electrolytes I had left out of my system. It happens to me too often when I don't take in enough electrolytes.
This wasn't the first time I had tried limiting my electrolyte intake. When people kept making the comment that I might be taking in too much electrolytes/salt via Tailwind, I decided to do some training runs last year with little to no salt/Tailwind, only to afterwards have my abdominal muscles start seizing up after a mild cough rendering me immobile in my car. It's kind of hard to explain but suffice it to say when my ab muscle starts to seize up, it typically marks the end of my training day. It is a pain that is unlike the pain I feel when any other muscle seizes up and I usually have to work myself down from a state of panic/shock from the pain. My abdominal muscles twist themselves into a knot forcing one in particular to become rock hard and protrude from my stomach. One of the first and most prominent times this has happened to me, I was training for Carlsbad Marathon in December of 2013 when I tripped over a crack on the sidewalk 0.5 miles away from being done with my long run for the day. My reaction when I fall is almost always to tense up, and that tensing up motion caused me to contract all my muscles in a way that immediately caused most of them, mainly my abs, to seize up. In a state of panic and adrenaline I jumped up immediately and ran into the Souplantation that happened to be really close. I grabbed the nearest salt shaker, and started pouring as much salt in my mouth as I could. It was raining that day so I made the mistake of wearing a jacket which caused me to sweat gallons more than I would have an a regular 20-mile run. I also, at mile 15, chugged 30 oz of G2 Gatorade, which is essentially watered down Gatorade with fewer calories and artificial sweeteners. All this made for a flushing of my electrolytes and the consequential seizing up of my abs, putting me in a state of acute pain the likes of which I had rarely, if ever, felt. It wasn't long before employees and customers started noticing this freak in running clothes chugging salt from a salt shaker. I didn't care, I needed to end the pain. The pain got so intense that I started actually going into shock, a glossed-over look on my face, and became unresponsive. An ambulance was called on my behalf and I remember them asking me what year it was: "2003", I managed to mutter. I was out of it. I think I remember them somehow putting me on a stretcher (all dramatic) and putting me in the ambulance before they told me they were going to charge me if we started driving so they wanted to make sure it was serious. "What? You're gonna charge? Okay, I'm fine, I can walk, lemme out," LMAO. In all seriousness though, enough time had passed and I get enough fluid/electrolytes in me that that pain had started to subside. I agreed that I could get out if we were really careful about it. I did a walk of shame back to my car. I don't think I even stopped my Garmin.
Since then, I have had this happen to me numerous times, I'd say 6 times, each time gaining a better understanding and control of the pain and the panic that comes with it. I imagine it to be like the scene in Fight Club where he gives himself a chemical burn. I've trained myself not to escape this pain when it happens, but to embrace it. "This is the greatest moment of your life, and you're off somewhere, MISSING IT!". It's become one of my favorite quotes and I use it often with my races every time I experience pain. I don't think I've had my abs seize up during any one of my races though, so luckily it's always just been a matter of it happening during my training.
Well, it happened. As the climb was flattening out, I stupidly tripped over a rock, my second fall for the day (the first one being so soft and gracious that I almost don't consider it a fall) and landed on my right side after trying to brace my fall with my hands, the left of which is connected to a wrist that is still messed up from a fall at Sycamore 100k. One of my calves started to seize up, "Ah fuck, get up, get up, gotta get up quick before it gets worse and work/walk it out". In my hurry to get up, I obviously contracted my abs which was a big mistake. "Ah fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, no, no, no, no. Okay, it's happening again, that's okay, the aid station is right there, a quarter mile away, just walk there and they'll help you out". A part of me that didn't think I could even get there was hoping they would see this runner clenching his stomach, yelling in pain, hobbling at a 40-minute pace, realize the urgency of the matter and come carry me in. That's not going to happen, I realized. I just needed to make it to the Aid Station that now seemed hours away. "Okay, embrace it, embrace it, it helps you realize you are alive, pain is a blessing in disguise," I told myself, "this is a good thing, embrace it, don't escape it AHHHHHHHHHHH FUCK! That hurts! GAAHHHHHHH". I managed to get there as the volunteers all looked concerned. I tried to explain, in broken gasps of words accented by shouts of pain, also attempting to ignore the pain enough to focus on finding words to explain what was going on. "I'm seizing up -- I fell -- my abs -- they locked up -- I can't -- GAHHH -- I need to breathe -- I need salt or salt pills". This was the first time I tried drinking pickle juice, probably ever, but particularly during a race. It just seemed like the right thing to drink. Ugh, yikes! As long as it helps I suppose. I eventually decided to try and sit down, after refusing to sit for fear of not being able to get back up. I spent at least 30 minutes at that aid station, if not 45, trying to work out the kink in my abs. I had Jessica, RD of Sycamore Canyon 100k who happened to be volunteering there that day, feel my ab muscle so as to have a witness. "Oh wow, yeah, that's really hard". I was drinking coke, eating what I could, more coke, water, massaging it out, beating it out with my fist, Wim Hof breathing techniques -- whatever I could. I started to mentally come to terms with the fact that my day might be over here, as I started to see runner after runner pass me up. "It's a really beautiful day. I should've just volunteered here with you guys," I joked, still trying to knead out the knot. It was in the low-60's, absolutely a perfect day for running, a gentle cool wind -- super beautiful. As it normally happens when I stop running and I'm in a dehydrated state, I started shivering because my body temperature had a hard time regulating itself. The shivering then started triggering the cramping of other muscles all over my body, in my lower back, my upper back, my sides, my neck, my quads, my hamstrings. I asked if the volunteers could help massages these knots out. It was a mess, but I'm grateful for those volunteers that day. One in particular kept checking in on me in a mom-like way. They gave me a blanket when I started shivering. I told them I wanted to keep going, but I also don't want to fall over and be stranded on the side of the trail in pain. They told me I had plenty of time and just to make sure I was okay before heading out. I started thinking about it. At the beginning of the race, the RD also told us that we could opt-down into the 50k if we feel like it wasn't our day. I thought, well, that's just 9 miles, I might be able to make at least that if I can just get my hydration/electrolytes stable. "I think I'm gonna head out and I might do the 50k", I started walking around in circles with the blanket on to get my body temperature back up enough to feel comfortable going out. The pain had subsided and my ab muscle had relaxed. "I think I can do this, just do the 50k". So I thanked the volunteers and went out to start the Trabuco single-track rocky descent, walking as carefully as I could.
Second thing's second don't you tell me what you think that I can be,
I'm the one at the sail I'm the master of my sea, oh -- OOOO ooooo.
I remember covering this part at night with Teyana. We had done 20 miles that night in 10 hours before we were forced to call it a day. She kept saying how mad she was for how slow she was going down that trail when she usually speeds down it. I kept thinking about how much resolve she showed through the night, at 2 mph on average, and this kept me going as I started to feel comfortable enough to do a 15-minute pace. I was moving pretty good when all of a sudden I tripped over a rock and landed on the right side of the trail slamming my upper-right quad directly on a rock. After the immediate panic of falling wore off, I was happy to realize that I hadn't seized up the way I had before. This realization then allowed me the blessing to be able to focus on the pain from landing full-force on a soft-ball-sized rock -- "AHHHHHHHHHWWWWWW!!" I yelled out, not caring if anyone could hear. It felt like someone took a bat and swung as hard as they could into my right quad during mid-contraction. I embraced the moment of pain, as I lay there, on my back, sun in my face, in a bunch of weeds letting out more expressions of pain. A guy pulled up behind me and managed to help me get up, though I was a little cautious of not using my ab muscles at all when getting up so as not to trigger another episode of chaos. "Yeah, this is definitely not the place to fall," he said. He also asked if I needed any salt pills, and kindly offered some of his water. This is why I love this sport.
I decided to just walk the rest of the way down to avoid any other stupid mishaps. We got to Horsethief and as I was walking up, I passed people -- some who had stopped to "admire the view" and others who were sitting down puking various liquids up. "Hang in there, man," I told him as I continued on and started to seize up in my quads and hamstrings. I got to the top of Horsethief at the Aid Station where you had to make the decision to either keep going another 25 miles to try and finish 50 miles, or turn right and just do 6 miles more to finish a 50k. After eating a bunch of chips and drinking fluids, I had to have that moment of honesty that you can only find during a race in a situation like this where we could drop down and avoid a DNF. I never really liked the idea of dropping down to avoid a DNF. I always appreciate the offer when RD's extend it, but I signed up for a 50-miler, so it would feel dishonest of me to consider anything less than that an official finish. Should I risk a potential DNF and go for 50, knowing I might not make it another 25 miles, or should I just cash my chips in and walk 6 miles back to the start, avoiding a DNF entirely?
The guy who I saw puking had just gotten up from his chair and decided to go on. "Fuck it, at least I'm not having stomach problems. I can continue even if I seize up every tenth of a mile. If I stop, I stop, but for now, I'll continue.
PAAIIN! YOU BREAK ME DOWN, YOU BUILD ME UP, BELIEVER, BELIEVER!
PAAIIN! YOU MAKE ME A, YOU MAKE ME A BELIEVER, BELIEVER!
I realized I still had to climb up towards Santiago Peak and thought, "If I make it up to Santiago Peak I can call it a day". I kept playing leapfrog with the guys who were having stomach issues. When they would stop, I would pass, only to be stopped by more seizing up of my hamstrings. When we got to the next Aid Station 2.5 miles away at Trabuco Peak, they eventually left me. I was telling the guys at the Aid Station about my problems and how I honestly was thinking of calling it a day there because those last 2 miles felt like they took forever. At this point I heard on the radio they had that they had just closed off the Aid Station I left 2.5 miles ago at 1:42pm. That was right behind me, and they had just cut it off. I found myself asking what the cutoff for Bear Springs (the next AS) was. They didn't know, but wanted to assure me that I was fine if I continued. I had never been concerned with cutoffs before, yet here I found myself, clearly in the back of the pack. They assured me that there were plenty of people behind me, but I found that hard to be true considering they had just cutoff the AS I had just left. "Well, if I was going to quit and do the 50k, it's a little bit late for that now I suppose". A part of me still wanted to walk back the way I came as even though it would still be longer than a 50k, it wouldn't be nearly as much pain as a 50-miler would be in this condition.
Pain is such a hard thing to describe. It's extremely subjective and you never know exactly how much pain someone is truly in. Someone could have looked at me and thought, "he's alright, he's just cramping", without realizing how much pain I had already endured up to that point. This is the best thing about running in a sense, as it's a kind of honesty that you can only have with yourself. Nobody else will know how bad it hurts and the danger you genuinely feel you're putting yourself in by continuing -- but they don't have to know. Sure it would be nice to have a compassionate person who tries to understand your pain but at the end of the day, there is no difference between a hangnail and a cramping abdominal muscle to the observer. You, and only you yourself will ever know what that felt like. And you will be the only one who realizes how awesome of an accomplishment it truly was to keep going, in the face of pain that is guaranteed to stop you in your tracks and send you into panic. Nobody else will have that knowledge. It is yours, and yours only; a treasure which you are lucky enough to find, made all the more valuable if only because everyone else cannot see it for what it is.
"How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?"
- Tyler Durdin
I forced myself up out of the chair and continued. Although next little bit was downhill, I knew that that was no solace to my cramping muscles. Walking downhill forces your muscles into a contraction just to keep yourself upright, and it therefore increases the likelihood that I will seize up again and not be able to do anything about it besides rub it out and wait. I started singing out loud to help myself continue. I had picked the song of the day for this race, as I often have a song repeating over and over in my head if not in my headphones for the entirety of a race. It was a song I heard on the radio often called "Believer" by Imagine Dragons. After actually listening to the lyrics one day, I thought it was the perfect song for ultra running as it is an omage to pain. As I started a little 15-minute jog downhill, I began singing louder and louder, almost hysterically:
"PAAAIIIN!!! YOU MAKE ME A YOU MAKE ME A BELIEVER! BELIEVER!! PAAAAIIIINNNNNN I'LL LET THE BULLETS FLY I'LL LET THEM RAIIIINNNNNNN!! MY LUCK MY LOVE MY DRIVE IT CAME FROM ---"
And just like that -- PAAIIN. It locked me up to the point where I was almost whimpering. A runner who I believe was Brandon Bollweg was on his way back down Main Divide when he saw me clenched over, rubbing my hamstring in pain. He looked like he was having a rough day himself but he offered help to which I was more grateful for the concern than I would have been if he was actually able to help me. "I'm alright, I'm just cramping like crazy", I said. "Ah, man, hang in there," he grimaced fighting off pain himself. I forgot the power of words and how I can manifest things into reality via songs I listen to. I should be more selective of the songs I choose to repeat over and over again. Maybe some Louis Armstrong next time. I almost imagine a slow-motion video montage of me cramping up in pain juxtaposed with
"What a Wonderful World" playing. In fact, look it up and listen to it while reading the rest of this. It's worth a good laugh.
I managed somehow to pull into Bear Springs Aid Station. I gave them the rundown of what was happening and they helped out as best as they could. "I gotta stop here. I've been cramping up since mile 21 and it's the kind of cramping that stops you dead in your tracks and sends you into a panic". There was no way I was going to be able to do the next 3 miles up to the top, I didn't care that I had planned to get up to the peak, this wasn't going to happen. "I just know the kind of pain to expect and I know it can get worse, and I'm afraid that might just take me out all together". I spent 20 minutes here talking my options out with the volunteers to see what was possible. For some reason, I decided to get up and try to keep walking up to the peak and deal with the problems as they arise. Before I left, there was a guy there who looked Native, which is kind of rare for me to see at ultras. I asked, "Hey, are you Native?" "Half," he said, "Klammath". "Ah cool, I'm from a tribe down in San Diego," as I trudged my way up to start the climb. "Thanks a lot you guys".
I continued the climb up towards Santiago Peak when a new issue had started to become a problem -- flies. Now I know what you're thinking, they're just flies, and no they didn't bite, but listen. Every time I would seize up, which was now every tenth of a mile, within a half a second of me stopping they would SWARM -- and I mean SWARM -- around me. I had no idea that that many flies could occupy that amount of space. Imagine a swarm of bees from a classic cartoon, that's what it looked like around me. They were trying to get into any orifice they could; my mouth, my ears, my nostrils. Luckily I had shorts on otherwise I'm sure the other orifices would've been fair game. I was faced with the ultimatum of either moving through the seizing up, which wasn't possible, or getting engulfed by these large flies spitting them out as they tried to envelop me. These weren't little fruit flies or gnats, they were legitimate flies hovering over what they probably thought was a dying body. It got to a point where I had had enough. "GO! THE FUCK! AWAY!!!! LEAVE ME ALONEE!!!!!!!" I yelled, knowing I would seem crazy to anyone within hearing distance. I was over it, I was more than over it. I am walking back down to Bear Springs AS and calling it a day, fuck this. I can't even, this is a fuckin nightmare. People were running down and there were even some hikers. Some hikers were nice enough to tell me "It gets worse", as I was frantically swatting flies away from my face. As rude as that was, it actually didn't faze me as I was finding it hard to believe these flies could get much worse than they already were, unless by that he meant that they turned into bees.
"I wanna stop," I said to myself, "I wanna stop."
I created an imaginary being inside me to respond. My inner me became my enemy, and also my coach, as he embraced me and said
"We can't," right before pulling back, and swinging full-force with an uppercut to the chin.
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I no longer had a say in this. This was a fight. I was beating myself up, like Tyler Durden himself, and the scene must've looked just as ridiculous. That person inside me, that thing, was stronger than my will. My will was telling me to stop, for all sane reasons, but that thing inside me kept telling me that we can't.
It knew something I didn't and whether or not I liked it, it was in control. In retrospect, I realized what it knew that I wasn't conscious of at that time. It knew that if I had walked back down and DNF'd, I would've woken up the next morning, and every day for the rest of my life I would've kept replaying that scenario, wondering if I could have truly gone on and finished. Having had DNF's before, I know that feeling of waking up the next morning, that feeling of regret. That "I should've kept going" feeling. Even though you knew at the time that there was 100% nothing left for you to give, there will still be that doubt. Having had 2 recent episodes that I would consider DNF's, I didn't want to make this a third one, and it knew it. This couldn't become a trend. I don't put too much pressure on myself to not DNF and I do not try to attach any negative feelings to a DNF, but this one was different. It's this kind of honesty that I dig for in races and that's what it knew.
I got to the part where the road hooks to the left uphill when a jeep came by. Desperately looking to make eye contact with someone who might see my suffering and offer a way out of this misery, I watched as they drove by. As they continued downhill around the curve, I turned around and waved them down. They stopped. "Are you guys part of the race?" I yelled. "No, we just happened to be driving here today," they said, unsure of what I wanted. They probably figured I was running the race and in trouble. "I don't think I can make it to the top". How pathetic this sounded, flagging down complete strangers and whining to them that I didn't want to continue. "Could you guys take me down to the next Aid Station?" They said they could, although I imagine they were reasonably reluctant to want to turn around and come get me. I paused to think before agreeing to have them take me down. This would be for sure committing to a DNF, Phillip, are you sure you wanna do this? "On second thought, I think I'll keep trying, I don't want to make you guys turn around and come get me". "Okay, we'll let them know you're having trouble maybe they can send someone up for you".
"Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time."- Viktor E. Frankl
Okay, I just gotta make it up to the top, it's not that far. Just keep walking -- OWWW FUCK. I had to wait another 30 seconds to rub that one out when another Jeep came. I hailed this one down as it came by, with very little shame to my game at this point. "Are you going all the way down?" I asked. "Yes I am", he responded as I was still being consumed by flies. "Do you think you could take me down to the last Aid Station? I don't think I can make it all the way up and I'm gonna call it a day". "Sure, get in," he was nice enough to offer. I opened the door and gripped the hand rail to pull myself in when I stopped -- "Wait, I really have to think about this. If I get in, that's it, it's game over, there's no turning back from this decision. I'm making that decision right now if I get in, but I can choose differently still." "Whatever you want to do," he responded. I'm the most indecisive person in the world. The fact that I had to make a split-second decision or otherwise waste this gentleman's time and suffer the resulting guilt was just too much to handle. "WE CAN'T", Tyler Durden yelled as I hoped that that wasn't actually audible by anyone but myself. Then I saw a runner coming up without a shirt, running to pass the Jeep on the side that I was on. Being faced with inconveniencing now two people with my antics, I told the gentleman "I think I'm just gonna keep trying", and told him I really appreciated him stopping. The runner was now walking, being more or less stopped by me and the Jeep being in the way. I started walking with him and talking out my problems. "Man, I know how you feel, I wanted to quit a while back. I did got lost and did 10 extra miles so my legs are really at mile 42," he empathized. "WOW, you got lost, did 10 extra miles, and you're still going? Most people get lost and get completely defeated and would call it a day after even just 5 miles extra. The fact that you're still going really says something," I told him. "Yeah, I even called up my girlfriend and told her, 'Yeah, don't come out because I'm going to drop because I got lost'. Then one of the guys at the Aid Station really talked me into continuing," he continued. "Wow. You must have a really good reason to keep going if you're still going now. What's your name?" "My name's Kyle and yeah I wanted to get a 100 miler done before I turn 25 but I dunno if that's going to happen this year. But that's why I'm out here now, I wanted to do Chimera. I might have to train an extra year and do it next year," he explained. "Dude, if you're doing as good as you are now you are in perfect condition for Chimera. How old are you?". "24", he breathed. "Holy crap dude, you are killing it at your age!". I was extremely impressed at his resolve. I was at mile 32, and he was at mile 42, and we both had 18 miles to go. How could I DNF when this guy still found it in him to keep going? "Man, Kyle, if I finish today -- and right now that's still a BIGGG "if" -- you would have something to do with it". "Thanks man, you can do it just keep hanging in there," he responded. "Don't let me hold you up by the way, if you feel like you have it in you, run up this thing". "I think I just might". Incredible. Off he went and I managed to finish walking up towards the peak myself.
I finally got to the peak much to my relief and sat down at one of the chairs they had. A volunteer was nice enough to offer me a HotShot, which I hadn't tried before, but heard it was good for cramps. I downed it, hoping it would help if I decided to continue. I asked when the next Jeep was coming up, to which they said, "Pretty soon to take this guy". A runner was standing with hands tied behind his back, someone I remember passing me up a long time ago. "How you feeling?" I asked. "I'm doing good, how about yourself?" "I'm hanging in there," I responded. I guess he wasn't feeling good enough to continue, which was awesome for me as now I had a ride back down. I explained to everyone what was happening and again, the downplaying of my pain simply because in the ultra world carnage is seen all the time. It's okay, they saw a dollar on the floor and I saw a stack of $100's. I can't let this opportunity go. "It's just 13 miles and it's mainly downhill," they tried to comfort me. "Yeah, but the downhill is no better than up or flat, I seize up worse downhill even". These 2 female runners offered me some Tums, which I was a little reluctant to take at first not wanting to chance much of anything on the fact that I wasn't having any GI issues thus far, which was my one solace. I got over myself and thought, if it's over here it doesn't matter much anyway.
Some other people came up and left before I did. I then decided to try and make it 3 miles back down to Bear Springs AS. I figured a Jeep is coming to pick up the other guy so that will be my safety net if I feel like dropping on the way down. They wished me luck as I hobbled back down the undulating Jeep road, hoping the HotShot would prevent more seizing up.
It didn't. I was still cramping up on the way down, 30 minutes after taking it. So much for HotShot, not worth $7 a shot. To be fair though, I was in really horrible shape. I saw the truck that was going to pick up the DNF'er coming up, and caught it on its way down. "You going all the way down?" I asked the lady. "Yeah, and we have room for one more if you need a ride." At this point, I was starting to lose it a little bit. She was still speaking, and the little girl in the passengers seat was also saying something, but I told them "I'm not here right now, this doesn't feel real, it feels like a dream, or like I'm watching it happen like a movie or something. I'm tripping out." "Yeah, you need help, they have an EMT down there, you should get in". "I think I should be good," I said. "Are you SURE?" "Yeah, I'm sure, I can get down to the next Aid Station." "Alright..." she said reluctantly as she drove off. I continued on down to Bear Springs.
At this point I started peeing every other mile, even though I had peed 5 times already during the race. I managed to pick up the speed just a little bit, just enough to trail behind this girl who had passed me for the last truck showed up. "It's all downhill from here they said. It should be easy they said", I joked with her as we were both struggling to go downhill.
I pulled into Bear Springs and greeted the nice volunteers from the last time I came through. I told them I'm feeling better but I'm worried that's just temporary. At this point I started to slightly pee myself without realizing it, which I thought was cause for concern. The sweeper had just pulled in to this AS going uphill to the peak. Damn. "This is where I'm at, huh?" I thought to myself. One of the volunteers spoke to the sweeper "Want me to call to make sure there's somebody up there before you go up?" Wow, was I really the last person? Could it be? I've always had much respect for the person in the back, and felt I could relate to them more than people in front, but I had never actually been this far back in a race before. There was only one other person behind me at this point. I was almost DFL. "I wanna keep going, but I don't even have a headlamp in my drop bag, I didn't think I'd be out this long". "Here," one of the volunteers said, "take this flash light. It's my personal one and it's my lucky one". Super appreciative of the gesture I took it, even though I was meaning to hold on to that one excuse to DNF. I was still under the impression that the cutoff was 15 hours, when in reality it was 14 hours. "If I continue, that'll be a 14.5 hour finish, I dunno". "Don't think about that!" the lady who gave me the flash light interrupted, "Just keep going one step at a time".
I decided I needed to keep going. I would keep monitoring my situation but I was okay enough to keep going. One of the other volunteers was really concerned for me and I was really appreciative of him as well. I managed to make it to Trabuco Peak AS with only the occasional seizing up. On the way there, I tried the flashlight only to realize it actually didn't work. "So much for good luck," I thought, tossing it into my pack. At Trabuco Peak AS I asked the volunteers if they had batteries or a spare light. They changed the flashlight batteries only to still not have it work (how lucky), at which point a volunteer just gave me his headlamp to return at the end of the race. Man, I fuckin love volunteers.
I took some Honey Stingers which ended up really helping my cramping 20 minutes at a time. I made it to the Horsethief AS with such relief, remembering that at this point there's only about 5-6 miles left of the race. At this point, I was actually making up ground. Still seizing up occasionally but able to hold a surprisingly fast pace of 15 minutes. Yeah, only in ultra will you understand how a 15-minute pace could be considered "fast". I started passing up people. First that lady who passed me going downhill, then another guy who was walking, then another guy who was in the bushes probably taking a shit. I made it to the final Trabuco AS when the lady who had been so helpful the first time around was so thrilled to see me. "We heard there was somebody lying flat on the side of the trail, we thought that was you, we're so glad to see you come back, we thought you were going to do 50k but we kept not seeing you. I'm so happy you stuck it through!". Again, I fuckin love volunteers.
I continued on down the Trabuco road really trying to pick it up to about a 12 minute pace when I passed the 2 girls who gave me Tums at Santiago Peak. "Thanks for the Tums ladies," I said as I ran past them walking. "Oh, yeah, we're glad it helped". At this point I hit the pavement when you have about 2 miles left to go. I started doing a 10 minute pace and because the sun had long gone down, I guess you could say I was just starting to get a second wind. That, and I just wanted to be done with this mess of a race. I told Whitney to come out if she wanted to and that I would be there for, at the longest, 12 hours before taking off, thinking I'd be done in 10 hours and stick around for 2 more. How foolish. I wasn't sure if she was even still there or if she had shown up. I was pulling a 9 minute pace as I reached the final 0.5 miles of the race. I saw someone walking alongside the line of parallel-parked cars and thought, I should shine the light on myself so if it was Whitney she'd be able to see it was me. "Hey," I heard her say as she started running with me. I yelled out in pain as if trying to express how all the pain of my day in one sound. "I had a bad day. I never wanted to quit a race more than I did today," said. "But you didn't, and you're almost done". I'm sure she must've figured, at 13.5 hours, that I had a really rough time out there but I wanted someone to understand and she would, knowing who I am and what I can handle. I ran into that finish line with such relief, I cannot tell you. I ran right past it and kept walking down the road towards a tree, as I felt it was good enough at that point to let myself stop and be overwhelmed with emotion after having won one helluva fight. This is why I run -- not for speed, not for winning, not for glory, but for that battle, that nobody knows about, between you and an old familiar friend/coach that knows more than you do, yet is willing to teach you if you are willing to listen.
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The people experiencing the most pain ,tend to be the ones who are always trying to make others SMILE.
