All Things Move Toward Their End

I was walking up that damn hill for the last time, cursing the course designers for making all three loops end with this same arduous climb.  I could hear twigs snapping behind me and I knew I needed to step onto the brush to let someone who was actually running pass me on the single-track trail.  To add insult to injury, the air was so dry that the fine dirt particles she kicked up in her wake flew into my mouth.  I was literally eating her dust. 

When I neared the top of the hill, I saw a photographer lounging under an umbrella snap to attention.  I assured him his effort was unnecessary.  I couldn’t muster up the energy to fake-run for the camera and I didn’t care for any documentation of my slouching, pitiful self.  Despite my protests, he began to snap away, and for a moment I could sympathize with celebrities leaving airports with paparazzi zooming in on their crusty, travel-worn faces.  I certainly felt crusty and travel-worn, although technically I had gone nowhere since we were actually running in circles.   Though I was tired and irritated, vanity took over.  I did not want a picture of me walking.  There are times when pride is my only motivation and this was one of them.  I started running.

A million thoughts flew through my mind as I ran that last quarter-mile: how excited I was to be done with my part of the race, a personal sense of accomplishment for finishing an extra leg (albeit the shortest), concern that it was really heating up and many more teammates had multiple legs left, worry about how long it would take for all of us to finish, wondering if eleven AM was too early for a beer.

As I ran down the chute, I saw M waiting in the transition tent.  As I took our team bib off over my head (the belt elastic was broken, and a lot of us ended up having to wear our race number like a beauty pageant sash), M told me a new plan was being proposed to finish earlier.  As she ran off to complete her trifecta, the rest of the team met me outside the transition tent.

We settled in the makeshift mess hall, the shadiest part of the village.  A asked what I thought of simply not filling the two extra legs that should have been run by the people who dropped out.  He referenced our road relay team last year when my friend's family emergency forced us to be down a runner.  One of the options the race organizers gave us was to simply sit out the projected time it would have taken her to run her distances.  Considering it was the same company producing this race, we figured that the policy would apply this time around as well.

While I was running, A and the others asked the race organizers if sitting out the legs would disqualify our team.  The people they spoke to assured us it wouldn’t.  Considering so many teams were doubling up and the timing rubric was thrown all out of whack because of it, it seemed reasonable that the organizers would be loose with the official results.

I was still coming down from my high from finishing my last leg.  My day was done, and all that was left for me was to wait.  If not doing the two extra legs shortened my time sitting in the hot Tahoe sun, that was fine with me.  It was getting much warmer, and the legs left were so long and hard.  It seemed unfair to ask anyone do them.

Once the decision was made, we started to mobilize and breakdown our camp.  A noticed a tarp had folded over our team sign obscuring the top line.  Instead of “Eight No Mountain High Enough” all that could be seen of our name was “High Enough”.  I’m not sure if that more aptly described all our sleep-deprived mental states, or the fact that, at least this time, the mountain beat us.

Many teams who doubled up and finished early had already left.  The campsite was quickly thinning out, leaving behind the empty parking lot that it was thirty-six hours before.  Even with only twenty-two legs, we still didn’t finish till almost 5:00 PM.  I was showered, well-fed and sleeping in a king-size bed three hours later.  I was glad we decided to tap out when we did.

Much to my dismay, one week later our official results were released on the race website as DNF.  

Initially I was angry at the organizers for having misled us, but I have since come to realize that it doesn’t matter.  I do not regret the experience.  It sucks that for internet posterity our team will be listed as not having finished, but I know what we accomplished and I’m proud of myself and our team.  I’ll never forget the literal highs (riding up the chair lift, dealing with the minimal oxygen at elevation) and the figurative lows (dealing with flaky teammates).  I’ll never forget fighting through extreme fatigue, sitting at the camp with old and new friends, and the look on A’s face as he trotted down the chute after his exhilarating night run.

I would do it all over again, although hopefully next time with a full team.  Even though we did not finish, there is still Eight No Mountain High Enough.

Race Disorganizers

Throughout the night, there were rumblings that a plan of action was being formulated by the race organizers to ensure that the teams who were far behind projections would finish before the 4:00 PM course cut-off.  At over four hours behind, we were undoubtedly amongst this group.  Speaking to other teams, it was mildly comforting to know that we didn't appear to be in the minority.

One solution we heard being bandied about was having teams send out runners on different loops simultaneously.  Another was extending the cut-off time to 8:00 PM that night.

The rumor picking up the most steam was that the race organizers were going to make teams double up their runners, meaning teams would eschew the designated running order and have teammates  run together on whatever loops they had remaining out of sequence.  This was by far the worst option for our team.  Since we were missing two teammates, the extra legs we had left to do were the exact same ones the runners who offered to pick them up were already assigned.  In other words, in order for us to get all twenty-four legs in, runners would have to essentially “double up” with themselves.  Since this is a physically impossible feat for anyone other than Schrödinger’s cat, we were quite concerned and started trying to figure out an alternative strategy.

Speculation was at a near frenzy as the sun started to rise, but it was impossible to get concrete information from anyone in charge.  Our team figured out an ad-hoc way to get all the legs covered, but it meant that we needed to send out two people on the very next leg.  Therefore, we felt pressured to get the okay from the race organizers before our teammate currently on course came back in.

I tried talking to an official-looking duo sitting in front of laptops in the transition tent.  I was both trying to find out the specifics of doubling up (Do the runners have to stay together?  If not, does the faster runner wear the team bib which is imbedded with the timing chip?  How does the second runner’s time get recorded?), as well as trying to get the official okay for the plan our team came up with.  The man ignored me completely as he huffed exasperatedly at his computer screen.  The young Russian girl sitting next to him somehow acknowledged me while never looking up from her computer screen, which I didn’t mind because her brusqueness implied a measure of authority.  Although I was well-prepared with a visual aid to illustrate our plan of action, she didn’t bother glancing at my spreadsheet nor even let me finish my question.

“Just double up.  Go ahead, do it.  Do it now.”  Spoken like a true Proletariat.

Meanwhile, A and M were talking to a woman who was sitting a few hundred yards away at what yesterday was the registration desk.  She was armed with a walkie-talkie and thereby had a direct line to the race director, a wild-eyed man who looked more like Where's Waldo than a trail runner.  While she tried to be helpful, she was simultaneously dealing with an emergency on the course that involved a runner who required medical attention.  After waiting for his condition to stabilize, she finally told us that no, we cannot double up until the official announcement was made at 9:00 AM.   Even though that was only a twenty minutes away, our runner was coming in and we had to make a choice.  If we didn’t send two runners out on the next leg, our plan would not work.

The team camping next to us already took it upon themselves to double up around midnight without the race organizers' consent.  Like us, they couldn't find anyone to give them a straight answer, but they were so far behind they knew they would not finish until late Saturday night and they had "other things to do" that weekend.  So they went ahead and doubled up, keeping their own time records in order to plead their case. The fear was they risked not being granted medals and having their official results listed as the dreaded DNF, Did Not Finish.

So we sat and waited for 9:00 AM or for our runner to come in, whichever came first. It was nearly time and our runner still wasn’t back.  The organizers gathered whoever was around the transition tent and someone shouted over a bullhorn that teams needed to start doubling up if the runner for your sixteenth leg hadn’t gone out yet.  Sixteen was the very leg we were waiting to be completed.  Because we just made their cut-off, the race organizers wouldn’t let us execute our plan.

The runner of our sixteenth leg came in at 9:02 AM.  Unable to argue with the race organizers and in a frenzy to keep our relay moving, we had no choice but to send our next runner, A, out alone.  Our hopes of doubling up and finishing before 4:00 PM were dashed.  At that moment, I knew it would be a long day.

Here, There and Everywhere

Surely you’ve noticed with much dismay that I’ve been a bit absent from this blog as of late.  I have yet to write the end of our trail race saga, of which you must be anxiously waiting with bated breath.  Well, you must wait further since, though I have started a few versions of it, it’s a complicated story with a bit of a melancholy denouement so I’ve been a little bit lazy about getting around to finishing it.

I’m hoping a bit of scenery change will jump start my inspiration.  Runner’s World has a feature called “Rave Run” where they highlight beautiful places to run and for the first time, I’ve actually been to a place they featured.

It reminded me that I’ve always wanted to document all the cool places A and I have had the chance to run in.  We like to run when we travel because it’s a great way to see parts of the city you might otherwise skip.  So please find following a selection of places we’ve run, in no particular order:

Amboise, France: along the Loire River, early morning.  A remembered it started to rain towards the end of our run.  It was a beautiful gray, pastoral, picturesque morning.  And then we had a selection of delicious quiches afterward.

Barcelona, Spain: Though the city is fantastic, I didn’t really map a great route for us.  We were staying on La Rambla and ran side streets to the marina and back.  It was a bit of an aimless run, appropriately rambling.  And we did happen upon an outdoor market that we returned to later for some fresh fruit.

Madrid, Spain: around the perimeter of Retiro Park.  A had spent some time in Madrid and compared Retiro Park to Central Park in New York.  It is much smaller.  It was a hot run, but otherwise not very noteworthy.

Yosemite, California: We were staying in the burnt out part of the park so there wasn’t too much to see along the road we ran.  With the absence of discernible landmarks, when the road ended, we simply turned around and headed back as to not risk getting hopelessly lost.

Portland, Oregon: traversing a few bridges across the Willemette River, running along both the east and west banks, just as suggested in the Runner's World article.  It was definitely a run to rave about!

Seattle, Washington: along the bike lane starting from the U (as in university) District through to Gas Works Park.  Got it in between the heavy showers, but did run through a light mist part of the way.

Vancouver, British Columbia:  Was very excited for this run.  Mapped it through the Olympic Village, just three months after Vancouver hosted the 2010 Winter Games.  Ended up running through a deconstruction site!  Everything was being torn down.  We should have run through Stanley Park, instead.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: along the Schuykill River, and of course up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Miami, Florida: along South Beach.  It was hot.

Stuart, Florida: see previous post.

Buenos Aires, Argentina: through the Belgrano neighborhood, dodging little doggy landmines all over the sidewalk.  We ran to a big park, through what looked like a golf course and tennis club, and ended up in a big dog park, where more land mines were being planted.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: from Copacabana to Ipanema, along the crowded beaches on their famous tiled walkways.

Sydney, Australia: past Hyde Park, through the Royal Botanical Gardens, past the Opera House, and over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  We saw cockatoos in the wild!

Cairns, Australia: another rambling, humid run through their botanical gardens, which ended up being rather small.  Picked up some extra mileage in the suburban part of town.

Melbourne, Australia: along the Yarra River.  We ran alongside the rowers training in the river with their bicycle-riding coaches flanking them along the path.

I can’t think of any more places of note.  This doesn’t include the destination races we’ve done or the places I’ve treadmilled since running in a hotel doesn’t count as seeing a city.  Nor did I count when A went on a run in Cassis followed by a dip in the Mediterranean without me!

I hope to add to this list before too long.  There are many more parts of the world I’d love to see on foot.

The Infinite Lift

As I rode up on the ski lift, knowing this was my last time on this godforsaken mountain, the last time I’d finish with the same three-quarter mile misery that I had done thrice before, probably the last time I’d ever ride on a ski lift without snow on the ground (or with, for that matter), I tried to enjoy the view and not foreshadow the dread of having to get off and run again.

I tried to see the large granite boulders on the mountainside.  I tried to open my mouth and eat the oxygen right out of the low-hanging clouds that weren’t quite so low considering I was approaching nine thousand feet.  I tried to reach out and put my hand on the many pine trees that I sailed past, but they were always further away than they appeared.

I remembered the look on A’s face after finishing this loop, the gleam in his eyes when he talked about riding up the lift.  His time was during the wee AM hours, when the sky is at its inky best.  He spoke of the stars and the moon and maybe he even saw the Milky Way.  I was riding up in the heat of mid-morning, but I closed my eyes and imagined this journey at night, with A by my side sharing one blanket between us, as we lift off over the mountain ridge and float away into outer space.  Then I opened my eyes and saw the bright blue sky and looked down at my feet dangling over thirty feet of emptiness and willed myself not to slide beneath the safety bar and fall into the below.

The terminus began to swell into view as I inched ever closer to the point of departure.  Knowing there were seven unforgiving miles ahead of me, I contemplated staying in my seat, taking the ride back down, giving a thumbs-up to the confused attendant as I circle past.  I could always ride up again.  Or I could stay on this bench forever, waving to the operators at both ends of the lift until they became new friends who are happy to see me every seven minutes or so, delighted to have a permanent resident in orbit.  They’ll look forward to my smile as I flex my legs over the landing, teasing them, goading them, making them wonder: Is she going to finally get off?  Could this be our last good-bye?

The end looms near, and I hear the concerned voices that carry so very far from below the mountain and even from a future time.  “Where is she?”  “Why hasn’t she finished yet?”  “Is she hurt?”  and “Will this race never end?”

And as my bench slows before the turn back towards civilization, I push the bar over my head, I point my toes down to touch the hard earth, and I start running.

In the Chill of the Night

It was three in the morning.  M and I were sitting in an area close to the transition tent with three small fire pits and a few benches.  It was a cold Sierra night and I had on my team sweatshirt and a parka.  M was only wearing a tee shirt since she was still warm from having just finished running almost seven miles.

M was exhilarated.  We were on a road relay team together last year where unfortunately she did not enjoy her night leg at all.  This time around, despite having to run the most difficult loop in darkness, she had a wonderful time.  She said it was beautiful in the moonlight and she found herself a nice community on the trail.  Runners were helping each other out, sharing the light of their headlamps, calling out hazards (“rocks!”, “log!”), and offering general encouragement.  It wasn’t team against team, but runners versus mountain, all united in a joint endeavor that most in the general population would think of as mildly insane.  Hearing her tell of her experience really captured the essence of why these long distance relays can be so special.  Despite the physical and mental pain of sleep deprivation, magic happens in the night.

I was the runner on deck.  M sat with me as I waited for A to come in while the rest of our team slept.  We chatted with other people milling around the fire pits.  Many, like us, were unashamed to say that the course was kicking their ass, but we came across a sullen pair who defensively said they were only “a little slower” than expected.  Considering even the most accomplished teams were hours behind, it was a startling claim.  In an environment where goofiness abounds and achievement is fostered over competition, I thought it was a bit sad that these two couldn’t spare a moment’s vulnerability.

People came and went by our fire pit.  Sometimes the conversation flowed and sometimes M and I simply sat in tired silence, staring into the flame.  Either way, it was nice to spend a few quiet moments with an old friend.

Forecast Projections: 90% Humility

The sun was quickly setting and we still hadn’t completed a full rotation of runners yet.  By the seventh leg, we were already almost two hours behind projections with seventeen more legs to go.  The minutes were hemorrhaging with every new runner.  I am not militant about other people’s paces as long as everyone gives his or her best effort.  Normally missing projections wouldn’t phase me but shortly before we started the race organizers announced that every team needed to finish by four o’clock the next day.

This was maddening because our assigned start time was based on the team’s collective road pace.  Considering the difficulty of the course, the fact that most of the competitors were coming from significantly lower elevations, and knowing that trail running is always slower than road running even under the best conditions, the time allotted by the organizers was grossly inadequate.  Our ability to complete all twenty-four legs by four the next day was looking impossible based on how far back we were already.  Even though this was mostly the fault of the race organizers, I couldn’t help but feel personally responsible and tremendously disappointed.

I had already run what turned out to be the reputedly most difficult loop, and I was gutted about the amount of walking I had to do.  I consider myself a solid runner and believed that A and I had trained well for the hills.  But we did most of our training at sea level and lack of oxygen is a condition that’s hard to simulate.  I knew this going in, but nevertheless I told myself before the start that I was not going to walk, even if I had to dial my effort down.  Yet not even a mile done and here I was, walking.   It was especially frustrating since I knew every time I stopped to walk, I was pushing us closer to the possibility of not finishing.  My legs hurt, my lungs were screaming, and worst of all, my pride was wounded.

Remembering Who We Are

As A waited in the corral for our team to start running the Tahoe trail relay, someone in the crowd shouted to another runner, “Remember who you are!”

That is my favorite piece of unintentionally insulting coaching advice (“play within yourself” being a close number two).  It would be one thing if I could remember I am Joan Benoit.  Instead, hearing that only succeeds in reminding me that I am a middle-aged recreational athlete with a chocolate habit.

Turns out, not far into the first leg of our relay, A was quickly reminded that he is a sea-level street runner with limited trail experience.  He was also reminded that running up elevation, at elevation, is hard to train for when you live on the coast.  After keeping pace with the elite trail runners for over half a hilly mile, A was felled by lack of oxygen and a steep trek the wrong way up a ski slope.  And that’s how my excellent-runner husband – he who ran nine road miles in under seven-minute pace, he of the never-quit mentality, the FIDO yin to my FYIT* yang – ended up walking.

In fairness, not a single person actually ran up that hill, including the experienced trail runners.  As someone who later did that hill three separate times, the trail turned into a slow-moving human escalator of deflated athletic aspiration.  The brutal inclines reduced all the competitors into zombies, shell-shocked by the difficulty of the task they didn’t realize they were getting into.  My friend M said seeing the numb trudge of racers slowly crawling up the mountain was like watching “Night of the Living Dead”.

What we didn’t know about this type of trail running is that the speed comes from barnstorming the downhill.  And, having not practiced the technique of racing down sandy inclines or steep drop offs made of loose gravel and rolling boulders, that is not something we were about to do.  So our pace suffered.  And suffered.  And suffered.

But the good news was that we were not alone.

*FYIT: Fuck You, I’m Tired

Check This Shit Out

If you have participated in any race, be it a trail run, triathlon, or local 5K, you are likely familiar with the long wall of portable toilets set up at the start line.  There really is no way to make relieving oneself in the absence of running water an enjoyable experience, but at this trail race they provided facilities that almost come close.

The Eco Commodes were trucked in the night before the race, and the morning of they were opened for public consumption, so to speak.  They consisted of three large trailers that had eight to twelve private outhouses each.  We were told by the people who worked for Eco Commode that the two largest trailers were just completed the night before and thereby I like to believe that I was the very first person to drop the inaugural load.

The exterior was as clean and as charming as portable toilets can possibly be.  They looked sturdily built, right down to the pressed tin crescent on the logo, which I thought was a nice throwback.  (Sidebar: Unrelated to the Eco Commode, I coincidentally happened to learn that weekend that the half moon commonly used to denote outhouses back in the day most likely came from the fact that there were two outhouses in olden times, one for men and one for women.  Because males were represented by the sun and females by the moon, those shapes were carved on the outhouse doors.  Since women took more care of their toilette, naturally their structures lasted longer, and eventually men started using the women’s outhouses until it became gender-neutral.)

The outhouse interiors had the same artisanal feel to the build, with unfinished wood walls and (thankfully) finished wood toilet seats.  But the brilliance of the Eco Commode is that instead of harsh chemicals to process your festering waste, the idea is you do your business on top of sawdust, which is compostable and odor absorbing.  Once you are done, there is a large bin full of more sawdust right next to you.  Just take the handy scoop and pour a few piles on top to bury your production.

It reminded me of the brand of litter that my cats use which is made of wood pellets that dissolve into sawdust.  I must admit that a few times while scooping out their hard matter, I have wondered what it must be like to shit on Feline Pine.  Now I feel like I know.

The only negative to the system is that it wasn’t long before the piles of sawdust and other sundry matter started to peak precipitously high in the under-chamber.  I never saw it get too tall as to break the plane of the toilet seat, although towards the end of the day a few were so uncomfortably close that I opted to find another stall.  There were people working for the company minding the situation and I believe they had to manually rotate the stock to alleviate the situation.  While I have stirred some shit in my day, that is not a job I would want to have.

Tenement Square

We set up our tent Thursday evening along the perimeter of a parking lot for the ski resort where the trail race was being held.  Unless you were one of the many who queued up days ahead to buy Halo 4, the iPhone 5, or watch Harry Potters VI and VII, chances are you’ve never had the pleasure of pitching a tent on asphalt.  I certainly never had, although most of said pitching was done by others while I busied myself eating a burrito so heavy it broke through the paper bag and landed splat on the ground, thankfully still contained in the aluminum foil so I could pick it right off the pavement and eat it.

In fact, my only contribution to the build was putting up the sign that I made with our team name, Eight No Mountain High Enough.

It was hung with a heavy heart since we were in fact no longer eight runners.  Since each team member is meant to run all three loops, we effectively had six legs to fill.  The good news was that a team member had a friend who happened to be vacationing an hour away.  He was willing to run the two longest legs the first day, which meant that 1) runners had to be shuffled to accommodate his availability, and 2) we still had four more legs to cover amongst the rest of the team.  So in effect, our team name should have been Six and Two Thirds No Mountain High Enough, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Throughout the night and the next morning, other teams slowly filled in until we had an honest to goodness tent city that spilled onto adjacent parking lots and off the perimeter of the grounds.  The irony did not escape me that I was amongst a group of people who paid good money to live in the same conditions as many people were forced to a few hours west in Sacramento.  But who has time to contemplate the collateral damage of the economic crisis?  We had a race to run.