Let me learn from where I have been

Into the second day. Photo by Beat Jegerlehner.

Wind ripped over the ridge, blasting us in the face with coarse particles of sand. It was pitch dark; no comforting glow of light pollution could be found, and the stars were obscured by the dust cloud swirling through the air. True to the desert, the night became quickly cold, and we made it to the upper reaches of the Pink Cliffs just in time to pull on long-sleeve shirts, puffy coats, and beanies. I insisted on changing my socks again and Beat used the time to scour the aid station for something warm to eat. The table was covered in red dirt but otherwise blown clean — there were a few petrified peanut butter sandwiches, and some gritty potatoes. The wind was blowing gale force and the chill while sitting still felt Alaska-like — except for instead of snow, the blizzard was made of sand. Three exhausted-looking teenagers huddled beside a flapping tarp, looking slightly shell-shocked. "They're probably very nice Mormon boys and this is a service project they got roped into," I thought. "Poor kids."

Photo by Beat Jegerlehner

I skipped eating at this aid station. I was not interested in ingesting more sand, and Beat had supplied me with a bag of candied ginger. The thought of this stuff was revolting, but when I put a few pieces in my mouth, the ginger pieces temporarily quelled my nausea, and there were enough sugar calories to produce a tiny buzz. Still, I didn't realize how much I'd come to depend on the 300-odd calories I was forcing down at my previous aid station stops. As we started down the descent, I became quickly woozy, wobbling about on a 30-degree pitch that skirted the edge of vertical cliffs. Wind whipped around and I held my hand over my eyes to shield the sand blast. In a more competent state, I probably would have been frightened, but this slope wasn't so bad. I'd have to stagger off-trail for some distance to actually go off the edge, and if I fell forward maybe I would get lucky and crack my head open, and then I would be forced to stop.

I saw a sparkle of city lights that made me smile. "Oh Panguitch, the highway town that time forgot. But I haven't forgotten you, and I wish you were up here." Fatigue seems to saturate my sentimentality. But as I moved my headlamp away, the lights disappeared, and I realized they weren't lights at all. Were they ... eyes? "Coyote? Mountain lion?" I wondered with surge of fear. My mind shaped these vague sparkles into into cat-like eyes, and even when I couldn't find them again, I became convinced a lion was stalking me. But just as quickly, I threw my own doubts into the fire. "Maybe it was Lynx," I wondered. I've written before about my favorite hallucination. Ever since that night, I sometimes visualize "Lynx" in times of sickness, fatigue, and fear. The image of Lynx is a source of comfort to me, a kind of watchful spirit that I conjure when the lines between dreams and reality begin to blur. A few days earlier, my sister and I took my 3-year-old nephew Max to the zoo. Between Max's rushing from the rhino to the reptile house, I lingered for a few minutes at the pen of the Siberian lynx as it crouched in a thin patch of shade, looking rather uncomfortable under the Utah sun. Lynx had been on my mind, and I wondered if I was far gone enough to start actually "seeing" Lynx. "I need to eat some more calories," I thought.

Photo by Beat Jegerlehner

The night miles trudged along without notable differences; I think that's perhaps we only covered about 25 of them while it was dark. I couldn't even tell you how we moved that slowly, but we huddled in our multiple layers of clothing and were glad to have them, because our bodies certainly weren't generating great amounts of heat. Beat had decided earlier in the day that he would stick with me for the remainder of the race, and I'm grateful he did. I always tell myself I prefer to take on these efforts alone, but the morale and confidence boost of having him nearby did wonders for keeping me grounded. Otherwise, I might have given up the ghost the minute I started imagining Lynx. Still, I felt guilty about holding Beat to my slow pace. "It's your birthday," I insisted. "You should do what you need to do."

"It's not my birthday anymore," he reminded me. It was now sometime in the quiet hours before dawn, where the cold wind was fierce and sand filtered in and back out of my phlegmy lungs, but everything else stood still. We were working our way back along the rim of the Paunsaugunt, barely breathing.

Back at Kanab Creek, mile 66, we sat down for a long time. The fire was so inviting and the teenage volunteers were jovial and lively, a pleasant surprise at what must have been after 3 a.m. Runners always appreciate the volunteers in these races, but I have to say the young volunteers at the Bryce 100 were especially refreshing. "It's against their religion not to be super nice to us," I joked with Beat, but really, when you're a smelly and grumpy adult in the midst of an illogical pursuit, it's gratifying to hear the friendly voices of normal kids. I didn't really care if they served me a cup of noodles or refilled my water bladder (which they did), I just wanted to hear them tell their jokes around the campfire and reminisce the time in my life when I was a nice and normal Mormon kid staying up all night with my friends and a raging campfire. Oh, what happened?

"This could be you someday," I wanted to tell them as they looked on with bemusement while we slumped in their camp chairs. "You probably won't believe me now, but it could. And you don't know it yet, but you're going to love it."

After we lingered in the chairs for about 20 minutes, a volunteer mentioned that because it was mile 66, we could quit there and the race director would still give us an official 100K finish. That statement jolted me out of my stupor. "No," I cried out. "No!" I'd come too far to toss it in now. This isn't a statement of judgement for those who took this option. I completely understand and respect anyone who went the distance on this deceptively difficult course. But that wasn't the right option for me. I did not want that.

We picked our way back to the Blubber Creek aid station, mile 75, right at dawn. At this point, I was assessing my chances against the cutoffs. We had 12 hours to cover 25 miles. It seems imminently doable, but at this point, I was not so sure. "It's six miles to the next aid," Beat assured me, "and mostly downhill."

"The longest miles," I lamented. A lot about the Bryce 100 already flickered in the shadows of my memory. But I sharply remembered the canyon that broke me — the first time through.

The thing about that canyon segment is it's not mostly downhill — it starts around 9,000 feet and ends at that level, with relentless steep and rocky descents and climbs in the middle. The final climb to the aid station gains 1,500 feet in a mile and a half, and this is the point where I actually started to feel better about the whole situation. The sun was coming up, the candied ginger was fueling my flickering awareness, and this trail was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. When I looked at my watch, it was clear that this six-mile segment was going to take three hours to cover, and that was ridiculous. There was no way we could finish this ridiculous race within its ridiculous time cutoffs if it continued at this pace of ridiculousness. I sometimes falter in moderately tough conditions, but mentally I can better handle ridiculous. If something is impossible, there's no reason to get worked up over it.

Photo by Beat Jegerlehner

However, Beat was still insistent on remaining with me, and he was adamant about not getting cut from the course. "I've come too far to miss time cutoffs," he told me sternly. He was right, but my determination was flagging. "I try," I mumbled like a child trying to stave off a lecture. "I try my best."

But Beat was right. I don't like it when he tells me something I don't like to hear, but it needs hearing. I needed to pick up the pace. At Proctor Canyon, mile 81, I made a effort to eat something solid and ended up inhaling an entire banana pancake with grape jelly. I was starving, famished, but it was difficult to reconcile that hunger as long as I kept moving and breathing hard enough for nausea to take over. By the time we left, my energy levels felt renewed and resolve returned. I was going to *run* I insisted. I would run the rest of the way. "Let's finish this thing."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, simple resolve wasn't enough to propel me forward. Beat insisted we take a mile of walking to let the big breakfast settle, and then we tried jogging. My gut jostled around and I felt quickly winded and light-headed, but I tried to ignore it. "You want to run," I encouraged my faltering body. "You need to run." But sometimes (most times?) body doesn't care what the hell I think, and won't do what I tell it to do." I became so dizzy and nauseated that a bit of my breakfast came back up, and I did the wrong thing in choking the bile back down, thereby feeling the most awful I'd felt yet. I could feel it gurgling back up — not my breakfast, this time, but the obligatory temper tantrum. The embarrassing loss of composure that seems to arise in every hundred-mile race I attempt. Tears started spilling out.

"Don't worry," Beat tried to comfort me. "We still have time."

"It's just, it's just that," I blubbered. "I don't even know why I'm so upset. I don't even know why I'm crying about this. Honestly (gurgle gurgle) I don't feel that bad."

"That's just the ultra effect," Beat assured me, and that truth made me laugh through the bawling. Isn't it funny that simple physical imbalances can have such a strong effect on our emotional states? We think that deep emotions are unique to our minds, to our souls, to that individual awareness that makes us who we are — but our rather fragile and somewhat embarrassing bodies keep a strong chemical harness on our feelings, after all. The fact that being bonky and tired could make me feel so upset only reminded me how much control over my emotions I really have. "Maybe I can't run," I thought. "But it's still a nice day, and I'm in the beautiful Utah desert hanging out with Beat, and damn it, I'm going to enjoy the rest of this."

Photo by Beat Jegerlehner

At the final aid station, I was still holding out for the hope that "I'll start running with my stomach settles" when we encountered our friend Harry. He'd been sitting there for what was probably quite a long time, and informed us that he was seriously considering dropping at mile 90. It was late morning at this point, and the temperature had shot back into the eighties. All of us had been out all of the previous day absorbing unfiltered UV rays at these high elevations, our systems were fatigued, and our bodies were cranking out vast amounts of heat even as our core temperatures fluctuated wildly. Harry was genuinely concerned about heat stroke; there hadn't been much shade during the previous 10-mile segment, nor would there be for the next unknown number of miles (it was supposed to be 11, but we were already suspecting longer.) This was the last refuge of support; there was one unmanned water jug somewhere along the course, and beyond that we were on our own — at the pace we were moving, possibly for as long as four hours in the heat of the afternoon.

Harry decided to continue toward the finish with us, even though I warned him that I might not be able to run another step of the race. I had reached my Zen acceptance about it and decided I was going to engage the cruise control, kick back, and enjoy the views. The main issue with this last section of Bryce 100 is that, unlike the entire rest of the course, there were no more views. We were on a long stretch of jeep road descending slowly from the high plateau, and basically it was just a flat, open valley sparsely forested with ponderosa pines. The shade these trees provided was thin at best, and we picked our way from shade patch to shade patch, sometimes taking sitting-down breaks. The desert heat and sun triggered my water paranoia, and I was taking frequent rationing sips and panicking about my water supply even though I was already hydrated enough to need to stop and pee every twenty minutes.

At the final water stop, our friend Steve caught up to us after rallying back from his long, hard night. He agreed to walk it in with us, and the group dynamic of grumpiness, silliness, and toddler-like emotions was downright humorous. I'm not sure how I would have found enjoyment in this final stretch if it hadn't been for Steve, Beat, and Harry, but the four of us commiserating together was greatly satisfying. The Bryce 100 was back to being ridiculous again, and I got a kick out of our lengthy arguments about GPS tracks and how these data points defied the apparent eternity of the jeep road slog.

Photo by Mountain Peak Fitness

Is it wrong that I kind of loved the horrible last section? I guess it is. But the Interminable Dirt Road had the effect of a good joke, even if the joke was on us. It's true that Harry was in a bad way. He was starting to feel chilled on top of overheated, and we started taking longer breaks in the sparse shade because heat stroke is not a joke. I'd purposely covered myself in long sleeves, calf sleeves, and a buff to avoid absorbing any more sunlight, and I think it mitigated my own body's reaction to the heat (the air was so dry that sweat evaporated immediately, and I think for fair-skinned people it was less beneficial to have more skin exposed.)

Our finish was rather anticlimactic. We rounded a corner and thought we saw the finish area a half mile before it actually came, so there was much cursing and gnashing of teeth in that final ten minutes. I started laughing out loud as the boys ranted. We didn't even bother to run it in, and strolled across the white chalk marking like we were some runner's crew members who didn't realize we were accidentally walking over the finish line. I think it took a few minutes for the finish line volunteers to realize that all four of us were in the race. Although from this finish line photo, it kind of looks like I finished first, right? ;-)

In a way, the Bryce 100 could have been a somewhat disappointing experience. There was a high ratio of malaise to joy compared to even my other tough foot events such as the Susitna 100. Beat captured better photographs than I did, and I finished in 34 hours and 24 minutes after starting the race convinced I could go sub-30 in this one. But it doesn't feel disappointing at all. For me, the most rewarding aspect of the Bryce 100 was feeling so low for so much of the race, and pressing through anyway only to finish with a wide (although crooked with exhaustion) smile.  In the end, I can't gain as much satisfaction from mundane numbers or parsing out my current level of athletic mediocrity, as I can from engaging in a truly challenging personal battle and emerging on the other side, wiser. 

For all my sweat, my blood runs weak

May 31 was Beat's 44th birthday, and true to form, he went looking for a hundred-mile race he could run to celebrate. He found the Bryce 100, a new event covering a hundred miles of trail on the Paunsaugunt Plateau, along the rim above Bryce Canyon National Park in southwestern Utah. Admittedly, I can be a hard sell on hundred-mile foot races (my requirements: They should feel like they're going somewhere, like a journey. They must be rugged, climby, or have otherwise difficult terrain. In other words, not too runnable — I fear the prospect of actually *running* a hundred miles. Little to no pavement. Also, must offer dynamic scenery.) So I was excited about the prospect of the Bryce 100, which offered all of that in my childhood backyard. I spent most weekends in my early 20s backpacking and hiking the canyons of Southern Utah, but for whatever reason I hadn't visited the Paunsaugunt since I was a teenager. In my memory, the place was like a ride at Disneyland, with rock formations so strange that they had to be carved by humans, then painted with over-the-top bright orange and red hues to complete a cartoonish "Wild Wild West" aesthetic. I was excited plunge myself into a journey deep into the "real" Bryce.

Beat flew into Salt Lake on Thursday and we drove down to Bryce Canyon City in the afternoon. He was running off of a couple of terrible nights of sleep. I also felt quite depleted — almost feverish — possibly from a bug I might have caught from my dad, or from putting in hard efforts at altitude too close to the race, or perhaps just general malaise. Either way, I wasn't feeling terribly optimistic about my physical fitness, but still excited to embark on the trek. We joined our friends Steve and Harry, who had also come out to Utah for Beat's birthday run, in the o'dark-thirty gathering around a barrel fire at a trailhead off Highway 12. Pre-dawn temps were in the 30s, and the sky glittered with stars — clear skies, in the desert, usually mean scorching bright days followed by frigid nights.

The first segment of the Bryce 100 followed the Thunder Mountain Trail — which actually does have its own namesake Disneyland ride, and was every bit as bright, campy, and fun as the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The undulating hills resembled a rollercoaster ride, and spruce trees looked healthy and trim, like cultivated garden trees. I half expected to see a mechanical mountain goat stroll out from behind the hoodoos, but this was the real deal.

Everyone was feeling good and running well in the morning; smiles were wide and cameras were out in force. Even with the consistent climbs and descents, the trail was smooth and the pace felt easy at 11- to 12-minute miles. I clung to hope that these conditions would hold out, both physical and terrain.

Steve and Harry had a surprise for Beat at the first aid station at mile 11 — an inflatable birthday cake stashed in a drop bag. We were standing at about 7,200 feet — the lowest elevation on the course — and Steve had to take a few extra gasps just to blow up the toy. We mustered a rather weak early-morning rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" as other runners and aid station volunteers joined in. There was general bemusement among the whole group — who runs a hundred miles on their birthday? — but it was still early enough in the race to feel giddy about the long day ahead of us.

It didn't take long for things to begin to unravel. The next segment worked its way along a series of drainages amid the Sunset Cliffs, and I started to feel winded walking up even moderate ascents. Running descents also was an open-mouth effort, and although it didn't feel wise to put in such heavy exertion this early in the race, I wasn't sure I could afford much more slowness. Beat and I hadn't planned on running together, and he put some distance on me while I struggled. Over the rolling terrain, the trail gained enough elevation to reach Proctor Canyon above 9,000 feet, where Beat was waiting for me at the 20-mile aid station. "How's it going?" he asked, and I just shook my head. Panic was setting in.

By this point, Beat was experiencing some altitude-based discomfort as well. Although nausea hadn't set in yet, I was already feeling a degree of hypoxia — breathing heavily, becoming terribly light-headed, and gasping as I battled to keep up with the "pack" we had fallen in. Looking back, I shouldn't have pushed this section so hard, but there's a general notion in the mid-pack that by mile 20, you should be able to keep up with the runners you're around if you're to hold a good pace throughout the race. Everyone who went out hard is long gone, and those who fall back might miss cut-offs. I didn't want to fall back.

Miles 20 to 26 were almost mind-bogglingly tough. I remember thinking that if my dad and I went out for a six-mile hike like that, it would be a solid morning's effort and we would reward ourselves with Slurpees afterward. But this was just a six-mile segment of a hundred-mile race — one we'd have to cover again on the return. We dropped a thousand feet and then climbed a thousand within the space of 1.5 rocky miles, and then continued the steep rolling terrain beneath the sandstone cliffs, so bright and cheery and wall-like that I felt like they were mocking me. "Have to get used to this," I mumbled to myself. "You like tough terrain, remember?"

Photo by Beat Jegerlehner

Beat decided we should stick together for this segment. During a few of the short, steep climbs, I saw the flickering gray clouds of lapsed consciousness and stopped frequently to catch my breath. But every time I stopped moving, I was overcome by an intense wave of nausea that threatened to drop me to my knees. Blood flushed from my face and when I held up my hands, I could see them trembling without my consent. We hadn't even covered a marathon distance yet. I tried to decide when would be the best place to call this — next aid station? 50K mark? Try to turn that around and complete the official 100K distance? The hundred miles was downright impossible.

I was ashen-faced at the 26-mile checkpoint, but decided to continue forward all the same. "I could at least try to cover the first fifty miles," I told myself. "Otherwise, I'll miss out on so much." I remembered talking to my dad about these types of efforts earlier in the week. "The thing about 10 miles or 50 miles or a hundred miles is, it's all difficult. I always feel tired after ten miles and I can't imagine how I'll go on, but I resolve to go another ten, and then another. And then I keep going until I eventually hit a hundred, and I discover it's not even that bad. Of course there are continuing highs and lows, but it's rewarding to get through all of them and emerge on the other side of what had been an unfathomable journey, just a day earlier. I think the life lesson is that you can always do more than you think you can. There's always something left."

Then again, I couldn't remember the last time I felt this bad just a quarter of the way into anything, unless I count the multi-day bike races I've participated in. And those are different in that they provided opportunities for more prolonged breaks to try to build myself back up. In single-stage races, there's nowhere to hide. You feel bad, too bad. Keep moving. There's a kind of satisfaction in this as well. After mile 26 I decided my body and I were going to go our separate ways for a while, and I turned my focus to the expansive vista at the edge of my feet.

The Grandview Trail rolled along the rim of the Paunsaugunt, providing endless views — the red cliffs, the distant mountains, the green farmland along the Highway 89 corridor. I lapsed into happy memories of my youthful explorations of Southern Utah, when I'd hike ten miles a day and that was damn hard, too. It never gets easier, whether I go ten miles or a hundred. But if I reach for a hundred, there sure is a lot of amazing country out there to see.

I can't say things became any easier, but I became better at convincing myself that it didn't matter. Still, as time drug on, I was only taking in a minimal amount of food to sustain alertness while battling pukeyness. Often how it went is I'd avoid eating altogether until we reached an aid station, and then hunger would rush in once I'd sat down for a few minutes. I'd eat something substantial, like a half bean burrito or a chocolate chip cookie, and then have to swim slowly through my nausea for the first mile or two out of the aid station. If my stomach was empty, the nausea wasn't so bad. But then I'd become more aware of my flagging energy and hypoxia.

Out in the open, a fierce wind blew, carrying with it a lot of dust and sand that lodged in our throats and irritated our eyes. This was tough hundred-mile racing at its finest — the dry dust and heat of the desert, combined with the high altitude and climbing of a mountain run. At this this point I'd convinced myself that the heat of the day and sun exposure was causing my nausea, and everything would get better once darkness and cold finally descended. Before mile 50, we spent some time running with a woman from Jersey named Grace, who was running her first hundred-mile race, and also first race out west. She was curious about my "Ride the Divide" race and also surprised that I'd never worked with a coach. "I never set out to be an athlete," I said. "Really, I still don't think of myself as an athlete. I just like to spend lots of time outside, have visceral experiences, and connect with like-minded folks. Endurance sports are a great way to achieve all that."

As the sun set, my stomach was beginning to feel better, and I convinced myself I'd moved through my slump and that the back half would be less grueling. We'd been moving slowly enough for the past 25 miles that my legs still felt fairly fresh. Also, I'd been experimenting with blister control by cleaning my feet and changing my socks every 20 miles, and it seemed to be working — fifty miles and no foot pain. Still, when we reached the halfway point in fourteen and a half hours, and Grace suggested that maybe we could wrap it up under thirty hours, both Beat and I laughed. Everyone knows that these hundred-mile races haven't even started at mile 50. 

Keep the earth below my feet

Bryce 100 — it was tough. There were a lot of moments to love in my 34-some hours out there, but perhaps my favorite came just minutes after I mumbled, out loud, to myself, "this is the most horrible slog, ever." It was mile 98 or so (out of 103.) A dirt road sliced through an open meadow of pale green grass, with only small hills and stands of thirsty ponderosa pines to interrupt the otherwise unbroken horizon. Somewhere beyond our sightline were the rippling orange hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, but we hadn't seen anything like that for miles. Just the interminable dirt road, and the dusty blue sky, and colors washed out by the fierce light of the afternoon sun.

I was walking with Beat and two of our friends, Steve and Harry, although at the time we were strung out along the baked dirt. Everyone was experiencing an advanced degree of discomfort, mainly spurred by altitude and heat, but I was the only one who was almost completely incapable of running. This dirt road was endless and I just wanted it to be over, so I tried to run. I did try. But I'd been fighting nausea and hypoxia since mile 16, I'd only taken in the minimum amount of food I could force down my throat, and there was almost nothing left. Every time I upped my exertion level, dizziness kicked in, pukeyness gurgled up, and I felt like I was climbing Everest rather than jogging along a gradually descending dirt road on the Paunsaugunt Plateau. I'd never worked so hard for so little. Which is what I tell myself every time I feel defeated.

On top of feeling sick and generally icky, the temperature had climbed into the high 80s according to Beat's thermometer, and this final section of the Bryce 100 offered almost no shade. The course markings veered off our GPS tracks to add another couple of miles to an already long course, which proved to be the final nail in the coffin of everyone's morale. Even if they could run, no one wanted to anymore. They were done. Nothing left to do but slog out the final unknown number of miles.

I was operating with the mental and emotional capacity of a four-year-old. Beat had already witnessed my obligatory hundred-miler meltdown, after I started bawling because running made my tummy hurt too much. We connected up with Harry at the last aid station, where he was seriously considering dropping 11 miles (actually 13) from the finish. Steve caught up to us a few miles later, and my mood improved now that misery had company. But I still fixated on how miserable I felt. This is so backward. Why do I always come to these beautiful places just to suffer? And why do these last miles have to be so notably unbeautiful? And why does this dirt road have to be so eternal?

There was a fork in the road with a sign saying it led to the border of Bryce Canyon National Park. "Screw this race," I thought. "I'm going to go look at the canyon." With that absurd thought, a strong desire to actually do so — purposely veer in the wrong direction just to look at yet more beautiful scenery — washed over me. Following this desire was Zen feeling of acceptance. "Huh," I thought, "Beneath all this ickiness I actually feel happy. I'm doing my favorite thing, which is moving through the world. I just think I'm miserable because I'm uncomfortable. But what if physical discomfort doesn't actually matter?" Because it doesn't.

Physical discomfort is real, but misery is a state of mind. I'd fought it off for the better part of 30 hours with the help of the jaw-dropping scenery of the Sunset Cliffs. I'd started to give in because I was bored and ready to be done, but this area wasn't so bad, really. The pine-studded hills reminded me of the high deserts of New Mexico, which led me to recall my happier memories from the Tour Divide. I laughed when I remembered how miserable I'd been when I had food poisoning on the Polvadera Mesa, and how I now look back with fondness on the time I fell asleep in a feverish delirium with my gear strewn all about beneath the ponderosa pines. I'd learned a lot back then, about mastering my own destiny by letting go of the illusion of control. I'm still learning. I couldn't control getting sick during the Bryce 100, but I could decide how much I let that circumstance control me. I'd battled the malaise. It was worth it. I was winning.

"This is the stuff of memorable experiences," I thought. "This is the stuff of life."