Ultramarathon Man

by Dean Karnazes

  These memories carried me along pleasantly as I ran.

  Three hours later, exhaustion set in. And hunger. Steady running requires an almost steady supply of fuel. My stomach felt like a deflated balloon. Happily, I saw the lights of a Taco Bell up ahead. My stomach growled and twisted itself into knots of anticipation as I staggered up to the front door. The sign clearly said OPEN LATE, but the door was locked. Bummer. I was sunk.

  I sat down on the curb to catch my breath. My feet were swollen, and my left big toe was aching terribly. I pulled off that shoe. What I found was appalling. The front of my sock was discolored and soaked with pus. When I got it off, I saw the massive blood blister that had popped on the tip of the toe and had caused the stain.

  Great. I’d covered only fifteen miles and already I was maimed. I should have known that my gardening sneakers weren’t suitable for long-distance running. But I hadn’t owned running shoes in quite some time, hadn’t had much occasion to use them.

  I was staring at this bloody mess when I heard a car pull around from behind the building and saw that food was being served through the drive-up window. Yes, they were open! I was saved!

  My legs throbbing and cramped, my foot mangled, my body coated in a layer of sweat and road grime, I hobbled around back to the drive-through speaker. I stomped on the cord with my heel. “Can I take your order?” a tinny voice asked.

  “Oh, yes!” I cried. “To start, I’ll have two tacos, a burrito supreme, and two tostadas.”

  “Will that be it?”

  “And a large Coke and two bean burritos.”

  “Anything more?”

  “That’ll do it.”

  “Please pay at the window.”

  Digging the crumpled twenty out of my shoe, I strolled joyously to the pick-up window. The girl up there didn’t look so happy, however.

  “Sir, do you have a vehicle? You cannot order food from the drive-through unless you’re in a car.”

  I studied her. She was just a kid. No doubt the manager had drilled this rule into her. And I couldn’t have been a reassuring sight. But she was standing up there between me and my tacos. This was going to require some of the delicate persuasion skills I’d acquired at work. I tried my most winning smile.

  “I understand what you’re saying,” I said, calmly and agreeably. “But in this one isolated instance, could you just let it slide? I won’t do it again, promise.”

  She peered down at me, my sagging underpants fraying and tattered.

  “Nice try.”

  “Look, I’ve got the money right here, and I can see my order right there.” I was still smiling, and trying to keep the note of hysteria out of my voice. “Let’s just make a quick transaction and we’ll be done with it. No one will ever know.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but if we make an exception for you, we’d have to let everyone order from the drive-through without a car.”

  What was she talking about? I wondered. I looked behind me. Not a single other thirty-year-old man in his underpants appeared to be trying to sneak through the Taco Bell drive-through in the middle of the night.

  I showed her the twenty again.

  “Please. Let me have my order and you can keep the change.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “But . . .”

  She disappeared from the window.

  “Food!” I moaned. “I need food!”

  Just then a car approached the drive-through, a massive, late-model Oldsmobile. I hobbled over as the middle-aged Asian driver rolled down his window. He looked surprised but not frightened to see me, which was a good sign.

  “Listen, I’m really hungry,” I told him softly, so as not to be overheard by Helga the Taco Nazi inside. “They won’t let me order. I need to go in your car through this drive-up window.”

  “Where your car?” he asked.

  “My car is in San Francisco.”

  “You want a ride to San Francisco?”

  “No. I just go with you through this drive-through to get food.” He looked like a tough negotiator. “If you drive me through, I’ll pay for your food.”

  That cracked him up. “You pay? You crazy! You crazy, man.”

  Still laughing, he waved me around to the passenger side. I didn’t want Helga to see me next to him, so I slipped into the backseat and hunkered there, hopefully out of sight.

  “We play taxi?” he grinned. “Okay, I taxi man. What you order?”

  “Order me eight tacos,” I said softly.

  “Eight tacos!” he cried. I motioned for him to keep it down.

  Helga seemed very suspicious through her whole exchange with him, but he pulled it off beautifully. There was a touchy moment at the window when I passed him my crumpled twenty and he held it up to her. She furrowed her eyebrows at it, and I could see she was wondering if and where she’d last seen it. I held my breath. Finally, with measured reluctance, she took the money and handed over the blessed sacks of treats.

  My driver was giggling delightedly as we pulled away. “You so crazy!” he kept saying. He pulled the car into a nearby parking lot and cut the engine. “We eat now?”

  Who was this guy? I wondered. How many nights had he eaten Mexican food alone in this empty parking lot? Did he have anywhere to go? Why was he so willing to pick up a stranger?

  But it was time for me to move on, and these questions would remain unanswered. “I can’t stay,” I told him as I got out. I came around to his window and he handed me my bag of tacos.

  “You crazy,” he grinned. “How much I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” I smiled back. “And you the crazy one. Thanks.”

  We shook hands and I started moving up the road, unwrapping a taco as I jogged off into the distance.

  It was tricky trying to eat while running. At one point I accidentally inhaled while chewing and sucked a piece of diced tomato into the back of my throat. For a moment I thought I would choke on it, but what surfaced instead was a sneeze. And with that sneeze came the chunk of tomato shooting out my nostril. A hardy layer of sour cream helped lubricate its passage, and it deposited a foul, acidic slime in my nasal canal upon exiting.

  My wounded toe was killing me. It’s funny how the pain would come and go in waves. At times the throbbing was so excruciating I could hardly put any weight on it. Yet during the lulls it was almost imperceptible. Eventually the entire front of my foot went numb.

  As I ran farther south along the San Francisco peninsula, the urban landscape slowly gave way to rolling coastal foothills. Traversing a ridge to the west of the bay, I saw the colored runway lights of SFO flickering off in the distance. Low over the horizon, the sparkling headlights of incoming planes were stacked in the sky. I crested the coastal ridge and began dropping down the west side of the divide toward the ocean. The lights of Silicon Valley were no longer visible, and it grew progressively darker. Although the area was mostly undeveloped, periodically I would pass small rows of houses that lined the silent back road. Occasionally there would be a light on inside, or the translucent blue glow of a TV set, but mostly the houses were dark, which was probably for the best. Imagine walking out of your house at 4:00 A.M. to see a man in his underwear running by, struggling as though each step were his last. “Asylum escapee” would be my first thought.

  The night air turned misty and damp the farther west I ran toward the coastline. Puddles formed along the road from condensation dripping off the trees above, and the pungent scents of pine and eucalyptus drifted in the air. A skunk meandered out of the bushes. He turned to look at me but didn’t seem particularly concerned by my presence. I, on the other hand, was more than a bit concerned by his. Luckily, our encounter was stench-free.

  After running up and down several peaks and valleys, I made my way down into one markedly deeper trough. It was cold and foggy in the pit of this gorge, and the climb up the other side was brutally steep. It seemed to go on forever. Just when the road appeared to be leveling off, there would be yet another uphill section. The f
og was thick. After doing battle with this beast of a hill for as long as I could, it got the better of me. I stopped to regroup, and stood hunched over and panting on the side of the road, wondering how much more abuse my body could possibly take.

  After a brief reprieve, I lifted my head to notice slight breaks in the clouds. I’d nearly climbed above the fog line. I was conquering that hill, nearing the top, and I hadn’t even noticed it. Something about this realization lifted my spirits. Things were becoming clearer. I put my head down, ignored the pain, and started back up the rise at a brisk pace—which, after running twenty-five miles, was about the equivalent of a moderate walk.

  Though my legs screamed for mercy, each step brought a brighter view of the sky above, and the air seemed warmer and drier the higher I climbed. Perspiration poured down my face, despite the cool fog surrounding me. Then, as though I had abruptly punched through a breaking wave, I found myself standing on top of the clouds. The sky was filled with stars that seemed to shine brighter than I had ever seen before. I felt I could reach up and grab a handful of sky. I was mesmerized by the stillness and the silence, totally absorbed in the moment.

  For the first time this evening—hell, for the first time in years—I felt like this spot was precisely where I belonged . . . never mind that I was half naked, in the middle of nowhere, and nearly incapable of taking another step forward. That was inconsequential. I was happy—entirely content just standing there. I had listened to my heart, and this is where it had led me.

  The sun was coming up when I reached the town of Half Moon Bay along the San Mateo coast. I had run for seven hours straight through the night and covered thirty miles. I’d long since passed through delirium and was now in a semi-catatonic state. Events seemed to unfold in front of me as though I were watching a motion picture. In other words, I needed coffee. Badly.

  Many of the inhabitants of Half Moon Bay commute “over the hill” into Silicon Valley, which they were now beginning to do in a frenzy of traffic. It was as if someone had switched the projector to fast forward, and all the commuter ants were busily scurrying around in hyperdrive.

  I found a pay phone and placed a collect call to home, waking Julie.

  “Where are you?”

  “It’s a long story. The short version is that I’m out in front of a 7-Eleven.”

  “Seven-Eleven on Geary Street?”

  “No, 7-Eleven in Half Moon Bay,” I said hoarsely. “Can you come get me?”

  “Half Moon Bay?! How did you get down there?”

  “I ran.”

  “You what? You ran? From where?”

  “From the house. I got here about five minutes ago.”

  “You mean you ran all night?” she said in shock. “My God, are you okay?”

  “I think so. I’ve lost control of my leg muscles, and my feet are swollen stuck in my shoes. I’m standing here in my underwear. But other than that, I’m doing pretty well. Actually, I feel strangely alive.”

  I could hear her moving around the room, gathering her things. “You don’t sound too stable. Just hold tight and I’ll get down there as soon as I can. Is there anything I can bring you? Food? Clothing?”

  “Yeah,” I said nonchalantly, trying not to alarm her. “Please grab our insurance card. I might need to stop by the hospital on the way home.”

  When Julie found me she was stunned, and delighted. She wanted to know all about my adventure, and I was eager to tell her the story, except that I passed out in the car scarcely a minute into the drive home. The last thing I remember was a string of drool dangling off my yapping chin as Julie gazed over at me in bewilderment. Then things went black.

  And that’s how I became a runner once again. In the course of a single night I had been transformed from a drunken yuppie fool into a reborn athlete. During a period of great emptiness in my life, I turned to running for strength. I heard the calling, and I went to the light.

  For weeks after my thirty-mile jaunt I was nearly incapacitated from muscle spasms and inflammation. But it was a good hurt, one that would make Coach McTavish proud. As I limped around my office, trying to appear natural, I reminded myself that pain and suffering are often the catalysts for life’s most profound lessons. A passion I’d ignored for half my existence had been serendipitously reignited in one all-night thirty-mile hullabaloo. The resulting ice packs and tubes of Ben-Gay were a small price to pay.

  Every devout runner has an awakening. We know the place, the time, and the reason we accepted running into our life. After half a lifetime, I’d been reborn. Most runners are able to keep a rational perspective on the devotion, and practice responsibly. I couldn’t, and became a fanatic.

  Chapter 5

  The Soiling of the Lexus

  No guts, no glory.

  —World War II slogan

  San Francisco 1992-1993

  It took weeks to recuperate from my thirty-mile reawakening. The blisters on my toes eventually healed, the muscle soreness subsided, the shin splints eased. I felt enough joy from the experience to keep the running going. Four nights a week, right after work, I would change into my new jogging gear and hit the road. I started with just a few miles per outing, but I soon increased that to five or six miles a day. Like most runners, I had favorite routes that I’d clocked with my car, noting the mile markers along the way.

  I’d frequently see the same fellow runners on my route: the guy being pulled along by his black Labrador, the older couple who always ran together, the tough-looking kid with the awkward gait. We’d exchange pleasantries. Near the beginning of the run, it could be an energized wave accompanied by actual verbal communication, like “Hi.” Toward the end of an outing, it would be little more than a nod—even an eyebrow lift was a stretch on the really tough days.

  Focusing on work in the afternoon became increasingly difficult because I couldn’t wait to head off for a run. Julie would watch with amusement as I dashed in through the door and threw on my running gear. We’d briefly trade small talk, and I’d always depart with a hug and a peck on the cheek, but she could sense that my mind was somewhere else. She was supportive of my running from the onset, largely because my mood was always upbeat afterward. Although we spent less time together, it was a more meaningful connection when we did. I was less distracted, having worked through the issues of the day on the run, my mind uncluttered and available.

  As my level of fitness improved, I’d cover the same distance in fewer minutes. Sometimes I’d even get spirited and sprint the last hundred yards. I was really proud about my level of endurance, as if I’d reached some imaginary pinnacle on the fitness stud-o-meter. But one warm fall evening, my delusions were shattered.

  It happened as I was finishing a run along the San Francisco waterfront, thinking about how markedly my stamina had improved since I’d taken up running again. The final stretch of the run involved a climb through the Presidio military base along a particularly steep path known as Lovers’ Lane. The name dates back to the late 1800s, when enlisted men used to walk from the Presidio to the Mission District in search of a good time. They would leave the base along this steep path and, if lucky, would have a female companion accompanying them on the walk back.

  I was cruising up Lovers’ Lane at a pretty good clip, feeling good about my pace and stamina. Suddenly, two men in military fatigues and backpacks blew right past me. They disappeared up the hill in a cloud of dust.

  Wow, I thought. How were they able to pass me with such gusto? They’ll probably stop and rest at the top, and I’ll pass them. They’re probably just running wind sprints. There’s no way they could hold that pace for long, especially with those packs on their backs.

  Not a minute later, though, the two men came charging back down. My running cap nearly flew off as they roared past me, and I coughed feebly on the dust cloud they kicked up.

  What happened next was astounding. Just as I was getting ready to crest the summit of the hill, the pair came blasting up behind me again! Were they going to lap
me once more, or would they rest at the top this time? They did neither. Instead, they dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups. And, as if to rub it in my face, they kept their packs on.

  This was too much. These guys were playing in an entirely different league. No, a different reality. I walked over to them and said hello, but they just kept doing their push-ups.

  “You guys training for something?” I asked.

  After a long moment, the one on the left simply grunted, “Yeah.”

  I tried again. “It must be a pretty tough race, the way you guys are training. Are there hills involved?”

  “No,” the other one said. “There are mountains involved.”

  Not a talkative pair, but I was intrigued. “Is it some sort of race, or is it military training?”

  “Race,” came the reply.

  There were a few more moments of silence. Then they simultaneously muttered “Fifty” and popped to their feet. The one on the right turned to me, raised both eyebrows, and said, “It’s called the Western States One Hundred.” And off they went back down the hill.

  As I continued my run, I found it difficult to focus on anything except my physical inadequacy. My feelings of accomplishment and well-being were gone. In their place was one obsessive thought: Just what is this Western States Endurance Run?

  Half an hour later, I walked through the door of my house, a man on a mission. As I showered and prepared for dinner, my mind was secretly plotting a way to sneak some personal research time into a typical workday filled with appointments and meetings.

  During lunch the next day, I went to the library and found a few articles about the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run. It was a continuous nonstop wilderness trek through the mountains and canyons of the Sierra Nevada range in California, where the peaks tower into the sky. Participants attempt to cover a 100-mile trail in under twenty-four hours, on foot.