by Scott Jurek
In Greece, I filled up on pomegranates and figs, wild greens from the mountains called horta, and lots of olives. It was a foraging paradise. On almost every training run I passed through vineyards of grapes and almond and citrus and quince trees (often grabbing fruit and eating it as I went). The Greeks had a simple diet—and an exceedingly healthy one.
At 107 miles, I churned over the pass where Pheidippides saw an apparition. Scientists today might say it was a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and fatigue, but there was something haunted about the rocky mountaintop. Bonfires glowed at the pass, and dozens of villagers cheered as I crested the top and descended to the town below. I had a little less than 50 miles to go. I had never felt better.
I didn’t notice my broken toe anymore. The rest of my body ached, but I didn’t care. That’s one of the many great pleasures of an ultramarathon. You can hurt more than you ever thought possible, then continue until you discover that hurting isn’t that big a deal. Forget a second wind. In an ultra you can get a third, a fourth, a fifth even. I still had more than 40 miles to go, but that’s a second wonderful thing about 100- (and plus) milers. You can trail, and despair, and screw up, and despair more, and there’s almost always another chance. Salvation is always within reach. You can’t reach it by thinking or by figuring it out. Sometimes you just do things.
At 120 miles, I passed through Tegea. Someone there said that the Polish guy had left just a minute earlier. I grabbed an energy drink and several Clif Shot energy gels. I saw a pulsing red beam ahead of me. It was the police escort that stays with the leader throughout the race. Salvation smelled like dust and crushed grapes and history. It glowed. I ran toward it. When I passed Korylo, he seemed to barely be moving. I ran as hard as I could.
“Good job,” I said, and tried to run even harder. I couldn’t keep this pace up for long, but I knew how demoralizing it was to be passed by someone moving at a pace you knew you couldn’t match. I was sympathetic to him and admired his courage and tenacity, but when you have a chance to demoralize a competitor, you take it. I took it.
I ran hard for another mile or so and then looked back. Nothing. The escort was with me now. Some 5, 6 miles later, still nothing behind me. Then, from out of nowhere, a headlamp moving fast, swallowing distance. I tried to speed up but couldn’t. I looked back again. I thought, This guy is tough. I’ve got to put the hammer down, now. I went all-out, as hard as I could, for 3 miles. I was putting down 7-minute miles. No way anyone could keep up with that. I looked back. The light was closer. I ran harder. I found the inner reserve that most of us never have to look for (another gift of ultramarathons), and I kept pushing until a car pulled up alongside me. It was one of the race officials.
“Scott, do not worry,” he said. “This runner is not to be worried about.”
I was thinking, “What are you talking about? That guy behind me is one tough Polack.” I pushed hard for another 2 miles, and the race official drove up again. This time he said, “Scott, do not worry, this runner is not in the race,” and again, my reaction was, “What do you mean, he’s right there!”
At the next aid station, I learned the truth. The headlamp behind me belonged to a “bandit” runner, a guy who had jumped onto the course at 120 miles. I had just run an intense 15K after 130 miles, and I still had 22 to go. It was time to pull out the four-step checklist. Number one: I was exhausted. I let myself feel that and I acknowledged it. Number two: I took stock. I was slightly pissed off that I had just expended so much energy, all to put distance between myself and someone I needn’t have worried about. And I was still exhausted and upset. But it wasn’t life-threatening. Three: I asked myself what I could do to remedy the situation. I could stop, but that wasn’t an option. The answer: Keep moving. And four: Separate negative thoughts from reality. Don’t dwell on feelings that aren’t going to help. I kept moving.
Was perseverance that simple? Was will that reducible? Certainly I wasn’t the only one with a checklist. What kept me going while others stopped?
Recent research suggests that it’s not just the brain that differentiates those who continue from those who stop. It might be the chemicals released by the brain.
Dr. Andy Morgan at Yale Medical School studied the brain chemistry of soldiers subjected to mock interrogation techniques at Fort Bragg’s Resistance Training Laboratory. As a group, Special Forces soldiers released a greater amount of a chemical called neuropeptide Y (NPY) than did the regular infantrymen. NPY is an amino acid that helps regulate blood pressure, appetite, and memory. It also buffers the effects of adrenaline, preventing high energy from turning into wasted mania.
Not only did the Special Forces soldiers release more NPY during the interrogation, but, twenty-four hours later, their levels had returned to normal, whereas the regular soldiers showed significant depletion.
Other research has shown different, less chemical variation between the hardy and the truly exceptional. In Surviving the Extremes, Dr. Kenneth Kamler studied the factors that separate winners from losers in the world’s toughest environments. He examined the cases of Mauro Prosperi, a competitor in the 1994 Marathon des Sables, who survived nine full days in the Sahara, and the Mexican prospector Pablo Valencia, lost for eight days in the Mojave in 1905. When they were found, both Prosperi and Valencia had lost approximately 25 percent of their body weight to dehydration, an amount that would normally prove fatal.
Kamler concluded that four factors contributed to these men’s almost inhuman ability to survive: their knowledge; their conditioning, which in effect “inoculated” them against the desert; luck; and—the factor he saw as by far the most important—the will to survive. Prosperi, a highly competitive athlete, had an uncommonly strong survival instinct. Valencia was filled with murderous rage toward his incompetent guide; the intensity of his desire for revenge spurred him on, even through a near-death experience.
I wasn’t that angry at the bandit runner. I wasn’t sure if I was juiced up with unusually high levels of NPY and DHEA. But I had come this far, I was in front, and I aimed to stay there.
The last 30 miles of the race follows a narrow, two-lane highway straight into Sparta. It climbs for half that distance, then plunges downhill into the city. As I climbed, the police escort was behind me, and in front was absolute blackness. Every so often I’d hear a growling and snapping from a dog or feel the hot wind of a diesel as it roared past. I had never felt so tired. Several times I found myself dozing off as I ran uphill. I slapped my face to make sure I stayed awake. Then I saw the photographer, squatting on the double yellow line in the middle of the highway, snapping pictures of me as I approached. It worried me, because semi-trucks were splitting the night more often, and I thought he’d be killed. I waved at him to move, but he kept clicking. I noticed the two cameras hanging around his neck, the long lens on the one that he kept clicking, and even his stubble. The closer I got, the more clearly I saw and the more he clicked until I was upon him, which is when he disappeared. It took me a moment to realize: He had never been there.
When I crossed the finish line at 23:12, the mayor, surrounded by a group of young women, placed a wreath on my head, and someone draped an American flag around my shoulders. I had finished 20 minutes slower than my victory the year before, but still, no one had ever run the course faster except the great Kouros. No other North American had ever won the race. I hung out in the medical tent for a little while, got some sleep, greeted finishers, and then slept some more.
Later, I went over the race in my mind and thought about the things many ultrarunners think about. Chief among them is how to go on when you feel you can’t go on anymore. The Yale study demonstrates that Special Forces soldiers are different than regular ones but not how they got that way. Did they obtain the required stuff of super warriordom through a lucky draw in the genetic lotto, or did it develop through training? Are elite athletes born or can they be made? More to the point: What were my limits? And how could I discover them unless I tried to
go beyond them? The last was a question I asked myself each time I ran an ultra. It’s a question that every ultrarunner and anyone lucky enough to reach for something outside her comfort zone can ask—and answer—herself. It was a question I had come close to answering in my second, grueling Spartathlon. I planned to keep asking.
WHEN YOU’RE IN A FUNK
Almost every competitive runner I know goes through a period when he or she feels like quitting. I certainly include myself in that category. What’s ironic is that the tools that help make an elite athlete—focus, effort, attention to the latest technology—definitely do not provide the answer to getting out of a funk. I find the best way to get your running mojo back is to lose the technology, forget results, and run free. And forget that running needs to be painful or that it’s punishment. (Definitely get rid of those echoes of countless coaches ordering you to “take a lap” because you dropped a pass or double-dribbled.) Run for the same reason you ran as a child—for enjoyment. Take your watch off. Run in your jeans. Run with a dog (does he seem worried?). Run with someone older or younger, and you’ll see running, and the world, differently. I know I have.
Run a trail you have never run before. Pick a new goal, race, or a large loop that keeps you motivated to get out on those bad-weather days. Do all and any of these things often enough, and you’ll remember why you started running in the first place—it’s fun.
Kalamata Hummus Trail Wrap
This amazingly simple and portable meal and trail snack combines olives from Greece with Mexican tortillas and Middle Eastern hummus. I learned about hummus when I first started reading vegetarian cookbooks and studying world cuisine, and I started making these wraps for my long training runs in the Cascade Mountains. The sesame butter provides a smooth texture, and combines with the chewy tortilla and salty olives to create a nuanced, multilayered meal from a decidedly multinational but very harmonious dish. If you are making this to eat on the trail, you may wish to omit the garlic.
3 cups cooked garbanzo beans
3 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons tamari, 2 tablespoons miso, or 2 teaspoons sea salt
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice
½ garlic clove, chopped (optional)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Black pepper
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
8 flour tortillas
Chopped kalamata olives
Place the beans, tahini, tamari, lemon juice, garlic, and cumin in a food processor or blender. Process until smooth. Add a small amount of water to keep the mixture moving if needed. Season to taste with black and cayenne pepper.
For each wrap, spread a thin layer of hummus on a tortilla and sprinkle some of the olives in a line down the center of the tortilla. Roll the tortilla into a tight wrap and cut into two or three pieces, depending upon the size of the tortillas.
Pack the rolls in a small plastic bag and refrigerate overnight so they are ready for the next morning’s long run. For a more substantial lunch, add lettuce, red bell pepper, and tomato before rolling the wraps. Hummus keeps refrigerated for 5 to 6 days or freezes well for several months.
MAKES 8–10 SERVINGS
19. Lost
DULUTH, MINNESOTA, 2008–10
There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
—LEONARD COHEN
I told my mother about my first victory in the Western States, how I had screamed “Minnesota!” when I crossed the finish line. I described the rain on Mount Si and the blistering heat of Death Valley. She hadn’t opened her eyes for three days.
I flew to Duluth’s Chris Jensen Nursing Home after a staff member called and told me my mom didn’t have much time. The first day, she tried to talk to me, but her disease had ravaged her vocal cords—nothing came from her lips but a faint whisper. When she looked at me I could feel her love, but I could also see her fear and her pain. The first day, I sat next to her and held her hand in mine. I told her that I loved her. The second day, she closed her eyes.
I told her that my brother and sister were there, and her sister, that we would always be there, that we loved her. To cool her fever, I put a cold, wet washcloth on her forehead. I moistened her mouth with a foam swab, adjusted the oxygen tubes feeding into her nose. Her skin was smooth, glowing. She had spent most of her life unable to do things most of us take for granted. She was fifty-eight years old. I stroked her hair, pulled back in a braid.
She always encouraged us to be grateful for the things we had—for life itself. She always expressed joy. Yet I knew she would be relieved to escape the pain.
I wondered—not for the first time—whether she would have been happier if I had stayed close to home, if I had taken care of her. I wondered how I would live without her. She gave me confidence and support, taught me about real strength and acceptance. And yet I, too, would feel relief at her deliverance from agony.
I had visited her twice a year. I took her to movies, especially those featuring Julia Roberts, and afterward Red Lobster, where I minced her favorite meal of shrimp scampi so she wouldn’t choke. Every time I left, she chided me for worrying, told me to enjoy myself, that she was fine, that she enjoyed watching her television and Julia Roberts movies, that as long as she had her remote control, she would be fine.
When it was time for me to leave, she would say good-bye and that she loved me. But her final parting was always the same. “I’m tough,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.” The words stayed with me as I climbed into my rental car and pulled away.
But for the past five years she couldn’t push the buttons anymore, was on a pureed diet, and her voice had grown more faint. With shame, I remembered waiting impatiently as she struggled with my father down the aisle of St. Rose Catholic Church to join me and my little brother and little sister in the front row. I remembered twenty-five years earlier, too, a vital, beautiful young woman who was starting to drop things. She was greeting a friend who had returned from a trip to France. I saw my mother tilt her head back with a lover’s ardor, waiting to be bathed in the miraculous healing water from Lourdes.
She had such faith. How could any god let this happen?
Sometimes you just do things. But this time I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t known for the past two years.
Leah and I had been in trouble all that time. She told me we married too young. She told me that I wasn’t funny, that I wasn’t interesting. She told me she was starting to have feelings for other men. I promised that we would work things out. That’s what you did when things got hard. You worked them out, you kept going. Especially when you married someone: That’s when you didn’t give up. Then she told me she was in love with another man, that she wanted a divorce. We separated in February 2008.
I had been with her almost my entire adult life. I called Rick Miller, sobbing, and he told me that everything happens for a reason. I spent weeks at a time in Ashland, Oregon, staying in the basement of my friends Ian Torrence and Hal Koerner. Hal and I raced each other for five or six years at the Western States, and Ian and I went all the way back to the Zane Grey 50-Miler, more than ten years earlier. Rumors started that I was washing dishes to pay the bills and logging hundreds of miles in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains. My Hardrock buddy Kyle Skaggs heard the rumors and the real story (the ultra community is small) and told me I should come to Flagstaff for a week and hang out with him and our friend Tony Krupicka, an up-and-coming young runner who in high school viewed me as one of his top three favorite runners. Kyle went further; as a joke he made a votive candle in my likeness and gave it to Jenn Shelton. He said it represented the patron saint of ultrarunners.
We camped outside Grand Canyon National Park that spring and ran along a plateau between the rim and floor of the Grand Canyon. Part of it was called the Tonto Trail, and I had never felt such stunning expansiveness and desolation.
It suited my mood. We camped for four nights. We ran 35 miles one
day, then slightly shorter distances the other three days. I made tempeh tacos and fresh guacamole and spent nights huddled near the fire in my lightweight sleeping bag. The temperature dipped to 18 degrees. I told Tony that I didn’t believe love was eternal, that people make too big a deal of it. He told me I was wrong, that love was everything. Kyle was living out of his car and said he was headed to Silverton after our trip. He planned to run the Hardrock that year. He had all of his personal belongings in Rubbermaid bins. Some of our friends called him “the Rubbermaid Tramp.”
After one of our runs, drinking Tecates, and finishing up some beans and corn tortillas around a campfire, I realized that I envied not just Kyle’s freedom but the life that he and Tony lived. We had gotten slightly lost that day, had run 12 miles farther than we had intended, into and out of drainages, through hidden side canyons and back out. We were dehydrated and bonking all the way back on the 3,400-foot climb on the South Kaibab Trail to the South Rim.
