About a month ago, one of my favorite running friends named Lori asked me if I was going to be in town on the weekend of May 4 to run a 50K. We go way back and I love running with her. I ran my first 50K with her and I ran my first 50-miler with her, both back in 2009. Back at that time, she was running 50-milers every other weekend and winning her age group and I was rolling out of bed and rolling through sub-3:10 marathons on back-to-back days.
We were having fun and running well. Good times, no doubt. But life has gotten in the for both of us in the past couple of years. I’ve documented the struggles we’ve had with our severely autistic 9-year-old son Jack. Lori finished up med school and is working a ton of hours doing her residency at a hospital in New York City. Training has taken a hit for both of us and we’re both a shadow of our 2009 selves. But when she asked me if I wanted to run the race, I had no hesitation. We hadn’t run together in years and I love catching up and spending time with friends.
I asked her to tell me about the race and she told me it was a North Face Endurance Challenge in New York. I went and looked and saw they offered a 50-miler in addition to the 50K and told her that there was no way we were doing a 50K if they offered a 50-miler! She told me she wasn’t hardly in shape for a marathon let alone 50 miles, and I wasn’t either, but I told her we just needed to go out and have a major misery fest for longest option offered. I knew it would be super tough on us, but I always like taking the longest option and I like to try to push myself. She likes to push herself, too — she’s done plenty of 50-milers and a 100-miler. We both have that mentality where we like to see what we’re made of, and we’re both pretty tough.
So, we signed up for the 50-miler. We traded texts for a month, joking about missed runs and poor eating choices. While we knew we weren’t going to be in good shape, we were kind of looking forward to it. I was looking forward to the challenge of trying to push myself through 50 miles when I wasn’t in shape to do half of that well, plus I was looking forward to creating a memory with a good friend. I think she just wanted to punch me for convincing her to step up our distance from 31 to 50 miles.
We caught up by the buses up to the start on Saturday morning a little before 4 a.m. We chatted and kind of rolled our eyes at ourselves for what we knew we were getting into. There was no doubt it was going to be a miserable day. But I view things like that positively — I knew I’d be creating a memory and I was excited to be able to go through misery like that with an old friend. 5 a.m. came and the race was underway. While I have plenty of experience running races, she’s infinitely better at trail races and there was no question that I would defer to her for race management. In ultras, you have to walk at times and you have to start slow and then go slower. I let her guide with the pace and when to walk. She also harped on me to eat enough in aid stations.
My nutrition was key, because I’m heavy (~200 pounds) and need a lot of fuel to move 50 miles on my feet. The course was fairly challenging. For the most part, it wasn’t very hilly. There were a few climbs and descents that were more-or-less boulder/mountain climbs, but in general, it wasn’t terrible. The surface of the trail was pretty technical, though. Well over half of it was covered in rocks ranging from the size of golf balls to baseballs to basketballs and bigger.
We ran on the rocks quite a bit, but it was difficult. The landings kept pounding away on the bottoms of my feet. I lost count of how many times I stubbed my toes and me and Lori nearly lost our balance and fell a good dozen or so times each. I finally ate it at mile 36 and bloodied up my knee and got a cut on my ankle. There were plenty of times when the surface was just un-runnable and we tried to power walk as well as we could.
It didn’t take long for us to realize we were in trouble. By about mile 15, we both felt like we normally would at maybe mile 30 or so. She mentioned fatigue a little earlier than me, but my legs, while not fatigued early, felt pretty numb early from all the running on the rocks. My memory is hazy but I don’t think I was struggling to stay with her for the first 20 miles or so. We alternated leading, ran side-by-side at times and had fun talking about all sorts of things.
At about mile 18, we found out from another runner there was a hard cut-off at the aid station at mile 20 and if we didn’t make it, we’d get pulled off the course. We were looking at the time and knew that it wasn’t a guarantee we’d actually make it. This was pretty shocking to us and it was a position we’d never been in. She’s used to placing in her age group or even placing overall in trail ultras. I normally finish in the top 2-5 percent in marathons when I’m in shape and even on a bad day in a trail race that’s not my specialty, I’ll be in the top 1/3 or top 1/5. So missing a cut-off — that was the first time either of us had ever faced that and we couldn’t believe it was really happening.
We got in and out of that aid station with about 10 minutes to spare and knew we had to stay on track for the final hard cut-off at mile 34. I was starting to fall apart. Not terribly, but my energy was down and while I tried hard to hydrate, I couldn’t get enough fluids in. After we got about halfway through, I couldn’t really stomach much food, which I knew would become a problem for me later in the race. When you’re in the middle of a long race, your emotions can start to play tricks on you and I started to get upset because I really felt like I was going to ruin Lori’s day and she wouldn’t get to finish because of me. She got mad at me and told me to stop complaining and suck it up and do something about it.
By mile 32 were on track to make mile 34 with a decent amount of time to spare, but I felt miserable and the sun was cooking me. She’s a doctor and I asked her if I was OK. I wanted to quit at 34 and she knew it. So she got into my head, which is exactly what I needed right then. She bluntly asked me if I wanted her to just tell me I’m not OK. I guess I was pretty transparent and I started talking about quitting because I didn’t feel well but I told her I didn’t want to quit if she wasn’t going to finish. She told me she didn’t have the tools to check my vitals but she started verbally asking me questions about how I felt. She told me I was fine, that I just needed to hit the cut-off, then eat and hydrate and sit down for 5-10 minutes and then keep going.
Deep down, I really wanted to finish the race. I’ve never quit a race and I didn’t want to face everybody and tell them I bailed 34 miles in. I started reminding myself that I knew the race was going to be a disaster of an experience and this was the disaster I was looking forward to and I needed to keep fighting my way forward. Quitting wouldn’t have been necessary — it would have just been the easy way out, and I would have been mad at myself forever for that. So I kept going from mile 34. I tried to keep up with Lori and I failed. We kept going over rocks and up hills and down hills. The race had a 14-hour cutoff and we were starting to wonder if we’d make it. She didn’t think we would. I thought we had a chance.
I was struggling to run and was walking more than I wanted to. My quads felt pretty thrashed and I wasn’t doing well mentally. I kept whining about how I was ruining her day and she kept telling me to stop whining and do something about it. A little bit after mile 40, she had me take the lead, which was a good decision on her part. I’m competitive, and she knows that, and that put the pressure on me to keep the pace moving and bring it home. I couldn’t let this two-person team down! We were knocking off good miles and I was doing the math in my head and it looked like we had a really good shot at finishing before the 14-hour limit. At that point, our miles were around 13 minutes each and we were needing to average 17s, plus we could have four minutes at each of the final two aid stations, in order to finish on time.
But then at mile 44 or so, there was an absolutely ridiculous climb. I don’t even know how to describe it other than to say it was basically a mountain climb. We had to power ourselves up with big, strong steps and then going back down once we peaked was pretty steep and the ground wasn’t very stable. That was a 26-minute mile and it physically destroyed the last little bit we had left in our legs. We were all but done. We started talking about MMA because I made an analogy — that climb and descent was the course trying to get us to tap out but we made it through. But Lori told me that no, that was our tap-out, because we were done, we lost, and we weren’t hitting 14. And she was right.
After 45, the sun was still out, but it was getting shady. There was an aid station at 47.2 and we knew that by the time we got there, it would be just about mathematically impossible for us to get to 50 on time. Our biggest fear was that we wouldn’t be allowed to finish. We couldn’t fathom going 47 miles and not being allowed to finish it up. But they let us kept going and were very nice. We ran everything we could the rest of the way but didn’t do anything to risk injury. We knew we couldn’t hit 14 and whether we missed it by 10 minutes or 15 minutes wouldn’t have any impact on whether or not we would get a time and a medal. Either they let us go past 14 or they didn’t.
Her Garmin beeped with one mile to go and I was pretty excited. “Ring that bell, one more lap!” (With an expletive or two in there … I don’t normally curse, but man was I dropping bombs during that disaster of a race.) We kept chugging along, we were getting closer, we went under a tunnel and a race official told us we were only 250 yards from the finish. 250 YARDS? “Let’s do this, Lori! Let’s finish this (expletive) race!” We had a little tiny bit of zip and got rolling.
I typically kick well at the end of the race and earlier in the day, Lori asked me if I was going to sprint at the end and finish ahead of her. I told her that the only possible way I wouldn’t finish side-by-side with her is if she tried to outkick me and succeeded. We intentionally went out to have a disaster together and that’s what we did. I wasn’t finishing without her. No way. We went through the finish line, I jumped sideways over the final timing mat and 14 hours, 7 minutes and 10 seconds after we went through the start, we were done covering 50 miles.
My buddy Kevin came up to the race with his son Ryan. They took video of us finishing and you HAVE to watch it. It’s only 30 seconds and Ryan had some pretty darn funny commentary at the end.
I didn’t finish last but we finished 267th and 268th out of 273 finishers. We really struggled. It was a super crazy long day that really beat me up. At about mile 48, Lori was asking me about why I ran the race. We had never really talked too much about that. First and foremost was that I’d be able to run a race with her (which I hadn’t done in more than three years). Without that, I had no reason to run a trail race this weekend. Once that decision was locked in, though, I wanted to challenge myself, to see if I could fight my way through 50 miles when I wasn’t really prepared to run 25. I’m always grateful for the abilities I’ve been given and the experiences I’ve had. Lori said that neither of us have anything left to prove, and we don’t, but we were able to prove to ourselves that even on a bad day when we’re out of shape, we’ve worked hard enough over the years to be able to go out and cover 50 miles on a whim.
Our time was not good, but we worked hard all day and I’m proud of that. It was a battle for us. But that’s exactly what I expected and wanted, and I’m absolutely glad I did it. I got the memory I was seeking, one more experience in this world I’m grateful that I’ve had.
That’s all (like that wasn’t enough) … thanks for reading!
Megan says
You’re a beast! Way to push through!
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