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This would not be a race, far from it. A race would demand a much faster pace and burn many more calories. A faster pace would also put far more stress on my body. The only goal was to reach Day Two in as close to the same shape as I had been on Day One. This would require two things: patience and calories. To disregard either of these would eventually result in failure. Run too fast, and the body would break down physically. Consume too few calories, and the body would not recover in time to allow another day of twenty-six miles.
The key to multi-day runs lay not so much in the day-to-day running but rather in the upkeep of your body, starting each day as close to the same place physically as the day before. It was a simple goal but not an easy one. The day’s heat had made eating solid food nearly impossible, and Jarred had been letting me know all day that we were way behind. Thanks to Hammer Nutrition and a good bit of chocolate milk, I had about 4000 calories of my 8000 calorie daily goal in me. The fitness app we were using told us at that rate I’d finish the run about 50 pounds lighter. It apparently did not have
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I put my earphones in, not to listen to music but to muffle any outside noise. I wanted to go into the hole as deeply as I could. I wanted to experience it fully. If you have never run beyond what you thought you were capable of, be it a 5k, 10k, marathon or longer, this may seem hard to understand. I had run nearly six marathons to get here. I wasn’t gonna blast music and try and run around it or run from it. I was going into it and through it. Almost immediately, it started to happen. The voices in my head were loud, yet they really didn’t say anything, they just conveyed a sense of
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Chadd Konig, who paddled on a surf board from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara California said, “No matter how carefully you prepare, something will always go wrong, and that is when it gets wild and free. Those are the moments that allow you to truly see within yourself.”
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
famous saying about Everest: “You don’t climb Mt. Everest... Mt. Everest lets you climb her.”
It reminded me of a man starving for water after days in the desert. Once lucky enough to find water, it is not wise to guzzle. However, the temptation is impossible to resist. The AC was no different. Each day had been so brutally hot. We had some respite in the RV, but it was impossible to get the rig really chilled. The problem with dropping the room temperature to sixty degrees or less is that the body really shuts down. It feasts on the cool temps, convincing itself that the torture is over. Many years prior, while bike touring from Colorado to Iowa to meet up with RAGBRAI, I had
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steadfast rule. Never back track.
His rule is never backtrack even on his morning run when he had to use the bathroom
There had only been a few times during the run that I let go and allowed myself to run all out, for fear of injury. On Day Thirteen that was exactly what had happened. It nearly derailed me. That day was a distant memory. There was not a sore or tight spot anywhere in me. I allowed my pace to quicken and my stride to go. If you are a runner you know this space. It is that last half mile of your first 5k or 10k. It is that last mile of your first marathon, when only an hour before you wondered how you could possibly finish. Yet there you were, running full out. Unstoppable!
