Mile 49
One of the reasons I love ultramarathons (beside being a bit masochistic) is that they take all of the emotions of life — joy, excitement, naivete, pain, suffering, depression, despair, sometimes (rarely) death — and compress and bottle it all up into a single day.
You experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. Again, I already confessed to being a bit masochistic. Lay off it already.
I often think about the journey to build Tillage in terms of running an ultramarathon, and I tend to map where we are now in the process to the experiences and emotions I felt running the Miwok 100K. Call it building in public, or cheap therapy, or see prior notes about masochism.
Right now, I’m at mile 49. A week ago, I was at mile 42.
Mile 42 — It’s raining, cold, windy. I’ve been slogging up a fire road transformed into a muddy river, inching slowly toward the aid station affectionately called Cardiac. Incidentally, the runner next to me has a dislocated shoulder. He fell a while back, laughed it off for a while and now is debating out loud with himself as to whether or not he should drop out of the race (he did).
His situation neither phased me nor did I care. That’s what kind of shape I was in.
I stumbled into a port-o-potty at the aid station to take refuge from the rain, wind, and cold. I stayed in there for a while. A while. Imagine the shape I must have been in where sitting on top of a bucket of human feces was preferable to continuing on in the race.
I wanted to quit. I hated my choices. I wanted to quit. But I had no better alternatives. The only way out was through. That where I was last week.
Mile 49 — Seven miles later, I tumbled into the aid station at mile 49 (a number of some notoriety in our state’s history). I had been running alone, in the rain, through the mud, in a deep, dark place for several hours.
Everything hurt. Exhaustion reigned absolute. Nothing seemed to work. In my mind. In my body. I was wrecked as I stumbled in.
Mel was there. As were several other faithful crew members. I changed out of my wet socks and shoes, tended my blisters, put on a fresh shirt, and drank some hot soup.
It helped. Some. But the depth of the exhaustion reminded me of its presence when I stood up and tried to walk—my legs and feet screamed with pain and no amount of adjusting my gait or hobbling helped. It was torture.
I remember (now it’s funny; then it was not) Mel trying to help as she was my pacer for the last 13 miles. She would first be chatty to take my mind off of the pain, but I got mad that she was chatty while I was suffering. Then she would then run in quiet solidarity with me, but I got mad that she wasn’t more chatty to take my mind off the pain. I was mad if she ran in front, mad if she ran behind, mad if she ran beside. She was the best. I was the worst.
And then, like a tiny gremlin with a hammer, something charlie-horsed my brain.
Embrace the pain.
I had heard about the mythical pain cave of long-distance runners, never experienced this euphoric mystical moment, but right then, right there, I somehow knew I was standing at the entrance. Would I go inside?
Tentatively at first, I stepped into the cave. Instead of trying to alter my running gait in a way that mitigated the pain (which didn’t work and only slowed me down), I said this is fine and leaned in. It didn’t hurt less. Every step was still that tiny gremlin pounding my quads. But I could run. I found another gear.
And so I ran. And I ran. And I finished.
Here we are friends. It’s mile 49. Everything hurts. I am, transparently, exhausted. It’s been 74 days since we signed the lease. Every week has been hard. And the next week has always been harder.
If there’s a lesson Jamin wants Jamin to remember, it is this. You chose this. Enter the pain cave and find that you can still run.
It will still be painful. It will still be the hardest thing you’ve ever done and next week will be harder. But you will find that you can still run.
