Running Out the Clock

Dawn. I chewed carefully and deliberately, weighing the effect of every bite. As people entered the restaurant I would look for signs(a gaunt and nervous appearance; running attire; a tee-shirt from a past ultra marathon…) that they might be headed in the same direction. What direction? What direction (towards Heaven or Hell or both?) is a 1.228 mile loop, run seemingly endlessly, from noon to the next noon?

In a relaxed manner, my family and I completed preparations for the race against time (the spirit versus the clock). Relaxation was essential. Neurotransmitters would be in great demand when the difficult hours arrived. The beginning approached as the blazing late summer sun reached its zenith.

High Noon. We runners began to move, clockwise. No clouds were in sight. We ran easily and chatted as other park visitors played softball, fished, and barbecued. “Life is short, play…, easy now, for it would certainly be quite hard later. The moderately humid air warmed to the upper eighties, as the breeze was minimal. Shade was sparse on THE LOOP. It was a great day for tanning one’s hide on Earth, the great rotisserie.

As dusk developed, I suddenly felt like pushing the pace a bit. A song from two decades in the past came forth from a boom box:

“Oh, God, he stole the handle

And the train it won’t stop going’

No way to slow down…chooka…chooka…chooka….”

This kamikaze feeling lasted through the end of the ninth hour, carrying me into the beginning of my hardest night of running ever, at the time. The feeling would later return!

There was never a sense of totally hitting the wall, no sudden and complete lack of energy or failure of the will, nor torment of leaden or knotted legs. My momentum would be slowed by something like nausea, although that word does not seem to represent, precisely, what was the problem. It was more like a type of motion sickness, indeed, a perpetual motion sickness. A mistaken notion that eating would make things worse, for a while, delayed relief. Then a baked potato was nibbled, at first cautiously, and then devoured. Later, I easily assimilated a piece of pizza. As hours passed, a great variety of fuels entered my metabolic cycle: Energy in, mileage out!

In the early hours of Sunday coffee was brewed, and two cups quickly sipped, in an effort to revive my flickering brain. The control center was losing control, the wee hours seemed anything but small, and the night had not cooled nearly enough.

Well after midnight, the circling continued. Still mostly running, I would occasionally find it necessary to walk off bouts of the nausea (Perpetual motion sickness?). My mood remained hopeful, for the most part, as I waited for an upswing in my energy level. A radio on the backstretch played, “Do You Believe in Magic?….”; trying to!

Amber lights along the roadway gave it the appearance of a runway. Suddenly, after over seventeen hours of running, I reached for music. LOUD, ENERGETIC, MUSIC! On went my battered cassette player, cranking out music recorded live, by The Grateful Dead: One From the Vault. My pace increased as the rhythm took control, and the 97^th mile went by in 8:21, the next in 8:11, and the 99^th mile in 9:06.

I blazed on (a relative term) “coming around under the sound”.

Dawn came with a sunrise of subtle shades of red and violet after a night of, in my life, unprecedented effort and distance. My joy at the new light was tempered by the threat of renewed heat, as the sky was again cloudless. A new goal crystallized to replace those now out of reach: one hundred miles plus a marathon—a considerable day’s journey. And with the new goal came the motivation to try to surpass it by whatever margin was possible within the remaining time.

In the final three hours came fifteen miles—the result of a determined mix of slow running, fast walking, and, during a few illuminating moments, the return of the kamikaze shuffle. A final lap went by at 9:03 per mile pace, and then a final four-tenths of one mile, (cold beer now in hand) before a cannon from across the lake signaled the final tick- tock of the clock.

High noon. The high of an honest and sustained effort, my most resolute effort ever, was curtailed by an overwhelming desire to lie down and eat and drink. Thus recovery began, with the Hocking Hills Sixty Kilometer looming only two weeks in the future. Life is short, run amok!

Robin Fry

Olander Park 24-Hour Run

Sylvania, Ohio

September 6-7, 1991