Lessons or Trippy Things - by John Prohira

Before the start of any 100 mile race there's this feeling in the air; there seems to be a certain sense of seriousness surrounding the runners so thick that it could be cut with a knife. I sense more of this mood there than in any race of shorter distances. It's almost a mediation spirit of sorts. The question hanging over everyone's head is not what kind of finishing time they will have, but rather "can I get it all together and keep it until the finish?" Attempting to ignore this tension, we try to eat, drink, joke around, swap tall tales and lies before the start. All the while paying great attention to the details involved in the task at hand. Ah, the devil is in the details.

Last Saturday while in a reflective moment before race's start, I thought of this poem. I'd always thought it a touching and wonderful statement on trying something new and perhaps something a little scary. I heard it told by Clarissa Pinokla Estes, a Jungian psychoanalyst, poet and contadora. It's author, Opel Whitley, wrote the poem when she was only four years of age, about her childhood friend who was blind from birth. They were living at the time in a northwestern lumber camp and had no other playmates.

Today, near Eventide
I did lead the girl who has no seeing
a little way into the forest where it was darkness
and shadows were.
I led her towards a shadow that was coming our way.
It did touch her cheek with its velvety fingers.
And now she too has likings for shadows
and her fears that were are gone.

So on Saturday, Feb 5th at 6 a.m., 120 of us went willingly into the shadows to find what? I'm still not sure I appreciate fully what I found. No matter. I spent the day trippin' along in the Southern forests outside Houston. My plan was to run and play in the woods and enjoy the Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile Trail Run. That was not to be. Instruction that I wasn't ready to receive began to be shown me. The joy of running that should have accompanied me as I traveled through the swampy forest came in only the most fleeting of moments. My ultrarunning education was continuing here. I came face to face with hard lessons and that three letter acronym, DNF. Not as extreme as DOA yet, ouch! DNF. Did Not Finish. This time it was a bruised ego that accompanied my bruised body back to Western New York after the ultramarathon.

I flew into Houston on Friday the day before the race and had the opportunity to visit with many ultrarunning friends I've met since I started this type of running in August of 1997. There didn't seem to be many virgins there. Most were familiar faces and experienced ultrarunners. I've been on these southern trails before when I ran a 50 mile race here one winter. I remembered the course well. Remembered the trippy things and the constancy of the terrain, where the same muscle groups get tested over and over, mile after mile. I couldn't forget the unrelenting stumps and roots on the trail, partially covered with fallen leaves and pine needles that seem to jump up and grab your legs if attention is not paid.

An easy 100 miles. There are no significant climbs; this is not a technical course. An easy 100 miles. All the water crossings are done using wooden walkways, there is no reason to get your feet wet. Heat and humidity would not be a factor in this adventure. An easy 100 miles. The only threatening animals were lethargic or sleeping reptiles. No wild animals moving in the shadows, no howling to be heard while out there alone in the middle of the night. This was to be an easy 100 miles. But I forgot that the hardest part of a 100 mile race is that it is 100 miles long.

The Rocky Raccoon is run entirely in Huntsville State Park, which borders one of Texas's more infamous maximum security prisons. As a matter of fact two years ago there was a death row prison break with one of the escapees disappearing into the park. The unfortunate fellow was found a week later, drowned in one of the murky pools that are a constant presence there, having fallen off one of the 19 rail-less wooden bridges we traversed on each and every loop. Yes it was a looped course, 5 times 20.2 miles equals 100 miles down in Southeastern Texas. I always struggle on looped courses, some people like them and many runners set personal records last weekend. The logistics of placing drop bags is made easier when portions of the course are repeated, it's harder to get lost and it is less intimidating at night knowing exactly where aid stations are.

I heard a term last week describing long distance running on a track. You know; 24-hour races and the like. It was called "hamstering" and I guess that is what I feel like going round and round on a looped course, like a small brown rodent on a wheel. I think the hardest aspect of a loop course is the mind twist it presents when, later in the race, you are back at the start/finish and think "um.....I can go back out for some more or climb into the car and..."

The race is run on a mix of dusty fire roads and trails through a Southern pine forest. The pine droppings felt nice under my tired feet after a while-- almost like carpeting--and the aroma of the crushed needles was a unexpected reward. I started the day dressed in along sleeved polypro shirt and shorts and carried a little mag lite to light the way. It was, after all, 35 degrees and coming from Rochester I was made of tough enough stuff to bare my legs.

Dawn arrived around 7-ish, burning off the night fog along the water with the orange then yellow sunrise, and the world woke up. A steady line of runners was maintained on the single track trail until dawn. It was cool for this time of year I was told. The local runners talked of hoping for an overcast night and the insulating effects that they knew clouds would bring. It didn't happen. The night sky was without a cloud, moonless and star-filled. I laughed to myself at this sign I saw in the park: "Please Do Not Feed Or Harass The Alligators". I wondered what kind of fool would torment these reptiles. But wait, one of the lessons presented this weekend in the woods involved not to be so quick to pass judgment on others. After all I was the guy who took his plantar fasciitis to Texas for a 100-mile race, not my smartest move.

I've been fighting the PF since November, aggressively treating it with ice. I bought orthotics and have been getting massages and resting. My total mileage for the month preceding this race was only 57 miles. It felt better and I hoped for the best. But then another lesson was presented.

These lessons I ramble on about are things that one reaching adulthood should know. I guess I'm a very slow learner. This lesson was: "Just because you really want to do something doesn't mean that you can or should". Wow! Five miles into the course running became a real task. My left foot only hurt half the time: Only when I stepped on it. But this labored effort was throwing my entire stride off, stressing parts of my lower body in ways it's unaccustomed to. I could shuffle along and ignore the pain at times but, surprisingly, it hurt the most when stopping at an aid station or walking up an incline. I stayed well hydrated and fed and hoped for resurrection or revelation, resolution or good luck. I was asking myself too early into this adventure just how badly I wanted to finish. I was giving myself what I considered all the wrong answers.

The day was pretty and the sun welcome to this ultraviolet-starved Rochesterian. Temps topped out in the mid sixties, with a mild breeze off the water. I saw lots of turtles sunning themselves at midday while we ran around the dammed lake, which became that "damned lake" later in the day. At about mile 14 into the loop the start/finish area could be seen across the water, so eerie after dark.

The aid stations at 3.7, 7.7, 12.9, 17.8 and 20.1 miles provided everything material and some spiritual intangibles a healthy ultrarunner could hope for. The aid station's Southern hospitality was unsurpassed. Each station had its own ambiance. I enjoyed beans and rice in one at noon and a cheeseburger at mile 53 just after dark while standing next to a campfire. The station at 17.9 miles had strung Christmas lights in the woods and around their tables. Candies, cookies, chips, coke, coffee, tea, salt were available but the principle commodities offered at every station were warm, smiling ,encouraging faces. These people want you to do well, to succeed. They all told us how very proud they were, which can make the sting of a DNF just a little more intense.

Interesting folk spent parts of their day and ran with me. There was the lady lawyer from outside Toronto I'd met last year who charmed me with tales of dogsledding and of the Great White North. I spent a couple of hours with two guys who liked to climb mountains. One had just returned from climbing in Ecuador, the other spent half an hour complaining about the $3000 deposit he was being charged for bringing an oxygen tank with him on his ascent of Everest. These gents, I thought, appreciated challenges and embracing shadows. I mentioned this to them. The reply given was no, climbing didn't scare them; long distance running came close, but it what was really scary to them was the IRS. Guess I never thought about it that way, but then I don't have enough money to hop the globe climbing mountains and if I did then perhaps the IRS would be interested in me too and I'd truly know fear.

As night fell it got very cold. The thermometer read 25 degrees along the lake by 9 p.m. For me a 100 mile race is three races broken down as follows: first 10-12 hours in the daylight, next 10-12 hours in the night, last 4-5 hours the next morning. I had made it to the 53 mile marker in 12 hours by the start of twilight. The next eight miles in the dark took 3 hours. As I slowed down I began to get so very cold. I've never been so affected by cold before. As I struggled along my teeth chattered and as hard as I tried I couldn't stop shaking. I found that I could not shuffle along in the dark because I was tripping on the roots on the trail. I wasn't moving fast enough to generate required body heat in order to stay warm. Walking had become unbearable. Could I make myself go back out after the third loop?

I came upon a struggling runner and as we chatted and trembled and stumbled along he told me he was a psychiatrist. Now I'm thinking does Mrs. Prohira's boy Johnnie really want to be out here for another 14 hours with a shrink? The good doctor was dropping out at the next station, he considered that to be the braver option. As we parted ways I promised to give his choice consideration. It was getting close to 10 p.m., 16 hours after the start of the race, which left me 14 hours to cover the next 40.4 miles. I did the math and understood that unless I experienced profound resurrection I would not finish in the 30 hours allowed.

The Advil I had taken wasn't touching my foot pain. When the sun came up I thought perhaps I'd wake up and start to move. But could I last through the night? Maybe I should continue. But then my mind was made up for me when I almost tripped over an armadillo lying curled up in a ball alongside the trail. These are truly stupid and notoriously deaf animals who react to threats much in the way that ostriches are supposed to. They don't stick their heads in the sand, they curl up and lie still. Because their hearing is so poor they often lie down next to whatever is scaring them. This creature must have heard me stumbling along and been frightened and I almost stepped on him. That was enough for me, it had started to get a little bit too weird. Cold, tired, in pain and now tripping over "possums in a half shell", I dropped.

As I came into the start/finish after 60.6 miles to the cheers from those waiting I told them no, no accolades for me, I was dropping. They continued to applaud. I was told that all was well, that I had done a good job, that they were proud to witness this and thanked me. There were tears stinging my eyes. At other times I've written that before finishing a 100-mile race I have first been stripped of every ounce of ego I might have had beforehand, leaving only desire and humility. I believed that desire and humility are the keys to attaining the truly magnificent. I still believe that, although accompanying desire there must be an honesty and I learned that that was what was missing last weekend. I attempted to fool myself into thinking I was physically prepared to embrace this challenge. I will not repeat this mistake.

An ultrarunning friend when hearing of my first DNF last weekend sent me some consoling words. Here are a couple of them: "I also think that you will reach deep inside yourself and try to learn from the experience. And that will make you not only a better runner, but a better person. Okay, I know that doesn't really make you feel better right now, but I just believe that you will take the good from the bad, and, figuratively and literally, run with it someday in the future."

Humbling. Guess I never knew the true meaning of the word. I went to Texas last weekend and tried to play in the woods, tripped over deaf armadillos, watched others find and use the right combination of desire and humility, persevere and accomplish their goals: Perform the magnificent. And I acknowledged that their combination was not mine to be had and accepted it. I was in the classroom for sixteen hours on Saturday. Lessons were presented and I am so very glad of it, I'm thankful for them and for the opportunity to learn. I am happy I went. And I, like the blind girl in the poem, still have likings for shadows. And so may it be with you.

Thanks for letting me share with you, as always I'll sign off with words that are not mine. Wise words: "fortitudine vincimus - "by endurance we conquer."

"if one advances in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life in which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
--Thoreau

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