One Journey Through the Heart of the South, 2025
It was the weirdest, most disorienting wake-up yet. There was a faint sort of moonglow coming in at an odd angle from one corner of the space I was in. I needed a bathroom, so I carefully felt around for a floor at the side of the bed I was in, stood up, and began working my way toward the glow. It looked and felt slightly uphill. Feeling around, I discovered a wall of flimsy-feeling doors to my right. I was in a narrow 'channel' between the bed and this wall, as I took one careful step after another toward the source of the glow, gently running my hand along the doors, using them as a guiderail and trying not to lose my balance and crash through them. Finally I reached the corner and discovered the 'moonglow' was coming through another door, open, also to the right. My handrail hand felt a doorframe and gripped it as an anchor as I turned to go through the door and saw... my bedroom hallway at home."Oh yeah, I'm home." I'd arrived a few hours earlier, at 2 AM, and tumbled into bed after nearly a full day of travel to get here.
Appreciate that over the past fourteen days I'd woken up not only in a wide variety of different hotel rooms, but in far more odd places - like a picnic table bench in a public pavilion on the bank of the Ohio river; a row of chairs in the town hall of the next town upriver, on the ground at the end of random driveways in the middle of nowhere; on a steel bench at the entrance of a large church; sitting on concrete with my back against the front wall of a small church (awakened by my glasses falling off my face and plopping into my lap); in chairs on the front porches of Amish groceries - and many, many more. Still, waking up at home in my own bed after all of that was the most disorienting.
I gave up on getting more sleep right then. Sitting down to begin the writing process that I hope will eventually produce both good catharsis for me and a good read for others, I first checked the HOTS group on Facebook and found a very timely discussion about post-race blues in which Jan Redmond Walker (meatwagon driver, foot care expert, and very experienced journey runner in her own right) shared the following:
"On average, for every 30 days a person is out on a journey run, it takes at least a year to begin to mentally recover.
A lot of it has to do with adrenal fatigue. It usually takes longer for rookies than veterans. Though veterans can certainly still get it too.
So, given the amount of days y’all were out there, the blues and 'fog' should start to lift in about 4 months. But that’s just an average, and just because it may start to ease up around then, it can still take several months to feel even some semblance of normal. For some it can take a year or longer. It helps if you have like-minded people around you to be a sounding board."
Thank God I have Kim!
Background
"Wait a minute, Pat! 'HOTS?' 'Meatwagon driver?' Waking up on the ground? 'Journey run?' What the heck are you even talking about??"Oh yeah. Maybe everyone reading this isn't coming into it with prior understanding of what I just did. Let me back up and explain a little.
A journey run is when you load up a pack with the minimum things you'll need to sustain yourself and head out onto the open road to travel somewhere on foot. These are generally multi-day efforts and can cover great distances, up to and including 'transcons' (coast-to-coast transcontinental treks). Running across a home state or some other country are other popular formats. Real people really kind of do what Forest Gump did in the film - in fact I personally know several people who have completed transcons, including Ultrarunning Hall of Fame race director Gary Cantrell.
Gary is better known by his nom de guerre, Lazarus Lake, which I've watched evolve from an incognito internet persona into an international brand. Most of us who know him only through ultrarunning and his races simply call him "Laz" - and that's how I'll most often refer to him in the rest of this story. Gary has made organized, minimally supported journey runs a major part of the stable of races he has originated, beginning with "The Last Annual Vol State Road Race" (LAVS), a 314-mile trek across the state of Tennessee along a fixed course (mercifully, the short way, unmercifully, in July). My daughter Kim and I have entered that race three times and completed it together twice.
The support provided in these races includes a bus ride to the start from where you leave your car nearby the finish; a hotel room and pre-race meal the night before the start; tracking and monitoring for runner safety; and a bail-out option - the previously mentioned 'meatwagon,' driven by the aforementioned Jan, who will generally do her best to convince you not to get in, but to keep on going instead - unless you fall too far off the minimum pace needed to finish within the time limit, in which case she will have the unhappy duty of pulling you from the road (Vol State has a ten-day time limit). Apart from these things, you're on your own to find whatever you need along the way that you didn't carry with you at the start. The only other support you are allowed to receive is anything offered by 'road angels' - ordinary people you may encounter along the way who choose to offer assistance.
In 2020, through a mix-up in which Vol State got overbooked, "The Last Annual Heart of the South Road Race" - HOTS - was born. Vol State had changed. As it followed the same course every year, over time many locals along the way began consistently supporting the race by setting out coolers full of drinks and snacks for the runners. Some even set up elaborate aid stations with sleeping areas and all sorts of supplies the runners might need - all of it gratis, all motivated by generous hearts and a desire to be part of this epic thing passing through their area each year. All this fixed road angel support creates a fun and friendly atmosphere, and has created lasting friendships between the angels and some of the runners, but it also takes quite a bit away from the lonely journey run experience.
Gary's solution? HOTS. HOTS has the same format as Vol State, with one crucial difference: the course changes every year, and no one gets to know what it is in advance. Even the runners only get their first look at it on the night before the start. As a long-time journey runner himself Gary knows an astonishing number of the roads in Tennessee and surrounding states and, combined with his interests in both history and geography, he's able to fashion fresh, interesting and challenging courses year to year. HOTS today is considered 'graduate-level' Vol State. The courses are generally longer and harder. There are more big climbs and descents, and there are more 'deserts' (long stretches without services like restaurants, groceries and convenience stores). If there is any support by the locals (and there always will be, because lots of people out there are good) it will be of the old-school road angel kind.
'Last Annual,' by the way, is a quirky inside joke that has become an overarching brand name for Gary's journey races, which also have included (so far only once) a third-level race for qualified participants who have previously completed both a LAVS and a HOTS - the Last Annual Third Circle of Hell (LATCH).
Reluctant Commitment
Sharing three Vol State adventures with my daughter has been one of the greatest things in my life as a father, and I wouldn't trade a minute of it for anything - but it wasn't supposed to be that way originally. I'm the 'serious ultrarunner.' I've trained consistently for ultras for fifteen years now. When I entered Vol State for the first time in 2014 it was supposed to be the ultimate test of what I could do. It was supposed to be me, alone, testing myself against 314 miles of lonely roads. Kim wasn't even a runner then. All she had to bring to the effort was the incidental fitness that comes from youth and living and walking everywhere on a hilly college campus, along with an independent stubbornness that I knew well (having bequeathed it to her, I'm pretty sure). Vol State with Kim was going to be a very different experience than I had envisioned, and in fact it became a decade-long experience of father and daughter pursuing shared goals together. Instead of being 'my thing,' Vol State became 'our thing.'
No regrets!
Kim wasn't interested in HOTS though - at least not right away. She didn't want to spend the large chunk of time off work these things require two years in a row. Me? I was planning to be retired in 2025 and needed something to do. Then Gary started posting about how this year's HOTS course was going to be the best yet! You wouldn't think that a grizzled old beat-up Tennessee hillbilly could produce anything like a 'siren song' but the legions of ultrarunners worldwide he has led to various dooms can attest to the power his voice wields over us.
There I was then, on a list with about a hundred and twenty other runners, ostensibly committed to run a long HOTS in a little less than a year - in June - except I wasn't really committed, not completely. I knew I could back out with a nearly-full refund up until Christmas. I knew smaller percentage refunds were available after that, and that paid entry transfers to other runners on the wait list could be arranged as long as there was a runner waiting. I let my name sit there while I considered whether I actually still wanted to do what I'd originally set out to do.
I'd be sixty-four - eleven years older than when I first ran Vol State. I'd developed twinges of minor arthritis pain in both knees and in my left foot. I'd slowed down. I was still doing lots of miles weekly, but much of it was walking. I'd become an amateur mycologist - a mushroom forager - and spent long hours strolling through wooded areas, alert for interesting specimens. Afternoon naps had become a regular thing, and if I started watching a movie anytime later than around 7:30 PM, odds were I'd sleep through the end of it. Realistically, there was no way to go back and find out how I would have done on my own in 2014. All I could do was find out what I could do now. Was I really still that interested? Did I really still have anything I wanted that badly to prove to myself?
Then came the day Gary posted that the wait list had been exhausted! There was no one left waiting to get in, no one to transfer an entry to. The only way out was to simply abandon the entry and the money invested in it.
"Well, I guess I'm doing this thing," I said to myself in resignation.
I started mixing more running into my daily outings and my body responded well. I got serious about settling on a pack and some other equipment I'd been half-heartedly shopping for. This preparation activity finally made the thing real for me, and mentally - very late, very last-minute - I responded with the old familiar excitement.
Apparently it takes a while to stoke it up from the embers these days, but the fire is still there. I left for Tennessee on Monday, June 9th, with the same thrill and sense of purpose I'd always had at the start of these journeys - only this time I left alone.
Getting There
 |
| At the Next-to-last Supper with Agatha Halekulani McRill, Glenn Kasper, and John Price Photo credit: Agatha Halekulani McRill |
This year's race would actually have two starts. The basic HOTS was to be 350 miles - right at the limit of what had always been advertised as the range of possible distances. This year though, a choice was offered to start further out and tackle a 400-mile journey. These two distances were the only things known about the course in advance, other than that we would finish (as always) at "the Rock" - the top of a large granite headwall on the property at Castle Rock - and also that we would have ten-and-a-half days to reach it. You didn't have to make up your mind which distance you were doing until the start of the 400, but I was firmly committed to the 350 for my first solo effort, and for a return to the old-school experience, without all of the fixed road angel support.
We ended up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where we settled into some pretty nice hotels and then got bussed to a nearby conference center for a very good, catered "Last Supper." In addition to being a meal, the Last Supper serves as the official pre-race briefing where information was shared by most of the race staff - who I will take space here to introduce and acknowledge:
- Carl Laniak. It wasn't quite clear to me, but Carl may officially have been the race director. Laz's 'sidekick' at these for years now, Carl officially took over as RD of the Barkley in 2024, and has I think been assuming greater responsibility for the Last Annuals for quite a few years now. I've had some brief conversation with him about the transition, and know (with deep gratitude) that he sees it as a calling that he is answering with humility and great respect for the legacy being handed down to him. Speaking of Laz in an email to me, Carl said, "He did us all the solid of inventing these glorious things for us to experience and learn from, and I am happy to do my best to pay it forward to the next generation." There is no one better prepared to do that than Carl, and I've told him that the world (or at least the world he and I are part of in ultrarunning) will be grateful to him for stepping up.
- Gary Cantrell (Lazarus Lake). The originator of "these glorious things," Laz remains their heart and soul, the imprint of his personality stamped on them. He is the most colorful and enigmatic character I've ever met, and someone I'm fortunate to be able to call a friend - though I share that with thousands of others who have responded to his bewitching melodies. Beginning with the 2013 Strolling Jim 40-miler, I've now been a runner in ten of his races. In 2023 Gary became the twenty-fourth inductee into the American Ultrarunning Hall of Fame for his contributions to the sport as a race director and an author. I think that everyone who knows him would agree though that fame hasn't seduced him away from his central passion as a race director: giving everyone from some of the most elite athletes in the world down to the least back-of-the-packers the opportunity to test themselves against their own limitations and weaknesses, and witnessing and celebrating every victory.
- Sandra Cantrell. Gary's no-doubt long-suffering spouse, Sandra is as dedicated as Gary to their life together as directors of iconic ultramarathons. From the beginning of my involvement with ultrarunning and my awareness of Laz and his races, I saw that Sandra handled many of the details. I think she has most often served as director of "A Race for the Ages" - the age-handicapped fixed-time race held each year on Labor Day weekend. At the Last Annuals she plays an integral part in the "meatwagon" - which in reality is more than just 'Jan in a van' but a process - an intricate, multi-vehicle and multi-driver dynamic logistical 'dance' shuttling failed runners forward hundreds of miles to their vehicles from wherever they drop while keeping track of runners still on the course. Sandra also makes dozens of runs (maybe even hundreds) between the Rock and Kimball, shuttling finishers (who are not permitted to drive until they have rested) to hotels and back to their cars, and keeping Carl and Gary (stuck at the Rock receiving finishers sometimes for days) supplied with things they need.
- Jan Redmond Walker. I've already share a little about Jan. Like Carl, she has been a supporting and much-loved fixture at these events for many years now, frequenting the back of the pack to encourage the struggling and gather up the defeated. There are many Vol Staters who credit Jan with having saved their races with timely expert advice or in some cases (when crewing was allowed) expert blister care.
- Naresh Kumar and Mike Dobies. Also long-time Laz associates, Naresh and Mike I think of as the 'IT Department.' I believe together they have built out the network infrastructure that supports all of Laz's races - including things like web sites, maps and tracking sheets, and online check-in forms. During the race, Mike receives the runner check-ins every twelve hours, accounting for each and every runner each and every time, and will send you a reminder text if you forget to check in - the first step in what will be an escalating process of re-establishing contact and ensuring you are okay. These guys are usually background, but Naresh was at the Last Supper this time, and did some photography at the two starts.
This is a small team for such a large and complex logistical undertaking and - at least for Gary, Carl, Jan and Sandra - it is every bit an ultramarathon for them, too, and one they would be repeating in only a month at Vol State. I have no doubt the race covers any expenses for them. I hope it also provides some compensation for their time, but whatever that might be I'm pretty sure would not be enough to convince most people to do the jobs they do. I believe all of them share Gary's passion for enabling us runners to chase our dreams, write our stories, and have experiences that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.
As I continue this writing this story, now on Tuesday morning, July 1st, ten days after I finished, still last night I woke once with a start, completely disoriented, convinced that I had overslept and needed to get back on the road and get moving again!
"NO! I am HOME and I am NOT going anywhere!" I told myself as the confusion cleared from my mind.
Physically I'm in pretty good shape. My few minor blisters are healed, and I've been able to keep my feet up enough that I seem to have completely avoided any post-race swelling. I'm not breaking out in either poison ivy rash or chigger bites. I foolishly did a little dance once to show someone how well I could still move in spite of what I'd just done, and my right Achilles came up sore the next day, but that is gone now. Last Tuesday I treated myself to a massage! I still expect the skin on my feet will begin to die and peel off soon, as it has each other time I've done this. We will see.
It wasn't until Saturday though - a full week after reaching The Rock - that I stopped feeling the constant brain fog. It's a good thing I'm mostly retired, because even though I was home (where I work remotely for my employer) I did almost no work for the third week in a row. The drive home was the last time my brain would function for anything challenging. For the rest of the week, anytime I tried to think seriously about anything or engage in any activity that took focus, it simply locked up. All I did for a week was go in a cycle from meal to nap and nap to meal, spending the few good hours I had each morning gathering data on the run and beginning this writing.
Yesterday (Monday) I finally felt almost normal, and would describe myself as a "minimally functional human being." Sleep feels truly restorative now rather than like a survival imperative - like desperate catch-up. Still, I can wake with a start in the night, not knowing where I am, thinking I'm still in the middle of it.
Day 1 - Tunnel Hill, IL to Kentucky (54 Miles)
 |
| Runners Emerge from the Tunnel (Including Me - Background) Photo credit: Naresh Kumar |
These were the 'gimme' miles though. Everyone knew it was nineteen miles to the Shawnee Mart in Eddyville - the first place down-course where resupply was available. We were enjoying the relative cool of the morning, and it was no more than the distance of a decent long training run. I jogged the downhills and power-walked the rest. By the time I made it to Eddyville it was mid-day, no longer so cool, and I settled down at a table inside the market, in the air conditioning, to cool off, rehydrate, and have some pizza for lunch. For many people who first hear about these kinds of races, their first question will be either, "Where do you sleep?" or "Where to you go to the bathroom?" For this part, the answer to both was "at the Shawnee Mart in Eddyville," as I not only used the bathroom there but I think I caught a few winks at their table. Leaving Eddyville, we'd next be traversing a twenty-one mile desert all the way to mile forty, in Elizabethtown, so a long break with good recovery here was warranted.
 |
| The Shawnee Mart in Eddyville Photo credit: Carl Laniak |
As people studied the map we'd received shortly after arriving in Cape Girardeau though and course knowledge began disseminating through the group, someone pointed out to me that the ferry across the Ohio River at mile fifty, in Cave-In-Rock, IL, would be an important gating factor for the 350-milers. It only ran during the day, 6AM to 10PM - so anyone who didn't get there in time to catch the last ferry on Thursday night would be stuck for eight hours in a town with no hotel or any other services! This briefly panicked me, and I began thinking I'd need to push to get to Cave-In-Rock within about fourteen-and-a-half hours - a doable time for me for the fifty-mile distance, but faster than I really wanted to go out. I wrestled with this and sweated it for a while until I eventually came to my senses and realized: fifty miles a day was my A-goal. That meant it would be fine for me to take a full twenty-four hours to get to Cave-In-Rock. What I really should do was aim to get there sometime in the wee hours of the morning on Friday and find a place to nap for a couple of hours until the first ferry on Friday morning.
I left Eddyville with a different crowd of people than the ones I'd arrived with - 'with' being a strong word in both cases, because I mostly traveled alone, but regularly leapfrogged others traveling at similar paces, so I stayed somewhat aware of who was nearby. Heading south, I continued to push myself to run the downhills while I could and I made good time - right past the turn onto a side road called "Bushwack Cutoff." Foolishly, I'd not paid close enough attention to the course map, and the GPX Viewer app on my phone made it look like the main road would just eventually turn that way. I went about two-and-a-half miles past the turn before I got suspicious, looked closer, and discovered my error. I would have to backtrack that same two-and-a-half miles to get back on course where I left it - turning a twenty-one mile desert into a twenty-six mile desert!
To say I was annoyed with myself would be an understatement. This was afternoon. It was hot. I had been hitting my water pretty hard and still was feeling a little dehydrated - and now I knew I could very easily run out before I got anywhere I could be certain to get more. I didn't immediately think about it at the time, but it could even be worse. If I didn't make it to Elizabethtown before everything there closed, my twenty-six mile desert would become thirty six - more really, with no services at Cave-In-Rock either nor for several hours beyond after crossing the river. Yikes! I began trying to conserve water as I worked my way back and found the correct turn.
While I've just made this sound pretty dire, I actually wasn't too worried. One of the strategy adjustments I'd adopted for HOTS vs. Vol State was to ensure that I left anyplace I could resupply carrying enough calories to sustain me on the road for a full day if necessary - and it's generally not that hard to find water sources if you assert yourself a bit in looking for them. Churches and other public buildings often have outdoor faucets you can use, or you may find one in some public park. At worst-case need you can knock on doors and ask homeowners for help. Most will oblige if all you're asking for is water. These are things experienced journey runners know and are prepared to do.
I saw two other runners (Darren and Tiffany, it would turn out) approaching Bushwack Cutoff from the correct direction as they saw me turning onto it from the wrong one. By the time I'd made it across to route 146 I'd pushed myself hard enough that I really needed to sit down in the grass in a shady corner of a yard to rest and cool off a bit, and they caught up to me there. Worried, it seemed, by my look, they asked if I was okay. I told them what had happened, and that I was a little worried about running out of water. Darren told me he was glad they'd seen me take the turn because he was pretty sure they'd have missed it too. Tiffany felt she had enough water to spare, and handed me a large Gatorade bottle full that I pretty much drained on the spot. Darren talked about there being a church a few miles down the road where we might be able to get more, and the two of them headed off while I continued recovering a little longer before moving on myself.
It really was only a couple of miles to the church Darren had identified, but it seemed longer. I was at a low point and dragging a bit. When I got there I found Darren and Tiffany resting on a little concrete bench in front of the very small church building, and I was able to return the favor with the water supply. As I got within earshot Darren declared, "No water!" and told me there was a 'pump' out back but that he'd tried it and it didn't work. I immediately suspected what the real story was, based on some experience from Vol State. For some reason, many churches in this area have what I've since learned are called 'freeze-proof hydrants' outside. They look a little bit like hand pumps at the top of a well but they're not. You just pull up the handle to open an underground valve, below frost line, and then wait for the water to come gushing out. I checked, and sure enough that's what it was.
Tiffany and Darren headed out ahead of me again and I soon followed. A runner named Jeff came up behind me a mile or two later, pushing hard, and asked if I'd be interested in joining forces to push each other to reach the Sinclair gas station in Elizabethtown before it closed at 10PM. I tried, but just couldn't match his pace right then. I thought he was pushing harder than he absolutely needed to, but I couldn't be certain and didn't want to discourage him from doing what he could, so I fell back and stuck with my pace.
We soon had our first road angel encounter. At a farm on the left, a young girl was excitedly approaching passing runners to offer water, and a couple of young dogs were greeting us excitedly too. One of them was following Jeff down the road ahead of me as the woman of the place went after it to try and bring it back. I told the girl I'd take a water, and asked her if she'd take the now-empty Gatorade bottle and throw it away for me. We DO NOT litter during these races, and getting caught doing so will get you disqualified. The normal-sized water she gave me fit in the front bottle pocket on my pack, so it was a good trade. I was worried about the pups being up by the road with fast traffic moving by, so I stepped off a ways into the yard and tried to make myself interesting to attract them to me there and help the woman get them back where they belonged.
As the afternoon cooled off and darkness approached my pace began picking up. I always get stronger at night in a multi-day. I passed Darren and Tiffany resting on the lawn of another church and told them about the soon-closing convenience store, now about four miles ahead, and they said they weren't going to try for it. I kept pushing. Soon I passed another runner I didn't remember seeing before (who would turn out to be named David) and then not too much further on I came up behind Jeff.
"David?" he asked.
"No, Pat."
"Nice comeback!"
"Yeah, I always get stronger at night."
I would set the pace from there, David would soon catch us, and I led the three of us into the Sinclair parking lot just a few minutes before ten o'clock. A bunch of other runners were gathered outside, resting variously on chairs, benches and patches of concrete, talking, and eating and drinking what they'd been able to buy. There was no hot food available at that point, but there were plenty of snacks and beverages to be had. Among other things, I took a chocolate milk for some protein and calories. The owners were outside talking with all of the runners when we came out, and they kept the place open beyond closing time to serve a few more runners straggling in a little after - including Tiffany and Darren.
I'd say that qualified these owners as road angels, and in addition to adjusting their schedule for us they shared a wealth of information, including that we were welcome to rest there in front of their store for as long as we liked, and that the town police shouldn't give us a hard time if we told them they'd given us permission (a police vehicle soon stopped by while they were still there, and the officer wished us well). They also told us about a covered pavilion a block or two away where we might be able to sleep; that the lobby in the town hall over in Cave-In-Rock was left open 24/7 and that we would find bathrooms there and some chairs to rest in; and that they would be over there in the morning, operating a food stand for some kind of festival if we happened to be there then.
As the runners at the Sinclair continued to converse, I headed over to find the pavilion to rest there for awhile. I took off my shoes and socks, settled onto a picnic table bench, covered up with my poncho tarp, using my pack for a pillow, and slept for something close to an hour. Bugs weren't too bad in spite of it being right by the river. Waking, I gathered myself and headed out of town on my own somewhere around midnight to try and accomplish my goal of getting to Cave-In-Rock (ten more miles) with time to catch another nap before the morning ferry - now knowing there would be a decent, sheltered place to do it in when I got there.
As always, it felt really weird walking through a sleeping town and out into nowhere in the dead of night. Getting used to such things is just part of acclimating to life on the road on a journey run. It takes about three days to completely let go of the old normal and come to accept this new life you've temporarily chosen for yourself. Most drops from the race happen within those three days, and most runners who make it through them will go on to finish unless they have some real problem later. I worked my way down the road out of town with only a few cars passing by as I VERY carefully made sure I didn't miss the turn onto Tower Rock road, the little, mostly wooded, country two-lane blacktop we would follow to Cave-In-Rock. The truth is that I just love this stuff! Walking down a deserted country road, alone, by the light of a headlamp in the middle of the night - what could be better than this? At one point, a skunk broke out of the weeds onto the road ahead of me, got dazzled by my light and started walking in circles in front of me as I hollered at it to move on.
Soon though things would turn a bit less than idyllic. There had been a storm down on the gulf coast a day or so earlier, and remnants of it were expected up here where we were soon after. I began feeling some breezes that felt like something was blowing in, and then a few drips began.
I carried a variety of means of protecting myself from rain. I had a billed running cap that I mostly kept clipped to one of the front straps of my pack where I could easily get it to put it on to protect my eyeglasses from getting spattered in light rain. I had a light hiking umbrella cinched to a loop at the side of my pack, resting like a scabbarded sword at my side - again, quick to reach and deploy. The pack itself had a built-in rain fly that I could deploy to keep things inside dryer, and I had my poncho tarp that which could be worn as a poncho that would keep me dry to down below my knees, or could be used as a ground cloth or a blanket while resting (a nice, flexible piece of kit).
I chose poorly from all of that as this rain developed! At the first drips I put on my cap, and as they became more persistent I deployed the umbrella. Then I heard the downpour coming through the trees, and there was nothing I could do before it was on me. There was no place to shelter, and if I took time out from under the umbrella to put on the poncho I'd be drenched before I could get it done. "This will pass quickly," I told myself, and I just walked on. Fortunately there was no wind. The rain came straight down and I was able to stay mostly dry under the umbrella - but it didn't quickly pass. It rained like that for about five miles!
 |
| Looking Across the Ohio to Kentucky Photo credit: John Clarke |
Day one was complete: fifty-four miles in the first twenty-four hours. With the off-course excursion it had actually been fifty-nine, but it was past time to quit beating myself up about that and just focus on what lay in front of me!
Something else I've noticed in my recovery, now eleven days post-race (in addition to the fact I'm still eating everything in sight and napping frequently): I'm just a wee bit obsessive about being clean! I've not been doing much other than sitting around the house in air conditioned comfort. Ordinarily I might let it go two days between showers under those circumstances. Right now though, nope! As soon as I feel even a little bit grungy I take a long, indulgent one.
Also I did notice the first peeling skin yesterday evening - top of my left foot.
Day 2 - Past Princeton, KY (35 Miles)
I turned out we'd be going through quite a bit of Amish and Mennonite country, and Hillside Grocery began teaching us 'the ropes.' These establishments were cash-only. The Amish ones would have no electricity, so no opportunity to recharge your phone. Lots of good stuff was generally available though - and at very reasonable prices. And as a real bonus, the people were uniformly very friendly and generous. Probably just their natural way, but maybe they also saw something of a kindred spirit in people like us, who would voluntarily give up most of the modern comforts to experience life stripped down to bare simplicity on the road. I rested there, ate a little, napped a bit, waited for some heavy rain to pass through, then donned my poncho and continued down the road, leaving Jim behind.
It would be seven more miles to the next town, Marion, KY, and these would be some of the most difficult of my race. The second day of a multi-day effort is just hard - arguably the hardest. The sleep deprivation really begins to bite, and the body and mind are in full rebellion. Part of the three-day acclimation process I referred to earlier is, I believe, overcoming that rebellion. You're burning energy at a rate that, if sustained indefinitely, will eventually kill you, while simultaneously depriving yourself of both sleep and anything approaching adequate nutrition. The body, and especially the primitive brain, have instinctive responses to this kind of thing for the sake of self-preservation: they both scream "Stop!!" as loudly as they can and in every way that they can! The pain will feel unbearable. The 'sleepies' will seem irresistible. The primitive brain will try everything to convince you that whatever you think you're doing it's a terrible idea and there is no way you're going to succeed. The secret to staying in the race at this point is that if your rational mind can resist and stand firm for three days, the body and the primitive brain will begin to accept that for some reason this is necessary, and they will begin cooperating to get you through it rather than continuing in rebellion to get you to stop.
The next seven miles from the Amish market to Marion were spent deeply engaged in that internal struggle. I plodded along through the developing heat of the day, in and out of occasional rain, barely aware of what I was passing by and at a very slow pace. At one point, a group of three guys - Trevor, James, and one other whose name I never got - came up suddenly behind me and worked past me. I tried to pick up my pace to match them and stick with them but just couldn't do it. Somewhere along the way I met another runner, Dawn, who mentioned that there was a McDonalds just to the left of the turn in Marion. When I finally made it to town and covered the seemingly endless blocks to the center, I did turn aside there and found Dawn occupying one of the tables in the back near the restrooms.
The ideal fast food restaurant configuration for journey runners is the one with an 'L' shape - with lots of seating up front for decent folk and a few tables down the side, on the way to the bathrooms, where people like us - who smell quite a bit like bathrooms - can self-segregate to make everybody more comfortable. Dawn was enjoying a Filet-O'-Fish - which sounded awesome to me, so after dumping my stuff at one of the tables I went up and ordered one, with fries and a Coke. The food was amazing, and the Coke magnificent! The AC was restorative and made downing the calories easier.
Dawn was planning to move on just a bit further down the road out of town to where she'd spotted a church on the map, hoping it would offer a decent place to rest and nap, and that sounded good to me too. I was definitely following her lead during these few hours, grateful to be near someone whose brain seemed to be more functional than my own. As we got back on the course we met Trevor, James and 'other-guy' coming back out from a rest at the Marion Baptist Church, which Trevor said had been a pretty good place. We pressed on though, sticking to 'our' plan. Dawn dropped off to get something at the Dollar General while I went ahead to check out the church. Central Baptist had a decent enough covered front porch where there were multiple spots to lie down in some shade. It was a little more visible from the road than ideal and there were a few people around, but I chose a spot anyway, spread out my tarp, took off my shoes, laid down on the concrete with my head on my pack and began dozing. Dawn and another runner whose name I never quite latched into memory soon joined me, choosing spots on the other end of the porch.
I slept well, only vaguely aware of some occasional activity in the parking area nearby. I got the impression somehow, listening half through my subconscious, that some of the locals were aware now of what was going on with all of the weird 'vagrants' coming through town and were explaining it to others.
After maybe an hour or so I woke feeling like I was done sleeping and I got ready to go. One quick technical note: preparation for the road once or twice daily included re-slathering both feet with RunGoo - the product I rely on for blister prevention. My feet had been through hours of soaking rain by this time, and I had no blisters and no sign of maceration.
Leaving the church on my own again, I felt good and moved well again, covering the nine miles to Fredonia pretty efficiently and uneventfully. Our loose group came together there again at the Dollar General for another brief rest and resupply. Dollar General (DG) is a much-loved oasis for journey runners. Even some of the smallest towns have them and, apart from no public restrooms, they have almost anything you might need. The staff is often quite friendly and accommodating, and they're generally not upset if you loiter out front, even sitting in some of the plastic chairs they have for sale out there.
I didn't linger long at this one, moving on pretty quickly to a Marathon gas station down the street, where I had a burger and made good use of the restroom. I had thought to maybe take another break on the way out of town at a small park I'd noticed on the map, but that proved to be just a tiny roadside memorial right up against the busy highway - totally unsuitable as a place to nap. I did the Friday evening check-in from there, at mile 71, and continued out of town as darkness was beginning to fall. I resolved to just keep pressing on to the next town, Princeton, twelve more miles, where there was a hotel I could stop at for my first real rest.
It was a pattern that would repeat for days to come: walking out of a town into a gathering night, tired and sleepy, soon to have my world reduced to what I could see in the small circle of light produced by my headlamp constantly revealing the white line ahead of me, sometimes aiming for a known place to get off the road and nap and sometimes just taking the first, best opportunity that presented itself when either sleep became too insistent to resist anymore or the threat of a storm drove me to look for shelter. Here it was the latter. A clap of thunder came from over my right shoulder while there was still a little daylight left to see by, and I turned to see an unsettled sky had developed behind me just as I was reaching the Fredonia Mennonite Church, about three miles out of town. There were nice covered entryways on two separate buildings.
"I might as well stop here where there's some shelter and try to nap a little while I wait to see what these storms are going to do," I thought, and I made for the smaller of the two overhangs. It was a further walk from the road, but is was screened from view from the highway by a row of shrubs. There was no one else there when I got there so I had my pick of where to be, and I found there were rubber foot-wiping mats the length of the wide double doors that would work as a sleeping pad, and I was quickly bedded down on them. I stayed for a little while and slept a little, but though I continued to hear thunder, I don't think rain actually hit there.
As I became wakeful I also became aware that there were now other people around. More runners had come in off the road, and some had set up under the other overhang. There was also the sound of a vehicle having pulled in, and of conversation happening between runners and somebody else. I'd rested long enough, and I started getting ready to go in case we were about to be run off anyway. It turned out to be road angels though, and as the runners they'd been speaking with headed for shelter and I approached, the man and woman greeted me and began eagerly offering me things from back of their truck. A banana sounded good but the ones they'd hastily acquired were green and impossible to peel. I gave up on that and took something else, thanked them and moved back out onto the road.
 |
| Other Runners Resting Later at Fredonia Mennonite Church Photo credit: Agatha Halekulani McRill |
I was nervous and very careful to not miss the turn off of highway 91, onto something called Skinframe Creek Road, leading over to Old Fredonia Road, which we were to follow into Princeton. One of the other runners from the group with Jeff had passed me and positioned himself at the turn to wait and ensure the others didn't miss it. I felt a little selfish at the display of cooperation, but stuck to my introverted way. Rain began falling again just past the turn, and I stopped to once again don my poncho. It would be another wet five miles from there to Princeton, mile 82, where I turned off to the American Inn Princeton at sometime around midnight, I think.
 |
| The American Inn with Gully (foreground) Photo credit: Agatha Halekulani McRill |
Sometime around 5 or 5:30AM I was up, dressed, and ready to check out and continue on my way. As I walked back around the sketchy end of the building to the office to turn in my key, I glanced left and did a double-take. There was a face sticking up out of the gully! A little hesitantly I waved at the face and the face waved back. I continued into the office and handed over my key. On the way out I decided I'd better go over to the gully and find out what was going on.
It was Jeff, sitting on the rocks at the bottom. He'd chosen to try the gully rather than do all of the extra walking, had stumbled on the rocks at the bottom and fallen, and hadn't yet been able to get himself back up. I had no idea how long he'd been down there trying, but I think he told me it had taken him twelve hours to make it the twelve miles here from Fredonia. Understandably, he was very frustrated! I worked my way carefully down the rocks and asked, "How can I help?"
"If you could help me back up onto my feet..." I extended a hand, which he took, but before really pulling he double-checked, "You're alright? I'm not going to pull you over?
"I've got you," I reassured him, bracing myself.
He pulled hard and made it up onto his feet. At his first step he nearly went down again and I grabbed him by the arm to steady him, then followed him closely up the hotel side, ready to catch him again if he needed it. It was a bit like the way I follow my mother-in-law up a flight of stairs! He said he was going to get some real rest and see if he could get himself straightened out.
"I wish you a miracle of recovery!" I said, then turned to work my way back through the gully myself as he continued toward the office.
It seemed he did get some kind of miracle there at the American Inn Princeton - mile 82 - because he did continue on from there, making it all of the way to mile 253 before, sadly, he dropped. That the Jeff I saw on the road from Fredonia made it to the point where I helped him out of the gully - and then another one hundred and seventy-one miles beyond that - is testimony to a level of tenacity and perseverance I don't think I've ever been forced to reach for in my own experience. Jeff, for what it's worth, I stand in awe of you.
I resupplied and had a breakfast biscuit at the Casey's convenience store right at the corner where I'd left the course, and then headed out of town. My legs and mind were fresh off my long rest, and I had most of a couple of hours to make more miles before the Saturday 7:30 AM check-in. I passed by Trevor and James on the way (they'd lost other-guy somewhere) and I kept motoring hard - at my best walking pace, about three-and-a-half miles per hour or a little more, which I can sustain for hours when I'm fresh - and by 7:30 I'd made almost seven more miles, checking in from mile 89.
Along that way I met John, who was traveling with a guy named Robert, though they were separated right them. I would meet Robert later and spend significant time with or near these two for the rest of the race.
Two days in I was averaging above forty miles a day - though I had cut five miles into the margin I'd earned with the 54-mile first day.
Yesterday I took my second little walk since I got home. It was Wednesday, July 2nd, eleven days post-race. I had tried a little two-mile walk almost a week earlier - the preceding Thursday - and it totally wiped me out! I spent the rest of that afternoon sleeping on the couch. This time I went on what I called "a little mushroom mimsy." It may have amounted to two miles, walked very, very slowly, pausing frequently to closely examine interesting specimens of fungus, and still I felt ready to stop well before I was done - and today I'm still feeling that effort. It's getting a little better each day though!
Day 3 - Hopkinsville, KY (31 Miles)
Approaching the 'outskirts' of Cerulean (not at all a big place) I had an interesting encounter. I'd gotten used to the occasional car slowing to stop for someone to yell out a window, "Hey, what's going on with all these people walking along the road?" Here an open carriage drawn by a single horse driven by an Amish man appeared around a bend ahead, and he drew the horse to a stop as he got to me. "What are all these walkers doing out here?"
As always, I genially explained what was going on and answered a few follow-up questions. 'Local relations' had been a topic at the Last Supper briefing. Not that I would have done any differently, but my behaviors and the interactions I had with folks along the way could directly influence, for better or worse, attitudes toward the other runners coming behind me, and I always tried to represent us well. As the questions ended and he made ready to move on, I decided to try and get some information about the town from him.
"Say, while we're talking, is there a church with an outside pavilion or maybe a public park somewhere in town?"
"You mean somewhere to take a rest?"
"Yes."
"Well, there's a church, but I don't know what the Baptists would think of that," he said.
I could see him becoming very thoughtful as he began turning into a road angel right before my eyes.
"My house is just up ahead. My son is at the sawmill, but I don't know how he'd feel about you being in there." Then he told me about the vegetable market on the way out of town and suggested I try there.
"There might be some space for you there, and they might even give you a pad to lay on."
I thanked him and asked him his name so I could drop it at the market. Shane Martin had been very helpful!
Jenn caught up while I was talking with Shane, and we moved through the small town together. As we started out the far side an oncoming car slowed to a stop beside us, but instead of another curious inquiry it turned out to be Laz and Sandra. We could only talk briefly before another car came along behind and they had to move on. They confirmed the upcoming produce stand and shared a little about other runners they had seen, if I recall correctly.
Garden Patch Produce was another little Amish market with a nice, covered porch out front with some chairs, apparently Amish-made and for sale. Jenn and I bought a few things - some tasty fresh fruit (and I got a tomato) and then we asked the man at the checkout if it would be okay if we used the chairs out front for a while - maybe even to nap a bit (and I did drop Shane's name). He said yes, adding that he thought the sight of us looking comfortable out there would probably be good advertisement for the chairs!
I'm not sure how long we spent there as customers came and went, some asking the usual questions. Trevor and James soon joined us, and Dawn came in off the road there as well. The place not only had treats and a place to rest, it had a bathroom - a porta-potty around the side. All this, plus the satisfaction of knowing we had just passed the 100-mile mark in our journeys! Life here was pretty good as I zoned in and out of consciousness after I'd finished eating and rehydrating.
We straggled out, loosely as a group, Dawn leaving first, and the rest of us almost together. Now I was following Jenn, and I think Trevor and James were behind me, but we pretty much all had each other in sight as we headed on down the road toward Gracey. John and Robert came in just before we left, so I knew they were keeping pace not too far behind us.
A few drops of rain began falling, and Jenn immediately stopped to put on her raingear. I popped up my umbrella and kept moving. This would be the second time I made the poor choice of assuming that rain would be light and passing. Within another minute it was coming down very hard - and wind-driven to the point it was obvious the umbrella wasn't going to be enough to keep me dry(ish). I turned off into a private drive and tried sheltering under a pathetic tree while scrambling to get out my poncho and get it on properly in the wind. Doing this frantically under far less than optimal conditions made it take far longer than it would have if I'd just done it when Jenn stopped, and I think not only Jenn but Trevor and James passed me by while I was fumbling with it. Point (belatedly) taken: deploy raingear proactively and preemptively!
A seemingly perpetual element of the rest of the journey would be adjusting my setup for either rain or threatening rain: doing and undoing the rain fly, donning and stowing the poncho, fiddling with the umbrella or the hat. It's all a bit more complicated than you might immediately realize. Deploying the rain fly on the pack made the stuff in the back inaccessible - and that was where I'd packed the poncho, rolled up and stuffed in its little mesh bag. Wearing the poncho of course made everything way less easy to get to - including the phone, with the map for navigation. Some things I thought would work well when I packed were coming up against reality on the road and I was having to figure out some adjustments.
Eventually I took to mostly keeping the rain fly deployed and just stuffing the poncho (without the mesh bag) into the hip pocket of my shorts for easy access. (I wear these ancient RailRiders Rampage shorts that have six huge pockets - almost like wearing a second pack.) That not only made quickly responding to rain easier, it made it very quick and easy to get settled somewhere for a nap: just whip out the poncho and spread it out on the ground, drop the pack onto it for a pillow, lie down and take off the shoes and socks. I could stop somewhere and be starting to doze off in under a minute!
Our little group, strung out along the road, kept moving through two or three miles of rain, eventually coming together at the turn onto highway 68, just short of Gracey. Trevor stayed by far the best-informed about the course ahead, always working out a plan for the next section, and he became our de-facto group leader as we made for the Dollar General just a mile down the road. We found Dawn there, resting outside, as we all claimed spots on the front sidewalk, laid down our stuff and went in to buy things we needed. I got my usual assortment of drinks - OJ, chocolate milk, Gatorade and water - and a "Lunchables" pack of crackers and cheese for something solid.
There was some coming and going of other runners as we rested, notably John Clarke, probably the best-known HOTS runner, who was running near the front of the 400-mile pack. (I think the first 400-miler I had seen passed me on the way into Fredonia.) We decided to take enough time here for some real rest, recovering from the heat of the day and napping while some of the rest of it passed.
Dawn was icing her feet, dabbing at them with some ice cubes wrapped in a cloth. Trevor complained of painful heat rash he was developing on his legs, and when I took off my shoes and socks my feet were bright red. It wasn't painful but it didn't seem good. Dawn explained she had the same issue, and icing it to soothe it whenever she could was her way of dealing with it. She'd bought a whole bag of ice, and soon I was dabbing at my own feet with some ice wrapped in my bandana. It felt pretty danged good!
Trevor (the planner) was looking at options for hotels in Hopkinsville, the next large town down-course, and made a reservation for himself and James at the Clarion Pointe, about twelve miles ahead, on the way out the far side of town. It looked like a good choice, with some good food options nearby, so once again I took the easy path of just latching onto somebody else's good plan, calling ahead to get a reservation there myself. I was immediately reminded what a pain that is - as you're calling some system-wide number, answered by an operator who-knows-where, and in addition to getting you a room they try hard to get you to listen to a long pitch about their fantastic rewards program. Ugh! There's no way to get them to really understand.
"Dude! I'm sitting, half-dead, on a patch of concrete with my back against the front wall of a Dollar General, hoping to get in a nap before walking the next twelve miles to your establishment. I'm really just interested in a room right now, not a new life-long relationship."
Way better to sort it out via the network - though that's not particularly easy either, as an exhausted, fumble-fingered old guy who's never really gotten comfortable with user interfaces on tiny screens. This was why my general inclination when it came to hotels was to just wait until I got there and take my chances on finding an available room, mentally prepared to redirect to a 'dirt nap' if I came up empty. Without Kim with me I could do that, and this was the only time I called ahead the whole race. Trevor was at pains to make sure I knew that he had no idea whether this hotel was decent or not, and I assured him that I wouldn't hold it against him if it wasn't - which, as it turned out, was a good exchange for us to have had!
One by one we chose spots for napping. I claimed one of the plastic Adirondack chairs, turned it to put my back to the sun, and popped open my umbrella for shade, one wrist through the strap on the handle and crossed over my chest to hold it in position and to keep it from blowing away in any sudden wind.
I lost consciousness almost immediately after getting settled, and woke an indeterminate amount of time later to Trevor asking me if I was going to move out with them. Shaking off the cobwebs, I said yes and thanked him for waking me, but I still had to buy water to refill the bladder in my pack - and the group kindly waited for me while I took longer than I hoped I would to get that done. We soon strung out along the road again as we continued down highway 68, and in just a little while I made my 7:30PM check-in from mile 111. There was no more rain, but I got a great photo of an unsettled cloudscape in a huge open sky over the road, Jenn a tiny dot on the shoulder in the foreground.
In fairness to Hopkinsville, we were doing this late on a Saturday night, a time when 'decent folk' in most towns are home getting ready for bed, and just the sort of people we were encountering are the ones still out and about. This probably could have been just about any town on the course at around this time.
Enduring about three miles of it was very nerve-wracking, but we eventually made it to the vicinity of our hotels without serious incident. Trevor, James and I had our reservations at the Clarion, and Jenn had one her husband made for her at another hotel about a mile further on. We stopped at a Sonic Drive-in, where I wanted to order a meal to eat in my room. Jenn moved on - with plans to text Trevor when she got to her hotel, so we'd know she made it there safely. Trevor and James were planning on getting their food at a Buffalo Wild Wings a bit further on, but they stopped for some slushies here. Trevor was really not doing well at this point, and he went next-door into a darkened, empty parking lot to try and throw up while James and I ordered.
The Clarion Pointe turned out to be quite an adventure! Trevor and I went inside to check in while James went to pick up their food. The desk clerk, a very friendly young man, set me up with a room on the fifth floor, then explained that I shouldn't be concerned if it looked like a mess when I got up there, because they were remodeling that floor - then assured me that if I had any problem with the situation when I saw it he would switch me to another room. "I don't want you in a bad room," he said.
As I got on the elevator I looked back and realized Trevor was now sitting in one of the lobby chairs, light-headed and passing out, with the clerk and a somewhat sketchy-looking guy who'd just gotten off the elevator trying to find out if he was okay and whether he needed anything. I made eye contact with Trevor as he reassured them, and he made some gesture encouraging me to go ahead and leave him there. James would be back soon.
The fifth floor was indeed torn up - the carpet stripped, patches of spackle on the walls here and there, and other things in various unfinished states. The room, however, looked okay enough - maybe except for the three dead roaches lying in the entrance hallway past the bathroom. "Hey, they're dead," I told myself, picking them up with some toilet paper to dispose of them, "and I'm sure it's not like you haven't stayed in a room with bugs before."
I was too exhausted to care about anything other than getting cleaned up, eating my rapidly-cooling food, and getting to sleep. I stripped, and was just about to turn on the water in the shower when I noticed there were no towels. "Crap!" I called the front desk - which I had to do using the outside number because nobody answered when I pushed the direct-call button on the room phone. When I told the guy I needed towels he asked if the room was otherwise okay, and I made the mistake of saying something like, "Yeah... well, except for the three dead roaches." He immediately insisted on moving me to another room. "I don't want you in a bad room," he reiterated - and he was so apologetic and insistent that I couldn't bring myself to say, "No. Please just bring me some towels."
So there I stood, naked, now faced with putting my skanky, disgusting clothes back on, packing back up the few things I'd already started spreading out from my pack, and waiting an indeterminate amount of time for the kid to bring me keys to a new room. I worked up some resolve, did all that and waited... and waited... not a really long time, but I was pretty impatient right then. Shortly I left the room to try to speed things up by going down to the lobby to meet the guy there. Naturally by that time he was on his way up as I was going down, and there was no one in the lobby when I got there. I called for the elevator to go back up again, wondering how long we would now play this foolish game I had started. Thankfully though, when it came he was on it - again very apologetic and with keys for me to a room on the second floor. It was a nicer floor and a nicer room, and in a little while I finally had my shower and began eating my stone-cold food - which was gloriously delicious!
Ah, life as a journey runner! Really, does it get any better than this?
I realized it was finally a reasonable time to try calling family while I ate. Some runners stay in close contact with significant others back home while they are on the road. Kim and I have never done that, and Karen, my wife, has grudgingly learned to live with it, keeping up with us via the twelve-hour check-ins, by monitoring our credit card accounts to see where I'm making charges along the way, and also by monitoring social media (mostly for posts by others, since I also don't post much in-race).
For some, I believe regular contact with loved ones is energizing, but Kim and I have always experienced it psychologically as a jarring intrusion into the alternative life we're living. Moving down busy roads safely - and sometimes simply maintaining forward movement at all - takes mental focus, and I would never choose to try and have a casual conversation with someone who's not right there with me while I'm engaged in it. Any time not moving forward is wasted if it isn't in some way preparing you for the next leg of the journey, so when stopped I am even more urgently focused on what I need to do to use that time well - with the over-arching, ever-present need to spend as much of it as possible getting the best possible sleep.
Right now though, all I had left to do was eat my food, turn off the light over the bed, roll over and go to sleep. I could make dual use of the time by checking in with home while I ate.
Karen and Kim had gotten together while I was gone, and I soon had them both on the line. It was good to hear their voices! This was effectively the end of my third day (I would not log another mile before the Sunday morning check-in). I was at that 'crux' point in accepting the hardships of the journey, and the rough arrival at Hopkinsville and the Clarion Pointe had not been a good way to reach it. Also, I was looking at a long stretch ahead in which the only plan that made sense to me was to go fully feral. There would be hotels at the next big town, but that was only about twenty miles down-course, too early to stop again. The next though wouldn't be until the I-40 crossing in Dickson, TN, forty miles further on - so I was looking at about sixty miles to get through on just 'dirt naps' alongside the road, and that included a nearly thirty-mile section Laz had gleefully been referring to in his posts as "the hillpocalypse."
This would be the only time through the entire effort when quitting was on my mind, but it was. Did I really want to put myself through this? Was I having any fun at all? "I'm just too old for this! Why did I even sign up?" I didn't explicitly articulate these thoughts over the phone, but I'm sure they could hear the discouragement and negativity in my voice and in some of the doubt-tinged things that I said.
Both of them understand how these things work though, understand the mind game - Kim from having lived it herself, and Karen from having crewed for me at many ultras - and they both knew how to respond. When I told them my plan was to sleep well here and get food at the Waffle House across the street before leaving town, Kim very wholeheartedly agreed that was exactly what I should do. "Get some rest and a good breakfast and get moving again. You'll feel much better!" Both of them encouraged me, not giving my doubt the slightest acknowledgement, talking only as though of course I would be moving on - and in the morning I would do just that - well-fed by the Waffle House and also resupplied from the Exxon station nearby before continuing out of town.
I had checked in at mile 120 at 7:30AM on Sunday morning, the official end of day three. I was still right on a forty miles per day average, though now all margin was gone and holding it didn't seem promising.
Getting this writing done is taking some time. Not only have I had few good hours each day in which I'm capable of good mental focus, now just as I've really gotten rolling it's the Fourth of July weekend, and family activities are taking my time and attention.
I'm still eating like a pig and not getting much physical exercise. I'm soon going to have to make an effort to do something about one or both of those if I don't want to start blimping out. After the 'mushroom mimsy' I went through a day or two of aches and discomfort that never would have happened ordinarily. I'm still prone to feeling odd muscle pains, seemingly at random - and that right Achilles remains prone to complaint. Napping is still one of my favorite activities.
Yesterday as I was thinking through the events of the previous section, I had vague recollections develop in my mind of several rest stops I hadn't remembered before - just images really, of scenes at a DG, and at another gas station convenience store. "Wait... was that at HOTS or was it during Vol State last year? What town was that?" Picturing it as clearly as I could, I concluded for certain that this wasn't anyplace on the Vol State course. Visualizing who I was with at the time, I took a shot and zoomed the Google map in on Fredonia - bam! Yes! That was it!
Other racers have told me occasionally that they're amazed at how much detail I can remember of these experiences. It helps that immediately after, I work through the course map, mentally sorting out the images in my mind of what happened where, and zooming in on each location on the map to confirm. The satellite view often shows details that match what I remember of a place. I also collect and sort all of the data that I can - beginning with the check-in records, then my phone records and credit card charges. I review social media, collect photos, and reread the Laz posts. Laying everything out spatially on the map as I've done provides a solid framework - regularly tweaked to improve accuracy, as with these recent new additions.
I hope that besides working out my post-race mental recovery and telling a decent story, this work helps as a memory jogger for some fellow runners.
Addendum: July 17th:
It actually happened again. Last night I was reviewing another section and choosing photos when I looked at one and thought, "Wait a minute. I stayed at that church!" The recollection turned out to be from Fredonia again - the whole episode of sheltering from threatening storms and napping at the Fredonia Mennonite Church. It hit me then: Fredonia was on Day 2, and I think the fact that it's been Fredonia that's been the hardest to reconstruct from memory might be the best evidence supporting my claim that Day 2 is the hardest.
Day 4 - Somewhere in Tennessee (39 Miles)
We were entering what Laz, in one of his Facebook posts, had called "the ten-mile strip mall." Technically in the town of Oak Grove, Kentucky, at this point, to our right lay sprawling Fort Campbell, straddling the Kentucky/Tennessee border - the home of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. Just outside any such large military base in the U.S. (and also around the world) lies a road like Fort Campbell Boulevard, with every sort of fast food restaurant, dive eateries, tattoo parlors, 'tactical' gear shops advertising military sewing services, used car lots - everything that might cater to thousands of young men and women getting regular paychecks. This one literally ran ten miles from where it began, opposite the northernmost gate onto the fort, south to where it intersected U.S. 79, becoming Providence Boulevard beyond and soon dropping into the Cumberland River valley and Clarksville, TN.
It was a veritable smorgasbord for HOTS runners that entire way! Having gotten used to long deserts, and the next services generally being a minimum of ten miles away, being able to pick and choose, and to step in off the road at almost any time to get something you might want or need felt almost decadent. We knew it wouldn't last though. Laz had also been describing this section as sort of a tease before, leaving Clarksville, we'd enter the long, isolated "hillpocalypse."
 |
| One of the Services Most-noticed by Runners through the Ten-mile Strip Mall Photo credit: Shashidharreddy Ghantla |
Just two miles further on from the truck stop, I passed a large facility called "Oak Grove Racing, Gaming & Hotel." It sat far off the road, surrounded by a very large parking lot with a perimeter loop road around it. Between that and the main road I was standing on lay a manicured lawn, beautifully shaded by some large trees, and I realized I could choose a spot somewhere about midway between the roads where I wasn't too likely to be noticed from either, and maybe get a solid nap there while letting another hour or two of the heat go by. It proved extremely pleasant, and one of the best decisions I made in the race!
Still the nap was only about an hour, and moving on from there it remained brutally hot! I made it another five miles, stopping briefly along the way at a Walgreen's drug store to buy some large Bandaids to try and cover a rashy spot that I had developed on one thigh that was being irritated by my shorts. I was beginning to get way over-cooked, and verging on heat sickness, so I stepped off the road again, this time into a convenient Waffle House. (They're always maximally air conditioned, I knew.) I sat at a table and ordered a large glass of ice water and two OJs for a start, telling the waitress I would have to cool off and rehydrate before considering food. Soon though I was hungry, and I ordered and devoured a good-sized plate of hash browns smothered in country gravy. This was late afternoon, not a busy time for a Waffle House, and there was an assortment of what seemed like regulars there. One guy was feeding the jukebox and playing some classic country music (actually some pretty decent stuff) and at one point a couple who were there got up and danced. All of them politely ignored me while doing their own things, and I enjoyed the vibe as I rested and recovered.
I was probably there for most of another hour, and when I left the heat had finally broken a little. In just another mile or two I began descending into the river valley and Clarksville, doing my 7:30PM check-in from there, at mile 142. The sky was darkening - partly because dusk was approaching, but mostly because some pop-up thunderstorms had developed and were loitering in the area. Coming down the final hill, I could see brilliant flashes of lightning with close-following thunder, and rain falling across the river and over the south end of town. I was not at all a fan of getting drenched again, especially because here at over a hundred and forty miles I was increasingly concerned about protecting my feet - which had already taken a pounding, been repeatedly waterlogged, and had many, many miles left to go. They were feeling a bit 'fragile' (though in a familiar, not too worrying way). Having them fall badly apart at this point could end me though!
There was a McDonalds on the right, just as you entered Clarksville proper, and I turned in to wait it out a bit and see what happened. As I made my way across the parking lot, two young guys who were also on their way in hollered at me to ask what all the walkers were doing. One of them had traveled all the way from Dickson earlier (the next major town down-course) and said he'd seen them all long the route. I chatted with them for quite a while because they were genuinely interested, and I gave them some real detail on journey runs and about HOTS as we ordered and waited for our stuff. They left and I sat down at a table - the only customer inside - to drink my Coke and wait to see what the storms would do.
'Pop-up' thunderstorms are a fixture of southern summers. In the absence of any frontal system moving through the area, the blistering afternoon sun boils off any moisture from the land, and it slowly accumulates into massive, sometimes very slow-moving thunderheads that soon return that moisture to earth in drenching downpours. Exactly where these things will appear, where they will go, and when they will let loose are nearly impossible to know. Even seeing one no more than a mile away it's very difficult to discern whether it's moving toward you, away from you, or off at some oblique angle. It might fill all the storm sewers over there to overflowing and never rain a drop on you - or it might hit you with everything it's got (which could easily include a tornado).
When you can take good shelter it may be wise to do so - but on the other hand you can't wait forever just in case it's going to get bad. Sometimes you have to take your chances and keep moving or you will waste too much time. This one was close enough that I'd been hit with some shear winds getting to the McDonalds, so I waited there long enough to drink my Coke and cool off again - and it never rained there.
 |
| One of the Beautiful Old Buildings in Downtown Clarksville Photo credit: Kevin Wolfe |
It was a long walk down the last part of town along the riverside before reaching the long bridge and the Shell station, where I did stop in to buy a few things. John and Robert caught up to me there, just as I was preparing to leave.
As I headed out of town into another night there was thunder off in the distance both to the left and to the right of me (though luckily for me nothing came of it where I was). The late evening traffic was still busy but would soon taper off as 10PM became midnight and later. I walked down the now-familiar dark tunnel created by the beam of my headlamp until I was too tired to walk straight anymore. It was hard to find vertical references in the darkness, and I began weaving as I went. Whenever the occasional cars came at me from ahead they blinded me and made keeping my balance and my footing even harder. I began stopping or even stepping off the shoulder to wait for them to pass because it was safer that way. After several miles like this I came to a church and quickly made the decision to get off the road and bed down for a while.
This time it was at the Lone Oak Baptist Church at mile 153 where I would find a place to rest - on a steel bench in the entryway, under a large roof that would keep me dry if it rained. It was further off the road than I would have liked, and the roof over the entryway had bright lights under it that would have made sleep difficult had I not thought of yet another use for my multi-functional umbrella - it can serve as a sleep mask. I heard a few other runners passing by on the road as I drifted in and out of consciousness, two of whom I'm pretty sure were John and Robert. The sleep wasn't great.
In a bit of a surprise, Trevor and James came by just as I was moving out again. They soon dropped off though to take a short break themselves at a large school. They had adopted a strategy of moving fast with many short breaks and less long napping, and they soon caught up and passed me again as I was off the road taking care of some 'personal business.' I soon caught up to them again at their next break, at a closed Shell station just ahead, and Trevor (always aware of the latest course intel from all sources, including social media) informed me that an impromptu angel station had arisen just ahead at a place of business called "Pro Flight Gear." I decided to make for that to see what was there.
It turned out to be the best-set-up angel station I saw in the race. There was a table with snacks and a cooler full of drinks, a few chairs, and (score!) a couple of sleeping pads - all under enough of an overhang to provide at least a little shelter from any light, straight-down rain. There was also a phone charging station. I opted to use one of the sleeping pads and try for a better nap than I'd gotten back at the church - and indeed I did. Trevor and James passed on by, and I would not see them again the rest of the day.
I woke to early-morning daylight and was preparing to go when a couple of 400-milers arrived - a literal couple, the Florys. They shared disappointing news of some approaching rain. I checked the local radar map and saw just a single line of showers moving toward us, so rather than heading right out I opted to sit down in one of the chairs, cover up with my poncho, and nap some more while waiting for it to pass through. I was spending an awful lot of time here, but I was getting good rest that would pay dividends in stronger movement later - plus I was keeping my feet dry.
Vaguely aware of the rain as I slept, I woke again as another 400-miler, Kevin, came in and briefly checked things out. By this time it was full light, and he told me there was a Subway just down the road that would soon be opening. He turned back out onto the road to make for it and I soon followed. I had a breakfast biscuit there and made good use of the bathroom, then moved out to try to march a quick almost-mile to get past 160 before the fast-approaching morning check-in time - not quite making it, so my Monday morning, 7:30AM check-in was at mile 159. Day four was done and I was only a tiny fraction of a mile off of 160 and the forty miles per day average - still losing ground, but ever so slowly.
Sometime on the morning after I finished, as I was hanging out in the lobby of the Clarion Pointe in Kimball waiting to catch a ride up to the Rock to pick up my car, a woman behind the desk (who didn't look like a runner, though such looks can be deceiving) asked a very perceptive question:
"When do you start to hurt when you do this?"
"At around eighteen to twenty miles," me and another runner agreed.
"I had a mentor in the sport," I added, "who once took me to task for calling what we feel 'pain.' 'That's not pain!' he scolded, 'It's discomfort!' It gets 'uncomfortable' at around eighteen to twenty miles, but you just go on and it generally doesn't get much worse - and sometimes it even gets better."
For anyone reading who has never done anything like this, appreciate that by no means are all of the people who do these races extraordinary athletes. I'm certainly not. Laz likes to point out that most of the runners are just ordinary people who have chosen to test themselves against their own weaknesses to try and accomplish something extraordinary.
If this story speaks to you, go ahead, let yourself dream a little! Don't immediately tell yourself that you could never do it. It is much closer to in-reach than you may realize.
Day 5 - Somewhere Else in Tennessee (32 Miles)
Kevin had arrived just ahead of me and turned into the Sweet Charlotte diner, where I found and joined him. This was one of the coolest places I stopped at in the race, with good scratch-made food and an assortment of over 100 bottled sodas. I had the nostalgic experience of sliding open the top of a large, floor-standing chest refrigerator with 7-Up logos on the side, perusing the caps of a tantalizing array of standing bottles within, selecting one and... pfft!... levering it open via the built-in opener on the side. It took me back at least fifty years! I also had some delicious chili with cornbread that looked so good when served that Kevin decided to get some too.
Soon I was coming into Dickson, again cooked and ready for another break, and I spotted Kevin coming out of a Fast Fuel convenience store just up ahead on the left. That would be the last I would see him. I turned in and took some time there, soaking up some AC and then resting and rehydrating in a chair out front in the shade with some cold water, Gatorade - and a freeze-pop! I gave that no time to melt, instead biting off chunks, chewing them just a little and swallowing. The melting happened in my stomach, and I could easily feel the cool spot growing in my core - heavenly!
I also was enjoying my accomplishment here. I was at mile 176 - actually just short of 177, almost two miles past the hallway point at 175. I tried to enjoy that thought without dwelling too much on the obvious, closely-related one: that I still had as much left to do as I'd already done. "Your mind is too small to be out wandering on this course," my good friend Tim Hardy likes to say when advising Vol Staters, and that's true. One of the most dangerous things you can do mentally is spend time dwelling on how much more there is to do rather than just focusing on what you have to get done next (and repeating).
Another pair of runners came by as I watched (maybe the Florys again) and I noted how they navigated the busy intersection just ahead. One more trip inside to rinse sticky freeze-pop juice off my fingers in the restroom (getting stuck with sticky fingers for miles is way more unpleasant than it has any right to be) then another minute spent refilling my hydration bladder with the fresh, cold water I'd bought, and I was ready to go. Before I even got out of the parking lot though, a vehicle pulled in and stopped right in front of me with the passenger-side window down. It was the meatwagon!
"Hello, Miss Jan," I hollered in to the smiling face behind the wheel.
"How ya doing?" she wanted to know - and she couldn't have picked a better time to ask.
"I'm doing fantastic!" I replied. "I'm just going to get a room at one of the hotels up ahead to get a good rest before I go on."
I could sense more than see as Jan and I continued to chat for a minute that there were passengers in the back of the van. None were engaging in the conversation, and I tried to respect their privacy (while having to poke my head inside slightly to hear Jan better) by not turning to look back and see who they were, or trying to engage them with my sunshine-and-roses attitude right then. I had ridden in the meatwagon at Vol State in '21, so I know what it's like. This might have been one of the starkest of the counter-intuitive contrasts in one of these encounters that Jan and Laz have often written about. It's not the ones sitting in air-conditioned comfort in the van who are the happiest. It's the smiling people standing outside, drenched in their own sweat in the baking sun - the ones still fighting the battle.
I made my way through town, following the turns to go past the town square and the main municipal building. Laz has a thing about routing his courses by town halls and courthouses, I guess because they're always at the center of town and often the most impressive buildings in the town - and can you really say you've been to a place if you haven't been to its official center? Not quite a mile further on I came to the turn onto highway 46.
Highway 46 in Dickson was the most appalling, depressing section of road in the entire race. At this time of day it was a four-lane (plus turning lane) bumper-to-bumper parking lot! There would be lots of services available along the four miles of it I had to traverse to get to the hotels, but even just walking down the left-hand side facing traffic as a pedestrian is supposed to, it was incredibly dangerous, because it was obviously a place that almost never had pedestrians. Drivers were frustrated by their difficulty getting anywhere and cars were constantly entering and leaving the business places, their drivers eager to zip into or through any big enough gap in the traffic - and you had to have your head on a swivel every time you crossed a driveway. I stopped into a Krystal burger place in about half a mile, to cool off again and eat something solid. Three bacon Krystal burgers, fries and a Coke went down pretty well as I let a little more of the afternoon heat pass by - along with maybe a thousand cars just in the time I sat there!
When I got moving again, I saw another runner working his way down the other side of the highway - Walt, the guy who'd freaked me out about the ferry way back a lifetime ago, on the evening before the race. He was making for a convenience store over there. I kept moving, and a short time later Walt appeared again, passing by me, still over on the other side of the highway, then carefully crossing over to my side. I eventually caught up to him when he stopped for a bit, and we walked a ways together.
"This is the most depressing highway I've ever been on," he said - and I agreed.
Walt is an interesting guy, and this time as we walked he talked at length about city planning, and what a shame it was we so often ignored significant geographical features like the highest point in elevation of a large plateau (which apparently we'd just passed), paving them over for strip malls rather than preserving the view. He soon moved out ahead at his stronger pace, leaving me to finish the last mile or two to the hotels on my own. I heard a crack of thunder and looked over my right shoulder to see a towering pop-up thunderhead threatening over in that direction, and I picked up my own pace to try to get to available shelter before it got to me if it was heading my way.
There were a lot of hotels available here, but one of the first was not only one of the closest to the highway, there was a Waffle House out front where I'd be able to get breakfast again whenever I chose to leave, a handy convenience store where I could load up on drinks and snacks, and a Taco Bell that suddenly sounded like just the place for my next full meal. As soon as I noticed it I felt like a man who could really enjoy something like a five-taco deal! Unfortunately, when I came out of the convenience store the wind was picking up and the first few drops of rain were beginning to fall. It was pretty obvious I could make it to either the Taco Bell or the Motel 6 before the sky unleashed on me, but not both. I opted for the hotel, knowing I had plenty of calories on me and a solid meal still ahead of me later, and I just made it under the awning at the entrance as the real rain hit.
Thankfully, they had a room available - a smoking room, but a room - and in a little while I was again showered, my clothing scrubbed, rinsed and hanging to dry, and I was rehydrating, snacking, and soon drifting off to sleep in a comfortable bed. I was at mile 182 for the Monday evening check-in - sixty-two feral miles past the mild crisis point I'd had in Hopkinsville, having accomplished just what I'd set out from there to do a day-and-a-half earlier. That amounted to a little over twenty miles per twelve-hour period over that section - forty miles per day pace through it all, including the hillpocalypse. I'd have some time left after I slept to make a few more miles before the end of the fifth race day, and I slept well - satisfied.
Early in the morning, as planned, I hit the Waffle House for a solid breakfast, made sure my pack was well-stocked, and hit the road again. Five miles out of town - like the feral, well-adapted road warrior I'd become - I made use of a porta-potty I spotted behind the post office in Bon Aqua, and a short time later stopped into a Shell gas station to make use of the restroom there. When I came out it was pouring down rain again outside, and I paused inside to don my poncho before heading out into the next long, empty stretch. The new day about to get underway would be characterized by a lot of dodging in and out of rain (or attempting to).
Memory is a little hazy here, but I think I saw Trevor and James for the very last time somewhere through here. I'd soon have myself another navigational disaster that would put them out of my reach for the duration - but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Two miles past the Shell, I did the Tuesday 7:30AM check in from mile 191, nine miles past my hotel stop but nine miles short of the 200 where I would have had to be to still be on forty miles per day pace. On the plus side, I was sixteen miles past the halfway point on the course in half the available time - less than half, really. I was purposely not even thinking about the extra half-day in the ten-and-a-half-day time limit or using it in any of my calculations, keeping that mentally set aside as an 'emergency reserve.' I was going to finish at least with a '9' at the front of my finish time if it was at all possible - and at this point it looked like if I just kept going as I had been, just kept managing my race effectively as I had been, it was very possible.
I just did some work on the previous few sections of this report from about 1:30 to 3:00AM on Monday morning, the seventh of July. This would now be fifteen-plus days post-finish, and I'm still struggling to reestablish a normal schedule. I think my circadian rhythms are still all messed up!
Saturday we took my Mom to Pittsburgh to stay at my sister's house. Mom has a medical procedure scheduled for today, and at some point I may need to go down there or meet them halfway to bring her home. I did some writing after we got home on Saturday evening and ended up staying up way too late - like past ten o'clock! Then I was up and wide awake in about five hours and did some more writing before napping for another hour. Sunday morning at church was rough. I played bass at both services, and there was a volunteer appreciation luncheon afterward. We didn't get home until about two in the afternoon and I was wiped out, passing out on the sofa until around four. I did pretty much nothing from then until I went to bed at around eight-thirty.
Now it's 3:00AM on Monday morning, and I sit here hoping the water and coffee I've just had will prompt a bowel movement so I can go back to bed and get a few more hours of sleep before really starting my day. If that doesn't happen it's going to be another rough one!
Day 6 - Columbia, TN (29 Miles)
On this Tuesday morning, the start of day six, I was following the white line down highway 7, south of Dickson and just past Bon Aqua Junction, into a long, fairly empty stretch that would include crossing under the Natchez Trace Parkway, a four hundred mile scenic highway running from twenty miles northeast of us, near Nashville, all the way south and west through Alabama and across Mississippi to Natchez, on the bank of the big river. Crossing the Natchez Trace southwest of here on U.S. 412 was a big milestone on the Vol State course. Our course would meet with the Vol State course in Columbia, the next big town on our way, and the two would coincide for a few miles.
Day six would turn out to be as eventful for me as day five had not been.
When Kim and I do Vol State, she always brings along some pages torn from a Bible - one of the smaller New Testament letters of Paul perhaps - and we do a short devotional time of reading and prayer in our hotel rooms before leaving them each day. I chose to do something different to honor God in my solo journey. I'd become a church musician in the past six years, picking up and really learning the bass guitar I had dabbled with in my youth. This year, my bass teacher had been working with me to add "vocalist" to my skillset - and that was something I could practice on the road! At least once each day, somewhere on a lonely stretch of highway where I didn't feel self-conscious about it, I had a time of worship, belting out "Goodness Of God" - one of my favorite praise songs to either sing or play. I knew that my journey was covered in prayer by my church family back home, and I often talked with God, and felt his nearness to me in the lonely miles, but rarely more so than in these times of worship - and I could feel the energy I expended in the singing as a literal 'sacrifice of praise.'
I would generally follow that with a few secular songs I'd been working on - my other anthem of the journey becoming the old Jim Croce hit "I Got A Name." If you know it, you know how appropriate that one is. "Moving me down the highway, rolling me down the highway. Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by."
This was another day of moving in and out of rain and regularly adjusting my raingear. One of the ways I felt that the prayers over me were effective was in the uncanny number of times I reached places of shelter just as fresh rain was about to break over where I was. This time I reached the Natchez Trace just before some more heavy rain began, and I sheltered on the bridge abutment, underneath the parkway, my back against one of the concrete pillars as I took care of my feet and waited for it to pass. I even caught a short nap as I waited. All this, plus the satisfaction of knowing I had just passed mile 200!
 |
| Jessica Labelle and Friend Shelter where I Did Photo credit: Jessica Labelle |
It was through this section that the leap-frogging with John and Robert that would continue for the rest of the race began in earnest. I'd passed them sometime recently, and they passed me back while I sheltered under the bridge. Not long after I moved on, I found them napping on the front porch of an old, deteriorating gas station, and I stopped there for a bit to eat something from my pack. I was getting pretty hungry, and John mentioned that there was no place to eat coming up until the Santa Fe Diner, quite a few miles ahead in the town of Santa Fe (pronounced "Santa Fee") - but it might be closed before we could get there, he said, and after that there would be nothing until Columbia - about ten miles further on. John and Robert carried lots of food, one of them generally toting a loaded grocery bag. I traveled lighter, with a few snacks in my shorts pockets and a small bag with a few more tucked into my pack in the back. I could make it to Columbia on those, I knew, but a meal sooner would be nice, so I struck out for Santa Fe.
As you've seen from all of the images, I had a .GPX file provided by the race that showed the course we were to follow. These images here though are from Google Maps on my computer. During the race I most often viewed the map in an app called GPX Viewer on my phone. This was far less than optimal for a number of reasons. One is that you want to keep your phone dry, so mine rode inside a Ziploc bag in a front pocket of my pack. It was inconvenient to dig it out to check the map frequently - especially in rain, either wearing my poncho over the pack or trying to juggle my umbrella and not drop the phone in the process. I really came to envy the runners who had the map loaded onto GPS watches, giving them the ability to consult it with just a turn of a wrist.
Another issue was alarms. Both the watches and the GPX Viewer app could be configured to raise an alarm if you got off-course by more than a defined distance - but the alarm in the app would only sound if the phone was awake with the app on-screen! Here again, I envied the watch users, because their alarms sounded immediately as they left the track.
Another issue is that the app doesn't make use of Google Maps to show the route (probably because they didn't want to pay license fees to Google) and the maps you're able to choose from are far less detailed and useful. I was constantly switching between GPX Viewer to see the course and Google Maps to see things like road names and businesses.
Finally (and I don't know if this was a problem with GPX Viewer or some occasional accuracy issues with GPS on my phone) the app sometimes really didn't show me located exactly where I was. The position could be off by quite a bit temporarily.
None of that excuses the mistake I made here.
In studying this section of the course, I'd seen that it turned off of highway 7 at a small town, onto a less-traveled road that had a few services on it. I made the mistake of somehow latching into my mind that the turn came at Santa Fe, when in reality it came at Fly, four miles north of Santa Fe - and the turn there was how you GOT TO Santa Fe! I'd seen, too, that there was a restaurant off-course to the left on the way to Santa Fe - a bit too far off-course to want to go there unless you really needed to, but an available option nonetheless.
Shortly after leaving John and Robert, I passed cluelessly by the turn onto Fly Road, noting a sign for a restaurant that direction, mistaking it for the off-course restaurant that I knew of, looking at the steep climb that began immediately that way, and thinking to myself, "Who would choose to go up there?" I would never go off-course up that way to a restaurant unless I was really dying of starvation!
Then a 'miracle' happened. I rounded the next turn on highway 7, started up a long, gradual climb, looked to my right - and there was a food truck over there! I could barely believe my eyes! There was a food truck, and there were a few people milling about. It looked like they might be closing up, but it sure seemed worth turning in to find out. I just might be saved from starvation - and it made sense that a food truck didn't appear on any map.
Nett's Food Truck was a blessing I will always appreciate and think fondly of even though it was part of a grievous mistake. I approached the open window on the side and asked the woman there if they were still serving food. No, they were closed, she replied. Ordinarily they might have some cooked burgers left over she could give me but they didn't today.
"Do you have any pre-packaged food that I could still buy?" I asked.
She ran through a list of options, but then paused and said, "I could fry you up a batch of French fries."
"That would be so awesome!"
We chatted quite a bit, and I told her and her two companions - another woman in the truck and a guy cleaning up things outside and loading them into a pickup - all about the race that was happening, and how happy any other runners finding them here would be.
The first woman turned out to be Nett (short for Annette). She'd operated a local restaurant that had closed and now she had the food truck. I sipped a Sun Drop soda as I waited and we chatted. I said something about there not being a shady place to sit, and she had the guy set up a table in the shade of the truck and get me a chair. I said something about not having anywhere to dispose of my trash after they were gone and she had the guy unlock the porta-potty (which I got to use right then) and she told me I could just leave my garbage in there if they left before me, and they'd take care of it the next day. They were interested in the race and had lots of the usual questions.
Then she served me up one of those meal-sized Styrofoam take-home boxes absolutely loaded full of perfectly fried crinkle-cut fries, generously salted! I was in heaven as I wolfed them down at my private table. When I had my fill, I asked them if they'd keep the leftovers handy while they finished packing up, in case some other runners came by. I assured them they would eat them - and if not then they could just treat them as trash. I bought a couple of candy bars to add to my road stash, thanked them profusely for all of their kindness, and headed back out onto the road.
 |
Then I put the sock and shoe back on - but before I started out again I got out the phone to check the map. The GPX Viewer immediately whooped and the lady-voice said something about the nearest track being some small number of meters away. I looked closely, and it showed my current location as just a little bit off to the west of the course. It looked just about exactly how it might have looked when I was purposely off that way a little, sitting at Nett's Food Truck.
"This stupid thing is off again," I said to myself, and put the phone away.
Fueled by those fantastic fries I was really ready to make some time, and that's exactly what I did, marching super-strongly through the afternoon heat, shaded by my umbrella - three miles down the wrong road! That's how far I went before I decided to look at the map again and see how soon the turn was coming (it seemed to be taking longer than I expected) but when I looked, the dot that represented me was STILL off to the west of the track, only now a little farther, and it was now obvious that I had really screwed up!
"No!" I said, with a sinking feeling I think few can understand. "No!!"
There is nothing to do in this situation but quickly accept it and make your way back to where you made your error as best you can. The first time I had gone off-course I had mentally discounted the miles out, when I hadn't yet realized my mistake. There was no such discount in my mind this time! I'd just added another wasted six miles to my journey through sheer stupidity, and I savaged myself for a while as I marched back, using up the rest of the rush from Nett's fries getting myself back to where I'd gotten them. You might say the 'Nett value' of them had worked out to zero (Ba-dump-bum! - not Nett's fault - and yeah, I went there).
In another minute I was at the turn onto Fly Road and I started up the steep hill where 'no one would choose to go' - and a thunderstorm announced its presence just behind me to the north as I did. By the time I topped the hill (having had to deal with an aggressive pit bull along the way) it was starting to rain. I quickly got on my poncho, and was soon slogging it out once again through an increasingly heavy downpour. I knew there was a church not too far ahead - Hilltown Church of Christ - and I kept moving, hoping to find some shelter there and maybe even a faucet I could use to replenish my water. I soon reached it and made quickly for the roofed-over front entryway. It was very small but did afford some protection. Soon the downpour became so heavy though that the wind-driven rain was kicking up spray from the pavement that blew in under the shelter. I'd removed my poncho and pack when I got there to be more comfortable while I waited. Now I put them back on to keep the stuff (and me) dryer. I sat down, leaned my back against my pack in the corner of the wrought iron railing as far from where the spray was coming in as I could, pulled up my legs and spread out the poncho as best I could to cover my feet - and went to sleep. (No sense totally wasting the time!)
Waking immediately when the constant pounding on the metal roof let up, I had no sense of how long I'd been out, but it had been a good nap. I'd seen the freeze-proof hydrant right next to the entryway as I'd arrived, and made use of it as I readied myself to go. The first water out of it was chocolate brown but it soon flowed clear, and I filled a spare bottle I'd been carrying. (More often than not I carried way more water than I ever used between refills, but paranoia kept me topping up at most opportunities just in case.)
It was just three more miles from the church to Santa Fe, and a little past that to the diner (now likely closed), and to a market that might still be open when I got there for me to get something more to eat. Remnants of the storm were still spattering down intermittently. There were downed tree branches in the road, and the rain ditches were running absolutely full and wild! The route here was moving down a valley with a small stream running in it, and I began to be just a little worried about getting caught up in some flooding next, as runoff from above accumulated in the stream - but nothing more came of it, and I soon walked through Santa Fe and came to the second miracle of the day. There were people at the Santa Fe Diner!
 |
| Photo credit: Stephen Redfern |
I had a nice cheeseburger and fries washed down with a cold drink as my phone sucked up a little juice, and I made my 7:30PM check-in from there, at mile 208 - just eight miles since I left the Natchez Trace. "I should be almost to Columbia by now!" I kicked myself for the last time (you have to let such things go). It was nice meeting Nick and Bianca - and another runner soon came in and we explained the ropes to him. In a little while I was ready to head out again, fed and reasonably happy, to hit up the market for anything I still might think I needed on the way out of town. I bought a bottle of water to top up my hydration bladder again. (I'd dumped the questionable water from the church and ditched the extra bottle in the trash can at the diner.)
Darkness was falling and the eight miles from Santa Fe to the outskirts of Columbia seemed especially dark, and interminably long. I was alone again. Once, along the way, I stepped off into a little gated pull-off to take a leak in the bushes, and a small pack of dogs in the yard on the other side of the gate detected me, kicked up a ruckus, and I had to hold it and find another place a little further on. There's just an unsettling feeling that you get, alone, effectively being a nighttime prowler (though not an ill-intentioned one) chased off by barking dogs. Before very long I found myself weaving in the road again. Fortunately traffic was pretty light, and the shoulder was decent. I kept pushing.
By the time I was zombie-walking the last mile before crossing the Duck River and entering the outskirts of Columbia I knew I was in an unsafe condition to try to negotiate a walk through a city right then. It was still only late evening - perhaps ten o'clock or so - and the roads even here on the outskirts were still busy. I would have to find a place to get some sleep first. A church was prominently in view on a small rise ahead, and when I reached it I turned aside to see what I could find there. Around back and well down away from both the main highway and a busy side street there was a carport structure with (oddly) a row of old chairs under it. Perfect! In a matter of little more than two minutes I had my pack and my shoes and socks off and was settled into one comfortable chair with my feet up on another. I covered up with my poncho for a blanket and for camouflage, and drifted off into la-la land.
When I'd slept enough, it was getting to be pretty late. Traffic through town would be much lighter, but I'd have the usual concerns about who might be out and about at that hour and whether they might think it fun to hassle a lone, out-of-place person like me. I packed my things, put the chairs back just as I'd found them (thank you, Riverside Baptist Church) and moved out again.
It would be four more miles to the big corner on the other side of town where the course took a hard left toward Lewisburg, and where there was a 24-hour Circle K and a hotel - the Richland Inn Columbia. When I left Dickson I had pretty much been planning to go feral all the way to Lewisburg before getting a hotel again, but the way I was feeling right then I was mentally debating that plan. I resolved to get to the Circle K, take another break and get something to eat there, and then see how I felt at that point before deciding what to do next.
 |
| Approaching the Courthouse in Columbia - Around Midnight after a Long Day! |
When I went in I finally found my egg salad sandwich! For some reason I had dreamed of an egg salad sandwich way back in Kentucky, on the way into the DG in Fredonia, where I learned that they don't stock prepared sandwiches. I'd never completely lost the craving, and as I perused the prepared food here at the Circle K, my eyes fell on a stock of dill egg salad sandwiches. Score!
The sandwich sucked pretty badly. The bread was weird, and the egg salad was also a weird consistency - dry, hard and crumbly - and as I sat at a table outside, choking some down, rinsing down each bite with one of the beverages I'd bought, I had to keep a wary eye on another guy out there wandering back and forth in front of the place, talking loudly to himself in nonsensical phrases. I feigned ignoring him, minded my own business, and he minded his (whatever it actually was). A car pulled up over where the cops and the other young man were, and an older guy got out - a responsible relative of the guy in the grass, I presumed - so that situation seemed to be progressing toward a decent resolution that didn't include hauling the young man off to jail. All this sketchy 'scenery' on top of my exhaustion didn't support my resolve to keep moving on alone into the night very well! Suddenly I very much wanted to go hole up from the world in a civilized place behind a locked door and get some real sleep again in a civilized bed. I gathered my things and crossed the road to the Richland Inn.
In the morning I would eat again from the options at the Circle K, checking in at 7:30AM from mile 220, and then head east out of town on highway 50 toward Lewisburg. Officially I'd only made 29 miles, my lowest day split in the race. I should have been discouraged by that but I wasn't. I'd proven my ability to roll with a lot of adversity and keep making progress. Now I was well-rested and a new, sunny and (for now) cheerful day lay in front of me. I moved out strongly and optimistically.
I would never go more than a few meters off-course again. No matter how inconvenient it might be, I would dig out my phone and check the route before and after any turn or anything that looked suspiciously like it might be a place to turn - making sure my dot was always on the line.
Yesterday I finally started taking things in hand. I've found over my years running ultras that at some point in the recovery process I have to start showing my body who's boss again. After overcoming its resistance during the event and recruiting it into getting me through the effort, when I finally stop it says, "Okay, moron, we've done what you asked. Now we're never doing anything like that again."
I almost believe that if I did nothing about it my body would simply go lethargic forever, encouraging me to just sit around, take every comfort, and eat everything - for the rest of my life! At some point I have to send it a strong message that, "No, you can't just do nothing you big baby! You're going to have to take me places again, and you're going to start doing it now."
So I took it out for a five-mile walk yesterday that included a little bushwhacking to see what kinds of mushrooms I could find. It wasn't the first outing since I got home, but it was the longest, conditions were humid and it was getting pretty warm by the time I got home.
Frankly it sucked! My legs felt leaden pretty much the whole time, and the last mile was definitely a mile too far. The body hit me up for a non-negotiable hour-and-a-half nap right after lunch.
It was a start though.
Day 7 - Petersburg, TN (34 Miles)
Nothing is ever a given in these things though. With two hundred and twenty miles on my aging and now beat-up and physically exhausted body, something could go <sproing!> without warning pretty much any time. The skin on my feet could finally give up and fall apart, making each step a searing hell. Some tendon could snap. The end of the journey - that right now looked like it was being relentlessly cut down to size - could suddenly become a truly monumental, nearly impossible undertaking. Seriously! For most people that's what going one hundred and thirty miles would be without already having gone over two hundred.
The Laz posts, too, made clear that I was nowhere near done with major challenges. There were sobering references to things like "the big ridge south of Belfast," and to "the grinding climb up chestnut ridge," and to "the first REAL ascent of the race - a 1,000 foot climb up to Sewanee." (When Laz uses caps for anything you perk up and take notice.) Most terrifyingly, he spoke of a horrible descent off the back side of the Cumberland Plateau on the oldest route down the mountain - part of the old Nickajack Trail that once connected Cherokee villages to the east and west of the plateau. He described it as, "a screaming 1300 foot descent into battle creek, that will shred quads destroy feet and break hearts" - and at the bottom of that I would STILL be over twenty-five miles from finishing.
This was a time to keep my head and not change anything - to stay the course, continue carefully keeping up with body care (and especially foot care) as I had been, and keep resting as well as possible whenever needed. There might come a time to find out whether I had any 'kick' - a time to begin throwing caution to the wind and just push hard for the finish to get this thing over with - but I was not there yet.
I headed out of Columbia on highway 50 strong and confident. I knew the first five miles pretty well, having traversed them twice before in Vol States. This time instead of taking the right turn into Glendale and past Vol State's iconic "Bench of Despair" market, the route continued on highway 50 for another seven miles, until a point two miles past I-65, one interchange north of where the Vol State course crossed it. There was a BP gas station and convenience store at the interchange there, the day was already heating up, and I was ready for some food and a break by the time I reached it. As I arrived, another runner was getting ready to leave, and told me this proprietor was not very friendly. "Good luck trying to rest inside," she said, and then told me about a shady spot around back where she'd lain and rested for a while.
I got some food and drinks as quickly and respectfully as I could (thinking local relations again) and went out and around back myself. It was close to mid-day, but there was a small, growing strip of shade on this side of the building, and I sat down in it with my back against the wall and my naked feet out in front of me while I got in some fluids and some calories. A couple of other runners soon joined me. Then I napped for a while before moving on again.
Highway 50 was a very busy road! I'd left Columbia during the morning rush, so it was pretty bad then, but since it was also the main route from Columbia to I-65 and Lewisburg it was just busy constantly, and as I trudged two more miles of it under my umbrella in the now-blistering early afternoon sun, I grew so mentally exhausted with the constant <whizz!> of high-speed vehicles passing by that I couldn't wait to find the turn onto the older route Laz had selected for our final approach into Lewisburg - and as soon as I made that turn onto Old Columbia Road it was as if a huge weight of pressure immediately lifted from me. I'd never been so happy to leave a road before!
I was baked again by this point, and I immediately began looking for a shady spot somewhere along the new road where I could lie down, cool off and nap again while more of the heat of the day passed by. Cue road angel!
Within about a mile, I came to the end of a driveway where I found a cooler with some drinks in it and a log book on top with a pen for passing runners to sign their names and leave any messages for our benefactor. There were also a few wooden tokens offered as gifts with a cross on them and the words, "The Cross in your Pocket." The Lord provides through his people. As I sat on the baking pavement in the sun, draining one of the bottles of cold water, the man who lived there came out to ask if I was okay and if I needed anything.
I greeted him and replied, "What I need most right now is a shady spot to lie down in for a while and take a nap."
Looking around, he gestured and said, "Well anywhere is fine."
I chose a spot under a big shade tree on the lawn near the front of the house, with a little slope where I could lay with my feet uphill. He asked me if I needed anything like a pillow or a blanket to lay on, but I assured him I was prepared for situations like this and had everything I needed. He told me the barking dogs in the fenced backyard were friendly and would soon settle down, and then he went back inside. It was blissfully cool under the shade tree, with gentle breezes blowing as I laid down on my poncho tarp once again, my pack for a pillow and my umbrella shading my eyes from the dappled sun filtering through the gently moving leaves overhead. The dogs did quiet down, and very soon I lost consciousness. As usual, knowing I never sleep too long in such settings (or in-race during ultramarathons at all) I set no alarm, but slept until I naturally woke - maybe an hour to an hour-and-a-half later at a guess - then got up, refreshed, and made ready to leave. I did not see the man again, but I stopped at the end of the driveway to leave a thank you, and to take one of the cross tokens to remember him by. As I stood there another runner arrived looking as miserable as I had felt when I got there, and I was able to tell him not only what was in the cooler but that the homeowner would have no problem with him going up in the yard to rest there himself, which he gratefully decided he would do.
It was four more miles to Lewisburg, and it would be three more beyond that to get through the center of town and out the other side, where I meant to stop at the McDonalds for my next real meal - which would be the first since the boxed cheeseburger and fries back in Santa Fe. Those last three miles would take longer than they should have, because just as I was passing by the Marshall County Courthouse, mid-town, a pop-up thunderstorm unleashed on me. I was able to make a quick dash to shelter under a sidewalk awning in front of some closed businesses on the far side of the square, where I waited through another gully-washer of a storm! When it let up a little I made it barely a block before it came pounding down again - and again I was able to beat it into some shelter, this time under a roofed-over area at some kind of heavy equipment rental place. The roof was high and I had to keep relocating to minimize my exposure to rain and spray being blown in from one side or the other. Next time it let up I was able to - finally - get out to the McDonalds (dry).
This was also where I'd originally been planning to get a hotel room again when I left Dickson. The Richland Inn Lewisburg was just across the street. Since I'd stopped at the Richland Inn Columbia instead though, I just shifted the plan. I was at mile 240 here, where I would make my 7:30PM check-in having covered twenty miles from Columbia. I would continue on into the night from here and go feral all the way to the next hotel opportunity in Lynchburg - thirty-three more miles down the course.
It would be yet another case of setting out into a darkening night on a less-traveled road, expecting the light traffic to die down even more by midnight, with storms in the area, and aiming to go as long as possible before getting overwhelmed by the 'sleepies' and needing to nap again. In five miles I would go through Belfast, and six miles beyond that was a church - the Cane Creek Church of Christ - that looked like one of the only places along this whole way where there might be a sheltered place to rest.
This was one of the most isolated, lonely stretches of nighttime travel yet! Again with my headlamp barely revealing any references for vertical, I struggled to maintain my balance and avoid weaving. I had developed a 'mantra' of sorts that helped me through these times - a musical earworm from an old children's Christmas show that I let play on a loop in my head (as frustrating as that was). "You put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walkin' 'cross the floor! You put one foot in front of the other, and soon you'll be walkin' out the door!" Ugh! It worked wonders though - I was able to walk much straighter and make better forward progress when this was looping endlessly through my mind at an appropriate tempo.
Occasionally through this section I heard strange animal sounds that I'd never heard before in the woods just off the side of the road, snapping me out of my reverie. "What the heck was that?" I would wonder - until the sound repeated, and each time I realized then it was actually coming from my own stomach. My digestive system was being challenged by this foolishness as much as any other part of me, and it was apparently starting to do some novel things with the random junk I'd been dumping down there!
The hill south of Belfast was indeed a monster, but again, I have good climbing legs from training in my mountainous region of western Pennsylvania, and I just powered on over it like any other hill - and then I had to really struggle against the sleep demons for four more miles before reaching the church. There was one good-looking place to lie down at a roofed entranceway on the side of the building - but when I got there it was covered in bodies! Everyone had this place marked for this section, apparently, and there was no place for me under the roof. Pretty desperate for a nap, I tried setting up on the concrete handicapped ramp leading up to the entranceway - which at least offered an opportunity to lie with my feet uphill again - but it also was exposed to bright light from the parking lot, and exposed me to greater visibility from passing cars on the road. I tried to at least shelter my eyes from all the light using my umbrella again, but the whole situation just wasn't making me happy, and I wasn't coming close to falling asleep.
There was another problem, too. Most places I'd napped in the presence of other runners, nothing they did bothered me, but here... there was some snoring going on, but the worst problem was one guy near me who also seemed to be having trouble getting comfortable and going to sleep. He was bedded down in one of those very plasticky bivy sacks, and every time he moved there was this loud crinkling sound. I started mentally referring to him as "Crinkle Man."
I may have dozed a bit, ever so slightly, but in a little while I got up to see if I could figure out a better situation. A spot had opened up on the main landing under the roof, well-shaded against the building wall, and I tried relocating there as quietly as I could, trying not to disturb anyone myself more than I needed to - but that spot was just on the other side of Crinkle Man and the crinkling continued. I soon decided I was just wasting my time and needed to find a completely different situation. I walked back around to the front of the building toward the main road. There were a couple of vehicles parked there under bright lights, and I just sat down on the pavement in front of a pickup truck with my back against the front wall of the church, put up my umbrella to shade my eyes, lowered my head onto my chest and finally actually slept for short while.
When I woke and got going again it was just two more miles to 'downtown' Petersburg - a quaint, beautiful small town that would become my favorite place on the entire journey. I was till dragging as I turned off the main road to follow Railroad Street into town. Along the way I spotted an outdoor soda machine and got myself a fresh bottle of cold water to enjoy. Soon I saw the town square, off to my right, with a large gazebo in the middle. It occurred to me to wonder if this happened to be one of those towns with some sort of all-night public restroom facility, so I walked over to check it out - but no luck. Then I heard a clap of thunder off to the east, and as I walked back away from the gazebo to return to the course, I wondered if I really should stay for a bit to see what would happen. I continued though, round the long, sweeping curve of Railroad Street. Looking back to my right I saw the police station with a lighted entrance area inside. It also wasn't unheard of in this area for these to be open all night, attended, and to have restrooms available if you were forward enough to ask. Again though, I had no luck.
This time as I walked away, a few drops of rain began hitting me. To my left I could look straight down Church Street (essentially an alleyway between two tall buildings) and again see the gazebo in the town square, and I decided to make for it in case the rain worsened - but then I paused halfway, between the buildings, because something very weird was happening. There were still only a few drops of rain hitting me, but the sound of a thunderous downpour seemed to be coming from the rooftops just above me. I was momentarily confused, and it took another second or two for me to realize: that wasn't rain on the rooftops. It was the sound of rain somewhere very nearby echoing off the walls of the narrow, artificial canyon I was standing in.
"Oh my God! It's coming!!" I suddenly realized.
I instantly found my run again for the first time in quite a while as I made a fast break the rest of the way down the alley and across the square toward the gazebo - knowing I was probably sprinting straight toward the oncoming downpour and racing it to the shelter. It caught me a few paces before I could get under the roof, but I managed to avoid getting totally drenched (which would have happened in mere seconds more the way it was suddenly coming down). Once again I'd been extremely lucky to be in the right place at the right time, but once again it came down so hard that my shelter wasn't foolproof. I had to put on my poncho and huddle as far toward the lee side of the gazebo as I could to stay as dry as I could. Once again too, when I was settled, I put my head down and went right to sleep as the storm raged, far louder than Crinkle Man could ever have been, but a constant white noise that I could easily sleep to. Napping is actually my superpower - and it's rare that it ever fails me the way it had.
The storm relented, suddenly as they do, waking me, and I left the gazebo for the second time and walked back down Church Street to continue on Railroad Street where I'd left it to check out the police station. By now it was about 5:30AM, and as I continued just a little further around the curve I came to a restaurant. It was lighted inside, and I could see a couple of women bustling around in there.
"I wonder when they open," I asked myself, and decided to walk over and find out. As I studied the door, trying to pick out a list of hours from among the many small signs posted there, suddenly it opened and a young woman stood looking out at me.
"I was just trying to figure out when you opened."
"Not for another half-hour," she said - but before I could reply she added, "Do you want to come inside and wait though? You could sit down and I'll turn on the TV for you."
 |
| My Happy Place near the Merch Corner at Paislee's Place |
"Are you doing this for some cause?"
I told them I had a standard answer for that: "I tell people, 'Yes, 'cause I'm stupid!'" - and a guy across the room laughed out loud.
The server came by again and dropped two little tubes of an electrolyte powder on the table for me. Lynn told me to let everyone else in the race know they had these to hand out, and that they would be happy to have more of our runners stop in. "Paislee's Place" was claiming its place as a premier road angel establishment for HOTS 2025!
I really enjoyed my time there, but had already lingered far longer in Petersburg than I really should have, so I paid my bill and made ready to go - then stepped outside to find it pouring down rain again. Oh no!
I had kept my increasingly fragile-feeling feet miraculously dry now for a day-and-a-half - in spite of having been chased by multiple thunderstorms - and I really, really didn't want to get them wet again if I could help it. I checked the forecast and the radar map on weather.com, and they said the rain where I was would continue and then taper off after 9AM. I decided I would spend the small amount of additional time it would take for it to pass here under shelter and get in yet another nap. Checking first with Lynn whether it would be okay with her, I bedded down on a bench of one of the two picnic tables on their covered front porch, did my Thursday morning, 7:30 check-in from there at mile 254, and went to sleep. I'd made thirty-four miles that day.
Day 8 - Broadview, TN (34 Miles)
"No!"
I had sunk so much time into the effort to keep my feet dry here that I didn't want to make it all for naught now by heading out into what could be the final hour of rain in the race! On the other hand I didn't want to just sit for another hour, not even able to nap, just in case a little rain might fall - and then have nothing happen. It wasn't like ten o'clock was any kind of guarantee either. Weather.com isn't that good. It might well continue to rain past then, or it might already be done. There was no way for me to know.
I try not to be too overtly Christian in my race reports. I'm not one to try to twist or force every interaction with others toward God talk, because I think that more often offends than engages people. Believe it or not though - and like it or not - my relationship with God is a real thing, with real impact on my lived experience, and neither will I shrink from telling you about where and how that manifested during this journey.
At an overall level, I was just never alone - not for one second. I had someone to talk to anytime, and I could feel his spirit draw closer to me as I did talk with him, whenever I leaned on him and asked him for help, and whenever I did my worship times. All of these things can pretty easily be written off of course as mere psychological quirks based on foolish, anachronistic beliefs - though even then, I note that some bright people are quick to say, for example when some popular supplement is accused of only working by the placebo effect, "Well maybe - but that still means it's working!" At the very least that is true here.
There is more though - more that is far less easy to dismiss. Ever since I came to faith there have been rare occasions when, in a time of great inner turmoil over something going on in my life, or over some decision I have to make, an inner voice that is not my own speaks to me with maybe just a word or some very brief assertion that suddenly cuts through all my turmoil and paralysis with a stunning insight or a clear direction. I've learned to recognize these, too, by the sense of an inner 'movement' accompanying them - not a physical movement, but a spiritual one. A wave of something passes through me, and a word suddenly floods my mind, unaccompanied by any sense of me having thought it.
It happened here. Long past my limits for maintaining truly clear thought and the sharpest decision-making, my mind began descending into turmoil and confusion about what to do. Then in surprise I felt the familiar wave come over me as my consciousness was suddenly filled with a clear sense of just a single word: "Go." It took a few moments for me to recognize it for what it was, and then I thought, "Really? Is this really from him?" In answer, the word just continued to echo in my head, the echoes momentarily reinforcing, amplifying as though in restatement: "Go."
"Alright. Based on that I'm going." I stepped out in faith, and not a single drop of rain hit me that day.
"You're telling me that the God of the universe cares about this dumb race that you're putting yourself through?" Yes - because he has infinite capacity, because he loves and cares about me, and because he delights in giving good things to those who are his own.
He loves and cares about you, too.
'Nuff said - except to add that I sang "Goodness of God" with even greater feeling a few miles down the road that morning.
It was a beautiful road, too! From Petersburg it would be a twenty-mile trek over to Lynchburg, where I planned to hotel again. The first seven miles were along the Petersburg Chestnut Ridge Road, and it was just one of the most beautiful country two-lane blacktops of the race, with very light traffic.
I imagine it's obvious by now to anyone reading, that sleep deprivation is the hardest thing for me to deal with in these races. I don't tend to have major problems with blistering or chafing. I don't develop anything approaching unmanageable pain in my feet or legs - only a persistent but pretty mild discomfort that is easy to live with. I don't struggle with food. I have little trouble eating whatever is available when I find it, and I also have little trouble going without for long distances, relying on body fat for fuel and maintaining pretty even energy throughout. I don't find the big climbs and descents anywhere near as torturous as Laz tries to terrify everyone into expecting them to be. This time the load in my pack even rode pretty comfortably, without cutting into either shoulder as sometimes happens when I carry one for days, and I even figured out how to greatly reduce the gastric distress I'm prone to by not carrying and regularly sipping a sugary drink on the road.
No, the number one factor controlling how well I move and how difficult it all seems is how long it's been since I last slept. I start out after a good nap moving strongly and fully alert, with mental energy to truly look around and take in my surroundings as I go. After journeying seven full days though while getting no more than about three hours of sleep in any solid chunk - and that less than once a day - it now took only a few miles after even the 'best' rest before my attention pulled inward, as I had to intentionally focus on keeping my legs turning over to maintain a good pace. Some miles after that I'd begin to lose that battle. My pace would begin falling off, and if it was nighttime - with the difficulty seeing vertical references - the weaving would begin. During the day I could go farther, but either way it wouldn't be very long before I'd be looking for someplace to nap again.
As I was approaching the climb up Chestnut Ridge I was already in that pulled-in-focus mode, still moving along at a decent pace, but not paying much attention to what was going by - when something suddenly broke me out of it by bumping the back of one of my legs! I turned to see what may have been the biggest shepherd-type dog I've ever seen in my life. Inwardly, I immediately panicked! Outwardly though, I remained calm and matter-of-fact - a learned and now reflexive response I have in most dog encounters. If you react like there's something bad and frightening happening, they may start feeling that way about it and get nervous and fearful too. Besides, beneath my shocked surprise were two quick rational thoughts telling me that this would be okay. One was that if this dog was mean then I'd already be missing a big chunk of my calf! The other was the observation that it was just standing there, smiling up at me with a wide, tongue-lolling, doggie grin - as if to say, "Hey - you weren't just going to pass on by without saying 'hello' were you?"
 |
| Sombody Else's Almost Identical-looking Dog Photo credit: Shane Blevins |
Soon I was climbing Chestnut Ridge and negotiating the two quick turns that would put me on the next road, with twelve miles left to go to Lynchburg. Not long after I started downhill into the next valley though I was again broken out of my reveries - by footsteps coming up behind me... running footsteps!. This time when I turned a young woman was approaching, smiling and hollering a "hello" - and running easily, like she was out for nothing more than her daily morning jog!
Schuyler was in the 400, and had started out with her Dad, who had developed some problem and eventually had to drop. "I was just hanging out with my Dad for four days," she said, by way of explaining why she was able to move so well at this point. I kind of wasn't buying the attempt at self-effacement (though I didn't say so) because no matter how 'easy' those four days had been she still had come over three hundred miles to be where we were right then. Obviously she was a very strong runner! She walked with me for a mile or two, and our conversation was fun and very pleasant. She'd also encountered the friendly dog and loved it. We had journey running as father and daughter in common, and Schuyler is just a very bright, outgoing young lady who at least at that moment was loving life and radiating sunshine! She said she was considering just "dirt napping it" the rest of the way to the finish from there. When we talked more about how well she was moving, she explained that she just couldn't stand walking - too slow for her, and it took way too long to get to the next town or whatever. As she wrapped up our conversation, saying she was going to get back to running, she wished me well by adding, "Enjoy your walk."
I chuckled to myself inwardly, wondering what the heck an old man like me was doing out here pretending to be an athlete as I watched her disappear around the next bend. It planted a seed though. "Could I maybe actually still run?" I hadn't run any distance at all in many days, though I would occasionally try it for a bit to see how it felt. Inspired, I tried it again here - but as before I got no more than fifty yards or so before it felt awful, like a big drain had just been opened at the bottom of the pool of energy I tried to carefully maintain and it all was starting to gush out at a frightening and unsustainable rate. I dropped back to my walk, and in a couple of more miles I stopped at a little farm field turn-off and had myself another nap in the shade of some trees. Old men should act their age!
It was only a couple more miles after I got moving again before I came to a Mennonite country store. It was mid-afternoon by then, so reasonable to stop again already to take another break from the sun (though I visualized Schuyler having cruised right by and already being in Lynchburg). The main difference between Amish and Mennonite country stores, as far as I could tell, was that the Mennonite one had electricity. I got a Gatorade, a cold water, and a banana that suddenly looked good to me, and I sat at a table in the shade under the awning out front, eating, drinking and cooling off as I watched a young man next door (in Mennonite dress) putting a small horse through some paces. I'm no expert, but it seemed obvious to me that he was. There was just a coordination and fluidity of movement of horse and rider as one that struck me as a level of horsemanship I'd rarely if ever seen before. I really enjoyed watching as I rested there.
It would be only a little more than six more miles from there to the hotel in Lynchburg, most of them on a busier road that I soon turned onto. The day and the effort were really wearing on me by then, and the miles seemed interminable.
Finally I made it to the intersection near the south end of the town. There was a convenience store there where I could get some supplies to take with me to the hotel - the Lynchburg Country Inn. I called ahead to make sure they had a room for me before I loaded myself down, then in less than a mile I was there. The very friendly proprietor checked me in and then launched into a very long explanation of everyplace ahead in the town that I could go to get something to eat. I listened patiently, though inwardly I was just thinking, "Dude! You don't understand! I'm going to dump this stuff in my room, go next-door to the Subway for a sandwich, bring it back to the room to eat it, and then pass out until everything else in this town is probably closed."
I did exactly what I just described, getting myself another of the chicken salad wraps that had become my go-to at Subways this trip. This was the nicest room I stayed in during the race, and I had myself a heavenly shower and some very good sleep there. At this point I was no longer bothering to try to wash my clothes. It did little good in terms of reducing their stench, and if instead I just hung them and let the sweat dry then they'd actually be pleasantly dry when I put them back on!
I did the 7:30PM check-in from there before drifting off to sleep. I was at mile 273.
As expected, the town was shut down a few hours later as I carefully followed the course through a couple of turns to find my way onto Tanyard Hill Road, another secluded, two-lane country blacktop. The hill was significant, but as always I just pushed it to the top with no real concern. I made one minor navigation error - quickly caught when I checked my position a few meters after following Tanyard Hill around a sharp left turn where I was really supposed to continue straight onto a new road.
This was all probably very scenic. I suspect most of what I would pass through that night was, but as always I wouldn't be able to appreciate it well while following the white line illuminated by the beam of my headlamp as though through a long, dark tunnel.
Just about four miles out of Lynchburg I turned onto highway 50, which would take me all the way to Winchester, the next big town, in another sixteen miles. I'd rested so well at the hotel that I just kept pushing strongly through the night, and I didn't start really dragging again until well past first-light, when I seemed to be moving through a place named Tim's Ford, and beyond that into a place called Broadview. Thinking I would stop for a break at a Dollar General a couple of miles ahead, I came unexpectedly to the Broadview Grocery and Deli, open for business, and likely to be serving a much more appealing breakfast.
There were tables inside, near where a woman was bustling around behind the food counter. I got myself a coffee while she prepared for me what would be the best breakfast I had the whole race! She crumbled up two of her scratch-made sausage biscuits onto a plate and then smothered them in country gravy. It was unbelievably good! As I ate I noticed a nearby door with a sign on it reading, "No public restroom" but when I politely asked the lady if I could use it she said that would be fine - so I was able to comfortably take care of some morning business and freshen up my lubes in private. Then I asked if she'd mind if I put my head down on the table and took a nap - and she said that would be just fine too. I would end the eighth day of the race right there, asleep, having checked in for 7:30AM from mile 288 - another 34-mile day.
With two days left I now had just sixty-two miles to go, and I seemed to be having little trouble logging well over thirty miles per day. Barring some sort of disaster, getting to the Rock in under ten days seemed pretty well assured - and there was still the extra half-day to work with beyond that to help ensure a finish even if I did have to slow down drastically for some reason. I pretty much planned to dirt-nap it the rest of the way from here myself, though I could always get a hotel room in Kimball if I needed to for one more good recharge before the final assault on the Rock!
Day 9 - Kimball, TN (42 Miles)
The arrival of two more runners at the table area of the Broadview Deli woke me. I'd been sleeping pretty well despite the comings and goings of other customers that I vaguely heard from time to time. When I picked up my head to see who was talking to me, it turned out these new arrivals were John and Robert! We talked a bit, and I was able to give them the all-important word that the bathroom was available if one asked nicely.
 |
| Robert and John Somewhere up the Course NOT at the Broadview Deli! Photo credit: Joseph Deese |
The day was already heating up by this time and movement was slow, walking under my umbrella. Not having gotten a good boost from the last nap, I opted again for the strategy of finding a good shady place to take another one while some of the nasty heat passed. I soon spotted a broad mowed lawn in front of the Franklin Manor senior living facility, with good shade way off to the side from a row of trees along a lane on the neighboring property. Kind of like when I rested way back at Oak Grove in the Fort Campbell area, I figured I was so far away from any normal business happening on the property that even if I was noticed, no one would come all the way out to bother me, and I was right. I had a decent nap, not great, but decent - again vaguely aware of comings and goings at the Manor and of traffic noise on the main road as I half-slept for a little while.
In just another two miles I was at yet another DG in the outskirts of Cowan, where I was able to set up in a chair in some shade with my usual assortment of drinks for hydration and calorie replenishment. John and Robert passed by just as I got settled, and John hollered at me that they were going up ahead to a barbecue place if I wanted to join them. I thought about it, but was already pretty set in my plan here, not wanting to extend my break, and not feeling like my stomach was ready for much of a real meal just then anyway.
I still didn't feel as 'good' as I generally did ('goodness' of course being very relative after three-hundred miles). My naps just weren't being effective, my stomach was a little off, and making things worse, I felt as though I really hadn't achieved good morning emptying (if you know what I mean) at the bathroom back at the Broadview Deli - and I really was starting to need a place to try for more. No business I could find in this small town allowed public use of their restrooms though, and when I asked anyway at one of the convenience stores, the guy told me it was out of order (maybe true, but also the standard way they put off anybody who asks in spite of their sign).
Dejected, uncomfortable, and generally unhappy, I resigned myself to the probability I would have to find someplace once I left town to get off the road into some cover (possibly in the company of eager 'friends' like ticks and chiggers) and do my business outside for only the second time in the whole adventure. I bumped into John and Robert again in town. The barbecue place was closed, it turned out. They seemed to be still looking for another option to get something for themselves and I just kept moving.
Then a miracle happened that not only solved my immediate problem but lifted me out of my funk for a while! At the very edge of town I saw a house on the left, on a pretty large property, and on the far side of it, up close to the road, was an outbuilding - what looked like one of those barn-roofed garden shed type buildings, very large - out of which they were operating a produce stand, and behind it I saw... a porta-potty! Hoping against hope, I went onto the little porch of the building, opened the front door and poked my head inside. I saw an old gentleman, seated, who looked like he might be the one in charge, and two women, all working on something together. They looked back at me quizzically.
"May I please use your porta-potty?" I asked as politely as I could - and the man looked at me in a very friendly, compassionate way and replied, "Of course you can!"
"Thank you so much!" I effused, "You're a life-saver!"
The porta-potty sat in full sun, so it wasn't the best experience it could have been, but in every other way it was EXACTLY what I needed right then. I came out overheated but feeling much, much better, and stood in the shade at the side of the shed for a bit to cool back down before looking in to thank them again before going on my way.
 |
| Looking from Cowan Toward the Climb to Sewanee Photo credit: Sam Coyner |
This continued for about two miles from the bottom of the mountain. The lifts I'd gotten coming out of Cowan - both physical and spiritual - could not have come at a better time, and combined with my usual 'attack dog' attitude toward hills they enabled me to climb aggressively, not stopping until I reached a stone gateway announcing arrival in Sewanee, "The Domain of the University of the South." Here there was a parking area to the left, bounded by some low walls made of the same stone as the gateway, with a flight of stone steps leading up to the top of a large rock - the University of the South overlook - with a good view of the valley below.
Their pacing was a little stronger at this point and I dropped behind them, catching up shortly after they'd reached the business section of town - where I saw them turn off left at a place called "Shenanigans," a local restaurant and hangout with a bunch of outdoor tables out front. I went inside, confirming with some patrons on the front porch that they'd just seen two guys who looked as disheveled as me go in, and I found them ordering at a counter by the bar. John thought to check whether they had any non-alcoholic beers. That suddenly sounded very good right then and all three of us ordered one. I was in the mood for something cool but substantial to eat - something like a cold summer salad plate - and I ended up with a good-sized bowl of a chilled Mexican street corn salad that was very good. We were able to use the restroom as we waited for our food, then we went outside to a table where we relaxed in the softening evening. With cooling temperatures and some light pleasant breezes blowing, it was extremely pleasant as we sipped our NA beers and enjoyed our food and conversation - a near-perfect moment in a way I suspect would be hard to reproduce without the effort it had taken us to get there.
Like Trevor, long, long ago now, John was much more of a planner than me. Being with each of them for a while and hearing how they thought about and approached things would occasionally make me feel inadequate. My strategy in these races is based on preparation, flexibility and adaptability. For all that they are hard, you're never really living that close to the edge (so long as you avoid serious injury). The next town may be unpleasantly far way, but it is always reachable. There are often multiple opportunities between towns to get what you really need in a pinch - in particular there are water sources, if you're willing to be a little assertive in looking for them (maybe even going so far as knocking on a stranger's door to ask for some - which I never had to do). The supplies I carried prepared me to:
- Deal effectively with sun or rain.
- Bed down anywhere, comfortable enough to sleep in any reasonably expected temperature.
- Stay hydrated, and sustain myself on snacks until I could get my next full meal. (It only takes a tiny amount of periodic calorie intake to enable body fat metabolism, and at my leanest I estimate I carry enough fat to go nearly a thousand miles - seriously.)
- Care for my feet and deal with any minor physical problems.
I was prepared to be self-sustaining for at least twenty miles between resupply points, and potentially much farther. I considered it part of the adventure to discover what was to come when it came, roll with it and problem-solve as necessary. I knew that in spite of the hardships I was never operating anywhere near crisis - so rather than spending mental energy on contingency planning that might often not work out, I spent it dealing with things as I found them.
When we were ready to leave, John and Robert wanted to check out the convenience store across the street. I didn't need anything, so I set out on my own again. I was beginning to really miss that nap I hadn't taken back at the overlook, and my walk quickly degenerated into that zone requiring sustained focus and mental effort to maintain a good pace. I knew there was a turn coming up that would take us past the airport, but I overestimated how far it was, and by the time I dug out my phone to check whether I was almost there I was already about three quarters of a mile past it.
<sigh>
Backtracking to where I needed to be, I saw John and Robert approaching up ahead as I made the turn coming from the wrong direction - once again helping out my fellow runners by demonstrating what not to do! The way I was moving, they were soon catching up to me as I led us through a couple of turns and onto the highway we would initially follow across the plateau. When I stopped briefly to do something with my pack they passed on by. I was definitely planning on finding a place to nap again soon, and John spoke of the campground that I'd also seen a few miles ahead on the map, where we might find some good spots to rest if we were lucky. That sounded reasonable, and I resolved to aim for there as well.
I followed after them into the dimming twilight but couldn't match their pace and soon lost sight of them. The sleep demons were really climbing up onto my back heavily, and my movement was painfully slow. Traffic wasn't very heavy, but it was persistent, and I got very lucky once when a car passing another at high speed from behind me was already tucking back over into the right lane as they reached me. Cars passing from behind are the most dangerous traffic element when running or walking roads, and I hadn't been paying enough attention to hear this situation developing behind me (though you can't always).
It sobered me up, convincing me all the more that I really needed to get off the road and sleep a while - and soon I came upon John and Robert bedded down just off the road in a little pull-off. I spotted them by the red light John left on to signal they were there in case a car came along wanting to pull in. I think they hadn't been settled very long, and they kindly invited me to join them, John saying he would reset his alarm so we'd all get the amount of rest he and Robert had planned on.
It just didn't work here for me though. I couldn't get quite comfortable enough. I couldn't quite ignore the still-regular passing traffic well enough. I couldn't ignore the occasional sounds from the other two guys well enough. I usually don't set an alarm for my naps - knowing I always wake up after a little bit of good sleep - and awareness that I had a time limit here for getting the sleep I desperately needed made me too anxious to actually fall asleep! I may have dozed a little bit, but definitely didn't get any real sleep before John's alarm went off and the two of them started getting ready to leave.
Dejected and pretty unhappy, I decided I might as well get back up myself and follow them out, telling them that if I needed to I would just drop off somewhere and try to nap some more. As before, I just wasn't able to keep up with them easily. It took me longer to get ready. I was behind them getting onto the road, and I struggled to keep them in sight, but pushed myself and managed to do it. It was probably for the best that we weren't right together. They preferred John's red light to walk by, presumably to preserve their night vision, while I used my bright white LED headlamp, draped around my neck and hanging at my chest. At times I purposely stayed back far enough (I hoped) to not compromise what they were doing. We had to negotiate a well-publicized course change here, and John and Robert - again very kindly - paused as they found each turn to make certain I saw where it was.
This whole night so far just may have been my lowest point in the race. I was miserable, and I felt totally inadequate as I trudged along fighting sleep, watching John lead confidently and well up ahead and riding on his coattails.
In four miles we turned onto Stagecoach Road - the route that followed the ancient Nickajack Trail down the mountain - the road that would lead us to Laz's quad-shredding descent. As I followed John and Robert down one of the first tiny downhills, walking with those heavy, plodding, 'stop-steps' that exhausted ultrarunners are prone to, I could feel my right quads threatening to lock up on me.
"I have GOT to stop and get some real rest before I do this," I told myself, and almost immediately came to the end of a long driveway leading to a ranch that sat way back off the road. It was pretty late by this time, and I had little fear that anyone would be coming or going, or would notice me out there by the road and be concerned. Half the double-wide entrance gate was closed, and I spread out my tarp and laid myself down on the gravel in front of it. Just as I got settled, another runner came by, paused briefly and then moved on. After that it was just me.
I laid there on my back then, looking up at a beautiful, starry sky that I hadn't even noticed before, as my eyelids began to droop immediately and my thoughts began growing fuzzy.
"You know," I thought to myself, "this is really living."
It would be the last conscious thought I had for a while.
When I woke sometime later I knew I had finally really slept - the first genuinely good sleep since the hotel all the way back in Lynchburg, over twenty-four hours before. It was deep night, dead quiet, and I was completely alone. As I packed up and started down the road again I could feel that I was better - much better. My mind was clear and movement felt stronger and easier again. I made decent time through the next two mostly-flat miles. It was heavily treed here on both sides, and there were only a few residences along the way, set far enough off the road that the only evidence of their existence was the ends of their driveways and the sound of their barking dogs (who easily detected me passing by).
Marking the middle of the road was a line of reflectors that shined my light back at me, and I soon came to a place where I saw them trending steeply downward ahead. "How am I going to spare my quads here?" I asked myself, deeply concerned, the heavy plod already feeling like trouble. Then a radical thought occurred to me - an outlandish one really: "Why don't I try running?"
It had been a day-and-a-half since I'd last tried it. Here I would have gravity assisting me and I thought, "Maybe if I try just a short, high-turnover stride..." I broke into an easy jog, focusing on it and feeling it, trying to distribute the force of each foot plant as evenly as I could through all of my tired leg muscles and weary bones, and I kept it going all the way down the little hill.
It felt great! Holy cow! I could move again - and it did exactly what I hoped it would! Nothing felt too stressed by it - not feet, not ankles, not calves, not hamstrings... not quads. I was breathing like a runner, and I felt like a whole new me! I came to the next short downhill and I did it again.
"Awesome!"
Every time I saw the reflectors trending downhill I got my little jog going and motored right down - and when I finally came to that last, dreaded, long steep descent I bombed the whole thing in one go, arriving at the bottom and the intersection with highway 2 totally exhilarated! I made the right turn and within a hundred yards came upon three guys bedded down on the left with a little red light marking their location - John, Robert and the other guy who'd passed me, I assumed - and the one closest to me as I got there raised his head and said, "Great work!" I think he'd heard me or maybe even been able to see my light coming down the final grade.
I was on top of the world right then! I was thrilled and... (there's no more appropriate way I can think of to say this) I was pissed! It was eight more miles from there to Kimball. I was still fresh off the nap. I had rediscovered my run after days of just plodding from town to town and hours of struggling to keep up with people moving better than me. I looked at the three guys lying there on whatever hard ground they'd chosen and I thought, "Not me." I was sick of dirt napping! I was sick of trudging too, and wanted no more of either! I was going to Kimball! I was going right now, and I was going all-out! I was getting a hotel room when I got there, and I was getting another real sleep in a real bed before I went to the Rock and finished this stupid thing!
I channeled that anger into what may have been my strongest movement since the first day - maybe even my strongest movement, period. I ran every downhill (which were actually few... "because it's a Laz race," I thought to myself, "and he always finds a way to make it all uphill" - letting myself feel a little bit angry too about that silly thought). I power-walked everything else at my nearly four miles per hour walking pace, and I waited until it felt like I must have made many miles before I looked at the map to see where I was. Expecting to be more than halfway there, I found I was just halfway - four miles - and I let myself feel mad about that, too, as I continued to push hard.
It was finally getting more difficult again, and I let the anger I was allowing myself to use productively to drive me forward get stoked a little bit again as I passed the "Welcome to Kimball" sign - characteristically still two miles from the town proper.
"If they really wanted to welcome me," I thought petulantly, "they'd meet me here with a cold drink and a granola bar or something! Why put the sign all the way out here where the fact it's 'Kimball' is really only a matter of concern for the postal service?? KIMBALL is where the stuff I need is!!"
I knew I was being ridiculous - but I was having fun being ridiculous and it was working. I'm pretty sure I made Kimball from the bottom of the mountain within about two hours, maybe even a little less.
I turned left to follow the course to the Clarion Pointe Kimball - the semi-official hotel for the race. Most everyone tries to stay there the night before the bus ride because they give discount pricing to Laz's runners. The race staff keeps rooms there when they're working in the vicinity of the Rock. Runners heading out to the Rock from Kimball pick up GPS trackers first in the lobby there, so Laz and Carl can see where they are on their final approaches, and ensure they're there to meet them when they finish. Many runners get rooms at the Clarion to recover after their finishes.
I stopped at the Shell station, the last convenience store before the hotel, so I'd have the least distance to carry my bag of food and drinks for the room. Then I walked up to the front desk of the semi-official race hotel and learned that the real joke of the night was actually on me!
"I need a room for the rest of the night," I said to the guy at the desk.
"We don't have one. We're booked."
"What do you mean, 'you don't have one?'" I thought to myself. "You're the race hotel! You're supposed to be here for us! You can't not have a room!"
"You don't have a room?"
"Nope. We're booked."
"Do you know whether any of the other hotels have rooms?"
"I don't think so. We've all been filling up every night this week."
I just stood there for another few seconds looking at him with a shocked and confused expression, I suspect.
"I'm sorry," he added.
"That's alright," I said, getting my wits gathered back about me. "Not your fault. I just have to figure out what I'm going to do about it."
Then I turned and walked out. Thinking back on it now, I hope that last bit didn't sound like some kind of threat or something! I stepped back out into the night with a totally misplaced sense of helplessness. I'd just spent over a week sleeping outdoors in all sorts of weird places. Now, simply because I was being forced into it again not by my own choice I momentarily felt like I had no idea what to do.
It was so unfair!! I'd worked hard to get myself here! I'd earned some comfort!
Almost instinctively getting my road senses back though, I headed straight across the street and into the large cemetery there. Maybe I could find a gazebo or some other roofed structure where I could nap.
No such luck. It's one of those modern, 'sparse' cemeteries without a lot of extraneous things for groundskeepers to take care of. As I turned right and walked downhill that way - back toward the main shopping area where we had the next-to-last supper - I briefly considered just bedding down against the base of the stone wall between the cemetery and the main road, but the grass was soaking wet with dew. My feet felt noticeably soggy from having walked through just a little bit of it. Way off to my left I saw what looked like it might be a small paved area where I could possibly set up, but by now I was close to the back side of the Best Western hotel I had stayed at the night before the bus ride - and the back parking lot there didn't look very full.
"They might actually have a room," I thought, and decided it was worth walking over there and all the way around the building to find out. I entered the lobby, walked up to the front desk and asked the clerk whether she happened to have a room available.
"Yes, I have one," she replied - in a tone that said she had only one.
"I'll take it!"
She launched into making sure I understood that even though I was checking in so late (it was like 3:30AM then) checkout time would still be at eleven, and I assured her that would be just fine with me - that I probably wouldn't even be staying that long. Satisfied on that point, she launched into doing all of the 'clickety-clickety' they have to do before giving you a room - then paused, eyebrows knitted and said, "I thought I had one..." Then after a little more clickety-clickety she looked up at me and concluded, "I'm sorry. I guess I must have booked it."
I walked back out the door knowing there were two more hotels in this same shopping area - but I also just knew I was whipped! I was not going to walk hundreds more yards only to be rejected twice more. My tentative plan from way back at Lynchburg had been to dirt-nap it all the way to the Rock, and apparently circumstances were going to hold me to it. I headed back around the hotel to the cemetery, across more dew-soaked grass toward the likely spot I'd seen. It turned out to be hard-packed dirt rather than pavement.
Fine! I set down all my stuff, spread out my tarp, sat down, stripped off my shoes and socks, and dug into my bag of goodies from the convenience store. The pre-packaged turkey sandwich wasn't going down any easier than the lousy egg salad had back at Columbia.
It was only at this point that I realized the 'hard-packed dirt' I was resting on was actually hard-packed sand.
"Oh, great!" I thought, "That's going to get into everything."
Some of that damage was already done, I was sure (like on the bottom of my poncho-tarp) and I just wasn't going to pick everything up and start all over again looking for another spot now! For better or worse, this was where I would rest a while. I'd just have to be a little careful with my stuff and careful about moving around.
I sat there and had myself a little pity party while I choked and washed down some more of my nasty sandwich. Then I saw a Kimball police cruiser drive by on the road between the cemetery and the Best Western - and I fervently hoped they either didn't see me, or weren't inclined to come and roust me! Mercifully, they didn't - so not quite everything that could have gone wrong was going wrong.
In a little while I gave up on eating and drinking and laid down carefully to try and get some sleep. I went out for a little while, then started sleeping fitfully, a little chilled. Waves of cold breezes were periodically washing over me, and eventually I woke up enough to realize they seemed to correlate with the sound of semis going by on I-24 - which was really pretty far away, but the correlation nevertheless seemed strong. I fully roused myself and dug out the long-sleeved base layer I'd been carrying the whole race without using yet, took off my outer shirt and put on the base layer underneath. Then I laid back down and pulled both sides of the poncho-tarp in over my legs to cover them a little too - not caring too much about what happened with sand because warmth and sleep were the priorities right then - and I went back to sleep and had another good chunk.
Waking again a short time later, I felt slept-out for the time being, and I sat up and considered what I should do next. There weren't a lot of options really. I could sit in the sand pit a while longer, or... "I guess I'm heading for the Rock," I concluded, and started packing up.
As I checked my feet before putting my socks and shoes back on, I discovered they had gritty sand stuck all over them - embedded in the layer of sticky RunGoo they were covered in. There was no way to fix it short of a shower - which I wasn't about to get. "Great! I've got a layer of sandpaper glued to the bottoms of my feet!" I thought to myself - and worried that this might cause me a real problem before I could finish. With nothing to do about it right then though - cringing - I pulled on my socks and put on my shoes.
All my things gathered, I headed back up to the Clarion to pick up a tracker, and called Carl as I was supposed to, leaving a message letting him know I had one - adding that it wasn't going to move much yet because I was going to the Waffle House.
Somewhere along the way through all of this I did the Saturday morning 7:30AM check in. Kimball was at mile 330 - and through a day of intense highs and lows, I had lopped off forty-two of the sixty-two miles I'd had left the previous morning. All that remained was the easy part...
Coincidentally with drafting the previous section today - July the 11th, almost a month to the day from when HOTS began - I ran for the first time. My body responded well to the push I gave it a couple of days ago. My legs actually felt like moving yesterday, but I had too many other things going on. This morning they were almost insistent: "We need to stretch!"
I did an easy jog down one of my regular routes - two miles downhill to the river, eight hundred feet of elevation loss, then I ran close to another mile up the railroad tracks to the trail back up the hillside, hiking that with side excursions for lots of mushroom foraging (found some pretty nice boletes).
Six miles, all-told - and I wasn't wiped out and forced to nap afterward!
It still didn't feel smooth and easy. There are still lots of unusual twinges here and there in various muscles, tendons and joints, and I walked the whole way back. I'm a long way from fully recovered and back to being the runner I was when I left for Tennessee, but after a full month I want to run again - and that is a major step in recovery.
Good thing, too. Next month I'm leading a church group on a twenty-seven-mile trail hike - and this fall Kim and I are doing the CanLake 50-miler together! Last time I did that race I was coming off our first Vol State and I set my personal record for the distance!
Day 10 - Kimball, TN to the Rock (17 Miles)
Regarding the trail section, someone had asked at the Last Supper, "Is this the new way to the Rock that you talked about on the Vol State group?"
"No, I would never send Vol Staters that way!" came the reply.
There is maybe just a wee bit of (frankly earned) elitism among 'hotties' - not that many of them (or even any of them) would ever denigrate Vol State except in fun. Most hotties started there, and many quite happily do it again. Still, HOTS is 'graduate-level Vol State' and Laz feels free to make HOTS courses much more challenging, expecting hotties to be able to deal with more adversity.
Just as I don't call home often, I don't spend much time following social media during the race, even though it can be a source of intel from runners ahead of me. It may be foolish, but something in me just reacts to that kind of advance knowledge as 'spoilers' so I don't try hard to scrape every tidbit I can from all of the Facebook posting that other people do in-race. Then too (sticking with the storytelling metaphor) connecting with the wider world through that little window I carry in my pocket, as so many of us spend so much of the rest of our lives doing, feels to me like 'breaking the third wall' in the story I'm not yet telling but living. It feels disruptive and jarring - and disconnecting from all that is a big part of what I'm looking for when I do these races. Still, I do try to keep up with the traditional, twice-daily Laz posts, and in them I do pick up a few things.
One of the early ones talked about how the first finishers handled the trail section and a later one described the first nighttime finishes - and none of it sounded pretty. I gleaned from these that it included a particularly difficult feature called "the crack." I saw a post from Kim Durst, one of those early finishers, expressing something approaching appalled shock at how difficult the trail section truly was, and advising everyone to make sure they allowed themselves plenty of time for it. Then there was the Laz post describing the mass nighttime finishes just the previous night while I was getting myself to Kimball. He described flashlights wandering, lost, all over the mountainside below the Rock - "the hotties are attacking the crack like an army of insane fireflies," he wrote. I missed the post in which he described the section as "two miles of trail worthy of the barkley." If you know, you know - and if it's Laz making Barkley comparisons... <gulp>!
Had I seen that one I guess I could have been reasonably assured that it was in fact about two miles, making 347 the accurate number for the full race distance and seventeen miles the distance I had left to go. Regardless, I was pretty sure I had no more than twenty miles to cover whenever I left Kimball, and I knew there was something 'bad' waiting for me at the end of this last leg that I had better allow time for.
I made my way to the Waffle House, had a good breakfast - which is always good for my attitude - and thoroughly abused their bathroom to get myself ready to go, taking off and stowing the long-sleeved base layer and freshening up my lubes. One of the annoyances of not getting a hotel room was that if I had, I'd have lightened my load for the last section by leaving some things there that I could be pretty sure I wouldn't need - like that base layer, the phone charger and a few other things. Now I would have to carry everything with me to the Rock, or else stash it somewhere outside - or even throw it away if I was annoyed enough!
In a way though, the overturning of my plan for Kimball was the best thing that could have happened to me, because the indignities of it preserved that 'screw this - I'm getting this done' attitude that had developed during the night. Rest in the sand pit hadn't been the best - but I had slept, and I actually felt pretty okay. Plus, from here the call of the Rock was unmistakable. Twice before I'd been here, with the end so near after endless days of toil. Here the Rock exerts a gravitational attraction that can be felt by Last Annual runners. It has been enough to pull the shambling husks of runners with absolutely wrecked bodies to victory - and for me, it has always moved me to finally abandon the conservative approach and begin throwing whatever I have left into a final push. The 'kick' that had started last night on Stagecoach Road would continue.
I left the Waffle House and went next door to the Race Way convenience store to make sure I had enough fresh water. As I was out front topping up my hydration bladder John and Robert passed by, heading up the street toward the Clarion.
"No hotel rooms!" I hollered, and I think John hollered back that they were going to the Waffle House.
Then I was moving out of town at around 9:00 or 9:30AM, south toward South Pittsburg and its fabled blue bridge over the Tennessee River. I made my final small navigation error on the way, forgetting that to make the turn onto the road over the river you're supposed to cross over busy U.S. 72 and go with the traffic down the auto exit ramp rather than staying on the against-traffic side and following the north-bound onramp. I don't think they're real sticklers about it if runners go the wrong way here, but I backtracked maybe a tenth of a mile to correct myself when I realized my error. I wasn't about to compromise anything at this point!
 |
| Photo credit: Steve Smalling |
I did maintain the hard push that I'd begun the previous night - driving constantly at my hard walking pace, and running everything downhill. No one was going to be catching me on this section, I felt confident, and I wanted to make sure of it. Crossing into Alabama, I was approaching the little town of Long Island when a train horn off to the west caught my attention, and looking ahead I saw a railroad crossing. "Crap! I'm about to get stuck waiting for a train," I said to myself, and in another moment I was really running (not just jogging) - uphill - to try and beat it to the crossing.
When I got there I looked right and saw the headlight of the locomotive maybe a quarter to half a mile down the track, so it wasn't actually very close. Somewhat ironically, just past the railroad crossing I came to the Long Island Baptist Church, its shaded front entryway looking inviting, and I thought, "I could use a nap." I sat down, leaned my back against the brick wall, resting on my pack, took off my shoes and stretched my legs out, lowered my head and went to sleep - so I did actually wait for the train to go by; I just did it in a more comfortable place, and I stayed aware enough while it was passing to know that it was a very long train!
I woke up a little while later when my glasses slipped off my sweaty nose and fell off my face, plopping into my lap. It had been a good nap.
I still had miles to go, and I was still worried about the sandpaper grit stuck to my feet, and what it might be doing to them. Then it occurred to me: maybe by now the grit was embedded in my socks rather than still stuck to my feet? Maybe my socks had cleaned my feet while I was moving, and if I made one final change to the other pair the problem would be solved. Sure enough, when I stripped off one sock to check, that foot felt smooth and grit-free. "Awesome!" I unpinned the other pair of socks from the pack, reapplied a fresh layer of RunGoo to both feet and made them road-ready one last time. Peace of mind is a wonderful thing.
Just past Long Island (an oddly named place, by the way, because there's no sign of water anywhere near it, much less an island) the course crossed over a low ridge called Hogjaw Ridge on the map, and then dropped into a narrow valley at the base of what was obviously Sand Mountain.
Sand Mountain is a long ridge running northeast to southwest here across a big meander in the Tennessee River. The Rock sits at the north edge of a large plateau on top of the mountain, just across the Alabama-Georgia border, almost exactly four miles due east of Long Island as the crow flies. The course from Long Island to the Rock though wound ten miles (counting the trail section as two) - nine more miles from where I now stood looking up at the ridge.
The road in front of me was mostly barricaded though, with a big sign saying it was closed. I had to dig out my phone to double and triple check to make absolutely sure the red line I was supposed to follow really went straight ahead past that sign, and it did.
Climbing Sand Mountain here made it obvious why Laz and Carl had chosen to reroute the Vol State finish this way. This was a much more remote road than the long-traditional way through New Hope. It was obvious that even when the road here reopened it would have far less traffic and be far less dangerous. At times it felt like a more difficult climb, but then that may have been because it was midday and hot - though the road here was well-shaded almost the whole way. It may also have been because I pushed the climb hard. I think I only stopped once on the way up, and that was mostly to take a leak.
 |
| A View Toward Where I Came From - Climbing Sand Mountain |
These last three miles had the most obnoxious drivers that I encountered anywhere! Almost no one gave me an inch. I had no business being out there expecting them to make any adjustments for me, as far as they seemed to be concerned, and if I didn't like what they were doing, well maybe then I would learn a lesson and never be dumb enough to be there again!
Just a mile from the Quick Mart I passed by the turn onto the 'cheese grater road' - the normal way in to the finish, through the main entrance to Castle Rock Ranch. My car was just a mile-and-a-half that way, and in little more than a month, Vol Staters would be turning that way to go to their finishes. My way today continued straight though - two more miles and about eight hundred feet back down Sand Mountain on the old route, the nasty traffic continuing, until I finally reached the end of the GPS track at three hundred and forty-five miles, finding the gate where the trail section began to the right.
I turned, and working past the gate and a sign reassuring me this was the place, I beheld a very disheartening sight indeed! Laz referred to this first part as a 'log road' and I'm sure that's what it was at some time. Underneath the poison ivy vines overgrowing it thickly from side to side for as far as the eye could see there was recognizably a hard-packed, rock-strewn, double-track logging road. To either side, the forest was a jungle, obviously filled with more poison ivy, and I could imagine the heat and humidity here being worthy of the Amazon.
"Laz, you've finally done it!" I thought. "You've just gone too far this time!"
I genuinely thought it was possible that some runners behind me would take one look at this and say, "Nope! Not doin' it!" - and drop right there, just two miles from finishing. Then I thought of all of the people who had been so extra-careful about where they rested to avoid ticks and chiggers, and I thought, "They're going to just love this."
I could see a narrow path through the poison ivy where it had been tramped down by the runners who'd passed before me, and I tried to carefully follow that as I began making may way - but there was no way to completely avoid contact, as vines reached out at shoulder level from both sides, and the rocky footing induced stumbles. A pair of now thoroughly beaten-up Hoka Bondi road shoes wasn't exactly the footwear I would have chosen for this!
Carl took issue with what I'm about to say (and will probably take issue with it again if he reads it here) but I didn't think the trail markings were quite adequate. We were told (by Naresh, I think, at the Last Supper) that there would always be another marker visible from each marker we came to, but that wasn't quite true. If you assumed - as you would under normal circumstances - that if you didn't immediately see the next marker you should just keep following the obvious path you were on until you found another one it was fine, but since this whole thing already seemed unreasonable - and since it was a Laz thing - at one point after I'd gone a ways down the log road past the last marker I'd seen and still hadn't seen another one, I couldn't help thinking that maybe I'd missed some barely-visible turn-off into the jungle with a ribbon ten yards off to the left or right, and I backtracked to make sure that wasn't the case.
The trail really did follow the log road though, eventually reaching a stream crossing at the base of a steep pitch. Negotiating the rocks in my Hokas, trying not to get my feet wet, was tricky but doable. After that the road turned straight up at an insane angle and become one of those hard-packed, double-track dirt roads with a deep gully washed out of the middle by heavy rains. The rocky footing continued, with my Hokas regularly rolling over on me as I climbed precariously up the left-hand side.
At the top of that pitch it flattened out at the base of a large clearing, where at first the road seemed to just disappear - but pink ribbons led off through the shoulder-high weeds that filled the clearing, and somewhere underneath them (I think... maybe...) the road continued. The ribbons went cross-slope at the base of the clearing at first, then turned straight uphill again toward a tree line above. Stumbling and bumbling in my Hokas, unable to really even see what I was stepping on most of the time, I almost fell into a wicked-looking briar patch at one point!
At the tree line there were two signs. One read, "Abandon hope, ye who enter here." The other informed me that if what lay ahead looked too scary I was permitted to turn around, go back out to the road, go back up the mountain, and take the cheese grater road to complete the normal finish.
I marveled at Laz's malicious ingenuity. It was a perfect Hobson's choice! Whatever more-miserable test lay ahead, I was pretty hopeful that I was not much more than a mile from the finish here. The thought of going back out through all of what I'd just come through to get here, back downhill through the clearing with its awful footing, back down that steep pitch (probably butt-sliding) and back through poison ivy alley - then to retrace two miles back up the busy road... why it would be six miles to the finish from here that way!
Nope! I plunged ahead past the signs and into the trees.
There was no pretense of a road here, just a line of pink ribbons leading straight up an even steeper grade. The footing grew even more precarious, with more rocks to roll my Hokas, now with help from added roots and fallen tree branches - really, the slope was so steep that the shoes tended to roll if I tried to just stand still on them! At least there was no more poison ivy here under the shade of the forest canopy.
At first I followed the pink ribbons directly, but soon I noticed that deer trails crisscrossed back and forth laterally, creating what amounted to switchbacks, and I followed those. This was full-body climbing, as I grabbed onto anything I could to steady myself and to use my arms to help pull myself up. The stupid shoes continued to make me feel clumsy and completely out-of-place! Eventually I reached the top of the pitch - which ended at the base of a huge rock wall. One hundred feet or more straight up, I believed, was the Rock. From what I'd read in the posts, Laz and Carl had been entertaining themselves by hollering down to the runners from above to taunt and 'encourage' them with dubious assurances of how little they had left to go. They either missed me or I didn't hear them.
The line of ribbons led off to the left along the base of the wall. Though the 'trail' now followed an elevation contour rather than going straight up, the footing didn't improve but actually got worse at times. There were jumbles of rock to negotiate that had long ago fallen from the cliff above. Shortly after I made the turn I stumbled a bit on one of those, reached out to put a hand on the wall to steady myself - and the wall started jingling. There were crevices here and there, and right now each one of them near me started making a sound like sleigh bells, only continuous rather than interrupted like sleigh bells being shaken, and I thought, "Hmm... Carl wasn't kidding about the rattlesnakes."
At the pre-race briefing he had warned us to be careful about where we put our toes when we were on the trail section, because there were definitely rattlesnakes around, and if we wanted, he'd show us one sometime. Nevertheless, he seemed skeptical about my story when I told him about it later. There was no other explanation for what I was hearing though. Inside each crevice was a rattler, not happy with my presence and letting me know about it. I immediately became much more cautious about where I was putting my hands and feet, and for just a little ways farther along the wall each crevice I passed by joined the jingle bell chorus.
Just a little further on I had a very confusing encounter! I came upon Jan - yes, meatwagon driver Jan - sitting on a rock and telling me something about a water source. I was too flummoxed about finding her there to really process what she was saying, but I did see eventually that there was a steady trickle of water coming out of the cliff way at the back of an overhang at ground level behind where she was sitting. You'd have to crawl back there on hands and knees to get to the water - which apparently she had - but I didn't need any. I was still mostly just confused by the whole encounter, and eventually concluded that the best explanation for her being there was that she was a plant intended to mess with us. No doubt my addled confusion along with that assumption made this as weird a conversation from her perspective!
Maybe a hundred yards past Jan I came to what finally had to be The Crack! The wall had shortened to no more than twenty or thirty feet high, and here it was broken by a narrow chute that looked like it was probably climbable. It would not be for the faint of heart though - and it would also be a real challenge for smaller runners. At the base was another sign. This one said that if you didn't want to try, or couldn't make it up the crack you could detach one of the tags from the sign to prove you'd been there, and then go back a little way to where there was an easier, rope-assisted climb that I hadn't noticed on my way by.
There was no way I was skipping any challenge thrown down at me at this point! By breeding I'm a Pennsylvania mountain boy who's climbed more than his share of big rocks in his lifetime! I eased my way into the crack to check it out. The bottom half was filled with fallen boulders, and the first trick was to get up onto the lowest of them. There was an obvious step, but it was really high - I had to pull my right leg up with my hands to get my foot onto the step, and then my grip-less Hoka just slid right off with the first weight I tried to put on it. I felt around all over the rocks for handholds, not finding any that were angled quite right. Eventually I was able to put my foot on the step, wedge my back against the side wall of the crack, and get enough of a handhold to lever myself up to stand on the step. With just a few easier steps over the rocks above I was about halfway up.
From there to the top it looked like just a steep chute of loose dirt and leaf litter, and I knew if I tried walking up it in these shoes it would just keep slipping me back down and I might get nowhere. If I got far enough up and then suddenly slipped uncontrollably I might well careen all the way back down to the bottom of the crack over the rocks! It seemed like there was only one thing to do: go all-fours onto the loose dirt and just churn every limb (Carl calls it 'churning butter') to create enough forward momentum to counter any backsliding until I reached the top. Once committed I would not be able to stop. After everything I'd been through for nearly ten days, I was going to have to summon up a whole-body, maximal energy burst here - and hope the plan worked.
I hit it, churning and scrambling. It was just as I expected - a dynamic process in which I had to churn hard enough to counteract any tendency to slide backward. Inch-by-inch and foot-by-foot I moved higher - until I spotted and got hold of a good handhold on the left wall of the chute, by which I was able to arrest further backsliding and pull myself up far enough to roll out onto the ground on that side. As I did, I noticed there was a game camera up here aimed straight down the crack. "Great," I thought. "They were watching all that."
 |
| The Crack from Above Photo credit: Agatha Halekulani McRill |
I'd done it! After three hundred and forty-seven miles and everything I'd done and experienced along the way to get here, there was nothing left but an easy stroll down this shady path (it was really no more than a few hundred yards) to step onto the Rock, putting an exclamation point at the end of it all!
As I broke into the clearing where they waited I hollered out (not at all seriously), "Where is he? I'm gonna kill him!" - but really - that finish was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced in my life! It was insane! It was awful! But it sent a clear message: "Even when you think you couldn't possibly give more, it is there if only you are willing to dig even deeper and call on it."
That. Was. Awesome!!
 |
| Done! |
 |
| The Rock (Just Beneath the Stop Sign) and the View Beyond |
I woke early again this morning, July 15th - at around 3:00AM - and completed a full proof-read, begun yesterday, of all that I'd written so far. Later, at about six, after first breakfast and two cups of coffee I was falling asleep again and laid down for another two hours.
I noticed something about this sleep, and realized it has been true of any good sleep I've gotten in the past couple of days. My dreams are normalizing. I was still dreaming of traveling on roads, but there was none of the sense of anxiety or urgency - no sense of hardship. It was all just fun and adventurous - all of the reward with none of the cost. I often dream of ultramarathons this way. They are effortless. I float over the earth easily, regardless of the terrain, in complete command of everything and enjoying every minute.
Fantasy!
My mind is letting go of the trauma and reliving the good parts. It is letting me dream of doing it again, and of doing it better.
Stats, Thanks, and Final Thoughts
I stepped onto The Rock, in northwestern Georgia, at 5:58:35 PM on July 21, 2025 - nine days, ten hours, twenty-one minutes and thirty-five seconds after Laz lit his cigarette in Tunnel Hill, Illinois. One hundred and nine people had started either the 400 or the 350. Sixty-three of them reached The Rock, and among those I was the thirty-fifth.Fifty-five started the 350 and thirty-three of them finished. I was the seventeenth of those, and the first finisher sixty years old or older.
Below are selected results of some of the other runners I've mentioned prominently in this story, in the order they finished (I've included myself for reference). There were many others who I met before, during or after the race. All of them contributed in some way to the experience, and I very much hope that in some way I did likewise for them.
Kevin Wolfe 8:01:11:34
Darren Sorgenfrei 8:05:26:20
Schuyler Stuart 8:16:20:37
Bianca Harding 8:17:29:12
Nick O'Neill 8:17:29:23
Walter Handloser 8:21:45:41
Trevor Beesley 9:00:09:12
James Moller 9:00:09:49
Jennifer Westbrook 9:06:26:40
Dawn Fontana 9:06:26:41
Patrick McHenry 9:10:21:35
Robert Grow 9:13:30:30
John Taylor 9:13:30:39
Jeff Russell Did not finish (253 miles)
Jim Lever Did not finish (182 miles)
Tiffany Dore Did not finish (153 miles)
In particular I would also like to thank those whose photos I've shamelessly 'borrowed' to decorate this report, interrupting what would otherwise be just a massive wall of text! Here I would especially like to mention Agatha Halekulani McRill, who in addition to photos provided good company at the next-to-last supper and along the first two miles of the race. She also bears the distinction of being the only HOTS runner to report mushroom sightings to me from along the course!
Huge thanks also, of course, to everyone on the race staff - without whose dedicated work and passion none of this would be possible for any of us.
Before I close this story now, I want to address the third most-common question people ask me about these things on first learning of them: "Why?"
Why put yourself through this? Why go to such expense and trouble to experience such deprivation and hardship, and to expose yourself to such real risk? These are questions most ultrarunners grapple with and there is no definitive answer. The 'why' can be a bit different for everyone, and may even vary over time. HOTS was my thirtieth ultra finish in fourteen years - and by the standards of many ultrarunners that makes me a slacker. I've never stuck with any other avocation longer though. Why?
I suppose it's always had something to do with fighting back against aging and mortality. There are not many sixty-four-year-olds who can do what I just did. Really though, it has been mostly about exploring my limits - about finding and pushing the boundaries. God has given us these amazing biological machines we call bodies, and most of us never use them to their fullest potential. Most of us have no idea what they're truly capable of, and society even seems to actively discourage us from finding out. Even most children today spend far less time than they did in my day exploring how fast they can run, how high they can jump, how far they can throw.
"Can I jump my bike across that ditch? I'm going to find out!"
We have ancestors who trekked across oceans and continents to establish their lives in the places we now live, yet many of us will stop our cars at our mailboxes rather than walk down the driveway to get the mail. I read the stories of great explorers and the hardships they overcame and I wonder, "Could I endure that? Could I measure up?" Could I have sailed with Shackleton and lived to tell the story? (Read about the Shackleton Antarctic expedition or watch one of several good documentaries on it to understand what I mean. What I did is nothing compared to what they went through.)
I refuse to live my life so far inside the envelope that I have no idea where the edge even is! I know - both intuitively and experientially - that when I do that the envelope shrinks to just barely fit. It becomes a straightjacket. I want to find the real edge, live there and push at it. I want to live a life that is as full - physically, mentally, and spiritually - as it can be. I don't want to settle!
If that challenges you, you can thank me if we ever meet. Now go chase some big dreams!
Thanks for reading.
 |
| First Post-race Meal at a Mexican Restaurant (and yeah, I ate a large basket of chips & salsa before this) |
 |
| Hanging at the Rock, Morning After with Tara Watson (foreground) and (l-r) Rocky Sickel, Jessica Labelle, Cherie Titus McCafferty, Jan Redmond Walker, Gary Cantrell |
 |
| With Lazarus Lake and Carl Laniak |
Recovery begins the instant you step on the Rock. The immense weight of pressure that had only begun lifting in the last few hundred yards just suddenly flew off, replaced by a wave of pure satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment that is very hard to describe. I was simultaneously completely drained and feeling like I could do absolutely anything.
I took a seat on one of the 'throwns' (the cheap camp chairs that are thrown away after every race because there is no way to get the runner-stench back out of them) took a cold Dr. Pepper when offered by Carl, and visited for at least a couple of hours with Carl, Laz, Sandra, a few other runners - and eventually Jan. Everyone shares jokes and parts of their stories, either from the runner side or the staff side.
It was the beginnings of decompression and catharsis, the beginning of the slow return to normal ways of thinking, of doing, of being. It's hard to leave the road behind, both because it has become all that you think you know anymore and, in spite of the hardship, something you've come to love for its pure simplicity. I kind of never want to accept that it's over.
It isn't very long though before decompression and relaxation allow you to really feel the soul-deep exhaustion and the physical depletion that have accumulated - and the knowledge that you can now really do something about them begins to undo the victory of mind over body you worked so hard to achieve over the first three days. "It's time to move on," something tells you. Thoughts of a shower - with clean clothes to put on afterward; thoughts of a real meal - and I mean a real, real meal; thoughts of clean sheets, and of giving in to unconsciousness with no care for when you will wake - all these begin to overwhelm that desire to stay on the mountaintop. Once this starts there is no way you can safely drive yourself anywhere before you sleep.
There was still the hotel problem though, since I didn't already have a room. Sandra started helping me look, and I got a reservation at the Red Roof Inn - the next hotel I would have checked across the shopping center from the Best Western the night before. In a little while Sandra was driving me down Sand Mountain after we had stopped at my car for me to get my civilized luggage. I've spent quite a bit of time in cars with Sandra after these things by now.
She dropped me at the hotel and waited to make sure there was no mistake, and that I really had a room. She'd suggested that in the morning, after I'd slept, I should go over to the Clarion Pointe to see about catching a ride to pick up my car.
There would be one final indignity inflicted on me here at the Red Roof Inn. There was no body wash gel in the shower - and there were no bars of soap either. Given that I had just recently walked through a huge poison ivy patch, this was the most important shower I had taken in quite some time. Just a rinse would simply not do! This time when I called the front desk, naked and dripping on the floor, at least someone answered right away.
"You need what?"
"Body wash for the shower - you know, for the squirt dispenser on the shower wall. It's empty."
"Oh, we don't have replacements for those. Let me check the back and see if we have any soap."
(Soap would be better anyway - but 'if?')
<after a short wait>
"Okay! I have three bars of soap for you."
"Can you send someone to bring them up to me?"
"No. I don't have anyone else working now, and I can't leave the desk."
"I'm standing here naked and dripping."
"I'm sorry."
So I had to figure out how dry myself and dress myself to walk downstairs again and all the way around the hotel (of course I was on the back side) with urushiol (the poison on poison ivy) likely all over both my body and the skanky clothes I'd worn in. Temporarily re-engaging my fading brain, I solved that problem by drying myself with some of the extra hand towels and throwing them on the floor so I wouldn't accidentally use them again, and then digging out some of the dirty clothes I'd worn on the trip down to put on. I soon had the soap and - bonus! - I hit them up for a large garbage bag to throw all of the nasty stuff into until I got home and could launder it.
In many ways, it's good that it's difficult to get completely out of road mode for a few days, and very easy to fall back into it when needed. It would serve me well until I got all the way home and really started returning to normal life.
A thorough shower done and ("Whoo-hoo!!!") clean clothes put on, I left the room and set out to get something to eat. It would be hard to really describe how hungry I was right then. I can't think of any of the normal, over-the-top cliches for it that would do it justice. I mean like, I probably would have made an actual attempt to eat an entire horse - but you can't really believe that. I started out in the direction of the Cracker Barrel - which was quite a long way away at the other end of the shopping center - then I looked to my left and instantly changed course toward "El Toril" - a Mexican place. Soon I was eating chips and salsa while I waited for my plate of enchiladas rancheras to arrive: "Three cheese enchiladas topped with shredded pork cooked with tomato, onion, and bell pepper, topped with sauce. Served with lettuce, sour cream, tomato, and guacamole."
I ate every last bite of it - and there had been almost an entire pig's worth of shredded pork on top of those enchiladas.
In the morning I hung out at the Clarion, already beginning to feel kind of human again, visiting other runners and eventually reconnecting with Sandra for a ride back up to the Rock - two rides back up to the Rock, it would turn out, because the first time, we got most of the way there before I realized I didn't have my car key! Okay - there was still a considerable distance between me and a normal, full human.
I would spend much of that day - the last half-day of the race - hanging out some more at the Rock, visiting, and watching most of the last finishers come in. I'm mostly retired. Work had no expectation for when I would be back - and Karen was very encouraging about me taking my time getting home rather than pushing it in an exhausted condition. I napped a lot while I was up there - and Laz started joking about the "eighteen naps" I'd taken.
"Did you hear that popping sound? That was the sound of some of Patrick's brain cells reinflating while he was sleeping."
I missed the last finisher, but it was getting late and I needed to feed again, so I bid my final farewell to the Rock. One never has any idea when, if ever, you may be in that special place again - and now that all of what I had considered unfinished business was done, I wasn't sure I would ever be.
This time I did eat at the Cracker Barrel, then I decided I would just get a room for the night in Kimball again and head north in the morning. I finally got a room at the Clarion! Karen thought staying another night was a great idea when I talked to her.
'Morning' came at around 3:30AM - road mode again! It takes a long time before I can sleep more than three or four hours. "Well, if I leave now I can beat the traffic through Chattanooga and find someplace to pull off and get a nap north of there," I decided. I hit the Waffle House one more time and then headed east.
The journey home was just like being in the race - except the distances between stops were much greater, and covered by car rather than on foot. I got as far as a rest area north of Chattanooga and took a solid nap there. Then I drove through Knoxville before getting sleepy and very hungry again, and I took a break and had a cheeseburger meal for second breakfast east of there at a Shoney's restaurant. I think I took one more roadside nap heading north on I-81 after that, but then by the time I got to Wytheville, Virginia - where I transition to I-77 to begin going north through the length of West Virginia - I was ready not only for another meal but some real sleep. Ruby Tuesday sounded good for the food because I could hit their Garden Bar and load up on vegetable matter - something I was suddenly feeling was a deficiency I should correct.
Then I got a room at a nearby hotel. Karen was thrilled that I actually stopped rather than pushing myself. (I could be wrong, but I think she thinks I'm stubborn or something.)
The sleep there was good, though I stayed only five or six hours. It was enough to keep me awake the rest of the way home with just a few brief roadside stops to go to the bathroom, stretch my legs, or get something to drink or eat. The miles went by more quickly than I expected and yet seemed to take forever. Looking back, it's just another blur of images of long stretches of nothing interspersed with stops at strange places - the truck stop at Beckley; some little convenience stores; somewhere on the side of a long, empty highway in the dark, taking a leak in front of the car; at a Sheetz somewhere further off the road than I hoped, getting a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee. Getting into home territory if it's Sheetz!
Finally, "Welcome to Pennsylvania" then Meyersdale, Somerset, Jennerstown, the Scalp Avenue exit onto PA-56, then down the long hill, up the little hill, and pulling into my garage at around 2:00AM on Tuesday morning. Karen was sleeping on the futon out back as she's taken to doing. She'd left some lights on for me, and I quietly turned them off, crawled into bed without waking her, and passed out.
In a couple of hours I would wake up having absolutely no idea where in the world I was.
No comments:
Post a Comment