THE ULTRAMARATHON ABECEDARY

What I learned from my first 50k race, from A-Z

A

is for “All the way.” Four stacks of poker chips were set on the ground at the turnaround point, just after mile 15. Each runner was to grab one to verify that they’d run the entire distance. I now have a yellow poker chip, and a photo of the turnaround in case I lost the chip on the return trip (I felt that getting proof of the proof, a sort of insurance against future blunders, was a good idea, given my rather sub-par logistical performance earlier in the day. See section B, re: Plan B, for more information).

B

is for Blisters. Around mile ten I became aware of my toe-taping mistake (to only tape the big toes), and how my second toes were going to suffer.

B is also for Plan B, which becomes necessary when you show up at the wrong starting line, which you discover suddenly, when you search your phone for all the race updates you thought you read, puts you almost exactly 40 miles away from the place where all the other runners are about to start running.

C

is for Catastrophe: how it rears up like a horse at a rattlesnake, gallops for a bit, then settles into a trot; how it eventually tires, looks around, and may as well stop to eat grass.

D

is for the Delaware River, which looked swollen and deceptively smooth on its broad, taut surface after I finally got underway. (Most trail runners I’ve met, including the race directors, are almost curiously laid back, and the easy friendliness with which the one who met my late ass at the ACTUAL starting line handed me a waiver to sign, gave me my race bib, and described the first mile of the course was almost enchanting to my completely overstimulated and overfunctioning psyche.) I ran alongside the river for most of 31+ miles, but only (literally) stumbled upon the wherewithal to take a picture of a tributary I crossed around mile 20, when running on pavement for a moment offered some new data for my long meditation on Pain vs. Pressure (see section P for more information).

E

is for Everything, which no one can know ahead of time, or ever. Actually pretty happy about this one.

F

is for Fun (I can hardly believe I’m not kidding). But I do find that discomfort and enjoyment need not be mutually exclusive. That’s a good thing when you think about being mortal. And interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the most fun bits of the whole experience included that which I did not anticipate, what I could not have anticipated (see “E”).

F is also for Fig Flash, the nail polish color that I finally settled on, and which is almost certainly the reason the whole affair went well. As a writer/runner friend said to me, “I believe lucky socks are a form of prayer.”

G

is for Gu. That’s the brand of “nutrition” (read: slimy sugar gel in little single-use packets) I downed about once every 45 minutes to keep myself fueled. Consuming solid food while running, and not immediately regretting it, isn’t something I’ve mastered yet. Nonetheless, the well-organized aid stations offered tiny sandwiches, little cups of M&Ms, and bananas laid out on a table, like a trick-or-treating set-up for deranged adults who can’t stop moving.

H

is for Half-way, or roughly mile 15.5, which seemed a reasonable point at which to decide I could switch from a goal of “do not die” to “live a little.”

I

is for Ibuprofen.

J

is for Junk food. Remember Ruffles potato chips? They really are that good. After four months of eating almost exclusively healthy, fresh whole foods, while on the drive down to PA and undergoing some Bad Nerves about leaving my kids overnight for the first time, I ate two bags of potato chips. They were exactly what I needed.

K

is for Kilometer, which I will never figure out.

L

is for Lord Huron, whose song Meet Me in the Woods Tonight played in my ear during the final half mile. This was important because as I emerged from the trail and saw the parking lot, the giant FINISH banner was right in front of me, but the cursed little pink flags I was to follow dotted off and away from the lovely, inviting banner, around a half-mile stretch of blacktop instead. I yelled something incomprehensible to a spectator by way of a question, and got my confirmation in the form of a clear but disappointing gesture: follow the cursed flags. Well, if Lord Huron could have a rhythm, so could I. Just half a mile more.

M

is for the dude from Mississippi I met at the turnaround, who had stopped to stretch in a world of pain. I asked if he needed anything and he said, in a sad and subtle drawl, “I’m from Mississippi. We don’t have hills like this.” I gave him enthusiastic permission to walk the hills in the second half, in case he needed it, and offered him some of the words I’d been repeating in my mind for myself (“light and loose”) for the portions he would run. Of course he may have just been being polite, but he looked grateful as he lowered his torso over his left quadricep like a grand piano dangling from a thread. Whether I actually helped him or not, I got to feel the power that comes with deciding you have something to give.

N

is for Nonsense. To those who say they could never, ever do this, I say: Nonsense. I used to (proudly/bitterly/often) quip that I only ran to the phone (back when phones were phones). For years I ran a couple times a week and hated it—panted, sweated, suffered, fussed over my speed (lack thereof)—but did it “for exercise.” Once I had the base fitness and musculature, after what felt like a hundred years, I was disorientingly freed up to maybe kind of WANT to do it. Then, after a three-week hospital stay one time, I got to marvel in and after my recovery that hey, I CAN run. And once I had kids, it was pretty easy to start thinking, “I GET to run today!”

Certainly it’s not for everyone. I won’t evangelize too much. But I will say this: for people without prohibitive conditions, at the heart of it, running really can be as simple as one foot and then the other, if you want it to be.

O

is for Orange juice: 32 ounces of orange juice, to be exact, consumed almost immediately after finishing. Almost as good as Ruffles.

P

is for Pain and Pressure. My poet/essayist friend’s midwife told her that she’d do better in childbirth if she “reconfigure[d] pain as pressure.” (Here’s her remarkable poem with that in it, which she wrote for an endurance-style project to support independent presses in which she wrote a poem a day for 30 days, and they’ve all made me catch my breath). So when I felt pain, of which there is plenty over the course of 31 miles, even when you’re not injured, I identified it to myself as Pressure. This re-labeling was astonishingly effective. Of course the sensation was still there (nothing’s going to make your muscles stop aching when you’re asking that much of them), but what I had initially interpreted as Pain seemed, in its reassigned identity of Pressure, a form of solidity rather than dissolution-- more like a brace or structural support than a failure or problem. It almost seemed to propel me.

Q

Is for Quiet. I made a fuss about my music playlist and having an audiobook cued up (War and Peace is a safe choice for a long race, I feel), but being able to run without earbuds in is… a thing. I’m glad I ran the first three hours soundtrack-less. As in the case of boredom, things happen in the relative silence that wouldn’t happen otherwise.

R

is for Refrain. Some that I had in my tool kit, and used to good effect:

Light and loose

Just THIS step

Relax, Smile, Flop, and Flow (this is an odd little one I developed so I wouldn’t kill myself on steep downhills).

I recommend composing and/or borrowing refrains. They can be handy, especially to a fatigued brain and body. Be on the look-out for word-packages that, for whatever reason, help you let go and move.

S

is for Stina Nordenstam, whose song “Winter Killing” was the ONLY song on my entire “Ultra2” playlist that perfectly matched my running cadence.

T

is for Turkey sandwiches. I have never been so glad to see cold-cuts in my life.

U

is for the Unknown. It will always disquiet me, but it seems I have undertaken the learning of its joy.

V

is for Validation. I hate gym posters, I really do, but the occasional “You got this,” “Looking strong,” “Great work,” or “Keep it up” I got from other runners went a very long way towards encouraging me when I wanted to lie down among the MANY MANY MILES of corn stalks. These utterances felt so nice, in fact, that I got absurdly excited to reciprocate and made a point of addressing every runner I saw / probably told a few trees and rocks they Totally Had This. The fact that I will remember this [guy at aid station: “Jeez, you’re the lady who started half an hour late? You’re doing awesome!”] forever suggests to me that it is almost always worth noticing and remarking upon the efforts of others.

W

is for Walking. YES, ultramarathoners walk. Many, if not most, in fact. I walked the steepest parts of the 2000-plus feet of climbing, and I am enormously thankful that I gave myself permission to do this. A powerful hiking stride on a steep hill not only stretches the hamstrings and calves and works the muscles differently to provide a relevant, if brief, form of rest, but is also equivalent to or faster than a demoralized, exhausted running trudge. This is so true, in fact, that endurance hiker Jennifer Pharr Davis, who once held the overall record for the Fastest Known Time for the entire Appalachian Trail, was only beaten by one of the world’s best ultramarathon runners, Scott Jurek, by a matter of a few hours over the course of 2,000+ miles. In a one-hour race at their FKT paces, these two athletes, one who ran and one who walked, would finish only a few seconds apart. Extreme distance, and the many components of the endurance required to cover it, tend to be great equalizers.

X

is for the X-ray I did NOT have to get because I was inordinately careful about all the fallen black walnuts and acorns on the trail. There is no metaphor here. Just don’t break your ankle.

Y

is for Yes. Do you want to try something new? Something a little outrageous? Mightn’t you just as well, since no one makes it out of here alive?

Z

is for Zig-zag. Every time the circumstances (fallen trees, black walnuts, poison ivy, steep climbs, poker-chip selection, guy from Mississippi, etc.) required or invited me to change my stride, to move in a different manner or mode, my mind and body got an invaluable moment of relative rest and a chance to reset. Each time I altered my approach, I got a tiny burst of perspective and energy.

After 50k, I’m pretty tired, so I will leave it to you to find the metaphor there. It’s a lesson, like so many things I learn while running, that I will use daily, for a very long time.