Mile 38 aid station

As I said, these middle miles are a little foggy in my memory. I did the first 32 miles in 6 hours and 15 minutes which means it took me 4 hours and 45 minutes to run the last 18 miles. A note to anyone who is not a marathon runner… this is SLOW. I don’t really recall an aid station between mile 32 and mile 38 if there was one. What I do remember is descending the very steep hill that lead to the dock at the mile 38 station. It was the first time I set eyes on the lake since mile 24 or so. And I also knew that approaching this station meant I only had another 12 miles to go. For the first time in the race I knew I was going to finish…
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…I thought of Stanley again. I would run into him outside on Wayne Street in Jersey City. We used to talk for long periods of time. There were times when he saw me approaching and he’d just smile. He wouldn’t say hello. He’d just smile. It was like he was truly and sincerely happy to see me. I could see it all on his face. Stan was a published poet who had written a book of poems while he did time at Rikers Island in the sixties.

We were unlikely friends as he was about 20 years older than me and we had completely different backgrounds. When we met I was a twenty six year old white kid (still a kid in many ways) from the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware who was trying to be an artist but ended up unemployed and distressed. I graduated from Syracuse University and attended Archmere Academy for high school. Both schools were attended by Vice President Joe Biden. There was nothing about my upbringing that would cause anyone to think I struggled in any way. But in many ways and for whatever reasons, as I transitioned from a teenager to a young man I did struggle.

Stan’s life was more directly about struggle. He was a black man who grew up in the Brooklyn. He’d spent significant portions of his youth in foster care and in jail. He made money doing custodial work for a couple of the buildings in my neighborhood in Jersey City. He could have very strong mood swings and there were times when he did not want to be around anyone.

But when he was happy his smile went from ear to ear and he beamed. It was like pure joy was emanating from him. It would really light up my world. It was unique. I just don’t get that from many people… Maybe now from my kids… yes, that’s what made it so great. It was the kind of joy a kid expresses. Stan liked my sense of humor. When I would joke with him he’d laugh in hysterics, bending over and coughing from laughing so hard (he smoked a lot as well). It would make you laugh just standing next to him.

Looking back on my life, I’d say that as I grew older I tended to trust people less and less. I became more cynical. While Stan could be very cynical himself, there was something very pure and innocent about him. So when he complimented me I believed him. I met him at a very confused time in my life. I used to vent to him about how uncertain I was about everything. I was trying to be an artist and a musician. He would just say, “Look at your life, Dan. Look at the things you’ve done. Its beautiful…” When he said this I believed him. This is why Stan meant so much to me. He had an impact on me. I ended up leaving Jersey City, getting married, buying a house, having kids and all but losing contact with Stan. I spoke to him a few times in the past couple of years but since my daughter was born we spoke less and less. His health was failing and I felt like there was nothing I could do for him. Mutual friends would tell me there was, in fact, nothing I could do. The last I heard from him he left a message on my phone saying he’d heard I’d had a son. I tried calling him a number of times in the past year but I don’t know if he ever got my messages. Then I got the call that he was in a coma and dying in the hospital. It hit me like a ton of bricks. If you knew Stanley you knew he was far from perfect. And if you knew him well you loved him. He knew pain and he knew joy… He was one of the most “human” human beings I ever knew.
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…I started running down this hill and my legs felt strong again. A voice in my head went off… “12 more miles to go! I’m going to finish this!!!” All of a sudden I felt elation. This realization… I’m going to do this! I’m making this happen! I felt intense joy welling up inside me. My eyes began to tear up… again, the emotions were coming on. I shook that off… crazy stuff…

My pace quickened down the hill and I turned right and then made a quick left to the mile 38 aid station at a dock on the lake. There was a big, tall guy running away from the station heading up the 38 mile monster hill. I yelled over to him, “Looking good!” He smiled. The station was 0.2 miles in from the road we were running on. It stood at the dock which dead ended. Steve complained about this later because the course we ran was in fact about 50.3 miles and he thought the 38 mile aid station could have been on the road to cut it closer to 50 miles. I didn’t really care about this. When I arrived I looked at the man at the station table. “I’m going to finish this!” I said like a kid saying, “Look what I can do Daddy!” He said, “Yes you are going to finish it.” I drank some fluids and made my way to the port-a-potty. I looked back to see more runners approaching the station.

It was the only station on the course with a port-a-potty. This made me feel bad for the women. When you’re a man with lots of woods around, the world is your toilet!... But it’s a little tougher for the ladies.

Not to be too detailed here but when I went to the bathroom I saw that my urine was brownish. This is a sign of dehydration. I was still urinating so I wasn’t fully dehydrated but I figured that was a factor in what was slowing me down. It really floored me considering I was drinking from my Camelbak throughout the entire run. I polished off over 100 oz at this point on top of all of the drinks at the aid stations. I’m going to have to figure out what the right ratio of water to running time is. I still don’t know for sure. I thought having a hydration system on my back would eliminate any chance of dehydrating but I guess not.

It wasn’t as bad as the New Jersey Marathon was for me back in early May. During that run I felt terrific until about mile 8. Then, by mile 10 I was really hitting a serious dehydration point. When it gets bad like that your urine looks like coffee dripping from a coffee maker. That whole run was a nightmare. I spent the winter training for it in 12 degree weather and snow and then race day turned out to be the hottest day of the Spring. It hit 90 degrees. I was considering quitting at mile 13. On several occasions I ran by people being pulled off in stretchers. During these more major marathons, pacers are hired to help people hit a certain time. So for example if you wanted to run a 4 hour marathon, you would just find the pacer that was holding the 4 hour flag and follow that person. During that race, most of the pacers dropped out. They couldn’t keep their pace with the heat. It was awful. That’s when I learned my lesson on the importance of drinking fluids while you run. Hydration and blood sugar level can make an enormous difference in the outcome of a run.

…back to the ultra…

I started leaving the aid station when one of the women from the “40 club” approached. I said “Hey!” She yelled back, “Hey! Sarah’s coming up behind me!” I said, “Keep going! We’re getting there!” I ran down the road a bit and a car with an older gentleman driving it passed me, stopped and backed up to talk to me. “Hey what race is this?” he asked. I said, “It’s the Can Lake 50 mile marathon. We’re running a lap around the lake.” He looked a bit puzzled but smiled and replied, “Up and down these hills??? Wow! Good luck!” he then drove off. Up ahead coming into the road that the aid station was on came Sarah. “Hey!” I yelled because I didn’t know her name at this point, “Looking good!” I still can’t get over that her longest run to date was a half marathon. She’s a vegetarian. I’m pretty sure there’s a connection. Vegetarians just tend to lead more diet conscious, healthy lives.

I left the 38 mile aid station road, turning left and then quickly advancing on a very steep incline that twisted upward and right. This was the beginning of the monster climb at mile 38. I ran it. I was feeling good. I ran up and up and up for about a mile and then I started to think I might be blowing all of my energy so I decided to throw some walking into the mix. No one in front of me. I looked back and there was no one behind me. I felt good on this hill which was invigorating. I definitely got a second wind coming down that last hill before the station. On and on I went. The road wound up through the trees that were just starting to change for autumn. Yellows, reds, oranges and greens the whole way up. The air was clear. And the sky was blue. The day was perfect.

Now that I was starting to take on the run/walk strategy, I focused on walking quickly when I did so. I didn’t want to be doing this for 3 days. One of the fundamental principals in ultra marathon running that I learned while training is to keep moving if you can. Always keep yourself in constant motion no matter how much you begin to tire or slow down. I really kept this in my mind. I knew I was going to finish. Now I wanted to finish before the 12 hour mark. Another thing I read said that if you wanted to get an idea of what your first ultra time might be, you should take your fastest marathon time, double it, and add 2 hours. My fastest marathon was 5 hours, 36 minutes (below average). According to this theory I would be finishing in 13 hours and 12 minutes. Screw that theory!! The cut off for this race was 12 hours. If you didn’t finish within 12 hours you didn’t get an official time. I wasn’t going to go all this way only to be counted as an “unofficial time” whatever that meant. I wanted to make that cut off. Beyond finishing that was my goal.

more to come...