Mile 42.5

The 42.5 mile aid station was at a turn in the road. We would run up to the intersection and take a left. Again, my memory is less clear about the details of the end of the run… I remember more about how I was feeling and what I was thinking. What I do recall is approaching this station in close proximity to Lauren and Sarah (either in front of them, in back of them or along side them… I don’t remember) and seeing the black Forerunner pulling up at the station ahead. HEY!!! Its Liz! I kept on looking to see who was in the truck… I was about 200 feet from the station. Was it Liz or Laura? Who came back to see me?

Eventually I made it to the tent. It was everyone. Liz, Laura, Steve and the 2 kids. What a relief to see everybody. I stopped at the truck and chatted a bit. Again my spirits were lifted. Steve sat up front and looked exhausted. Liz and Laura jumped out and started planning what they were going to do next. And the kids stayed in their car seats… My poor babies. They smelled like Cheetos. Will’s hair was crusty. They’d been towed around in this truck all day and I’m sure Liz and Laura were pulling any move just to prevent total melt-downs from either kid. Though I didn’t see any, Cheetos seemed to be an integral part of the strategy. I will say the kids seemed very happy. I drank some Gatorade and Laura took some pictures. I gave Willie a kiss on the head and went around the other side of the car to kiss Emily… “No Daddy, you’re all sweaty!...” Ok, ok, no kisses…

There were several minivan/suv type vehicles parked all around and tents set up with signs:

CAN LAKE 50
50 m 42.5 mi
50k 23.5 mi
Aid Station #10
Arnold Road
Next Aid Station 3.7 miles

This I know from the pictures Laura took. Liz then said she would run the last 7.5 miles with me if I wanted. I said I would love it. But I warned her, “I don’t know if you could technically call what I’m doing ‘running’ anymore.” She didn’t care. Laura and Steve were going to take the kids to the finish line and wait for us. Liz took off her sweat shirt and was wearing her Jersey City, Newport half marathon shirt. That was the first race we trained for together before the kids were born. She then said why don’t you get going. I’ll catch up. So I started walking down the road thinking about turning the walk into a jog.

Liz caught up and we were off together. Because she knows I “get a little crazy” at these points she started asking me about how I was doing and what I wanted her to do. She threw a couple of options out… “…I can coach you to get you faster or I can just run quietly next to you… How do you feel?” I told her I’d like to get moving a little faster but I wasn’t feeling great. Liz got me psyched up into a slow jog and we kept on for a while.

We started talking about the pace. At this point I was going at a slow trudge so we talked about her helping me get up to some kind of jogging speed. As I said before there were mile markers for the last 10 miles so I was half consciously and half willingly timing my pace per mile. We hit one of the markers and I said to Liz, “That was better, what was that?... about a 12 minute mile?” She responded, “Sixteen minutes.” “Oh my God…” I said. It felt like I just ran an 8 minute mile… She said, “You’ve been walking.” Yeah, yeah, yeah… that’s right. I was hurting and my brain wasn’t working right. We kept on and on, talking and jogging and walking.

Lauren and Sarah were now up ahead past me. I wasn’t going to see them again. I lost them when I stopped at the 42.5 station. There were several other straggling runners trudging along ahead and behind at around my pace. We may have passed each other once or twice but there was very little conversation amongst us.
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Running with Liz

An aside here… People make the assumption that I love running because I got myself into doing this ultra. After all of the training I’ll say that I definitely like it more than I used to. I’ve gotten a lot out of this entire experience. The training itself took almost a year! But the truth is, when I decided to train for this it wasn’t about running at all. For me it was more about accomplishing the impossible. Even though ultra running is growing in popularity most people still don’t think its even possible to run 50 miles at once. Until 2006 I didn’t either. That’s when Liz and I trained for the Philadelphia Marathon together. My friend Lindsay gave me Dean Karnazes’
Book “Ultra Marathon Man”. I read through it very quickly. It was fascinating. But still I thought of “Deano” as some kind of freak. Normal people don’t do these things.

Liz and I were just married and we would talk about staying healthy. Left to my own devices I can find myself in eating frenzies for months at a time until I’m 40-50 pounds over weight. I watch the tube and eat and snack and get fat. I become a couch potato. I eat when I’m stressed which is most of the time so do the math… When I’m like this I don’t care if I’m getting fat. It’s a bit insane now that I’m writing it all out. And its depressing. People in my life will say things like, “Moderation, Dan, everything in moderation…” yeah, right… moderation. I seem to have a tough time with that one for whatever reasons… still can’t really figure it out (and I’ve tried to!).

If I think back to how I approach things I have to say that its usually all or nothing. And there are some benefits to this… Like I will always remember running the first 20 miles of this ultra… My legs were fresh the entire time… going, going, going… I ran next to that enormous lake, through those beautiful autumn trees, up and down those hills, adrenaline going, legs pumping… I felt superhuman… to use an overused word, it was truly awesome.

Back to 2006… Liz was already running a lot and we decided to train for the Newport half marathon together over the summer. We trained together almost every step of the way. We ran just about every training run together. I loved it.

I grew up with four older sisters. Three of the four had run multiple marathons. My sisters were accomplished runners. As I said earlier I was into wrestling in high school and college so there were times when I would work out a lot. And I played sports in grade school as well. On occasion one of my sisters would ask if I wanted to go out for a run. “Sure…” I’ll go. I’m in good shape. I can keep up with her. Well, inevitably they would run up ahead and leave me behind. I don’t think they ever meant anything by it. I just think they were all a lot faster and I was just plain slow. It never sat with me very well though. I didn’t like that feeling of watching my sister running ahead of me. Leaving me behind. Feeling like I wasn’t any good. And I never said a word of this to them so they probably had no idea I felt this way. I was probably being sensitive… I have that tendency, I know. BUT I will say what’s the point of running “with” someone if you’re just going to leave them to finish the run by themselves?... Oh, boo hoo… The point is, this always left a bad taste in my mouth about running.

The ultra allowed me to put some of this childhood/adolescent baggage to bed. An online article I once read said, “If you can’t run fast, run far...” I liked that. So that’s what I did. Ironically running the ultra earned me the name “Sister Dan” from Lisa Shannon, founder of the Run for Congo Women organization, a name I felt honored to be given. And later when I read Lisa’s book, “A Thousand Sisters” I was humbled by it.

As I said, when I first started running with Liz, we did it all together. We ran side by side. If I was having a bad day she’d run slow and vice versa. The Newport half marathon was in September of 2006 and when we finished it we liked it so much that we decided to try for a full marathon. So we went online and found that the Philly marathon was held in November. It gave us about 6 weeks to keep on training and we did it! That run was a whole different story so I won’t go into it but I’ll say that there’s no way I would even be remotely interested in running if it weren’t for my wife. It therefore was more than fitting that she accompany me to finish line of the ultra. It surprised me because we didn’t plan this. We didn’t want to make Steve and Laura babysit while she and I were running. I’m grateful to all of them for this. The fact that I didn’t expect it made it even more memorable.
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Trudging on and on… the last five miles… my consciousness altered. Liz was making every attempt to cater to me… “Do you want me to coach you? Or should I try to talk about something to get your mind off the pain?” She asked. “Don’t coach me. Let’s just talk.” I said. We spoke about moving out of our house and buying a new, bigger house. And how we wanted a yard for the kids to play in. Occasionally I would want to walk but we would try to start jogging again. There was one point when Liz ran a little bit in front of me and I asked her to run by my side. I didn’t want to get those feelings I got as a kid running behind my sisters… Also, I think I was afraid that if I ran too fast I wouldn’t finish. This sounds kind of ridiculous considering I’d just run 45 miles. But that was my fear the whole way… I had to finish. I told everyone in my life about this. I posted and posted and posted about it on Facebook and Twitter. I raised almost $3000 dollars for the women of Congo. I blogged (and still am blogging…). I spoke to Lisa Shannon myself and told her and everyone on that conference call that I was running 50 miles for Congo. She called me a “rock star.” She told everyone on the call to cheer me on… Finishing was the goal. I was going to make it happen and that was final. I didn’t want to jeopardize it in any way.

The last aid station was at around mile 47. There were two older gentlemen there, one manning the station and another walking away from it. I stopped for a second and grabbed some Coke. I thanked the man for working the station. He said, “Well you’re doing all the work today!” We kept on going. As we passed the other gentleman he looked at me smiling and shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he saw in the runners that day. I wasn’t sure if it was a “Fantastic job” smile or a “You’re out of your mind” smile. Either way I smiled back. I kept going. Liz began texting people on her phone… We were going slow enough for her to do so while she “ran.” Friends of ours texted words of encouragement. “GO DAN!!!” It lifted my spirits. It was great.

What happened next I will never forget…

On and on we went, slowly, slowly, slowly… Liz was reading off the texts and we kept on making small talk, walking and hobbling, walking and jogging. We hit mile 49 when Liz received a text from our friend Yvonne. She read it off to me, “Thanks to Dan’s run three women in Congo have been sponsored.”

My chest heaved in rapid pulsating motions… before I knew it I was sobbing uncontrollably. Immediately I covered my eyes with my left hand and with my right I grabbed Liz’ shoulder. I hunched over like I had been punched in the belly. For a few moments I lost any ability to stop the sobs. And after another few short seconds I regained my composure. There was only one other time in my life when this happened to me. It was when my mother was in the hospital and I was unclear with what was going on. She was having heart problems and the doctors were unsure of what was causing it. A few short conversations with my sister lead me to believe Mom could be dying. I called my cousin to tell him what was happening and I totally lost control of my feelings. I was alone, on a cell phone in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot.

Liz looked at me perplexed. The burst of emotion was totally unexpected. I don’t talk about Congo to people very much (Liz included) because its so incredibly hard to digest. What happens to these people, these families is beyond horrific. Most of the time when you begin to tell the stories people shudder and close their eyes. They don’t want to hear about it. I get this. I know this. I have lived this. Usually they ask me to stop talking and I comply. My approach has been to run for Congo. Its been more about the action than the talk. I have posted articles about what I’ve learned on my website. I figure the run may intrigue people to investigate it for themselves. People may find themselves saying, “What on earth would make someone run 50 miles?” They may take a look at what I saw when I got into this and it may spark something in them.
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Lisa’s book “A Thousand Sisters” was the real eye opener for me. Lisa left her life in Seattle, Washington to live in Congo amongst the displaced. That is where she met Generose whom I’ve mentioned before. Lisa is Generose’s sponsor. Her story is sadly one of thousands of horrific stories of murdered fathers and children and raped women and girls. It is estimated that between 5.4 and 7 million people have died in Congo in the past decade. Half of who are under the age of 5.

Congo is referred to as the rape capital of the world. Various militia in Congo invade towns, kill the men and rape the women to claim absolute dominance over what they loot and pillage. They kidnap young boys, many who aren’t even teen agers yet, and turn them into soldiers by making them kill at gun point.

In “A Thousand Sisters” Lisa interviews many of the displaced women and children. She hears story after story of the atrocities... Children who’ve witnessed their parents being murdered and then cut into pieces with machetes. Young girls who’ve been raped by 5 and 6 men at a time. Victims who’ve had their eyes cut out and noses cut off. She had women beg her not to leave them because they would just be raped again if they went back to their homes. She visited a fistula ward.

Fistula is normally a rare condition that females get at birth when the vaginal wall is broken so that it connects with the colon. Various militia in Congo inflict this condition on their victims by using tree branches, bottles and guns. It is almost incurable. The victims are unable to have children. There is constant uncontrollable leakage of urine and feces. I remember Lisa describing the distinct smell while going into the ward and how difficult it was to face these women. These rapes are executed in a systematic fashion. They are designed to annihilate the enemy so that there is no chance of any future resistance.

Corruption runs rampant in Congo and the surrounding areas. Reading Lisa’s book I found it hard to keep track of who was attacking who. One of the chapters refers to Congo as the “end of logic”. The Congolese army gets involved and recently there have been accounts of even UN troops participating in the rapes.

I remember reading a book in the late 1990’s called “We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families.” It was one reporter’s account of the genocide in Rwanda. I read half of that book and put it down. I’d had enough. It was another account of these horrific stories. At that point there were 800,000 murders recorded in Rwanda. The conflict was between the Tutsis and Hutu tribes. Since then the conflict has spilled over into Congo and we are still seeing the perpetuation of mass killing but the numbers have escalated into the millions. I put that book down. I stopped thinking about it. Here I am 10 years later doing something.

So what in God’s name is causing this and why doesn’t anyone stop it?..

Congo is very rich in resources (timber, diamonds, gold, coltan and cassiterite {tin ore}). It lacks governing stability. To resolve the problem we must look at its source, not at its result. The result is what I’ve just spelled out. The source???... a bit more disturbing if you can believe that. From what I’ve gathered (and I don’t claim to be an expert on this stuff so please feel free to check what I’ve written – I’m open to being corrected on any of this), an unstable Congo, rich in resources, allows other countries to pillage and profit. On the small scale, I’ve read accounts that local police are given a quota to meet to keep their job, meaning they are required to bring back a certain amount of value from the locals or they will lose their way of life. Rape is a very acceptable means to instill terror and get what is needed. On a grander scale we, the American consumer benefit off of the exploitation of Congo. Coltan for example is used in our cell phones. 80% of the world’s Coltan comes from Congo. It is attained illegally by these militia and eventually sold to major corporations. As I write this I’m not asking you the reader to do anything but to think of this when you use your cell phone. That’s all I will request of you. Just think about it when you use your cell phone.

Still more to come…