Before the sun rose, a few us gathered inside Cavitt Middle School's crammed gym. Having Ray Sanchez fresh off his Europe 135 win in Germany was a treat. Add to it our good friends Jimmy Dean and Kate Freeman, Mary Kososki were on hand to crew for Stan Kososki. Loads of friends made for lots of early AM laughs. As we huddled outside, Ken McKee was poised to run his first 100 and we were honored to run with Be Change. With all the Good Vibe Mojo, surely it would be the best day everFailing to finish is not the final entry in the ledger. Failure is not final, but instead, its a time to reassess, adjust and line up at the start again. Remember being in elementary school? I used to play two-square. When I was put out, I hollered, “DO OVER!”
Some things never change. Some things are worth chasing.
I don't like falling short of a given and stated goal. At times, there are outside forces that impale a goal. They gut it. In that moment, it doesn’t matter how hard one is willing to push, sometimes other circumstance decide when it’s over.
Over the course of any Ultra Race, pain is a given. You embrace it and know “that things will never keep getting worse.” As phonetically flawed as that former statement is, it remains true. When running far your mind has to be focused on the fact that at some point the low will pass. Amidst the valleys of emotional lows and physical canyons, there are glimmers of hope. Even a streak or a splinter of relief, the mind has to believe things get better; even when better lasts only 2 or 3 steps. Sometimes it’s those steps that matter most.
Less than a year ago, I emerged from six months in a boot cast that mended a broken tibia. Broken nearly 2/3 of the way to the bone, recovery was tedious and slow. When it came off in October, I set an internal goal that I shared with only a few people. I wanted to get back to 100 mile distance within a year of the cast coming off. Here is where it gets sticky. My body failed and I don’t do well with meltdown. I hate coming up short. I despise missing the mark. It eats at me like a cancer and becomes the internal fire the consumes me. I will not allow a trail run to be the guerilla on my back for the next year.
Not even close.
Instead, I must take the internal assessments to figure out what went wrong and if human error was involved, how can I avoid it next time? If it was not human error, what circumstances can I mitigate to avoid this again? What jacks me up is that I had never experienced theses ailments before. I have run in blistering heat (Extra Mile 100 in topping 108 degrees in 29 hours). Pacing at Badwater was brutal. Saturday didn’t seem super hot. But the wheels came off the wagon early.
By mile 17/18, I had such horrendous cramping that I was reduced to a power walk and with an occasional light jogs. It started before Cardiac Hill which only made the mind battle worse. Gordon Ainsleigh was near me for the entire hill and I wanted to emerge with him from the canyon. By the crest, I fell for the first time. Come over a knoll with a slight down hill, my left leg completely paralyzed. Seized with cramping from my hip to my toes, I landed straight legged. Jamming my hip, I over compensated and tumbled. After a brief roll, I laid thinking, I am in the battle. I arrived at mile 20ish at the Auburn Dam Overlook 12 min behind schedule. Still on pace to break 24 hours, forward was the only option.
I dropped into the canyon and crossed over No Hands Bridge. It took nearly an hour to cover the four miles. This horrible pace brought to the surface my second issues, time.
Falling back even further on time, I headed up K2. I had told a lady who dropped out at the top or Cardiac that K2 was worse. I was simply stating the obvious. Brutally steep and completely exposed to the sun, K2 was the first time I felt the day’s heat. Again, I had felt worse. I noticed I was not sweating. Arriving at Cool Fire Station, Michelle and the team were on it. Focused and faithful they had everything laid out. Jimmy Dean Freeman (JDF) was crewing his brother-in-law and had stuck around to check on me. As I was coming into the Cool Station, Stan was too. He had already done the seven mile Olmsted Loop of rolling hills. They offered me everything they could. Jimmy looked at me and said two profound things: 1) “Jason, it may not be an electrolyte issue.”
He was right. I had a balanced electrolyte issue at that point but severely dehydrated and unable to get more water/Heed mixture into me. If I were to guess based on my weight at the hospital, I would guess I was down 5-6% at this point.
2) “Keep fighting and know, if embraced, “pain is part of the process.”
I have always run with that mind set. To push and throttle to see where the brink and edge is at is a life time struggle of min. To pull out had not crossed my mind. Maybe that is delusional insanity. To me, the race places two contingencies for runners. The first is the medic. They can assess and determine best direction. Second, the clock. If I get pulled because I miss a deadline cut-off and I have gone as hard as physically possible, then its over. But to pull out, just because…I am not sure how that one sits with me. If I signed up for the pain and the punishment, I don’t blush from it when it arrives to greet me.
As I headed out to conquer Olmsted, JDF’s words rolled in my head and I came to a conclusion that I had two massive problems.
PROBLEM #1
The problem was throttle management. If I moved to hard or set a pace that was to fast, my quads and calves seized. I seized. The solution was to down shift my pace that at least allowed me to keep moving forward.
PROBLEM #2
When the pace was slightly above a power walk, I was now racing against cut-off times. The race was slipping through my fingers and throttling faster was not an option. A guerilla sat perched on my shoulder and I was forced to fight to make each time cut-off and the next aid station.
(A Timed-Cut Off is a mercy rule. Essentially, when you hit the first timed-cut off, it is kind and compassionate way for the Race Director to say "if it has taking you this long to get to this check point, the chances of you finishing under the official cut off is nearly impossible.” The Cut-Off is a safety mechanism to protect runners who are stubborn plodders.)
Because of seized muscles that caused a crippling affect, all the team, crew, and runner can do is seek the source and address it on a checklist. Jimmy Dean Freeman was masterful at this. In patient and kind words, yet with the intensity of Marine Drill Instructor, he methodically worked together with Michelle and her crew to cover every possible cause. Once potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, and overall electrolyte intake had been covered and checked, the only option is to keep moving forward...one step and then one step.
With sniper’s focus, I consumed 22-28oz per hour. More would have caused bloating and more. Slush Gut sucks. I was not taking water only but a 2:1 Ratio of Pedialite. At other times, I HEED and Hammer Gel, while throwing down 4-6 Endurolytes.
Long story short, I hit the 44 M Aid Station Check Point having just made the climb back to Auburn. Things were bad. Severe nausea and a second tumble, I emerged out of the canyon looking like a beaten and bruised soldier. From No Hands back up to Auburn Dam Overlook took an additional 1:20 minutes. Frequent pauses after steep bursts of climbing, I tried to remedy the cramping legs. As I crested, I saw my two kids standing there jumping up and down as if I had just won the race. To them it wasn’t about anything other than, “that’s my daddy.”
Siah spoke first as my daughter looked on with her analytical assessments. “Daddy don’t quit. Harper’s NEVER quit.” His 9-year-old emphasis on ‘NEVER’ brought long restrained tears to my eyes. All I could say was, “I am sorry I didn’t do better.”
Both walking on each side of me, just held my hands the last 100 feet to the check-in.
I had missed the Cut-Off by 20 minutes. It was 7:20 PM.
PART 2: “This is Auburn Dam Overlook Medic calling Dispatch: I need an ambulance at ADO. Runner # 17 is down; just revived from being briefly passed out and low blood pressure. I need an ambulance now! Mr. Harper, can you hear me?” -Recounted by Lynette Harper who got to Jason first and summonsed the Medic
