Recently, I ran a 100-mile race with one of my best friends. We met in college over 20 years ago and have remained close ever since. Now that it’s been a while, beyond post-race endorphins, I can truly say that it was the privilege of a lifetime and an experience I know will bond us closer for the rest of our lives.
We hatched the idea about 18 months prior when we were volunteering for a local 100-mile race, The Bear 100. One can gain a lot of insight by volunteering for multiple hours of an ultramarathon, especially through the night of a 100-mile race. We watched how the faster runners managed themselves, and what happened to runners at 3 a.m. when they get too comfortable next to the fire (they almost always stay too long). My friend said to me, “I don’t think I would ever want to do this, or if I did, only with you, as in, with you,” as she took my hand and smiled at me. “Well,” I said, “I know of a race.” And so, we committed to training for the Scout Mountain 100 in Idaho.
While I have quite a bit of experience between coaching ultrarunning and racing, she is a lot newer to the sport. She had run a 50-mile trail race many years prior and this was the extent of her ultra racing. She has four young kids, while mine are mostly grown and independent. In short, we brought different skillsets and challenges to the training mix. We did a few of our long runs together, and she was a sponge for knowledge. I would learn things from her as well, things she would read or pick up from a podcast. When it came time to taper, we had the “What if one of us can’t keep going and needs to DNF,” conversation. That outcome would alter the entire goal of the race: to do it together from start to finish, carry each other through the lows and laugh and smile through the high points. To move forward without the other one seemed antithetical, but of course, we didn’t want to hold the other back from finishing if one of our bodies gave the hard “no” sign.
Finally, race day came, starting at noon on a Friday. We moved easy and took every chance to cool ourselves in the creeks we crossed. She ran ahead of me somewhere around mile 20 on a cruiser downhill. Eventually she slowed and waited for me, and I asked, “Did that feel like an effort you could maintain for 24 more hours? Because, we are going to be doing this for at least that much longer.” She said she had no way of comprehending what that was like, but we eased off the gas pedal a little bit just before our crew met us for the first time at dusk.
It was endless conversation, exceptional views, a surprise appearance from her brother and another good friend at the next aid station as we headed into the dark of night. Just before the aid station at the halfway point, my friend needed our crew to address some of her blisters. She shook in pain as he fixed her feet and later, she admitted she was sure her race was going to be over. She could not imagine covering 50 more miles after being in such excruciating pain. But with a change of shoes and some expertise blister taping, we were off. She had never been awake all night while keeping herself moving along a trail. I had told her in advance this would probably be the hardest part, but when the dawn comes, it’s exhilarating. You get a new energy you wouldn’t think was possible at 3 a.m. when doubts are screaming in your mind. As I watched the sunrise and her hiking toward the horizon with her arms up and a beautiful smile on her face, I couldn’t resist saying, “See, I told you so!”
We marched through the next morning and all of the next day. The lows started to get lower. As the course runs, the 75-mile aid station is only a half-mile from the finish line. When she realized that and looked up at the last climb that would take us in the opposite direction, she said that was when she had to dig the deepest. The thought of the stubbornness of her dad who had passed away just over a year ago kept her going. We walked away from the direction of the finish line knowing it would be many hours, about 6,000 more feet and the most technical sections of the course before we would return. Our crew (my partner) became our pacer, and we summited the highest point of the course—a peak a little over 9,000 feet in elevation. Our lows continued to plummet. In fact, I wasn’t sure we should leave the 85-mile aid station because my friend’s mental acuity was all but absent. For example, when I asked her to tell me her oldest daughter’s name, she initially got it wrong. Some calories and caffeine got her going again, only for me to overload myself on electrolytes a few miles later. I turned to her, begging in tears for plain water, which she gladly provided. Miraculously, our lows never overlapped. We were able to take care of each other and kept our team of two moving steadily up the trail.
As we neared the finish, her family was there cheering her on with homemade signs and genuine excitement. We crossed the finish line, hand-in-hand just as we had done when we made the pact to start the journey many months ago. “We did it! We really did it!” as we hugged. We had a short conversation under the finish line banner discussing both of our doubts about her body being able to do what we asked it to do. On paper, her training was arguably inadequate. She did her best, but she was limited by time. However, I’m convinced her years of strength training are what allowed her to have the durability she needed. And she is mentally as tough as an ox.
My partner, who is very math-minded, stated that we could only have been the sum of our lowest and slowest moments. But aside from finishing in the allotted time, we never established a time goal. In those 34.5 hours, we were much more than the sum of our lowest moments and we were united in a shared vision and experience. We agreed to be vulnerable and to take the best care of each other that we could. All of that played out, and not exactly how we expected it would. Races never go as we anticipate they will, and the surprise and joy that comes from the unexpected is, I believe, one of the reasons that draws us to trail and ultramarathons. My heart reached the finish line more content than I ever anticipated it could, and this is a memory that will forever bring a smile to my face.