The 12 Hour Race
To be fair, it's not going to make sense to me in a couple of weeks (or hours?) time either. But therein lays its value, perhaps. Thoughts from someplace beyond ego, recorded, before I compose myself and put the wall up again.
Effort has been put into examining how this ultra running experience actually feels to me but not much into how it's going to be for you, sat there delving through it all in an effort to discover what it's like to run an ultra marathon.
No, mistake, not AN ultra marathon, for they're all different. THIS ultra marathon, in Ontario, Canada.
I’ll appear contradictory. Contradiction is forward movement. Show me a person who has the same point of view 2 weeks on the trot and I show you a person who is stuck, likely rigid with fear. When I’m running the time frame of change is even shorter. If I finish a race the same man as when I started I’d see that as a huge failure.
“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
I’ve been reading Samuel Beckett recently. His book ‘The Unnamable’ could have been written just for me. And you, probably. That’s one of the signs of a great book. Same as a great yoga teacher. You feel that they’re speaking the exact words you need to hear. Like the author or teacher had peeked at your social media feed and worked out what you want. When really they’re simply peering into the same well as everybody is. Beckett - and my yoga teacher for that matter - was trying to work out what being alive was all about with the sort of honesty that only one who truly loves can offer up. Maybe that's where I am now, too. Running through this forest, using this 12 hour race as a meditation of sorts. Just trying to reach out honestly. Not looking to earn from you.
That simple sentence about ‘going on’, spoken from a dual perspective, strikes my core as I fall forward into the forest, seeking not so much to clock another lap on the race board but to offer myself a chance to exist in the only meaningful way I can think to reach for.
My legs would ache like hell only I’m trying to stay away from the well marked metaphors and all of a sudden they don’t ache, they just are. Which perhaps means that before now they weren’t. Maybe that’s why I run, to start to become something. Out of the slime I slither to some sort of fragile place that’s stable enough for me to brace as I pull on my running shoes. I fall back in during the week, barely keeping above the surface of the world of ‘stuff we do and say in order to function’, but every so often I make the effort to start to become. Not waving but evoluting?
***
The question that lunchtime posed has come and gone unanswered. I’m hungry but can’t eat. My stomach is sore and the blood that would power it even if it wasn’t is busy taking oxygen to my legs. I’ve been running since 8am, it’s now much later.
“You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” Only when I no longer have the mental capability to start the thought pattern of that sentence will it be right for me not to attempt to finish it.
I understand that fully. I also understand that next month I may understand something seemingly contradictory. This state of mind is not only allright but a mark of sanity, clarity, and bravery.
Recently I left England to live in Canada and then in turn I left my job to live more honestly. I have no solid idea of where I’m going but the process of finding out requires that I question the value of everything and do so in as critical and logical manner as possible.
Comparisons to a butterfly trying to work out what to make itself from as it turns from caterpillar to caterpillar soup to butterfly may come and must be considered. Yes, unoriginal. Yet still, true enough. What am I transforming from, to what must I aim, and which of my attributes should I take with me? For this is not butterfly evolution that might happen over a period of millennia that we’re talking about but a lifestyle change that has to happen in a matter of months. It’s all going to end at the grave, sure, but if I want the remaining years to be half decent then leaving it all to chance and carrying the same old bags as before doesn’t sound like a good plan for me at the moment.
The forest that cradles me displays a fair face. Late afternoon light turns the left side of the track into a backlit haze of delicate ferns, branches and leaf veins whilst on the right iridescent pea green leaves crown lowing trees against a deep blue, cloudless sky. This place is like so many conservation areas in Ontario and is as beautiful as any landscape in the world. I don’t yearn to be anywhere else like, say, running across a high mountain ridge with snowy peaks beyond, which is a scene we see so often in the running magazines. I’ve already spent many years putting myself into the mountains, deserts, hills, savannas and forests of the world and where once the scenes were distinct now the difference between them all is near zero. The change came when I stopped looking at them as if I were viewing a photo and started to step outside myself. And there I am, a little pulse of life simply moving across an earth that’s manifesting itself in this way or that. Cool.
I think of the earth now like I think of my girlfriend. If I want to I can get picky and see changes in her pre or post coffee, or pre or post shower and make up session, or pre and post stressful work day, but that’s only if I want to see such differences and the only reason I’d want to see them is if I was obsessed with the surface appearance of things. Which I was at 25, maybe even 45, but not now. Nowadays she - and the earth - is just right no matter their current incarnation. Bed hair or savannah, well groomed or rainforest, all the same. I dig her and the earth’s need to express themselves in varying ways but for me I’m happy with whatever they do. And beside them I am just here, pulsing away, feeling allright. Sometimes obsessed with evoluting into something better, sometimes content with just being.
I slow to a walk, pull paper and pen from my waistband and scribble ‘Baptism’. It’s hard to make the pen work as the paper is damp from the sweat but if I don’t jot things down I forget them. So much comes to me as I’m running, so much I want to remember and work our further. I write single words, just as triggers that’ll later take me back to this moment, this feeling.
Baptism. I’ve been an asshole in life so often. Regrets? There are so many, and be sure, too many to mention. Frank Sinatra I’m not. Neither was Frank Sinatra. Somehow the feeling of putting miles under my feet in nature feels like I’m also putting space between me and what I was for most of my life. The sense of waste grow less prominent, whilst the peace that comes with at least trying to create a meaningful life gains ground.
I have shed tears often today when alone (alone? I still have one foot in the regular camp that requests I keep such show of emotion to myself). The curve of the track and my huge running sunglasses work together to offer solitude. I cry not with pain or joy but with the beginning of understanding. With each ultra run I’m moving a little from the centre stage position that modern society insists we all take (you are an individual!! Follow your own heart!!) towards a more communal existence. Not communal as in with just other humans but with all life. I’m gradually ceasing to think of myself as the large engine or system around which a great many things revolve. Instead I’m more and more a particle of energy. The equivalent, perhaps, of a single cell bacteria on the body of a larger organism, asking myself what my part is in all this and how can I best act it out.
Time catches me up, passes me by, I let it go. I don’t feel bored. There is so much to think of and remember and learn from. Now, at this moment, I remember myself as I was 16 years ago, in hospital recovering from a ruptured spleen and in the process of having blinkers eased away from my mind. There I began to at last look upon every act as if it were my last. The walk to the bathroom that a few weeks earlier had taken 2 minutes and now took 20 allowed time to examine each step, each breath. The long hours in bed, studying the sweat trickling down my chest. From whence, to where? Feeling the IV needle probing for a welcoming vein, thinking this is not pain but merely sensation, and what a revelation that is.
My feet moving over the dry ground seem magical, wondrous. I realise fully that I’m here. I look at my red fingers, puffy and dripping sweat. The bases of passing tree trunks phase out, in, trees that are not me and therefore add in some way to defining my being. Once I wasn’t here and now I am and soon enough I’ll be gone and on other days that troubles me but not now. Now it’s all part of the bargain we probably didn’t make but have to live with regardless.
All this is a bit heavy but what did you think we ultra runners who aren't trying to win a race think of when we’re on the move for hours and hours, miles and miles? The ideal Man Utd team sheet? Our favourite pizza? Of course, you hear runners talking about thinking those things but they're just saying it I reckon, for the media or the bravado. That’s the stuff that makes certain people stand out in our society and gives them the fame they need to make a living and feel some sense of self worth. I understand, it’s cool for them if this is their avenue of advancement or even a method of survival. But it’s not the reality of it. Instead there are large sections of time during any ultra race given over to just trying to observe, to keep yourself together, and of feeling happy that you’ve found a place where for a few hours you don’t feel depressed, foolish or lost, where questions flow and answers present themselves, albeit often in metaphor.
I wasn’t always a runner but I’ve always been a fragile, or sensitive, character and that has led me to seek refuge and understanding in the long periods of time alone that running offers. I didn’t realise that until I noticed myself running harder and longer after the serial cheating of an ex partner came to light a few years ago, and then even more so after my dad died recently and I looked from his body laid out in the coffin to his single photo album and saw a version - his curated version - of a life laid out before me. How quickly I turned through those pages, 20 minutes cover to cover, this was a life, his life! And my life will be something very similar, too.
These are not just words, if they were there’d be no running necessary. We could just say smart stuff to each other and nod and admire and back slap. But no, the turning of pages, the ending already written, this is my fate too and in order to truly feel the reality of that within the space that is beyond fooling, I run. At the moment.
If I was really smart then maybe I’d just meditate on this great truth in a quiet room, or by the lakeshore, instead of running for hours through the forest. I’d save a fortune in running shoes. I probably shall do just that quite soon.
The ups and downs, the good choices and the bad. The people we get on with and those we don’t. Those we please and those we hurt. Crabs in a basket pulling each other back from the brink of escape or monkeys dropping down a helping hand from the branch above. There’s not much space between it all. My ex partner and her family, the folks at my work, all the betrayals I’ve felt and inflicted. I started to run in a cowardly way just to get away from it all but the time alone made my steps braver. The silence of the forest that greets a trail runner tells us that we’re all facing questions of how best to face life and death, even if we chose to turn our face from the issues. And when you look at it that way the things you once found an affront seem pretty understandable really.
Most days I can happily dangle my toes into the void and mull over the reality of my own mortality but working out how to make the most of the life that’s left to me is another beast, and continuing to run ultra distances like this helps me circle it. True knowledge, I have come to believe, can't be found in any one person or thing but is instead born within the relationships we create among us, the other animals and the nature within we all exist. To run in the forest for this long is like sitting in class, learning from all that passes about me.
What it is that gives my life meaning? This question does not last long in my everyday life. I shrug it off, shroud it in lesser matters. The rent has to be paid. A job has to be found which will give me time to visit my Mum in England. Sort all that first, I usually say, then worry about meaning. And since the rent is never really paid and the job situation never really sorted then the big questions go unanswered. But not here, not today. Here the forest demands the very opposite of the city.
So what gives my existence meaning? What makes me happy? I might say cooking, running in nature, trying to be the best son, brother and partner I can, learning, creating, engaging in stimulating conversation, spending time with my partner.
She handles it well; it can be unnerving, after all, to come to terms with being meaningful to somebody else’s existence. Our society ensures such a statement carries baggage. Shouldn’t I be finding much more meaning in work, sports or God? Maybe. And maybe tomorrow I shall. But today my partner, as my significant other, adds the greatest meaning to my life. ‘As my significant other’ is the key phrase here. We each have a position of ‘significant other’ to fill. We interview for it when we go on dates. Then we choose and invest ourselves. Invariably we invest badly now and again but regardless of our partner we put no less of ourselves into the exchange. Luckily I invested wisely this time around but had I not I’d still be looking at her for meaning. For ‘my significant other’ is no less than the loop that plugs me back into where I came from. If I don’t invest in her, I don’t invest in myself.
I approach the open field that holds the race start line and the huge timing clock, see that I’ve many hours left to run before the 12 hour time limit is up. I feel worn out, that I can’t go on. My soul tells me that it hurts deeply. I’ve been thinking some heavy stuff out there most of the day and it’s taking a toll. The usual pain scale of 1 to 10 is no help because this is not a physical pain. Here we go again. Samuel Beckett appears dressed in a saffron robe and, upbeat for once, smiles,
“Life is about suffering? Then ultra running is life!”
“How many kms have I done?” I ask the lap counter. “I think I’ll quit, my legs are gone.” I don’t believe what I’ve just said and perhaps he doesn’t either. With good reason, as whilst it may be what my body and soul wants it’s not true at all.
“Umm, let me check.” He glances between his 3 laptop screens, scrolls the third screen down and says, “number 390, Dave Wise? You’ve done 9 laps.”
I hunch over, trying to stretch my back and hamstrings out. Each lap is 8.33kms. I’m not fast at maths so I ignore the .33 and make the simpler calculation.
“9 times 8, that’s 72. I’ve done just over 72 kms on these trails. It’s enough.”
“If you can make that calculation,” the timer suggests, “I reckon you’ve enough glucose in your brain to keep going, don’t you?”
I hesitate to answer, then nod. His encouragement is what I needed and what I asked for. A little push. I may not be able to go on but I must go on. I have more to do here today.
I walk away and lay in the shade of the tent where I’ve been keeping my drinks. Taking off my shirt I press my core down into my lower back and stretch out my neck, grounding myself in the cool grass. It’s time to take 10 minutes out.
I want to rest completely but my mind isn’t having any of that. I manage to steer it off running and the forest but in it’s manicness it turns to Othello, the Shakespeare play I’m due to see tomorrow at the Stratford Festival here in Ontario. Ok, I may as well go with it. Why not, I enjoy thinking. As the timer guy just said I’ve got the glucose left. I may as well let it do what it will all the time I don’t know how to harness it as well as some do.
I’m unsure what character in a Shakespeare play the lap counter guy would be. Yorick, maybe, or Feste. Both are inspiring and (almost) straightforward, as he is. Whoever he is though he's just seen off the Iago who lives in my head, and who’s been very vocal for the past hour. The jump from ultra running to Shakespeare may seem huge but in reality it’s pretty small.
“You can’t do any more Dave,” the poisonous voice had nagged at me. It had sounded kind of like Iago, the character who causes Othello to question himself and self destruct. “Quit now. Who cares! Yes, you wanted to leave everything out on the trails, and there are questions to be answered still, but who’s to know what leaving everything out there REALLY means?! And questions, ha! You overthink everything and by overthinking it you underthink it! Life is far simpler than you give it credit for. You’ve got to give up getting stuck on the hard stuff, because beyond all that it's really easy! We’ve seen top runners being stretchered away from finish lines, right? And others still standing upright? Wouldn't both say they’ve given their best? Is one of them wrong? No! So it’s all relative, right?"
"You can fool yourself, I can help you with that. You promised yourself you’d do your best to find meaning but what are promises and honour if not the acceptable faces of vanity and ambition, and you know how you want to get away from those aspects of your personality! Be the bigger man, see the overall picture and quit. Nothing is worth achieving if you think about it hard enough. Lay down, put your feet up, have a slice of cheese pizza. It’s waiting for you at the aid station. You’re vegan, sure, but who’s looking! You deserve it. You’ve been running for so many hours and you’ve already got a respectable placing, and this is the Canadian Championships don’t forget!! Have you any idea of how many people in the world can even contemplate doing that, at your age? Just feel grateful with what you’ve achieved so far!”
But Iago was wrong and Yorick is right - I can run a little more. I’m not a fool of high quality, sadly, but at least I can face the void and see the true madness of settling for my old selfs idea of normality. I can run a little more, I must run a little more. It is what I came here for.
Such gifts as an ultra marathon offers us are not to be given up in the face of mere exhaustion. For it's through the mouthpiece of exhaustion that some of the best questions are asked.
“Can you persist, Dave, do you have courage?” the growing discomfort asks. “Can you perform at your best under pressure, and address these questions with a passion, despite understanding their apparent redundancy in the world you inhabit? For if you can do so, if you can hold this conundrum in an imaginary hand like a snowglobe at a time when you can barely lift your physical hand to wipe the sweat from your eyes, then you’re in good shape to be of service to the modern world. And that is part of what today is about. Learning to be better than you were, so that you might best offer your community something useful. For if your efforts aren't aimed towards that simple goal, what is the point of you in this modern world?”
I’m not going to tell you that I either fully believe or understand all these thoughts I’ve been jotting down but I will say that I want to. I want to become the man to whom these observations belong. I want these words to give birth to the man they suggest. In the beginning was the word, no?
***
Whenever I ask my partner how she’d like me to cook the potatoes for dinner she says,
“Anyway you like love, I’ve never met a potato I didn’t like!” I feel a similar way about ultra runners.
Out on the course we get to know each other in some of our most authentic, vulnerable moments and bonds forged during these times carry weight. Most of the older ones have gone through the mill in one way or another and their smiles are all the kinder for it. Most of those I run with have thought about meaning, they’ve tried to work out what’s important in life. They might not give it to me straight very often - that's not the culture here - but they’re not going to throw me under the bus, either.
I stick out a blind hand, fumble around in my kit bag, pull out a sports bottle, raise my head and take a deep drink of pineapple juice, water and chia seed. I can’t eat. My insides have been working hard all day on the dual job of digesting food and getting the fuel to my muscles (and all whilst being bounced up and down as I move around the course - not easy!) and now they’re on strike. Yet I need calories, and pineapple juice and chia seed have plenty of those, so this drink is my go to when I can’t take solids but need to fuel.
I walk away from the timing mats and begin another lap of the forest. I can do this. It’s a warm 22C, about 70% of the route is in the shade, there’s still a few runners out to chat to if needed, and there’s all those questions of the soul to be mulled over, too. I’ve around 3 hours until cut off to do 8.33kms. School’s in, let’s buckle up and throw myself at this last loop.
My legs won’t work very well during these first steps. I give myself a talking to, out loud. I slap my fist into my palm to ignite my passion then feel embarrassed and angry because I know it was just for show, as much for the spectators and my conscious mind as it was for me. I remind myself that this isn’t a game any more, or even merely sport. It’s not like it used to be. This time it’s serious, this is my chance to be who I want and need to be.
“But even recording the moment as you’re doing in writing is a sort of performance, no? Eliciting pity and perhaps admiration for your stoicism?”
Go to hell, Iago. You’re redundant. As you say, we can move beyond complications to the simple stuff, and there the basic truths can’t settle on a cosy bed of false modesty or humour. There’s no room for acting as if I’m a divided entity any more. That’s kid’s stuff and it’s time to put it to one side.
I start to run a little more freely. I know I’ve no excuse not to. This isn’t a 24 hour race, it’s just the longest race of the season so far and I haven’t toughened up yet. I adjust my form without thinking. I’ve been running for many years and have put more than my 10,000 hours in so I’m able to run to the best of my ability most days without thinking too much about it, except when I become aware of how weak my conscious mind is feeling at which point I play some trick on myself, like I did back there at the timer’s tent. I didn’t actually intend to quit, it was just my conscious self being weak. So what I needed was to complain a little and have somebody gee me up again, hence I engineered the conversation with the timing guy, a volunteer, who are always cheery and encouraging. The games we play on ourselves in order to do our best are sometimes mind benders. Fascinating stuff.
Doing laps becomes more interesting the longer you stay on the track. I enjoy the challenge of exploring my senses as I run, and also trying to notice the changes of any landscape as the day goes on. This morning we’d started to run at 8. The pine forest had been cool, clean and clear in it’s smell and light. A few mosquitoes in parts, some distant birdsong. Just as I’d expected to be.
I’m not good at identifying animals or birds but I could tell that as the day progressed the sounds started to change. Mid morning the horn of a distant freight train cut through chirping crickets and afterwards, well, it was either a distant dog’s kennel that’d been raised into life or there was a wolf pack a half mile away, howling.
I told myself it was wolves, I enjoyed the thought of being in the woods with them, of being in a more primal, honest situation than life so often seems to be. Maybe speaking to each other in cliches stripped of any feeling as we often do at work is needed in order to function in a society that seems increasingly alien to one not obsessed with chasing money or obvious status. But it feels invigorating to shrug off the robotic banality now and again and just be yourself. Running on a warm day, minimum of clothes on, imagining there’s wolves just around the corner, asking questions of my own internal courage, brilliant. This was exactly what I wanted to be doing on a sunny Saturday in rural Ontario.
Despite this I wasn’t the best companion to those I ran alongside. A few people had asked how it was going. I’d said something cheery and bland, like,
“Great, mossies are a bit tricky but otherwise fine. You?” although I really wanted to shout excitedly,
“Brilliant! Being in the forest with the wolves, how good is that!”
But I’m from England, the home of derogatory sarcasm, and since I’ve only started noticing recently how being around that desperate form of humour for so long has stunted me into relative mundanity I’ve yet to overcome the fear of what it produces. It's irrational I know because I'm surrounded by trail runners who are generally strong characters and not the sort to pull you down just so they could feel better about themselves. Yet caution is still my default. If I’d have thought such homely thoughts about wolves, or any wild animals, back in my hometown the mocking comeback would likely be,
“Ha, well, you won’t like being around wolves so much when they surround you and tear you to pieces…so you’re stupid for talking that way!”
And so much of the morning passed without me really offering anything real to others out of a fear born in my distant past. I felt a fraud because of it yet gave myself a break because I knew that on the scale of all the things happening today during the race it didn't really matter. Contradiction is the companion of the tired mind.
I began playing games with Steve, another runner who I figured was in my age group (it was hard to tell though, many ultra runners look a few years younger than their actual age due to their extreme fitness and tans). For 5 minutes it was like the old days, I slipped into racing hard in body and mind. But it all fell flat before I’d chance to breathe real life in the thoughts and I let him go. The last I saw of him for a few hours was as he stopped at an aid station up ahead and pulled his own water cup from his waistbelt.
“Good for him,” I’d thought. “I wish I’d have thought of doing that. Save using those plastic cups.”
Years ago I’d figure out in the first few miles an opponent most likely to beat me in the little race within a race that people’s own abilities confine them to. In my case, I was mostly finishing in the top 5%, so I’d be looking at beating similar runners. I’d build a victory in those days much like a football team builds a goal. The goalkeeper rolls the ball to the defender who passes it to the midfielder, who beats a few players before laying it off to the winger, who crosses to the striker, who knocks it into the net. Only then do most see the goal being scored - although the wise will see it when it’s in the arms of the goalkeeper, when they choose to pass to one defender, and not the other 3. So I’d play similar games, accelerate away from my opponent, then let them catch up a few times on a certain type of terrain, maybe a hill, to let them think they had the beating of me on the hills. We’d usually get into some easy conversation, as trail runners do. I’d let slip about the quad injury I was coming back to fitness from, which I wasn’t really, then allow them to get away from me a little on the next hill, to emphasis their imagined superiority on hills. I’d catch them on a flat or downhill section, maybe then act out a few more tricks just to take their mind off the first, like accelerating around a corner and away so fast that when they rounded the same corner I’d appear further away than they’d expected. Because I figured that they’d read the ‘Born To Run’ book too and therefore knew that I was now so desperate I was pulling out the old Marshall Ulrich trick of trying to look much faster that I was by using the few seconds that your opponent couldn’t see you around the corner as a weapon with which to mentally wear them down. Then on the final hill I’d move away and make up enough ground over them that they could never catch me again, and at the end they’d think that I’d beaten them with a strong, final hill climb when really I’d beaten them during those early moments, when I’d let them catch me up on the hills and think that the hills were my weakness.
A bit of fun, nothing Machiavellian in its intent, and anybody who had any conventional success on the trails probably played similar mindgames. But those days are over, without me even thinking about putting a stop to them. Now it’s, well, as I described earlier, it’s different, and no sooner had I thought about playing with Steve’s head than I shook the idea from me with a visible shudder.
My left cheek started to twitch. I got a stye under my left eye a couple of days ago and this morning I’d woken with a cold sore inside the left side of my mouth. Clearly, my immune system is down and it’s showing the weakness via my left side. I hadn’t been too worried about the stye or the mouth but the twitch has me thinking of my girlfriend’s illness a couple of years back, when a twitch in her left cheek had developed inside 4 hours into a face paralyzing palsy that had her admitted to hospital for 3 nights and suffering for the next 2 months. That was also due to an immune system malfunction. Now I’m not too worried about my face being disfigured but the thought of collapsing, as I’d seen her do as we sat together in the hospital where luckily we had medical help, is pretty scary. So I focus every time the twitch happens to me, trying to ascertain if it's a damaged nerve or something worse, concentrating on trying to bring the cheek under control, acting sort of like a school teacher standing in the playground so the naughty kids don’t play up. Luckily, today they don’t. Or they haven’t done so far, I should say.
Being aware of what was going on around me, as opposed to what I thought was going on, was another early aim of the race. I was trying to, as Ekhart Tolle would say, ‘Be Here Now’. Not easy, but for practical reasons alone it’s a good tactic. If you keep your eyes peeled you’re less likely to trip over a tree root or rock, or turn an ankle on uneven ground.
For personal reasons it’s also full of beneficial potential.
“This may be the last time I see this forest,” I told myself often. “Notice the light, the sounds, the smells, soak them up as if they’re your last experiences of them. And how exactly does your body feel right now?”
I remember trying to run hard at about the 35km mark to try to bring on the exhaustion quicker, to build myself a platform from which to see life from another angle. I wanted to be completely present at the moment of exhaustion to try to examine whether my senses were picking up different things in the forest because I was tired, or because the senses were by then warmed up and actually experiencing more of the world. Like a muscle that becomes more open after a long yoga session, would I feel the forest more now that I was on my knees, so that my whole being was more receptive to what was around me?
My old self would have laughed at the modern me. I'd have said I was trying to find something that wasn't there. But things happen in life that tip the scales. Like when I walked for 12 days through the Sinai desert on my own without a map yet found water every single day. Was that chance, or can humans smell water when they have to? Or the time I woke up knowing that a childhood hero, David Bowie, had died. I hadn't thought of him for a year or more yet that morning I woke knowing that he was dead. A check of the news told me I was right. I've no idea how that happened, but it seems to me there's some potentially valuable insights waiting for us if we attempt to throw off the shackles of the relatively recent past and use all of our available senses to try to see life as it really is.
There’d been a very interesting thing happened when my knee injury had started to hurt after the 50km mark and I told myself,
“Breathe into your knee, that might help.” It was something my yoga teachers often said. Breathe into a certain part of your body. And when I’d first heard them say it I’d taken it literally and thought it might just be a gentle fraud. Something we’d like to believe was possible but which in reality was impossible. How on earth can you breathe into your right leg, or left arm, or whatever! You breathe into your lungs, full stop, and whatever benefit that comes from thinking you’re breathing into your leg is the result of some sort of placebo effect!
Which is fine, the self deception I mean, or not, depending on your objective, but perhaps not when you’re putting your body through the intense strain of an ultra running race.
Regardless of my reservations, I imagined myself breathing into my left knee. Maybe concentrating on the act of breathing is just a way of understanding and making contact with the energy within, I thought, a sort of Esperanto, or meeting point, for the differing areas of the body. And by thinking about it I’m actually starting to communicate and work with something that, once quantified, can be explained in simple terms. Something like electricity, or chi, or whatever you might choose to call it.
Many years ago my patella had slipped down, putting me out of running for a month. I’d been given stretches to cure myself and it had worked but the residue of the injury could be felt ever since, however slightly. It’s affected how I’ve run and my style these past few years has been very defensive on the downhills to ease shock to the knee. Now it was flaring up again and whilst I didn’t want to stop and waste time stretching I also wanted to avoid carrying on and making it worse.
“I’ll give it another lap.” I told myself. “Breathe into your knee. Imagine the air taking oxygen down there, flooding the area with healing. A sort of reiki on the run treatment.”
I find it difficult to meditate or be in the moment at the best of times. My mind is worse than the mosquitoes that were bugging us for most of the day, always zipping here and there. Yet for a short while whenever I found myself thinking of the forest or the birds I shouted down that Iago in my mind and got my breath back, imagining it going down into my left knee, which still felt like somebody was sticking a knife into the area just under the kneecap.
Then there was the silence. The dead, heavy silence of 2pm when the forest seemed asleep. Even the mossies were taking a little break. And I cursed myself that I noticed all of that - which proved that I’d momentarily stopped focusing on breathing into my knee - whilst simultaneously realising that my knee no longer hurt. It wasn’t the sort of manageable hurt that sets in when you run through an injury, either, it was just completely fine. Had my breathing cured the issue? Maybe there’s something to this ‘directing healing breath’ thing after all?
I hadn’t had any trouble since that, and now, Lap 10 is all in the mind and since I love exploring my mind I’m enjoying it immensely. Even the silence becomes an object of my attention. Some silence’s that I meet in the wilderness can seem so profound that I’m led into thinking there’s more to be found in them than just an absence of sound. But I’m also aware that silence could be like the old guy who sits in the corner at a family gathering and says nothing, and eventually gets a reputation of being wise when really he’s just dull. Like him, maybe silence is just what it appears to be on the surface, and there’s nothing under it at all. No meaning, nothing, just some idiot that in my haste to find meaning I’ve elevated to the level of mystic. Or maybe it only appears to be silence because my senses are so dull that I can’t easily discern the rich dimensions of sensation that lay beyond the most obvious! Man, I’ve come a long way since I thought that the height of discernment was knowing the difference between oregano and marjoram, or Chianti and Brunello...
Wait, I think I’m lost! I’ve been around the route several times but now it looks different. I don’t remember this hill, this just doesn’t look right, have I been concentrating so much on being present that I actually forget to be present and took a wrong turn?! Oh, no, there’s an aid station up ahead, I recognise it, the route is the same, only my experience of it is changing due to tiredness. Before I’d thought it flat in this section, now it’s uphill with a left leaning slope, how the hell did I miss that before!
The forest has also changed it’s smell now, in the late afternoon. Maybe my senses are being woken up after being used so intently, or maybe the forest is actually changing, I’m unsure. I’m limping along slowly, no longer having to concentrate on where I put my feet as even if I trip I’m not going fast enough to cause any real damage. I use the opportunity to try to pin down what it is I’m smelling. It’s like being on a wine tasting, trying to capture the experience of the forest by comparing it to other smells I can more easily recognise.
“So if I were wine tasting I’d perhaps say something like, it tastes of woodsmoke, or vanilla, when really it’s not that at all, it’s just an attempt to quantify,” I think. “We can’t invent a new word or concept that will help with describing the wine or else most others won’t understand, and since we’re trying to communicate something, we have to find common ground. Kind of like the ‘breathing into the leg’ thing I guess. So we talk of other things, that most of us know well, rather than what the actual wine is suggesting to us. Try to do the same thing here. Tune in, what’s the forest offering you, and how can you relate it in a way that others will understand? Well, it’s kind of like there’s a little bit of weed smoke in there, and something else, yeah, it’s sex actually, it’s pretty unmistakable and it’s something I’ve smelt lots in the forest here. But more like weed mixed up with the aftermath of sex, if I’m being particular, I’m going to google that later…”
It turns out that trees emit various chemicals as a defence mechanism against insects, which would make sense since it’s late afternoon and the mossies and other bugs are at their most active. One of the scents a pine tree gives off is caused by something called a terpenes - a-pinene is it’s name - and it’s a chemical that’s also found in Cannabis. Then there’s another plant that grows strongly in Canada - Artemisia Absinthium - otherwise known as Wormwood, the key ingredient in Bohemian Absinthe, and that’s kind of a sweet smell; wild and floral, even.
An interesting side thought; both of these chemicals can change your perception of the world when you ingest them in other formats, so could it be that they change us when we’re simply moving through the forest, breathing deeply as most runners and hikers do? Perhaps this begins to explain why a long walk in the woods can have a calming effect on one’s mental state. Not only is there an absence of modern day stress but we’re also being subjected to at least 2 natural relaxant chemicals which whilst nearly impossible to identify with the besieged and degraded senses of the 21st century human may well have a very real effect on us.
By way of anecdotal evidence I’ve witnessed, when I camped for 6 weeks on an island with a huge clump of wild wormwood nearby my tent, just how plants can affect the mind. My dreams were intense then and what felt like sensory hallucinations occurred in daytime, as did periods of intense calm. Odysseus is said to have been captivated, rendered lethargic even, by wormwood, as were the other residents in the ‘Land of the Lotus Eaters’ whilst the forests of southern Germany, Bohemia and Switzerland - where the most potent wormwood was traditionally found in Europe - became known for the dream states they bestowed on hikers. Grimms Fairy Tales may have been just one result of centuries of country folk taking walks in the woods back in the day, when people’s senses were more receptive and their sense of wonder more active.
As for the sex smell, Google suggests it’s actually something like ammonia that I was smelling. Callery Pear, a tree commonly found in southern Ontario, gives off a scent that smells like ammonia, and ammonia is also found in semen. Ammonia is also an indicator of poorly drained or lack of oxygen soil. Since pine trees are known to slow down the movement of water through the soil and there was enough standing water around to see very clearly that the forest through which we were running wasn’t well drained, that would account for the scent of ammonia even if Callery Pear trees weren’t present.
I finish my 10th lap, lay in the shade, eat some boiled potatoes, relax. All done, just over 80km on the board, nice work. I chat to the race director, chill for 10 minutes. Nearly 2 hours remain before the 12 hour time limit is up but there’s no need for the Iago in my head to start up his rambling talk of self doubt this time. I’m explored some interesting concepts and my head is seemingly full; I’m 100% ready to stop.
Then my running pal Virgil comes hobbling past the aid station. He’s listing to his right with feet angling inwards, knees looking like they’re about to buckle. I can’t tell if he’s genuinely beat or if he’s hamming it up a bit in order to get the aid station crew to shout encouragement. I think most runners feign a little more tiredness or pain than they’re feeling at times; we know we need the energy people can inject into us with their cheers and kind words but we often don’t always know how to elicit it. It’s not faking it in any malicious way when we complain a little more than we really have to, it’s just self preservation, and limping some usually works in drawing out the needed energy from volunteers and fellow runners alike.
Each runner has to complete 8 laps in order to get their finishers plaque and Virgil is heading out for his 8th. He could be asking for sympathy or he could be on his last legs and maybe in danger of keeling over. Maybe his head’s so messed up he’ll confuse the route and end up walking the wrong way, away from his finisher’s plaque. Who knows. What I do know is that I won’t feel good if I leave him to do a final lap on his own and he comes to harm. Or maybe I just want to look like a hero and a good friend. Whatever. I gather myself and limp off after him.
No, Iago, I’m not a hero. And quit with the Joseph Cambell stuff before you even start. I’m beyond that now, remember.
I catch Virgil up and sense that he’s tired out with huge blisters but otherwise fine and certainly clear headed. He most likely won’t collapse and has the will to see the lap through. Good news. We amble along together, check the time now and again, stop to say thanks to the aid station volunteers who’ve been fantastic - as volunteers generally are - and join up with a fellow runner, Mary, who we’ve both got to know during the day.
Once again I become aware that this is a potential last experience. Maybe I’ll never run here again, or run with these people, and most certainly it’s going to be the last lap of the race. I sink into it fully. The trees to the west are now even more backlit and shine iridescent pea green against the bluest sky. Birdsong is once again prominent, all is calm and the company is pleasant. Bliss.
Then I hear a rumbling and snorting from behind. It’s Steve, my fellow competitor in the over 50’s age group. I haven’t been too worried about placing ever since I dismissed the idea earlier in the day and I’m still not really but as he barrels past I experience a strong, instinctive reaction, probably something like a dog feels when it sees a squirrel running across it’s path. The race has no scoreboard at the timer’s tent so I’ve no idea if Steve is in front of me or not, all I know is that I want to race him. We’ve 2 kms to go, Virgil’s safe with Mary, he’ll finish in time and collect his plaque. I’m free to obey the urge to cut loose.
I increase my lope into a canter, surprised that my legs feel ok, far better than they have at any point in the past 4 hours. I increase speed again, yeah, that feels good, my ribs aren’t bruised too much, I can up my breathing without discomfort. The track’s flat and covered in woodchip, easy running. I catch Steve and try to pass on the inside but he leans into the curve and the line is his. He has his music going and doesn’t know I’m there so I cut back, aiming for the outside. Flicking his head sideways he sees me as I move from the inside to the out, pulls his earpiece out and swears loudly, with a huge note of surprise,
“Fuck you!” before quickly adding in a humbled tone, “I’m so sorry, that was my inside voice, I’m just swearing at myself because you have all the energy and I have none, I’m so sorry.”
He looks embarrassed but I laugh out loud with joy at this fine show of humanity and assure him it’s allright. Hearing him speak so honestly is a special moment and I’m going to enjoy it! I turn on the gas, cross the river for the final time and turn up the rocky hill. For the previous few hours I’ve walked this hill but now I’m running hard up it. I can hear Steve close behind but I refuse to look back for fear that a backwards glance might be seen as a weakness. I’m playing games now and it’s fun. 6 minutes later I’m at the crest of another hill and as the path switches back I glance down to the left and see I’ve made a minute or so on him. No time to let up though, I’ve seen how good he is on the downhills, far better than I, and we have a km of downhill to go to the finish line. This is completely irrational, he might well be on 8 laps, or 15, I have no idea, but I just feel the urge to compete.
I tune in to full concentration, nothing else will do when you’re tired and there are roots, rocks and all sorts of unstable and uneven ground to contend with. I love the feeling of running full speed at this moment and smash the downhill at top velocity, finishing with a huge smile. Steve comes in 4 minutes later and apologises again for the swearing. I try my best to let him know that far from being insulted he’s provided one of the highlights of my day. Pure, honest reaction is hard to come by and I feel so very lucky to have experienced it both in him and in myself. He’s completed 12 laps, just over 100km, I’ve done 11, around 90km. He’s taken 1st place in our age group and I’m happy for him. I’m also happy with how my race has played out. I’ve run almost to my limit and done a pretty good job of exploring my senses and know myself a lot better than before the start gun had fired. Mission accomplished.
I tuck into the cheese pizza. I shouldn’t really as I know it won’t do my recovery any good and plus, being vegan I’m committed to not eating cheese. But I’m on autopilot. I come from the poorer part of the town and we like our junk food over there, especially if it’s free. I’m always trying to escape from that destructive mindset but at this moment it wins me over. Bravo Iago, bravo.
When I meet Iago again, most likely at my next ultra in a couple of weeks, I’ll try harder. I’ll do my best. It probably won’t be good enough on the day especially at the end of a long run when proper nutrition is key but I’ll do what I can with the tools at my disposal. As the Sufi’s say, it is your duty to do your best. It is not your birthright, however, to prevail.
I don’t feel pride in this cheesy defeat of my will but as I collect my kit up and limp to Virgil’s car there’s a clear acceptance of my weakness and such acceptance is one of the steps that may lead to victory. Or at least being able to sit in the chair as life draws out and look back and think, with what I had to work with, I did ok.
