It was just past 6 a.m. and I had gone through about a mile of the Minnesota Voyageur 50 Mile Trail Ultramarathon.
There were other runners ahead of me, chatting cheerfully as we maneuvered down and out of gullies, over crisscrossed roots and rounded stones that lurked for unsuspecting ankles.
They talked about the familiar faces they had seen at the starting line and the faces they didn’t see. They talked about who was running the Hardrock 100 out in Colorado this year, the merits and demerits of various other ultras that they had run.
I had nothing to add. They were the vets. I was the noob, who had never raced longer than 26.2 miles. Their bodies looked harder and more finely tuned than mine, while their banter expressed the confidence and familiarity with trail racing that I didn’t have.
All of these could have been signals that I should start backing down my pace, but slowing felt wrong.
I ran downhills especially hard, using a race strategy I had picked up from an ultra marathoning guide by Hal Koerner. Leaning forward spurred my momentum and forced my legs to turn over fast in order to catch up.
“Whoa, there’s a guy who likes his downhills,”
“I’ll take any free momentum I can get,” I said.
The ring leader of the pack I’d caught up with reminded me of a pit bull. He had a barrel chest, flesh marked with aggressive tats, black spiral gauges jammed through his ears.
“This is the easy part of the race,” Pit Bull said. “It’s a lot harder on the trip back.” Watch out noob. You’re going to get destroyed.
We had 25 miles of course to run between the high school in Carlton, Minnesota and the Lake Superior Zoo in Duluth, a race which included a few dirt road and asphalt segments. At the zoo, we would turn around and ran back the way we came.
I stayed on the runners’ heels as they swapped their war stories.
We crossed the St. Louis River on a historic swinging bridge in the center of Jay Cooke State Park. Clouds of mist drifted off the water and glowed golden in the early morning sun. As the sun rose, the day would get hotter — the National Weather Service predicted highs in the lower 80s. Runners were going to get heat exhaustion, stumble and slur their words as they lost control of their own bodies. I knew it because I’d seen it when I volunteered at an aid station last year.
Pit Bull had just remembered the story of a hotshot marathoner, he had run a 2:30 or something, who had come out to run his first Voyageur and was completely demoralized when he saw the enormous hills, the vast expanse of sun-blasted waste where the course went along the power lines.
“He couldn’t believe it,” Pit Bull said, though he admitted that the young blood had still run a decent race.
I had a suspicion this story was aimed at me.
“I’ve already scouted the race course,” I said. This was was true, in that I had done my best to follow printed maps and directions. It was also true that I had gotten lost more than once, and missed out on the all-important Power Lines section of the run, the section which is supposed to be as much of a proving ground as Heartbreak Hill for the Boston Marathon.
I knew the runners in the pack probably thought I was doing a jackrabbit start and that the course would show me the error of my ways soon enough. They might have been right, but pride made me want to prove them wrong, maybe by beating a couple of them.
At the second aid station, I started my eating and drinking regimen with cups of water and Powerade along with some potato chips to keep my salt levels from tanking. Soon, I appreciated how running an ultra could be an eating contest as well as a foot race.
The pack dissolved as the trails flattened out. Pit Bull went ahead. I stayed with some slower runners, but started picking them off before we got to the ravine at Gill Creek. I wanted the downhill to myself. There was a drop through narrow single track. I leaned forward where I could and took rapid, mincing steps around the obstacles. I caught up with Pit Bull near the bottom and slowed.
We used trees to swing ourselves around switchbacks. I threw my body weight in the direction my feet had to go. We splashed across the stream at the bottom and started power hiking up the steep climb on the other side. Running up the slope would have been no faster, and would have taken far more energy.
At the top of the ravine, there were more smooth, flat trails. I hit up another aid station for Powerade, potato chips and watermelon slices. I passed Pit Bull and others in his gang. It wasn’t that I expected to stay ahead of them, but I also felt that if I didn’t run hard in the places where I felt strong, I would be cheating myself out of the race I was supposed to run.
The sun was still low for the first passage through the power lines. But it was already warm and the humidity was considerable.
I allowed myself to slap up against dew-covered brush to cool down.
The hills were steep, slippery clay. Painstaking to go up, dangerous to go down. I tried to keep the momentum on, ended up falling on my ass and rolling over. The fall had kept me sliding forward, so from a competitive point of view, it hadn’t been so bad. I got up and went back to working on the controlled falling, throwing my weight into turns the way that I had cross country skiing this winter. Just as I felt pride at how well, I was doing, another racer blasted by me, somehow staying upright when by all rights he should have eaten dirt. There was a stylized Canadian maple leaf on the back of his race shirt. The name for this runner was Canada Dancer, I thought; he can tango with gravity in places where everyone else would have fallen off their feet.
We went back and forth over the next few miles. Just when I thought I had lost him for good, he would reappear behind.
Pit Bull caught up to both of us, and we made up a running troika. Their energy helped keep me feeling competitive.
At about 16 miles, we came to a steep slope of red pine and spruce where the race officials had put a rope up so we could pull our way up the grade.
I stuck with the two of them through a long downhill section, but when the course started going up, they pulled ahead. I lost sight of them at the next aid station. Not wanting to be left behind, I grabbed slices of watermelon off the table to eat, stuffing them down while running at the same time. It was one of those problems of multitasking kind of things because I went off the race course. I wasted at least a quarter mile figuring out that I’d screwed up, retracing my steps and getting back to where the orange ribbons led to the Skyline Parkway on the way to Duluth.
This aggravation got me running hard. I was sure I’d lost Pit Bull and Canada Dancer for good. Should have paid more attention, dammit.
The anger at my mistake faded into fatigue and with 23 miles down, I became aware that my legs were really tired and aching. If they hurt this much now, I had no idea how the hell I’d finish the race.
The race came the Spirit Mountain Ski Resort where there was an overlook above the city of Duluth. Beyond the grain silos and container ships stood the aerial lift bridge, the gateway to Lake Superior. Last year, I had fixated on that same bridge coming down the last miles of Grandma’s Marathon, knowing that I would be finished when I got there. This year, I could see the bridge and know that as soon as I got down to Duluth, I would have made it halfway through the race.
My legs pounded down the trail through the ski resort. The faster runners began coming from the opposite direction. I began giving out the courtesy nods, the “Looking good”s and “Nice job man.”
Finally, I saw the white tent set up outside the Lake Superior Zoo. It was the turnaround.
I raised my fist. I’d run the 25 miles in about three hours and 55 minutes, which meant that I was running slower than four-hour marathon pace. For a fifty-mile all-terrain race, I was not complaining. I allowed myself the luxury of coming to a complete stop, even as one other runner passed me. They were giving out ice now, so I put some under my hat. I gobbled down more melon, pickles and slices of canned potato.
I started up the hill, feeling much better than I had minutes ago. Now I watched the stream of runners who were behind me.
“Nice job man!”
“You’re killing it out there!”
I shot the good will back at them, though I tried not to spend too much energy being a cheering section. Sometimes I just gave a thumbs up. I said, “Thanks, you too,” a lot, until I decided that it made me sound too much like a phone autobot, and settled for “Rock on,” which helped pump me up too.
The heat grew oppressive. Whenever possible, I ran on the shady side of the trail. I knew I had to keep eating salty things or else I would cramp up. I couldn’t slack on the water either.
Amazingly, my stomach didn’t revolt against salted watermelon or Powerade followed by pickle juice. Another miracle was that I didn’t feel any sudden need to take a dump, an issue which has often plagued me on marathons and on training runs.
I did take a couple of tumbles, which resulted in awkward falls. I worried that my brain was getting energy starved and made note to get more Powerade at subsequent aid stations.
The run took me back over the railroad tracks and on the trails. No one was in sight of me, front or behind. This was tough, because other runners were an important source of motivation. I ran like I was doing a job, but not with the vigor that comes with competition.
At 34 miles in, the trails were well graded, but I overlooked the tree root waiting to snag the tip of my shoe. It dropped me like a sack of bricks. One good thing about running alone was that nobody heard the ugly torrent of profanity I let loose. The dragging fall had put a serious rug burn on my shoulder. There was a bleeding, inch-long gash on my hand, with a gross flap of skin swinging off of it. I pulled the skin off and kept running.
I worried that it would be rude to the runners behind me if I get blood on the ropes for the upcoming ravine.
I went down the hill backwards, being careful with the hand, and trying not to go so fast I’d lose control and burn my hands on the rope.
I sloshed back across Mission Creek, dunking my hat in the water as I went. The volunteers got me pumped up again. They filled my canteen with ice water, too much for me to drink at once, but excellent for spilling on myself as the heat went up. I felt strong coming up the hill to the bike trail. Then I popped out of the woods.
Black tarmac. No shade. The next aid station was just ahead and I spilled the rest of the ice water down my neck as I got close.
At the aid station, a familiar sight. Pit Bull was there. Had he been coming up from behind me, or had I just caught up to him. I hadn’t remembered seeing him coming up the slopes at Spirit Mountain. Now I had no idea. Pit Bull finished getting watered and took off.
“You’ve gotta be careful,” one volunteer told me. “The hottest section of the course is coming up.”
“The power lines,” I said.
“Yep. You should stick with Jon,” he said. “This is his 10th time on the course. He knows it like the back of his hand.”
If I caught up with Pit Bull, I decided to try and run with him a bit, at least for a couple miles.
The trail wound around some curves, and I bombed down several hills. Finally, I saw Pit Bull coming up the next rise. I power hiked after him. Then followed at his heels for the next descent.
“Hey, they say I should be following you because you know this course,” I said.
“Well, I’m going to wade in this stream for a little while,” he said. “You’re doing a great job. Looking good, man,” he said.
“I’ll probably see you later down the course,” I said. But I didn’t.
I already marveled at how much I’d wanted to show him up earlier in the race. Now, instead of schadenfreude, I felt bummed that he wouldn’t be running with me. He was a serious runner with a lot of ultras under his belt. But this wasn’t his race.
The heat had dried up almost all the mud beneath the power lines by the time I came through the second time. This made me less likely to fall going down the hills, but that heat packed a wallop also. I could feel heat bouncing back from the clay beneath my feet as cicadas buzzed in the hedges. I splashed more ice-water on my neck as I lurched up one hill with my hands on my knees. At the summit, I could see a familiar white shirt with the red maple leaf. It was Canada Dancer.
I didn’t know if I could catch him, but I would to try.
I economized on time by addressing my need to pee while walking uphill. This I managed without splashing myself, though splashing wouldn’t have stopped me.
I was becoming quite the disgusting creature out there, belching, farting, cramming more and more food down my gullet so that I could creak and groan under the miles I had left.
Canada Dancer was just as ruthless on the downhills as he had been earlier in the race. I no longer trusted my shredded muscles to hold me up if I let loose. Thus, my quarry pulled away on each downhill. But I hiked aggressively up each up-slope and I closed in on him bit by bit.
When the trail left the power lines, we didn’t have the slopes any more and Canada Dancer didn’t have his secret power. We overlapped briefly at an aid station, but I let him go so I could grab more fuel. Half a mile later I caught him on the trail.
It was going to be smooth trail for a couple miles, so I knew I had the chance to put distance between us before we came up to the ravine and he tore up the downhill. I felt another wave of strength and used it to cruise the trails with a road-runner’s stride.
The next aid station met me with a surge of “Looking good”s and “You’re right up there!” The last one made my ears perk up. Did I have a shot at the top 10?
I still worried about Canada Dancer making a comeback, so when I got to the ravine, I risked putting some forward lean into the downhill. On the upward slope, I ran as much as I could and power-hiked with my hands on my knees. I thought I heard something moving very quickly down the trail behind me. Maybe just squirrels in the woods, I thought.
At the top of the ravine, it was flat trails again so I knew I could open up my stride again and try to put more distance between myself and my pursuer. My energy was flagging however, and I couldn’t put out the same intensity as I had earlier. Less than 10 miles to the finish, I knew I ran the risk of thinking the race was over when it wasn’t over, celebrating prematurely and losing my edge.
I pretended that I was running a 60-miler with plenty of trail left to cover.
The course popped back onto the bike path and there were no more helpful shadows from the trees. I was not feeling good.
I focused on keeping my awkward, tired stride rolling on the grassy margin of the trail. A sudden needle of pain stabbed into the side of my right knee. I lurched, kept running. It had been a sharp but brief message, a kind of ghost pain, the kind that sometimes goes away if I keep moving — unless it doesn’t. The pain signal had me wary, but it didn’t re-emerge for another quarter mile. Now I felt something was consistently off. Something was messing up my stride. Pretty much all the stories I’ve read of successful ultra runners have a messy injury somewhere amidst their races, and this was nothing compared to some of their wounds. I definitely wouldn’t stop running.
My mind was starting to drift as the trail went back into the woods. A shoe-catching root almost brought me down.
I creaked past the Forbay Aid Station — the place where I had volunteered last year.
I was grateful to everyone working the tables, people who greeted me with a “What can we get you?”
“I need more calories,” I announced. “Starting to feel a bit loopy out there.”
“When was the last time you peed?” a woman asked. “Uhhh…it was back near the ravine.”
“What color?”
“White.”
“Then you’re doing a lot better than a lot of people who come through here. Plus, you’re speaking in complete sentences and you’re not staggering around, slurring your words.”
So don’t be a freakin’ crybaby.
I had less than six miles to go now. My form sucked, but I didn’t feel motivated to push myself. It looked like I had ditched Canada Dancer and I was going to finish this thing alone.
The last aid station was by the St. Louis River where whitewater kayakers played in the rapids near the swinging bridge where a crowd of spectators had gathered to watch them. The volunteers cheered heartily as I came up to fill my canteen one last time. The effort of starting to run again was painful, especially in my knee. I lurched like a wounded animal.
“Man, I feel like a million bucks right now,” I announced to the crowd.
Then I got back on the swinging bridge: “Excuse me! Coming through! I’m running a 50-mile race here.”
Gnarly rocks and twisted roots waited on the other side of the river. I had already decided to take it slow and save my strength for the final stretch of flat waiting for me on the other side. But someone was closing in.
I took a glance over my shoulder and saw Canada Dancer about a hundred yards back. He was not taking it slow over the rocks and roots.
I forced myself to grub over the terrain as fast as I could, felt speed returning, some fragment of fight left in my legs. Maybe I could hold him yet.
The footsteps were right behind me now. I followed etiquette and gave him the trail.
“Long time no see!” he said in a voice that was completely evil.
His legs and arms were a blur as he ran. No, he didn’t run, he flowed. Rocks, roots and trees slowed him not a bit. It was like watching a magic trick.
“Way to make a fucking comeback,” I called after him.
I came around the next turn and there was a hundred feet of empty trail in front of me.
“Sonofabitch,” I said, feeling grudging admiration.
I had mostly given up catching Canada Dancer that one last time, but I kept my pace up. You never know when somebody could turn an ankle and the door of opportunity would open.
The route went up one last hill and then I was on the hot asphalt bike trail. I opened up my stride yet again. In the distance, I saw the red maple leaf rounding the last stretch before the finish line. Too far to catch, but I was going to finish this like a racer. Scattered applause from spectators crossed my awareness. A cop was holding up traffic so I could run across the road. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it sounded encouraging. I swung my arms so my legs would move, forcing myself closer to the line until I crossed it. Eight hours, 19 minutes and 30 seconds, 10th place.*
Someone gave me a mug. I limped away from the line like a wounded animal, but there was a big, stupid grin on my face. I found a shady place and got off my feet. Finally, I rested.
*Top finisher was Jake Hegge of Onalaska Wisconsin in 6:49:33. Scott Jurek, Famed ultra runner and Minnesota native son, still has the course record of 6:41:16.