This all started last year when I ran the 50K at Bandera. Previously I had run some 50Ks which were a bit tamer (Rocky Raccoon, Sunrise Trail, Sunmart, Rocky Hill, etc), but I had wanted to try something that more fit my concept of “a real ultra run”. In my mind, this had to include pain, crying, cold/heat, thirst, starvation and various other hardships which I could overcome in my epic struggle to victory. Bandera 50K sounded like just the ticket. It was. I barely survived it and I thanked God that I wasn’t foolish enough to sign up for the 100K and swore I never would.

This would change.

Then as things happen, I find out that I am getting transferred to Louisiana in summer 2004. My little brain starts wrestling with the concept that my running in Texas will be curtailed somewhat after the move and shoot, since I’ll be leaving all my running friends who knows if I’ll even keep running after I move. The downward spiral continues and my mantra becomes – “I may never have a better chance than now”. So – I sign up for Sunmart – my first 50 miler and tell myself that depending on how this goes I’ll decide on whether to try the 100K at Bandera. Crap! As it turns out Sunmart went just fine. I was out of excuses. And besides – why throw away a good 50 mile training run. So – yep I signed up for the 100K at Bandera. Never said I wasn’t stupid.

So after Sunmart it is basically do the holiday thing and taper. A few twinges in the ol plantar fascia and hamstring on my right leg told me that trying to squeeze in some hill training before Bandera was probably not a good idea. So I show up at Bandera about as ready as I could be but really not ready at all. I set up the tent (away from everyone as much as I could so I could get some sleep) crack open a beer (ok a second beer by this time) get out the map showing the trail and aid stations and double check my drop bags. One more beer into this exercise and hell who can remember aid station names anyway?? Tacos, panchos, nachos, chalupas, burritos, who’s on first, whatever. Why can’t they just be simple like aid 1, aid 2, etc. At least then I could remember which one came when. I do have to admit that I was able to figure out where “Last Chance” came in – of course I wasn’t leaving a drop bag there. Oh well. Just stuff some things into all of em and hope for the best.

For some reason this exercise has made me hungry so I slam down the last of the beer and head off to the cook tent. Yep – Sammy done good again this year and I eat too much. Oh well.

Then Joe gets up and goes through the course description. This man is twisted. I’m talking serious issues here. Despite that fact that the course last year was a killer, it wasn’t bad enough. So he cut some new trail and changed some routes to make it as steep and rocky as he could. And then on top of this, he puts us through as much sotol cactus as he can find. What a sweetheart! And his right hand man Henry is no better. Rumor has it that he’s been spreading miracle grow on the cactus all summer in spite of the fact that he has signed up to run the 100K too. Henry comes across as a nice guy, but he really scares me sometimes.

One thing I do right is pay attention to how things feel temperature wise as the sun goes down. Yowser it get’s cold quick. Back at the tent I stuff a few more shirts in the drop bags and probably make the best decision of the whole race. It doesn’t weight much and I can carry it the whole way so I stick my little emergency flashlight in my running pouch just in case……

Then it is off to bed and sleep like a baby (waking up every couple hours). Gets plenty cold by morning (I think I heard 24F) but the sleeping bag is fine.

Race Day I get up about 6:00. Race starts at 7:30. I pull a couple breakfast tacos out of the ice chest that my wife had made for me to make sure I had some good food for breakfast. Thanks Hon! I wander over to the start/finish area and find coffee available. Halleluiah! So I push my luck and sneak into the lodge (race management only!) and get permission to stick the breakfast tacos in the microwave. Wow we’re in hog heaven now. Hot coffee. Hot breakfast tacos. Life is good.

This will change.

We line up at the start and Joe gives us the go ahead. I stay in back of the pack so I don’t start too fast. I take about 4 steps and I’m already wondering - what is the deal with my legs. Feels like I got a couple sausages attached to my hips. I look down. Yep they look familiar. Have I ever run before? Yeah I think so. I tell myself that maybe it is just the long taper and I’ll get some energy when the ol fires get stoked up. Please God.

About a mile in we hit the first hill – what Joe likes to call “big nasty”. He is a poet. What can I say. It is big. It is nasty. It sucks the energy out of you. Oh well. I slow my pace as much as I can and still maintain perceptible forward progress and wait for the energy to kick in. Nope – aint’ going to happen today. So I maintain my target 15 minute pace through the first 2 aid stations (don’t ask me their names!) and come rolling into the third one – Crossroads! Yep I remembered a name! Anyway I do a quick systems check. Some good news. The plantar fascia and the hamstring have been hurting a bit but stopped getting worse. If I am careful maybe they’ll hold up. Some not good news. I am working WAY too hard to maintain this pace. Already getting way behind in the energy curve. Oh well might as well run while I can. So off we go to do the inside loop. Not too bad. Some flat stuff, some hills. Rocks. Cactus. Kind of getting acclimated to the terrain. The weather is perfect. Crystal clear blue sky sunshine. I start thinking – “Hey maybe Joe isn’t such a bad guy after all”.

This will change.

Finish the inside loop, hit crossroads again. People start commenting on how hot it is. I’ve been freezing all day. Usually I am the one that it too hot so I start wondering what the deal is. The only thing I can figure is that maybe I am dehydrating. I’ve been taking plenty of e-caps and eating salty foods so I think I am OK on electrolytes. I make a conscious decision to starting drinking LOTS of fluids and take it even easier for a while and it is off to “Last Chance”. Run in and out of the creek, through the woods, not big hills for a while and start to recover a bit. I start thinking – “Hey maybe I can do this”. And then – the hills and gullies come again. Joe has put a real killer downhill in this section. Nevermind that you have to climb a hill to get up there. The killer is that on legs that are now starting to quiver and hurt a bit, you have to do a near technical descent which lasts just a tad longer than forever on shifting rocks. Is this even going to be passable after dark???? Someone’s gonna die here if they try it after dark. I’m sure of it. Joe’s starting to really play with my mind. Shake it off and go on. Anyway a bit more of this foolishness and there’s last chance. OK – less than 5 miles to finish the first loop. FIRST LOOP??? I gotta do this again? I can’t. I am about out of gas. Talking to myself more and more now. OK – shut down the brain. Just go. So it is off to finish the loop. Oh goodie! Joe has saved two BIG hills for this last section. This is the area that he and Henry blazed just for this race to make sure it wasn’t too easy. Thank you Joe. Thank you Henry. Oh yeah – I hear Chris had a hand in this as well. Thank you Chris. All I can say is that you guys better stay away from dark alleys for a while.

OK it is walking quite a bit now and shuffling a bit now and then. Somewhere along here Ava and Robert catch up with me and go rumbling past. They are looking pretty strong (but not invincible) so I fall in behind them and try to hang on. Somehow they drag me back to the start/finish. OK – here I am about 45minutes behind where I thought I’d be and way lower on energy than I thought I’d be and moving at a slower pace than I thought I’d be. No way in hell I am going to make it to the drop bag where I have warm clothes for the night (second aid station). Diana Heynen is pretty worried about me getting caught out after dark not prepared. She makes arrangements to have an extra shirt waiting for me when I hit the first aid station. It will be in Robert’s drop bag. Thanks a million Diana.

By this time I am starving. I’ve been dreaming of a big juicy hamburger for hours and when I come rolling in– THERE ARE NONE. Oh man I was counting on some real food! Snack stuff can only go so far. I ask an aid person if there might be any hamburgers anywhere. Turns out I was talking to an angel. She goes into the house and scrounges up the best hamburger I’ve ever had in my life. She brings it out on a warm bun to boot! By now I have done whatever it is that I was going to do with clothes / drop bags so I have a decision to make. Second loop or not? I REALLY don’t think I can do the second. No that is not true. I am SURE I can’t do the second loop. On the other hand, it is still daylight, I’ve got a hamburger in my hand, I don’t have any serious injuries – might as well go for a walk. I tell Robert and Ava that I am going to start walking and take off. Man oh man it was hard to start that second loop! I am certain they will catch up in a mile or so and I want to get a head start. I take off and just as I am about out of earshot Diana hollers and asks me if I have a drop bag at chapas. Chapas? What the hell is a chapas? I tell her no and keep going. It takes a while and I finally figure out what she was talking about. Oh – the second aid station. Sure I have a drop bag there. Of course I do. That is where I expected to be about 45 minutes before dark and am totally prepared. Crap! I just lied to someone who is trying to save my life. Double crap! Why didn’t I simply just ask her to have someone move my drop bag from the second aid station to the first aid station. Then I’d have all my “dark critical” stuff where I needed it. Oh that’s right we don’t use names like first aid station and second aid station.

OK – done whining for a minute. The burger is great and I walk until it is done. Then – oh what the hell. I start shuffling again. Do the big nasty (the hill I mean) and just keep muddling along waiting for Ava/Robert to catch up. I figure I’ll tag along with them into the first aid station, Robert can show me which shirt Diana stuck in there for me and things would be fine. Turns out I get to the aid station with no Ava or Robert. I hang out for a few minutes looking at Robert’s drop bag. I see shirts, coats. All kinds of goodies. It is about dark and I sure could use an extra shirt – but I don’t want to take something Robert was counting on and I don’t know which one Diana put in there for me. So it is decision time. Hang out and wait (what if they dropped?) or suck it up and head for aid two. The longer I wait the darker / colder it will be when I finally hit aid two. OK – off we go. This ought to be interesting. At least I have some gloves and my emergency flashlight.

It is getting dark now. I run as long as I can without turning on my flashlight probably longer than I should but it uses AAA batteries (which I haven’t changed in a while) and I am just not SURE how long it will last. But all is good and no twisted ankles by the time I just gotta turn it on. Things start all running together about now. I do remember running along the edge of the park along a barbed wire fence and hearing something snort at me a few times from out in a field. I’d swear it was following me. My flashlight is good enough to see the trail but doesn’t have any distance to the beam so I can’t tell what is out there. I convince myself that I must have heard a horse snort and keep moving – putting the adrenaline to good use. I am amazed that I am moving well enough to stay warm. Put on the gloves and feel quite comfortable. About 10 minutes out from the aid station I finally start to feel the cold. Not too bad but certainly wouldn’t want to be dressed like this for much longer. Finally I come into the second aid station – still no Ava or Robert. But at last I am at my drop bag. Now the problem is that I am desperate to make SURE that I get the right stuff from my drop bag, but the aid station gang is mobbing me trying to help – God love em. I finally convince em to let me just sit here with my drop bag for a few minutes to get my act together. I gotta do this first and I gotta do this right. OK – second shirt. Better flashlight. Light coat that I left there on the first loop. And NOW – what is there to EAT. I am hungry for food – not snack stuff. One of the aid crew ends up giving me their last piece of brisket. I end up taking part of his supper but he gives it to me gladly. These guys are golden.

OK it is off to Crossroads. This section is pretty flat and lots of it is through the field. I hate the field. I am dreading this section. This is where the mud got REALLY bad last year. Thank God for good weather this year. Honestly though, I am now dreading all sections. I walk most of it and shuffle a little bit of it. I think this was the turning point of the course for me. All I wanted to do was be done but when I thought of being done, I thought of all that lay ahead. It was too much. This became a real mental challenge. I had to keep reminding my self to just be patient. Just do what I am doing right now. Don’t think beyond it. Don’t get in a hurry and drop over the energy cliff. Just be patient. Just be patient……...

I don’t know where the time goes but before I know it I am at Crossroads. Still no Ava or Robert. I ask about them and Terry says they are about 20 minutes behind me. I have really been enjoying running by myself in the dark (beautiful absolutely clear sky) but with the fatigue (mental and physical) and cold I am ready to hook up with some one. Don’t want to wait 20 minutes though so I grab a cup of soup – man this stuff is GREAT and get ready to go. Suddenly Ava and Robert come rolling in. They made up about 15 minutes on me between the last aid station and this one. The good news is that they are here and I have some one to run with. The bad news is that obviously they are moving MUCH faster then I am and I won’t be able to keep up. So I take off ahead of them by about a minute and power walk to try and stay there. Actually I start to pull away just a bit so I am encouraged. Maybe I can keep up. So I ease off the pace a bit and they catch up. Turns out they have two pacers, Ann and Terry to help em through the last half of the loop. Thanks girls. You’re the greatest.

Anyway I fall in behind and as soon as I do, they take off running (shuffling) because it is so flat and there are no rocks. Shit! I can’t do this! But I don’t want to lose em either! So I drag myself along behind and pray that we hit a hill before I am completely spent. If I over do it now, I am done for. I manage to hang on. Never thought I’d look forward to a hill. But this one put us back at a walking pace and we stay there for pretty much the rest of the race. Robert and Ava were stronger on the up hills than I was. I had to really slow down going up (no energy reserves) but once we topped out, I was able to make up some ground and generally stay with the group.

All of us were hurting pretty badly by now with moans and wimpers being passed around between Ava, Robert, and I. Ava is amazing. I hadn’t even realized that she had been having stomach troubles until she stepped off the trail to toss her cookies. That would have been the end for me. I’m done. Call life flight. Whatever. Not her. Right back in the saddle and we are off again. Amazing. The inside loop came and went. Somewhere during this time we had some coyotes start up their yipping. They sounded close and as we shuffled along they sounded like they were getting closer. Someone said we better not slow down. Ha! Like the pace we were moving actually made any difference?? I think I said something incredibly clever to the effect that we’d be fine as long as no one started smelling like a rabbit. OK – it seemed clever at the time. Somehow the time passes quickly and we end up back at Crossroads. I started to realize that this might actually be doable. My legs were screaming big time and had been for quite a while. The good news was that as bad as they were, they hadn’t gotten worse in quite a while either. I guess only a runner would call this good news?

Anyway, from here on out, the rest of the race pretty much just fell into a routine of shining your spot of light on the ground in front of your feet and then chasing it. The hours really just slipped by. The hills came and went. The distance remaining shrunk and shrunk. My dread of the big descent before Last Chance and the two big climbs afterwards grew and grew. Before I knew it we were at the big descent. I don’t even remember doing the up hill to get up to it. Robert and I had to be fun to watch going down that one. We were a couple of cripples with lots of moans and assorted exclaimations coming out of us with each downward step. Talk about your world shrinking – it was all in that little spot of light showing where my foot had to go next. But we did it. Up the other side a bit and then down into Last Chance. Now it is really hitting home – Unless we do something stupid, we are going to finish. Who cares about the time. I haven’t even looked at my watch in hours. Two hills to go. I am now looking forward to them so they will be done. We sit by the fire for a bit to warm up. Terry gets a shot of tequila for the road and off we go. We hit the first big hill (the really steep one) and take our time. Stop a few times going up. It is so steep and we are so spent that it is hard to keep our balance when we stop. Our legs are so shot. Forever long. Just keeps coming at you and just as you surely get to the top, there is a turn in the trail and it keeps going up.

There are no small hills in the second loop.

But at last the steep one is over. Now it is make sure you don’t kick a prickly pear cactus as you wander along the top of Cougar canyon (they are right along the trail and would be really tough to take at this point in the run). We go down a bit (I think) and finally find ourselves on another uphill. Is this the last big hill? Don’t think so it isn’t too steep. Don’t know it is pretty long. We keep debating whether this is the last hill or not. I am pretty sure it is but not really sure of anything at this point. We keep going and pushing distance behind us. Eventually we start around a bend in the trail and Joe is sitting there in the middle of the trail with his light off. Scares the shit out of us. He says we are about a half mile out, that it is all downhill from here and he came out to run in with us. This guy is incredible. Here it is around 3:00 in the morning, he hasn’t slept, probably put in more miles than we have during the day and still is out here waiting to make sure we get in alright. You don’t much find people like this these days.

Life is starting to look a bit better. We walk along chatting. I joke around and tell Joe that he is taking his life in his hands letting Bandera runners find him out alone at night. He just laughs and says he is pretty sure he could get away from us if he needs to. He’s right of course. We are even too tired to throw rocks. Anyway, the last half mile is more like three quarters of a mile but eventually we hit the Y where the trail first split on the outbound loop. Ava, Robert, and I decide to run it in together. Thank God I don’t have to try and race someone at this point!!! My quads have gone past sore and stiff and feel positively brittle.

Ava is ready to go. Robert and I are not. We keep her from starting the “run” as long as we can but eventually we can’t keep her reigned in. We grab hands and off we go. Pretty cool! We actually finish. WE ACTUALLY FINISH RUNNING. There are even a few people still up to welcome us in. It is 4:00 in the morning for crying out loud! These guys are nuts! Hey – I guess we are in good company. Thanks for being there. They immediately take charge of us, put blankets on us and get us into the nice warm tent area and get us some hot stew. They even scrounge up a beer for Robert. I stick with the stew. I need more food.

Overall I think we don’t feel too bad. Ava and Robert are actually looking happy. I don’t know how I look but I feel really pretty good now that we have stopped. I guess I was able to manage what little energy I had to keep from going over the edge all day.

So that’s it. It is over. It is good to sit. That’s all. It is just plain old GOOD to sit. I don’t ever want to run again.

Eventually - this too will change.

Post Race Perspective

It is almost a week now and I am actually walking fine and will go for a short run this weekend. Writing this has helped me remember a lot of the experience – which I don’t want to ever forget. I don’t think it has really sunk in yet though.

What did I learn? One thing is that with drop bags - it is far far better to get to a drop bag before you need it than to need the stuff in your drop bag before you get to it. My dad is a retired air force pilot and he used to tell me they had a saying “Runway behind you and altitude above you aint worth a damn!”. Now I understand. I planned my drop bags for having a good run. In the future, I will plan my drop bags for having a bad run.

I learned that I can keep going even when I can’t keep going. Even if it is not a good running day. Patience is the key – at least for me.

The aid station people and other runners and even the bystanders were amazing. Throughout the day I was surrounded by people who really did care about me and who just wanted to see me be successful. They did everything they could to help us and went way above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks gang.

And finally I can’t say enough about the character of Joe and Joyce. Throughout the day they were all over that course helping, coaching, encouraging the runners, sharing their experience and advice. And I guess the most marvelous thing from my perspective, was that even for a back of the packer like me, they made me feel like I belonged out there just as much as the elite runners. You guys are the greatest.

Joe you did exactly what you promised. You put together a course that was as much of a challenge as you could, given the terrain you had to work with. And at the same time you did everything in your power to support the runners so they could complete it. I really believe that this has got to be one of the best trail runs out there. You gave me my “epic experience” and I thank you.

Duane Lewis