Once again, Reach the Beach kicked ass. The Rosie Ruiz Fan Club came thiiiiiiiis
close to not running the race this year, but at the last minute several
adventurous runners stepped up and filled slots on our team in the place of
teammates who had to drop out. It really
was touch-and-go up until a week before the race. I had started to make peace with the idea
that we would not run this year, but I was not very happy about it.
We tried something new this year and it really worked out
well for us. We joined a newly-created
category of team called Freestyle. The
12 members of a freestyle team are able to choose which of the 36 legs they run
without having to stick to a predetermined order. We get to choose how we cover the 205 miles
from Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach.
We came to this category out of necessity this year. Several of our runners were recovering from
injuries and were not sure of how many legs they could run. Being a freestyle team allowed us to fill in
for those runners if it turned out we needed to.
Happily, both of the recovering runners were able to handle
all of their legs. Nobody got stuck
taking more than three turns on the course.
As a team, we were all over the place in terms of pace. Some legs were long and hard and run through
a pounding rain. Others happened in the
middle of the night on no sleep. Some
were short and flat and fast. Our pace
ranged from 10:00 per mile to 5:50 per mile.
Altogether, we ran the race in 26 hours and 47 minutes, for a pace of
7:49 per mile. We had no idea about how
many other teams were in the Freestyle category until we got home and looked at
the results on the Reach the Beach website.
Turned out we came in third out of 156 teams. Holy Shit.
Personally, this year’s RTB was great. I met some new friends, got to reconnect and
spend an intense amount of time with some old friends, and I got to make
friends with some trees.
If you are a runner you know that most of the endeavor is
mental. If you have trained, then
getting through the tough stretches is all about playing mental games and
tricks on yourself. My legs this year
included two long and hilly stretches in the dark. I knew going in that I was not going to be
fast, but I also knew I could get through the hills without dying. Nobody likes running on hills, but I have
recently moved to Ithaca, New York and I have to run on hills no matter which
direction I go from my front door. So I
figured I might as well do some of the hilly RTB legs.
My first foray out of the van around 10:00 pm had me going
up three big hills in a span of 5.11 miles.
Two of the three hills were well over 200 feet high. It was dark and it was difficult, but I did
it. My next leg, (Leg 19), at around
3:30 am, had me again going up three big hills, this time over a span of 8.3
miles. There was a 350-footer, a
150-footer, and a 400-footer to close it all out. The first two hills were hard. The last was near-impossible. It was still dark and it was still difficult
and my mind was having a hard time getting my body to the end.
The final mile-and-a-half was straight uphill and I didn’t
have much left in the tank. I tried my
usual trick of giving myself a goal that was visible and then making that the
focus of my run. I told myself, “Just
get to that telephone pole on the right—that is your goal. You can surely make it that far.” And then once I reached that telephone pole I
would choose the next goal and go from there.
Normally, this trick gets me through to the finish of any hard run. Not on that second leg of Reach the Beach.
I found myself picking closer and closer goals, and yet I
was still tempted to shut down and just walk the last half mile. I had to come up with a new trick quick or my
body was going to take control and start walking. At this point in the course, I was on a road
in the woods. There were no houses, just
trees as far as I could see—which was not very far given the low-powered head
lamp I was wearing. I am not sure where
it came from, but inspiration hit just before I shifted from run down to
walk. I looked ahead, identified a
particular tree on the roadside, and mentally reached out to it. I introduced myself and asked for its
help. I asked it to loan me some of its
energy and help pull me up the hill.
Generally, I am not a spiritual person. I don’t believe in God or a soul. I don’t credit stories of spirits and life
energies. I am a firm believer in
science. And yet, I found myself asking
the trees for help. Crazy, I know. Yet there it is.
I chose wide, tall trees, figuring they were strongest and
most likely to be able to help me fight gravity and despair. And they did not let me down. I could feel the boost they gave me. I started to feel stronger and picked up the
pace just a bit. I started to feel a bit
selfish—making it all about me me me. So
as I neared the top and the end of my leg, I told the trees I would repay them
by doing what I could to help them whenever I could. I told them I would print
two-sided. I would recycle everything I
could. I would become a better steward
of the land.
I made it to the top of the hill and collapsed into the
van. I did not tell anyone about talking
with the trees.
In the cold light of day the next morning I knew that my
mind made it all up. It was effective
and it got me through my second leg without walking, but I know I was not
really communicating with the trees and they were not really lending me a
hand. Right? In any case, do me a favor. If you are tempted to share this post with
anyone, do so digitally. DON”T print it
out on paper.
