Running on Empty (24 page)

Now I knew for sure that he was full of shit.

Without breaking stride, I told him, “Listen, Charlie. It's very simple for me. I was hired to do this. Running America is a job I said I'd do, and I want to make it clear to you that no one and nothing is going to stand in my way of finishing it. That's it, Charlie, plain and simple. That's what I'm about.”

Finally, he rode away. As he pulled out ahead of me and I lost sight of him, I had to wonder,
Was he really “the detonator”? Or was he just a frustrated guy on a bike, trying to get in the way of me accomplishing my goal?

Either way, it was glaringly apparent that he wasn't my ally, and he wasn't going to let me focus only on running anymore.

 

 

 

When Charlie and I met for the first time, he turned out to be a hero. It was eight years before we started running across America, during an Eco-Challenge in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

That event required a lot of trekking though thick jungles; days of paddling crude, outrigger-style boats; and entering the mountains' hot, humid caverns, where we'd jumar up the walls and have to wade through ankle-deep bat guano. My team, long ago named the Stray Dogs since we tended to pick up whoever was available and ready for a good adventure, included Mace, Adrian Crane, Maureen Monaghan, and me, and we felt our prospects were good, as all of us were accomplished athletes: Mace, Adrian, and I were ultrarunners of some distinction, and Mo was a champion bicyclist.

Minutes into the race, though, we went from being in the top twenty to dead last as a rogue wave in the South China Sea hit our outrigger from the side, immediately capsizing us. We'd been told that if the boat went over like this, there was little hope of righting it, and as we bobbed in the water, Mace and I joked that we'd be the first team ever to be done in less than an hour of racing. But the four of us gathered our wits, stood on one side of the craft, pulled on ropes we'd attached to the opposite side, and in a cooperative tug, heaved the craft upright. We'd done it! We all looked at each other in disbelief and then burst into laughter.

It would have been a simple thing to break out the radio and call it quits, and we considered it, mostly in jest. After a few wisecracks, we got over that and decided to press on.

We paddled to the first island and then had to split up. Since our mast had broken, Mo and Adrian stayed behind to fix the outrigger, while Mace and I went on the island swim and trek, and that's when we met up with Charlie and his teammate, who were also completing this portion of the race. Our map had sunk when the outrigger turned over, so Charlie agreed to share his with Mace and me. All right now! We were back in the game. The four of us spent the rest of the day and that night swimming and slopping through mud, generally having a great time, poking fun at our predicament when we got slightly off course. Once again, Mace and I didn't much care about losing our way, and we loved it that Charlie didn't, either. Some of the inexperienced teams had thought (wrongly) that because we were Eco-Challenge veterans, they should follow us. (One of the Stray Dogs' trademark navigational tactics is getting completely lost and laughing our asses off about it.) Using Charlie's map, we did eventually get our bearings and met back up with Mo and Adrian, and Charlie went his own way, rejoining his team.

With the mast fixed, Mace, Adrian, Mo, and I paddled from island to island. On one, we ascended up the belly of a hollow mountain, fires burning brightly on the floor of the cave. Ghostly shadows played across the walls as other men climbed hundred-foot rattan ladders to harvest swallows' nests for their aphrodisiac soup. Up we went, above them, into the bat caves. Gawd, what a stench! Later, we climbed up hills and over jagged, knife-edged cliffs and then, as morning broke, rappelled down a three-hundred-foot cliff into the thick jungle. I'd inadvertently left my water bottle behind, so Mace shared his water with me until it was gone. A couple of hours later, Mace was in the worst condition I'd ever seen him in; he'd sacrificed his water and his well-being to help me continue. Reluctantly, he finally handed over his pack to the rest of the team so that he could continue, and we all staggered back to the outriggers, thoroughly exhausted. We thought we were really through this time.

But we encountered yet another team that had just withdrawn from the race. Word had gotten out that we'd lost much of our mandatory equipment, not just the map, when we'd capsized, so they generously provided us with everything we needed to finish, including water. Lucky for us, the race officials never heard any of this, or we would have been out of the race the minute the boat had capsized.

After just one more day, we did finish, and so did Charlie's group, not much behind us. We'd come back from all our travails to take twelfth place—thanks, in no small measure, to Charlie's good sportsmanship and the cooperation of his teammates.

This camaraderie and shared code of conduct is one reason I love these extreme sporting events so much. We help one another out with everything from blisters to heat exhaustion, share supplies, and cheer one another on, even as we do our best to take our friends down in competition. I arrived at the Pikes Peak Marathon one year without running shorts, at Everest without a climbing harness, and at many other events or checkpoints without some crucial piece of gear, and just by asking around, got what I needed to participate. Crews, too, check on each other, make sure everyone has what they need to support their racers and climbers. Heather has remarked that she's never met a more welcoming bunch of people. Occasionally, some completely self-centered prick will come along, but someone like this tends to be short-lived in the world of extreme sports. If you don't help others, it can be awfully lonely out there when you're the one who needs help.

Sure, we play mind games, indulge in some trash talking. That's all part of it. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that so-and-so, who's in front of me during an ultradistance race, is doing great and is many miles ahead, when the poor runner actually is puking or ready to pass out and within my striking distance. As a competitor, you learn to take all reports about other runners with a grain of salt, and to implement your own disinformation campaigns. (The first time I got sucked in by the “looking great, miles ahead” routine, at 120 miles into my first Badwater race in 1990, it most certainly slowed me down: if I'd known he was only two miles in front of me, I would have poured it on.) Everyone knows that there's plenty of bullshit being tossed around during these events, and it's all part fun, part strategy. Before our transcon, I'd teased Charlie, “Better put on your dust mask,” and we'd thought it would be funny if we kept up the taunting, made it a friendly battle with verbal jabs like they have in Big Time Wrestling. We loved the banter, and we kept it going, right up until that strange roadside confrontation about my laundry, after which all the friendliness seemed to disappear.

Generally, ultrarunning is a sport where people do more than just play fair; we encourage one another to excel, because it pushes the envelope of human endurance. We also hold one another accountable, sometimes through ribbing. I gave Charlie a hard time about being boastful (making big mileage claims) and about me being the “invisible man,” which he'd laugh off, nervously. Sometimes I can be a real hard-ass about accountability, something my kids were never too fond of, and something that I've pushed too far once or twice with a fellow ultrarunner. But in the sport, we all know what's what: Although we're competitive, there's a mutual respect for one another and the suffering we all go through. A team must act as one, with a common goal in mind, and all teams are respected equally as a credit to them for taking on an almost insurmountable task.

 

This is why, when it came to Charlie's tomfoolery—everything from the pre-event business with the sponsors and the media, when he never bothered to mention my name, down to that stupid horn—even though I'd felt like an old dog annoyed by a young pup at times, I never expected him to stoop as low as he did.

Everything came to a head on October 21, day thirty-nine of the run, after I settled down in the RV for my marathon nap. Where was Heather? Odd, I'd seen her just six miles ago in Watseka, where Dr. Paul was finally available to treat my back, which had been bothering me since the night before. Heather had answered my questions about what was upcoming for the rest of the day. She'd shown me a state map, brought me a chocolate milk shake, helped Kira and Jenny restock the van, and said she was scheduled to crew that afternoon. It didn't make sense that she wasn't where she'd said she'd be; the only other time she'd missed my marathon nap was back on day thirty-seven, when she'd attended that all-hands crew meeting. So far, this had been a good morning, running a couple of miles with my friend Jim Simone and some boys from his drug treatment program, which he operates south of Chicago. These were fifteen young men who'd earned the chance to come out with us for their good behavior, and the time we spent together was moving: To connect with each of them and hear about their troubles and their intention to make a better life for themselves was so raw, so honest, and it was fun, too. Later on, I'd picked up the pace with Robert from VQ OrthoCare (gotta love Robert, as he likes to run with me, seems to know a little bit about everything, and has a dry sense of humor). Once I was in the RV and had started to doze off, alone, I heard the RV door open, tentatively, and then caught the sound of Heather sniffling, carefully walking around and putting a few things into a shopping bag, trying not to disturb my rest.

I sat up. “Hey, what are you doing?”

Obviously shaken and upset, she told me that she'd been pulled from crewing permanently, that she wouldn't be allowed on the road or in the RV anymore, either, and she just needed to gather up a few items before going to a hotel, where she'd been told to spend the rest of the day.

Oh, for Pete's sake. This was insane! When I followed Heather out of the RV and asked Kate what the hell was going on, she told me that Dave and Brian would be crewing for me that day, and that Heather would be waiting for me at the hotel.

Heather was sitting on the bumper of Kate's van, crying. Things had spun way, way out of control, and I felt completely confused. Since when does someone else get to decide when I see my wife?

Running this course was already something like torture. Watching Heather get into that van and ride away in tears took the whole thing right over the top. Was this what Charlie had been reduced to? Picking away at my support system, since he could no longer compete with me directly?

Yes, I blamed Charlie, Mr. Atomic, the detonator. There was no other explanation. Even though Heather hadn't filled me in on the details, I knew what he was doing. Before this race, I'd had dealings with him where he'd lost his temper and turned nasty. And just in the last month, I'd heard about how he'd yelled at people, tearing them down and then manipulating them into compliance. I suspected he'd poisoned the well against Roger, run a campaign fueled by gossip to send him home. And now he wanted to take out my wife? The minute he'd tried to pin that dumb laundry bit on Heather, I'd seen right through it. The man didn't have enough to do, his competitive drive had gone sideways, and he was messing in my business; he was losing control and he wanted it back—but now he'd done something incredibly stupid.
No one was going to separate me from Heather.

As I ran forward, my stomach was in knots. I grew more and more angry, wanting to give it all up.
I have no business being out here anymore—it's all gone completely wrong.
But the minute these thoughts entered my head, I beat them back, realizing this could mean my complete defeat.

Instead, all I could think about from then on was getting to the hotel, and I ran faster and faster, wanting to reach Heather as quickly as possible. Around sunset, I crossed into Indiana, we stopped to snap a photo at the state line, and then I took off again. The whole evening and early morning was like an impulsive sprint to get to her and to the bottom of it all. After I finished my sixty miles, I finally stopped running.

Around one-thirty in the morning, I put my key in the lock, opened the door to our hotel room in Remington, and closed it behind me. Heather and I were alone at last. She was calm now, having spent the better part of the day arranging her solution to our problem: She'd rented a car and would see me on the half-mile marks, she promised. The crew would take care of my physical needs every mile, and she'd be there to take care of my emotional needs between their stops.