Running on Empty (25 page)

But I wanted to know more about what was really going on. Why was this happening at all? Finally, Heather revealed more of the story: how Charlie had berated her during that meeting in his RV; how he'd scolded her for insisting that my crew attend to certain details, that they crew me in a certain way; how he'd clearly bent Kate's ear and convinced her that Heather was a troublemaker; how there'd been an argument about laundry, who should do it and how often (ah, now I understood why he'd brought it up with me); how they'd accused her of not getting along with other crew members. And on and on it went, petty complaint after petty complaint. Heather was completely befuddled—she'd never had this kind of trouble before although she'd crewed for me many times in the past. She wondered, was she losing her mind? All of it had been so crazy-making: Was she really so hard to work with? Was she such a horrible person? If it truly came down to that, she assured me, she could make herself scarce and I'd be the only person who'd interact with her.

In her frustration, Heather had told Kate that she quit but that she refused to be separated from me: She'd follow her plan with the rental car from there forward. They'd succeeded in breaking her spirit, demoralizing her, and getting her to question her sanity, she said, but there was no way she was going to leave me out there alone with that lot.

Turning Heather into a shadow crew was an option, but I wasn't having any of it. This had clearly gotten out of hand. Everyone had been out there on the road for more than a month, and was tired and probably homesick, but that was no excuse for this juvenile behavior, all the backbiting, complaining, blaming, and scapegoating. We were all professionals of one stripe or another and should have been focused on a common goal. Everyone knew a lot was resting on my shoulders—I wanted and needed to finish the run, not just for me, but for the sponsors and for the documentary, and I needed Heather to do it. What kind of shoddy production would this be if I didn't continue? Were they going to release a film called
Running America
that featured some guy on a bike who'd bullied an old dude's wife and forced him out of the race? What the hell?

It simply didn't make sense that NEHST was really in Charlie's camp. Maybe they didn't realize what he was doing by slowly tearing apart my key resources on the road; maybe even he didn't know what he was up to, and this was a purely subconscious sabotage. Maybe he just didn't understand that we weren't interested in being bit players in “The Charlie Show.” Maybe he didn't expect me to fight back.

At about 2:30 in the morning, we called Kate to meet with us, and when she arrived, I laid it on the line: The crew van was rented in our name, we hadn't been reimbursed for it, and so, legally, it was our vehicle. Heather would continue to use it, period. She and I would enlist the help of friends to come out and crew for us; we didn't want Charlie or anyone connected with him to assist me any further, with the exception of Brian, who'd already promised to stick with us to the finish, and who'd demonstrated his loyalty to Heather and me already. Perhaps Dave could stay, too, but we'd have to talk with him and see. It wasn't that the rest hadn't done a good job—they had—but we were going to extricate ourselves from any continued involvement with Charlie. I didn't want to put anyone in the middle of my rift with him, and I also understood that their friendship with him was important to them, as it should be. In sum, we were done with Charlie's mess, and were taking our future into our own hands. I was running to New York without any more contact with him.

We had no beef with production. In fact, we would welcome their presence filming the rest of the run. Isn't that why they were all here? Kate would have to talk with the powers that be in New York, she told us, but she also said that she'd like to think that they'd all stay on board with me. We could keep using the RV, too, unless word came down that it was no longer okay.

Notably, what Kate didn't say was, “Oh, no. Charlie's in charge and we do what he says.”

Nope, no mention of him, his authority, or his detonation power. She's a smart woman, and I think she knew the score, but I wanted to be clear: This was no power play on my part; it was a decision made to ensure Heather's and my well-being while being mindful of the sponsors' needs—we were committed to making sure that the people and companies who'd supported us were given what they expected.

We left it at that, and we all turned in for the night. In the morning, we'd have some answers from New York and know whether we'd be continuing with or without the film crew.

The next day, we all acted as if nothing had occurred. Kate had asked that we hold off on notifying the crew of any changes, as she wanted to be able to give them the whole picture based on what she heard from NEHST. Two days later and to my great frustration, Kate still hadn't informed the crew; perhaps she procrastinated because she felt caught in the middle, between me and Charlie, who had a financial interest in the film and was one of its producers and so had some authority over her. He had, at least, intimidated her. So I took the matter into my own hands. I figured I'd waited long enough, even laid off one day after only fourteen miles so that NEHST could take care of it and so I wouldn't have to run a lie. But they didn't take care of it. They did assure me that they supported our decision and were committed to seeing me finish the run, and on day forty-one, I decided to take action so we could all move forward.

It was important to me to be up front with everyone, to let them know that we'd be phasing out some people—that they'd done a good job, but it was time to make a change. So I told Charlie's crew chief, Chuck, what my plans were, and he remarked that he'd never been fired so nicely. Then, I believed, Chuck would talk with everyone else to tell them they'd continue until the new team was in place.

Although disappointed that I'd had to take care of this administrative task myself, I was glad to have the crisis resolved. Believing that everyone was in the loop, I could set out with a clear conscience. Dave and Jenny hopped in the crew van, and we set out to continue on. Finally, I could get back to running.

But we should have known Charlie would try to get in a few licks before it was really over. He was all manic-antics now, catching up with Dave and Jenny in the crew van and demanding they get out and abandon it idling by the side of the road, unattended, where Heather and Dr. Paul would find it later. (After that, we never got to see Dave again, so we lost our chance to ask him about staying on to crew, and I still wonder if Chuck ever told them, really, how grateful I was for how they'd performed up to that point and that the changes were because of what had happened with Charlie and nothing they'd done.) Then Charlie sought me out and brought Rick Baraff, the cameraman, to film his outburst, when he made a point of pestering and provoking me.
What was this,
I wondered,
some low-brow reality TV show? Too bad I'm almost bald, or we could shoot some impressive hair-pulling scenes.
Not long after his first tirade finally ended, Charlie came back, riding up next to me on his bike
again
, now attempting to smooth things over. But when I wasn't having any of it, he started yelling, and that's when I finally lost my temper and gave him a verbal pounding.

Shouting and pouting at the same time, he announced, “Let the record show that I tried to make this right and you refused!”

I couldn't help thinking about Frank Giannino and his running mate, and their friendship that had died on the same road nearly thirty years before. Now, way beyond my tolerance for wasting any more time with him, I waved my hand in his direction, shooing him off.
Please, God, make him leave me alone to run in peace.
Charlie rode away in a huff, and I continued on, finishing out that crazy day with another sixty-two miles underfoot.

 

The temperature was dropping, hovering around forty degrees as we got closer to Ohio on day forty-two, October 24. The drizzling rain and overcast weather were making it more and more difficult to stay warm, and my muscles were tight. Dr. Paul's stretching helped, but I felt as if my legs stayed stiff even after I'd put in first marathon. The clothing we had wasn't right, either: If I wore a Gore-Tex jacket, it wouldn't breathe sufficiently and I'd sweat and soak myself from the inside. If I had a fleece jacket, it was raining hard enough that I'd get soaked from the outside. I spent a lot of time changing that day, and the van was draped with my wet clothes as the crew tried to dry things out as fast as they could.

With Chuck, Jenny, and Dave now prematurely out of the picture, Heather, Kira, Brian, and Dr. Paul had overtime crew duties. Amira stepped in, and Rick would occasionally help out when he wasn't filming. (So much for keeping production at arm's length, which we never thought was all that important. Besides, we all loved having Rick around, as he always had everyone in stitches.) We'd lined up a number of people from the ultrarunning community to help, and we joked with one another that the cavalry was coming. My good friend Dave Thorpe was the first one scheduled to arrive, and he'd be there late that morning. An accomplished racewalker, Dave had helped crew and pace me at Badwater in the early nineties, back when I was setting course records and winning the race. In 1991, I set the fastest record by running 133 of the 135 miles to the Whitney portals, and in 1992, I didn't feel that I could run any faster, so Dave suggested I walk most of the steep uphills. That year, I power walked at least thirty miles of the course and was behind my record by about fifteen minutes at the 120-mile mark, but then Dave paced me up the portal road, keeping me focused. Fueled by the energy I'd reserved while I'd walked instead of run, I was able to kick it into gear at the end and break the record again by almost twenty minutes. Dave's probably one of the most positive people I've ever met, and I knew it would be great to see him again.

When the cavalry rode in, it came with coffee and doughnuts. Hello, Dave! What a welcome sight he was with his big smile and American flag baseball cap. He quickly sized up my wardrobe problems, took off for Fort Wayne, and then returned with some new clothes. It was like early Christmas for me, as everything he'd brought back was perfect: super lightweight Gore-Tex jacket, fleece, a wool stocking cap, wool socks, long underwear, a couple Capilene long-sleeved shirts. Dave toweled off my back and dried my feet, and then he helped me dress. It was such a simple gesture, but so appreciated. He cared about me. He understood what I was going through.

 

Crossing into Ohio, we met a state patrolman who stopped to check on us, and we took a picture together. For the most part, in all of the states we'd gone through, officers had been excited to see us and were willing to help in any way they could. It always put me in a patriotic mood:
Isn't this what America is about? Having the freedom to go where we please and, if we abide by laws and common sense, having the support and protection of law enforcement? We're truly fortunate to be living in a country with such liberties.

Not everyone in the Buckeye State was so happy to see me, though.

Passing a farmhouse late that night, I spotted a couple of hounds running toward me, and it seemed they had merely come out to greet me. No problem. It did give me pause, just for a moment, as earlier that evening I'd tangled with a German shepherd, the only dog among the dozens I'd met on the road who'd wanted a piece of me. I'd fended him off with a stick and chalked that encounter up as one more near miss. Here, where the hounds had come out to say hello, we were just outside Upper Sandusky, a small town with a population of about seven thousand and a rich history. It seemed a peaceful place, with lots of farmland surrounding it.

But then suddenly I heard a loud
bang!
About fifty feet away, bullets ripped through the field next to me, and I jumped straight up. A man had raised the garage door on the farmhouse and was standing there, backlit, with a shotgun in his hand. Quickly turning off my headlamp to make myself less of a target, I threw my hands into the air.

“I'm on a county road! Why are you shooting at me?”

The van was parked a few hundred feet ahead, and Heather had heard the whole thing and come running.

“Get the fuck out of here!” the silhouette yelled back.

Heather tried, “We're just passing through!” She'd also reached up to turn off her headlamp and, when she'd been unable to work the switch, pulled it down around her neck and cupped her hand over the lens. (How did we even think to do these things? Survival instinct, I suppose. We'd certainly never been in this situation before.)

The man wasn't appeased. “I don't give a fuck what you're doing! Get your ass down the road!”

He still had his gun in his hand and Heather was pulling me toward the van and away from him. At this point, I knew she was right, but I was also angry and fed up with having my autonomy trampled. From the very beginning, we'd expected the physical challenges from the terrain, the weather, and even my own body, but we'd had no idea about these other extremes—the threat of being squashed between a couple of cars, the drama of dealing with Charlie, this bizarre incident in what I'd later refer to as the Buckshot State. I'd had enough.

“Heather, call 911, tell them I've been shot at, and give them our location,” I instructed.

Just then, a sheriff's patrol car rolled by, and we flagged him down to tell him what had happened. Five or ten minutes later, he came back and explained that people in those parts had gotten mighty nervous lately because there had been three murders in their area, a double-homicide where the killer burned the house down and another death they weren't sure was related. Of course, I understood how that could put folks on edge, but that didn't give someone the right to shoot people who aren't even on their property and without any warning. Shoot first and ask questions later? Wasn't that just an expression?