Help is not coming

“Help is not coming” is a great line from Gary Robbins’ most recent Barkley Marathon’s effort, which you can read here. It’s also a learning from my 100-miler this weekend, which turned into a disastrous 60-miler. No one is going to come save you in the middle of the night, at the top of the mountain, Nicci. What you’ll read here is the story of what happened, which is just the surface. The real heart of the matter, the real thing of it, the real weight of it (or at least what I believe it to be) is this: Deliberately plunging into the unknown, demanding excellence, is often not done or achieved alone. Although help is not coming in those dark moments of a race, help is there. Katherine Jugler is the heroine behind this story. She flew to Montreal with me, fed me for 60 miles, gave me encouragement, love, safety, assurance, re-filled my pack every 5 hours and also has now also shepherded me through the aftermath. She worked for weeks before the race by reaching out to my entire family, friends, people at work, from all over the globe and created the most beautiful video of encouragement and support. If you believe in angels, there’s a live one running around the LinkedIn office and around the city of Chicago, her name is Katherine. 

So, here we go…..

If you’ve seen me around in the last 6 months, you’ll notice a gold band on my right wrist that says “Barkley 2026”, a wonderful gift Katherine gave me. My goal is to be able to attempt, i.e. run, the Barkley by 2026 and the secondary goal is to finish and complete the Barkley before I die. I stare at this goal on my wrist daily. The year is 2026 because I watched the documentary (also worth watching is Gary’s movie “Where dreams go to die”) in 2016 and said to myself—I’m going to give myself 10 years to run that. When I said that to myself, I had never run a single “ultra marathon”, but something inside me said I must. (Bosco in Italian quite literally means "woods"....so maybe that's why?)

It’s been 24 hours since I attempted my first 100 miler, and failed. I failed to cross the finish line. I had this 100-miler on my list as a way to learn how to run the Barkley. I figured running 100 miles was just one step closer and I must complete this as part of the journey. Well. I did not complete it. But, I did learn many, many, many many things. And in a big way, the Bromont 100 gave me what (I know now)I was supposed to get from it in order to actually get much closer to what the Barkley will feel like than I thought. The miles are not the obstacle Nicci. Thus endeth or beginith the lesson grasshopper?

I made some new friends: dread, despair and panic. I met them alone, in the middle of the night in the middle of the woods while it was down pouring rain. Dread, despair and panic were new friends for me, now they are old friends that I expect to face again. In fact, I expect the Barkley to basically feel like I'm lost for 60 hours in deep dense fog. There's something I heard about a week before my race that felt like piece of vital information....

“Your ability to finish 100 miles is largely dependent on your ability to solve problems”.

I believe this now and truly understand what it means. The first 50 miles there were no real problems (which in and of itself is exciting….because I’m operating on the belief that I’m a soccer player, not a runner. But, maybe I’m a runner? I’m not convinced yet, but those 50 miles sure were fun). The next 10 produced the real learnings. Fog had set in on the top of the mountain and I was not prepared. I don’t think I respected that 4,000 foot mountain the way I do a 14,000 foot mountain, lesson learned. The Barkley is run in the Tennessee mountains Nicci, and you respect that, why couldn’t you treat this the same way? Big mistake. The visibility was 5 feet, my headlamp wasn’t enough to see and I was lost wandering around for about 30 minutes looking for the faithful pink flags that pointed the way of the trail. I found two different sets of eyes staring at me in the woods, pretty sure they were deer, but who knows. Also heard some really loud grunting and huffing at one point, my Mom (who grew up in Casper, Wyoming) says

"That was probably a bear”.

Finally after 30 minutes, another runner came up behind me and he had 2 lights, he had brought a 2nd headlamp—I think he respected the mountain. I asked if we could go it together, he agreed and we proceeded to slowly find one pink flag after another. The next series of events I will replay in my head a thousand times. Falling down rock faces, climbing hands and feet up rock faces. All leading me towards a ‘withdrawn’ from the race finish about 2 hours later. My sister asked me

“If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself ?”

I told her I would tell myself to

“Find a way”.

Nothing physically took me out of the race, it was my mind. I panicked about being lost. I faced dread not knowing which animals eyes those were. I was in despair having to rely on other runners and unable to secure my own safety, amateur hour. The guy I was with figured out how to proceed, why couldn’t I? And, now I’m in the rage phase. I am so angry. Mad at myself. Is this what I am? Is what I chose now what I am? Unclear. All I want to do right now is go run. All in all, I ran 60 miles in 20 hours and climbed 14,000 feet. A good training run.

Looking back, my nutrition was working like a charm, only dry-heaved once. Was eating 100 calories every hour, I felt great. My legs were moving, I was actually running and came into the 50-mile mark under 1 hour from when I thought I was going to, a 17/min per mile pace instead of the projected 20/min mile.

I had climbed about 13,000 feet of elevation and I was in high spirits and ready to gear up and head back out into the wilderness. I had met a running buddy, Ian, Ian if you’re out there reading this—thank you for setting the pace, for showing me that I could do what I thought physically I maybe couldn’t and for teaching me the power of having someone. I’ve thought for a long time that I don't need anybody. This last year has been incredibly emotional and has left me convinced I don’t need anyone. Well, I do. (I did burp quite a bit and he asked me if I had drank anything carbonated and I said “No, but can you imagine if I did?”)

The last 4 hours of the race taught me more than the first 16. Next time I meet panic, dread and despair they will be old friends. And, I will know how to overcome them, which is to simply keep going, because it’s always

“Darkest before the dawn”

In 19 days, I’m going to toe the line again at Javelina Jundred. As the race director, Laz, of the Barkley Marathons says:

“True success is not the absence of failure, it is the refusal to surrender”. 

Carry on friends.