Theory of Relativity

I mentioned in the previous post Dean Karnazes who, along with Scott Jurek, is one of the preeminent ultra-runners in the Unites States. In fact both men have completed races in excess of 160 miles. The former has completed The Relay—a 199 mile relay in California akin to the Hood to Coast race—by himself. The latter holds the record for the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run, completing the rough mountainous course in an astonishing fifteen and a half hours. For these men the fifty miles that I hope to complete is just the warm up, which makes the point that the challenges that we all face individually are all relative to our own experiences, goals, and strengths. I distinctly remember having to run the mile in middle school gym class and thinking that I would die before I ever finished it—all nine or so minutes it took to do the two half mile laps.

So I was interested in considering just how far the fifty miles of the ultra-marathon is. I needed a yardstick to measure it against. For those on the East Coast, consider the following fact. The length of the race is equivalent to jogging out of the Boston Common and continuing on until you reach Manchester, New Hampshire. For my students, consider this. If you were to lace up your shoes at the district office and run to the steps of the state capital building in Salem, Oregon, you would only be halfway through the fifty miles of the race, which brings us to the initial point; time and space are relative. Get on a jetliner from Portland and you would cover fifty miles in five minutes. On the freeway you might cover the same distance in about 48 minutes.

Instead of thinking about the absolute distance of the race, though, it is probably better to use another yardstick to measure the length of the race, the clock. My goal is to try and finish the fifty miles in nine hours. Consider this. If you work a nine-to-five job, as most do, and have the average commute time of 23 minutes, then you could leave for work, do your job, and return home again all before I plan to finish the race. It would take you less time to brush your teeth, sleep the average night’s sleep of seven hours, get up, take a shower, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, and drive to work than it will for me to finish the race.

Yesterday, I did a long run which lasted nearly three hours. The first hour sailed along smoothly. The second began to drag. As I entered the third hour, the specter of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity began to take over. Time became elastic. I would look down at my watch and note that only seconds had passed when it felt like minutes. For a while I think my watch actually stopped.

People often ask the question, “How do you train for something like this?” All the resources that I could find seemed to indicate that time on your feet is more important than total weekly mileage. When I trained for my marathons, the length of daily runs and weekend long runs was strictly prescribed. There was a definite weekly mileage I hoped to attain. For ultra-marathons, though, nearly everyone seems to agree that you don’t count the miles; you count the hours. Absolute mileage is less relevant. And maybe Einstein was an ultra-runner himself. After all how else would he know that time and distance were both related and relative? Perhaps like countless other ultra-runners, he witnessed time collapsing as he entered the fourth or fifth hour of his long runs and observed the numbers on the mile markers blur into meaningless smudges.