Heartbreak Hill

Comparison of Boston Marathon and Capital Peak Ultra-Marathon Elevation Profiles

Yesterday, I successfully completed the entire 50 miles of the Capital Peak Ultra-Marathon, running a time of 8:53.  At ten minutes slower than last year, the times are fairly comparable.  However, I feel like the efforts were miles apart.  Although last year I suffered greatly during some portions of the race, I still enjoyed it;  Kathleen, with whom I ran much of it, provided me with companionship and motivation.  This year there was only immense suffering, an absence of joy, and no comradery.  

As some of you may know, I rolled my ankle fairly severely in December, putting my training off until late January.  Then at the end of March I contracted a severe sinus infection that ruined night after night of sleep.  Fortunately a two week regimen of antibiotic was eventually able to stem the tide of gunk flowing from the cavities in my head.  This left me with marginally two and a half months of time to seriously train.  These are not excuses for my performance but reasons why I was unable to arrive at the start line fully prepared.

Although I started the race with my two friends, Andrew and Andrew, there was no assumption that we would run together.  One had trained like a machine and the other had two decades of experience to rely on.  I knew that both would soon leave me behind to run my own race.  Within a few miles, I fell in with a small pack that included, surprisingly, Kathleen.  She remembered me from last year, and we chatted briefly before also parting ways.  By the time I left Aid Station #2 at 9 miles, I was essentially running alone.  On the initial climb to the top of peak, I passed nearly a dozen people and continued to feel quite strong as I began the loop back around to begin the "grunt mile" on the second trip up to the summit of Capital Peak.  This is where things really began to fall apart for me.  

At mile 20 I was 3.5 hours in and still not having any fun.  In fact I thought about pulling the plug and dropping down into the 55k course to finish.  My reasons for doing this were fairly simple (lungs weren't working right, I was too much in my head, my feet were killing me, etc.), yet I thought of Jeannette and the promise that I had made to her: I would do everything in my power to finish all 50 miles.  The pledges my sponsors had made were also in the back of my mind.  They had demonstrated their faith in me by making a commitment to support the effort.  I had to do right by them as well.  Therefore I made the agonizing decision to continue on the 50 mile course.  

I swear that when I arrived at Aid Station #6 (29.6 miles) there was a tiny man in a sombrero and Mexican poncho.  He greeted me with an upbeat "Hola", and I simply responded to this bizarre illusion with the idiotic, "Did I run all the way to Mexico?"  Was he real?  If not, then who refilled my water bottles while I crouched to ease the ache in my knees?

The 5.7 miles from Aid Station #6 to the place where you begin the long descent off the ridge line was bad for me last year and nearly as much this year as well.  Along this stretch, you begin to cross paths with the runners headed out while you are headed back.  The pitch of the trail is generally in their favor, so chugging back uphill is exacerbated by their long strides and easy demeanor.  At this point I could feel blisters forming beneath my nail beds and between my toes.  A change of socks and shoes as well as Bodyglide was waiting for me at Aid Station #7.  I just had to tolerate the discomfort until then.

When I finally arrived, I was fortunate to have the assistance of Becca and Shana who refilled my stock of gels and fluid as well as helped me into dry shoes.  Troopers that they are, they cleaned up after me including my disgusting and soaked Cascadias.  For a moment, as I sat in the delicious comfort of that chair tending to my angry feet, I thought again of just pulling the plug.  I knew that fresh shoes were just a stop gap measure.  They had offered to help me lance the blisters, but I declined knowing that with all the sloppy mud left to run through, doing so was risking getting foul water in the wounds.  I absolutely did not want to continue, but I stood up and jogged back into the woods. 

Again I thought of my commitment to Jeannette and the principle that I was trying to illustrate for her as well as all of my students.  If I quit, it would not have been because I couldn't finish, only because I didn't have the will to finish.  As if to illustrate that point, the last fifteen miles were pure agony.  My feet were stoic and putting up their best fight.  My quads, although trashed, seemed to relish proving that despite their depleted state they still had some mileage left in them.  It was my mind that was gone at that point.  (Remember the hallucination of a Mexican in a poncho?)  For six hours I had been running by myself.  Rarely was anyone with earshot.  Often it seemed that I was the only person on this 50 mile long ribbon of mud and rocks and sand, and this messed with my head.

As much as my body was trashed when I crossed the finish line, it was my psyche that truly lay in tatters.  A group of people, including my four friends, were milling about eating and drinking in the afternoon sun.  Exiting the chute, I headed to the deserted corner of the parking lot, dumping my hydration belt as I went.  A wave of emotion was poised to overtake me, and I was reluctant to let it all come apart publicly after having suffered so privately for so long.  Eventually I dropped into a squat and allowed the relief of finishing to finally overtake me. 

We live in a world ready to laud our greatest successes and condemn us for our worst failures, but in reality most of our day to day existence is neither triumph nor tragedy.  This race, this effort, was neither success nor failure.  It was merely coping and making do until the end was finally reached.  The goals that we set are only significant in relation to what we have done in the past.  For me, it is hard not to feel like the ultra was a failure because of a slower time and greater suffering throughout.  No one was there to witness those private moments when I faltered on the trail and felt like crawling to the next aid station was a legitimate option, so they only saw the final result which was completion of the whole 50 miles.  That must equal triumph, right? 

The comparison at the top of the page is meant to illustrate the relative nature of success.  Before I starting running ultras, I had completed a series of marathons.  Although Boston was not one of them, I use it as a comparison because of its famous Heartbreak Hill, which is the last of four climbs between miles 16 and 21.  Rising just 88 feet over 4/10ths of a mile, it is the final climb for the course.  I had my own Heartbreak Hill yesterday; however mine was not a stretch of asphalt or section of trail but rather a state of mind.  Somewhere around mile 40 I realized that adrenaline could not keep the pain at bay and that I simply would not make the goal of besting last year's time.  But I would finish despite the doubt that had crept in along the way.  Defeating that hill was not a physical accomplishment but a psychological one: how appropriate for a scholarship that seeks to reward determination and perseverance over academic skill or financial need.