Eastern States 100 2023 Race Report
Ultrarunning’s main factors:
Fueling
Weather
Terrain
Support (Internal, external, planned for, spontaneous) we all need it
Mindset:
Willingness to Suffer
Desire to Finish
Enough connection to your Why to stick it out when none of these are working in your favor.
A short review of my performance on course before diving into the Meaning of the experience:
I began having fueling trouble right off the bat. My stomach turned on me in the first 10 miles and was really messed up/unable to take in calories for a long time before I would reach the first crewed aid station at mile 17.8. Regardless, I remained way ahead of cuttoff pace, and ahead of my goal pace through mile 43! My digestion kicked in after that first crewed spot and I was able to consume enough to come alive again through the afternoon. Still, fueling was my main problem for the entire duration. Conditions in the 50’s up to the mile 63 got rlly ugly. Shortly before dark it began to thunderstorm and it stuck around for several hours after dark. Maybe until around midnight. This turned the trails to thick slippery muck in many places. I came into 63 at 1:30am where goal was 11pm, starving and dehydrated without enough food with me to account for those extra couple hours of effort before reaching my crew again.
I took time to have a complete breakdown, get dry, get warm, eat potato chips, and resupply for the next section. I left this aid shortly after 2am. After this turning point I was fighting the whole time just to finish before the final deadline, which I made by 22 minutes. Spoiler alert.
It wasn’t a situation where the whole time I knew I would finish or that I would even continue trying. But at some point after picking up my pacer to run with me at the 63 aid station, I had a mental and energetic realization that I still wanted to try to make it.. and the shift after that in my ability to push for quality miles was massive. We worked together to math out where we needed to be and set off for the mile 80 crewed aid with 4 hours till sunrise. We got there, and every other aid after that, with a small cuttoff buffer that would seriously be derailed if anything else went wrong.
The last 23+ miles especially was an all out brawl where my pacer and I were strategically counting down lead times to aid station cutoffs minute by minute and racking up a time buffer like as little as 30 seconds or less per mile at a time… like going a bit faster when we could even if it was for 1-2 minutes to make a 18 minute mile instead of a 19min one and so forth. And at the final 4mi descent to the finish that translated to passing about 9-10 other runners and going from second to last person still on course who wasn’t cut or didn’t quit to like 11-12th to last. The final 4 mile descent, I found myself fully in my body again. I moved like nothing before had happened. We began to fly. I ran hard all the way to the finish line. I kept repeating in my head what often comes over me in shorter events: “How do you wanna finish?”… I don’t want to leave anything out here on course to question. It was time to tap in and empty the reserve tank. And you know what? It still had plenty of juice. Spirit doesn’t fatigue.
Finish time: 103+ miles in 35 hours 38 minutes.
A deeper Reflection on what this means to me:
All I can say based on this weekend is that your goal is possible even when it feels like the weight of your mind or that of the world has crushed every good effort you ever thought you’ve made along the way. When you are in the grind of a process, no matter your time horizon, and the world laughs at what you have called progress. She laughs so loud it shakes you back to a beginning you never thought you would see again. Even then, when its so much easier to be mad at what’s gone wrong, with where you are at, or think things aren’t fair, whatever has gone right is enough. Whatever you have, it is always enough. So long as you have the humility to accept that right now, it’s all you got.
You can’t have more in this moment because to earn more, you need to work more. No matter how badly you want the result of all that’s gotten you to this moment to be larger, more useful, more complete than it is, things are not gonna change by demanding they do. “Give me more. Give me something different, or else!” - A child’s empty demands. Or else what? Or else you will quit? Because it’s not going how you imagined it would? Okay quit. Where does that get you? See people think being put back to a beginning and feeling like they are starting over, or like they are only just managing to tread water, not going anywhere, is the worst thing in the world. We pity ourselves. We get pity from others for pivoting or having to get up and try again, try something else, try harder, try for longer. The worst thing in the world is being given a chance to continue, no matter where on the board you gotta start, and turning a blind eye to it. To have a chance to keep going, and fool yourself into thinking you have been cheated because the chance doesn’t look like a fairy tail.
We run long distance for romance. We are romancing the mountains. We are trying to seduce the versions of ourselves we wish we could be in an ideal world to come closer into Reality. We are flirting with truly hellacious situations in search of a nirvana. Only it’s temporary, and that sense of bliss… That sweet, tender glory can’t be invited home to roost even once it’s found. The mountains will always be her home. Even though she can’t come with you, and you can’t stay, if you play your cards right you get to leave with a gift. Many leave empty handed, shouldering their burden of an experience unfulfilled, goals forfeited, reasons forlorn. The ones with a strong enough desire to finish, or maybe who are too stubborn to quit, leave having fulfilled the dream of a chance earned. A chance given, and a chance taken.
What does it take? All you have in every moment. Sometimes it isn’t much. We often try to give more than that, end up eating shit, and have to begin again. Momentum is a funny thing. It’s even more fleeting than the glory. In moments of weakness, it can also feel harder to hold. What sets finishers apart from the quitters is a belief that it can be had again. If we stop demanding things be different than how it’s all going for long enough to remember how we got to our most recent bout of depravity, success comes back around. The hilarity of it all is that forward motion is happening all the while. What’s to complain about? You are getting closer.
It can’t be easy. This gift is something earned through tremendous amounts of pain. Everyone who’s earned it knows this. On certain days, some courtships are harder sung than others. For those willing to accept what is, let go of what isn’t, and hold onto humility often enough to simply continue, our overall reasons are made fulfilled. An utterly grueling, seemingly endless, excruciating day on the trails earns us a gift. We rendezvous with our temptress. We hear our tormenter call out our names. Lead turns to feathers. Did my energy ever leave? Where was it waiting? Pain melts under the beat. Motion influx. Faculties are restored. Permission to engage, fully granted. It’s just me. I decide to fly. We have a date. She lives in the mountains.