Every day I’m reminded getting where you want to go is a lot about being quick to adapt and a willingness to rely on others: Little in life goes as expected. This weekend’s two-day relay race from Madison, WI to Chicago was an eloquent illustration.
Five changes of clothing stuffed into my backpack, sans all the usual accoutrements: Cosmetics, jewelry, perfumes and adornments of any kind are unnecessary baggage. I had the basic survival gear: Running shoes, hairbands, sunscreen, and lip balm. A toothbrush and soap, on the off-chance a shower crossed my path at a point in time when I could capitalize on it.
I was trained, hydrated and stoked for the 21 miles I was slotted to run. The anticipation had been brewing for weeks, leaving me beside myself, barely able to concentrate on little else. Some might call me crazy, I prefer competitive and ambitious, finding it almost impossible to turn my back on this annual endurance challenge. This is a favorite moment of my year.
Our team of nine runs 36 legs comprising 198 miles over the course of a little over 24 hours. This race embodies life in its most simple form. It strips us down to minimal human needs. The only concerns are around when I will eat again, sleep again and run again. I don’t worry about who might be trying to e-mail, text me or call me. It doesn’t matter what I look like.
But this year did not go as planned. Our two strongest runners, elite athletes, really, the anchors of our team, dropped out in the 48 hours prior to the start. We decided to go anyway, with seven runners. Legs were reallocated; I was now up to 29 miles. Yikes!
My first leg, 6.3 miles, was in the afternoon sun on open farm-country roads in grueling heat. About half-way through I decided this was no longer a relay race for the best time, this was a test of survival for me, personally, and for our team. Even though we were never going to win this race under the best circumstances, in the past I had looked at it as a need to push myself to run as fast as I could to impress my team. This year it was about managing all of my resources to get through. I paid careful attention to my speed, forcing myself to slow to and maintain a 10-minute mile pace even though it felt like a crawl. I walked a tough hill and drank my water. When I passed the slap band to my teammate at the exchange, I felt strong. I wasn’t gasping for my last breath or guzzling water like I’d just found the oasis in the Sahara. I felt good and ready to go again.
We pushed ourselves to the limit and our bodies screamed back in revolt. Our collective legs were breaking down: Knees, groins, toes, calves, you name it; one of us on the team was feeling the pain somewhere. We got resourceful and split long legs among multiple runners. We adjusted on the fly at every turn.
When my calf cramped up severely during the 5th mile of my 6.8 mile leg, I was incredulous that my body was letting me down. How could this happen to me? I was feeling so great and ready to take off in the refreshingly cool air that came with the waning Strawberry moon, huge at the horizon as it rose in the sky. I started walking, sweaty headlamp lighting my way on a peaceful nature trail under the stars, totally defeated.
The field in this race is full of incredibly supportive people. I was passed by a competitor who said “Nice job, runner.” I remember thinking bitterly, “Really? I’m walking when I should be lighting up this trail. This is not a nice job”. A little later I was met by a man from another team who had heard there was an injured runner. Turns out he was looking for a teammate, a really fast twenty-something who had not shown up at his projected time, and was thought to be hurt or to have veered off course. Even though I was not who he was hoping to find; he walked me all the way to the next exchange. When I lamented that I thought my team would be disappointed in me, given all of the other hardships we faced, he assured me they’d be proud and told me to raise my arms in victory as I was cheered across the finish. Of course, he was proven right.
We resorted to drastic measures when one of our guys limped into Exchange 18 with an injured knee, and I couldn’t run leg 19 due to my calf cramp. We consulted with a race official and decided to leap frog ahead. We drove to Exchange 31 and slept in the parking lot for about 2 hours. Our remaining healthy runners each took the balance of the legs, and we decided to split the last 8.2 miles from Northwestern University into Montrose Harbor between four of us.
I ran only one short mile of the last leg, but it felt better than my previous 13.1. Even though my calf still hurt, I was fast. I poured my heart into it. And it felt like a fitting end. We each shared in the glory of that final leg. Our runner who crossed the finish line at the beach had truly earned the crown as our new anchor, totaling nearly 40 miles of our truncated 132 mile race.
Will we be disqualified? Yes, probably, and justifiably. But somehow that's not important anymore. As we enjoyed beer on a gorgeous day at the beach along Lake Michigan, we took our team photo and congratulated ourselves for getting to where we wanted to go. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t how we had pictured it or wanted it to be. But we made it through, and we’re stronger for it. Sometimes that’s all that matters.
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