August 6. A fine Saturday morning which began with a less than fine cup of coffee. Kate is the standard morning coffee brewer. And in Bloomsburg things ordinarily turn out quite nice. For some reason - perhaps the mineral content, air quality, who knows? - things don't often work out so well in her native Chalfont PA. This morning was no exception. One sign of an impending bad cup of Joe is when you can see the bottom of the cup, a characteristic more likely found in tea than a good strong brew. I gave it a whirl and my first sip confirmed my fears: weak. This may seem like not such a big deal. But you must understand, I was only 120 or so minutes from embarking on the longest run I've ever tried. I had a set of steps I needed to go through to adequately prepare - a ritual if you will. Things I do on all of my longer runs. Coffee was the first step. And if this didn't go well I was concerned that this might be a sign for a long day. So we re-brewed with a sizable increase in grounds, hoping for a stronger result. Stronger was certainly the outcome, as the beverage was likely more suited for a two stroke engine than my 4am slowly pumping vascular system.
(It seems that there are still mules on the mule trail; this one in particular I had to dodge as I was headed south and it was most definitely headed north)A bit of backstory will help set the scene. A few days before my arrival, a nice woman from a charitable organization informed me that the mule path was out of commission. Closed, to be more precise. Major flooding had washed out significant sections of the path. The good folks at DCNR closed the path for reasons of safety. And I'm sure that was a fine decision. Pictures all over the web confirmed that the trail was less than hospitable. But I'd been planning this for months now and I wasn't going to be derailed because some pieces of the trail were less than perfect. Indeed, the day before, I drove along several miles of the trail and deemed it suitable for running (to be honest I would've deemed 3 feet of water suitable).
Onward. We drive the 40 or so minutes to the head of the Delaware River mule/canal path (Easton PA). The goal, as you may recall, was to run the entire path - Easton to Bristol. Roughly 60 miles. Arriving in Easton at around 7am immediatley lifts my spirits: the trail seems quite intact. You see the woman who so politely informed me of the trail's closure said there were signs posted everywhere indicating its status. I looked around. No signs. Seems good to me. Kate and I pause for a few moments to snap some photos, I weigh myself (about 190 pounds clothed), rub on some bodyglide and then I start running. 100 yards down the trail is a fallen tree, laying across the path. Certainly can't jump it. I have to stop completely and crawl underneath. So would be the beginning of a rather challenging day.
Millions of spiders spun millions of webs across the trails overnight. I break through them endlessly. They are everywhere - eyes, mouth, legs. I give up trying to pull them off my body. The first 30 or so minutes I spend talking to myself. Or, rather, to my mom. It's not something I do on a regular basis so please don't be alarmed. But it's comforting in a way and helps me focus on why I'm here. But eventually I drift off. I think that most long distance runners reach a point where they're in tune with the world only as much as they need to be. The rest of the brain is off somewhere else, perhaps on a beach or back in bed. Regardless, this is a welcome defense mechanism and helps to shield me from the trials that lay before me.
It generally takes me a while to warm up, usually at least 30 minutes. And I almost never run in the morning as the cold (even 70 degrees cold) doesn't much work for me. So it's about 60 minutes before I'm starting to feel loose and limber. This is compounded by the fact that, in many parts of my path, there is no path. It's simply gone. Replaced with countless beautiful river rocks, smooth as glass. Running over these would mean an instant turned ankle, if not worse. Walking even presents challenges. But I make it through these rather lengthy portions only to be greeted by sticker bushes higher than my head and thick enough so I can't see more than two feet in any direction. The only choice is to go through, at a quickened pace so as to minimize the time I'm exposed to these things. Breaking free on the other side is blissful but my legs are cut badly; the cuts mix with the sweat and cause a lovely stinging sensation. All this by mile 10. What a great beginning.
I meet up with Kate at roughly mile 11. She's driving the sag wagon stocked full of sugary snacks, water, gatorade and other such amenities.
My legs are scratched more than anything I've ever endured as a little kid playing in the woods. To try to ease the sting and itchiness of it all, I rub bodyglide all over them (far right image). I refuel with mountain dew, water and few handfuls of M&Ms. Most of this stuff I'm just trying based on what I've read. I've only ever eaten M&Ms as a gluttonous snack. Now I'm shoveling them in. The important thing, as I understand it, is replacing the calories and fluid lost. Sometimes you can do both - as in the case of mountain dew which is packed with a couple hundred calories and is deliciously sweet. Makes sense. But truthfully I've never had this challenge before. The three marathons I've run (26.2 miles) never required me to take more than a few sips of water. All my caloric and fluid intake happened after the run, not during (usually in the form of General Tso's Chicken).
Properly refueled, I head out. Kate and I agree to meet at mile 15 where I'll change to a fresh pair of sneaks. The current pair are basically trashed due to the wet ground, mud and fun-loving sticker bushes.
At this point, I'm feeling fairly strong. I've not reached marathon distance, but I've crossed this mile threshold before so I have some comparison. I lube up, apply some generous sunscreen, shovel down M&Ms, follow it with a mountain dew, topped off with some water. And then I'm off. Like a turtle. Mile 20 image below.
Ok a brief moment about pace here. I'm not fast. I may endure, but I don't do it with any speed. Or grace for that matter. Truly my only focus is to get from A to B. So at mile 21 I was hovering around 4 hours. Bear in mind there was a good bit of walking at the north end of the trail and a few other rest stops. Flash Gordon, it's not. But all in all I'm pleased with my progress. More importantly, though, I'm pleased that I want to continue making progress. But this, of course, would all change.And mile 30. Still feeling and going strong.
And here comes the wall. Mile 36. Like a ton of bricks. This is truly unchartered water for me, so I'm clueless as to how to handle the feeling. I've read about it and so I'm at least not terribly surprised. Something about sugar peaks and crashes, feeling really out of it etc etc. The picture below tells the story.
There doesn't seem to be anything scientific about getting out of it - you just have to push through. This was my brief mistake as the break I was taking felt too good. Running again felt too unlikely. So I sat there. Perhaps 20 minutes or so. Thinking things over. Alternating between stopping for good and starting up again. I knew I didn't want it to end in some restaurant parking lot in New Hope PA. So I finally got up and starting walking. The trail, as it turns out, was eventually blocked off by a new townhouse/office complex. Not quite sure how they are allowed to regulate a public area, but regulate they did. I
I finally found a way to break into the complex and get back onto the trail where I start running. It's slow, but at least I'm running. I wish I could tell you that I had a miraculous break through. Or that I began sprinting the next twenty miles like it happens in the movies. But really it was about one foot in front of the other. Sometimes I shuffled, sometimes I picked it up a bit. I had stretches where I walked a minute then ran a minute. It was unbelievably challenging. But once I got through that 36 mile hump - the lowest of the low points - I felt pretty good mentally. Physically, though, I eventually reached a point where I could barely lift my legs to take a stride. Walking was fine but movement much beyond that was failing. During this last phase I asked Kate to meet me every two miles. I could keep my self moving forward, knowing that every time I saw Kate I was two miles closer to the finish. Advil was my friend.
This time, at mile 50, I literally hit the wall. Running on the path in Morrisville PA presented me with a challenge I knew I couldn't overcome. Someone had taken the initiative to cement between the ground (path) and the bridge overhead. The path ended here, in this cement wall. At least for me. Sure I could've waded into the canal, crossed under the bridge, and came out the other side. But I really didn't know how deep it was and I just didn't know if I could hack a swim at this point. Why not simply cross over top of the road and come down the other side? Seems logical, except for the minor irritation of a tall chainlink fence bordering all means of egress. So instead I sat down. It's really all I wanted to do anyway. Slowly I came to a squat; I imagined that I could hear the muscle fibers tearing. It was excruciating but I managed, after which I fell back on my ass. It felt great to sit down. So great, in fact, that I really didn't know if I could get back up. This wall was my end. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I sat on the path thinking about my next move. Getting up was less than pleasant, but I managed. I asked Kate to meet me at the gas station on the corner, motioning that I'd have to double-back along the trail. Some minutes later I make it to the gas station. Consume some dew, eat some M&Ms, and place a call to Kate's mom asking her to pick up some general tso's (can't forget this).
But I'm feeling like this is the wrong place to finish. 50 miles is good. I'm happy. I didn't start expecting to finish or not to finish; I just wanted to see how I'd do. So I'm not disappointed that I'm not going to see 60 miles. I've learned a lot. My next long run will be done much smarter (and without refined sugars). So I do some quick math and come up with the double marathon solution of 52.4 miles. I have Kate pace it out in the car and slowly reach the end point. And it's all for the better as I'm barely even running at this point, my legs feeling like cement.
It ended on some lonely residential stretch of pavement in Nowheresville PA. How fitting, since that's where I log most of my training miles. It was serene and calm and entirely uneventful. There were no ribbons to cross or bands to blare. But, I suppose in some off-handed way, I was the winner.
That's a wrap. See you on the pavement.
The tally:
:: 12 hours (more or less) in total
:: 10+ pounds lost
:: 52.4 miles
:: Approximately 5500 calories burned
:: At least 12 advil taken
:: 2 pairs of shoes
:: 2 sticks of body glide
:: About 8 mountain dews
:: About 1 gallon of gatorade
:: About 8 bottles of water
:: 1 order of General Tso's Chicken
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