2004 MMTR 50 Miler

By David Solomon

As I lay restless in my car on Masochist Eve at Heritage High, October 2002,
I reflected on the past few months.  Post 9/11 military activity was still
in high gear, and while I was fortunate not to have been mobilized, my
career as a Naval Reservist had required more of me than it ever had before.
I was back in school as well, and given the heavy load of schoolwork I
hadn't seen more than three consecutive hours of sleep the week before the
race.  Throw family and career into the mix, and you have a pretty worn out
guy without a lot of training under his belt.  I could have used at least a
good night's sleep before the Mighty Masochist, but my thrifty mentality got
the best of my decision making process, and I decided to just crash in my
car at the school.  Bad decision.  After my post-Horton-speech trip to
Wal-Mart for bananas and other goodies, I engaged in restless sleep until
4am finally rolled around.  What was once an exhausted man was now just shy
of a corpse, and the trail ahead would do wonders in finishing me off.

My faulty pre-race weeks and days made for a nightmarish race.  I suffered
extreme nausea very early in the race that I could never shake, my vision
was unclear during significant blocks of time, and I even lost feeling in my
fingers and toes from time to time.  I remember standing still, my hands on
my hips, at mile 18 physically feeling as though as though I had just
completed back-to-back marathons.  That horrible feeling alone was all it
took to take my mind out of the game, and from that point on, God and God
alone carried me through the rest of the race.  I certainly didn't make it
on my own power, only through what God allowed me to do.  I toed the finish
in 11:57 and when that massive medal was strapped around my neck, my body
involuntarily collapsed to the ground.

I returned in 2003, better rested and trained, and determined to have a much
better showing.  I engaged in the usual early-miles chatter of ultras, and
ended up running with a young lady who was attempting her first ultra.  Our
early paces complimented each other well, so we ended up staying together
for quite a while.  During that time I learned a lot about her athletic and
running career and began to realize that she may need me, a more experienced
runner, to help her finish her first ultra.  I gladly decided to help her
try to finish and I rationalized sacrificing my own race by reminding myself
that I had already had the joy of finishing my first ultra, and that there
would be many more to come.  I stayed a couple of steps ahead of her most of
the way trying to motivate her to keep moving.  We managed to stay ahead of
most of the cutoffs, but only with a 5-10 minute cushion that was quickly
being absorbed as her legs were simply not allowing her to move with
consistent speed.  I knew that The Loop would eventually wash away all hope
of finishing and that we would ultimately be nabbed by the 41.5 mile cutoff.
When the 41.5-mile crew told us the news, she sobbed feeling as though she
had let me and herself down.  I encouraged her by reminding her that we had
run a great race, and had done all that we could do.  Personally, I was
quite uplifted rather than let-down as I discovered what a joy it was to
spontaneously sacrifice my own race to help another.  And I gained an
entirely new perspective on ultras and racing.

Again I returned in 2004.  A stress fracture in my ankle during a July ultra
halted my training for a full six weeks, and I was not able to begin
rebuilding my mileage until the end of August.  More interested in avoiding
the possible reoccurrence of the injury as opposed to accomplishing the
training-effect, I used walk breaks in all of my runs and never ran on
back-to-back days.  This worked well in preventing the injury from
resurfacing, however, I knew that I was simultaneously compromising the
physical toughness and speed that I would need to have an optimal chance at
finishing the race.  But under the circumstances, I really had no choice.
Physically, I felt great during the race, and fatigue never really became a
factor, however, as feared, I simply didn't have the speed needed to
successfully finish the course, and for the second year in a row, I was
nabbed at the 41.5 mile cutoff.

Perhaps 2005 will bring the right mix of personal situations to allow me to
finish Masochist once again.  And while I certainly hope that I don't
experience any more close finishes or DNFs during my running career, I will
continue to have no problem with close finishes or DNFs as long as I know
that they were beyond the control of my heart and body.  So if you ever see
that bright yellow bus shuttling the "failures" down the mountain to the
finish area, don't be too quick to shake your head, for the bus actually
isn't occupied with failures at all, just with legitimate personal stories
of why today just didn't go as hoped.

March on.


David Solomon