Darth Dad

Back in the late 1980’s the Atlanta Track Club had a 50 mile race they put on in January. I ran it 4 times between 1986 (34 years old) and 1991 (39 years old). My worst time was 6:55:48; a pace of 8:19/mile. My best time was 6:43, which placed me third in 1990. That was an average pace of 8:04/mile. Surely they gave me hours, minutes, and seconds, but after running that far I really didn’t care if it was one second, or 59 seconds. My running log doesn’t show the seconds.

The race was held at Stone Mountain Park. There is a fairly hilly road around the mountain that is 5 miles long. Ten laps around the mountain yielded a 50 mile road race course. I’ve run that road every Saturday and Sunday since 1975, so of course I was compelled to run the race.

One of the years I ran the 50-miler I had an interesting encounter during the race. It was an unusual moment that I will never forget. I rarely tell this story because it is barely believable and some may consider it, well, overdramatic and self aggrandizing. I hope that I can do it justice in the retelling. My presence may have meant nothing, or everything; it’s hard to know.

I was running okay that year. I was at the 36 mile mark and had 14 miles left to go. This guy passed me moving pretty quickly and with excellent running form. He was clearly the leader of the race and I had just been lapped. So this guy was at the 41 mile mark and had only 9 miles left to go.

I never considered trying to keep up with this guy and draft for a while. He was so much faster it wasn’t an option for me. If I wanted to finish the race I needed to maintain my pace. I watched him run away from me, admiring his running form and his pace, and he was about 100 yards ahead of me when he suddenly started walking; on a downhill no less! Un-by-god-believable!

Leaders of races never walk and never quit. The reason they are able to lead a race is because they never walk and never quit. These guys are the best. I figured he had to be injured. This was really too bad because the nearest help was 4 miles in the direction we were headed , or one mile back in the direction we had just traveled.

Since he was walking it didn’t take me too long to catch up to him. When I caught him I stopped to walk with him and check his status. In a normal race I would have blown on by without saying a word. This was a 50 mile race. What’s the hurry? A little walking wouldn’t do me any harm and it seemed like the neighborly thing to do.

So when I caught him I said “Are you okay”?
He said “I’m done”.
“You’re done?” I said with surprise.
“Yeah, I’m done. I quit. It’s over.”

This was an awkward moment. He’d clearly run too hard, too soon, and had broken his own will. As a runner you hope to drive your competitors to mentally quit, but this guy was leading the entire race, second place was nowhere in sight, and he had driven himself so hard that he was quitting right there. This is rare. Most runners have the good sense to monitor their own physical and mental wellbeing and back away from the breaking point; bump up against it, yes, but not break.

This guy had done the mental equivalent of driving his car into a telephone pole and I was the first one on the scene of the accident. This was a psychological car wreck. I wasn’t a trained psychologist, but there was nobody else around to handle this, so I figured it was up to me to fix it.

I was walking with him while all these thoughts were running through my head. It took a moment or two for me to decide to take a chance by saying and doing something that really could seem odd to most folks. Could? Hell, what I had in mind was totally odd by anyone’s definition. This could really be embarrassing for me if it didn’t work, but if it did work, and this guy could finish the race, wouldn’t that be worth the risk of my own embarrassment? Maybe I could keep this secret and nobody would ever know.

So I said something like the following. I took my time saying it so each part would sink in deep and could be processed by a brain that wasn’t fully functioning at the time –

“I know you’ve run a lot of races. Remember how you finish the race and are totally wasted? Remember that moments later as you are walking through the finish chute you can feel the glycogen refueling the muscles in your legs and they don’t feel quite so bad? And by the end of the chute you are rethinking the entire race and wondering if you couldn’t have run a little harder here or there, because, after all, suddenly you don’t feel so bad? After a little more walking your legs feel much better and you are sure you could have run faster; in fact, you are ready to run a warm down.”

“Can you feel that happening now? Do you feel the fuel flowing back into your muscles? Every moment you are getting stronger and feeling better. Your blood stream is doing its job; bringing energy to your body. Give it some time. And while your body recovers feel the sun on your face and the energy that brings, and the beauty of the day, and these woods, and let all of that nourish your soul.”

He continued to walk in silence, so I went on to say and do what might seem ridiculous, but seemed perfectly logical after 36 miles of running.

“I’m not feeling too bad. I am pretty sure I can finish this race. I think I have some extra energy I can spare. So don’t freak out, but I am going to take your hand and hold it. (And I did) Open your mind to the possibility that some form of life, energy, psychological wellbeing, or whatever you want to call it can flow from one person to another. Feel it, or imagine it, it makes no difference. Let your mind recharge like a battery. At the very least feel the spirit of good intentions and let them help you recover.”

After a little time passed I thought he might be ready to run again, so I let go of his hand and we continued to walk, and I said my final words.

“Pretty soon now you are going to feel ready to run again. You will know when you are ready to take that first step. I am going to continue walking. I am not going to run off and leave you behind. You are going to run off and leave me behind. Start out slow and easy at a pace you know you can hold all the way to the finish. Take it easy on the up-hills. Walk if you need to, but just remember that walking isn’t quitting in a 50-mile race. Keep moving toward the finish. Finishing is the same thing as winning in a race this long. Finish the race.”

And so he did resume running. He ran off and left me. I started running again soon thereafter, but I couldn’t run anywhere close to the pace he was running.

When I finished the race my boss was there at the finish. I asked who had won. The winner had already gone home, but my boss said that the winner had told the volunteers at the finish that some guy out on course deserved credit for his finishing, and winning, the race. I like to think that guy was me.