Finding Ultra

by Rich Roll

  “Gimme my bag!” I demanded.

  Rummaging furiously through the van, I pulled out my duffel bag and threw all my clothes into the dirt until I found what I was looking for. Then I ran into the bushes to change. When I returned, Molly Kline, Paul, and Rebecca all looked at me wide-eyed. Like a man possessed by demons, I was in need of an exorcism. Riding off in anger, I covered several miles before I was able to compose myself and reflect objectively on my behavior. Sure, I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life. But that was no excuse to treat our crew—people who were selflessly giving themselves completely to our cause—in such a manner. Not cool. And definitely not me. What was I becoming?

  Ironically, I was riding along some of the most beautiful coastline in the world, yet, for the first time, I was unable to enjoy the view. Along Honoapiilani Highway, gorgeous palm trees hugged the tranquil coast, arching their fronds low over impossibly white sands. Offshore, surfers crested perfect curls in the turquoise luminescence. Meanwhile, I couldn’t focus on anything beyond my failing legs and the searing pain in my seat. I tried to find a way to savor the moment. But with my body atrociously overheated, I couldn’t. I glanced momentarily at the world-class sunset that had now painted the sky a fluorescent pink, but I couldn’t summon anything beyond indifference. So what? …

  With Jason drafting behind me, it took all of my concentration just to keep pushing through the wind, in a straight albeit slow line forward. I had no bandwidth at all for nature appreciation. Instead, I began staring at the dusty road shoulder, scanning for a place to nap. Yearning. I knew without a doubt that if I set my bike down, I could be asleep in a bush in fewer than ninety seconds.

  A welcome distraction from my hypnotic state arrived in the form of a car that began to leapfrog us outside Lahaina. Leaning out of the passenger-side window was a person taking pictures of Jason and me. And it wasn’t random; these people seemed to know who we were, what we were doing. They were there to help cheer us on and document our progress. It sunk in once again that we weren’t alone. Sure, we had our relentlessly devoted crew, but there were also people we didn’t even know who were paying attention—even going out of their way to give us a boost. My saddle sore pain temporarily faded and my energy elevated. I turned to Jason. “People are watching us, man. We’re not alone. Maybe we’re making a difference—having an impact on people’s lives?”

  Thinking back, it’s embarrassing to recall those words. It’s not at all like me to engage in such self-congratulatory hyperbole, but that’s what happened. I said it because I was desperate. At that particular moment, I needed to hear myself say it. Because to keep moving forward, I needed to believe that this lunacy held some meaning outside myself. And so did Jason. It seems like such a small thing. But by saying those words out loud we were able to take the focus off the fatigue and embrace an idea that had begun to take root that morning during my pre-swim meditation.

  Whether this quest was about more than Jason or me or not, as a survival mechanism I had to convince myself that it was. Otherwise, what was the point of all this other than to take a massive ego trip? Please let it be so. I had to buy it. So I did. I pushed a little bit harder, getting through the next several miles without obsessing about that nap, my aching rear end, the lower back that was seizing, or the power that was quickly fading from my legs.

  Per our improvised route, we logged two loops between Lahaina and Maalaea. On our second pass through Lahaina, the sun set and we took a brief break to put fore and aft lights on our bikes. But we underestimated how dark the island would quickly become. Despite our efforts, we still couldn’t adequately see the road in front of us. Time to improvise by strapping our elastic-banded running headlamps across our bike helmets.

  However, as we resumed the ride, looking very much like coal miners descending into the earth’s innards, my elastic lamp strap kept slipping off my helmet, flipping the lamp down across my salt-stained forehead and inverting the beam such that it shone directly into my eyes, completely blinding me. This made for more than a few scary interludes. On one occasion, I was managing some significant crosswinds while descending quite rapidly just behind Jason on a dark stretch of heavily trafficked road that lacked any true shoulder. I could hear the diesel chug of a big rig truck approaching from behind, when my lamp once again flipped down over my eyes. Total whiteout! Anyone who’s ridden a time-trial bike knows how unsteady they can be when strong winds blow from the side. It can take all your focus just to prevent the bike from getting blown over. In these scenarios, the last thing you want to do is remove a hand from the bars. Yet I was totally blinded from the shaft of light now piercing my pupils. As the truck quickly reared up alongside me, I panicked, lacking any ability to see where I sat on the road. I desperately tried to call out to Jason, but my voice failed me. My mind raced, trying to figure out my position on the road while running doomsday scenarios. Was I along the narrow shoulder? Or had I veered out in the middle of the highway, potential road-kill for the quickly approaching truck? Some primitive fight-or-flight response commanded my left arm to quickly flip the lamp off my eyes and maintain my line just as the truck whirred past, my heart rate jumping twenty beats to maximum in a nanosecond blur.

  We had forty miles to go as we put West Maui in our rear view and cut south down State Highway 31 for a straight shot toward Wailea, grateful for a much-needed broad shoulder. I was in such a fog, I barely recall these miles, knowing only that I logged most standing up. I was now entering a new event horizon in my life experience with fatigue. The numbers on my power meter plummeted to laughable digits. Just keep moving forward.

  As we neared Kamaole Beach—where our day had begun and where we planned to transition for the evening’s marathon, I was overwhelmed by the fragrant aroma of food emanating from the many bars and restaurants along this touristy drag. But my stomach revolted at the wafting smells, and banana-flavored stomach acid percolated in the back of my throat. Then I began seeing spots. And every little bump in the potholed road thrust lighting bolts of pain through my carbon fiber bike frame into my saddle sores. The only thing that kept me from completely giving up was our impending arrival at the beach parking lot.

  I locked in on the mile markers peppering the road, counting down.… T-minus three miles … two miles … one mile … half a mile … But with the beach within our grasp, Paul leaned out the window of our crew van to let us know that we were still well shy of our 112-mile bike goal—we’d need to overshoot the beach and keep going for another four miles and U-turn back. Eight more miles?!?!? It couldn’t be true. But a quick check on my bike computer verified it. Normally, I could tack an extra eight miles onto a long ride just as easily as I could brush my teeth. But today was far from normal. I was now officially at my breaking point. Had I been a spy detained in Guantánamo, I would have happily divulged every state secret I held just to get off that bike. I actually began to cry.

  Don’t let anyone see. Head down. Tears mixed with sweat from my brow stung my half-blind eyes as I strained to keep focus on the white line of the road. Just make it to the next mile marker. What followed was interim goals measured in yards … then feet. Those last eight miles were an eternity. And forget about the marathon that we were scheduled to do after this! Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. Not in my state of mind, body, and spirit. I knew Jason would agree. We’d somehow complete this ride. But that was it. We’d given it a solid try, but there was no way running shoes would find their way onto my feet tonight. Maybe we could think about it after a decent night’s rest, but not tonight. No way, no how.

  As we finally—and quite gingerly—coasted into the beach parking lot just past 10:00 P.M., I’d firmly decided on behalf of both Jason and myself that the evening marathon was officially canceled.

  As our crew greeted me, I unclipped from my pedals, somehow managed to rear my leg over the bike’s top tube, and just let the bike drop to the ground. Fine by me if I never saw that steaming heap of carbon fiber ever again. In a daze
, I stumbled right past Jason, Rebecca, Molly, and Paul, making my way directly to the public shower, where I steadied myself by leaning against the tile wall under a stream of hot water, still fully clothed.

  For fifteen minutes, I rinsed the grime, salt, tears, and pain from my worn-out body and watched it circle the drain, mesmerized. Enveloped in the much-needed shower stream, I was consumed with one thought only: I’m done. I didn’t care that I wouldn’t finish the day or that we’d fall shy of what had now become, thanks to social media, a relatively public goal. I knew that I’d given it everything I had, left it all out on the island. I could be happy with that, I guess. The truth is, in that moment, I really didn’t care. I didn’t need this. After all, I’m forty-three years old. I have a law practice I’ve been ignoring. What am I trying to prove? I’d done enough. I needed my wife. I missed my kids terribly. And for now, all I wanted was a pillow, some fresh sheets, and oblivion.

  Firming my resolve to get to the hotel as soon as possible, I got out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and inched my creaking bones to join Jason, sitting on the open-hatched rear bumper of the crew van, head slung low, covered in a wet towel. Together we sat at this makeshift altar, saying nothing.

  Rebecca approached, breaking the silence with a question that had something to do with socks. But before she could finish, Jason cut her off. “Don’t talk to me right now.”

  Thank you. Of course, it wasn’t Rebecca’s fault. As always, she was anticipating our needs, anxious to help. But the energy required to even listen to someone, let alone field a question, was overwhelming. Nothing else needed to be said to clarify that we were finished for the night, and I knew Jason felt the same way, without a doubt. Ten more minutes passed. Paul, Rebecca, and Molly hovered nearby. Not a word was uttered. Jason and I both understood what needed to be said, but neither of us wanted to be the one to say it out loud.

  Fearful of passing out, I regained some balance by opening my eyes and staring blankly toward the ocean. Obscured in total darkness, the rhythmic sound of the waves hypnotized me, freezing time and thought. But my excursion into intoxicated exhaustion was interrupted by the very real and sudden appearance of a woman, emerging from the black nowhere of the beach beyond. Stumbling and looking haggard beyond her true years, she shuffled barefoot toward us until she stood directly in front of me, fully illuminated below the glow of the halogen streetlamp above. A teal tank top and brightly colored board shorts barely covered her leathery, sun-damaged skin. In a state as incoherent as mine, she looked me directly in the eye and slurred, “Hey, man, you wanna party?”

  Great. Just what I needed. A drunk woman. “Maybe some other time,” I managed to mutter, avoiding her glance in the hope that she’d keep moving.

  “Suit yourself.” She groused in that distinctive rasp native to the veteran alcoholic, and wandered off in search of a partner in crime. But it was enough to break the silence. Putting an end to this chapter, Jason reared up off the bumper, turned to look me in the eye, and said, “Okay, big bro.”

  Thank God, I thought. That hotel bed just got closer.

  “Go get your shoes,” he said. “Time to run.”

  What?! He can’t be serious! Instantly, my mind raced with all the excuses I wanted to make, all the obvious reasons that this was a bad idea. Instead, I was mute. And oddly, my thoughts turned back to the drunk woman. A flood of emotion welled up inside me as I realized that, shy of the grace that had come my way twelve years prior, I could very easily have been her, staggering around lost and alone, impossibly drunk. We’re not so different, that woman and I. Yet here I was, not just sober, but meeting reality head-on.

  Why did she approach me? I wondered. My only conclusion was that she was an angel, sent to remind me just how blessed I’d been—how far I’d come in my recovery.

  Injected with this high-octane dose of gratitude, I did the impossible, slowly raising my body up to meet Jason’s pensive, thousand-yard stare. And then … blackout. Five baffling minutes later I regained awareness, finding myself mysteriously adorned in a new pair of shorts and compression socks, lacing up my running shoes and ready to run. Clearly, I hadn’t passed out. I just have absolutely no recollection of doing any of this under my own power.

  Without a doubt, this was the defining moment of EPIC5. And one of the defining moments of my forty-five years. Getting up off that car bumper to stare down a marathon was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

  Yet I didn’t do anything. All self-will had drained from me. My resolve had evaporated, replaced with delirium. So what did happen? Somehow, a switch was flicked. But not by me, this I know. The energy to get off that bumper could only have come from something beyond the self.

  Bliss in depletion. I finally got it. It’s that beautiful place of ascetic purity that is permitted to bloom only when the mind is stopped dead in its tracks and everything else is stripped away, leaving your soul—or who you really are—to forge a connection with the truth.

  As a boy, I was hooked on the 1970s TV show That’s Incredible! Each week, hosts Fran Tarkenton, Cathy Lee Crosby, and John Davidson would present the audience with some amazing feat of the human spirit. Sure, it was cheesy. But like most kids my age, I loved the show, tuning in every week. One of their guests was the mystical “Yogi Kudu,” a six-foot-tall, fantastically limber yoga master. I’ll never forget the episode where Kudu slowly contorted himself into a two-foot-square clear Lucite box, which was then hermetically sealed and placed in a swimming pool, where it sat on the bottom of the deep end with weights on top to hold it down. A stopwatch ticked off fifteen minutes before a crane raised the box back to the surface and the yogi unfurled himself, perfectly fine. By slowing his heart rate to something like five beats per minute, the master was able to remain in the box without air, free from claustrophobia, downright comfortable. It blew my mind. I still think of Yogi Kudu often—as well as the Hindi monks who are able to meditate for weeks, months, even years in some documented cases, with nary a morsel of food—as examples of how, when the mind is controlled and spirit aligned with purpose, the body is capable of so much more than we realize.

  Jason and I began our marathon with a step, rounding into a walk. As we went, we ate almond butter sandwiches and took in copious amounts of fluids, slowly restoring some life to the legs that would now have to propel us 26.2 miles in darkness.

  “We got all night, bro. Who cares how long it takes. If we have to walk the entire thing, then so be it.”

  Jason’s words relieved my anxiety. And recalling my commitment to surrender, I again let go of the pressure I’d placed on myself to perform. I started to come alive again. After an initial half-mile walk, we found ourselves jogging. Not so bad. And before we knew it, Jason and I were actually running, laughing, cracking jokes. Our ultra-running crew captain for the day, Paul Hopwood, and Zoot’s Molly Kline joined us, their enthusiasm a welcome improvement on the dour tapes that had been continuously playing in my mind for the last several hours. As we headed up to Highway 31, we made progress back toward the airport, where we were joined by a few local runners who’d been following our journey online and wanted to join.

  With a brightened perspective, we began to actually enjoy ourselves, hitting a good stride—running for a spell, walking for a spell, then repeating. Close to midnight, we were chugging along nicely when a car pulled up ahead and stopped. Out jumped top-ranked local triathlete Dylan Rist, who ran alongside us dressed in his tie, khakis, and leather work shoes, fresh off the clock from his waiter job at a local restaurant. It was now officially a party.

  For several miles we alternated running (using this term loosely) and walking, taking our time, chatting, and generally enjoying the company and the sound of the warm breeze on the cane fields that lined the road. Before we knew it, we’d hit the ten-mile mark and everything seemed to be clicking. We might just get this thing finished after all. Rolling into the quiet town of Kahului in the dead of night, we cut across the airport before heading up
Hana Highway toward a long climb up Haleakala Highway. Then things began to get tough.

  As we inched our way up the steep grade of Haleakala Highway, hours into our “run,” Jason turned to me and quipped, “Almost there, bro. Keep it up and we’ll be done before you know it.” I looked at my Garmin Forerunner 310XT wrist computer, a heavy chunk of a watch that displays a variety of custom-set data points: heart rate, pace, the incline of the road, time lapsed, and—most important to me then—distance. The device read 12.4 miles. We weren’t even halfway yet! Jason was a purist who always declined to wear any type of data monitor, so he had absolutely no idea how far we’d run. But rather than chip away at his optimism, I kept my mouth shut.

  Having run steadily uphill for the last three miles with no end in sight to the elevating slant of the dark road ahead, I began to question Paul’s chosen route for the night. Once again, the wheels were beginning to fall off my wagon. I was becoming unhinged, returning to that dark and all-too-familiar place where I could no longer handle light conversation—or any interpersonal interaction for that matter. I was officially “no longer fun to be with.” And so, wondering why we would continue running uphill for who knows how many more miles, I began to let loose.

  “What are we doing?” I yelled, my teeth grinding as the pressure rose behind my eyes. “Let’s turn around and head back to the flats. This uphill route is idiotic.”

  Content to remain in his own world, or more likely just tired of my attitude, Jason kept to himself. And happy to just be running and fresh as morning dew, Paul couldn’t see the issue. “It’s not that steep,” he replied. Steep enough, I grumbled under my breath. He may have been an ultra-runner, but Paul wasn’t in the throes of his fourth iron-distance triathlon that week. Anyway, I withheld further comment for another mile and a half, treading uphill terrain I knew little about, unable to see beyond the oval circle of light downcast on the pavement by my headlamp. Then around mile 15, I lost it.