Running on Empty

by Marshall Ulrich

  When the Lincoln Highway project reclaimed, renovated, and revitalized much of Simpson’s route, it suddenly became the way to go for a taste of western adventure, fraught with perils (like poor paving) and lined with historical sites for the brave travelers who dared to drive it. Want to prove your “American rugged individualism”? This was the place to test your mettle.

  Today, the desolate areas along the road, where the only company you’ll find are the minerals and rocks that drew people to this place long ago, earned it the moniker “The Loneliest Road in America.”

  Was it the loneliest one for me? In some ways, yes. The daily mileage I logged across Nevada was chewing me up. But there were bright spots. Friends who drove to the middle of nowhere for a visit and brought me ice cream. The kids who came out from the soccer field to cheer me on. The incredible beauty of the desert, both by day and under the starlit night sky. And the inexplicable solitude that left me time to ponder my singular existence and discover how utterly frail, vulnerable, and dependent I was . . . but not alone.

  On day twelve, we reached the end of the road, both literally and figuratively. Since day three, we’d been following Highway 50 from Carson Pass, and we were about to turn off it onto Highway 6 to take us through most of Utah and on to Colorado. As we came to my final miles on Highway 50, also known as “the loneliest road in America,” I was no longer able to put any weight on my right foot. That morning, nearly two weeks into our transcontinental crossing, I covered just shy of thirteen miles before creeping into our RV for Dr. Paul to check me out. We iced the insanely sore arch, which felt like hundreds of needles jabbing, jabbing, jabbing.

  While we were tending to that, Charlie passed me for the first time since he’d been ahead of me briefly on the third day, but I knew he was suffering, too. Both of us were dealing with acute knee pain, extreme muscle fatigue, and various other problems. We were essentially in the same boat, and now I had something else going on with my foot.

  Charlie stopped to check on me and encourage me, and he reminded me of something I’d told him: “Never take yourself off the course, even if you’re reduced to a crawl,” meaning that you keep going until it’s so bad someone else has to stop you. Then Charlie left to continuing running.

  After a brief examination, Dr. Paul ordered that I be driven to a hotel in the next town, Delta, Utah. I’d have to elevate my foot and ice it, get a massage, and rest. Only then would he take a second look. He’d already guessed at the problem but held his cards close. He’d come by later to check on my condition and see if he was right.

  Diagnosis: plantar fasciitis, an intensely painful swelling on the sole of my foot.

  Treatment: eighty milligrams of Kenalog, an anti-inflammatory drug.

  So that evening, he injected the Kenalog in my gluteus maximus, and my job was simply to wait to see if it would work. Although he never told me so, Dr. Paul estimated that my chances of being able to continue were only 30 percent. He did let me know that recovery was uncertain, and that I should prepare myself for the possibility that I’d be finished.

  The folks at the Rancher Motel café cooked up a big plate of spaghetti for me, and despite my medical issues, I thought I was in heaven. This was going to be the longest break I’d had since we’d left San Francisco, and here I was, freshly bathed, laid up in a big bed with clean sheets, my wife nearby, and a delicious, freshly prepared meal to eat. There was also some cake—leftovers from Charlie’s birthday celebration, I think—and the whole scene made me feel grateful indeed.

  Heather and I didn’t talk about it then, but we both harbored secret hopes that the doctor would say that I was done, that I shouldn’t run another step, that I’d given it my all but now it was over. It’s good we didn’t share that with each other, because it could have turned into a bell-ringing moment for me. The voice that tells me to stop could have gotten so loud that I wouldn’t be able to ignore it any longer. We simply couldn’t allow those thoughts to be spoken.

  That night, I called a meeting of my remaining crew and two others who’d arrived to help. I explained my slim chances of recovery and the possibility that all of us were finished with this run, but I encouraged them, saying, “Don’t ever count me out!”

  I’d been down before and repeatedly come back from the dead in circumstances that seemed a lot more difficult than our situation in Delta. We’d know in the morning if this really was the end of the road for us, or if adventure yet called, and we still had new territory to explore.

  PART II

  Heartland

  Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.

  —William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

  6.

  Coming Home

  Days 13—24

  All three of my kids did some of their growing up in a baby jogger. First Elaine, as I ran to deal with my stress. Then Taylor, who was born in 1983, just two months after I completed my first ultramarathon in Wyoming. And then Alexandra, who made her debut into this world as I was getting ready for my first Badwater crossing in 1990. By the time each of them reached two years old, they knew the routine: Daddy would grab the contraption, they’d climb in, and off we’d go onto the streets of Fort Morgan, where I’d train every morning. In our small Colorado town, there weren’t a lot of other runners, and none were as constant about it as I was, so we were a curiosity. Everyone knew our family, and they looked out for us on the roads.

  My youngest, Ali, proved to be the most lively companion, always finagling to get out of the jogger because what she really wanted to do was push it. (I still wonder if people thought I was making her do that.) The best way to get her to stay put was promising a ride through Dairy Queen, which she thought was the best part of any trip. We’d roll up to the drive-through window, place our order, and then trot off, Ali giggling with delight, her lap full of treats.

  When the kids were little, it was easy to keep them close, to take them along, to include them in my routine, and I loved their company. Later, though, there were many times when I was distant or, as they say, “emotionally unavailable,” ill-equipped for some of the demands of family life. Brought up in a home where men didn’t talk about feelings, wounded by Jean’s death, and then married less than a year after that to Danette, I was unskilled in dealing with the conflicts that arose. Whenever Danette and I argued heatedly and I felt that I’d reached my limits with her, I’d cut her off. It was as if I’d slam down the receiver in the middle of a phone conversation.

  “That’s it. I gotta go.”

  It was unfair. Constantly compared with Jean—I did it both consciously and unconsciously—and watching me deal with our problems as I had with Jean’s illness, Danette bore the brunt of my alienation. If it got uncomfortable when things weren’t going well, if I craved the comfort of familiarity, if I needed escape, I always had the road. No matter where I was, I could grab my shoes and head out the door. Putting literal distance between me and any trouble at home gave me a sense of control over the situation: Once again, running offered a way to deal with my problems or bypass them, think things over and calm down or ignore them altogether. At the time, it seemed like the perfect way to handle any issue, but now it’s obvious that this contributed to the demise of my relationship with Danette. Leaving in the middle of a fight served only to make her more angry, so we were in a cycle of arguing, rehashing, and me repeatedly leaving to blow off some steam, which would trigger the cycle all over again. For a guy who prides himself on continuing even when it’s painful, on going the distance despite obstacles, on staying the course no matter what, I’m embarrassed to admit my failure in this particular test of my emotional endurance.

  With the kids, it wasn’t so dramatic, but as in any other home where the parents aren’t getting along, they sensed what was happening. They could read our body language and probably overheard some of our arguments. We tried to keep our disagreements away from them, but I know we didn’t completely insulate them. There were times, too, when one or the other of
our kids tried to use our growing disaffection to manipulate us, to pit us against each other to get what they wanted, just as most children in this situation do. It was trying, all of it.

  Yet I don’t believe I ever intentionally cut them off or disregarded them the way I did with Danette. My love for them runs deep, and their best interests have always been paramount. However, I do, still, have intense feelings of inadequacy as a father. The times when I fell short, when I wasn’t up to the task of parenting, all remain vivid in my mind: The conversations where I couldn’t come up with the words to say, or said too much. The long days of work and training when I wasn’t there for them. The weekends spent in competition, a mental and physical escape from daily life. When Danette and I divorced, Elaine was almost thirteen, Taylor was nine, and Ali was two, and it was no small thing in any of our lives, as it split the family into two households.

  Soon after the divorce, they watched me marry again, this time to a fellow ultrarunner. My relationship with Willette was largely about my attempting to recapture some of what I’d felt with Jean, as I’d thought that a marriage with someone who shared my passion for running would translate to one with greater intimacy and connection. But ultimately, both of us were disappointed. Even when Willette and I set a record together at Badwater one year for the fastest husband-and-wife crossing, it was deeply unsatisfying, as we’d fought most of the way, arguing as we ran, each of us wrapped up in our own “stuff,” too self-centered to celebrate the kind of union I’d hoped for. Although the marriage was short-lived, it must have affected the children and given them more evidence of how Dad didn’t have much figured out when it came to women. I still worry about the example I set, yet I’m proud of who my children have become despite whatever mistakes I made. All are independent, strong-willed, unique expressions of the best of me and their mothers—and their own people, besides.

  So, when I heard that all three of them, grown adults (Elaine, thirty; Taylor, twenty-five; and Ali, eighteen), were coming out to support me for part of the run through Colorado that fall of 2008, I was excited and also apprehensive. This would be our first time all together during one of my extreme events.

  Waking up in that hotel room in Delta, Utah, the morning after Dr. Paul had injected me with the anti-inflammatory drug for my plantar fasciitis, I was ready to give the foot a try, having rested most of the day before and slept amazingly well until about six in the morning. By seven, we were back at the stake-out point, and I’d pulled on a pair of black Crocs to give my arch a nice rubberized surface and provide cushioning under my heel as it struck the pavement.

  Running wasn’t an option yet. Gingerly, I stepped forward, hoping for the best.

  After about an hour of going slowly but increasingly faster, I changed into my running shoes and grabbed my LEKI trekking poles. By putting downward pressure on the poles and pushing off slightly, I’d propel myself forward with a bit of weight unloaded from my feet. The pain had subsided significantly, and I promised Heather that if my foot really started to hurt, we’d stop. (That wasn’t entirely honest, as the damn thing still really hurt. I should have said that we’d stop if it became unbearable to walk.)

  But we didn’t have to stop. That day, we headed up a valley of pastureland dotted with cattle, and houses on small acreages flanking either side of the road. This meant that we’d come out of the true desert and were approaching an agricultural area. There was more moisture in the air, the temperatures were lower, and the smells of livestock and farming reminded me of my parents’ place in Colorado. It drew me forward to think that we’d reach my old stomping grounds within the week, and then my children would be there to meet me.

  EL JALISCIENSE (THE JALISCAN)

  Making It in America

  Sometime in 2004, Maria Gutierrez started cooking tortas and selling them to the local dairy and chicken farm workers to help her family make ends meet. Her husband, Jesus, was a cattleman himself, working three hundred head and growing hay on about forty acres of their ranch near Delta, Utah. Soon after she began her small enterprise, it became obvious that Maria’s tortas could be the foundation of a successful venture, and Jesus was ready to capitalize on his wife’s cooking to make a better life for his family.

  A better life was the reason they’d come with their two baby daughters to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico, in the first place, back in 1985. With the help of relatives, they’d settled in the Cherry Valley in California, where Jesus worked as a foreman at a chicken factory/farm. Years later, when the plant closed, he moved the family east to Utah, where the beautiful green valleys and the low land prices had caught his eye. An ad in the Thrifty Nickel prompted him to look into a parcel of a hundred acres for $185,000. But it had a checkered past: It was part of the old Topaz Camp, where more than eight thousand Japanese-American internees were held in the early 1940s. Maybe it was the history of questionable treatment of immigrant families that made him decide to buy elsewhere. Ultimately, he purchased his cattle ranch for about $325,000 and then struggled to turn a good profit from the sale of beef and hay.

  But Maria’s tortas were selling like hotcakes—or, rather, delicious Mexican sandwiches. So Jesus and Maria purchased a catering truck from a cousin who lived in Oregon, and they also bought a small piece of land in the city of Delta, on which they could build a restaurant. By then, in late 2007, Jesus had the restaurant designed in his mind already, and they began permitting for construction. Meanwhile, they outfitted the catering truck to handle Maria’s tortas, plus tacos, burritos, and other inexpensive but delicious foods they could continue to sell to the local community. They used their families’ home recipes—authentic Jaliscan barbacoa (shredded beef), carnitas (fried pork), mole (sauce), salsa, and more—and tested their dishes on friends and family. If everyone loved it, they served it to customers at a fair price.

  Jesus downsized the cattle operation and focused on bringing their food to the people in Delta, a community of just over three thousand people, of whom about 10 percent are Hispanic or Latino. For anyone in love with the flavors of Mexico, Jesus and Maria satisfied their cravings.

  When we met Jesus as I ran through Delta, it was at their “taco wagon,” and I ate one of the Gutierrez’s pork burritos as I speed walked down Highway 50, exclaiming about how good it was. At that time, they were doing a brisk business, parked on the street in front of where the restaurant would rise, and groundwork was under way—we spotted some of the bricks outlining the footprint—you could see what the place might become, and Jesus was eager to have it finished. He was risking it all to make the business go, as he’d decided to start this venture at a time when loans were scarce and he wasn’t the best candidate for one anyway, given that the previous few years’ tax returns from the cattle business hadn’t shown much income. So, with no loan, he’d sold his water rights and maxed out his credit cards.

  When I talked with Jesus, I mentioned that I was a “used cow dealer” myself, that a lot of my employees at the rendering plant were Hispanic, and that I’d found the people who’d come to Colorado from Mexico to be excellent workers. I was grateful to have them on board with me, I said, but Jesus stopped me and insisted that the people who emigrated from other countries and found work here were most thankful. It was a priceless opportunity, the promise of a new life.

  Since June 2009, El Jalisciense–Ricos Tacos has been open for business in their new building. Last I heard, the restaurant was doing well—Jesus said they were selling seventy to eighty breakfast burritos every morning—and they’re considering opening a second location in a nearby town. They continue to cook beef from cattle raised on his own ranch, use a local family’s sausage (sixty to seventy pounds a week!), and make sure customers get exactly what they want, when they want it. “Whatever you want, all of the time, we’re available,” they say. And that’s about right: They recently installed a drive-through window, and on weekdays, they’re open from 5:30 in the morning until 10:00 at night.

  The work ethic and the
commitment to the customer speak volumes about the Gutierrez family’s character. You can bet that the next time I’m anywhere near Delta, I’ll be stopping in and sitting down with a big plate of carnitas and chile verde.

  No one told me much about how Charlie was doing, but I knew he had to be at least thirty miles in front of me by then, September 25, just one day shy of two weeks since the start of our run across America. We’d traded places, and it was my turn to bring up the rear, but I was glad just to be back in the hunt. It wasn’t so bad being behind: Out front, constantly being chased, I’d run scared of being caught, but in back, I could focus on reeling Charlie in. (Either way, it beat running beside him, as I could go at my own pace and make it a game of cat and mouse to keep me moving as fast as possible.) At the end of my first day out there with a bum foot, I stopped at about 12:45 p.m., having walked the entire fifty-one miles. When I stepped into the RV, Roger was waiting at the door, and we high-fived in celebration.

  “I’m back.”

  We both grinned as I made my way to the rear of the RV and my bed, and I thought to myself, Yeah, I’m back. Now what have I gotten myself into?

  In the days that followed, I felt as if I was coming alive again. We instituted a new ritual: When I finished the first marathon each day, I’d stop for a nap in the RV. This turned out to be a great way to ensure that I’d cover maximum miles and not reach that point of diminishing returns; it definitely made a dent in the sleep deprivation. (Another brainwave: I could take showers in the RV! Why didn’t I allow myself to do this before . . . who knows? Now I wouldn’t have to go to bed grimy anymore, even though most nights we didn’t want to waste time driving to a hotel.) After leaving Delta, I consistently put in more than sixty miles a day, and my foot actually seemed to be recovering on the fly. Amazing what small comforts can do.