by Scott Jurek
About seven strides onto the track, our cheers went from “Brian, you did this,” to dead silence. Twenty feet in, 300 yards from the finish, Brian collapsed.
“What’s the matter, Brian?” I asked.
He said, “I can’t get up.”
I had noticed him weaving on the final downhill, but I had weaved a lot myself in races. The ultra is a brutal thing.
“You gotta get up, Brian. You gotta get up!”
Jason and I helped him stand, but he wouldn’t walk. I said, “You gotta keep moving.” I was Dusty again, but this time nothing seemed to work.
Maybe we should have let him stay on the track. He couldn’t stand on his own, and now he was babbling, not making sense.
It was a really stupid mistake when I look back on it. Jason and I put Brian’s arms around our shoulders, and we walked him toward the finish line. We didn’t cut across the infield, toward the medical tent. We took him around the track. It was instinct. I was in survival mode, taking care of someone who was in really bad shape, but I was in pacer mode, too, and racer mode. I was in runner mode. I wanted Brian to get what he wanted. I wanted to help him get to the finish line. And I did.
We got him to the finish line, and from there the medical staff took over. One of the doctors asked him if he knew who won the race.
“Scott Jurek,” he said.
“No,” the doctor said, with a thin smile, “you won. You won the race.”
Within 15 minutes, he was in an ambulance. And as they were lifting him in, I was standing next to him, and he looked at me and said, “Scott, I did it. I won the Western States.”
I was hanging out at the finish line, greeting the next finishers as I always did, and they were happy to see me, but I started hearing other people, onlookers and race board members, saying things. I heard that Brian was going to be disqualified. I heard people saying it was my fault for helping him around the track. And then finally a board member walked up to me and said Brian didn’t win and he would be disqualified for accepting help.
I told him the board didn’t need to do that, that being disqualified was a black mark for a runner, and if anyone deserved sanction, it should be me. I told them if they weren’t going to award Brian the victory, the very least they could do was to give him a DNF, Did Not Finish.
Nope, it would have to be a DQ. I thought the board members were just doing it to bolster their egos and make a statement about the sanctity of the race. I walked to the Auburn hospital the next day—no one from the Western States board had been there. When I entered Brian’s room, he spoke first.
“Hey, Scott, it doesn’t look like I’m going to be out of here in time for the awards ceremony. I want you to accept it for me.”
I got straight to the point. I said I’d been at the track all night and that the board had made a big to-do about his not making it to the finish line and DQ’d him. They had awarded the win to a runner named Graham Cooper, who finished 12 minutes after him. I told him I was sorry and that I wished I could do something to change the board’s decision. I told him I was sorry I didn’t take him across the infield. I said I knew how hard he had worked and how close he was to winning. I said I knew what being close felt like (I had only recently failed to catch Arnulfo) but that I could only imagine his pain. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.
When I got back to Seattle, there was already chatter about the race all over the Internet. Some of it was unbelievable. I read that I had pushed Brian too hard, that I was his “coach.” I read that I had not given him enough water and that I had given him too much. I read that I sabotaged his race because I didn’t want anyone taking the spotlight off of me.
I learned more than one lesson at the 2006 Western States. One I hadn’t been expecting: No matter what you do, there are going to be haters out there. My Zen self tells me they’re no worse than people who idolize you for the wrong reasons. What people think about you doesn’t really matter. The trick is to be true to yourself.
People still ask me about what happened to Brian. The short answer is, I don’t know. The longer answer is, it could have been one of many things. I don’t believe it was really a medical issue, at least not in the traditional sense. I think Brian stopped because his brain saw the finish line and told his body, “Hey, dude, you’re done, you did it, you can rest now,” and his body shut down. As powerful as our legs are, as magnificent as our lungs and arms and muscles are, nothing matters more than the mind.
The Western States doctors identified a number of reasons that might have explained why Brian couldn’t make it that one last time around the track. They said that his disorientation and lack of coordination were consistent with hyponatremia. They said he might have been dehydrated, had low blood sugar, that there may have been something wrong with his heart. They suggested, finally, that it was total muscular fatigue. He had pushed himself too hard those final miles leading up to the high school track, and his leg muscles were simply too tired to go on. From a medical perspective, the proximity of the finish line was not an issue. Conventional wisdom holds that our ability to push ourselves and keep pushing is limited by peripheral measures of fitness such as VO2 max, the amount of oxygen we can use for aerobic respiration, and lactate threshold, the point at which our muscles accumulate lactic acid faster than they can clear it. Efficiency comes into play in determining how well we can exploit our body’s fitness level, as does the resilience of our muscles and bones. In an ultra, there are the additional issues of maintaining hydration and nutrition. From this perspective, Brian’s body had just had enough, and it could have been any of a number of factors that caused it to happen to him.
Science is about objective measurement, so it’s understandable that it has an innate bias for things that can be measured. It’s easy to put someone on a treadmill and read their VO2 max or take their blood sugar reading and say it’s low. It’s not possible to measure the mysterious workings of will. In Lore of Running, Dr. Tim Noakes promotes an alternate theory about how our bodies endure exercise. He believes that a central governor in the brain evaluates the athletic task and determines how many muscle fibers should be recruited. In the case of a run, the brain judges how far away the finish line is, compares it to past training runs, and sets a pace that, barring accidents, the body can maintain without injury. Push too hard, and the brain ramps up sensations of fatigue and pain, trying to fool you into slowing down. Once you understand this, you can reprogram yourself to go much faster. Noakes teaches us to stop giving credence to negative thoughts that are only related to how close we are to the finish line.
The central governor theory is controversial, but it squares with my experience of the sport. I have always run better than I should have, given my physical gifts and my marathon time. I have always said that the ultra is a mental game. Consequently, I don’t believe it was necessarily an accident that Brian stopped so dramatically right when he did. I think it’s possible Brian’s central governor, under tremendous physiological stress, caught sight of the finish line, believed the race was over, and pulled the plug. In the context of a 100-mile race, one lap around a high school track doesn’t seem that long, but once Brian’s brain had made that decision, it was impossibly far. When the captain jumps ship, you can’t help but sink.
Brian’s collapse was dramatic, and from a medical point of view, provocative. But—and this is the lesson known by anyone who has ever tried with all his will to attain something and fallen short—how Brian finished wasn’t what defined him. Collapsing 300 yards from glory made him a fascinating footnote in Western States 100 history, but it didn’t make him.
Brian put everything he had into an ultra. He was a champion. That year, to me and many others, he was the champion.
POSTURE
To run far, fast, or efficiently, you have to run with proper posture. Keep your shoulders back and your arms bent 45 degrees at the elbow. Allow your arms to swing freely, but don’t let them cross the imaginary vertical line
bisecting your body. This will create openness in the chest, better breathing, and more balance.
Lean forward, but not at the hips. Imagine a rod running through your body from the head to the toes. Keep the rod at a slight forward angle to the ground, with a neutral pelvis. When the entire body participates, you’re using gravity to your advantage. Remember, running is controlled falling.
Incan Quin-Wow!
Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is one of the first grains (technically a seed) humans ever cultivated and used in cooking. It has a dense, earthy flavor and is one of the few grains with all nine essential amino acids, so it’s perfect for a dish like porridge—hearty, basic, and satisfying in an almost primal way. When I learned about quinoa, it helped me appreciate the many ancient foods and cultures that could enrich my life, if only I made room for them. Make it the night before, so you can warm it up to eat before a long morning run. A great mixture of carbs, protein, and fat, this porridge is sweetened with fruit and cinnamon. Replace the vanilla with almond or hazelnut extract for a nutty variation.
1 cup dried quinoa, rinsed and drained
2 cups water
1 cup almond milk or your favorite nondairy milk
1 ripe pear, cored, quartered, and finely sliced, or 1 banana, sliced
¼ cup dried coconut flakes
3 tablespoons Flora Oil 3-6-9 Blend
½ teaspoon sea salt or light miso
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
Garnish: Raisins, apple slices, and chia seeds or your favorite nuts
Add the quinoa and water to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until the water is absorbed and the quinoa turns translucent. Fluff the quinoa with a fork and cool for 5 minutes.
Place the quinoa and the remaining ingredients in a blender or food processor and mix for 1 to 2 minutes, until smooth.
This porridge can be made the night before and refrigerated so it is ready before a morning workout. For a warm porridge, pour the porridge into a small pot and warm on very low heat for 5 minutes (you may omit the Flora Oil from the mixture and stir it in after the porridge is warmed). Garnish with raisins, apples, and chia seeds or your favorite nuts.
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
17. Hunted by the Wasatch Speedgoat
HARDROCK 100, JULY 2007
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Don’t think about your ankle!”
Dusty was yelling at me again. Would he be yelling at me when we had white hair and canes?
“C’mon, Jurker, don’t think about your ankle! Climb!”
I didn’t answer. I was too busy sliding backward down a glassy snowfield, trying to stop my descent with three good limbs. We had just hammered through a steady downpour, up a ridiculously steep 4,400-foot incline through an opening in the Colorado Rockies called Oscar’s Pass. The rain had glazed the snow, turned it to ice. We had turned off our headlamps so the record holder who had been stalking me for 70 miles couldn’t gauge the distance he had to make up. It was 2 A.M., black except for every few minutes when lightning bolts strobed the scene: Dusty standing on a mountain, looking down, yelling (of course); me, crawling, sliding, then crawling some more, dragging what I hoped wasn’t a broken ankle.
Forty miles earlier, at a cold, windswept little valley, Dusty had taunted a forty-year-old named Karl Meltzer.
“You’re getting beat by a guy with an ankle the size of a grapefruit,” Dusty jeered.
Meltzer had just smiled. He had won the Wasatch 100 six times and was known as “the Wasatch Speedgoat.” He had also won this event—the Hardrock Hundred-Mile Endurance Run, or Hardrock 100, four times. In fact, he held the course record. One of his other nicknames: “King of the Hardrock.”
“The race doesn’t start until Telluride,” Meltzer said. Dusty and I had begun our climb to the snowfield from Telluride. I looked back over my shoulder.
“Climb! C’mon. It’s just snow. You’re a Nordic skier, you can do this. You’ve dug deeper before.”
I wasn’t so sure. I had dropped out of the Hardrock 100 in 2000 after only 42 miles. At the time, I blamed the effort I had expended in my second Western States victory. I had also blamed the altitude. And I blamed the naiveté and youthful optimism of two certain Minnesotans. Dusty picked me up at the Denver airport the day before the 2000 race. We drove eight hours to Silverton, Dusty behind the wheel, me pretzeled on top of plastic bins filled with his construction tools, where the back seats used to be. We arrived at 6 P.M., ate and tried to sleep, then stepped to the starting line at 6 A.M.
After winning my seventh Western States I had decided that, with the proper acclimatization and training, I could conquer the Hardrock. In June 2007 I had arrived in Silverton, Colorado, a month before the race.
Then, two nights before the event, I had sprained my ankle.
I had been camping at Molas Lake, at 11,000 feet, sucking in the thin air, almost feeling my marrow pumping out more oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Mornings, I lingered with locals and other runners at the Avalanche Café on unpaved Blair Street. To save money I made my own breakfast and brewed my yerba mate. Late morning, I headed into the mountains to learn the secrets of the course. My guide and companion was Kyle Skaggs, a twenty-two-year-old emerging ultrarunner who was spending the summer as a research assistant at the Mountain Studies Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to examining the ecology and climate of high-altitude locations.
Kyle, along with his older brother, Erik, would go on to become the best known—and in certain quarters the most idolized—siblings on the ultra scene. Lean, ruggedly handsome, and irrepressible, the pair were referred to as “the Young Guns” and “the Jonas Brothers of trail running” on the running forums. They have doubtlessly increased the recent female interest in the sport. (When he worked at Oregon’s Rogue Valley Runners shop, Kyle was famous for drawing huge numbers of women who asked him to analyze their gait but never bought shoes.) The brothers had been born and raised in rural New Mexico, and along with a dedication to mountain living and environmentalism, they would go on to approach races with a blithe aggressiveness that shocked racing veterans.
Kyle would not be running the Hardrock in 2007, but he knew the mountains and knew racing strategy. Together we explored some of the trickier portions of the course, climbing endless switchbacks, sprinting ridges, descending boulder fields, and crossing a number of snowfields, including a few 50-degree slopes where, if we had slipped, we almost certainly would have died.
Even though the Hardrock contained as many perils as I had ever seen on a course, the dangers fit into a majesty I had never encountered. In many ways, it was not only the toughest course I had ever explored but the most beautiful. We ran past turquoise lakes, brushed purple columbine and crimson Indian paintbrush. There was the shocking green of the tundra and the blinding white of the snowfields, gold rock and red rock, ascents that seemed as if they would never finish, endless vistas, deep, cozy valleys, and sharp, cloudscraping peaks.
Many evenings we spent with Kyle’s Mountain Studies Institute colleague, a thirty-something from India named Imtiaz. We cooked meals together in the organization’s kitchen. Kyle made mushroom quesadillas and Imtiaz made eggplant curry and dal with basmati rice. The kitchen was full of mouthwatering aromas as we sautéed tomatoes and zucchini with ginger, cumin, and mustard seeds. We discussed the subtleties of spices in Indian cuisine and the benefits of Ayurvedic medicine.
Years of eating plants had convinced me that the best way to get well and to stay well was to eat simply and to avoid processed foods whenever possible. After my epiphany in my first internship with an old man and his hospital food, I tried to treat injuries and illness with natural remedies whenever possible. Food was my medicine. I even avoided anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen, which other long-distance runners gobbled by the handful. I tho
ught it masked pain so much that I might risk serious injury by running when I shouldn’t. I had also heard too many stories of runners taking so much ibuprofen that they damaged their kidneys. It was a classic case of treating symptoms, of wanting the quick fix. It was, in many ways, typical Western medicine.
By the week of the race, after nearly a month of workouts, simple living, and a lot of new vegan food, I was devouring 13,000-foot peaks and 30-mile journeys without the sensation of breathing through a cocktail straw. Even Kyle, with his fresh, twenty-two-year-old muscles and two months of altitude training, was surprised I was pushing the pace on our weekly ascents of Kendall Mountain. High altitude? I was ready.
I had to be. The Hardrock includes eleven mountain passes, six of them over an elevation of 13,000 feet, and also climbing a 14er (a 14,000-foot peak)—a total vertical climb and descent of 66,000 feet, more than would be involved in climbing and descending Mount Everest from sea level, as the race organizers like to point out.
Two nights before the race, I joined a youth DARE program soccer game on a grassy field not far from the town’s hundred-year-old cemetery. That’s where I tore my ankle ligaments when trying to steal the ball from a seven-year-old.
I gulped glass after glass of tumeric soy milk and lay for hours with my leg elevated with a bag of ice wrapped around my bulging ankle. I dosed myself with the homeopathic remedy arnica montana and with pineapple enzyme, bromelain. It wasn’t enough. The pain electric-eeled my synapses. There was no way I could run the race. Imtiaz watched me limp into the Mountain Studies kitchen and asked if he could take a look. He ground a scoop of black pepper and added tumeric, flour, and water until it was a thick, heavy paste. He pressed the paste onto paper towels, then wrapped them around my ankle.