Ultra

by Carroll David

  I jogged back over to my dad. “Running’s really easy!” I said.

  He smiled and went on rubbing his leg. “Told you it was fun,” he said.

  My dad didn’t look like your typical runner. He had thick, short legs and a bit of a pot belly. He was five foot eleven and he weighed two hundred pounds. Most of that was muscle, though.

  “Ready to run back down?” he asked.

  “Of course!” I said.

  Dad pulled himself to his feet and stretched his arms above his head. “Tell me if your legs start to burn,” he said. “We can always slow down and walk.”

  It was a billion times more fun running down than climbing up. I thumped down the path, taking huge leaping strides, and at times it felt like I was flying. At a bend in the trail, I jumped over a pile of pebbly deer turds. I let out a yodel and I could hear Dad yodelling behind me. The scent of moss and mud filled my nostrils, and soon we were back at the bottom of the hill.

  Suddenly, I heard a noise. Rat-a-tat-a-tat!

  It was Dad, behind me. He was farting. Popcorn farts.

  Rat-a-TAT-TAT! Rat-a-TAT-TAT!

  He farted with every step. It must have gone on for 30 seconds.

  “Quinn!” said Dad. “Excuse yourself!”

  The path rounded Watson’s Pond and led us back to Appleby Line. Kneecap waved from a few doors down.

  “Yo, Quinn!” she shouted. “Hey, Mr. Scheurmann.”

  She was standing in her driveway, shooting baskets. We bounded over.

  “What’s going on?” Kneecap asked.

  “We’re running!” I said.

  “How far did you go?”

  “Four kilometres,” said Dad. “Two going up and another two coming down.”

  He’d stopped farting, which was a good thing.

  I wasn’t tired at all. “Let’s do it again!” I said.

  Dad raised one eyebrow.

  Kneecap pointed at my feet. “Shouldn’t you wear some real shoes?” she asked.

  Dad started to laugh. “You ran in those?” he said. “But they have wheels!”

  I blushed and ran into Kneecap’s house, shouted hi to her mom, and yanked on a pair of Kneecap’s trainers. She and I had the same size feet. I came back outside and shouted, “I’m good. Let’s go!”

  We began our second loop at 9:22 a.m.

  Kneecap ran a clock on us. “Thirty-three minutes and thirty-six seconds,” she announced when we got back.

  “Not bad,” said Dad.

  “Again!” I said.

  Our third loop was faster. 29:06.

  “Pretty good,” said Dad.

  “Again!” I said.

  As we ran, Dad told stupid jokes.

  “What happens when you double-park your frog?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “It gets toad!”

  Mason Pond appeared around the bend. Turtles were sunning themselves on bone-coloured logs.

  “What’s the difference between roast beef and pea soup?” Dad asked.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “Anyone can roast beef!”

  While we ran, Dad peeled off his shirt. Yeah, he was one of those no-shirt dads. Mom hated it when he ran bare-chested; she was always chasing after him with a bottle of sunscreen.

  “Talk to me, Quinn,” he said. “It’s your turn to tell a joke. Better yet, tell me a story.”

  I told him about school, about my teachers, about exponents.

  “Tell me about that girl,” he said.

  “Who? Kneecap?”

  “Yeah. What kind of a name is that?”

  I told him the story behind her name. He laughed and told me about all the nicknames he’d had. His friends had called him Pickles, Socks, Bubbles, even Floater. He hadn’t liked any of them. There was only one nickname he’d liked.

  “Seriously?” I said. “Those guys call you Yoda?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “But why?” I asked.

  “Because sometimes, even though I’m just a grunt, I actually say some pretty smart things. And even though I’m slow and fat, I can still kick butt when the going gets tough.”

  Our fourth loop sucked. We ran it in 34:20. I could have gone faster, but Dad was losing steam.

  “Again!” I said.

  Dad grimaced. “Aren’t you tired?” he said.

  “Nope!”

  It was weird: the longer we ran, the stronger I felt.

  The fifth loop was our fastest yet: 27 minutes, 40 seconds. When we finished, Dad lay down on the driveway.

  “I am totally done!” he said. “No, Quinn, I am not running another loop!”

  Kneecap’s mom gave us kiwi juice and toasted bagels. Dad stood up and stretched his legs. His left hip made a gruesome clicking noise.

  “Ew!” Kneecap cried. “That’s disgusting!”

  Dad stretched it again. “What, this?” he asked.

  Later, when we got home, I told Mom how far I’d run. She didn’t react the way I expected.

  “You can wreck your own knees for all I care!” she told my dad. “But don’t wreck his! He’s just a kid!”

  “But you should see him run,” Dad said. “We ran for three hours and he wasn’t even tired!”

  This was a tactical mistake. “You made him run for three hours?” Mom cried.

  A couple of weeks later, Dad took me to a special clinic. They put me on a treadmill and took about a hundred vials of my blood. Two weeks later the results came back.

  “It’s confirmed,” Dad said. “What colour cape do you want?”

  GOING, GOING, GONE

  Mile 1

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: So let’s get back to the 100-mile race. You’d just started running. You were about to kick some shins!

  QUINN: Right. There were seventy-seven runners in the race. And the trail was only a metre wide, so it was a traffic jam at first. All I could hear was the sound of seventy-seven pairs of sneakers slapping the dirt, and the sloshing of water in seventy-seven hydration packs, and the farts of seventy-six middle-aged long-distance runners. Luckily the pack spread out pretty quickly. The greyhounds zipped off, and the slowpokes fell behind, and soon we were all stretched out in a long, thin line.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: And how were you feeling?

  QUINN: Pretty good, except I had a knot in my stomach. Plus, I was still mad at Kneecap.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: Because of what she said to you?

  QUINN: Yeah. Fun vampire. It’s not exactly a compliment.

  Still, I was happy to be out there running. The sky was pink, and the air smelled of damp wood. The forest was full of all these golden stripes of sunlight. Tiny birds were zinging between the trees.

  After about 10 minutes we passed a red signpost. Mile 1, the sign said.

  “Only ninety-nine to go!” someone shouted.

  “This isn’t so hard after all,” said someone else.

  I was running behind a group of grey-haired men. They laughed and horked up gobs of phlegm and bragged about all the races they’d run.

  They also talked a lot about body functions. Like, Hey, Bob, did you have a bowel movement this morning? Yeah, Steve, I had three! Wow, lucky you! I guess today’s gonna be a fertilizer run, huh?

  (Pause)

  QUINN: Oh, wait; you probably don’t want to hear this, do you?

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: I’m not sure our national audience wants to hear about bowel movements, no.

  (Audience laughs)

  Quinn, I’m still trying to understand how anyone can run 100 miles. I mean, that’s like running four full marathons, back to back. I know you have superpowers, but … And how did you keep from getting bored? Did you listen to music along the way?

  QUINN: No, but I sang a lot.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: What did you sing?

  QUINN: My own songs, mostly. I’m a songwriter. I’ve written ninety-three songs so far. I can play some of them on piano; others I just keep in my head. I’m always sing
ing them, even though I’m not a very good singer.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: So singing helps you relax? What about running — does that help you relax too?

  QUINN: Yeah. It quiets down my brain, you know? My brain is always screaming crazy stuff at me. Like, when I walk down the hallway at school, it tells me that my clothes look stupid, or that everyone hates my guts.

  But that’s nothing compared to what happens at night. My brain gets really noisy then. I’ll be lying in bed, thinking I want a glass of water. But then my brain will tell me that if I open my bedroom door, my mom will disappear and I won’t see her again. I know it’s crazy, since I can hear my mom watching TV. Still, for some reason, I can’t open my bedroom door.

  But when I run, my brain quiets down. The longer I run, the quieter it gets.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: It’s like taking a vacation from yourself?

  QUINN: Yeah, it can be pretty exhausting, being me.

  Anyway, the race. I was still running behind those phlegmy old guys. After a while they started talking about interest rates and mortgages, so I thought, Screw this, I’m outta here!

  I put on some speed and left them in the dust. By the time I hit the Mile 2 signpost, I was running on my own.

  Kneecap’s phone vibrated. I pulled it out of my fanny pack as I ran. Ollie had texted me: GO QUINN GO!

  Suddenly, I heard footsteps. “On your left!” a voice called out. A skinny man with wispy grey hair flew by.

  “Nice pace,” he said out of the side of his mouth. It sounded like a sneer.

  He was wearing a black T-shirt with the words Eat My Dirt! on the back. And striped neon-green socks pulled up to his knees. The socks looked ridiculous, and I was about to laugh, but then the guy stopped running and turned around.

  “Hey, you,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Quinn,” I said.

  He had hollow cheeks and porridgy legs. He looked as though he’d drunk a mouthful of sour milk.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” he said. “You’re just a kid.”

  I stared at him and said nothing. He stared back. He was serious.

  “Your parents must be crazy,” he said. “This race is too dangerous for someone your age.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Mr. Eat My Dirt scowled. “Do yourself a favour and drop out at Silver Valley,” he muttered.

  Silver Valley, at Mile 22, was the first rest stop. No way was I going to drop out there.

  “Take my advice,” he said. “You’re not cut out for this race.” Then he spun around and started running again.

  I hate being passed, especially by crusty old men, so I chased Mr. Dirt Eater down the ravine. My heart was hammering, partly from the running, but mostly because I was really mad! What kind of creep would tell me to drop out?

  Unfortunately, as hard as I tried to hold the pace, Mr. Dirt Eater was just too fast. For a while I could see him ahead of me, but then his neon socks disappeared around a bend in the trail.

  Break time, I thought. I slowed to a walk and pulled out my bottle. It held 750 millilitres of water, plus I had 3 litres more in my hydration pack. Hopefully, that would last me until Silver Valley.

  The sun was really coming up now. The ground was a mess of dead leaves and pine needles, which had dried up and turned the colour of rust.

  I stuffed my water bottle back into its holster and started running again. The trail bobbed up and down like a roller coaster, and I figured I was headed north, since the sun was to my right. The sun followed me sideways as I ran, until it disappeared behind Chimney Top Mountain. A little stream ran beside the trail, and I figured it was taking me to Hither Lake. Hither Lake was huge — almost 50 kilometres long — and over the next 24 hours, I was going to run all the way around it.

  Hopefully.

  Another signpost: Mile 3. Around this time I started to sing. I sang one of the first songs I ever wrote, a song called “Run Baby Run.”

  What he’s running from —

  To himself he doesn’t show.

  And what he’s running to

  Even he doesn’t know.

  Suddenly I heard a jingling sound. I spun around and saw a woman in a baseball cap. Her skin was walnut brown, and her face was freckled. She was as thin as a cedar sapling.

  “Hey there,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  “Not bad,” I said.

  She ran up beside me and flashed a warm smile. It was the lady who’d been in line outside the portable toilets.

  “Hey, you’re just a kid,” she said.

  “Actually, I’m a teenager,” I said.

  “You’re tearing up the trail, that’s for sure,” she said.

  A little bell was tied to one of her shoes.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “It scares the bears away,” she said.

  “Bears are scared of bells?” I asked.

  “Black bears are scared of everything.”

  She stopped running and scrambled down to the little stream. “Hang on for just a second, okay?” she said.

  She splashed water on her face and tightened her shoelaces. Then she climbed back up to the trail.

  “What’s your goal?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I guess I’d like to break twenty-four hours.”

  My dad always dreamed of breaking 24 hours in this race, but he’d never come anywhere close.

  The tanned lady checked her watch and nodded. “You’re right on pace.”

  We started running again.

  “Are you in the forces?” I asked. I’d recognized the tattoo on her calf.

  “No, I’m a cop.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Cool.”

  Stupidest word in the English language, cool. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “I’m Kara,” the woman said.

  “I’m Quinn.”

  We fist-bumped.

  “Is this your first ultra?” she asked.

  I told her yes.

  “You’re gonna love it,” she said. “The mountains, the lakes. This whole course is awesome possum.”

  Her face was the shape of a bicycle seat. Round at the top, with a pointy chin. She looked like a character from my favourite video game, except that she didn’t have the animal ears.

  “Have you run this race before?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I won it last year,” she said.

  “Seriously?”

  “It took me twenty-one hours,” Kara said. “But I got lost along the way. I ran four extra miles by mistake.”

  She smiled to think of it and then she glanced at her watch. “Come on,” she said, “let’s make some time.”

  With that, she blasted down the path — light years faster than I’d been running before. Thank God for all those training runs with my dad because this lady liked to run fast!

  The trail narrowed and the forest closed in around us. Suddenly it felt like we were running through a tunnel. Dead trees had fallen across the path, and sharp branches stuck out in all directions. Kara held back the branches so they wouldn’t slap my face. I thought that was pretty cool of her.

  One time we came to an old, dead log. I tried to jump over it, but that was a mistake. When I landed, my ankle folded like a soggy piece of pizza.

  “Frick!” I yelped. A spear of white-hot pain shot up my leg. It felt like I’d landed on a barbecue skewer.

  Twisted ankle for sure, I thought, or a broken shin. Or maybe I’d snapped my Achilles tendon!

  I hopped for a few steps. Belted out a few more swear words.

  Kara stopped running and turned around. “Quinn, are you okay?” she said.

  My eyes were watering, and I could barely breathe. I coughed a couple of times and leaned against a tree. “I’m good,” I sputtered. “Awesome possum.”

  Slowly, I put my injured foot back on the ground. Then a miracle happened. I took a couple of steps. The pain was mostly gone.

  “I was su
re I’d twisted it,” I said.

  Kara knelt down and pressed both sides of my ankle. She carefully bent my foot back and forth.

  “It’s your lucky day,” she said. “But watch your step. It’s too early in the race to get an injury.”

  We walked for a few minutes, following the creek, which tumbled down a series of rocky waterfalls. I picked my way down the steep hill, dodging tree stumps and boulders, at a cautious speed.

  “If you hurt yourself later, that’s not so bad,” said Kara. “But you want to get sixty or seventy miles under your belt. That way, even if you get a DNF, your friends will still be impressed by how far you got.”

  I sure wasn’t going to settle for a Did Not Finish in my first ultra. So we started running again.

  A few minutes later another runner came into view. I recognized the T-shirt and the neon socks instantly. He wasn’t going nearly as fast as before.

  “Looking good!” I shouted as we flew past.

  The Dirt Eater said nothing, but I heard him spit into the forest. I had the feeling I’d see him again.

  Kara and I ground our way up another hill. We popped out on a narrow ridge and I was blinded by the sun.

  “Watch your step here,” Kara said.

  Thirty metres below, waves crashed against rocks. Hither Lake spread out before us.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Kara shouted back to me.

  Parts of the lake were the colour of strawberry milk, and other parts looked like crinkled tinfoil.

  “This is my church,” Kara shouted over the gusts of wind. “I was raised Presbyterian, but now I worship Mother Nature. This is God we’re running on. We’re running across her back.”

  I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes. The lake was frosted with whitecaps, and little boats rolled on top of the waves. The breeze slapped my face and made my eyes water. Kara was running faster than ever, and I had to concentrate to keep from falling off the cliff.

  Suddenly Kara’s phone rang. Great, I thought. She’ll slow down and walk. But Kara had no intention of slowing down. She just yakked away while she sprinted down the trail.