Persistence for 14,411

Would you like to volunteer? My thought was, volunteer for what? So I read the email. I was intrigued with the possibilities, but not as a volunteer, as an actual Participant.

I have helped before at aide stations for athletic events but this was not your typical running race. I was hooked, I was doing this one. This was an Everesting Run Event.

What is that you might ask? It is an International Hill Climb event held at various locations and times around the world and nation. The objective is to mimic summiting Mount Everest which is 89,032 meters. Hence the name of the Event Climb 89.

Approved locations and courses all have the same rules. You have up to 32 hours to complete the course.

One of the things that intrigued me was that if you did not make 100 laps, you could still receive a medal based on the numbers of laps you did complete. I liked that.

Running up and down the hill for 32 hours to get 100 laps seemed a bit beyond my current conditioning. Receiving a Medal for summiting mountains with lower elevations seemed like a great way to improve my conditioning and strength if it didn’t kill me first.

Another rule was no sleeping during the event. Caught doing this and you were done with your last certified lap being your final count.

Another thing that I saw as a plus was that the Race was being held just one day after my 70th Birthday. What better way to celebrate the big seven zero, than to run a race like this. I was excited, but had my sights set on a mountain peak of lower elevation, that would still be a stretch and try me.

We started at 8 am and the weather was cold. The high for the day would be in the low to mid 30’s. Luckily there was not a lot of wind predicted and no rain till mid-day the following day and then not a lot of rain was predicted at that.

With any luck I would be done before the rain started. Running in the rain was definitely something I wanted to avoid.

It didn’t take too long to figure out who had run one of these events before and who was in shape to run uphill for that many hours. At any rate it was really a test of your mental fortitude and persistence.

There was an aide station at the bottom start, finish and turn around line. The top of the course were we turned around, was on the steepest and rockiest section. There with a flag, line painted on the ground and a pile of rocks about the size and shape of a traffic cone to go around.

That was it. Up a gravel service road, then the gravel disappeared, giving way to loose basalt rocks and a steeper incline. Once you crossed the turnaround point you went downhill as fast as possible.

There is a rule of thumb among Ultra Runners that you shouldn’t run up anything at mile seven that you would walk up at mile seventy. With that bit of advice I started climbing. I used my Trekking Poles to help push me up the hill faster and to keep me from falling when I stumbled or was going downhill. They worked great and I was glad I used them.

Like any running event, when you are out there with others working for a similar goal you have conversations with the other participants. This is one of the meaningful aspects of running. I met some amazing people.

I was able to offer words of encouragement and others in turn offered words of encouragement to me. Those encouraging words really made a difference as I was getting near my goal, was cold and I had been going at it for nearly 16 hours, with half of the time being in the dark.

The food was good and the coyote chorus was enjoyable. There were a few times when I lost count, thinking I should have had more laps, then came to the logical decision that the timing equipment had a better chance of being correct than I did.

After all I was out in the cold focusing on nutrition, electrolytes, staying warm, but not overheating. There was the constant concern of staying upright and not fall running or walking.

I am glad to report that I did not fall. I did stumble a few times on the rocks in the steep section as I was nearing my goal but my hiking poles saved the day.

I could feel the excitement building within me as I neared my goal. Ten laps to go. Then five. Then three. Then two. At one lap to go I called my wife to come pick me up and hopefully watch this 70 year old guy cross the start finish line for the fiftieth time.

I was elated at reached my goal. I summited the equivalent of Mount Rainier 14,411 feet of elevation gain with an equal elevation descent because it was an uphill and then downhill course.

The overall distance I covered was 35 miles without sleeping. I was the oldest person on the course. I hadn’t fallen, cramped or frozen. I had done a lot of things right. Next time we can focus on doing it faster. But for a first go at something like this, I am satisfied.

The lesson from all of this is in the tenth scroll, “I will persist until I succeed”.