RETURN FROM THE FARTHER BEYOND

Complete Breakdown—And Beyond.

remember my final ultra in April 1999. I was a man on the gallows seeing his

world for the last time. I was starting a race that I had no enthusiasm for. My quads were huge, but I was deeply tired. Only habit sustained me. I prayed I would make it to the finish line in one piece.

Istarted slow and got slower. By 25 miles, I was passed by people I had never met. At 38 miles, I couldn’t even lift my legs to run .. . downhill. I dropped at the 42-mile aid station. Riding home, I told my girlfriend I was finished with running ultras. We rode home in silence.

I did nothing the first two weeks after the race, hoping this situation was temporary. Then on a Sunday 10-mile run, I struggled to keep up with my friends. The next morning I woke up completely poisoned, hung over with a migraine headache. That was the last run I went on for over nine months.

In the immediate aftermath of the meltdown, I struggled with overwhelming fatigue. Dragging to work, I would sleep heavily in the car at lunchtime. My weight ballooned from 155 pounds to 180, where it hovered, and then began gaining even more. I went through a succession of doctors who ranged from clueless to mendacious. I got blood tests from a lab noted for its venality. One doctor was convinced my thyroid was dying, and eager to put me on Syntheroid—his Rx pad at the ready for my lifetime commitment.

This overnight disaster was two years in the making. The main ingredients were a highly intensive training schedule between 1997 and April 1999, an excessively protein-lean and carbohydrate-rich diet, and insufficient rest. All it needed was a catalyst. The likely culprit was a food poisoning-type virus 72 hours before the Leadville 100. I recovered enough to run strongly and finish in 24:20:00.

Then 1997 became 1998. I trained for the 1998 Wasatch 100 through a series of 50Ks, 50-milers, and long back-to-back runs on weekends. My average peak mileage was about 100 miles per week. This was consistent with every other training year since December 1992.

I finished the 1998 Wasatch 100 in 28:17, far better than my 1992 finish of 33:30. Afterward, rest never seemed to help. I began taking presumably natural

animal-gland supplements, courtesy of the sports massage clinic I had been going to. The supplements were weirdly toxic and served only to make my quads bulk up like the Incredible Hulk, and the attendant virulent flatulence smelled like burning tires.

INTO THE FUNK PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY

I was in a deep funk for months, simultaneously crawling out of the grave but also trying to reinvent myself professionally. I freelanced in ad agencies and in print-production studios while I went to art director’s night school, building my advertising portfolio. It was brutal.

looked at the blood test lab numbers and told me I definitely didn’t need Syntheroid, only a lot of rest. He had healed a blindingly painful sciatica inflammation I had suffered in 1995. Again, his acupuncture treatments enabled me to heal myself through deep relaxation. The needles would slide into various points on my body, and I would painlessly pass out for 30 minutes or more.

The second breakthrough was an MD/Naturopath in West Los Angeles. I knew he was honest when he charged me $125 for a blood panel, compared with the $650 I had paid earlier. He also rearranged my diet: I stopped drinking milk and cut back almost entirely on eating wheat. I dropped 15 pounds in three weeks. At the follow-up exam three weeks later, he cheerfully told me to come back when I had a “real problem.”

By April 2000, my health had improved markedly. I was able to run slowly around my neighborhood. On weekends, I would go on 10-mile hikes, wearing hiking boots to make sure I didn’t attempt to run. On weekdays, I would drive to work, look up at the thunderheads towering over the San Gabriels, and mourn my inability to be up there running.

» Steps from the finish of the 1998 Quad Dipsea, Mill Valley, California, the author is struggling but is still five months away from quitting the sport entirely.

Larry Gassan