A Elated, the author crosses the finish line.

the way in. I stop twice to walk, and even to drink, and finally, finally cross the line the last time.

Earlier in the night, a volunteer helping me disinfect my facial scratches had asked me, had I cried? It was so ludicrous that I almost laughed at her. But I am crying now. Not an exultant “I’m the queen of the world” cry, not a relief cry or emotional cry. I just can’t believe how hard running 100 miles is and how much it has beaten me down. A photographer, Larry Gassen, invites me over for a finish line photograph, and Mike explains to me that Larry is creating a body of portraits of 100-mile finishers. He had told Mike that running 100 miles strips the runners down to their bare, essential spirit. I am certainly down to that now. I started the race thinking that it was my own personal Hubris Day, and I finish by staring into the camera, a little hopeful, a little tearful, knowing how very vulnerable I am. Like all the other runners that day, I could not have finished this event without the community around me—Mike; the incredible volunteers; my friends and family, half a continent away, thinking of me. I am reduced to my elemental spirit, but I am not alone.

I finished in 27:25:33, in 30th place. Only 47 of the 101 starters finished the 100 miles. i

& g =

The Stress of Running All Night Can Be the Doorway to Otherness.

t was hard to say which was worse: the ache in my legs, the pulled muscle

throbbing in my back, the headache, the nausea, or fighting to stay awake as I weaved from side to side on the gravel road. [had run plenty of ultraraces before, but this first try at a hundred miles was a monster. I had spent all day crossing the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, baking in the sun and fighting a stiff head wind, which the locals jokingly called Kansas mountains. Now the night and sheer exhaustion were doing me in.

A floodlight set on top of an aluminum pole cast a garish light over the aid station at Matfield Green. The camp chairs lined up next to the aid table there threw an ominous row of shadows across the road. A pair of crumpled runners covered with blankets filled two of the chairs. Neither was moving. They looked done, along with another guy stretched out on a cot behind them. It bucked me up a little that at least I was still on my feet.

The aid table was littered with cups, sticky chunks of watermelon and cantaloupe, and some cut-up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. None of it looked edible with my iffy stomach. The cut-up sports bars, just the thing for failing runners, looked particularly bad. I couldn’t touch them.

I collapsed into a chair beyond the table as far away from the spent runners as I could get.

“Well, blow me down,” my sister said standing over me with a sandwich in one hand and a cup of soup in the other. “Aren’t you a sight. You need a blanket? It’s gettin’ cold out here.”

She was wearing a thick jacket and a wool cap. I was still in just a shirt and running shorts, the same clothes I’d had on since early morning. The exertion was keeping me warm even in the cool night air.

“Tl put on my warmer shirt,” I said, “but no blanket. If I get too comfortable, I’m finished.”

She handed me the soup. I tried a sip. It was potato soup, thick and salty. I set the cup down in the dust at my feet and rested my head in my hands. The harsh light made everything look slightly unreal, as though I was watching a movie. The

noisy throbbing of the generator powering the light merged with my headache. Somewhere up the road some idiot was laughing.

“How much farther?” I asked.

“About 20 miles,” somebody said from behind me. “You’re almost there.”

Thalf laughed, half snorted at that. Twenty miles was still a very long way. I drank a little more soup and waved the sandwich away. My stomach was dead set against anything solid. My sister had fished a shirt out of my bag, so I struggled into it. After a while, I stood back up. I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes and hoped the dizziness would pass.

“Here are your bottles,” my sister said. “Sports drink in one, water in the other.” She shoved them into the pockets in my running belt. “Take care of yourself out there.”

I started off.

“Wait!” a voice said. “Did you get fresh batteries?” A tug at my arm stopped me cold. I handed over my flashlight to someone, maybe my sister. This was a disaster averted, but it hardly registered on me. I could have been stuck out in the dark with no light, miles from anywhere.

“Thanks,” I said. The new batteries made a big difference. Instead of a dim spot of light barely showing me where my feet were about to hit, the road was all lit up. Crisp, jagged shadows bounced around my legs again as I moved forward. The fringe of bluestem grass that covered this part of the Kansas prairie hung over the side of the road and glowed silver in the light.

“T can do this,” I mumbled to myself.

Ihadn’t gone far when I heard footsteps behind me. Or did I? Was it just the full water bottles bouncing up and down in the pockets on my belt?

Someone pulled up beside me. I half turned and got the shock of my life. “Dad? My God, what are you doing out here?”

He ducked his head and smiled, happy that his little surprise had worked out. He reached over and patted me on the back. Just like my dad to spring this on me. He knew how tough this was going to be for me and decided to help. But this was a miracle, for him to recover enough from his stroke to be out here in the middle of the night running. I had no idea he had made such progress. It looked like the paralysis on his right side was gone except for maybe a little hitch in his step.

“Is this safe for you?” I asked him. “I mean, it’s great you’re out here but I can make it alone if I have to.”

He shrugged and plugged along, stubborn as always. I wasn’t going to talk him out of something he had decided to do. I looked over at him. His gray hair stuck out from under his cap. Deep wrinkles creased his face. And yet the old spark was there. I saw it in the tilt of his head, the determined way he was keeping up with me. It reminded me of the summers when I used to shag golf balls for him. He would hit a hundred balls without a break except to switch clubs. And then

if he wasn’t happy with his swing, he would hit a hundred more. I would stand out there with my baseball glove catching the balls until he got to his long irons. Then they would come in too hot to handle. I would have to take them on the bounce. By the time he got to his two iron, he would be just a little figure way off over the long stretch of grass. I would see his motion through the ball and then, after a long pause, I would hear a nice solid “thwock.” The ball would rise up and come straight toward me as though it was shot from a gun. I would hardly have to move a foot left or right to snag it.

Since he wasn’t saying anything, I assumed he still wasn’t talking. I asked about it.

He looked over at me, shook his head. No luck there. After the stroke, he had worked with a speech therapist for months but never got beyond just a few words.

“Guess I’ll have to do the talking,” I said. “Actually, I’m really glad you’re here. I sort of feel like there’s some stuff I’d like to get off my chest.” He glanced at me. “I mean, you know, when you had your stroke, it was such a shock. One day you were there and I was just a normal kid in high school, and then, bang, you’re in the hospital. I didn’t know what to do. I mean I never had to deal with anything like that before. And I just . . . I don’t know . . . looking back I just couldn’t face up to it. I guess I didn’t want to give up the life I had. So I don’t know. It probably looked to you like I didn’t care much or something.”

He reached over and put his hand on my shoulder, gave it a squeeze to show me he understood.

“Plus I know I wasn’t any picnic back then. You couldn’t tell me anything. T always thought I was right. But now I know I was just stubborn. I guess that apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Huh?”

Dad smiled at that. He had never hidden the fact that he took a lot of persuading himself.

“And the other thing was, and it took a while for me to realize this, there was just so much we never got to talk about. Like when you were in the service and the kamikaze hit your ship and killed all those guys. I wish you could tell me all about that now, what it was like being right there, hearing the thing explode. You must have known a lot of those guys pretty well. Course, you, Uncle Art, Jim, none of you guys ever talked about the war. You were just 19 and off to the biggest war in history. Man, I wish you could tell me all about that.”

I glanced over at him. He had a thoughtful look on his face.

“TI remember when we were little kids you used to say, ‘Hit the deck’ to get us out of bed, or you’d say, ‘All ashore that’s goin’ ashore,’ or ‘Smoke ’em if you got ’em,’ all that Navy stuff. God. ‘Smoke ’em if you got ’em.’ I didn’t even know what that meant.”

I stopped talking. I thought I might be embarrassing him. The noise of the gravel crunching under our feet filled up the silence.

“T just wish we’d had more time together after I grew up. But then you had your stroke and after that… well… Dad, I want you to know I’m sorry things worked out the way they did. I wish I’d been a better son. You were so brave facing up to that stroke. I realize that now. You couldn’t talk to me about what was going on in my life, but actually you were showing me the way the whole time. I just want you to know that I know that now.”

I felt relieved that I had said it out loud. I had been waiting for a chance for a long time. He looked at me and nodded to show me he had understood. Then he threw a playful punch at my shoulder, sort of a signal that I should lighten up some. “OK,” I said. “That’s it. ’m done. Enough said.”

I went back to focusing on moving forward. There were all sorts of odd little noises coming out of the prairie around us: whirrs, buzzes, muffled screeches, low screams, howls, hisses, clicks, groans. The dark grasslands all around us looked perfectly still, but it sounded as though there were animals everywhere. “Hear all that?” I said. He nodded. He hunched up his shoulders and made a face as if he were scared.

That made me laugh. Just then a bright line streaked across the sky in front of us causing us both to look up, a shooting star. “Unbelievable, isn’t it?” I said looking at the stars. Out here there was nothing to block the sky: no trees, no ridges, no mountains, no buildings, nothing. The stars stretched overhead and came right down to the flat horizons all around us. The Milky Way was as clear and distinct as a highway. Miles away there were a few scattered lights just above the horizon: the blinking red lights of a radio tower, a bright light bobbing up and down on an oil derrick, a pair of white lights marking a grain silo, and 20 miles away a faint dome of light over Emporia.

We settled into a rhythm. Whenever the road sloped up, we fell into a brisk walk. When the road sloped down, we went back to a slow jog. On the flat parts, we did whatever I could manage, some running, a lot of walking. From time to time, rabbits would appear on the side of the road. They seemed strangely unafraid, like they were used to people running by in the middle of the night. A coyote started to howl, and then a whole chorus of them joined in. It made goosebumps stand up on my arms.

“T’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I’d hate to be alone with that going on.”

After what seemed an eternity, we saw some lights up ahead. Slowly an aid station canopy formed up out of my confused vision. At first it looked like several people standing around in front of it, but as we got closer and the light got stronger, the group resolved into just two people.

We pulled up, and the guy standing there said, “Have a seat, old-timer.”

Ishot a glance at Dad. I knew being called that would rankle him. He gestured for me to take the chair instead.

“Where’s your friend?” I asked.

“What?” the guy said. “I’m alone. Nobody else was crazy enough to come out here in the middle of the night.”

I realized my eyes were really playing tricks on me. There hadn’t been anyone else, but I could picture how the person looked. It had been a girl in a green sweatshirt with the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up over a baseball cap.

“You OK?” the aid station guy asked.

“Gettin’ through,” I said. “Thanks to my dad.”

“OK,” he said. “Try to eat something. There’s soup. The cookies are good. Don’t hurry. You’ve got lots of time.” The guy checked his watch. “About six hours to go a little over 10 miles. You’ll make it easy. Just stay upright and mobile.”

Inodded. Dad reached over and handed me a cookie. “Feed your stock before you feed yourself?” I asked him, smiling.

“What’s that?” the aid station guy asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just something my dad always used to say.”

I tried to bite into the cookie. I still couldn’t eat. It felt like it would just come back up. I waited a while and then got up. If Icouldn’t eat, there wasn’t much point in staying. “Better move along. Don’t want to get stuck in this chair,” I said.

The aid station guy had filled my water bottles. He jammed them down into the pouch on my belt for me. “‘Take care,” he said. “You sure you don’t want some soup?”

I shook my head. “Let’s go,” I said to Dad.

After we had gotten out of earshot of the aid station, I said, “Nice guy, but I didn’t like his cookie.” We chuckled together. Making the joke seemed to lift a burden off my shoulders. I felt the exhaustion and soreness recede just a bit.

A little farther down the road, some dark shapes came looming up out of the night in front of us. I flashed my light over and caught the broad, placid face of a cow staring back at me. There was no fence here, so the cattle were scattered right across the road. We slowed to a walk and tiptoed through the middle of them.

After that, things went downhill fast. Both my ankles started hurting. I loaded up on painkillers, but they were having no effect. I couldn’t run anymore. Each step I took was torture, even at a walk. We had left behind the rolling terrain of the Flint Hills now and were on straight, flat roads that led back to the little town where the race had begun. An endless barbed wire fence lined both sides of the road. I wasn’t seeing any of the markers for the course anymore, no chalk, no ribbons. Dad was looking out for them, too, but they just weren’t there. Plus we hadn’t seen any other runners for a very long time, maybe hours. I began to think that we had taken a wrong turn and were off on some random road going nowhere. Every light I saw off in the distance I would imagine was a light of the

town, but we would get closer and I would see that it was just a single light hung on a barn burning over an empty farmyard.

“T don’t think I’m going to make it, Dad,” I groaned. “I’m falling asleep on my feet. I think I need to sit down for a while.”

The next thing I knew, I was sitting down. I was on the road. Maybe I had fallen down. Dad was tugging on my arm, trying to help me up, but I felt totally beat. “Just go on,” I said. But Dad kept pulling. I looked up at him. He looked desperate to say something, but of course he couldn’t.

But then he did anyway. His voice creaked like an old hinge. “No!” he said. “No, no, no!”

The sound of his voice shocked me. It reached me somehow like nothing else could have. I struggled to turn over onto my hands and feet. My head was swooning, but I managed to push myself back up to my feet. “OK,” I said. “I’ll try.”

The night seemed at its darkest and coldest. Moving forward was like pushing through a thick wall. I was desperate to find some sign that we were at least still on the right road. My light had dimmed, so again there was just a weak pool of light dancing over the gravel in front of me. The road went on and on. The pain in my ankles was unforgiving.

Thad lost all hope of ever seeing the finish and was ready to beg Dad to let me give it up, when we came to a turn. A white arrow on the road clearly marked the turn onto a blacktop road. I couldn’t believe it.

“This is it,” I said. “The only blacktop we ran on was right at the beginning of the race. We’re almost there.” I looked up and could see a few lights ahead and more lights scattered along the road farther up. It was the edge of the town.

For the first time in hours, I broke into a jog. I forgot all about the pain in my ankles. “You got me here, Dad.” I was saying. “I would have sat down and quit way back there. You got me here.” Way off on the horizon, I could see the first faint glow of dawn dimming the stars in the east.

“Come on, Dad,” I yelled, “come on.” I felt like I was flying now, though I was probably barely moving. I saw people up ahead gathered in the road. I went by someone who called out my race number. ““Lookin’ good,” the person yelled after me. Then people were reaching out to stop me. Several green glow sticks tied to a post marked the finish. I was done.

My sister ran up and gave me a big hug. When she let go, I almost fell. She had to prop me up with her hip. “Good job,” she said in my ear.

“Can you believe it?” I said. “What a night.”

She shook her head. “I know. Running all night at your age by your lonesome.”

“Well, there was Dad,” I started to say, but then I stopped. I focused on my sister. It was like seeing her for the first time after a long, long separation. She had the same bob hairstyle she had always worn, but her hair had gone gray.

Her mouth had widened and turned down. Her skin was wrinkled and splotched underneath her face powder. “What the . . .”

I gasped and turned to look back down the road, afraid of what I might see. He was there. I had left him behind when I rushed to the finish line, but he was still coming. Only he was different. He was dressed differently. His running clothes were gone. He wore the striped pajamas my mother had bought for him when he first came home from the hospital. There was a cane in his left hand. His useless right arm hung down his side and jerked as he moved. The fingers on his dead hand were splayed out over his right thigh. He stepped forward carefully with his left leg and then swung his right leg forward. A brace attached to his right shoe kept his foot up and his toe out of the dust. He was looking at me and smiling, although now the right side of his face drooped so that only one corner of his mouth rose.

“Sorry, it’s just me here, Harold,” my sister was saying. “The kids sure wanted to watch grandpa finish but they only lasted until a little after midnight. Everyone’s back at the motel asleep.”

A young woman standing next to us had overheard. “Grandpa? Awesome! I bet you’re the only grandpa out here. What in the world made you want to run a hundred miles?”

I looked back up the road again. The light was growing fast. There were wide fields on either side of the road filled with the stubble from a harvested corn crop. I could see all the way back to where we had made the last turn onto the blacktop road. And the road was empty. No one was there.

I bent over and put my hands on my knees to support myself and burst into tears.

My sister patted me on the back. “Let’s get back to the car, Harold. You need to get to the motel and get into bed.” I kept crying as she led me away.

“Well, you big baby,” she said. “You finished the race. It ain’t nothin’ i to cry about.” –