"Seems to me that I have in the past few years been so nibbled and pushed by light minds and troubled by tiny things that I have been constantly off balance. Large things I can stand up to. I think most people can — I believe that men are destroyed by little things—so little that they can’t be got at or even identified—the nibbling of ducks.

A large demand may stimulate—a thousand small ones only confuse and erode."

John Steinbeck (in a 1952 letter to a friend, from “Steinbeck: A Life in Letters”)

I’m no Steinbeck, but his letters resonate with me. Especially, at the moment, this one. The universe served it up for me on Sunday morning (via my Readwise highlights feed), as if on cue.

Because like Steinbeck, I’ve felt those thousand nibbles. Incomplete projects, distractions masquerading as entertainment, an endless flow of low-level obligations — they’ve left me off balance, drifting.

I have ideas (a lifetime supply) but I capture them and stop. I write but don’t publish. I run, but without enthusiasm, and just enough to keep my streaks. I read, but it’s short and shallow, articles instead of books. It’s been a months long low-grade malaise, with no change in sight.

But… “a large demand may stimulate” and I was just given one of those.

On Saturday, after 9 years of wanting and working and waiting, it finally happened: my name was drawn in the Hardrock Hundred lottery. I wasn’t even watching at the time (my odds were only about 15%, and I guess I was bracing for yet another rejection), so when messages from friends started coming, I was skeptical, held my breath in disbelief until I confirmed it. But it was true — in July, I have a spot in the toughest race of my life.

In the hours after the draw, I was giddy, an overexcited child on Christmas morning with the gift of their dreams. I wanted to tell everyone (but introvert me also wanted to sneak away and hide). Hedonic me wanted to celebrate with an evening of beer and food. Military me wanted to make lists, start phasing the operation. We were all a bit overwhelmed.

So I did what I always do — I went for a run, and that brought me back to ground level, snow-and-dirt level. Out there on trail in the dark (it’s rifle deer season here) the grandiosity of it faded into the rough-but-lovely reality of all the miles of grinding between here and there.

And of course, that’s exactly what I need, exactly what’s been missing lately — a large thing to stand up to, a task with enough difficulty to demand my full effort and attention.

It’s already working.

My runs this week feel purposeful — I’m not just going through the motions anymore. I’ve started reading a promising new book and I’m publishing here for the first time since August. Hardrock is already doing its work on me, and this is only the beginning. Let’s see where the next 30 weeks worth of miles take us.

For some background on Hardrock and why I’ve wanted it for so long, check this post from a few years ago:

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Not fare well,

But fare forward, voyagers.

—T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"

I waited to make this post, to let the emotions of race weekend settle and to absorb the reality that a cancelled 100-mile race is not much in the larger scheme of things. There are far, far worse things happening in the world.

It felt tragic in the moment, but we will all be just fine.

In the moment, at 4:30 Saturday morning as we arrived at the relocated start line and heard the news, it felt like a cruel joke and an impossibility.

Sadly it was quite real, and nothing — not the extraordinary efforts of the race team to find a way to make the race happen, and not the collective will (or wishful thinking) of the hundreds of ardent individuals involved — could change the reality that the water was still rising.

The race team continued the pattern I described in my last post (a challenge arises, that challenge is addressed, and the race moves forward). But through Friday night into Saturday morning, the rate of challenge accelerated — more submerged aid stations, more road closures, bridges out, local communities evacuating... and the creeks had not yet crested.

When the early-morning disaster declarations came in, there were no more options. The first responders were needed elsewhere, and there was no responsible way to continue this race.

The emotions were intense. A 100-mile race is not something you just do, and an event like this one is not something that just happens. For runners it’s the culmination of months, sometimes years, of focus. For organizers, and their devoted army of volunteers, it’s a full year’s worth of labor focused on a single weekend. For all, it’s an immense and intensive investment of time and energy and emotion.

So yes, big emotions… bewilderment, disappointment, frustration, sadness. I saw some tears. What I didn’t see was anger, or acrimony, or anything remotely defeatist. People lingered at the start line drinking coffee, chatting softly, laughing nervously, coming to terms with this new reality. And drawing solace from the crowd — this was absolutely not what anyone wanted, but they were together in the experience of it.

Acceptance was not easy, but it was quick, and as the sun rose, emotions changed. “Ok, this is how it is now…” And as is our way, we emerged into positive action, into forward movement. Aid station supplies were diverted to evacuation sites, assistance was offered, new plans were made.

Saturday was a paradox. The creeks were still rising, the chocolate-brown water of the flood was spreading. But out in the mountains, the runs that feed the creeks were already returning to normal. The post-storm weather was prime for running, and many of us ventured out on smaller, consolation adventures.

Running with friends on these pristine trails under clear blue skies on this mild and bright day was a bittersweet tease, a glimpse of what might have been. But it was also a celebration of an elemental part of our sport that is always there, race or no race. The camaraderie of exploration and shared challenge is more important than any formal event.

So resilience became the theme of the weekend.

Saturday evening there was a picnic, and some of the natural leaders within the group helped turn the melancholy into something joyful. And Sunday night we walked up to the Little Pine dam, out onto the breastwork overlooking the muddy water and floating debris. We sat on blankets in the grass and looked up into the moonless darkness, watching for the Perseids against the backdrop of constellations and the misty faintness of the Milky Way.

As the occasional meteor streaked across the sky, as satellites cut their long smooth arcs of light, as the dew settled around us, I realized that there was no place I’d rather have been just then, no other people I’d rather have been there with. And while this was clearly not what we’d made this trip for, in a broader sense, it was exactly why we’d come — for connection: with ourselves, with each other, with nature and the wider world, and with our sense of both purpose and wonder within that world.

Forward, voyagers!

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On our trip west last month, we shared a flight with a contingent of Boy Scouts bound for Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. Seeing them started me thinking about my own visit to Philmont, and me being me, I did the math and realized that this month is the 45th anniversary of that expedition. So I went digging in my archives and found a little narrative I wrote about part of the adventure for a class assignment, along with some old photos, my trip log, and some other relics, and it all seemed too good not to share.

So today, a guest post, from… teen-age me!

It’s about climbing a mountain…

1979, all things considered, was pretty much an average year, but for at least one group of boys, it was the year of an adventure to be remembered for a lifetime.  Eleven Boy Scouts, most of us around fifteen years old, made the cross-country trip from Pennsylvania to the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico, to backpack the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a southern range of the Rockies.  This range contains a spectacular array of sceneries and is the home of several magnificent peaks, including Baldy Mountain.  Baldy is the highest peak on the large Philmont Ranch, and is one of the highest in the Sangre de Cristos.  The trip was the source of countless stories and memorable adventures, but the clear high point of our 100-mile hike was the climbing of this mountain.

We first sighted Baldy from a considerable distance.  It was not an immediately magnificent mountain, but nevertheless, it drew and held our attention from the first moment we saw it.  Although the hike so far had been anything but monotonous, we were beginning to feel the effects of the New Mexico heat, the seemingly endless miles, and the diet of dehydrated food, so our expectations of this mountain in the distance served to distract us from these physical technicalities.

Of all the stories we had heard from Philmont veterans at home, the “Baldy climb” was told with the most reverence, and this reverence had transferred to us.  Indeed, as we continued down the trail, the purple-brown rock and patches of snow on the steep east slope became more defined, and the outline of the peak against the deep blue sky progressively became the dominant feature on the horizon.  Though we were then two days distance from Baldy, our anticipation grew.

It must be said here that, although we did view the upcoming climb with reverence, we had also accepted the stories we heard about the experience with some of the reservation any high-adventure story is accepted with.  However, by the time we descended the mountain the morning after the climb, none of this reservation remained, and we had reached an almost euphoric state of mind.

Our first real taste of this came as we dragged ourselves from our base camp tents at 9:00 the night of the climb, shouldered our packs, and headed toward the base.  It was a cool night, quite a relief from the heat of the day’s hiking.  A bright full moon cast the landscape in shades of grey and silver, and even under the trees we hiked without lights.  Except for a slight breeze rustling the aspens, the muffled grind of our feet on the trail was the only sound.

It was a good two-mile hike before we would break tree line.  At first we walked without speaking as we came to full wakefulness and absorbed the magical atmosphere we were walking through.  Gradually, we drifted into whispered conversation — old hunting stories, the habits of the male cougar, the possibility of seeing a bear tonight — the sort of talk that naturally arises at times such as this.

Conversation died as we crossed tree line and looked up at the now huge bulk of Baldy.  The first 100 yards above tree line was a rather steep bank of granular snow (somewhat an anomaly for Allegheny-bred hikers in July).  We increased our spacing to accommodate this, and slowly traversed the bank, digging our feet deep into the snow to prevent a fall.  Beyond the snow the mountain was bare.  The solid surface was covered by layers of rubble, rocks ranging from a foot up to a yard or more in diameter, lying like very large pieces of gravel on a pile.  As we moved higher, the air cooled and the wind picked up.  We reached the summit around midnight, exhausted and acutely cold.  The actual temperature was around 45F, but 40 to 50 mile-per-hour winds made it feel much colder.  We bedded down on the rocks behind a small wind break someone had pushed together from the rocks, and tried to sleep.

Early in the morning, we awoke and prepared for the spectacle of sunrise.  In the predawn grayness, with no bright moon in the sky, the mountain had assumed a bleak, desolate appearance.  The triumph we had felt last night was fading, worn down by a rough bed and the cold wind.  Then, almost instantaneously our despondency was gone, as a flash of yellow-orange light spread across a section of the eastern horizon, and a small orb of deeper color appeared in the center.

The sun rose higher, and the rays of color shot out in all directions.  Even the light coming straight to us was ray-like and brilliantly crystalline.  Several lakes to our right gleamed like giant mirrors, and smaller mountains to the left cast odd minglings of shadow and reflection.  As the sun climbed higher, the bright color faded into a clear, uniform blue.

We stood there staring for several minutes, not talking, not feeling the cold, just sharing the quiet grandeur, overwhelmed and humbled by it.

Then, a boy standing nearby began singing, and through the gusts of wind we caught a certain easily recognizable fragment of lyric: “Rocky Mountain High…”.

The rest of the story (from present-day me)

My school report ended with the sunrise, but of course there was more to this adventure…

Getting down off of Baldy was just as exciting as going up. After that sunrise, we descended a scree field on the north-east side of the mountain, a 1,000-foot shuffle-slide that was like nothing I’d done before.

Actually, the whole adventure was one “never before” after another: climbing a mountain over 12,000 feet high, panning for gold, climbing a tree with rope and spikes, building a trail… and more broadly, experiencing the Rocky Mountains for the first time, living in them, moving through them, getting to know them.

Indeed, by the time we traversed Tooth of Time Ridge and descended to the plain on our last day of hiking, we did feel at home there. And while we were glad to get back to Pennsylvania, and while I’ll always consider the Alleghenies to be “my” mountains, this first taste of the Rockies was strong medicine that has stayed with me, and it has pulled me back for many western adventures (hopefully there are more to come).

The throughline

Fundamentally, that Philmont expedition was my first extended time in the outdoors, and my introduction to the idea of purposeful, distance-oriented cross-country movement (along with the various physical competencies and problem-solving skills that go with that). This is a throughline that connects 14-yr-old me with 23-yr-old cavalry-officer me and with (much older now) ultra-runner me, here in 2024.

The army connection is easy to see — the small-unit teamwork and camaraderie of a crew (that looks and functions a lot like a squad), the uniforms... But believe it or not, the running connection is there, too. My first contact with the world of trailrunning and ultras came during that summer of 1979.

To prepare for Philmont, we hiked the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, covering its full 70.1 miles in a series of five weekend hikes.

It was on one of those hikes, on a hot and humid June day, and I can still see it clearly…

There we are, a group of boys in our heavy leather hiking boots, collapsed on the banks of a creek for a short breather, still wearing our 40-pound packs, panting in the heat. Suddenly —magically — there’s a man there amongst us, and he’s… running? He’s shirtless and unencumbered, Tarzan-like in his tiny shorts and bandanna. He smiles and says hello, pauses at the creek for a quick sip, wets his bandanna, and then disappears down the trail. It happened so quickly we weren’t sure we’d really seen what we’d just seen. I’m sure it hadn’t occurred to us that you could even do that.

But of course you can do that, and it turns out that 1979 was the year that Joe and Paul Butchko started exploring the recently completed long-distance trail we were on (it seems likely it was one of them we saw). At some point that summer, the brothers and some friends made their first attempt at through-running the trail. They only made it 57 miles in 1979, but one year later, in the first official running of the Laurel Highlands Ultra, four runners made it to the finish. And 34 years later, in the same race, I made my own long-ultra debut (and scored my first and only DNF, getting to the same 57-mile point as those trailblazers did on their first attempt). I returned in 2015, finished the race, and later that summer I ran my first hundred-miler.

Would I be an ultra-runner today without those formative backcountry experiences from the summer of ‘79? Would I have become a soldier if I hadn’t been a Boy Scout? Both are possible, and surely they’re all three (scout, soldier, ultra-runner) different manifestations of some underlying aspect of my being. But it does appear that my trajectory was set that year.

I’m happy with how it has turned out.

Some other relics

Journaling

My journal entries were shorter back then…

Buckling

For better or worse, this was where I learned the concept of earning awards for distance-based accomplishment (and I suppose also the idea of telling people about it, with simple humble-brags, or otherwise).

Miscellaneous

Curious what’s on a packing list from the 1970’s?

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I ran the Bighorn Trail Run last weekend, a 100-miler in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. The associated travel back to Pennsylvania ended on Tuesday with a long day of driving and flying and driving some more.

On Wednesday morning, I woke into a familiar post-ultra stillness.

The trip was over. My crew, the people I’d just spent so much time with, were back to their day jobs. The emotional highs of the run and the finish line had faded from my mind, just as the minor post-race aches had faded from my body. I was back in this other, “normal” world where no one really cares how far or how fast you ran (or how bountiful the wildflowers were, how steep and rubbled the trails were, or how deep the mud was). Other than my shiny new belt buckle, the only evidence I had that I’d even done the thing was a duffle full of jumbled gear, laundry, and leftover supplies.

It was quiet, and it felt completely, blessedly still.

That stillness is already fading, but here in its final shade, I’m thinking about this cycle of intensity and repose, and how it fits into the larger flow of our lives, nourishing our spirit and preparing us for the next round.

(This isn't just a running thing. Replace “race” with game or match or meet, fight or climb, speech or drill — any endeavor or adventure that has demanded your intensity, the earnest focus and application of your full capacity… if you have put the best of yourself out there in worthy engagement, I think you’ll recognize these stillnesses and the role they can play in our lives.)

There are actually two distinct periods of stillness after an ultra…

The first stillness

The first stillness begins when you've stepped away from the finish line, when the cheers (for you) have faded and the focus has shifted to the next finisher. After all those hours you finally sit (or lie) down, and the most immediate pain of the effort slips away.

This is where Afterglow lives (reason 6 from my Why Run Ultras? post), and the only thing required of you is to sit with it and feel it, allow it to emerge from your overheated core. During these fleeting precious moments, it’s possible that your senses may heighten, and you may see more sharply, hear more clearly. Your emotions (wherever they fall on the spectrum between triumph and regret) are likely to be mellow and accepting of themselves. And above all of it, there’s a deep sense of relief for the fact that, in clear conscience, you can just sit — no more forward motion is demanded for right now.

Savor this first stillness for its shortness and intensity, because it is brief. You can try to hold on to the essence of it, but soon (in minutes, perhaps hours if you’re lucky) it will fade into the pressures of hunger, gear-gathering, the ride home.

The second stillness

At some point after the race, you’ll wake up like I did on Wednesday, into a different stillness. If you're lucky, it will include some soothing silence and stillness, but it’s likely there will also be a vague sense of disorientation and melancholy. Finally released from months of obligation to a disciplined train-up, you might feel a bit adrift.

This is fine, a natural — even critical — part of the process. Just as you strengthen your body through deliberate cycles of overload and recovery, so too you can strengthen the spirit of your greater running self with some intentional indulgence during this second stillness.

That probably means allowing some laziness, and perhaps some minor gluttony. It means your runs can have a different tone, with less intensity, easier routes, more freedom to explore (and if you need to take a short break from running, that’s fine too). It’s a chance to shift some of your training time to other pursuits, or to just sitting quietly on your deck, watching the world go by.

Give this period the time it deserves. But also, be patient and watch, because eventually, the inevitable question at the heart of it all will arise: “What’s next?”

What’s next?

I’ve learned to approach this question in three parts: I analyze the past, I consider the future, and then I return to the grind, hopefully with enthusiasm and a renewed sense of purpose.

Analyzing the past means taking a conscientious look at your recent performance, the training that went into it, and the value of the experience.

For me, this starts with an initial download of raw impressions to freeflow notes about what I saw, how I felt, and what I did. The emphasis is on “raw” — I try to do it as soon as I’m reasonably coherent, and I try to capture everything I remember, anything that made an impression. This is not analysis, it is capture, and the longer I wait to do it, the less value it has.

Analysis comes later, and without urgency. I include objective facts like split times, paces, training miles, ascent totals (all those numbers…), along with my subjective evaluation of things like mental preparation and mindset, decision-making, race strategy and tactics… all the things that can help me do better the next time.

And finally, the most important (and most subjective) analysis of all: did I get at least as much out of this endeavor as I put into it? Was the whole thing worthwhile? Is it worth doing this, or something like this, again?

Considering the future begins with the answer to that question, and so far in my running career, it has always been at least “yes” (or sometimes “yes, and…” with some escalation of either difficulty or expectations).

Once I’ve established that there will be a next time, the rest is a technicality of personal and family choices around schedules, opportunities, bucket lists…. eventually leading to a decision, or at least a decision tree (if I don’t get into Hardrock, I’ll do this instead…).

Either way, the result is a new target, something to focus upon for the ongoing grind.

Returning to that grind is the only non-negotiable part of the whole thing. Regardless of what your game is, if you’re going to keep playing it, you’ll have to return to the grind.

And you’d best find a way to love that grind. Choosing a next thing can help motivate you and focus your efforts, but it’s your consistency and dedication to the grind itself that will get you there. If it isn’t elevating you and making you a better human, then you’re probably playing the wrong game. If it is, it will carry you naturally into the next challenge, and the next.

And that’s it: intensity begets stillness, and from that stillness comes the next intensity, and the cycle ebbs and flows just like that…

Maybe for the rest of your life.

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15 years ago I was a dedicated road runner, training for yet another marathon. But partway through a random run, I followed an impulse and turned left instead of right, off of the road and into my first real trail run.

Here’s what I wrote about it back then (quotes are from my journal, April 10, 2009):

I had a great run last evening.  It started the same as last Thursday – dropped Lucas at soccer practice near Boalsburg, parked on the edge of Rothrock [State Forest] at Galbraith Gap, and headed out on the forest roads.

Since I’m in good shape for mileage this week, and so didn't have to worry about getting a certain distance in, I felt freer to wander… At one of the big bends in the road, I left the road onto a trail… then took the next turn and headed straight up the mountain.

I’d found Spruce Gap Trail, a rugged path that mainly follows the fall line (perpendicular to the contours, no switchbacks) for 1 mile and 1,000 feet of ascent, straight up the mouth of the gap to the top of the ridge. It turns out that it’s fairly typical of the steep and rocky single-track that abounds here in central Pennsylvania, but for me on this first encounter, it was novel and it felt remote and extreme.

I had only an hour, and though I did make it to the top of the climb before turning, there was an important feeling of incompleteness, a sense of to-be-continued that might be the most important part of the whole little adventure:

I really would have liked to go farther, because I was still not across the top to a point where I could see out to the other side.

I guess that will have to wait until next time…

Those are the facts and circumstances of it…

* that I was out there in the first place, running

* that I was tuned-in enough to notice the impulse pointing me towards something new

* that I had enough slack in my system to feel free to follow that impulse

* that the adventure was not quite finished, that it ended with “until next time”

But none of that explains the impulse itself.

My post-run analysis makes it clear this was not as random or whimsical as it seemed at the time. At some fundamental level I knew I needed something new…

I am quite pleased with myself over this experience.  For the run itself, yes, but also for the fact that I’m energized by it, that I could feel myself coming alive as I pushed myself up that mountain and as I scrambled back down.  I like that feeling, but even more I like the knowledge and the reassurance that I can still get that feeling, that it hasn’t been extinguished and that I’ve not grown out of it.

Because I guess I begin to doubt myself, doubt my own hardiness and my own sense of adventure.  I start to feel that I’m getting old and sedentary sometimes.  I notice how hard it is to get myself out the door for a run, and how I don't always feel so inspired by the running, how it doesn't seem to have the same power or draw for me that it once did.

But when I was out there last night, and for an hour afterward, I really did feel good and alive and rugged, and it was not because I was trying to feel that way or went looking for it — it just came to me naturally, honestly, and that is the thing that I find so reassuring.

I have this image of myself, or the way I would like to be, but I’m never quite sure if that is really how I am.  But a thing like this gives me the evidence I need, convinces me that I am that person on at least some level.

And I really like that person.

So I should make more of an effort to operate on that level.  I should look at that experience and figure out what was different about it compared to my normal runs.  And the answer (or at least part of the answer) is obvious — it was hard.

But mainly there is that strong feeling of capability, of knowing that I am functional on that terrain, that I can move my body across it and keep up a pace and make my body work for me and be mobile and flexible and capable and competent.  That’s really the heart of the matter.

That run, and the period of transition that it triggered (from roadrunning to trailrunning, and from marathons to ultras), marks the current halfway point in my running career. More significantly, it was the entry point to a new community, a fresh set of challenges, and a more expansive way of looking at the world and moving through it.

I’m thankful for it as one of the great blessings of my life.

So of course if I’d not made that turn that evening, I’d surely have made it some other evening on some other run, right?

Yes, of course, probably… At least I’d like to think so — that something so significant, a part of my very identity, would have found its way through, regardless of my response to that particular cue on a random Thursday-night run in April.

But there’s really no way to be sure of that, is there?

It’s a fact that small and apparently inconsequential decisions-in-the-moment can have outsized impacts on the course of our lives. That these events seem to arrive exactly on schedule to bump us onto the path we are “meant” to follow is a different thing, a matter of belief rather than fact.

Whether it’s a truth or a metaphoric illusion, that sense of “meant to be” is powerful. My pragmatism tells me to use it as a tool for navigating life with a sense of purpose.

The same instinct tells me to honor the possibility of each moment, to be open to and watching for the next signal, and to have enough slack in my system that I can follow it when it comes.

Pay attention…

Related Posts

Spruce Gap is central to the trail system around the Galbraith Gap portal to Rothrock State Forest (and my “home” mountains), so it’s part of some of my oldest and dearest routes (my ceremonial 15th-anniversary run last month was my 196th time up Spruce Gap Trail).

So it’s no surprise that it shows up in some of my other essays. It was one of the main places I had in mind when I wrote Intimate Places:

…and it has a central role in What is it you plan? (a story about Carl Undercofler, the “Godfather” of trailrunning in central PA):

Also…

My transition into trailrunning was a specific example of the rewilding I talk about here:

…and the premature turn-around at the top of Spruce Gap on that first trail run (“…I really would have liked to go farther, because I was still not across the top…”) is the kind of concession I explored here:

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Today, another 20th-anniversary relic. Back in 2003 we were still writing (and mailing) an annual family Christmas letter, and I’ve always thought that this one does a good job of capturing the feeling of that period.

[Quotes are from my journal, photos were not part of the original letter.]

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope you are all well, and I wish you happy holidays.

It’s a most unusual season for me, the conclusion of a long and challenging year. My unit, the 304th Civil Affairs Brigade, is mobilized for Operation Iraqi Freedom. I left home in January, spent April to September doing tactical CMO (civil-military operations) in support of British forces in southern Iraq (Umm Qasr, Safwan, Az Zubair), and I’ve been working in Ar Ramadi as the 82nd Airborne Division’s CMO Plans Officer since October. We expect to be home sometime in late spring.

You may not find the usual levity in this year’s letter — it just doesn’t feel appropriate right now. But maybe I can bring it around to something positive by the end.

Please bear with me — the theme is paradox.

11 Dec 03: “This afternoon, as we sat in the main HQ of the 82nd in Ar Ramadi planning a jobs initiative to get 12,000 local Iraqis back to work, a car-bomb went off inside our perimeter. The driver — and the young soldier in the cab escorting him — were killed instantly, vaporized in a blast that left a 5-foot deep crater in the paved road, and blew out all the windows in the palace where we work, ~100m away…”

Jobs programs and suicide bombers — it’s the kind of extreme paradox that has become commonplace here. There is progress and terror and hope and hatred on both sides. US deaths in the hundreds, Iraqi deaths in the thousands, dollars in the billions… We plan and build and mentor, and we barely flinch at the explosions, or when the mortar rounds land around us.

15 Dec 03: “A convoy of ours was ambushed this morning on the way to Baghdad [304th Civil Affairs soldiers, 5 vehicles]. They were hit near Fallujah, first by a couple IEDs, and then by about 20 attackers with AK-47s and RPGs. They attacked from 150 meters and were spread out over about 600 meters. We had no casualties, and we killed at least 2 of the attackers, wounded an unknown number…”

Peacekeepers as killers, lives risked and taken on a trip to coordinate developmental projects with CPA… and the projects are slowly but surely being started. The electricity is getting more reliable and the people have food and water and health care. Schools are in session and we’ve started a women’s organization and a human rights group, and we are training police, coaching city councils on the functional nuts and bolts of democracy… but the natives are still restless here in the Sunni Triangle.

15 Dec 03: “… a quiet night last night, no more gunfire than usual, nothing to indicate they even noticed the Saddam capture. But around 1600 today the gunfire really picked up. High rates of fire from many weapons all around us, sustained for about 1½ hrs. Nearly continuous machine-gun fire… Also several rather large explosions, lots and lots of honking horns, people shouting and singing. Some of it was just random or celebratory, some of it directed at our towers, and some of it was an attack on the police stations downtown. At first we thought maybe they’d just gotten the news about the capture, but the real reason was an Al Jazeera report saying that the US had actually captured a body-double, that Saddam is still free…”

There is a cynical explanation making the rounds here for the state of things (in Iraq and at home): “People get the government they deserve”. Let’s hope it isn’t so, because some of the most deeply disturbing paradoxes are coming from home. We talk of freedom and democracy in the Middle East, while we voluntarily relinquish our own freedoms in the name of safety (and doublespeak it as “patriotism”). Benjamin Franklin said if you’re willing to do that, you deserve neither freedom nor safety.

There is hope here, though. Regardless of how or why we got into this situation, we’ve done a good and noble thing. There may be ignorance, arrogance, and ineptitude at the top, making the price in lives and dollars much higher than it could have been, but there are also thousands of dedicated people at all levels working hard to make a difference and help Iraq capitalize on its new liberty, and its potential. We can still succeed here, if we stay the course. But we must be strong enough to be truthful, to not falsely portray early success in the interest of winning an election or justifying defense policy. We have years of hard work ahead of us if we want genuine success, and we owe that to those who have died here.

Enough of that, though, because life goes on at home and I need to mention that, too. Whatever my situation has been, Renee has had the tougher challenge, and she’s managed to keep home and business going (even growing) through the whole thing. She has effectively been a single, working mother now for 22 of the last 24 months, with more ahead. But she is an exceptionally strong and resourceful person, and she’s had indispensable support from a steadfast network of friends, family, and clients. Thanks to all of those people (and to those who have sent letters and care-packages to me). It is deeply appreciated.

Lucas is now in first grade at Nittany Valley Charter School. He’s a great reader and swimmer and soccer player, and he’s learning to speak Spanish. We have a lot of catching up to do when I get home. We have a cat now, too — a Sphinx named Angelica. (And we’ll have a dog again, soon after I get home.)

I did get 2 weeks of leave in Nov. We spent the time in Baltimore, and Harrisonburg, VA — a pure vacation visit. We went to the aquarium and ships and submarine in Baltimore, and spent our mountain time doing a lot of swimming and biking and climbing and eating at nice restaurants, and trying our best to stretch out the visit. (I managed to run a personal-best marathon in Richmond while I was there, too.) We look forward to a lot more catch-up time when I get home next year.

I‘ll close with a plug for a couple of country music singers. I’d never heard of them, and it’s not my kind of music, but please — go out and buy Craig Morgan’s album, and Jolie Edward’s, too. I’ve always been cynical about USO-type tours — never saw them going to the front where I was. But on Christmas evening they were here with us, and they didn’t need to be. He has a top-10 hit (“Almost Home”), she has a new record contract, and they would have been just fine at home with their families for Christmas. But instead, they were here in Ar Ramadi, playing to 100 soldiers in the back of an army mess hall, risking their lives to fly in and back out. They were (to quote Joni Mitchell, I think) “just playing real good for free”, and from the looks (and some tears) on the faces of the soldiers, probably making a greater impact than they’ll make again for a long time.

They ended the show with a wonderful rendition of Silent Night. I walked outside and it was clear and cold, and the sky was full of stars. For at least that moment, it really was “calm and bright” and in spite of everything, that’s how I will remember the end of 2003. We wish the same for you.

The Calverts

And here, now, in 2023, I wish the same for all of you.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rushofitall.substack.com

In part 1, I was using the prospect of a post-deployment marathon to give focus to my running during a tour of duty in Iraq, and I was beginning to see running as a “throughline” that tied my pre-war past to my post-war future.

When I left off, we were nearing the end of a long, hot summer in southern Iraq, redeployment was imminent, and the Philadelphia Marathon was on tap for November. Then:

Here’s the rest of the story…

A redirect: Richmond

Now, instead of going home, our brigade would have a couple weeks to regroup and reconfigure at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, then we’d move back into Iraq in support of the 82nd Airborne in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

In other words, there would be no celebratory group running of the Philadelphia Marathon.

But there was one bit of conciliatory good news to go with this change of mission: a leave program, the promise of 15 days state-side. Immediately, my runner-with-a-streak-to-protect wheels were turning, and as the leave situation solidified, I settled on a new target.

Here’s the latest on my leave... I should leave Ramadi in time to get to Baltimore on about 3 Nov, if all goes right.  I’ll have 15 days from whenever I get to Baltimore.

Unless you think it will be too much of a distraction, I was thinking of running a marathon while I’m home.  It just so happens that the Richmond Marathon is 15 Nov, and that is generally in the area we had talked about going to, so maybe we can work that in…

—from my letter to Renee, September 24, 2003 (Wednesday)

Champion Base

A great idea, and she agreed. In the meantime, we moved on to our next mission, in Ar Ramadi. Here’s how I described things there (in letters to Renee)…

October 2, 2003: I’m at my new worksite now, in the G3 Plans section of the Div TOC.  The trip here was long (3 days), but uneventful.  Champion Base is easily the nicest location we’ve been to so far.  The Div TOC is in a Saddam palace, and we live in a small compound on the palace grounds…

October 5, 2003: …there are lots of large trees — Mimosa, Eucalyptus, etc. — and 1/2–acre orchard with pear and pomegranate trees, and lots of date palms and even some grass.  The temperatures are only in the 90s now, and it really feels like fall — the same kind of clear blue sky and crispness that we have at home.

October 7, 2003: Still very busy, and that is just how it is going to be.  It is 2330 now and I just finished briefing the Chief of Staff and revising a product according to his responses… …I've been in the office like this from 0800 to at least 2300 almost every day, minus a 2–hour break in the evening when I do PT and eat.  Last night I was on the walkway behind the building we sleep in a little past midnight, having a bucket-bath in the moonlight, when a mortar barrage came down near the camp right across the river from us.  Not just a few rounds as is normal, but about 10 rounds in a period of 30 seconds — a coordinated effort...

Anyway, it is already the 7th, and time is just flying by.

So, long hours and busy, busy days, but there were those PT breaks, and I tried to make the most of them. The base was more than a half-mile from end to end, so my loops were larger than they’d been in our Umm Qasr compound. And there were the trees, the orchard… it was a garden spot compared to the south. I managed over 150 pre-marathon training miles there that October, and between that and those hot summer miles on the port, I was in pretty good shape.

Some of those miles were also pulling me into philosophy…

From my journal…

October 25, 2003: I have my last big run tomorrow — I ate the midnight meal tonight to try to carbo-load a little bit, and I think I’ll be fine for it.  The biggest obstacle is just the course — so many little circles. Just getting out there and doing it without thinking of the boredom of it is rough.  But, I’ll do it, with the help of my MP3 player and the anticipation of going home so shortly, and it will be fine.

October 27, 2003: Some thoughts about myself and my motivations and the quality of my soul…  As I was grinding out mile after mile last night in the dark, on the hard pavement, with my feet hurting and thirsty and hungry, I realized that it was going to hurt, that it was dark, that no one on Earth would know if I stopped early, and no one on Earth would really care one way or the other, and that even with those facts, I was going to keep on running and do the whole 20 miles.  And I asked myself why I would do that.  And I asked myself if such self-discipline and such […] integrity to myself when no one is looking does anything to counter the other times when no one is looking and I do things that are much less honorable.  I don’t know if it works that way at all, if there is a ledger that weighs good against bad like a scales and decides whether, on whole, you are “good” or “bad”.  I think that it probably doesn’t work that way. But I think it does speak to my qualities that I am capable of both extremes…

My run last night went well.  19.6 miles, and I did it at a considerably lower heart rate and faster pace than the 18.2-miler I did 2 weeks ago. And I’m not excessively sore, and everything seems to be working right and I’m in good shape.  This all bodes well for a good run in Richmond, and I’m looking forward to it.

The race

Getting out of Iraq was both an ordeal and a relief. It also provided a reminder that nothing is a given…

A piece of news (from Fallujah, of course)… Yesterday morning a Chinook was shot down — the same flight that we took a day earlier.  One dead, ten injured, and that’s all I know about it, but it’s one of those close calls that really make you wonder about things and say “what if”.

— from my journal, November 2, 2003 (Sunday)

Of course I did make it to the states, and we had our blessed tease of a temporary reunion, and towards the end of that time, almost as an afterthought, I ran the Richmond Marathon.

I didn’t record much about the race itself (and I remember even less). About all I have is a paragraph in my journal from before…

November 13, 2003: This has without a doubt been the most low-key buildup to a marathon for me so far.  I have done very little micro-analysis of it, very little detailed preparation.  I did the runs, and I’m doing the calorie/carbo loading now, but beyond that, not much.  Maybe that is the best approach, especially this year.  Or maybe it is just a defense mechanism — I don’t know, and I’m not going to fret over it.  What I am going to do is get the food I need tomorrow, relax a lot, prepare myself logistically, try to get to bed early and get a good night’s sleep tomorrow, and then go into the race on Saturday morning to do the best I can, and accept whatever that is.

…and one from after..

November 15, 2003: The marathon went well — in fact it is the best I’ve ever done, and I broke the 4-hour barrier finally.  On top of that, it was by far the easiest […] I’ve done — mentally and physically.  I still feel pretty beat-up, but it just wasn’t as brutal as the other ones I remember.  So, that validates a lot of things and makes me feel very good, and makes (helps to make) the whole effort worthwhile.

(and a finish-line photo)

But later, after the good-bys, on my way back to Iraq, I put more thought into it and considered the larger context of my running, and training, and racing:

I felt good in this one — truly.  I had some moments of “highness”, and I had some moments like that while I was training.  There were some points during my long runs on Champion Base, in the dark, in the warm evening air under the stars and the silhouettes of large eucalyptus trees, when I could feel myself moving upward mentally, when that phrase from Chariots of Fire (”when I run, I feel His pleasure”) felt real to me, and when I was running through my physical fatigue with an honest smile on my face, my head up, my mouth open, my eyes wide in the dark.  I had similar moments during the marathon, and at those points I sometimes caught my breath, and had to fight back emotional tears.

Granted, this was an emotion-laden season, but I don’t think that is the full explanation.  I think it’s a product of my continued running, and my increased ability and my increased understanding of myself and my running, and its link to the basic elements of my nature.

— from my journal, November 23, 2003 (Sunday)

I think this was the moment of epiphany when I realized that this concept of running as a throughline was no longer just a romantic idea or a useful tactic for coping, but a lived physical fact that was becoming a core part of my being. I could remember it in both the distant and near past, and I could see it clearly in the future.

Having that, I could view my current situation as transient, just another thing that came and would go.

Portents of future adventures in distance

I was still many months away from the end of this tour of duty, and I was still many years away from my first ultra. But here’s more from that November 23rd journal entry:

“I found myself on a website this morning that advertised a magazine for marathoners and ultra-marathoners, and that got me thinking again about longer runs, about new challenges…

…I’m going to subscribe, and do some reading and exploring about ultras, … about what it would really take...”

Yes, the anchors were set, the throughline was there for me to follow.

I’m still following it today.

Miscellaneous…

I made my first appearance on a podcast last month — thanks to Dean Banko at Only Eye Athletics for the opportunity. We talk about a lot of things… Eastern States, the Eastern States Trail-Endurance Alliance, UTMB, my experience at Western States, volunteering, how my running experiences and military experiences relate to each other, and more… it was a good conversation that I enjoyed. You can listen on Spotify, or watch it on You Tube.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rushofitall.substack.com

Welcome to everyone who subscribed after my last post:

There were a lot of you — thanks!

That post drew more attention than anything I’ve published here before, and I’m heartened by the fact that so many people shared concern about the situation and were willing to speak up about it. In the interest of fairness, I want to acknowledge that UTMB gave a prompt and professional reply to our organization’s request to have our race (Eastern States 100) removed as an Index Race, and they sent this link to their “Open Letter to the Trail Running Community”. I’m not personally swayed by this, and our response was not based on the technicalities of the situation, but I appreciate that they at least acknowledge the issue.

Now, on to today’s topic…

Throughlines

In the first of my 20-years-ago posts about my second tour of duty in Iraq (Change of Mission (Iraq, 2003)), I said that running can be a test in itself, an elective “hard thing”, but it can also be a way to get through hard things — an anchor, or a refuge, a consistency that’s there regardless of pressures and chaos and deprivation.

That’s true, but there can be more to it. The real power, the thing that takes you beyond just temporary refuge, is continuity, the fact of a throughline that is solidly anchored in your past, and that you can see leading clearly into your future, (even if that line is the only thing you can see). The strength of it depends on the strength of the anchors, and how tightly you grab hold of that line and follow it.

I think it was during this deployment that I first thought of it this way. Here’s a journal entry from June 29, 2003:

There really are these two things that ground me, that have been pieces of constancy and relative stability through the past several years — writing and running.  For the past 5–6 years, I’ve been steadily doing both, regardless of what else is happening [and there was a lot happening], where I’m living, what I’m doing, what the external factors are.

Looking back now at my running (and writing) through those days, I can see how much I needed that, how preserving — and formative — it was. In particular, I can see that my commitment to a nascent marathon streak helped set my anchors in stone and gave me the throughline that, decades later, I still grasp tightly.

Finally on mission

After months of mobilization training, we finally arrived in southern Iraq in April, 2003 (30 days after the start of the war).

Our mission was tactical civil-military operations and support to civil administration in southern Basrah Province, specifically in the towns of Umm Qasr, Safwan, and Khor Zubayr, and at the Port of Umm Qasr (which is also where we lived, on a British logistics base located on the port).

There are many stories to tell about the work we did there, but those are for a different post (or maybe a book).

This one is about running…

When we arrived to Umm Qasr, we didn’t know how long we’d be there. The optimistic scenarios had us home by autumn, but other versions said we’d be there until sometime in 2004.

At this point, my running was only a tenuous throughline, but I was already starting to identify as “a runner”, and in 2002 I’d managed my 5th marathon in as many years despite being mobilized then, too. (That one was easier to manage — I was deployed to Germany for work in the Balkans, and I lived in Stuttgart.)

So, from the start of this deployment I was scheming about how to get my 2003 marathon in — either by getting home in time to run it in the fall, or by doing one here (soldiers were already staging marathons in Afghanistan… surely we could do the same in Iraq or Kuwait).

So I embraced the heat, I did my job, and while off-duty, I ran.

A long, hot summer (and lots of loops)

Initially, the threat level was low, and the entire port facility (over a mile and half end-to-end) was guarded and secure, so there was room for relatively large loops and lots of exploring.

The weather was warm from the beginning, and by May it was consistently over 100F in the daytime, but it didn’t get really hot until June. A sampling of journal entries tell the tale (both the good and the bad) of heat acclimation:

June 1, 2003: I can’t believe how low my heart rate is staying lately when I’m running.  It is weird, and I thought maybe the machine was misreading it, but I’ve done spot checks and it is accurate — and my heart rate is 5 or 10 beats lower than I would expect it to be.  Maybe it’s a short-term fluke, or maybe I just all of the sudden got healthier — from the fresh Iraqi air or something...

June 8, 2003: I would like to think that today was just one of those periodic flukes of a bad day for me for running, and that well may be the case.  But it also might be the case that I got cocky about my abilities and didn’t give proper respect to the high temperature.  I’ve been doing fine lately with my afternoon/evening runs at ~105°F, and so I wanted to challenge myself, so I decided to do a double lap, which would have been 7.4 miles, and I waited for the hottest part of the day to do it.  It was at least 113°F, and maybe warmer, and it was full sun, and I wore my 100-ounce Camelback which weighs several pounds (for the first time) and I set out with good intentions.  But it quickly became evident that it would be a struggle.  My heart rate shot up and stayed up early on, and I couldn’t keep it in the zone for anything without walking — which I eventually did.

… Was it the extra 5 degrees?  The extra weight?  Maybe just a bad day?  I don’t know for sure, and it is probably a combination of all of that.  I just have to take it in stride and learn from it and not be so cocky about hot-weather running, and most of all continue to be careful, without taking the easy way out.

June 10, 2003: Well, I feel better about myself now.  I went out and ran today when it was at least 112F, and I ran 5.6 miles, and it was fine.  So it makes it seem more and more like the bad run on Sunday was just a bad day.  I didn’t set any records, but I did finish strong, and my heart rate stayed down, and I felt fine.  And I will do a good week of running — shoot for maybe 27 miles total.  I think that level will be very sustainable. … Then I can start to add a long run each week once I have a date in mind for a marathon.

By mid-June, the days of free-ranging the port were pretty much over. Much of the port had been opened, the security situation was beginning to fray, and the only consistently “safe” running was within the confines of the logistics compound we lived in — a set of five large warehouses within a perimeter wall of shipping containers topped with barbed wire. I was reduced to endless looping in the space between the buildings and the wall: less than 0.8 miles per lap, four loops for a 5k.

If you’re curious, here’s that route today on Strava: UQ compound loop

Of course there was no Strava back then, and I didn’t get my first GPS watch until later in the tour, so knowing precise distances involved careful map measurement and a systematic approach…

I logged hundreds of laps of that nasty little compound, the broken vehicles and oil-soaked sand, and I kind of hated it. But in another way the hypnotic sameness of it, over and over, was soothing. As the temperature climbed and the mission dragged on, it helped keep me sane.

It also made me stronger.

Two months later…

I hate to brag, but… Wednesday was the hottest day we’ve had so far, and I waited until mid-afternoon when it peaked to go for my run.  I already had a run at 120F, but now I’ve logged mileage at 123F — how many people can say they’ve done that?

We were in Umm Qasr yesterday and sat down on the porch of a building in the market to talk with some people.  LTC Williams and I sat there for about 20 minutes, and when we got up, the people were laughing — the plastic chairs we’d been sitting on were soaked, and there was a 1.5-foot diameter puddle of sweat on the floor underneath each of our chairs, just like we had pissed ourselves.  Another very humid day, and in full battle gear, it gets hot.  (The vest itself weighs 23 pounds with the new ceramic plates loaded in it.)

—from my letter to Renee, August 10, 2003 (Sunday)

EOM date, and a plan: Philadelphia

By mid-August, we finally had a solid date for End of Mission: August 31, and it looked like we were on track to be home by October. So I did my research, picked the perfect welcome home marathon (our unit was from Philadelphia), and I started recruiting other runners. Here’s the “press release” I sent to the brigade:

PRESS RELEASE

22 August 2003

---For Immediate Release and Widest Dissemination to 304th Civil Affairs Brigade---

2/304th (PROV) leads the way (again)

The first in, last out, Fatwa-be-damned soldiers of TF Eagle are once again leading the 304th Civil Affairs Brigade into battle. This time the stakes are lower, but the intensity of the challenge is not. The battlefield is 26.2 miles of Philadelphia asphalt — the 10th annual running of the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday, 23 Nov 03.

The list of participants is a leadership Who’s Who for the unit:

* Eagle 6 – LTC Nick “Maverick” Roper

* Eagle Red 6 – LTC Pete “Darwin” Goebel

* Eagle White 6 – LTC Jeff “Jesus” Williams

* Eagle Blue 6 – LTC Jules “The Count” Oroszvary

* Eagle 5 – MAJ Jeff “Duke” Calvert

* Eagle 7 – SFC Albert “Pandemonium” Pando

A Challenge Issued

These intrepid soldiers enthusiastically invite (and challenge) the leadership of the Brigade’s various other sub-elements to join them in this endeavor. They point out that as yet, there is no representation from the enlisted ranks, and there are no company-grade officers. They also note a preponderance of former Armor Officers in the group (not unexpected), and point out that no females or infantrymen have signed on. Hopefully someone will step forward to carry the torch for these forgotten groups.

Embrace the heat — it will make you strong

Members of 2/304th CA have proven this concept, at work and at play. In fact, they assert that if you haven’t logged at least a 3-miler at above 120F (dry-bulb, in the shade temp) you’re a wussy. (And that air-conditioners are a crutch.) But they are quick to caution that you must be well hydrated, you must start out slow, you should never increase your weekly mileage by more than 15% per week, and you must listen to your body (it will talk to you).

Perfect Timing

Fitness experts confirm the health risks of redeployment. According to one such expert, “We see it all the time — soldiers redeploy with these sleek, desert-hardened, heat-tempered bodies, but then they crash. They get back to Ft. Bragg and they binge on huge, juicy steaks and all-you-can-eat Thai buffets and glass after tall, frosted, icy-cold glass of Yuengling, and all that hard-won hardness is gone. But if they have a clear goal, something to keep them focused through the redeployment, something like a marathon a month or so after they’re home, they can beat it.” (Not to mention that a marathoner-in-training burns enough calories to eat and drink whatever-the-hell he wants.)

It just so happens that the Philadelphia Marathon is scheduled for a month or so after the unit’s projected return. In fact, a soldier starting a marathon train-up right now would be hitting the long mileage about the time they arrive back to the cool, lush hills and trails of North Carolina, and would finish training back in PA during the crisp, clear days of Autumn.

Were we light-hearted in our naivety, a bit giddy at the prospect of going home?

Clearly.

But why not…. our mission in Basrah Province was to end 9 days later. By September 7th we were scuba diving off the coast of Kuwait.

And a day after that, on September 8, 2003, we got our Change of Mission.

Redeployment is all fun-and-games, until you find out you’ll be spending your fall/winter/spring in the Sunni Triangle instead of Pennsylvania (and there will be no Philly Marathon for you...).

To Be Continued… (next week: Part 2)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rushofitall.substack.com

If you aren’t tuned-in to the politics of ultrarunning (maybe you didn’t even know there was such a thing as politics in ultrarunning), you probably missed the drama that surfaced in our community late last week.

The very short version of things is that a well-respected and beloved 100-mile race in the mountains of British Columbia (Whistler Alpine Meadows), directed by widely respected and beloved trailrunner Gary Robbins, has been displaced by a new race, through some apparently nefarious actions by a combination of the UTMB/Ironman organization and Vail Resorts (the owners of the resort on which the race occurs). (By the way, Gary was one of the spotlight characters in the Barkley article I photographed several years ago – see Barkley 2016)

Some background

For those who aren’t familiar with ultra-distance trailrunning… the modern version of our sport emerged in the 1970s, grew slowly for three decades, then exponentially over the past 10-15 years. From the beginning, it has been mainly a grassroots phenomenon, driven by passionate – and independent – individuals and small organizations, united by a general ethos, but with almost no formal structure or standardization. Exploding popularity has of course attracted corporate interest (which is not necessarily either good or bad).

One of the biggest of those corporate players is UTMB, which once was just the Ultra Tour du Mont Blanc, a 105-mile race around the Mont Blanc massif that starts and ends in Chamonix, France. Now UTMB has expanded to include a worldwide array of “by UTMB” branded races, and recently joined forces with the Ironman organization. That expansion is the context for the current drama. In this particular edition of that drama, Gary and his race are the small bookstore trampled by Amazon, the local mom-and-pop displaced by Walmart.

And those of us involved with other races like Gary’s can’t help but imagine that, if it could happen to him, it could happen to any of us.

So when members of the nonprofit board I’m part of (Eastern States Trail-Endurance Alliance – the caretaker organization for the Eastern States 100 in Pennsylvania) heard what had happened, we took notice. We are not generally a reactionary bunch, but we decided this situation was compelling enough to warrant a response.

More background:

What Really Went Down in Whistler (Gary Robbins)

Andy Jones Wilkins speaking about this situation

Our response

We spent Saturday morning drafting this statement:

I added my own comment to that statement from the board:

On a personal note, if you're familiar with our organization you'll know that among current and past board members we have multiple UTMB and Ironman finishes, spectacular experiences. We mean it when we say "with sadness and disappointment". The thing is, no matter how good your events are, you can't just do what you want, can't be a bully without repercussions.

You may realize that one of those UTMB finishes is mine (see My UTMB), and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience, a highlight of my running career... so I’m feeling that sadness and disappointment directly.

Redirect (this is an Intervention)

Which is why I’d like to try to slightly redirect the large (and favorable) response our statement has drawn (and I want to be clear that this is my own opinion, that I’m not speaking for our board when I write this).

I’m heartened by the broad support and strong emotions I see in the responses, both to our statement and to things that others have published, but I am not comfortable with the level of hostility that I see in some of those reactions.

I see this as an intervention, something you do for a loved one who has gone astray. Saying that “UTMB has lost its way” implies that it might find its way back.

I want this be much less “we hate you and everything you touch” and much more “we love you, man, but what you’re doing right now is not acceptable”.

My (perhaps naive) hope is that there are still some trailrunners within their organization, some people who still believe in the old ethos that led them to start their race in the first place, and that by calling them out loudly and publicly, with a united front, we might get enough of their attention that they ask some questions: Is this how we want to be? Is this the way we want to conduct ourselves? Is this what we want to be known for?

I’d like us to help New UTMB remember what Old UTMB was like, and help them find their way back to that. Because I liked Old UTMB.

Old UTMB and New UTMB

When I first learned about UTMB (circa 2016) my impression was that it was big, and it was different in its presentation – distinctively Euro, with more in-your-face commercialism, more spandex and more logos and more hype than North American trailrunners are used to. But it still felt like it was fundamentally the same sport, devoted to the same ethic — and it was an epic race, well worth working to get into.

It was also an innovator (in a good way). Some examples:

* an objective rating system for races — yes, we already had Ultrarunning Magazine’s system, but this was more comprehensive

* an objective rating system for runners — yes, we already had UltraSignup’s system, but this was more comprehensive and potentially more accurate

* uniform high standards for race management, for logistics and aid stations and runner safety, etc.

* cutting edge runner tracking and race coverage

All good things, I think — good for them, but also good for runners and good for the sport.

But now we get to the turn…

There is a huge demand for entry in UTMB’s main race in Chamonix, so like other popular races, they have a lottery for those spots, and to enter that lottery you have to accumulate points at other races.

When I earned my way into the Old UTMB lottery in 2016, there was a wide array of races to choose from, with points based on difficulty, and you just had to collect them (I got mine by running Black Canyon 100k, Manitou’s Revenge, and the Mogollon Monster 100-miler).

For New UTMB, the system is more complex, but its main feature is that you have to run at least one of those other “by UTMB” branded races to get access to the original UTMB.

So they have taken what was a relatively fair and accessible system that arguably helped the entire sport and produced a de facto world championship, and they’ve turned it into a closed system that allows them to monopolize that world championship. And now they are apparently using bully tactics to take out small players like Gary Robbins.

A way out?

I’m certain there is a way out. I’m not nearly as certain that they will find it and follow it.

But that brings me back to my hope, that this incident — and our response to it — might be a wake-up call, both for us as a sport and a community, and for whatever is left of Old UTMB within New UTMB.

I believe there is room for everyone in this sport. I believe there is room for different models, for the path my organization has taken as a non-profit, for independent for-profit race directors, and for large corporate interests. I believe it is possible to be big and commercial and to make a lot of money while still being ethical, responsible members of what is now a worldwide community.

And I believe there is still time for the trailrunners within New UTMB to realize they are off course, take back control of their situation, and return to their place as responsible leaders in our sport.

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This week, 20 years ago…

It’s amazing how your life can change from one minute to the next.  Yesterday morning we were gathered in the office talking about going home, thinking that we were weeks away from it, fully expecting to be completely home by mid-October at the latest.  I had firm plans for a marathon in November, and football tickets, and just being in Pennsylvania for the fall.

Five minutes later, we are not even halfway through the deployment.

We have been pulled from the mouth of redeployment, and are being sent instead to work with the 82nd Airborne west of Baghdad.  We will have a few weeks at Camp Arifjan to refit and reconfigure, and then we head back out for another 6 or 7 months.  There are not words to describe how it feels to hear that when we were so close to home…

— from my journal, September 9, 2003 (Tuesday)

Some context…

My Army Reserve unit (the 304th Civil Affairs Brigade) was 7 months into an Iraq mobilization. My subset of the unit, a provisional battalion task-organized for tactical civil affairs missions, had spent a long, hot summer working in Basrah Province in southern Iraq (I was the Executive Officer). A week earlier, we’d reached End of Mission and officially handed things off to the British unit responsible for the area. We were waiting in place for orders to return to Kuwait, expecting to be home soon, when we got the news.

I explained it in more detail to Renee…

What I said 30 minutes ago about being back to Kuwait by Thursday is still accurate.  Everything after that has just changed dramatically.  COL R-B just called and the Brigade has been given a new mission.  We go to Arifjan to refit and reconfigure, and then we go to Baghdad (west of) in support of the 82nd Airborne.  All CA tours have been extended to 365 days “in the box”.  That means we are probably in Iraq until April 04, and home by May or June.

Sorry to hit you with that so bluntly, but no easy way to say it.  LTC Williams, LTC Goebel, MAJ R-B and I were all sitting here in our TOC talking about getting home when the call came.  It was like the wind was completely knocked out of everyone, like we had all been gut-punched.  We have a meeting with the soldiers in a few minutes, and I can picture the reactions...

No details beyond that — we don’t know what exactly the mission is, or if we will stay together as a battalion or reconfigure into our old functional specialty teams or what.  All that we will learn back at Arifjan.  Don’t know how long we will be there before we go north, either.

Not good news to wake up to on a Monday morning, and I’m sorry.  But we will make it through somehow and eventually it will all be over.  I will talk to you again soon — have to go tell the soldiers now.

— from my email to Renee, September 8, 2003 (Monday)

And a couple days later, a brigade reunion, and some more information…

We all made it to Camp Arifjan yesterday with no trouble.  The rest of the brigade (minus a few people) is here now too.  It is an interesting reunion.  Not every team has worked out as well as ours did.  There is also an undercurrent of competition going on, like who had it hardest, who got shelled with mortars, who got stoned and mobbed and RPG'd and who had to eat T-rations and who had air conditioning and showers, etc. etc.  A little bit of that is fine, and the legitimate telling of stories is fine, but I have a feeling that it will be a difficult task to get these 4 separate groups (Umm Qasr/Safwan, Al Hillah, Karbala, and the rear detachment at Camp Arifjan and Camp Doha) functioning as a single unit again.

COL Beard briefed us this morning on what he knows of the mission (which isn't much, and will be more complete when he returns from the recon he just left on).  I said the 82nd Airborne before, but it is really an 82nd HQ with a brigade from the 82nd, the 82nd DIVARTY, and the 3rd ACR.  And the area is huge, from just west of Baghdad to the Syrian and Jordanian borders.  It includes Fallujah (where soldiers fired into the crowd back in May) and Ramadi.  Basically it is a portion of the Sunni Triangle, plus the western desert.

— from my email to Renee, September 11, 2003 (Monday)

In the grand scheme of things, an additional 6 months away from home is nothing. But when you've already been away for 8 months (or in my case, away for 19 of the past 21 months) and when you have a 6-yr old son at home, it can feel huge in the moment.

Yes, I’m starting in the middle of things with this post — I intended to start writing about my second visit to Iraq much earlier in the year. There have been many fine 20th-anniversary dates I could have used as a trigger:

* December 27, 2002: alert (“I called COL Fuoco last night in response to 3 urgent messages he left on our voice mail at home, and he informed me that I’ve been selected as part of a 36-man Advance Party, and we have a briefing Monday night at 1900 at the Reserve Center to learn more.  He did say that it is for possible deployment in 1-3 weeks...”)

* February 14, 2003: unit farewell, movement from Philadelphia to Ft. Bragg (“This morning was a little rushed and hectic, but I still managed to get that last 20 minutes of time with just them [Renee and Lucas] — in my office, and then a tearful goodbye with everyone leaving the building to load the buses, and then a good clean break as we pulled away (into a snowstorm).  I think it is the best way it could happen…”)

* March 19, 2003: start of the war (“The war started tonight and here I sit in the Holiday Inn [overflow housing at Ft. Bragg] and feeling very out of it all.  I’m busy until now (0140) doing equipment spreadsheets and other things…”)

* April 11, 2003: movement to Green Ramp at Pope AFB, on-deck for movement from Ft. Bragg to Kuwait (“Back to the wonderful world of Air Mobility Command flights — we left the motel last night at 0130.  We palletized our baggage, got weighed, etc. and we were to the terminal in the waiting/holding area by about 0330 or 0400.  It is now 1320 and we are still here — in a different building, but still here waiting.  We are now supposed to be on a flight at 1830.  Whether it happens that way remains to be seen — flexibility, hurry-up-and-wait, all of those clichés apply here in full measure…”)

* April 22, 2003: movement into Iraq (“Well, I'm here in south-eastern Iraq, convoyed here yesterday without incident, and we are now getting established.  I'm setting up our operations center, and we have teams out on three different missions in our area…”)

There were and will be others, but here we are in September, and I’ve published nothing about it so far. So I decided this change-of-mission anniversary was as good an opportunity as any to introduce the topic.

This is not something I think about much, or talk about, and it’s been years since I looked back at this period. I haven’t intentionally pushed it away or avoided it, but it was a long time ago and my life has moved on. Even so, it is also always there in the background, just beyond the edge of my awareness. And when I start looking at my photos and reading my journal, there are moments when it is yesterday (or tomorrow), and the feeling of it becomes real and immediate.

I’ve also known from the beginning that I’d eventually write about this war, and even though it still feels politically and emotionally charged, I’m hopeful that I have enough distance from it now to look back at my experiences objectively, and perhaps find some lessons in them. If nothing else, I’m interested in how this period shaped the longer narrative threads of my life as they passed through it.

Running is one of those long-term threads (and a justification for including this topic in this venue, alongside race reports and ultrarunner musings). Before this deployment, I was already firmly settled into my identity as a runner (and already five years and five marathons into the oldest of the many running streaks that are still with me today), and running is one of the main things that got me through.

Running can be a test in itself, an elective “hard thing”. But as I discovered, it can also be a way to get through hard things. It can be an anchor, or a refuge, a consistency that is there regardless of pressures and chaos and deprivation. This is what it became for me then, and it remains so today.

I’m hoping that it can also be a point of entry, or a good lens for this look back — my particular experience of war, from my perspective as a runner. I have a lot of notes — a treasure trove of journal entries and emails and letters and photographs, nearly 400,000 words of contemporaneous material. It feels immense, and I'm not quite sure how to approach it, so I’ll probably just jump in and go exploring.

I’ll try to bring you with me with some updates from time to time — maybe we can find something worthwhile along the way…

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rushofitall.substack.com