Eat and Run Part 4

Running can be lonely, and ultrarunning can be lonelier, so when you can connect, you do. At the finish of my record-setting Western States 100, I soaked up energy from the cheering crowd in Auburn, California.

Finishing a 100-miler was great. Winning was greater. Setting a course record was greatest of all. At the 2004 Western States 100, I did all three. Notice the sky. It was the first time I finished the course in daylight.

In 2005, two weeks after my seventh consecutive Western States 100 victory, I set out to conquer the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile endurance slog through Death Valley. Mile 12, 120 degrees, and I'm leading. What could go wrong?

At 48 miles in, I was over 5 miles behind, ready to quit. Those who described the insanity of the Badwater were right.

Getting Enough Protein.

One of the biggest questions I had as an ultrarunner contemplating a vegan diet was how to get enough protein. Here are a few of my tricks: In my breakfast smoothie, I add some nuts and a hit of plant-based protein powder (brown rice, hemp, pea, or fermented soy protein). I'll also have a grain source for breakfast, such as sprouted-whole-grain toast with nut b.u.t.ter or sprouted-grain cereal or porridge. Lunch is always a huge raw salad-I love my Lacinato kale-and I'll up the protein content with a soy product (tempeh, tofu, or edamame), a big scoop of hummus, or maybe some leftover cooked grain or quinoa. Dinner might be beans and whole grains, maybe some whole-grain pasta. If I didn't have soy at lunch, I might have it with dinner. Add in some Clif Bars and trail mix as snacks throughout the day and some soyor nut-based vegan desserts and I get more than enough protein to maintain my muscle tone and help my body recover.

I seek out traditional whole foods rather than highly refined meat subst.i.tutes. I look for products that have been sprouted, soaked, or fermented to help break down the indigestible cellulose in plant cell walls. Among soy sources, I favor tempeh, miso, and sprouted tofu, which are all more digestible and have less phytoestrogen (a naturally occurring substance that some-in spite of medical evidence to the contrary-suspect might mimic estrogen's effects in humans) than isolated soy protein. I eat sprouted-grain breads and tortillas, and at home I often soak my whole grains and beans before cooking.

Minnesota Winter Chili.

The night I tasted this chili is the night I decided I could be a happy, athletic vegetarian. One mouthful made me realize that vegetarian food could taste just as good, and have just as hearty a texture, as meat-based foods. The bulgur wheat is a source of complex carbohydrates, and combined with the other ingredients, it makes a complete protein. There's nothing like it after exercise, especially on a cold winter night.

2 tablespoons coconut oil or olive oil.

2 garlic cloves, minced.

1 cup finely chopped onion.

810 medium mushrooms, finely chopped cup finely chopped green bell pepper cup finely chopped red bell pepper cup finely chopped carrots 1 jalapeno pepper or other hot pepper, seeded and minced (optional) 1 cup frozen corn kernels 1 teaspoon ground c.u.min teaspoon ground coriander 2 tablespoons chili powder 2 teaspoons sea salt, plus more to taste teaspoon black pepper 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes 1 15-ounce can tomato puree 1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained 1 15-ounce can black beans, drained 1 15-ounce can red beans, drained 2 cups water cup dry bulgur wheat Hot sauce or cayenne pepper (optional) cup minced fresh cilantro, for garnish Add the oil to a large pot. Saute the vegetables and spices in the oil over medium to medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until tender. Add a few tablespoons of water if the veggies begin sticking to the pot. Add the remaining ingredients except the cilantro and simmer over medium-low heat, covered, for 30 minutes. Stir and simmer for an additional 20 to 30 minutes until the veggies are cooked through. Season with salt and, if more spice is desired, hot sauce or cayenne pepper to taste. Serve, sprinked with the cilantro. Leftover chili freezes well.

MAKES 810 SERVINGS.

9. Silent Snow, Secret Snow.

WESTERN STATES 100 TRAINING, 1999.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

-JOHN MUIR.

I tiptoed up the stairs from the bas.e.m.e.nt, careful not to wake the family still sleeping, pulled a curtain, and watched dry flakes glinting in the watery light of a crescent moon. It was mid-December, 1998, 5 A.M., no warmer than 10 below. I pulled on polypropylene long underwear, a windbreaker, and a fleece, then my warm-up pants and thick wool socks. The path I had chosen-the path I hoped would fulfill me-would eventually take me through canyons of 100 degrees, deserts so hot that scorpions scuttled for shade. But the path started here, now.

Another layer: Nordic ski hat, Finnish ski gloves. It was a path not many other people could discern. High school valedictorian, college graduate, licensed physical therapist, and husband, and I was back in Duluth, about $20,000 in debt, squatting in my in-laws' bas.e.m.e.nt, riding my bike 10 miles a day, five days a week, to Ski Hut. I earned $5 an hour. It was still warm inside my bed. Outside: black night, white ground. I thought it was my path. I laced up my trail running shoes. Shortly after returning to Minnesota, to help with traction in the snow, I had added sheet metal screws to the soles.

We had returned to Minnesota earlier that month. I reunited with Dusty and Hippie Dan and we ran and occasionally skied together. Often joining us were Jess and Katie Koski, two other local athletes and, just as important to my future, both vegans. The Koskis knew about my Voyageur victories, and Hippie Dan had told them how much I read, how interested I was in nutrition and health. They gave me the book Mad Cowboy, by Howard Lyman, in which he argues that factory-farmed meat, fish, and dairy pollutes the earth, poisons the body, and sickens the soul. I thought, if this conservative third-generation Montana cattle rancher thinks plants are the best way to get clean food, then maybe I should take my plant-based diet to the next level. I stopped complaining to Leah about her buying organic produce. I considered eating well to be good, cheap health insurance.

I still worried about getting enough protein, but all the health arguments against meat seemed compelling enough that I thought I would chance it. The only obstacle to going totally vegan was the taste factor. I couldn't imagine going too long without cheese, b.u.t.ter, and eggs. I had too much of a sweet tooth and loved my cheese pizza.

I dabbled with soy and rice milk and thought about the philosophical and nutritional reasons to stop eating animals altogether. Then one Sunday morning, after a 20-mile run with Dusty and the Koskis, I served them my first batch of banana-strawberry vegan pancakes (see [>] for the recipe). They were golden brown and sweet, dense, and hearty. The fruit flavors met on my tongue, then tangled together in a way fruit flavors had never done before. That's when I decided I could live without b.u.t.ter and eggs.

Milk was a little tougher; I had grown up drinking it with nearly every meal. My Grandma Jurek would take her empty gla.s.s bottles to a nearby farm and get them refilled with fresh whole milk. But the milk I was drinking as an adult was not from a nearby farm. It was more likely from a gigantic operation where cows were routinely injected with bovine growth hormone (rBGH), housed in cramped, unsavory conditions, and regularly dosed with antibiotics. No thanks. (I also cut out fish when I realized that unless I caught them myself in a body of water I knew was clean, I was likely going to be getting some hormones and other chemicals along with my salmon or cod.) To my delight (and, I admit, surprise), subtracting some things from my diet actually allowed me to expand the number of foods I ate and to discover incredible and delicious new foods. My new diet included fresh fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and soy products like miso, tofu, and tempeh. I sought out vegetarian cookbooks and ethnic supermarkets to expand my repertoire. Since I had grown up a reluctant vegetable eater in the h.o.m.ogeneous Midwest, I was blown away by the bounty of j.a.panese sea vegetables that I discovered when I later raced in that country, the simplicity of a homemade corn tortilla, and the complexity of Thai red curry.

I'm a serious vegan. (I usually avoid that word; to many people it connotes a certain crabby, self-righteous zealousness.) And I'm a serious athlete. But I won't starve for my principles. Although I always have protein powder with me, there were a few times in Europe that I ate cheese out of desperation, and there were occasions in remote villages in Mexico when I consumed beans that I knew had been cooked with lard. I once took a snorkeling trip in Costa Rica and was a.s.sured that there would be a vegetarian option, but that turned out to be vegetables that had been grilled inside a giant fish! I was hungry and I had a race coming up, so I ate them. On the extremely rare occasions I've diverged from plant-based foods, it's always been a matter of survival, never because I craved animal products or felt incomplete without them.

Those compromises would come later, though. I wouldn't be faced with the difficult choices of a renowned ultrachampion until I became a renowned ultrachampion. That's why I was lacing up my running shoes with the sheet metal screws on their soles.

I eased myself out the door into the frigid almost-dawn. I was aiming for the mountains, but now this gently rolling snowmobile path would have to do. It was late enough that the partiers wouldn't be racing their machines, early enough that even the recreational users would be too hung-over to rev up. I took my first steps onto the path and sunk to my ankles. Good. Difficulty would help. It had always helped. I was finally figuring that out. All the whys in the universe hadn't granted me peace or given me answers. But the asking-and the doing-had created something in me, something strong. I pulled my feet out, kept going, sucked in the last bits of night sky, and tilted toward the lunar blade low on the horizon as birch trees slid past.

After the Angeles Crest, I knew I had pa.s.sed a test. And I knew what the next one would be.

I had heard about it the way minor-leaguers hear of Babe Ruth or teenage climbers learn of Everest, which is to say I don't remember the moment someone said "Western States 100."

People spoke of its difficulties, how it broke spirits as well as bodies. I wanted to train in the most challenging place I knew. That's why I didn't loathe returning to Minnesota for the winter. That's why I was out in the snow, thinking of Northern California.

By the time I had decided I would conquer it, the Western States 100 was probably the most well-known ultramarathon in the world. The course had been featured on ABC's Wide World of Sports twice in the 1980s. It had twenty-one aid stations and six medical checks (both high numbers among ultra events, indicating the course's difficulty). Runners finishing in under 24 hours received a sterling silver buckle proclaiming 100 MILES, ONE DAY; those finishing in under 30 hours got a bronze buckle. The male and female winners took home bronze cougars. Every year, the race attracted 1,500 volunteers and 369 long-distance runners who had completed at least one 50-miler in the previous year and who had made it through the Western States lottery system.

Since it began, the race had been a source of local pride. Only one non-Californian had ever won in the men's division, and he was a secret hero of mine. In the past decade, as Northern California had become known as the hub of long-distance running, the race seemed to exude a kind of tribal turf protectiveness. A local (and ultra) legend named Tim Twietmeyer had won five times. People said Twietmeyer didn't care what kind of lead someone might have on him-he knew the course and the course was his. But in 1997 someone took it from him. A navy diver from Maryland named Mike Morton had dropped out of the 1996 race, confirming to many the widely held belief that unless you trained at (and preferably lived near) the Western States course, you didn't stand a chance. When he showed up in 1997, people admired his s.p.u.n.k, but many doubtless pitied his obstinance. Then he beat Twietmeyer by 1 hour and 33 minutes, setting a new course record of 15 hours and 40 minutes.

I wanted to accomplish what the diver had done. I wanted to use the Western States to prove to the Northern Californians and other ultra-distance hotshots that I was worthy of their fraternity. To prove to myself that I was worthy. I knew it would be difficult. Twietmeyer had come back and reclaimed his crown in 1998. But now that I knew the rewards of pain, I wanted more pain. I wanted to use it as a tool to pry myself open. Pitting myself against 100 miles of terrain and the best trail distance runners in the world would provide that pain.

The race had started in 1955 when a local businessman named Wendell T. Robie rode a horse 100 miles in a single day. Later, he said he did it "because he could." Every year thereafter, hors.e.m.e.n and horsewomen from all over the area would gather for the Tevis Cup-named after another successful local capitalist, Lloyd Tevis. Anyone who finished the torturous path in 24 hours or less on a mount "fit to continue" would receive a silver buckle.

A remarkable man named Gordy Ainsleigh and his not-quite-so-remarkable horse inadvertently transformed the event into a footrace. Ainsleigh, a chiropractor, outdoorsman, logger, equestrian, wrestler, and scientist, was also a formidable runner. He had long hair, a s.h.a.ggy beard, and a large, muscled frame that wouldn't have looked out of place on a rugby player or linebacker. He once held the "Clydesdale division" record for the best marathon time by a runner weighing more than 200 pounds (2:52).

But Ainsleigh's favorite race was the Tevis Cup. He had buckled in 1971 and 1972 but the same year gave his trusty steed to a woman he loved. She soon left him, taking the horse. He rode again in 1973, but his replacement steed pulled up lame about 30 miles into the race at a stretch of wood-enclosed meadow called Robinson Flat. The next year, because he didn't want to injure another horse, the mountain man decided to travel the course on foot.

It was a particularly hot day. One horse died. Ainsleigh finished in 23 hours and 42 minutes. He received a buckle and a medical check from a veterinarian.

Another man tried to run the course in 1975 but dropped out after 96.5 miles. In 1976 another longhair, Ken "Cowman" Shirk, set out on foot and finished in 24 hours and 29 minutes. Then, in 1977, the Western States Endurance Run (commonly known as the Western States 100) was born. Fourteen men ran alongside their equine counterparts (three of the guys finished). The next year, the race organizers decided to separate human and horse and move the Western States earlier, to a cooler month, and since then it's run the last weekend in June.

The course begins in Squaw Valley, and the first thing any racer does is climb to 8,750-foot Emigrant Pa.s.s, an ascent of 2,550 feet in 4 miles. She will spend the rest of the 100 miles climbing another 15,540 feet and descending 22,970. Racers follow trails once used by the Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe, who sc.r.a.ped their living from the harsh land by scavenging nuts, berries, insects, and lizards, digging for tubers, trapping small game like rabbits and squirrels, and very rarely killing a p.r.o.nghorn antelope. The Native Americans left, victims of smallpox, bullets, and other byproducts of a young nation's Manifest Destiny. Next came the settlers and the gold miners. Not far from the course was Donner Pa.s.s, named for the unfortunate group of settlers who had also followed their dreams west, failed to finish their course, and in the winter of 184647 suffered fates much worse and more memorable than not getting a buckle.

The moon had set. A pale, watery gray sky promised a pale, watery winter day. I crunched on past more stands of birch and empty, barren fields. My feet sank. I pulled them out. I pumped my arms, sank again, and pulled them out again. Timeless silence, except for the crunching of my feet, the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the forest's only moving creature-me. I would run an hour and 15 minutes this morning-10 miles at a 7:30 pace. I would run another 10 miles the next morning, and the next. Weekends, I would run 25-mile-long runs.

A few people who knew about my training and also knew what I was eating told me I was crazy. My dad-who had ballooned to over 280 pounds-suggested that if I was going to run long distances, I needed steak, and when I replied that his health might improve if he ate more vegetables, he told me to wait until I was forty and to see how I felt and looked. My grandpa Ed-my mom's dad-told me no one could survive on "fruits and nuts" and that, furthermore, I would need new knees by the time I was forty.

But I felt better than I had ever felt before. I had always had pretty good endurance, but now the soreness I had always experienced after long runs was gone. The resting times I had always needed between hard workouts were shorter than ever. I felt lighter. I felt stronger. I felt faster. And I felt as young as ever.

When I returned to my doorway, the pale gray dawn had turned paler, but the sun seemed a vague memory, not even a promise. Wet little clouds of exhaust coughed from the cars of early shift workers. I would go in, stretch, shower, and change. Then I would start my day.

THE CORE.

Your legs propel you, but it's your back and abdominal muscles that enable a lot of the power. For the back, do pulldowns and rows at a gym, with your shoulder blades pinched together. If you practice yoga, concentrate on backbend moves like the locust, the bridge, and the boat.

For the abs, work exercises into your routine that involve keeping your pelvis still while moving your legs. Planks are some of the simpler and most effective of these exercises. For the front plank, lie flat on a mat, face down, then raise your hips and pelvis, keeping your forearms and toes on the floor with your body straight from head to toe. The side plank is the same, except the points of contact between the body and floor are the side of one forearm and the side of the same foot. These starter exercises can be made more challenging with arm and leg movements or by adding a stability ball or disc. Any yoga position will be of tremendous value to the runner if you make sure to focus on and engage your core. Any Pilates routine-which by its nature emphasizes engaging the core-will make you a stronger and more efficient runner.

8-Grain Strawberry Pancakes I first cooked these pancakes after a 20-mile run in a northern Minnesota winter, and the experience taught me two things: first, that I could create a creamy, sweet texture without eggs or milk, and second, that there were an awful lot of grains in the world that I had never heard of. Whole-grain flours can be found in health food stores, or, if you have a high-powered blender like a Vitamix, you can make fresh whole-grain flour like I do. Grind together any combination of whole grains to make a total of 2 cups of flour.

The ground chia and flax act as a binder to replace eggs. In addition to tasting great, the pancakes contain plenty of carbs and protein. It's the perfect food for a long morning run, both before and during. I often carry leftovers on the trail.

cup spelt flour cup buckwheat flour cup whole wheat flour cup oat flour cup millet flour cup rye flour cup barley flour cup corn meal cup ground flax seed or chia seed 2 teaspoons baking powder teaspoon sea salt 2 cups non-dairy milk (see recipe for rice milk, [>]) 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cups frozen or fresh strawberries, chopped 1 teaspoon coconut oil Maple syrup or fruit sauce, for serving Combine the flours, ground seeds, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the milk, olive oil, sweetener, and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Fold in the strawberries. Grease a skillet with the coconut oil and heat over medium-low heat for 3 to 5 minutes, or until a drop of water sizzles when it hits the pan. Pour to cup of the batter onto the skillet for each pancake. Cook until the bottom is golden brown and bubbles appear on top of the pancake, then flip to cook the other side. Repeat with the remaining batter. Serve topped with maple syrup or your favorite fruit sauce.

MAKES 1012 6-INCH PANCAKES.

10. Dangerous Tune.

(MORE) WESTERN STATES 100 TRAINING, 1999.

Snow. Sun. Sandstone. Sky. He was doing what he liked and knew. It was now. And this now had no pressure, just permission.

-JAMES GALVIN.

There were no manuals on how to be a 100-mile champion. I knew because I looked. And the Internet was just being born. So I developed my own plan. First, in late April Leah and I moved to Seattle. I had been offered a job at a place called the FootZone by the owner, Scott McCoubrey, another long-distance runner I met at the Cle Elum Ridge 50K in 1997 during my internship in Seattle. I had learned what I could from the snowy trails and the cold nights. For the Western States, I needed mountains.

Second, I turned to coaches from another age.

When Arthur F. H. Newton decided to enter South Africa's Comrades Marathon (which is actually 55 miles) in 1922, he was thirty-eight years old, not particularly fit, and well aware he would be competing against younger, faster runners. Whether out of wisdom or desperation, he trained at the then-radical and unheard-of distance of 10 and more miles a day. In addition to winning that Comrades Marathon, as well as five more, he set world records at 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 100 miles. If anyone can lay claim to being the father of LSD (Long Slow Distance) training, it is Newton. He was also a nutritional pioneer; he swore by a concoction people called his "secret elixir." (It was made from lemonade and salt.) Lemonade and long distance, though, wouldn't be enough. So I studied the wisdom of the Australian Percy Cerutty, a former women's clothing shop manager, an advocate of whole foods, and one of the strangest characters in the oft-strange pantheon of ultrarunners.

In 1939, when he was forty-three, Cerutty (he said it was p.r.o.nounced "just like 'sincerity,' without the sin") suffered a nervous breakdown. After doctors told him he would be dead within two years, he embarked on a regimen of diet, exercise, and a philosophy of living that he called "Stotan," which he explained as a combination of Stoic and Spartan. He wrote that an athlete needed "hardness, toughness, and unswerving devotion to an ideal," but he also needed to embrace "diet, philosophy, cultivation of the intellect, and openness to artistic endeavors."

According to Cerutty, "You only ever grow as a human being if you're outside your comfort zone."

Cerutty recovered (he would live to be eighty years old) and, among other training innovations, eschewed stopwatches in favor of an intuitive approach that relied on an athlete's innate intelligence. He had his runners sprint over sand dunes, lift heavy weights, practice yoga, and keep to a strict diet rich in raw foods and whole grains. He studied the way animals ran to see what human runners could learn. He also warned against drinking (any liquid) with meals and socializing after midnight. His most famous protege, Herb Elliot, the premier mid-distance runner of the late 1950s, called the Stotan sessions "beautiful and painful . . . underneath it all there was a sort of sound philosophy based on 'Let's improve ourselves as human beings, let's become more compa.s.sionate, let's become bigger, let's become stronger, let's become nicer people.'"

Both coaches operated outside the norms of conventional athletics-Newton in his emphasis on long-distance training, Cerutty in his admonishments about almost every other aspect of a runner's life-while including training and exertion. Though my childhood was unusual by most standards, my behavior had been ferociously conventional. I had spent my life being the Good Son. I had lived not just inches but yards within the lines etched by parents and teachers, bosses and coaches.

That's why I was drawn to outliers like Newton and Cerutty, men who pushed themselves far beyond the lines that others set.

It was runners like Dusty who stirred me. It was men from other eras-crashing through barriers others had deemed inviolable-who taught me. But the one who pushed me most of all was Chuck Jones. He became my Western States idol.

Jones started running 50-milers in 1985 and in 1986 surprised the (then tiny) ultrarunning community by winning the Western States, upsetting the former champion, pistachio farmer and Church of G.o.d preacher Jim King. Jones trained for the race with 200-plus mileage running weeks. (The standard at the time was about 120 to 140 miles.) When an ABC reporter pulled up next to Jones on a particularly punishing ascent late in the Western States and said, "You've been smiling since we started filming you," Jones, without breaking stride, replied, "Well, I like runnin'."

He was the thirteenth of fourteen children. He avoided team sports because his mother couldn't afford uniforms or offer transportation. (His father had committed suicide when Chuck was four and a half.) A drummer and a pract.i.tioner of transcendental meditation since he was sixteen, he took up speed walking in his early twenties. To lessen the recovery time, Jones eliminated caffeine, tobacco, and meat-at the same time. It helped.

A difficult childhood. An unconventional and difficult training regimen. A simultaneously cerebral and primitive approach to running that brought childlike joy. It seemed familiar.

It was the same way I felt about Dusty, who since I had left Minnesota had kayaked the entire circ.u.mference of Lake Superior, tossed pizzas, won races, built houses, romanced women, waxed skis, lived in five states, and had generally been, well, the "Dust Ball." A few years earlier, the night before Grandma's Marathon, Dusty was drinking at the Anchor Bar, near the finish line. Worried that he might oversleep and miss the morning bus to the start of the race and being at least slightly intoxicated, he took what seemed the most sensible course of action. He ran to the nearby finish line, then ran the course in reverse to the starting line. He then took a nap on a none-the-wiser Minnesotan's lawn until the gun went off, after which he ran the race in the intended direction, finishing in just over 3 hours. If I was always asking why and considering all the options, Dusty was taking what he wanted when he wanted. Dusty, Jones, Newton, and Cerutty had all b.u.mped against the limits of their bodies and their minds, then created new limits. Running wasn't just exercise or a hobby, or even necessarily compet.i.tion, for them. Basically, they were existentialists in shorts. I wanted to be one, too.

In Seattle, I ran to work, 6 miles each way. After I got home, I ran through the streets of the city, letting the moist air cool me as I felt my muscles loosen and learned about my new home.

My serious training, though, happened on weekends.

That's when I looked for my limits. I found them in the Pacific Northwest at a place called Mount Si.

Serious climbers planning a.s.saults on Mount Rainier and Mount McKinley climb Mount Si with packs to get a taste of the struggle that awaits them. Some families make an annual tradition of a Mount Si climb. Some very serious Seattle mountain runners will run the route. Some very, very serious ultrarunners will run back-to-backs: up and down, and up and down again.

I had my path. It had started in the flatlands, but now it was about to crest mountains. I needed the mountains. On my first Sat.u.r.day in Seattle, I drove out to the trailhead. I was going to do a back-to-back-to-back.

The mountain rises 3,400 feet, which doesn't sound like much until you realize that it does it in 4 miles. That's over 800 feet per mile. My steepest climb in Minnesota covered a route from Lake Superior to the highest ridge. It was 600 feet, but it took 2 miles on a smooth, paved road.

Boulders big as RVs lined the path. Gnarly old roots extended from towering hemlocks and Douglas firs and laid claim to the floor of the trail. Three-foot-long, two-foot-wide leaves from Devil's Club plants brushed me as I climbed. I pa.s.sed hikers struggling up and others coming down. I was the only runner. From the base of the mountain, it seemed like the ascent would be straight up, but I knew that was impossible; there had to be at least one level patch. And there was, exactly one, halfway. It went 100 yards, and I thought of it as Si Flats. Every half mile, just to remind me that I was in for a day of hurt, there was a moss-covered, wooden signpost. That first day, it took me 14 minutes to cover the first mile.

The mountain reminded me that races are not run all at once, that the only way to survive an ultra was piece by piece. So I ran Mount Si piece by piece. The snowmobile trails in Minnesota with their foot-grabbing snow had taught me the pangs of a single step. Mount Si taught me how to climb as fast as I could when I couldn't see my destination, then to run hard down-not amble-the way I had come up. I didn't jog up Mount Si, and I didn't pick my way down. That first day, I made three trips up and three trips down as fast as I could. Then I drove home and put in a full shift at work.

But the next morning I didn't want to get out of bed. I could hear music. It was the siren song of a warm bed, a cozy couch, a few hours of reading, or listening to music, or just being. No one was forcing me to run. No one said I had to. No one was going to die if I just relaxed a little. Those were the lyrics of the song. It was the catchy, terrible tune that had seduced so many runners to drop out of races. It was a melody I could not afford to listen to. The song was calling: Rest. You just ran one mountain. No need to do another.

So much for my improved recovery times, my new uber-resilient self, thanks to my diet. Had I pushed myself too far? Most coaches suggest reaching a training peak 80 percent of the distance you're going to be racing. Most coaches, of course, do not run ultras. No one could consistently do 80-mile training runs. So I had decided I would do the next best thing. I would re-create the stress-physical, emotional, and mental-that an ultra would present.

The day after Mount Si, when all I wanted to do was stay p.r.o.ne, I blocked out the perilous tune. I tackled another course just as tough-some would say tougher.

There was no trail map for the Twelve Peaks run, a 35-mile course created by a Seattle runner in his fifties named Ron Nicholl, invariably referred to as "the legendary Ron Nicholl." He was also known as "the trail m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t of Seattle." While many ultrarunners (myself included) look to improve efficiency in their stride and maximize the ratio of the distance traveled to the effort, Ron was known as a guy who did things the hard way until they got easy, which is when he tried to make them harder.

The Twelve Peaks climbs weren't quite as long as those of Mount Si, but they boasted other attractions. They covered 35 miles, compared to the 24 of three trips of Mount Si. They contained an ascent of 10,500 feet and the same descent. And they curled and climbed and plunged over slimy, moss-covered boulders, through mud, straight into a salmonberry-infested jungle known to those who survived it as "'Nam." Thick, wild ferns and sinister hemlock sprouted from impossibly green foliage. Douglas firs loomed, made a cathedral of wood and needles for me, turned midday into eternal night. I ran them in sleet and in snow and in 85-degree heat that turned the forest as clammy as a pressure cooker.

The moss and muck delivered the pain I sought, but I wanted more.

My hero Chuck Jones had granted interviews (and confused interviewers) where he spoke of vibrations and wavelengths and signs from the hidden world, and while I knew what he meant-the sensation of losing oneself, of entering a zone at once connected to the earth and separated from earthly concerns-I wasn't sure how to achieve it on a regular, predictable basis.

I had improved myself as a skier by reading, so I read. And what I discovered was bushido, the culture of ancient j.a.panese warriors, who espoused courage, simplicity, honor, and self-sacrifice.

According to bushido, the best mind for the battlefield-or the race-is that of emptiness, or an empty mind. This doesn't mean sleepiness or inattention; the bushido concept of emptiness is more like that rush of surprise and expansiveness you get under an ice-cold waterfall. The empty mind is a dominant mind. It can draw other minds into its rhythm, the way a vacuum sucks up dirt or the way the person on the bottom of a seesaw controls the person on the top. When I hear a runner say he "runs his own race," what I hear is bushido.