Eat and Run Part 6

MAKES 3 CUPS, 1012 SERVINGS NOTE: If using a low-powered blender, silken tofu provides better results. Be sure to drain the water first.

12. Battling Bug Boy.

WESTERN STATES 100, 2000 AND 2001.

If you could walk a mile in my shoes you'd be crazy too.

-TUPAC SHAKUR.

Winning felt great. Kicking a.s.s-especially the a.s.ses of so many who had said I was doomed -was a sensation that all but the most spiritually evolved or brain-fried would enjoy. I had set a goal and achieved it. I had pushed myself to what I thought were the outer limits of my capabilities and then pushed farther-on a vegan diet. Being crowned a champion was good for both my mind and my soul. But it wasn't enough.

I wanted to know more about that s.p.a.ce between exhaustion and breaking. I wanted to know more about my body and my will. And I craved the joy and the peace that had filled me when I ran the game trails with Dusty, the quiet, sublime warmth that had enveloped me as the snow settled on the lonely snowmobile trails of the Great North. Besting compet.i.tors in a footrace was a thrill, and it was the goal toward which I had been bending the arc of my life. Winning had done wonders for my ego. But I wanted to lose myself, to connect with something larger. I had read enough Buddhist writings by then to realize that chasing a concrete goal was good, but it wasn't the point. And the nuns taught us that blind ambition provided a clear path to dubious behavior, so I knew the answer to Jesus' question, "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?" The point was living with grace, decency, and attention to the world, and breaking free of the artificial constructs in your own life. I know all that now. I sensed it then.

But I was twenty-five years old, and I had just won the oldest and most prestigious trail ultramarathon in the world! I would continue to push myself, to study the limits of endurance, to seek transcendence. But for at least a little while, I would enjoy my status as champion.

It was a short little while. It lasted until I showed up for work at the Seattle Running Company. The store was the epicenter of the local (and later the entire Northwest and national) ultra scene. It was like the corner bar where all the punk rockers or skateboarders or cops hung out, except the people hanging out at the shop wore running shoes and swapped stories about electrolyte consumption.

"Congratulations," a regular named Jeff Dean greeted me when I showed up after my victory. "You're now officially a one-hit wonder."

Jeff was 5'8'', stocky, with a beer belly. He wore thick gla.s.ses and talked with a little bit of a lisp. He must have been in his late forties or early fifties, but no one knew. He shuffled when he walked and he shuffled when he ran. He had such weird posture, he looked almost like a hunchback. He ran-or shuffled-7 miles downtown, and on the way he always looked for loose change. "It was a twenty-cent day," he'd say. Or "It was a buck-thirty day."

Jeff had run a 2:38 marathon years earlier, and that, plus his incredible knowledge about the history and legends of the sport, made him kind of a whacked-out sage in the running community. He was also the unofficial historian of ultras. He gave me two books by James Shapiro, Ultramarathon and Meditations from the Breakdown Lane, cla.s.sics on not only the physical and mental dimensions of ultrarunning but the spiritual dimensions as well. Shapiro says, "If your mind is dirty you can run 10,000 miles, but where have you gotten? If you go for a 1-mile run and you're pa.s.sionately engaged with the world, who cares about the other 9,999?"

When Jeff said I was a "one-hit wonder," I don't think he meant it as a compliment.

I decided I was going to be far more than that. I wanted to win the Western States again, and not only for myself. Mike Morton, the navy diver who had inspired me, didn't get to defend his t.i.tle in '98 because of an injury. He had broken the Californians' stranglehold on the race and set a record. I wanted to show everyone that my victory hadn't been a fluke, and I wanted to run as a tribute to the diver. Also, I wanted to break Morton's record.

While I was preparing for another victory, I planned to make myself a more complete, mindful human being, more aware of the world around me, of myself, and even of the world I couldn't see. That might sound weird, coming from a kid who grew up hunting and fishing and hating vegetables, but it was true.

First, I refined my training. Even though I didn't exactly enjoy my earlier speed workouts, I added interval training to my program. Once a week I ran to the University of Washington's Husky Stadium. I ran a mile-four laps-at 5K race pace on the state-of-the-art, rubberized track. Then I jogged easy for 3 minutes. Then I ran another hard mile. Then I rested again. I did 5 miles total.

Sometimes I ran in the early morning, between ROTC drills and cheerleader workouts. Sometimes I ran when the football team was practicing; other times in the early evening, when some track team members and other athletes were out. The stadium, which seated 70,000 people, was kind of surreal. I was running as fast as I could, and I was one of the slower people. A lot of them were college track stars. Others were local marathon hotshots.

The interval training not only built my confidence that I could, if necessary, pull away from my compet.i.tors, but it helped me focus on what was important. As the nineteen-year-old speed demons and the marathoning champs raced by me, I resisted chasing them. I knew that I wanted to defeat other runners, but in order to do so, I needed to measure my progress only against myself, not others.

When I started, I was clocking 5:25 to 5:30 miles. After two months, I was running them at 5:10. The last mile was always the most difficult. I would always run it the fastest.

I also refined my uphill running. Months of gutting it out on Mount Si and the Twelve Peaks route had helped, but Twietmeyer and Tough Tommy Nielson lived near mountains, too, and I suspected they would all be logging some mega distances for next year's Western States.

So I focused on technique, and I refined the practice that Lance Armstrong and other cyclists had mastered. The trick to uphill racing wasn't so much sheer force as it was turnover. In cycling, the smart (and fast) racer shifts into an easier gear when he hits inclines but maintains his pedal revolutions per minute. Mocked in mountain biking as a "granny gear," that faster gear turned out to be the key to championships. So I looked for my own running "granny gear." I found that by shortening my stride I could "spin," maintaining the ideal turnover of 180 foot strikes a minute. Downhill, I lengthened my stride but stayed light on my feet, and I kept the same 180-footfalls-a-minute pace.

I loved the trails most of all-running away from civilization toward the natural world-but during the early season I started spending more time on the roads with Ian, who eventually moved to Seattle. He and I would go out twice a week for 20 to 30 miles, and we'd focus on hitting miles at a 6:20- to 6:45-minute-mile pace. There was something metric and rea.s.suring about it. Although Ian couldn't stand the fact that my heart rate was always five beats or more lower than his, we helped each other through those tough road miles. It felt so good to be running free and fast, pushing each other to hit that next mile on target. And when we finally made it back to my place, we reveled in the accomplishment of an honest morning's work. I'd celebrate by making us a stack of my eight-grain blueberry pancakes with freshly ground grains or a gigantic skillet of tofu veggie scramble and Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted-grain toast-the perfect recovery food. Life was good and it was simple: hard-earned miles and delicious nourishment.

Running smarter and with more quality, I didn't run as far. A lot of marathoners log 120 to 140 miles. I was doing 90 to 110.

I was used to attacking race courses, regarding steep ascents as obstacles to vanquish, endless trails as journeys to endure. In Seattle, I began taking a more holistic approach. I was reading more about posture and stabilization and core strength and about movement integration from the book Running with the Whole Body, one of the few books I could find on running technique. I hit the gym, working on my upper body, because I was beginning to realize how much a strong torso and arms could propel tired legs. I experimented with Pilates. I took up yoga for flexibility, body awareness, and centered focus.

I even tinkered with my breathing. I knew from reading Spontaneous Healing that mindful, deep breathing could help the body repair itself. And in yoga (which I struggled with until I understood that it was a practice, not a compet.i.tion), I learned the concept of Pranayama (literally, "extension of the life force" breathing), which would help, not just my body, but my mind and emotions as well. I picked up a book called Body, Mind, and Sport, by John Douillard, and learned that breathing through the nose rather than the mouth lowers one's heart rate and helps brain activity. A yogi announced in cla.s.s that "the nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating."

I experimented. I took easy, loping hour runs along Lake Washington. It was flat and damp, and the wind was blowing me sideways. I didn't worry about speed or form. I focused only on breathing in and out through my nose. It was like when I was a kid, teaching myself to relax. I tried doing the same thing on runs that required more effort, and found it very difficult, especially climbing. But from my experimenting, I trained myself to breathe from my diaphragm, to "belly breathe," rather than to breathe from my chest.

Finally, I tweaked my diet. Of all my stabs at self-improvement, this was the easiest, the most joyous.

I'd been vegan for a year, and Seattle was a perfect place to explore and expand the food I was eating. I made smoothies, searched the farmer's markets and my local co-op for more fruits and vegetables. Even though I bought grains, beans, and seeds in bulk and attended member appreciation night once a month at Madison Market Co-op so I could save an additional 10 percent, I was spending more than I ever had on food. And I was fairly deep in credit card debt. While many people freaked out about the year 2000, I was secretly hoping for a Y2K crash to wipe out my debt. There are a lot of ways to live frugally. I know that better than anyone. But the fuel and medicine-the food-I put in my body was not the place to scrimp. My never-better vigor and well-being made the extra investment a no-brainer.

When I raced, I stuck with the usual healthy fare-bananas, potatoes, energy gels-and I added more rice burritos and occasional hummus wraps. I avoided the melons and the oranges often present at aid stations, because I realized that the acidity wasn't so great for my stomach. And I hardly even looked at the junk food that was ubiquitous at those same stations-the M&M's and jelly beans, the potato chips and cookies.

The better I ate, the better I felt. The better I felt, the more I ate. Since going vegan, I had lost a layer of fat-the layer that came with eating the cookies and cakes and Twinkies and cheese pizza that so many omnivores and even vegetarians gulp down. I learned that I could eat more, enjoy it more, and still get leaner than I had ever been in my life. When I went vegan, I started eating more whole grains and legumes, fruits and vegetables. My cheekbones seemed more p.r.o.nounced, my face more chiseled. Muscles I didn't even know I had popped out. I was eating more, losing weight, and gaining muscle-all on a vegan diet. My recovery times between workouts and races got even shorter. I wasn't even sore the day after 50-mile races. I woke up with more energy every day. Fruit tasted sweeter, vegetables crunchier and more flavorful. I was doing short runs in the morning, working 8- to 10-hour days, then running 10 to 20 miles in the evening. I felt as if my concentration was improving every day.

To refine my approach to running-and eating and living-I read about and attempted to feel what was healthy and natural. I had the enormous advantage of Seattle's vibe of organic and natural everything. I also had access to great experts and technology. In addition to working at the Seattle Running Company, I was working for Dr. Emily Cooper at Seattle Performance Medicine. Athletes would come to us, and we would a.n.a.lyze things like VO2 max levels and lactate thresholds, as well as discuss their dietary and nutritional habits.

The subject I was most interested in was myself.

In Dr. Cooper's lab, I wore a mask and ran on a treadmill to measure my VO2 max levels and to estimate my lactate threshold. Sometimes I would take a mask and a portable machine to measure the same factors on trail runs and during intervals. Going hard up a climb, I'd hit 165, 170. On my interval workouts, going all out on the track, it would get up to 180, or about 95 percent, almost as hard as my body could work.

Dr. Cooper had me log foods, too, writing down everything I ate during the day and during a race. She entered all the food into her computer and did all kinds of calculations, and she was blown away.

"Wow," she said after she checked and rechecked the numbers. "You've been doing things right the last few years." She recognized immediately just how in tune with my body I was, how I had learned to listen to what it needed to run on "the edge."

My targeted training made me a more efficient runner. My expanded diet made food taste better and my body work better. Together, they helped change my approach to life. Running with abandon and animal freedom was essential if I wanted to lose myself, to break into another dimension. But science was a way to get in touch with that animal freedom. My dog, Tonto, didn't need to study to find his true nature. I did.

Dusty derided "the fast roadies" or road runners as "people who got up in the morning and counted all their teeth to make sure they were all there." They were a.n.a.l, he said, so compulsively worried about splits and pace and turnover that they forgot the exuberance of movement. But what I learned in Seattle was that technology and knowledge could help me get even closer to that exuberance, could help me get in touch with my intuition. I was trying to sense what was best for my body and mind-what I craved. But I didn't have to rely on only my feeling. I could cross-check my progress against some hard metrics.

The most important metric to me was how I finished in the Western States 100. I'm not superst.i.tious, but I do believe in developing good habits and the power of repet.i.tion. So every year in late June, a week and a half before the race, I would pack my sleeping bag, my race kit, and my canine training partner, Tonto, into my faded, off-white VW Westfalia.

I would also stuff the van with jars of bulgur wheat, cans of lentils and beans, containers bulging with homemade pressed almond b.u.t.ter, tofu cheese spread and carob tofu pudding, and my Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted-grain bread, so named because this Bible verse talks about bread made from a combination of six grains and beans.

Packed, with my buddy Tonto sitting in the pa.s.senger seat, I'd drive south to the Sacramento airport, to pick up that scourge of cops and friend to young women worldwide. Ian was a terrific pacer and my friend, and he had helped me win my first bronze cougar, but Dusty was . . . Dusty. Since that first Western States victory in 1999, whether Dusty was working construction in Oregon, waxing skis in Colorado, or tossing pizzas in Duluth, he was the guy I wanted next to me on that last 38-mile stretch of the revered Western States Trail.

He has paced me at the Vermont 100 and the Leadville 100 in 2004 and at countless other races through the years. I've paid his travel expenses, but he's paid for just about everything else, not to mention the time he had to train and the time he took away from his life. He owns a house in Duluth, and as much as he likes everyone to believe otherwise, he has commitments. To his mortgage. To various bosses. To girlfriends.

I always knew Dusty had more natural talent than I did. I suspect he thought so too. Whether I worked harder or wanted to win more or whether Dusty just wasn't interested in the life of a top ultrarunner, I didn't know. And we never talked about it until much later. I don't know if I could have had as much fun or accomplished what I did without Dusty. Luckily, back then I didn't have to find out.

Other runners paid for hotel rooms in Squaw Valley. Dusty and I camped out high in the conifer-forested foothills 50 miles outside the finish line in Auburn. We pitched my tent in my favorite spot, a rocky overlook surrounded by rodents and lizards, deer and bear (and cougars, whose tracks we would occasionally stumble over). For water we drank from my favorite well at nearby Robinson Flat. Other runners jogged in the relatively cool morning hours. We lazed around camp until the afternoon, when the California sun was beating hardest. That's when Dusty, Tonto, and I made our way to "the Canyons" and ran with the rattlesnakes.

A lot of people gave me grief for the food I ate, and none more so than Dusty. I would make a huge kale salad and tempeh tacos and fresh guacamole and salsa and warm, fresh corn tortillas. I'd heat it all up on the gas stove in my VW bus, and Dusty would say, "Oh, gerbil food again? We're going to run out of toilet paper, with all that roughage!" His postmeal critique: "Better than a kick in the b.a.l.l.s, dude."

The truth is, Dusty is a closet vegetarian. He eats healthier than just about anyone I know, but he likes to pretend he doesn't, and he used to call himself a certified Dumpster diver. My other friends and family from Minnesota are another matter. When I would return home for holidays and big meals and someone asked why I'm not having the ham, I would just say I already had some or I'm full. I don't like making anyone feel uncomfortable.

We didn't bring computers or cell phones. I read a lot-Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and Dan Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior and Bone Games by Rob Schultheis. Dusty spent his time making fun of me and scouring the surrounding area for women. One year we were approached by a couple of girls who turned out to be Mormon. One of them asked Dusty if he believed in anything, and he said, "Oh, yeah, most certainly. I believe in the almighty b.u.t.t."

On another trip, we stopped near the Sacramento airport to buy a blow-up s.e.x doll, which we mailed to an older accomplished ultrarunner buddy named David Horton-a devout, supercompet.i.tive guy-who was chasing the speed record on the Pacific Crest Trail. We sent it to a P.O. box in Sierra City, California, where we knew he'd be picking up supplies. "We heard you might be lonely," we wrote.

In Seattle, I continued to run with abandon, but I measured the results. The more I measured and adjusted, the more I trusted my instincts. Running as we were born to run is great, and I believe in it. But we live in the twenty-first century, and we have tools our ancestors never did. I wouldn't ignore those tools any more than I would ignore my impulse to get outside on a sunny morning and just run for the sheer joy of it. What I learned during those years in Seattle was that I could run-and eat-with wild, primitive abandon, the way our ancestors had, and that by checking the results of my natural impulses, I could hone those impulses even more. By combining instinct and technique, I searched for that small zone where I could push myself as hard as possible without injury and the unraveling of the body's systems. Accessing and staying in that small zone is the key to success.

In my second Western States, in 2000, I thought I had identified the edge between pushing my body to the limit and going over it. I thought I knew exactly how hard to push, exactly when and how to refuel, and what moments I could, as my once and future pacer Dusty said, "f.u.c.k technique." But I learned what every marathoner learns: When you're searching for the edge separating your best and breakdown, it's easy to step over.

In 2000 it happened to me on the same 16-mile stretch of trail where I had gotten so sick the previous year. This time I had monitored my water intake more closely, had eaten a few potatoes and half of a banana and a Clif Shot. But at mile 70, halfway down the American River canyon, I started puking again. This time, my stomach was pumping so violently that I fell to my knees. (While certainly a sign of distress, vomiting in an ultramarathon is not entirely novel, either. A friend of mine and a top runner himself, Dave Terry often said, "Not all pain is significant." He was known for projectile vomiting without breaking stride while running downhill at a 7-minute-mile pace.) Dusty was pacing me at the time, and he looked back. There was no gentle pat on the back, no promise that everything would be okay.

"Do that s.h.i.t standing up," the Dust Ball yelled. "C'mon, let's get running." Later, when Dusty thought I had more speed in me, he told me that two women were in the top ten, approaching fast. "They're gonna chick you, Jurker! Do you want to get chicked?" (Dusty had coined the term when he was in high school. It's now part of the ultrarunning lexicon).

I won that race in 17 hours and 15 minutes, almost 20 minutes faster than my previous effort. When I returned to Seattle, Jeff Dean told me I was now a "cult figure." He knew about the Californians' fierce tribalism, about their running prowess, and as eccentric as he sometimes was, I think he was delighted that a fellow Northwesterner (even if born in Minnesota) had defended the t.i.tle.

I wanted more-more victories, more speed, more spiritual development. I wanted more answers, and I thought ultrarunning could provide them. I pored over texts, exploring the link between endurance sports, altered states of consciousness, and wisdom-books like Running Wild: An Extraordinary Adventure of the Human Spirit, by John Annerino; Running and Being: The Total Experience, by George Sheehan; and The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, by John Stevens. The monks call their practice of Tendai Buddhism kaihogyo, an extensive daily pilgrimage through the mountainous terrain that encompa.s.ses hundreds of remote shrines, sacred peaks, stones, forests, glades, and waterfalls. To these monks, the sacred is everywhere.

The most devoted complete a 25-mile run every day for a thousand consecutive days. They wear straw sandals and carry a knife at their waist, to be used to kill themselves should they fail to continue. After five years, they conduct a nine-day fast, after which their senses are heightened to such a degree that they can hear ash fall from an incense stick. In the seventh year of their pilgrimage, the monks undertake the "Great Marathon" of 52.5 miles a day every day for a year. This extended circuit includes not only the rarified holy sites on Mount Hiei but also the crowded streets of downtown Kyoto. Each monk, as he runs past noodle bars and strip clubs, stops to give his blessing to the people in the city hurrying about their business. Each of the writers spoke of rewards beyond speed, beyond endurance, beyond victory.

While I was changing from Minnesota outlier to two-time Western States champion and fledgling ultrascholar, a ma.s.sage therapist who often came into the store told me that a vegan diet was nice, but if I really wanted prime performance and maximum health, I should go raw. Gideon was in her forties but looked twenty-five, and her eyes shone with intensity and vitality. She once lived on a commune, and every time I saw her, she would tell me that as good as I had felt after cutting out meat, I'd feel even better cutting out cooking. She gave me a book called Raw Power, and as daunting as it seemed, the salad recipes intrigued me. I'd already won two Western States as a vegan. Maybe I could win even more going raw.

So I tried it. I made salads with walnuts, I ate a lot of almond sauce and young coconuts. I made raw tacos, with "meat" made from sunflower seeds and tomato and fresh guacamole wrapped in cabbage leaves. And that's when I perfected smoothies, which I still always have for breakfast.

Eating raw, I discovered that cooking, steaming, and roasting weren't the only ways to prepare or to radically transform foods. I had never thought of black kale (aka Lacinato or dinosaur kale) as something I'd want to eat, especially uncooked. It has a scaly, almost black, bubbly texture, like dinosaur skin. I thought I was doing pretty well chowing down on raw romaine lettuce and spinach. But this fibrous stuff? Uh-uh. That's until I discovered that when you add salt and vinegar and lemon juice, almost pound it into the thick leaves, and slice a little avocado and tomato in and ma.s.sage that, what you have are tender, delicate leaves with wildly intense flavor. Raw food taught me how bland much of my cooked diet had been.

There were challenges. I had to plan how I was going to get enough calories. Eating at restaurants became tricky. Potlucks weren't easy, either. But food had never tasted so vibrant. Going raw helped me get more in tune with freshness: I could tell from one taste when a carrot had been picked.

At my third Western States, other runners were coming after me. That's what happens when you win a race, especially twice in a row. You become a target.

There was a strong compet.i.tor, Chad Ricklefs, who was using his road speed to tear up the ultra circuit. He had talked about how he was going to stay with me, then outkick me at the end. I couldn't hold his bragging against him. I had been confident when I was a rookie, too.

Ricklefs held to at least part of his plan. He stayed with me. He stuck with me. When I sped up, he sped up. When I slowed down, he slowed down. When a black bear lumbered onto the path in front of me, and I stopped in my tracks, so did Ricklefs. (Though when I yelled and waved my arms at the beast until it slouched away, Ricklefs remained still; there were apparently limits to his mimicry). I couldn't believe it, but when I stopped to p.i.s.s, Ricklefs stopped to p.i.s.s. He was a small guy, and he wore gigantic sungla.s.ses. According to Dusty, who greeted us at the Robinson Flat aid station, at mile 33, my shadow resembled an insect.

"Hey, Bug Boy," the Dust Ball shouted, "run your own f.u.c.king race." And, "Hey, Bug Boy, what are you going to do when we drop your bug a.s.s?"

I don't know if it was Dusty's insults, my pace, the bear, or just the manzanita-scented brutality of the Western States, but shortly thereafter Ricklefs dropped back and then out.

I was in third place, pumping up dusty trails to snow-packed ridgelines where I could hear the snowmelt-engorged river below but not see it.

It was almost exactly the race I had visualized. Then came another Western States body blow, this time a literal one. I had just left the mining encampment called Last Chance and was descending into Deadwood Canyon, alone on a sandy trail dotted with rocks. I was lengthening my stride, making up time, when I stepped through a gap in two rocks that was covered with small oak leaves. I heard a pop and ripping, like paper being shredded or clothes being torn, and then I felt it. Beyond the jolt of pain was the awful knowledge. I knew I was screwed. This wasn't a roll or even a sprain. This was torn ligaments. It was mile 44, 56 miles to go.

Two years earlier I might have just gritted my teeth and gutted it out. But I was smarter now. I knew my body better. I knew ultras better. Most important, I knew that will wasn't just a matter of strength but a matter of focus. The health of my body was critical to running an ultra. But to run it well, my mind was what mattered.

My first step was to allow myself to feel hurt, and bad, and sad, and all those emotions that unexpected loss-whether in an ultramarathon or a relationship or a job-inspire. So that's what I did while I continued running a mile downhill, then 1,800 feet uphill to the Devil's Thumb aid station 4 miles away. I felt bad, but I kept going.

My next step was to take stock. Was I going to die? Could I put weight on the foot? Did I break it? The answers were no (at least not immediately), yes (at least some), and no. Sometimes you need a doctor or nurse to help you determine whether you'll be doing permanent damage if you continue with an injury. But I'd had some experience. I knew it was bad, but I didn't think it was dangerous.

Step three: What can I do to remedy or improve the situation? Stopping and putting ice on it was not a good option. That was partly because it would cost time. More critical, I knew that the swelling would make the ankle more stable. The inflammation would create a natural cast. I thought it would be extremely painful but that I could get through.

Then the final step: mentally separate all my alarmed and distressed thoughts and emotions-"Why did this happen?" "This is going to really hurt," "How will I continue?"-and plop them someplace where I wouldn't dwell on them. One way to do that was to focus on the tasks at hand and on the benefits of the situation. The tasks: Keep my stride rate high and my foot landings light. The benefits: The agony in my ankle helped distract me from the garden-variety exhaustion, thirst, and soreness of the Western States 100.

I ticked off my checklist silently and kept running. Eight miles later, I pa.s.sed Scott St. John and moved into second place. I made sure there wasn't even the faintest limp in my stride. You don't want your compet.i.tors to know there's a wounded animal around. The wounded animal gets taken down by wolves.

I arrived at the Michigan Bluff aid station, at mile 55, after the leader, Tom Johnson, had already left. Johnson was a two-time winner of the event and held the American record for running 100 kilometers on road.

I had to turn the switch on. I had to tell myself, "You can do it, you can do it." I still felt bad, so I took stock. I took a breath. I took off. At mile 58 I pa.s.sed Johnson, and at mile 62, the Forest Hill aid station, I picked up the guy who would have made me run-and win-even if my foot had fallen off.

Dusty knew what had happened-I had told him when I saw him at mile 55-and he didn't talk about it as we ran. He insulted me, as usual. He told me about all the beer we'd be drinking later that night. He might have mentioned that Tom Johnson was a p.u.s.s.y and made more jokes about Bug Boy. And when I asked who was behind me, he said, "Chicks, Jurker, tough chicks are chasing you!" One thing he didn't do was baby me.

I won my third consecutive Western States in 16:38, my fastest time yet. I beat Tim Twietmeyer by 40 minutes (Johnson dropped out not too long after I pa.s.sed him). I stayed at the finish line-with my foot elevated-to greet Twietmeyer, St. John, Tough Tommy, and every other finisher.

Ultrarunners train so hard and long and compete so ferociously that the friendships that develop are unusually sticky and tenacious. Otherwise, I'm convinced, no one could tolerate the loneliness. Those friendships have nurtured me, none more so than the one that developed in the late summer of 2001.

That's when, at a trailhead in Sun City, California, near the base of Baldy Peak, I met Rick Miller when he emerged from his camper carrying two footlocker-sized coolers of beer. It was the night after the Baldy Peaks 50K. Rick and his wife, Barb, had driven there from their home in Ridgecrest. I had finished third, and Barb took sixth among the women. Now, Rick wanted us all to celebrate.

They asked what kind of running I did. I told them about the Western States and the Angeles Crest, and Rick said that anyone who ran 100 miles on a regular basis was insane. I asked if he ran, and if not, what did he do besides tote beer to his wife's races. He smiled and said he had just finished a 135-mile road race near his home-it ran straight through Death Valley. I told him he didn't have a lot of room to be calling anyone crazy. (I also made a mental note of the event, which I later came to regret.) The next morning Rick and I ran together, 6 miles of sunny Southern California trail up toward the Pacific Crest Trail. You can spend your life chitchatting with someone-even a good friend-but spend even an hour moving over a rocky path, breathing in pine-scented air, and I guarantee you the chitchat will turn to something else.

Rick and many others helped teach me the great paradox of distance running. It's a solitary activity, and to be a champion one must block out nearly everything except the next step and the next, and the one after that. Notwithstanding the thick ties that bind runner and pacer, teamwork doesn't enter the strategic or tactical considerations of top ultrarunners.

And yet.

And yet ultrarunners-even the fiercest compet.i.tors-grow to love each other because we all love the same exercise in self-sacrifice and pursuit of transcendence. Because that's what we're all chasing-that "zone" where we are performing at the peak of our abilities. That instant when we think we can't go on but do go on. We all know the way that moment feels, how rarely it occurs, and the pain we have to endure to grab it back again. The longer an ultrarunner competes, I believe, the more he grows to love not only the sport, not only his fellow ultrarunners, but people in general. We all struggle to find meaning in a sometimes painful world. Ultrarunners do it in a very distilled version. I had learned that by the time I met Rick.

Rick told me about his military service, how he had disarmed bombs for the Navy, that he had lost friends in Beirut and Panama. I told him about my mom, and he told me his mom was sick, too, that she had cancer. I told him about my dad, and he said his dad was a real roughneck, too, and that the two of them had gone through some tough times.

We talked about everything. At the time, I had been reading Noam Chomsky and listening to Amy Goodman on the radio program Democracy Now. Rick and Barb were fifty-two and I was twenty-six. Politically, we were two very different breeds. But he told me that we're all human, that there's so much messed-up stuff going on, we need to hold on to what we love. We ran for 2 hours. Every step of the way, I knew exactly where I was. I was running the Path.

Word had gotten out that I had run the second half of the Western States with a blown ankle, and Jeff Dean told me that the victory there elevated me from "cult figure" to "legend." He said he didn't know if he'd be able to come up with another name if I won a fourth time.

I aimed to find out.

BREATHING.

Breathing is critical no matter what you're doing, whether it be meditation, calculus, or boxing (beginning fighters first learn how to breathe so they don't exhaust themselves by panting). One of the most important things you can do as an ultrarunner is to breathe abdominally, and a good way to learn that skill is to practice nasal breathing.

Lying on your back, place a book on your stomach. Breathe in and out through your nose, and try to make your stomach rise and fall with each breath. When you succeed in doing so, you're breathing from your diaphragm rather than your chest (which allows you to breathe more deeply and efficiently). Once you've mastered that, try nasal breathing (in and out through the nose) while you're running easy routes. For more difficult runs, like hills and tempo workouts, breathe in through the nose, then exhale forcefully through the mouth (akin to what yoga pract.i.tioners call "breath of fire").

Eventually, you should be able to breathe through your nose for entire easy runs and to inhale nasally during the less strenuous sections of even 100-mile runs. I experimented with nasal breathing when I was training for the Western States 100, and it helped me become more of an abdominal runner. Nasal breathing humidifies and cleans the air. As a bonus, it allows you to eat quickly and breathe at the same time, whether running easy or hard.

Indonesian Cabbage Salad with Red Curry Almond Sauce I became intrigued by peanut sauce as I ate more and more Thai food. When I learned that almonds are higher in calcium than peanuts and contain monounsaturated fat, as opposed to polyunsaturated fat or processed oils, I decided to subst.i.tute almond b.u.t.ter for peanut b.u.t.ter. The ginger and curry paste give the sauce a Thai feel, and the agave (or maple syrup) sweetens the dish. If you, like me, thought you hated cabbage, do what I did: Don't cook it. In this case, the raw food tastes much better.

head green cabbage, coa.r.s.ely shredded 4 stalks bok choy or 1 head baby bok choy, sliced into -inch pieces 1 carrot, peeled and cut into thin rounds 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into 2-inch-long thin strips cup chopped fresh cilantro cup raw sunflower seeds cup Red Curry Almond Sauce (see recipe, below) Toss all the ingredients to combine and let sit for 10 to 20 minutes or more before serving.

MAKES 68 SIDE-DISH PORTIONS Red Curry Almond Sauce cup almond b.u.t.ter cup water cup fresh lime juice or rice vinegar 2 tablespoons miso 1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro 2 tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup 2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste, or to taste 1 teaspoon onion powder teaspoon garlic powder teaspoon ground ginger Combine all the ingredients in a small mixing bowl or blender. Mix well until smooth. Keeps refrigerated for 2 weeks or frozen for several months.

MAKES 1 CUPS.

13. Of Bears and Gazelles.