I’ve taken over a month to consider my experience with HOTS, Lazarus Lake’s latest 340 mile road race from West Memphis, Arkansas to Castle Rock, Georgia. I had registered for this event almost a full year earlier and my name had been called off the wait-list in December, shortly after finishing Tunnel Hill 100 when my spirits were running high and I felt invincible. For years I had been obsessed with the Last Annual Vol State Road Race and when that sold out and I was placed on the wait-list, I was at first disappointed until Laz revealed his plan to start a new race with a similar premise. When I was fortunate enough to enter, I was terribly apprehensive but simultaneously elated.
The months leading up to the race had been difficult. The world had shut down due to Covid-19 and everything was up in the air. In this state of uncertainty I complicated things further by injuring my hamstring, which prevented me from training how I would have liked. I hadn’t managed many meaningful miles since March and my fitness level was definitely not on peak. I only really began to run again at the beginning of June and I knew that I wasn’t going to be as strong as I’d like but my hamstring pain was gone and I was ready to test myself on the open road. As June 18th approached I felt under-trained but excited to be on the bus and to start this multi-day odyssey with my friend and running partner Brent Sanford.
We drove down to Castle Rock, GA the night before the buses would arrive and we slept in the back of my van. I couldn’t get much sleep because I kept having this fear that we would somehow miss the bus. I thought we were in the Eastern time zone, but as it turns it out, we were in Central, so I shouldn’t have worried at all, but there was no enjoying an extra hour of sleep for me.
Two tour buses picked up all of the runners and we set out driving the course in reverse. It was a long, slow drive that really is part of Laz’s psychological warfare. 10 hours on a bus is bad enough but as you slowly creep along the very same roads that you’ll be running, you see just how far it is that you have to go. It’s a bit terrifying even though I knew that this was coming. In any case, it wasn’t as if I had signed up for a 5K fun run or something. The hours rolled by and we crept along those southern highways until we eventually made it to Memphis and across the Mississippi River to our hotel. There had been a particularly long stretch along highway 64 which had no shade and seemed to go on forever. It was going to be really hot.
I spent the evening before the race sorting through my pack and figuring out what I really needed and what I didn’t. After discarding some non-essentials it still felt heavy and I knew that I would regret taking so much stuff but I couldn’t bring myself to throw anything else away. I hadn’t yet learned my lesson about just letting things go and so I clung to my stuff and strapped it on my back and set off in the bus with the other runners towards the Harahan Bridge to cross the Mississippi. We huddled by the ramp and Laz gave the signal through his signature lighting of a cigarette and with that the slowest start to any race I’ve ever participated in began.
It was cool as we crossed the Mississippi, and for June we were fortunate that the evenings and mornings were so pleasant. After crossing the bridge with the Memphis skyline in the background, we began to run slowly and we went straight down Main Street, passing through the shadows of the buildings as we crossed Beale Street. Within a few miles and a few wrong turns and backtracking we were quickly out of Memphis, our first goal for the morning.
We were on a single road that changed names four or five times, but we knew we just had to keep going straight until we reached the first suburb, Bartlett, TN on highway 15. We covered the 16 miles to Bartlett in about 3 and half hours with only a single stop at a gas station where I bought a body armor and used the men’s room.
As we came into Bartlett we saw that there was a McDonald’s two miles away, so we slowed our pace and walked to the Golden Arches, coming across two different pairs of couples who were running the race together. On that first morning everyone was still enthusiastic and spirits were high. We discussed our strategies and how we would approach the monster challenge ahead of us. It’s all fun when you’re only 18 miles into a 340 mile event and the pains and exhaustion haven’t begun. But my first red flag came at the McDonald’s. I just didn’t feel like eating anything, not even the breakfast burrito, so I settled for a large order of fries. Due to Covid-19 we weren’t allowed to sit inside in the A/C so food in hand we set back out on the road. I put the fries in my pocket and pulled a few out as I wanted them and kept marching.
We had decided to slow the pace during the heat of the day and to just walk as many miles as we could until the sun went down. At that point, or so the theory went, we would be able to move faster in the cooler air without the exposure from the sun. As we moved on from Bartlett we were firmly in the suburban sprawl that radiates out from the center of Memphis. Unlike other races, HOTS had plenty of facilities over the first day, but one factor that limited their effectiveness was the Covid-19 rules on indoor dining; Everywhere was open for business but you couldn’t sit down inside anywhere and cool down except for gas stations, and fortunately we came across two that had seats. I was feeling some cramps in my calves but otherwise felt fine. Rest would have helped, but there weren’t really a ton of options so we kept marching along highway 64 until we came to the Sonic at Oakland, TN.
There were 4 other runners at the sonic, and we sat at adjacent tables and took our packs off and doctored our feet. I still had no appetite but I knew I needed some calories so I ordered a huge Red Bull slushy and threw down a few packets of salt. I bought a chicken sandwich but I couldn’t stomach it, so I just put it in my pocket. After a few minutes we began our march again. Leaving Oakland you enter the countryside fairly quickly and soon there’s nothing much along the route but farms. The sun was getting lower in the sky and we kept going.
The time before sunset was my favorite time. The heat of the day would dissipate and the fields would glow in the orange light. There were no sounds but the shuffle of our feet and the occasional car that passed. The contrast with the bustle of Memphis and the suburbs can not be overstated. This was the experience we had signed up for. Being alone on the open road with no real plan or idea of where we would rest our heads. We would talk and just keep trudging along and I felt this profound sense of gratitude that with everything that was going in the world that I was able to just leave it all behind me and set off literally into the sunset on an adventure. It made me realize that I just didn’t have enough adventure in my life anymore.
Of course, the sedentary life comes with the territory of family and work. Time slips by. In my 20’s life had been a constant adventure. I had traveled the world with a backpack and had seen amazing things. I had learned other languages and experienced everything I could. I had worked as a waiter in Kobe, Japan and spent a year roaming among the islands of Okinawa. I had been all over China and Hong Kong and Vietnam. I had spent a year in Germany and traveled all over western Europe. I had spent a summer in the Amazon of Brazil. If I wasn’t moving, I was thinking about moving. I would plan a new adventure before I had finished the current one. But like most of us the time to come home and make money and buy a home and build a family eventually arrived. Those too are adventures in their own ways, and are wonderful things. Nothing brings me more joy than my family. The nature of our travels have temporarily changed, but we still travel. One thing I have learned is that you can find adventure relatively close to home and there’s nothing quite like just setting out into our new unknown.
I say “new” because in the age of googlemaps it’s easy to just superficially see everything that is out there, and it sometimes seems like there’s nothing left to explore. In a certain sense the ability to see anything you want whenever you’d like is amazing and shouldn’t be discounted. On the other hand, to really see something and experience something requires you to go out and be there. Besides, Google couldn’t tell me what would happen, where I’d go or what I’d see, nor could it tell me the people I would come across. If you want to really experience something there’s no shortcut. You just have to do it. Maybe that’s why I found myself out in the Tennessee heat roaming down a four lane divided highway as the sun went down. I wanted to see new things. I wanted to try something extraordinary.
To be continued…
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