By the time we reached Somerville the sun had dipped completely behind the horizon. I was sick to my stomach from eating nothing but french fries and salt and drinking sugary drinks. I climbed the stairs to the city hall which was right on highway 64. I laid down flat on the concrete and took my pack off. I felt like barfing and I honestly wanted to because I knew I would feel better afterwards. But there was no such relief so I just laid there. I felt otherwise fine although we had been on our feet through the entire heat of the day.
Another runner approached and climbed the steps to the city hall. I didn’t recognize him, but I perked up and we chatted a bit. He looked in bad shape and had decided to get a motel room in Somerville for the night. I thought I would like to go on all night, but looking back I wish I had decided to just stop here too. Hindsight is 20/20 but I’m pretty sure he got the rest he needed and finished the race and I crashed and burned and ended up going home early. I guess the lesson is to always listen to your body and work with what it gives you. Sure, you can push through things and tough things out, but sometimes the path to victory is a tactical retreat. Well, there would be no retreating for me, just a slow, constant and ultimately futile march forward.
Brent went on ahead and I caught up to him coming out of a gas station. We moved out and trudged through the dark with nothing to look at and nothing but our conversation and our thoughts. Of course moving at night is physically easier, especially when it’s 20 degrees cooler, but in some ways it is psychologically easier as well. The darkness covers up the drab, rundown buildings and otherwise depressing scenery. This is a familiar feeling for me. I remembered living in Japan and how much nicer Japanese cities are at night because the ugly, utilitarian concrete buildings transform into flashing lights like some scene out of a science fiction novel. It’s like Bladerunner at night in Tokyo, but during the day it’s just kind of unexceptional at best and ugly at worst. And so we marched on letting our imaginations fill in the dark space around us, just putting one foot in front of the other.
It was getting pretty late by the time we arrived at Whiteville. It had been almost exactly a half marathon since we left city hall in Somerville. There had been nothing but darkness between the two hamlets and as we approached Whiteville we had to make our first turn in about 8 hours. The little town sits just off of Highway 64 and Laz had us turn onto Main Street and pass through the sleepy village before returning to 64 a few miles later. I remember feeling pretty good as we approached town. We weren’t sure if there would be anything there, and I had stopped checking my phone as we walked because I found the light to be terribly disorienting. I honestly didn’t care because we were moving along fairly well and still had about 5 hours ahead of us. But as we made the final approach to Whiteville I started to feel some decent pain in my left foot in the tendon that runs from the foot up to the shin. I would later learn this is the anterior tibial tendon. I have had pain with this same tendon before but usually nothing that ever got out of hand, so I wasn’t particularly worried.
Whiteville was a ghost town. There was a car or two parked on the street and there was the unnaturally orange street lights, but there wasn’t much else there. Main Street turns sharply to the right and then there are several two and three story buildings that line both sides of the street, but like many downtowns in America there didn’t appear to be any commercial activity of significance. There was a bench right as we entered the main drag and I needed a break. We were around 60 miles into the race and I was starting to feel a lot of pain in my foot. We plopped down on the bench and rested for a bit. I drank some water. There wasn’t much else to do. I didn’t want to get sleepy because there were still miles in front of us. I think it was between one and two in the morning, but I don’t honestly remember.
Looking back now it seems obvious to me that I should have shut it down in Whiteville as soon as I had felt the pain. There were plenty of places we could have ducked into to catch some sleep. Water wouldn’t have been a problem either. In all honesty I should have called it a day in Somerville or maybe bivouacked somewhere along the way. Plans are great and all, but the ability to change a plan on the fly is also a skill. We had it in our heads to keep going until it started to get warm the next day, so realistically we had many more hours ahead of us. If we had made it, we would have been among the leaders of the race. But there’s a reason they’re the leaders of the race.
We found ourselves 60 some miles into the race with no towns for another 11 miles so we decided to set out and go for Bolivar, TN. It seemed to be a bigger town than the places we had been through so far. We also had to exit highway 64 and march along Old Highway 64, and in spite of the pain that increased with every step it was nice to be off the endless four lane road that we had been on for 16 hours or so. We walked in total darkness now and the pace began to drop sharply. I kept thinking I needed to find a way to stretch it out but really I needed to just lay down and sleep somewhere. We passed the couple from California that had been at the Oakland Sonic. They were sound asleep on the side of the road. It didn’t look particularly comfortable but I did have the thought that they, being stronger and more experienced ultra runners with several multi-day races under their belts were making the decision to stop and rest and yet we were pushing on. At this point Brent pulled out his phone and turned Netflix on. Anything to stay awake and to keep moving forward. I didn’t really pay much attention to the content but I guess it did help keep my mind off my foot for a while.
As we continued down Old Highway 64 it just got to the point where I could barely put weight on my foot and it was dragging the pace down to almost a crawl. I would walk ten or fifteen yards then need to rest. Then ten or fifteen more yards and another rest. I realized at the pace we were going it would take about a year to cover the 5 remaining miles into Bolivar. We probably should have rested more along the way, but now it was too late for that. I needed to get off my foot immediately. Nothing else would do. There was a small Baptist Church just up ahead on the left side of the road. The church was unremarkable but it had a relatively large cemetery. I told Brent that if there were a water spigot I was going to stop there. It was probably about 3:00 AM. We walked around the church and found water then we walked back to the cemetery and found a nice soft spot under some pine trees. Brent had a tarp so we laid it out and I popped out my emergency blanket and it was lights out. We had made it 66 miles in about 20 hours and I was OK with that. Besides, it wouldn’t be an adventure without a night in a graveyard.
I woke up about two hours later and my left foot had swollen like a balloon. I took one look at it and knew I was in trouble. My first thought was that I just couldn’t believe it and I thought my race was probably over. I was strangely OK with that thought. In any case, I was wide awake now. It’s amazing how refreshing two hours of sleep can be. Mentally I felt fine. Emotionally I felt the onset of apprehension, a very faint wind of panic was just beginning to blow over me, but really everything felt fine except for my foot. I was a little depressed because I really hadn’t expected an injury so early in the race. But it had happened and I had to deal with it.
I decided that I would try my trekking sandals for the 5 miles we would cover going into Bolivar. They weren’t comfortable to run in, but they didn’t have laces putting pressure on my foot and they felt better than my Hoka’s as far as the injury was concerned. As we moved out from the church and headed down Old 64 towards Bolivar I felt a little encouraged. We moved well and I didn’t really have any pain. I felt my early morning panic was just that; panic.
After 3 miles we came to the outskirts of Bolivar and found a Walmart. As we entered I finally felt an overwhelming hunger. I had basically eaten nothing but french fries for our entire 20 hour march the day before. Now all I could think about is eating. I filled my cart with every fruit I could find. I roamed around the Walmart for a while looking for some type of cart to push, like a cheap baby stroller or something. I had too much stuff and I wanted to push it two miles up the road to a motel where we had agreed to stop for the heat of the day. I had decided to find a post office in Bolivar and mail my excess supplies home. I had clearly brought too much stuff. I couldn’t find what I was looking for and so I decided to just carry my fruit and pack up the hill to the motel. It wasn’t too bad.
The motel was a dump, but it had been remodeled recently and besides, I had just slept in a graveyard so things are relative when you’re on the road. After 5 miles my foot was beginning to hurt quite a lot and I told Brent that my ability to continue would depend on taking care of my foot the rest of the way. Whatever time frame I had had for myself needed to be doubled. I knew I was in trouble of not making the cut offs, but I still thought I could manage the 34 miles a day to make it. Besides we now had 71 under our belts in a about 24 hours, so we were at about twice the pace required to finish. The goal now was to keep upright and keep moving and sometimes to move forward you need to take a break and rest and recover. I knew it was my only chance.
After about four hours of sleep and elevating and icing my foot we went to a Mexican restaurant next to the motel. I probably had two pounds of chips and salsa and I practically licked my plate clean. Full of rice and beans we headed back to the motel room where we snoozed a bit and watched Remember the Titans. Denzel Washington almost had me convinced that I could just grit my teeth and push through my pain. I was recharged, motivated and ready to move again.
The sun was sinking as we set back out again on the course. So far on day two we had only managed the 5 miles into Bolivar and then had taken the tactical rest. If I hadn’t been injured we would have no doubt moved on quicker and earlier and we probably wouldn’t have even bothered with the motel. But you have to do what you have to do and what I know now is that it is impossible to plan for every contingency. In any case, I was fine with the 5 miles because I figured we’d get about 40 over night and be about a third of the way finished with the race by the time we stopped again. I felt great walking into downtown Bolivar. The air was so pleasant. In the distance I could make out a high school football stadium a few blocks from Highway 64. An announcer was calling names and it was clearly a belated graduation ceremony. It just felt absolutely great walking through town as the sun set.
At the town square there was an outdoor concert and people were dancing. I could have pulled out a lawn chair and just sat there forever. Across the street there was the town post office. I had assumed they’d have an automated kiosk and I could mail my heavy stuff home. I wanted to go more minimalist for the rest of the journey. I had a theory that the combination of heavy pack and overly tight Hoka’s had led to my injury and so I had switched shoes and was trying to shed pounds. Unfortunately, there wasn’t an automated kiosk and so I made another mistake; I didn’t just let my things go. I decided to carry on the bulk of what I had brought, but I knew I wasn’t going to be running anymore any time soon so I made the decision to dump the Hoka’s right there on the sidewalk in front of the post office.
Walking out of Bolivar it felt like abandoning the perfect image of small town America to enter the dark unknown. After two or three miles all signs of civilization were well behind or in front of us, except the road itself which was always with us. We entered a marshy stretch crossing several streams. The frogs serenaded us and the cacophony of crickets and cicadas was only matched in it’s majesty by the unbelievably clear sky above us where millions of stars and the milky way seemed to be almost painted onto a black canvas. I felt like I was traversing the Bifrost to some mystical realm beyond. How wonderful it can be to lose yourself during a walk. I have had this same experience before in other places, like the time I camped alone on Zamami island and climbed over the hills to catch a peak of the East China Sea as the sun plunged into it. It felt like Brent and I were just as alone now as I had been then.
As we left the marshy stretch we just pushed on in the darkness. An occasional car would pass and one even stopped and offered us a soft drink. Mine was Dr. Thunder. I’ve never been so happy for a Dr. Thunder in my life. At this point my spirits had rebounded. I knew that I couldn’t push it as much as I had the previous day and that I was never going to be fresh again, so I would need to ration my energy and my pain tolerance. I couldn’t use it all in one go. At about 11 miles we came to a small town called Hornsby. It was really just a collection of run down buildings, none of which were open. There were no gas stations or anything for that matter. As we walked the length of this ghost town a local man drove up in his pick up and asked us what we were doing. I’m not sure if “walking to Georgia” seemed crazy to him or what, but he basically ignored us and proceeded to tell us the entire history of Hornsby, TN. He was quite a character and full of local knowledge. After a good 10 or 15 minutes, we decided to give him our regards and take our leave, but he was persistent. We told him to have a good night and we started to walk away but he drove along beside us at our pace and talked to us through the window. It was all rather amusing. I wasn’t perturbed and to a certain extent I admired his tenacity. He finally left us as we came off of Main Street back onto Highway 64.
We had 14 miles to go to get to Selmer, TN. If I had to say where I made my biggest mistake in the entire race, I would say it was in how I approached this 14 mile stretch. At that point in time and under those conditions it was simply not possible to approach 14 miles with the same hubris as I normally would. I was badly hurt and I was only 82 miles into a 340 mile race. If I did this stretch over, I would have rested in the community park in Hornsby for about an hour and I would have taken my shoes and pack off and elevated my foot and washed my face in the spring water that came up from a rock under the pavilion. I wasn’t in a position to just go knock out 14 miles like I normally would. I needed to be strategic, but I didn’t do any of those things. I just marched on with the mentality that I would get this 14 miles behind me like it was a nice November half marathon. Surely I could walk it in three hours.
Unfortunately, as soon as we had left Hornsby and were back on Highway 64 my pace just kept slipping. At first I noticed that I had walked a mile in 16 minutes, then 17, then 20, then 22. I was just having trouble going forward. The motivation was there, the mental strength was there, I just was having more and more trouble putting weight on my left foot. If I had it to do again I would have taken more breaks, but even that may not have helped. I stumbled another 8 miles in the darkness. My foot was now hot. It felt like it was on fire and it throbbed with pain. We had finally made it to the top of a hill that was easily two miles long. We sat and rested on a guard rail, but I should have found a place to lay down and elevate it and stretch it out. It was only 6 more miles into town and it would prove to be the slowest six miles I would ever do. Brent wanted to push on to town and we didn’t have a great place to stop for an extended rest. I had thought about just laying in a patch of grass somewhere. There really weren’t a lot of great options. So we got up and kept going. Brent offered to carry my bag, clearly on the hope that we would move faster. We didn’t, but I appreciated the help. The problem was my foot and it was getting worse with each step.
With about a three miles to go Brent pulled out his phone and put some stand-up comedy on. It certainly lightened the mood and got my mind off of the struggle, but I was fast approaching my limit. The first hints of sunrise were showing as we marched through the empty town. Selmer had slightly more to offer than some of the hamlets we had passed through, but it wasn’t as nice as Bolivar. I told Brent that I thought I was just about done. I had reached the point where I wasn’t able to even walk. If I had been 250 miles into the race I would have performed a different calculus and maybe I would have come to a different conclusion. But after arriving in Selmer right at sunrise I was no longer able to walk at all. This was a problem that wasn’t going to go away or just get better if I kept going. It was only going to get worse and my overall pace was only going to continue to average down, and it had already slowed to point where it was questionable that I could even possibly make the finish line.
At this point I was just holding Brent back. He was healthy and strong and able to move and I couldn’t manage three miles per hour. We found two motels on opposite sides of the road and stopped at the nearest. I had decided to just hole up and let Brent go on, and I told him that I was probably done with the race. Three miles an hour just was not going to make it. The manager came to the window and told us they were sold out. I sat down on the sidewalk and laid fully back on the ground in total surrender. “You can’t lay here”,she snapped. I sat up and Brent came to my defense. I told him I was done. I had nothing left and my leg was swollen and the pain was excruciating. I was concerned that I might cause permanent damage and give myself a lingering, chronic injury. In any case, I knew there was no way I would make it another 240 miles.
So sitting there on the sidewalk, with the rising sun in front of us, I told Brent I was done and just couldn’t go any further. I had wanted to get into Corinth, MS if I were to surrender, but Corinth was still 18 miles away and at my pace that would be 8 hours or more. I needed rest and sleep. Brent was eager to keep moving and I was completely at peace to throw the towel in. His feet were starting to bother him so I gave him a pair of dirty Injinji toe socks I had worn the day before and he gave me some items he didn’t need anymore and we shook hands and wished each other the best. I caught my last glimpse of him as he crossed the street and headed towards a Burger King. I turned back and limped my way across the road and down to the only other motel in Selmer.
Fortunately, they had one vacant room, albeit a smoking room. It was a total dump. The type of place where you go to die alone, which seemed fitting for my current situation. I limped in with my tail between my legs like an old dog with nothing more to give. I undressed and sat on the edge of the bed. My foot was swollen and it hurt. I stumbled to the shower and now with the motivation of running the race well behind me, I found that I had even lost my ability to walk. It’s amazing how much strength comes only from the motivation and desire to continue on towards some goal. Once that was gone it seemed unfathomable that I ever moved at all and now I couldn’t without supporting myself on the other bed and then the wall. It’s very strange really to consider how much strength comes from simply wanting to do something. As long as I was a participant in the race there was always the hope that I could somehow make it and I had to consider my plan and my strategy to do so however far-fetched it may have been. As soon as I had texted that I was dropping and my race was officially over, all hope of a finish was extinguished and now as I look back it makes me feel a bit disappointed, but at the time I felt none of that at all. I simply wanted to ice my foot and go to sleep and that is exactly what I did.
Looking back, I can’t deny the disappointment that I feel. Before an event like this you have many thoughts about what the experience will be like and how it will unfold, but in reality very little of what you plan for ever comes to pass. The thought of failure had never entered my mind. I was too confident that no matter what might come I could simply resolve to push through it and continue on my journey. I had never given much thought to an injury. My experience with injuries had been that you could more or less anticipate them. They might begin with a twinge of pain behind the knee or an ankle that feels weak, but overuse injuries weren’t sudden and devastating like when a football player tears an ACL or breaks a leg. I had dealt with dozens of injuries and I guess I thought I would always be able to manage them.
My real concern had been that I might have a mental breakdown or a devastating loss of motivation. I knew such episodes often passed and it’s best to not react to them when they arise. But I suppose I hadn’t considered the overwhelming effect that an injury could have on one’s mental state. By the time I had reached Selmer it seemed inconceivable to me that I would be able to continue in my physical state. No amount of grit or tenacity would change that reality. And once I came to this realization I knew it was all over. My dream of pushing through for 5 or 6 days on the road had come into sobering conflict with reality. But however disappointing that was, I was fairly calm about it. I couldn’t change it. It just was. It helps to have perspective when facing great disappointment or failure. Many, many people fail at goals and objectives far more consequential than a road race. I just hadn’t performed as well in a race that no one else but us few runners even cared about. I had been out on the road for my own reasons and I was extremely grateful that I had simply been fortunate enough to have that opportunity.
By the time I got home HOTS was firmly in my rear-view mirror. My foot was in a soft cast for two weeks and I stumbled about, but the cast came off and I made a full recovery without any lingering pain or injury. Sometimes it’s best to raise the white flag and let your pride go. Sometimes you have to just let things go. I mean, let’s be real, there are Olympians who completely devote their lives to a single purpose and then when they arrive on the big stage disaster strikes. They trip and fall. They get injured. They get disqualified. In front of hundreds of millions of people. Or in the case of 2020, those Olympians trained and trained and then the games were canceled. So it could always be worse. Learning how to lose is just as important as learning how to win. I was just glad that I hadn’t been hurt worse and that I am now fully recovered and training again. But don’t let me kid you too much about learning to let things go. As soon as registration for HOTS 2021 opened in August I immediately signed up! This time there wasn’t even the slightest hesitation as I punched in my credit card information. I have no concern or fear whatsoever as I now plan to attack the course again next year. Failure may teach you your own limits, but limits show you what is possible and looking towards HOTS in 2021, I have absolutely no worries at all, just a childlike excitement that I get to set out on another adventure.
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