Miles for Nile and Equalizer Endurance Run 2013
A full life can not be measured by the stuff you accumulate over your short time on this earth, but can only be measured by the experiences that you encounter during that time.
***This was written nearly 4 months ago and never published. I am finally happy enough with it to publish***
This past weekend was one of those that I won't soon forget.
About 10 weeks ago my outlook on life indirectly took a detour that I was truly not expecting. It was a truly normal day. I was at work and was checking Facebook when I saw this from one of our good friends...
What???? Blank Children's Hospital.......Leukemia.....CANCER????? What????
When you see this you go through an instant state of panic, hysteria, questioning. Everything. Do I call? Do I text? Do I leave them alone? These people are your oldest friends, call. But, what if they don't want you to call? What are you doing? You need to text them. You need to figure out what is going on.
A few days went by and numerous test were done on Nile. A 20 month old child being poked and prodded to no end. It was determined that he had Langerhans Cell Histicytosis (LCH for short). For all intents and purposes even though some doctors don't agree, cancer. Cancer. A 20 month old with an incredibly rare form of cancer. How does this even happen? At that moment I knew that something had to be done. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was going to do something.
As usual I was out for a run when I had a great idea. I was planning on running a portion of the Equalizer Endurance Run in Des Moines anyway, so why not run it for a purpose. As our friends were in fragile state, I didn't want to bring it up too early. I thought about it for days before finally making the commitment and just putting it out there. I told Mrs. Messenjah what the plan was and that I was going to run for 24 hours and shoot for 100 miles to raise money for something I was going to call Miles for Nile. If you are anything like me, you've had a lot of big ideas that have fallen through the cracks. I knew though that this couldn't be one of those events. The two problems at this point?
Long story short, the family agreed that they would support the endeavor any way they could. I made the decision to try and raise $10,000. We threw the page out on GoFundMe.com just to see what would happen. Before I knew it. $50. $100. $300. $1,000 raised within just a matter of days. We might actually be able to do this!!!
I chose this picture of him because it embodies him. Hawkeye fan, barf :), and a fighter. Come on...he looks like he belongs in "300"
I won't go into many of the details of my training but let me just say that there was a lot of running the same 4 mile lap around my house and countless hours on my treadmill just to train my brain for the boredom of the 54 laps around the 1.905 mile lake that I was about to endure.
The weeks went by and our donation numbers would stall for a day or two and then we'd get a few dollars here and there. Being a race director, I know that you don't get most of your entrants until very close to the date so I wasn't getting too concerned. One evening while I was at a packet pickup for another race, I got a strange text from Nile's dad. He was wondering if I would be interested in doing a news story for the event. This was it! This was going to be what got us to our goal!!!
We continued to stay in touch about the interview and the donations kept creeping towards the $10,000 goal. People were starting to get very excited about throwing their support behind the event. People kept sending me messages that they would be donating $1 per mile with the anticipation that I would hit the 100 mile mark and they had absolute confidence that I was going to hit the 100, but I wasn't so confident.
If you ask most people, they will tell you that I'm a pretty confident person. I've done a lot of things in my life to overcome adversity. When I was 17 years old I had a stroke. I overheard one of the doctors during my time in the hospital say that he was sure I wouldn't speak correctly again. They didn't know how the stroke would affect my ability to walk, talk or think. There were a lot of questions because of the magnitude of what happened and a lot of things that couldn't be answered. My faith and my drive to get better brought me through. After college, I was fat. Most of you know the story so I won't go back through it, but I fought and here I am. 120 lbs lighter and a runner. But what was ahead of me was the most challenging thing I had ever signed up to do. But this was bigger than me. It was no longer about me.
A week before the race I got an email from the news anchor that had caught wind of Nile's story and what I was about to attempt. We met at Gray's Lake, had a great conversation, got video of my running and that was it. I went back to work. No real indication of when it would air or anything. It was out of my hands now.
As the days got closer, I took a lot of time just to heal and prepare. I got some great nights of sleep, ate way too many carbs, and drank so much water I thought my eye balls were going to explode. I was praying every single night for healing. I was dealing with plantar fascaitis in one foot and an Achilles strain in the other. My ankle hurt but honestly no pain that I was dealing with is anything like what this family was dealing with. I prayed...A LOT...this week for healing and to just be able to do what I was hoping to do. I had told a lot of people that this thing was going on and I needed to make it happen. On Thursday, everything changed.
We weren't sure when the news story was going to air. We were told at some point later in the week but a date wasn't nailed down. Having studied journalism for a few years in college you get to understand how much effort it takes to put a story together and what it's like when your story gets cut for time or space but we really wanted this story to get aired. Not because we needed to bring attention to me, but because of what this family is going through and has gone through in the past. I was in meetings for most of the morning that Thursday so I wasn't checking the news, facebook, emails or texts but when I got back something had happened. I had 10 emails, 20 notifications on Facebook and 4 or 5 text messages all telling me that they saw something about me on the news. Within 1 hour we had nearly $600 pledged to put us way over our goal. We...did it and the money keeps coming in.
The next 2 days were kind of a blur with people texting me and Facebooking me about how excited they were that I was doing this. How cool it was to see a classmate on the news and that sort of thing but learning what I have in the last couple of years I had to turn off the pride and stay humble. This run wasn't about me. It's about a little boy that, to this day, is still sitting in a hospital room fighting just to feel better. It's about a mom who has sat in the hospital every day since this thing started watching her youngest child fight and scream because he doesn't want anyone to mess with him. It's about a dad that has been forced to go back to work in order to provide for his family. It's about a brother and a sister that, because of the potential for infection, have only been able to see their baby brother a few times in 2 months. It's about them....not me. And that is a really hard thing to tell yourself when you've gotten a lot of really positive comments thrown your way.
In this post, I have purposefully left off a lot of the treatments that Nile has been going through. Not because I don't understand them or because they are graphic, but the treatments and this journey is a very private one for this family and I don't want to give too much insight that they may not want shared. I can, however, provide you with the link his CaringBridge page where you can read for yourself a lot of the information about the disease and some of the things he and the family have been going through
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/nilemorris
Part 2....The Equalizer Endurance Run (race report)
***This was written nearly 4 months ago and never published. I am finally happy enough with it to publish***
This past weekend was one of those that I won't soon forget.
About 10 weeks ago my outlook on life indirectly took a detour that I was truly not expecting. It was a truly normal day. I was at work and was checking Facebook when I saw this from one of our good friends...
What???? Blank Children's Hospital.......Leukemia.....CANCER????? What????
When you see this you go through an instant state of panic, hysteria, questioning. Everything. Do I call? Do I text? Do I leave them alone? These people are your oldest friends, call. But, what if they don't want you to call? What are you doing? You need to text them. You need to figure out what is going on.
A few days went by and numerous test were done on Nile. A 20 month old child being poked and prodded to no end. It was determined that he had Langerhans Cell Histicytosis (LCH for short). For all intents and purposes even though some doctors don't agree, cancer. Cancer. A 20 month old with an incredibly rare form of cancer. How does this even happen? At that moment I knew that something had to be done. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was going to do something.
As usual I was out for a run when I had a great idea. I was planning on running a portion of the Equalizer Endurance Run in Des Moines anyway, so why not run it for a purpose. As our friends were in fragile state, I didn't want to bring it up too early. I thought about it for days before finally making the commitment and just putting it out there. I told Mrs. Messenjah what the plan was and that I was going to run for 24 hours and shoot for 100 miles to raise money for something I was going to call Miles for Nile. If you are anything like me, you've had a lot of big ideas that have fallen through the cracks. I knew though that this couldn't be one of those events. The two problems at this point?
- I have never run 100 miles
- I enjoy sleeping and how was I going to stay awake for 24 hours?
Long story short, the family agreed that they would support the endeavor any way they could. I made the decision to try and raise $10,000. We threw the page out on GoFundMe.com just to see what would happen. Before I knew it. $50. $100. $300. $1,000 raised within just a matter of days. We might actually be able to do this!!!
I chose this picture of him because it embodies him. Hawkeye fan, barf :), and a fighter. Come on...he looks like he belongs in "300"
I won't go into many of the details of my training but let me just say that there was a lot of running the same 4 mile lap around my house and countless hours on my treadmill just to train my brain for the boredom of the 54 laps around the 1.905 mile lake that I was about to endure.
The weeks went by and our donation numbers would stall for a day or two and then we'd get a few dollars here and there. Being a race director, I know that you don't get most of your entrants until very close to the date so I wasn't getting too concerned. One evening while I was at a packet pickup for another race, I got a strange text from Nile's dad. He was wondering if I would be interested in doing a news story for the event. This was it! This was going to be what got us to our goal!!!
We continued to stay in touch about the interview and the donations kept creeping towards the $10,000 goal. People were starting to get very excited about throwing their support behind the event. People kept sending me messages that they would be donating $1 per mile with the anticipation that I would hit the 100 mile mark and they had absolute confidence that I was going to hit the 100, but I wasn't so confident.
If you ask most people, they will tell you that I'm a pretty confident person. I've done a lot of things in my life to overcome adversity. When I was 17 years old I had a stroke. I overheard one of the doctors during my time in the hospital say that he was sure I wouldn't speak correctly again. They didn't know how the stroke would affect my ability to walk, talk or think. There were a lot of questions because of the magnitude of what happened and a lot of things that couldn't be answered. My faith and my drive to get better brought me through. After college, I was fat. Most of you know the story so I won't go back through it, but I fought and here I am. 120 lbs lighter and a runner. But what was ahead of me was the most challenging thing I had ever signed up to do. But this was bigger than me. It was no longer about me.
A week before the race I got an email from the news anchor that had caught wind of Nile's story and what I was about to attempt. We met at Gray's Lake, had a great conversation, got video of my running and that was it. I went back to work. No real indication of when it would air or anything. It was out of my hands now.
As the days got closer, I took a lot of time just to heal and prepare. I got some great nights of sleep, ate way too many carbs, and drank so much water I thought my eye balls were going to explode. I was praying every single night for healing. I was dealing with plantar fascaitis in one foot and an Achilles strain in the other. My ankle hurt but honestly no pain that I was dealing with is anything like what this family was dealing with. I prayed...A LOT...this week for healing and to just be able to do what I was hoping to do. I had told a lot of people that this thing was going on and I needed to make it happen. On Thursday, everything changed.
We weren't sure when the news story was going to air. We were told at some point later in the week but a date wasn't nailed down. Having studied journalism for a few years in college you get to understand how much effort it takes to put a story together and what it's like when your story gets cut for time or space but we really wanted this story to get aired. Not because we needed to bring attention to me, but because of what this family is going through and has gone through in the past. I was in meetings for most of the morning that Thursday so I wasn't checking the news, facebook, emails or texts but when I got back something had happened. I had 10 emails, 20 notifications on Facebook and 4 or 5 text messages all telling me that they saw something about me on the news. Within 1 hour we had nearly $600 pledged to put us way over our goal. We...did it and the money keeps coming in.
The next 2 days were kind of a blur with people texting me and Facebooking me about how excited they were that I was doing this. How cool it was to see a classmate on the news and that sort of thing but learning what I have in the last couple of years I had to turn off the pride and stay humble. This run wasn't about me. It's about a little boy that, to this day, is still sitting in a hospital room fighting just to feel better. It's about a mom who has sat in the hospital every day since this thing started watching her youngest child fight and scream because he doesn't want anyone to mess with him. It's about a dad that has been forced to go back to work in order to provide for his family. It's about a brother and a sister that, because of the potential for infection, have only been able to see their baby brother a few times in 2 months. It's about them....not me. And that is a really hard thing to tell yourself when you've gotten a lot of really positive comments thrown your way.
In this post, I have purposefully left off a lot of the treatments that Nile has been going through. Not because I don't understand them or because they are graphic, but the treatments and this journey is a very private one for this family and I don't want to give too much insight that they may not want shared. I can, however, provide you with the link his CaringBridge page where you can read for yourself a lot of the information about the disease and some of the things he and the family have been going through
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/nilemorris
Part 2....The Equalizer Endurance Run (race report)
I have to say that I’ve started and stopped this post about
45 times in the last 4 months. Not because I didn’t know what to write, but
because I want to write it right. There is a thing about writing that people
don’t know. It kind of sucks sometimes. Writing is easy when an event or review
of something is easy. The words can just come off your fingertips so
effortlessly. Other times you just have to sit and think. I have been doing
that a lot lately…just thinking.
4 months ago I set out on one of the craziest adventures of
my life. I’ve done fundraisers in the past. That’s not a problem. Promoting
things is something that I’m good at because I’m persistent. If I have a goal,
I don’t give up easily. Miles for Nile was a BIG leap because not only was I helping
some of our very good friends, I had a lot of attention on this one. What if I
fail? What if I don’t raise the money? What if I can’t make it past 50 miles?
What if…what if…what if?
I’ve already posted a lot of the stuff about the fundraiser,
so I won’t get into that. The raising money thing turned out pretty awesome. A
lot of people made some big donations and we were able to raise almost $14,000.
Now, I don’t make a lot of money so $14k is quite a bit. With that amount of
money you can buy a fully loaded 2014 Ford Fiesta…Big Pimpin’… J
What I kept telling myself leading up to the Equalizer was
that raising the money was going to be the hardest part and that turned out to
be a rousing success. I was on the news. I was all over peoples Facebook
accounts. I was trying to stay humble but a lot of people were “liking” my
comments, sending me messages, emailing me, calling. Everything. I don’t know
if you are like me, but attention felt good.
Race day comes up and I kept telling myself “I’ve done 63
miles in 14 hours 45 minutes on some incredibly technical trails. I can do 100
miles on a paved bike path in 24 hours. I got this!” but little did I know, God
was going to use this race to humble me more than I have been in a long time.
I slept REALLY well on Friday night before the race. I went
to the pre-race dinner and met a lot of old friends and a lot of new friends.
There was about a dozen of us that showed up to the dinner. We sat, had some
food, had a couple of drinks and traded war stories. It was really fun. After
dinner I went home to do one real quick gear check and try to get a nights
sleep and honestly sleep came very quickly.
I woke up Saturday morning really just ready to run. All of
my stuff was in the car so I had a quick bite to eat, grabbed some coffee for
the road and went on my way. Now, if you’ve read my blogs in the past,
something ALWAYS happens that throws my plans for a tailspin. Whether it’s
forgetting Red Bull, forgetting my iPod, mud, rain, whatever. I wasn’t going to
let anything ruin this day…until I got to the downtown freeway. ACCIDENT AHEAD.
ALL 4 LANES CLOSED. EXPECT DELAYS…CRAP!!! I am always early to everything and
this is the exact reason. I was literally 3 miles from my exit and I was stuck
in the second lane from the left in stopped traffic. To make matters worse, for
me anyways, the Susan G Kommen Race for the Cure that attracts 20,000+ people
was going on that day too and I am assuming half of them were coming from the
same direction I was.
20 minutes later I make it to my exit. Luckily it didn’t
look like anyone was too seriously injured in the accident. There was one point
that I considered pulling my car to the side of the road and just running to
the start line because I didn’t know how long it was going to be. But I got to
the exit with 30 minutes to race time. Now, normally I would be FREAKING out at
this point, but I knew that I had 24 hours to run so I could take my time. I
pulled in to the parking lot, got out of my car, got my bib and checked in. I
chatted with the RD for a minute or two went to my car to get my tote of stuff
and BOOM, there goes my back. Total spasm. Now, I’ve dealt with spasms in the
past and usually just take a day or two off from running. Not today though. I
was going to be doing the longest run of my life…with back spasms.
Luckily, I was able to get all of my stuff over to my area
where I was meeting with my Runner’s World Forum friends and pop some
ibuprofen. Now, I DO NOT recommend taking ibuprofen or the like before and most
of the time during events. There is a lot of research that shows it can hurt
your kidneys during events such as this but I wasn’t going to make one step if
I didn’t. I got my watch started, bottles filled table set up and I was ready
to go with 5 minutes to spare. I went to “take care of some pre-race business”
and got to the line right as RD Chris Zepp was saying a quick prayer. This is
one of the reasons I love this race. I consider myself a pretty spiritual guy
and not many races you are going to go to have a prayer before the race starts.
It’s pretty cool. After some short instructions (like running in a circle
needed any instructions) we were off.
For the next hour or so, I ran with a really interesting guy
from Illinois. We got to talking, I told him that I used to be fat, went into a
diatribe about obesity in America, my problem with processed foods and how
health care sucks. Then he tells me that he is a doctor. Damn. I just insulted
this guy now. He said that a lot of people actually don’t talk to him about
this kind of thing because they know his field. He expressed that it was
refreshing to hear someone who was passionate and honestly felt the same way he
did. Phew…dodged a bullet on that one. We kept talking and he told me that he
was only doing the 6-hour and then flying back home. I asked him when he got
into town and he said late Friday night. In my brain I was thinking, man this
guy must be loaded if he can fly in and out from the Chicago area in less than
24 hours. Then he starts talking about how the wind is going to affect him
flying. Now keep in mind, we were only an hour in and my brain was actually
still functioning. I finally realized, after about 10 minutes into this
conversation, that HE was doing the flying. Holy Crap. A doctor and a pilot?
This guy is like a women’s dream.
We kept talking for a few laps. I realized later that we
were doing 8:30’s for about 10 miles and I paid no attention to my back. It was
when I stopped to grab something to eat that I remembered how much pain I was
in. The ibuprofen was starting to wear off and my back and chest were getting
really tight. I realized at this point that I need to slow down a bit. So I
threw on my headphones and just went. Nice and steady.
My buddy Andrew showed up after I had made about 7 laps. We
had a great time talking it up for a couple of laps (he wasn’t doing many as he
was coming back later) and he handed me off to my friend Lori around noon. I
love running with Lori. She is an absolute scream and I credit her for making
me faster. When we ran together more often, she was the one who pushed me. I
hated her a lot of times, but she was doing it for my own good. We spent the
next 1 ½ hours just running, walking and talking. My back was really starting
to hurt again and breathing was quite difficult. This is the point in the race
that I started the “power walking”. At one point I felt like my walk was so
fast I looked like one of those competitive speed walkers. I was wearing leg
warmers so my attire was almost there. It felt good to just laugh a lot with
Lori. She really brightens your mood even on terrible runs.
For a break in the recap. I was eating, drinking and fueling
REALLY well. I would probably venture a guess of the 5 ultras that I’ve done,
this one was the best I fueled for probably the first 18 hours. It was great. I
was hydrated (peeing clear), no cramping (except for my entire torso) and my
legs felt great (as much as they could). I felt fantastic about it, but more to
come on that later.
I was joined next by a wonderful friend Jodi. I have known
Jodi my entire life. We grew up together. Our dads were on the fire department
together. Her sister and I were best friends for a very long time. She is a
great Christian woman, has a wonderful family and has really become a great
runner in the last couple of years. At this point, I was doing a lot of walking
and I felt terrible about it. I promised her a RUN when she volunteered to come
run with me. I kept apologizing, but breathing hurt. I was a little over 50k in
when she joined me and it was fun to remember a lot of stuff from when we were
in high school. We reminisced a lot. We talked about all of the good things
about school, the bad things and just life in general. It was pretty awesome.
Somewhere during the time that Jodi and I spent together, I
was joined by my running club President Bobbi and her daughter. They had
already been running that day but wanted to come and show their support. While
we were making a lap, we came up to a guy and true to my past, I asked him how
he was doing? This guy was walking in jeans and just out for a walk. I knew
that he wasn’t there for the race, but I have found in many of the trail races
that I’ve participated in sometimes it’s just nice to hear someone else’s voice
when you are by yourself. A lot of times in races we get so focused on
ourselves that we forget to notice those around us. As we passed and said
hello, he asked us what we were doing. I explained that we were there for the
race and Bobbi proceeded to tell him what I was there to do. When I signed up
for the race and talked to the RD about the fundraiser that I wanted to do I
had told him that I didn’t want to take anything away from the race itself so I
wasn’t really going to tell anyone what was going on but with a news story that
aired the night before and my constant posting on Facebook, that became
increasingly difficult. When we explained to this gentleman that I was there
doing this as a fundraiser his response was “hey is this the thing that I saw
on the news last night?” Of course, this made those with me very excited to
hear, but I was almost a little embarrassed. I acknowledged that it was me and
he said “I was hoping I would see you here. Here, take this”, and he proceeded
to hand me a $20 bill. I guess people did see the news. What a great gesture.
The term “flash mob” is one that gets thrown around a lot.
You’ve got viral videos galore of flash mobs in malls, flash mobs at farmer’s
markets, flash mobs in parking lots. All over the place. I’ve seen a flash mob
before and it’s cool but not that cool. Unless it’s a flash mob for you.
As I dropped Jodi off, I noticed some familiar faces. My
wife’s cousin, Michael and his wife Sarah, my brother-in-law, my mother-in-law
and one of my running mentors, Dennis. He was all laced up and ready to run. I
told him it was going to be slow and painful, but were going to make some laps.
We walked over to get some food and I looked to the south and saw a big sea of
yellow shirts. Honestly, I didn’t think anything of it until we got closer and
there was my flash mob (no dancing was performed). That sea of yellow shirts
was the Miles for Nile crew. The Morris family, the Halls’, friends that I
haven’t seen in years. Just a ton of people. It was incredible. They were all
there to support me. WOW.
I didn’t really want to stop for too long so I yelled out if
anyone wanted to join me as I made a lap, now was the time. My back was
starting to loosen up a bit, but still really tight. Dennis, Elaine, and I made
our way around. Those 2 were a perfect match when it came to conversation. Same
political point of view, same religious point of view, same view on guns, you
name it…we talked about it in a 1.9 mile loop around a lake.
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As we came around to the drop bags, this is where my
emotions kind of took over. There, standing in a sea of yellow shirts was my
wife and my kids. This was crying episode number 1 of the day. I stopped for a
few minutes, chatted with people, ate, got a few pictures taken and was off
again. I was roughly 45 miles in at this point and it was 8 hours in. I was
honestly making good time, but my back was really concerning me and the temps
were starting to drop. You don’t realize how nice it is to put on some dry
clothes when you spend literally 12 hours in the same sweaty clothes. It was
incredibly refreshing.
Over the next few hours I had quite a few guests. Corey
walked with me and was there when I hit 50 miles, Mark and Becki showed up to
show their support, Sarah and Paul showed up and we literally just talked
running (it was awesome) and Tyler was a savior and brought me coffee around
9:00pm. Physically I felt OK. I wasn’t in “a lot” of pain, but it was
manageable. The ibuprofen had been worn off for about 6 hours by this point and
I was just ticking away the miles, most of which were walking.
I went into the event and promised my wife that I would at
least sleep a bit. I borrowed a small tent from Andrew but with the temps
dropping like they were it was going to be almost impossible to sleep in as I
was going to be restless and the ground was pretty much frozen. I laid down in
the tent for around 10 minutes and then made the executive decision to just go
lay down in my car. I drive an incredibly small vehicle, but I love it. I am 6’
2” around 195lbs and I honestly didn’t know if I would be able to lay down in
the vehicle but I put the back seats down, scooted the front seats forward and
basically laid with my head in the trunk and my feet in between the front
seats. It was insanely uncomfortable but I didn’t really care. I could at least
warm up a bit. I had texted Tyler and asked him to call me at Midnight to wake
me up, as I only wanted to lie down for an hour. I laid there, and laid there,
and laid there and before I knew it RIIIIIING!!!! Looking back on it I probably
managed 15 minutes of “sleep” but it was enough to just get me off of my feet
for a little bit.
As I put my shoes back on, this was the hardest part of the
race. Nearly 16 hours into this event it was going to be the first time I was
“alone”. I say “alone” because there were other people that were still out on
the course but with a path that is nearly 2 miles around I wasn’t going to see
people very often. Of course I had my iPod but my brain couldn’t settle on
anything. Audiobooks, podcasts, music, I tried everything and nothing would
work. In the 17 hours that I had been on the course this was the first time
that I wanted to quit.
I don’t quit on commitments. I have been involved in a lot
of things over the years that haven’t gone well or I didn’t enjoy, but I can
honestly say that I’ve never quit on anything. I am the type of person that
knows that we as a society give up too easily. People tend to not like to
continue doing something because it is too hard. Diets are hard and that’s why
so many people do them and quit. Exercising is hard so people quit doing it.
You name most things that are difficult and people quit before they can realize
how capable they are of doing what they have started out to do. For about an hour, I looked at this event as
stupid. I wanted to quit. I wasn’t going to win so why keep going. I had
honestly forgotten what this event was for. It wasn’t for me. I was doing it
for something that was bigger than me. God had finally humbled me. He finally
got my ego in check and reminded me that someone was counting on me.
Around 2am I got a text from my wife. She said she couldn’t
sleep because she was worried about me. Of course, being the patriarch of my
family, I had to reassure here that I was fine but on the inside I wasn’t. Now,
don’t read this and think that something medically was wrong with me. I was
just exhausted (mentally and physically), my back hurt, my feet ached, I was
pretty sure one of my toenails had come off and I couldn’t get warm. She, being
the voice of reason most times, reminded me to just keep eating and moving. As
long as I was moving I would stay warm and that’s what I continued to do. At
this point I wasn’t moving fast, I just had to keep moving. The event was just
to see how far I could go, not how fast I could go.
3:00am I got a text that turned my mental state completely
around, “I’m leaving the hospital right now. See you in a little bit.” Corey
was on his way; I was going to have someone to talk to. Aaaaahhhhhh. Of course,
even when he showed up the conversations were still somewhat negative, but at
least I had someone to interact with. Running/walking in a circle that many
times can turn your brain into mush. When he showed up I just told him that he
needed to make me laugh and we did a lot of that, in between me throwing fits,
and we just moved. Corey had to keep reminding me to move. I don’t remember
many of the conversations we had, but I do remember he just kept saying, “We
just have to keep going”. He kept repeating it and reminding me that the bigger
goal (the fund raising) was already attained and now was on to MY goal of doing
the full 24 hours.
I think Corey could sense how cold I was getting (because it
hit 31° at one point) so every 2 laps we would take a 15-minute break in his
warm car. In hindsight, I don’t know if this was a good or bad decision, but at
the time it was GREAT. Seat warmers and warm air was the perfect combo to knock
me out. I think 2 times I actually fell asleep for the entire 15 minutes. We
did this for around 3 ½ hours before Mrs. Messenjah and the kiddos showed back
up.
It was at this point in the event that I had a total mental
breakdown. I realized somewhere along the way that with the remaining time
there was no likelihood that the 100 was going to happen. Seeing my wife and kids made me feel like a complete
failure. I felt like I had let a lot of people down. It wasn’t until Lil’ Red said,
“Daddy, even if you don’t hit the 100, I’ll still be proud of you” that I
realized it truly didn’t matter if I hit 100 or 1 mile. I had done something
that was bigger than me and I was able to help our friends. That’s what this was about. We, as a family
minus Mini Me, spent the next 30 minutes making our way around the lake and
just enjoyed seeing the sun come up together.
One of the nice things about this race, if in the last hour
you don’t feel like you are going to be able to make a full lap (as it is laps
that count) around the lake, they set out a cone 1/8th of a mile out
and you just walk back and forth. Basically 4 times of this gets you a mile. So
I was once again joined by Paul and Sarah and that’s what we did. Back and
forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. With this strategy, you also get to see
a lot of people you may not have seen in the last 24 hours. One guy named Sylvan,
who was the overall winner of the race, I hadn’t seen since around Noon even
though neither one of us had really stopped for that long. He was so exhausted
that, from what I heard, the last 30 miles he spent walking basically hunched
over because he couldn’t stand up. Once his win was solidified, we went past
him and I honestly thought he was dying on the ground. He was on his hands and
knees just sitting there then all of a sudden he projectile vomited like I
hadn’t seen since the pea soup incident in “The Exorcist”. It was really gross
and kind of awesome at the same time.
As the clock continued to tick down, more and more people
showed up to watch the finish. It took every last ounce of strength I had to
fight back the tears on so many occasions.
10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…DONE!!!! 24 hours complete. 93.03 miles
done. Almost $14,000 raised. Wow! What a feeling. We stuck around for the
awards ceremony and got to listen to some amazing performances. The overall
winner, Sylvan, completed 95.75 actual miles and had an equalized mileage count
of 154.44 miles…Did I mention that he is 72 years old? Highest overall miles
went to Daniel Mattingly with 118.95 miles setting a new Equalizer record. My
friend Tim came in 3rd with an incredible 106 miles. After I said
some quick thank yous, and collected all of my stuff, we were off.
The last 6 hours of the race I severely mis-managed my
nutrition. I was staying hydrated but I was so tired, cold and exhausted that I
had almost forgotten to eat. For the last hour of the race all I could think
about was eating and the Tremendous 12™ from Perkins was all I wanted. It was
the meal with the most calories that I could think of and I was going to make
it mine. We made our way to Perkins, I sat down and with the way my stomach
felt, there was no chance of it happening. I was hungry but I was really
worried about having the same reaction to food that Sylvan had just an hour
before. I don’t know if you’ve ever done any sort of endurance events, but for
me, as soon as I get done I go into uncontrollable fits of shaking. The
waitress came over to take our order and I couldn’t keep my hands, arms or feet
still. I think she thought I was on something until the girls explained what I
had just gotten done doing…then she probably did think I was on something.
The rest of the day was spent sleeping, eating, sleeping,
walking around, sleeping, eating and trying not to die of back spasms.
Looking back so many months later, I still find strength in
the experience. Sure I didn’t get my 100-mile “debut” but I was able to
accomplish a lot more than I ever dreamed I was able to. People, myself
included, spend so much time looking at what other people do and thinking
“there is no way I can do that.” One of the things I have always hope to
accomplish with this blog, even if no one reads it, is to show others that not
everything in life goes according to plan. I didn’t plan to get fat, even
though I kept telling myself that I wasn’t. The Morris’ didn’t plan for their
son to get sick. I didn’t plan to have back problems the day of the race. Life
is full of complications but it is how you react to the unfortunate
circumstances that really show how much you are able to do. As cliché as it
sounds, the sky is truly the limit. How are you going to get there?
I want to thank everyone who joined me on this journey. All
of the people who donated, all of the people who joined me the day of, my wife,
my kids and my God. I have been blessed beyond words and I can’t begin to thank
you enough.
Items used for the 2013 Equalizer Endurance Run
Brooks Pure Flow 2 - No longer in production (23 miles)
Brooks Cascadia 7 - No longer in production (43 miles)
The North Face lightweight shell
Injinji Performance Midweight Socks (Yes...toe socks)
Random tights,
pants, jackets sweatshirts and food
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