“Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.” – Chili Davis.
Figure 1. My marathon times followed a U-shaped curve. It took me four marathons to finally break 3 hours (ages 22-27, “learning the ropes”). Then I consistently ran sub-3 for 9 years, with 4 race wins (age 27-35, “my peak”). Then I had a baby at 38 and my marathon times floated above 3 again (ages 39-42, “old mom”).
2006 Boston Marathon. Age 25.
Going skydiving would’ve been easier…..
Aaron! I dashed into the kitchen. Look!
Aaron looked like he’d just been overrun by squirrels. What am I looking at?
It’s gray! I cradled a curled specimen of hair in my palm and offered it to him like a child. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Aaron stammered, avoiding the landmines hidden beneath any woman’s conversation that touches on her looks.
I knew that in my 40s I would hit middle age, go through menopause, turn gray, and lose my speed. But that didn’t mean I was ready for it. I now understood why men panic-buy sports cars in their 40s. Anything to stop the downward skid. But my mid-life crisis package would not include convertibles, motorcycles, skydives, or breast implants. I stared in the mirror, then back at my palm, and realized there was only one way to face down middle age: lace up and race another sub-3 hour marathon.
There were just a few problems. One, my last sub-3 marathon was 8 years ago at the DC Rock n Roll Marathon in March 2016, where I paced my friend Trevor to his first sub-3 hour finish, and also went on to win the race myself. Two, I was already 43 years old, well into the Masters age category where the wheels come off. Three, I was a mom with a young child and limited time to train or perform self-care.
2016: Celebrating Trevor’s first sub-3 marathon outside RFK Stadium.
I was a consistent sub-3 hour marathon runner from age 27 to 35. I won the DC Rock N Roll Marathon twice, the Delaware Marathon, the Charlottesville Marathon, and ran sub-3 at Boston, Marine Corps, and Steamtown. Then, after I got married and welcomed my son Bjorn, my marathon times floated above 3 hours for the first time in 13 years. I met this with a sense of doom, realizing after decades of getting stronger and faster, I was now in decline. My friend Sean welcomed me as the newest member of the “old and slow” club.
Marine Corps Marathon 2019. I’m all smiles because I’m totally in love with my baby boy, but I’m also dying inside because I just raced my first marathon over 3 hours in 13 years and feel like a rotting piece of fruit that’s past its “best by” date.
Now I know how Greg Lemond felt at the beginning of the EPO era in cycling…..
The arrival of carbon-plated “super-shoes” at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics poured salt on the wound. Just as my speed was fading, everyone else was buying it for $250. Nearly everyone at the 2021 Boston Marathon wore the Nike Vaporfly. The sudden change in pace of people around me threw off my racing instincts. “Cheater shoes” Aaron called them, referring to their enhanced biomechanics. When Aaron finally bit the bullet and bought super-shoes this year, the advantage was dramatic: about 15 seconds per mile, which adds up to 6-to-7 minutes in a marathon. That would have turned my 3:04 Boston Marathon from 2021 into a sub-3 performance. But I wouldn’t have counted it.
Nora makes running fun again.
Super-shoes ripped the joy out of competition, so I took an 18-month sabbatical from the marathon and found new adventures on the trails. I ran Hellgate a second time. I recruited Nora to ride-n-tie. I even learned to mountain bike on West Virginia’s single-track. I found joy in social running and revived the WUS Tuesday night trail run after it died during the COVID-19 pandemic. I joined a new Friday morning women trail running group organized by Barry (who is not a woman, but appears to attract them in droves, for reasons that are still up for discussion). Last summer, I headed out to Silverton, Colorado, to pace Trevor at Hardrock in what would be my first VHTRC trip without Aaron.
Unclear what was more important for Trevor’s supernatural Hardrock finish: his super-star crew or his jorts
“Teamwork Makes the Dream Work!” – Aaron Schwartzbard
The Dream Team in action. Ellen being helpful. Me just gabbing.
Trevor and I made a deal: if I paced him at Hardrock in July, he would pace me to a sub-3 marathon the next fall. We settled on the Richmond Marathon in November, where Trevor set his PR (2:53) in 2016. Coach Aaron approved my pared-down training plan: five long runs during September and October sprinkled with a weekly dose of light speed work. With four children under the age of 6, Trevor would join me when he could.
Fat Dog 120, 2016. I like pacing Trevor because he manages to still be funny even when he is hurting bad.
Two other Wussies, Mike and Anthony, also signed up for Coach Aaron’s Richmond Marathon training plan. Katie and Steve joined the party too. Barry’s FOMO got so bad he almost reversed his vow never to run another marathon again. Then sense kicked in.
As soon as training kicked off in September, Trevor was downed by illness. Four kids is TOO MANY kids. But new Wussies Mike and Anthony stepped up so I never had to run a long run alone. We were the Breakfast Club of marathon training. Anthony was the pot-smoking hippie. Trevor was the Mr Perfect prep school golfer. Anthony’s friend Duy was the fun gay Asian (which was not in Breakfast Club, to the detriment of the movie). Mike was the quiet guy in the corner silently trolling everyone.
For the first time in more than a decade, marathon training was fun again. The guys laughed at my stories and followed my routes. One fine October evening, Mike supplemented my marathon training by taking me out clubbing until 3AM on U Street. Because running a sub-3 hour marathon means learning how to be 27 again.
Marathon training was fun at Penn State where I did grad school.
By late October, Coach Aaron certified me “trained.” For a girl who never trained for previous marathons, I considered my five long road runs of at least 16 miles, sprinkled with a couple short track workouts, to be a victory in and of itself. Aaron spent years trying to convince my younger self that my marathon PR of 2:55 was soft and with the slimmest amount of training I could break 2:50, but I was skittish. I knew too many women over the years who overtrained, lost their periods, under-ate, over-trained, and damaged their bodies. I erred on the side of caution and self-preservation. But by age 43 (and with some good therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic), I was starting to get past old mental blocks.
I assume no one from Dojo reads my blog
Aaron and I are opposites. He’s an introvert, I’m an extrovert. He’s methodical, I’m whimsical. He’s vegetarian, I’m a carnivore. He trains diligently for marathons, while I do one confidence-boosting long run (at least 13 miles) a couple weeks before the race and declare myself fit to go. But we align squarely on our philosophy of marathon training. We had the same advice for young Anthony who was training every day at his expected marathon pace (6:30) on the same stretch of Beach Drive until he was so bored and burned out that he swore off marathons forever. Here are the “Marthon” Cardinal Rules for Marathon Training:
(a) Long runs should be a comfortable clip, neither excessively slow nor fast, maybe 60-90 seconds slower than expected race pace. You should be able to converse comfortably. If you’re feeling good towards the end it’s okay to pick up the pace for the last 4-5 miles, just don’t do anything that is going to require more than a day or two recovery. Because later in the week….
(b) You should do a session of speed work each week. Nothing arduous. You don’t need to do mile repeats. The purpose is to improve running economy and improve your biomechanics and efficiency of stride. If you’re having difficulty getting the right body conformation during these pick-ups, you might need to include some plyometrics (see instructional videos on YouTube). I typically do not wear a watch or record my runs, but for Anthony’s sake I began to wear one and post my activities on Strava, so he could see that light speed work could be as simple as three or four 800m repeats.
(c) The long run and the speed work are the two pillars of your training week that give you the most benefit. Focus on nailing those two days, and the other days are just recovery and endurance building. Fine to mix in some trail runs on those days. If you need to party, go out any night of the week EXCEPT the two important nights before the long run and speed work.
(d) Try not to lose weight during marathon training. Do not diet during marathon training. It may be tempting to believe that you’ll be faster if you can shed a couple pounds, but I’m afraid that ship has sailed by the time marathon training begins. Your body cannot handle the load of marathon training without complete fueling.
(e) You’re going to need super-shoes if you want to compete against others for prizes/BQs/OTs. If you’re going to wear super-shoes in the race, make sure you do at least one long run in them prior to race day.
(f) Train to run easy faster, not hard longer. You may notice killer times posted from training sessions on Strava are not necessarily predictive of performance on race day. Many marathoners take a training approach that focuses on running hard for longer. If they can run their desired marathon pace (say 6:30) for 12 miles, they try to extend the distance they can maintain that hard effort from 12 to 15 to 18 to 20 miles. This may seem logical and sequential, but no one can run at threshold for 26 miles, even the pros. Instead, train to run easy faster. Rather than building strength, build economy. Unfortunately, social media rewards impressive workouts more than running effortlessly. This is one way that the social media age can steer people in the wrong direction. One reason I generally don’t record my training on Strava is because to an outside eye my training would be very unimpressive. Even though marmots try very hard not to fall into the trap of comparing themselves to others and feeling inferior, social media sometimes makes that difficult.
(g) Haine’s Point is where marathon dreams go to die. Many marathoners swear by flat, fast training loops. But Aaron and I design hilly routes through Arlington and Georgetown to build strength. Your pace on a hilly course will look unimpressive on Strava, but you’ll find you have more strength in the final miles of the marathon where you need it most.
The 16-18 mile Arlington Loop is Aaron’s go-to marathon training route.
(h) Just to leave no rock unturned for Anthony doing his first road race, we also spelled out the 5 rules of marathon water stations. First, when you grab your dixie cup, pinch it at the top to avoid spillage. Second, do not drink yet! Take a couple strides into the middle of the road before slowing to drink. Otherwise you risk getting trampled by runners darting in and out to grab cups. Third, toss your cup to the opposite side of the road from the water station to avoid oncoming runners. Fourth, do not try to keep your pacing group intact during the water stations. Don’t worry if everyone goes their own way, just be patient and regroup after the water station.
Trevor is mortal
While Aaron and I focused on guiding the rookie Anthony, Trevor slipped through the cracks. Trevor is not a marathon rookie, with a PR of 2:53. Trevor’s is a WUS legend for winning every beer mile (in about 7 minutes on a non-traditional course) and miraculously finishing Hardrock last summer on no training. No one ever has to worry about Trevor. But he hadn’t done a marathon in a while. Lesson one: even the magically charmed T-Puff is human. Lesson two: you can pull yourself out of a hole in an ultra, but there is less margin in a marathon. Trevor paced the 3:15 group at Marine Corps three weeks before Richmond, which managed to pull off the double whammy of destroying his legs without building endurance. Questioning whether he could still manage sub-3 pace at Richmond, Trevor panic-bought super-shoes. With Aaron as shopping guide, Anthony and Mike followed suit. I supported everyone else’s decisions to buy super-shoes, but I resisted. I had to prove that, despite being in my 40s, despite being a mom, despite getting pummeled by the COVID-19 pandemic, I could still go toe-to-toe with my 27-year-old self.
For my future self, it’s worth mentioning that my legs felt cruddy in the weeks leading up to the marathon. I barely finished the NIH 5k, a casual run at work, because my legs were shot after helping Trevor pace 20 miles of MCM. Plus, I was fighting the bug going around our house and the November election had me down. But please, future self, take note not to freak out the next time my body feels drained going into race day. “Race magic,” Aaron promised me.
This will have to do, since I never got a picture of Mike and Anthony’s little boys room in our AirBnB “castle.”
Driving down to Richmond with Trevor, my biggest fear was that my stomach would ruin the weekend for everyone. With Aaron home with Bjorn and Trevor jetting back to his brood right after the race, all I had was Mike or Anthony to whisk me to a hospital for an IV after the race (something I did routinely when I was younger, although less as I’ve aged and learned to manage my illness).
Trevor assured me Mike and Anthony were up to the task. WUS goes through boom-and-bust cycles as crops of young runners arrive and depart, temporarily joining the old guard of regulars, but our new crop of youngsters was a good one, and breathing new life into beer miles and bucket brigades.
The WUS donut run also triumphantly returned in 2024.
The sun was shining when we arrived in Richmond, and I was charmed by everything, from Anthony’s quirky AirBnB “castle” to outdoor packet pickup at the Richmond Roadway (way better than ugly convention centers), to the perfect fall weather and easy-to-navigate city. I knew the running gods were smiling on us when Anthony announced that his Pacers running group friends had a hotel room blocks from the race start, where on race morning we could stash our clothes and defile their bathrooms. No shivering outside in port-o-potty lines!
Duy (waving) won MVP points for connecting us with his Pacers friend’s hotel facilities. Mike, for reasons only he can explain, is not in this picture.
Running into David Horton at the race start was another good omen. I also waved to Bethany, Ashley, and other VHTRCers spectating along the course.
Steady-Eddie Trevor paced me, Anthony, and Ben (another Pacer) to a perfect 1:27 half before we all went our own ways.
I discover in the second half (1:28, almost an even split) why Aaron spent 13 years trying to get me to train for a marathon. Boy did this suck less!
Anthony (2:53) has not committed to running a second marathon. But he did qualify for Boston….
This picture of Katie (who finished second overall woman in 2:47) is giving Barry FOMO.
Richmond was a near-perfect race. I love mid-size marathons in small cities that meander along rivers and bend over small hills. The swag (and lack of prize money for Katie) were the only minor flaws (the orange shirts might make good reflective bike jerseys?). For better swag, run Hellgate.
The new dot on the plot is satisfying, not just because I met my goal and reversed the downward skid of middle age, but because I had to actually train to get there. Sean is still a little frightened by this new marmot who trains. I’m a little frightened myself. Not Aaron, though, who’s been waiting for this upgraded version of me for a long time.
Figure 2. Where will the trend line go next? Stay tuned to see what happens after I join the Pacers weekly road runs on Monday evenings, starting in January and Aaron gets me super-shoes for Christmas.
Fear not, Sean, I’ll always run trails with you. Long live WUS!
Best silver lining of being too trashed to post-race snooze: Martha and Trevor getting to see ex-VHTRCer Jackie Fritsch finish her first Hardrock during the Golden Hour with less than 10 minutes to spare (Jackie also saved Anthony’s ass earlier that week “soft-Rocking” over Virginius pass with all of his backpacking gear)
Best performance, surprise WUS appearance: Vishal (3rd WUS Hardrock finisher in 2024)
Best riddle: 10 time Hardrock finisher Robert (“Mongo”) Andrulis somehow remembering Aaron Schwartzbard’s birthday
Best performance, spotting WUS cameos on the Hardrock live feed: Aaron
Best performance, spotting good rocks: PJ
Barry surrounded by chicks….surprise, surprise
Ranking of Wussies from most to least inspired to run Hardrock after the 2024 experience:
Anthony and PJ (tie): Would give left pinky toe
Heather: Yes, but might need some Valium for the scree fields and deadly drop-offs
Barry: Yes, but might need some testosterone
Martha/Ellen/Tracy (tie): No way in hell
Most likely to pace again someday at Hardrock: Everyone!
Legends of WUS Hardrock Trivia
Which WUS has the fastest Hardrock finish?
Joe Clapper (31 hrs)
Which WUS has the most Hardrock finishes?
Tie, Keith and Julian Jamison (5)
Which WUS slipped just under the Hardrock 48 hour cut-off during the Golden Hour?
Doug Sullian (47 hrs)
Which WUS has the second-fastest Hardrock finish?
Garret Christensen (34 hrs)
Who is the only female WUS to finish Hardrock?
Kerry Owens
Which WUS finally finished Hardrock this year after entering the lottery 14 times?
Notable WUS Performances: Anthony’s victory at the Ring, Heather’s 2nd place at Wasatch 100M, Ellen’s Ride N Tie World Championship victory (plus 2 100M finishes), Trevor’s Beer Mile victory
Best Performance, WUS Other Than Martha Organizing A WUS Event: Nick’s Post-WUS Pizza Party At His Parent’s House
Best WUS Flyby: Barred Owl (second place, Bald Eagle)
Best New WUS Named After A Former WUS: Julian
Best WUS Hospitality: Sean
Best WUS Race Director: Martha (low bar)
Worst performance, starting a dance party: Martha
Best Performance, Staying Up Past 9pm: Heather
Best WUS Farewell: Luke
Best WUS Arrivals: HK John, Heather, Grant, Adam, Barry
Worst Performance, Recruiting Wife to WUS: HK John
Best WUS Destination: Sedona
Best Surprise WUS Bar Appearance: Mario
Best Beer Mile-to-Regular WUS Attendance Ratio: JLD
Best Surprise WUS Gathering: Frisco Run the Rockies Half Marathon
Best performance, DC August heat escape: Frisco, CO
PREDICTIONS FOR 2024:
Mass WUS gathering at Hardrock in July.
Donut Run is revived. (But Martha probably has to organize it.)
Return of McNulty
Clarification: Return of McNulty after dog-friendly outdoor seating becomes available in front of CPBG’s years-in-the-making pedestrian sidewalk
WUS DC United Field Trip led by HKJ.
Another WUS tries Ride N Tie.
Prize to whichever WUS comes across Martha riding a horse through Rock Creek Park first.
Lloyd Christmas: What are the chances of a girl like you and a guy like me…ending up together? Mary Swanson: Not good. Lloyd Christmas: Not good like one in a hundred? Mary Swanson: I’d say more like one in a million. Lloyd Christmas: So you’re telling me there’s a chance! — Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber
My upside down headlamp represents how prepared I was for Hellgate. Aaron kindly noticed and fixed it.
Dumb and Dumber. On a brisk December night I stand in a field gazing up at a blue-black sky crammed with stars, wondering if I have any chance of finishing the Hellgate 100km+ trail race that will begin at midnight. Hellgate isn’t a race you can wing. Race director David Horton handpicks 150 seasoned ultramarathoners from mailed-in paper applications and weeds out anyone unprepared for a mountain course devilishly designed to test you in unexpected ways. You have to feel pretty confident in your fitness to take on Hellgate’s midnight start, sleep deprivation, long climbs, knee-deep leaves obscuring loose ankle-breaking softball-sized boulders beneath, and unpredictable winter weather that can lather the trails in ice, drench you with freezing rain that no one saw coming, or give you “Hellgate eyes,” a condition where corneas freeze and you temporarily go blind. Hellgate eyes can occur in mild weather, so the problem isn’t just eyes that get cold, but dry. During hours of wide-eyed staring at rocks and leaves trying to stay upright, sometimes you forget to blink. Dozens drop out of Hellgate before the race even starts and I wonder if I should join them.
“Ride N Tie” races cover 20-30 miles using a 17th century technique to efficiently transport two people using one horse. (While Chris and I ride, our teammates run, and then we swap after a mile or so.)
The hardest part of jumping off a cliff is the waiting on the edge, wavering. Stupid or brave? Stupid or brave….? Hellgate actually has a “Stupid Award.” Two years ago Will Weidman won it for missing a turn into the woods towards the end of the race and bombing down the road an extra mile or two in the Forever Section. I’m thinking I could win it this year for starting the race and only making it 5 miles (that’s got to be some kind of a record). Number one sign you shouldn’t try to run 66 miles of gnarly trails: you don’t seem to own trail running shoes anymore.One week before the race I did a short test run to gauge if my injured Achilles might last 66 miles. Aaron, do you know where my trail running shoes are? He sighs. When did you last wear them? I pull out my calendar. November 7. More than a month ago. Ride N Tie season had just ended and I was switching gears to focus on Hellgate training. That didn’t last long. 0 days, to be exact.
For weeks I planned to write David Horton a courtesy email to let him know I was dropping out of Hellgate and he could give my spot to a more deserving runner. My stats from the last month were pretty dire. But I can never hit send. A deep burn in my chest always stops me. Addiction? Mania? Delusion? Obstinance? I glance at the Unhelpful Thinking Styles reference guide my therapist gave me that’s pinned to the fridge. I ask my husband Aaron which mind trap I’ve slipped into. Black-and-white thinking? Mental filter? Then I ask for his honest opinion. Have I a fighting chance of finishing Hellgate this year?
“I wouldn’t put it past you….” He stops and backtracks, recalling how many times a husband’s offhanded remark, delivered without the surgical precision in wording in tone sought by his wife, has crushed her dreams. “No,” I interrupt him. “That’s all I needed to hear.” Aaron is organized and methodical, but marmots are whimsical and believe in race magic. Or just dumb and dumber. This time I don’t need a ringing endorsement. I just need to know I’m not caught in an obsession and sliding down one of my self-destructive wormholes. “There’s a chance!“
Aaron Schwartzbard Pro Hellgate Tip #1: Don’t Clock Yourself On The Gate In The First 30 Seconds (This Happens). My decision to start Hellgate seems ill-advised, but instantly lifts a weight off my shoulders and I feel ten pounds lighter. Aaron is careful never to pressure me to run Hellgate, fearing my wrath if things go wrong, but I know he’s delighted I’ve decided to come along. I’m his plus-one. Aaron is one of the most recognizable faces at Hellgate. He’s completed all 21 Hellgate races, going back to the inaugural race in 2003, and he won the race in 2007. His lively blog description of the course’s many hazards — geological, psychological, and otherwise — became the definitive guide, now posted on the Hellgate website along with Keith Knipling’s GPS mapping. I never read either course description, Keith or Aaron’s. I’m not a “details” girl. Most of Aaron’s Hellgate advice goes in one ear and out the other while I’m busy watching birds. But I do listen to Aaron’s advice regarding the gate.
You can’t walk three feet at Camp Bethel without being reminded Aaron is a beloved race fixture. When Aaron sneaks into the end of the race briefing, Horton stops mid-sentence and introduces Aaron in front of the crowd (and heckles him for “ugly sideburns”).
Hellgate doesn’t begin on a wide open road, but directly at the trailhead, so it’s pretty narrow and everyone is crammed in tight. Imagine the elbow-to-elbow jostling of a big city marathon with the added challenge of it being the middle of the night and pitch black, except for 130-odd headlamps swiveling in every direction to greet old friends, blinding everyone, and I just try my best to avoid getting clocked by a neighbor’s trekking poles. In the center of the scrum is a large metal gate that blocks cars from entering the trailhead. Half the Hellgate runners stand in front of the gate and the other half are behind it. If this seems like an unnecessary hazard (why can’t we all just move up 100 yards?), well, get used to it; Horton has plenty more tricks up his sleeve.
I start road races up front in the “seeded” wave, but tonight I hang in the tail end of the pack while Aaron goes ahead, slicing through the crowd. Then I recall Aaron’s warning not to run into the gate during the stampede, so I duck under the bars and squeeze myself into a last square meter of space on the forest side of the gate. During the National Anthem my back is pinned against the cold metal bars. Home of the brave finally comes, Race Director David Horton counts down to midnight, and the human wave surges forward, hooting like Apache at the start of an attack. Aaron advised me to link up with a woman named Alyssa, described as friendly, talkative, and overall “very marmot.” (More on what that means later.) But in the chaos of swinging elbows, flying poles, and blinding headlamps, I never locate Alyssa. It doesn’t help that I’ve never met her and have no idea what she looks like.
Matt and Addie, 12 hours later
Addie Never Sees Her Uncle The Same After This. My friend Matt watches the twinkling headlamps disappear down the road and tries to explain to his niece Addie why she had to surrender her Saturday night to drive around the woods on a cold winter night chasing runners. Here’s the deal. Aaron will finish Hellgate somewhere between 13-15 hours. We don’t have to worry about him. Martha is…..our wildcard. She ran Hellgate two years ago in a little under 15 hours. But her Achilles is injured and she barely ran all month and might bail at the first aid station. But as long as she’s in the race, she’s our main job. I’ll pace her for the last 20 miles, if she makes it that far. If she drops I’ll pace Aaron instead. Addie gulped. When Matt recruited her for this roadtrip he failed to mention that he’d join the race as a pacer and abandon her to navigate the van alone through the maze of backwoods roads in southern Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. She is about to voice her concerns when Matt adds one more thing: I should also mention Martha’s a puker.
The face of relief after my first Hellgate finish in 2021.
Sissygate. The brisk night air feels fine against my legs, vindicating my decision to wear shorts instead of long tights. Sissygate, Horton scoffed when the temperature nudged above freezing. Historically, Hellgate runners get frozen club feet after crossing a frigid creek in the opening miles, but this year the creek is low enough to rock-hop and I give a squeal of delight. Two years ago I waded through and my soaked feet blistered so badly I thought I had no skin left (I did, it just didn’t feel that way). That year Hellgate’s notorious “fog year,” I managed to stumble through all 66 devilish miles, overcoming stomach problems, injuries, blisters, and a pervading sense of terror that I’d get lost in the fog. When I scraped together my first 100km completion in the midst of a deep pandemic slump/midlife crisis, it moved a medium-sized boulder in my life.
Aaron, Bjorn, and I crash at Sean’s in Colorado every August for “Hellgate training”
Doctors Know Which Problems Other Doctors Can Fix And When You’re On Your Own. My Achilles tendon grumbles on Hellgate’s big early climbs, but at a level I can handle, and so far the race is going better than expected. I’m lucky the sensitive tendon was spared from the frigid creek, which would have stiffened it up. I’ve managed chronic Achilles pain for the better part of my life, ever since I injured it at age 19 playing collegiate soccer. The medical community offered little help when it came to managing chronic pain with no obvious source on x-rays or MRIs, but I learned I could run long distance on it. So I switched from soccer to cross country my junior year of college, finished All-America, and have been a runner ever since. Figuring out when to rest tendinitis and when to run through it is my least favorite game. Overuse injuries are dark art, not science. Just ask my friend Sean’s father who’s an ultrarunner and orthopedic surgeon at the esteemed Cleveland Clinic. He wrote a recent memoir about running hundred mile races through chronic pain in his 60s and 70s, using handmade braces and devices that sound straight from the 17th century.
West Virginia, August 2023. Trying to be more heron.
Apparently “Spirit Animal” Is No Longer PC. Aaron needs no pacer at Hellgate. If Aaron were an animal, he’d be a heron, silently striding through the water with long, spindly legs and a long, elegant neck, as graceful as a swan, but without the fluffy showiness. Calm, peaceful solo jaunts through the forest recharge Aaron’s (introverted) battery. Herons don’t flock. I’m not a heron, I’m a marmot — squawky, gregarious, social, mountainous, and always whistling to alert others. I need boisterous conversation and laughter to keep my (extroverted) energy up. Before we had our son Bjorn, I never did long solo runs. When we started a family, I knew pregnancy would be a physical setback, but I never considered how lonely I’d become after losing my running buddy for the next decade. Someone always stays home with the child when the other ventures off. Bjorn was one year old when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and my loneliness shot to 10. Aaron solves problems with technology, so he bought me bone conduction headphones and made a music mix to keep me company. The headphones met with mixed success; Mumford and Sons made me drowsy, but it was better than hearing my own thoughts.
Getting to be very marmot as DC’s Woodley Ultra Society sobers up in our backyard after running the October 2023 beer mile (Trevor is champion!).
Aaron’s Main Stress At Hellgate Is His Unpredictable Wife. At each Hellgate aid station Aaron collects intel from Matt on how I’m faring. She made it past the first aid station. Aaron sighs with relief. If I can make it 7 miles, odds are I can make it 66. At the halfway point, Matt’s reports get longer. She’s puking and having trouble eating, but she’s surprisingly cheerful. She kept talking about how beautiful everything was. Nothing like last time. No sitting on overturned buckets in despair.
Signs I Watch Too Much NCIS. The first time I ran Hellgate I got really spooked when I started vomiting halfway through. I was alone, disoriented, freezing, and struggling to follow the twisty course in the dark fog. My deepest fear was I’d wander off course into the wilderness in the wee hours of the night, slip on wet rocks and leaves, hit my head, and freeze to death in a ditch. No one would find my body until it was too late. Or worse, I’d wander off trail into a group of strangers not associated with the race and you can fill in the blanks. The sound of hounds howling in the distance reminded me I was not alone out there. My imagination swelled with threats — cliffs, axe murderers — lurking behind the fog.
I Legitimately Missed Aaron’s Acoustic Guitar Mix. The second time around I knew the Hellgate course (for the most part) and had a degree of confidence that I wouldn’t get axe murdered. Still, I hit a low again at sunrise. I puked hard, as poor Sophie had to witness, losing all the food I’d worked so hard to get down that night. After a night with no sleep, I was exhausted, sick to my stomach, totally depleted, and alone. My bone conduction headphones battery only lasted 6 hours, so even Mumford and Sons had split.
Shortest Blind Date Ever. On the descent down to Jenning’s Creek the sun began to poke out. I came across Alyssa, the very woman Aaron suggested I run with. Our banter lifted my mood and I forgot about my throbbing Achilles and the acid taste on my tongue. But after the Jenning’s Creek aid station comes a long road climb. I stop running and hike up the road, Alyssa keeps trotting, and my new friend disappears around the bend. Hellgate can be a lonely place for people like me who aren’t strength runners.
After winning the Montgomery County girls high school xc championship as a sophomore, 1996. When I got into marathons as an adult, I added a new problem: stomach issues. A good day of racing meant nausea and light gagging; a bad day left a trail of vomit and sometimes a hospital bill.
The Real Reason I Got A PhD in the Molecular Evolution of Infectious Diseases. It may surprise people that I’m not a very confident runner. Someone who wins races consistently and sets course records doesn’t seem like someone who should go into every race wondering if she can even finish. But I’ve been that way since I was 14. I’m either injured, sick, haven’t trained enough, or all of the above. How can you be so delicate? my father would ask me as a teenager. It frustrated him to have a daughter with running potential, but buried beneath a fragile frame. One week I was state champion, the next four weeks I was too sick to get out of bed. My first season of collegiate cross country I was All-America, the next fall semester I spent home from college with Campylobacter, mononucleosis, and hepatitis. I was pale, underweight, and always visiting the doctor for something — chronic respiratory illnesses, asthma, delayed female development, surgery. I popped so many pills as a teen I needed a list to keep track of which times to take them, with food or not. I needed more pills to deal with the side effects of first ones. My father was the opposite: ruddy, stout, and impervious. He drank like a fish but did not even know what a headache felt like. He was a bull and I was a feather.
Pictured here with my old Bethesda Chevy-Chase High School track teammate (Prentiss) and coach (Selena) after I won DC’s Womens Half Marathon in May 2023. They’re amazed I’m still running after being such a hot mess as a teen.
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothin’ left ‘Cause I’ve been blastin’ and laughin’ so long that Even my momma thinks that my mind is gone
Without Mumford and Sons, I Drift Into Coolio. My lack of eating catches up to me on the Devil’s Trail, named for its endless miles of ankle-breaking boulders buried under leaves. Chewing on a morsel of bacon fat for an hour tricks my mouth into thinking it’s doing its job, but the belly and legs are not fooled. I pick green M&Ms out of my trail mix, but don’t consume nearly enough calories and slip into a low glycemic trance, waiting for an aid station that never comes. I spend an hour deep in the hole, kicking rocks and humming Coolio. (He died this year.) My mind is unraveling and I’m losing control, just like in October 2023.
I began 2023 on solid footing, resolved to return to Hellgate after missing out in 2022. DC’s Woodley’s Ultra Society was back in action after a long pandemic slump and I also found a new sport called “Ride N Tie” that combines my two favorite things, trail running and horseback riding. Jury’s out on how much Ride N Tie miles contribute to Hellgate training, but I love horses more than anything (Aaron pretends he didn’t agree that someday we’ll live on a horse farm) and just being around them energizes me. I can’t drink coffee, but if I could, 1 Arabian horse = 20 cups Arabica coffee. Plus, there are no aid stations at Ride N Tie so I’m forced to be self-sufficient over 4-5 hour races, taking care of myself and a horse without Boy Scout Aaron around to lend me an extra jacket, headlamp, or snack. Aaron almost fainted on Hellgate morning when I proudly lifted two canvas bags filled with gear and snacks. Marmots, prepare? Has up become down?
Magic still exists in the world.
Hellgate Training Is More Fun Than Cherry Blossom 10M Training, I’ll Give Aaron That. New recruits reenergize DC’s Woodley Ultra Society (pictured on a training run in West Virginia’s Dolly Sods) after a long COVID-19 hiatus nearly spelled its demise.
But the pandemic still wasn’t really over in October 2023.
(Don’t Read This Part.) This is the part of the story I don’t really want to tell. The last thing I want to do is add to skepticism and fear surrounding COVID-19 vaccines, which is mostly fueled by misinformation and costing many lives, but I trust no readers change their vaccine plans based on my personal experience. Not all people have the same body chemistry and some people respond differently to the COVID-19 vaccine. I happen to be one of those outliers. Not the weirdest thing about me.
US Government Pours Billions Into Operation Warp Speed to Make a COVID-19 Vaccine and [Embarrassingly Small Number] Into Collecting Data On What Happens After It Goes Into People’s Arms. Five times in a row I’ve had the same response to the COVID-19 injection: two weeks of drenching night sweats, an erratic heart beat, strange pulses in my chest, inflammatory responses cropping up in extremities, and my previously clocklike period cycle suddenly goes haywire. I can still run, but it’s not pretty, and it’s no coincidence that two years in a row my body (and Hellgate plans) fell apart in October after getting my COVID-19 booster. Feeling like I was running through sand aggravated an old Achilles injury. Limping then aggravated my hip. By mid-November my hip was in too much pain to walk. I actually considered getting a wheelchair to traverse DC’s National airport when I had to fly to Rhode Island for a work trip. Desperate, I tried dry needling, which possibly helped my hip but torched my calf and added another limp. One week before Hellgate I was limping from three different pains and owed David Horton an email to let him know I was dropping. The prudent choice was to join Heather, Anthony, Mike and other WUSsies at the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club’s (VHRTC) 50k Christmas run/party. I could try to run Hellgate next year, maybe delaying my COVID-19 booster until January. But my heart sinks every time I try to pull the plug. I stop sleeping. Getting different advice from orthopedists, PTs, and alternative medicine practitioners makes me even more disoriented. I felt paralyzed, so I did nothing.
We drove 4 hours to rural North Carolina to get our first COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in April 2021.
I’m reaching my breaking point on the Devil’s Trail when I finally spill out into a parking lot. The aid station crowd cheers my arrival, but I walk through with the dead stare of a shark, not even making a show of looking chipper. I plunk in a chair (I don’t care whose) and tell Matt and Addie I need a reset. My head spins, my gut churns, and if I don’t find something my body won’t reject, real trouble will come. Two-thirds through the race, the make-or-break moment has arrived. A woman takes one look at my ashen face and flings a fluffy white blanket over me to keep me warm. I feel like I’m buried under the warm wings of a swan.
Seinfeld Season 5 Episode 22, ‘The Opposite’. When I started having stomach issues in ultramarathons, I got what sounded like reasonable advice from a nutritionist who was also a distance runner: stick to simple carbs during races and avoid fats that are hard to digest. But when I cut out things like potato chips and PB&J and stuck to gels and gummies I felt worse, not better. I began to wonder if I my tactics were all wrong. I thought of the time my favorite Seinfeld character George Costanza concluded that every decision he ever made was wrong, his life was the exact opposite of what it should be, and the only way to get back on track was to do the exact opposite of his every instinct. Miraculously, it worked. “My name is George, I’m unemployed and I live with my parents” scored George a hot date. So when I was redlining and out of ideas at Hellgate #1, I took a page from Constanza and ditched the gummies and all my nutritionist’s advice and tried bacon. The bacon strip was the first thing that didn’t come back up, so I called it a win. Credit, George Constanza.
Hellgate has world class aid stations with different themes. The 6am breakfast aid station serves scrambled eggs and bacon, the midday aid station serves cheeseburgers, and the afternoon aid station makes pierogis. Matt calls out the foods offered at each station, which would be helpful for someone who doesn’t spend Hellgate on the edge of vomiting. Sometimes just thinking of food sends me over the edge. Scrambled eggs? did me in last time. Cheeseburgers top of the nutritionist’s no-fly list, but desperate times call for George Constanza. I shoot my thumb towards the sky. Cheeseburger me!
I sit under my swan feathers and nosh my burger like a champ. (Okay, I was nibbling at the pace of a baby mouse, but that was such an improvement over eating 1 green M&M per hour.) I chase with swigs of pomegranate San Pellegrino I packed myself in the canvas bag. I knew I liked you when I saw you packed your own San Pellegrinos, Addie mused. Stay classy, San Diego. There was just one problem. Matt is way too nice to give me the old heave-ho when I get too comfy at an aid station. Matt gently nudges me along by mentioning I’m the 13th woman and another pack are just 15 minutes ahead. A Patagonia puff jacket for a top-10 finish is in striking distance. I wave him off. I’m not racing, I’m surviving. I nestle deeper under the fluffy swan blanket, justifying my delay by continuing to nibble. I know the chair is quicksand. The longer I dawdle, the harder it will be to extract myself. Unfortunately the blanket doesn’t cover my lower legs, which are stiffening at an exponential rate. I can see my calf muscles twitching. They vote for sitting in the chair indefinitely. More than 40 miles in, I’ve already raced farther today than any time in the past two years.
Sean is a “tough love” pacer. He’d make me shove down that cheeseburger and be back on the trail in 5 minutes. But pushy pacers sometimes backfire. Towards the end of the Frisco Run the Rockies Half Marathon I refused to go another step until he relaxed and stopped demanding I pass more women.
When You’re So Tired It Takes More Bandwidth To Have A Disagreement With Another Human Than Get Back On Your Feet. Excuse me, this is my wife’s chair. An anxious man hovers over my swan blanket. She’ll arrive any minute. Matt scowls. Private property? No trespassing? Hellgaters share resources like it’s a kibbutz. Matt prepares to defend my blessed window of eating, when l take matters into my own hands and fling the fluffy swan blanket aside and charge towards the trailhead, cheeseburger in hand. Matt scrambles to gather his pack for pacing duties, trying to catch up to me. (It’s not hard, I’m just ambling.) My belly groans with the infusion of meat and bubbly sugary drink. A burp makes me feel human again.
It’s Pretty Much A Hard Rule That I’m Not Running Hellgate Unless Matt Is There To Crew And Pace. Once Matt starts pacing, a calm washes over me. Matt is unflappable when I need a steady hand, enthusiastic and talkative when I need some pep, and kind and gentle when I’m making unreasonable requests. Fetch a bottle of yogurt hidden somewhere in the van and then catch up to me while I go climb this mountain.Turn off that Garmin beeping every mile or I’m going to throw if off a cliff. He knows I’m too tired to filter my thoughts. Fortunately, Matt can handle anything. Even my cheeseburger toots.
Last year Aaron and I got to celebrate Matt’s first triathlon, followed a couple month’s later by his first marathon. At this rate, Matt’s on pace for Hellgate…maybe 2026?
Barn Smeller (I’m A Horse). Aaron doesn’t believe me, but the reviled Forever Section towards the end is my favorite stretch of Hellgate. With only a half marathon left, the race is in the bag and I can finally stop force feeding myself. No more hedging against future problems like empty stomachs and trashed quads. Whatever’s left in the tank will get me home to Camp Bethel. I’m not sure people realize what a miserable chore it is for me to eat during ultramarathons. I’d rather climb 5 more mountains than have to eat 5 more mini pretzels. When I release myself from the duty of eating it’s like a jailbreak. I run with abandon, leaping over creeks and using downward momentum to scamper up the other side, just like on the Do Loop at home. I realize the guy with the chair did me a favor, prodding me to get back to business just when I needed it. I blast through the last two aid stations; I won’t stop until the finish line.
Aaron Promised I’d Reach A Point In Hellgate When I’d Be Too Tired To Think And My Mind Would Go Zen And Blank. He Lied. The panoramic views in this final trail section make me tear up. Marmots have wild emotional ranges, and the poignancy of my giant adventure coming to an end, after so many months of ups and downs, hits me like a brick. My mind drifts through a kaleidoscope of memories from the past year, highs and lows, from sitting in despair on the orthopedist’s crinkle paper two weeks before Hellgate, to summiting Colorado peaks that summer with Sean, to bombing down Massanutten rock gardens with Nora, to cantering Arabian horses up grassy fields in Fort Valley. I let myself stride out down the road, slicing through the long afternoon shadows cast across the road by trees in the low winter sun. Somehow I’m actually going to finish this thing.
Sean and I take the “long way” from Breckenridge to Frisco. Aaron, Bjorn, and I lived with Sean for 18 days in August. Later Bjorn drew a family tree for a kindergarten class assignment. I explained Sean wasn’t technically part of our family, but Bjorn insisted on drawing a branch for him.
I have no data on my pace for my final 20 miles of Hellgate (recall I made Matt stop his Garmin), but Matt reports he counted 24 runners passed in my final push to the finish, not counting the ones lingering at aid stations. When I cross the finish line at Camp Bethel, I get a bear hug from Horton (after emptying my stomach in front of a large crowd). Horton does the math and announces I’m the 9th woman. I’m shocked. After years of envying Aaron’s luxurious Patagonia swag from Horton races, I finally earn my own. David Horton, the guy famous for drubbing the second place finisher as “first loser,” somehow makes me feel like a million bucks for finishing 9th.
I always look forward to Keith’s taunts at the end of the VHTRC Women’s Half Marathon, where my 8-time win streak is still intact.
By “Gracefully” I Mean I Didn’t Cry and Whimper That I’m All Washed Up Since Having a Baby and Turning 40. I have a fear of aging. I got a chill in my spine ten years ago when my friend Sean warned me that my running would tank after age 37. That’s when everything went downhill for him. (Plus I had a baby at 37.) When I began running trails with Sean in 2008 he was one of the most decorated trail runners on the Beast Coast (the “Captain America” of the Virginia Happy Trail Running Club, I joked) and about to win his second Hellgate. Sean’s 11 years older, giving me front row seats to his transition into a master’s runner. First Old Guy, he’d quip. Last August Sean got front row seats to my own signs of aging when, for the first time in my life, I lost a trail half marathon race (my win streak was up to at least a dozen). In the old days, I gutted out wins at sub-marathon trail races no matter what, even if I was sick or injured (VHTRC Women’s Half Marathon) or went off course (Dam Half). To Aaron’s surprise, I took it gracefully when I finished 3rd in at the Run the Rockies Trail Half Marathon in Colorado last summer. Earlier that week we made a group decision not to taper for the race and instead keep up the high-flying high-altitude adventures that would torch our legs. A younger version of me would’ve been too race focused and skipped all those epic adventures. Her loss. I’m enjoying the freedom of running races without trying to win. Like Hellgate.
Current and former members of the Woodley Ultra Society converge in Frisco, Colorado, for the Run the Rockies Trail Half Marathon, with a combined 50+ Hellgate finishes, 3 Hellgate wins, 2 members of Hellgate’s “Fearsome Five,” 4 runners from the inaugural 2003 Hellgate, and 20 snide Horton remarks about ugly sideburns.
It Ain’t Over ‘Til The Fat Lady….Holds Something In Her Stomach. For most people, crossing the finish line at Hellgate marks the end of the journey and the beginning of recovery. My finish line is a tad blurrier. This year I was still vomiting 7 hours later. Driving home after the race, lying in the back of Matt’s van next to a plastic bag holding the remains of my vanilla milkshake, I had a moment of weakness and asked Aaron if it was time to take me to the hospital. Aaron assured Matt I was a pro and would pull out of my predicament eventually.
Matt and I at Camp Bethel during a post-race moment where I’m not puking. Not everyone “gets” Hellgate, but there’s a special kinship among the folks who do.
Holy, Guacamole! When we get back to DC at 10pm, I’ve gone 24 hours and 66 miles without a meal. Aaron asks me what my burning stomach lining might keep down. To his surprise, I gurgle Guacamole. He flashes a quizzical look, trying to figure out if I’m serious. I throw my head back and cackle into the clear cold night like a hyena. Fewer stars are visible here in the city. My body makes no sense!
Our Version Of Date Night. The Achilles that couldn’t make it through a 6 mile social run on Tuesday did 66 on Friday, and now the stomach that rejected saltines and chicken broth at the diner was devouring Mexican food — corn chips, guacamole, sizzling fajitas with steak, chicken, peppers, rice and beans. Aaron and I never do “date night,” so this is the closest we get, sitting in a Mexican restaurant, right near the door in case I need to puke, laughing as fajita juice dribbles down my forearm.
The Restaurant Staff Can Tell, Just From Our Plates, Who In The Couple Is Meticulous And Who’s Expulsive.Why can’t people stop running this race?I ask Aaron between mouthfuls.Can you think of any other trail race where five guys ran it 21 years in a row? Aaron admits he cannot.I use a napkin to mop up fajita juice drizzling down my elbow. I stare at my plate so I can pretend I don’t notice Aaron’s disgust at my table manners (he knows they come from my father). I fold another tortilla with a hastiness that leads to more holes and dribbles (Aaron was always better at origami-folding our son’s baby blankets). Aaron, one last question: why do YOU like Hellgate? It makes sense that like getting rocked around in Hellgate’s messy soup of chaos, but you crave order and stability. You don’t even like mud. Aaron, going on his 40th hour without sleep, wonders where women find the energy to keep prattling on. I let my question hang in the air. But I’ll circle back to it next year, keeping up my habit of overanalyzing. Maybe if I can crack Aaron’s unwavering commitment to Hellgate, I can understand why he still hangs around with me. By the end of dinner my plate has a blast radius.
Picture from the Washington Post obituary: Robert Nelson at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, July 2002. Nelson was a professor at the University of Maryland and an author who wrote about belief systems and policies often thought to be in conflict. He died December 15, 2019 at a hotel in Helsinki, where he was attending a conference. He was 74. (Family Photo)
Onni Palonen, my great-grandfather, lived in Boston but spoke only Finnish. In the 1920 and 30s Finns (like Olympic gold medalist Paavo Nurmi) dominated distance running.
R.I.P. My father died three years before I ran Hellgate the first time in 2021. He would have been dumbstruck that his delicate daughter could survive 66 treacherous miles through rugged mountains in winter. He never ran any races himself, but his Finnish grandfather, my great-grandfather Onni, was a professional distance runner in Boston in the 1930s. Onni’s brother Laurie ran the Boston Marathon back when it was a fringe race for a small gaggle of Boston rebels (only men of course). Onni, like me, had running talent but struggled with illness and died of tuberculosis as a young man in his 30s. Up in the stars, I imagine Onni and Laurie clinking iittala glasses of Finlandia vodka on ice, watching Hellgate and marveling how the sport of running has transformed beyond their wildest dreams. Onni and Laurie are the only members of my blood family who might comprehend the draw of Hellgate. Pity they’re long gone. Fortunately, I’ve got Aaron, Matt, Sean, and the WUSsies. As Bjorn showed me, there’s the family tree you’re born with, and the family tree you draw.
