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Friday, January 4, 2008
Ultramarathons: Are you game?
The house I grew up in marked the last mile of an annual marathon that began in Kennebunkport, Maine (best known as home to You-Know-Who), and ended at the University of New England in Biddeford.
As a young child I passed cups of water to the runners. When I was older, I ran through the forest adjoining the road, following the leading pack. Hopping from rock to rock, I would peep out from behind the trees like a mountain lion apprising a herd of nimble deer. The last mile was an arduous one for many of the runners, and I kept up neatly until the finish, watching the most exhausted collapse into their reflective blankets. Thus began my fascination for the extremes of what people do with their feet.
Austin is well-known as a home to marathons, triathlons, and biathlons, as well as some competitive trail running, and seems naturally to breed the dedication to running I witnessed as a youth.
Even more dedication is required to participate in an ultramarathon, even if the sport’s reigning poster boy, Dean Karnazes, seems to have entered into it on a lark. “I just started running,” he reports to one of the many magazines bearing his face on the cover, “and I didn’t stop.”
For those of you unfamiliar with this bizarre underbelly, this multiple facial piercing of the running world, an ultramarathon is any of several types of long distance runs, usually 100 miles. Ultras can start at 50 miles, and the current longest ultra is 1,300 miles! Just like the regular sort of marathon, an ultra does come to an end eventually — but it may not feel like it does. One of the most famous ultras, and the one I first heard about, is the Leadville 100. The Leadville 100 is a particularly grueling slog through the high altitude and occasionally nasty weather of the Colorado Rockies.
An ultramarathon requires immense stamina and a willingness to patch up one’s blistered feet with SuperGlue. It’s a combination that seems ideal for Austin runners, and although no long-distance endurance run is scheduled for the immediate Austin area (mile 98: Sixth Street?), a handful of Central Texas residents will be competing in the Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile Trail Run in Huntsville on Feb. 2.
The Rocky Raccoon began in 1993 and follows, for 100 miles, the flat but wooded dirt terrain of Huntsville State Park. Aid stations are provided every few miles along the trail. The list of Rocky Raccoon entrants has grown steadily over the past 15 years, with close to 200 already registered for the February run. An additional 73 entrants plan to complete the abridged version: a 50-mile run. One imagines many prayers to Pheidippides for healthy feet.
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