Top Ten Among the Lost Souls

For the second year running, I scored a top ten finish in my October marathon.  It’s easy!  All you have to do is register in a race that either a) has fewer than 10 entrants or b) has fewer than 20 and enough first-timers to ensure some carnage in the second half.  I wasn’t necessarily thinking top 10 when I registered for the Lost Souls Marathon, but I had a good idea that it was a small enough field to at least ensure an age division awared for making it from the start to the finish in one piece.

There’s actually quite a bit of fodder in just the idea of finishing as the 5th of the Lost Souls.  Perhaps I should write nothing at all and just leave you to contemplate, as I did in some of the lonelier miles through the woods, exactly what this might mean.  As it happens, though, there was plenty of good entertainment throughout the day that I’m eager to share, so share I will.

The Lost Souls Marathon was actually part of a suite of races produced by my friend Mike Halko as part of Zombie Pirate Fest.  Runners are a little on the nutty side, race directors more so and Mike is so far off the charts that friends find it difficult to describe even a simple conversation with Mike without adding the phrase, “well you know, it’s just a Mike thing.”  He signs his e-mails with things like Mike-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Zombie Zulu and Race Director to the Undead.  He draws course maps on the backs of coffee house napkins while in an overcaffeinated haze (at least we all hope it’s caffeine) and anyone who can understand Mike-Speak well enough to know what the heck he is talking about is drafted immediately into service to help with one of his wonderful and zany race productions.

Yes, Virginia, there are zombies.  They leap from the woods at you in all the darkest corners of the first mile of the race.  As I caught sight of Mike in the morning mist zooming down the trail on his bike, I spotted also the wood stakes in the trailer behind his bike and wondered idly if one was destined to be driven through my heart later the in the race.  The stakes were attached to the directional and mile marker signs to be posted further down the trail but having been chased by zombies in the pre-dawn early miles of the race, my imagination was ready to follow darker paths.

The real party was the half marathon, but being a glutton for punishment and a big fan of early morning running, I decided on the 26.2 mile distance.  A couple dozen of us huddled out in the pre-dawn cold on the trail – the Lost Souls and then our farther gone trail companions, the 50K Be Damned runners.  Along with a few others, I disregarded the race instructions to run with a buddy.  First, I don’t know anyone who would get up with me to start a race before dawn in October in Alaska and next, I was a little taken aback by the race directors instructions about the self-supported course – “no feed stations, but if you get peckish, just rip off your running partner’s arm and chew on that for awhile.”  I thought it best to take my chances with the moose and bears.

I love the sight of headlamps bobbing along the trail – it somehow speaks of both adventure and comfort to me.  There’s a special kind of kinship among people who share the trail and doing so in light dim enough to warrant a headlamp draws little huddles of people closer together as your instincts kick in and you feel drawn to the safety and companionship of a small group.  It’s not a sense of danger so much, at least not if you live up here where a good deal of your time on the trail is spent in the dark.  It’s more an instinct to share resources – six headlamps light quite a bit of trail where one alone is little more than an annoyance.  I suppose it’s just as simple as the hope that light represents and hope shared, even in the form of an LED headlamp, is something worth celebrating.

This was a fairly fast pack with some truly exceptional runners leading the way – there’s an unmistakable grace and ease in the movements of a someone who was truly born to run that even dim pre-dawn light can’t hide.  I settled in with a group just one click faster than my most comfortable pace and drafted off a couple of big, solidly built guys.  You don’t have to say a lot to get to know people on a run – I know how their day went nearly as well as I can recount my own race.  None of us missed much about what the others were doing.  One of my favorite moments was at about Mile 10 when the big guys chased a young moose off the trail about 20 yards ahead of me and then ran on through, leaving me by myself to deal with the possibility of a now grumpy moose hanging out in the willows.  

Funny, never thought of just yelling “scat!” and lunging at one.  Maybe that’s only a good strategy for burly guys.

In the interests of getting this posted before next October, I’ll just hit the highlight film:

Cool air, sunny day, trail littered with birch leaves…

If you count moose like stars in the Mobil guide, and you know I do, this was a three moose outing…

BIG splashy windy high tide coming back along the Coastal Trail toward downtown – it sounded like river rapids…

Got to leave a runner half my age in my dust going up one of the hills – nothing for a young buck quite like getting “chicked” by an old lady…

Can I even describe how an hour of thick, blissful, indulgent solitude in the woods feels to someone who spends so much time in airports?

Really good blues band at the finish with just room enough in front of the stage to dance…

Good friends, old and new, none of whom I expected to see – hugs are really the best sort of surprise, especially when dispensed by those who love you enough to not care that you’re sweaty and covered in trail dust…

I always fail to describe what a marathon really is and why I do them.  I suppose I’ll just keep trying until I get it right, but with this one, a childhood memory keeps popping up that I think comes close.

The next generation up from me on my father’s side of the family all swim like fish.  The kids had a pool growing up and when my generation started feeding into the clan, my grandfather had a pool for us too.  I don’t swim gracefully unless I’m under water and I definitely don’t swim with technique or form or speed.  I can, however, go all day and I came by that ability simply because when I was a kid I couldn’t bear to be inside while I could hear any kind of splashing or yelling or giggling going on outside in the pool.  I’d get in there with my cousins until my legs trembled, until I swallowed half the pool, until I was so tired and had been in the water so long that I could still feel waves of it splashing against my skin long after I got out.  I would stay in the pool after 9:00 when I was young enough to have an 8:00 bedtime. 

Now that I’m a “grown up” and get to see kids play from a slightly different perspective, I know that most kids are that way about being in the water.  The thing of it that strikes me now, though, is that I grew up that way period.  Whether it’s the swimming pool or the high school marching band or the 5-star hotels where I’ve “worked” or any other area of play and creativity in my life, I just can’t bear the thought that one of my buddies might be out having fun without me.  That’s the marathon obsession in a nutshell.  If my buddies are out – and trust me, they’re all my buddies – I just can’t be anyplace other than on the trail.

So, if you’re a lost soul like me, I hope you’ve got a marathon in your sights.

Happy trails!