The email came finally at about 9 pm on Thursday night, about 36 hrs before the race was to begin. “We regret to inform you that The North Face Endurance Challenge, Washington, D.C. is canceled due to the projected effects of Tropical Storm Hanna” it began, and went on to detail all of the reasons why America’s premier outdoor adventure wear company couldn’t host its Endurance Challenge in the mid-Atlantic, in the middle of a storm. The counter emails began almost immediately, as scores of people (some en route from across the country and the world), having trained for months upon months, expressed their frustration, disbelief, and outrage.
After screaming at absolutely no one for ten minutes, I walked down the hallway between my office and the kitchen, took down a martini glass, cracked some ice, grabbed some pretentious Russian wannabe vodka, and filled it to the brim. On Friday morning, a little saner and slightly dehydrated, I joined a number of equally frustrated runners and we began to put together an alternative race. By that evening, at the North Face consolation cocktail party, we had some 20 or so people committed to running, and nearly a dozen signed on to help support the runners.
Hanna was brewing, working her way up the coast, the State was on high alert, North Face and the big awards, sponsorships, and media had gone to ground, and the Renegade 50 was slated to begin at seven the following morning.
One of the things that draws people to running generally, and to ultrarunning in particular, is the sense of community and camaraderie. It sounds cliche, but it is anything but. When you’re putting in hundreds of miles a year, oftentimes alone, working through the deep, complex, and painful nuances of Descartes most famous statement, when you do see people who are suffering or have suffered similarly, the bond exists already and relies only on a single word or look to activate it fully. Pulling into the parking lot at the Great Falls visitor center at 6:50 Saturday morning, dark clouds roiling overhead, we all looked at each other warmly, secure in our common purpose and desire.
Ultrarunners, unlike their shorter-distance brethren, have a reputation for damning the torpedoes and going full speed ahead. How else, of course, to understand or attempt to explain running 30 miles, 50 miles, a 100 miles or more in some of the most inhospitable conditions permitted to still exist, wedged even as they are, amongst our vast blacktopped temple courtyards? This attitude was reflected in the smiles, the laughter, and the absolute and unyielding glint of determination in every eye. We all knew – runner and support crew alike – just why we were here, what it might entail, and most importantly, how completely obvious it was that we were in the right place.
After a quick logistical brief, some whooping and hollering, we were off. James and others had spent some time with the satellites and gps records the night before to map out a pretty solid 17 mile loop (twice around for a 50K; three for a 50M). Of course all of the trail markings that had been set up for the Endurance Challenge had been taken down after it had been called off, so our real concern was not the particulars of turn here and here, but rather, ‘here is the beginning point, here is the turn around, go have fun’. In other words, so spiritually pure in ultrarunning terms that some actually had a hard time with the lack of controls, course rules, and oversight that is so common on many large or shorter races. We just got out there and ran.
Or swam.
Here’s the thing about running long distances, in the wilderness, in a tropical storm…there’s lots and lots of water. Not only is water pouring down on you from the sky (and it was), but your path also has one of two distinct characteristics: 1. your path is also the path of a major stream or wash, or 2. your path is in the way of a major stream or wash. Frequently, of course, such logical association comes unglued, and you find yourself on a trail that is both a main waterway and in the path of a main waterway. The Renegade 50 had lots of both of those, and what started as deep puddles become knee-deep ponds, and then waist-deep rapids.
Did people actually have to swim? Yes, they did.
Most of us just ran and waded. And ran and waded.
And, well, while we did our thing, Hanna did hers. What began as a steady rain at around 7:45, turned into a nonstop downpour by about 9:00, and then into a torrent by 11. I would hear later that the worst damage from the storm was right over our run, but really, at the time, and retrospectively, it was just a lot of rain, and it felt wonderful. Really, aside from what it did to the course, most people seemed not to even notice it. It receded into just another subconscious variable to work into the equation – nice to recall when you got hot, or as it sloshed over your gaiters cooling your ankles and feet. In any case, it certainly was not going to get in the way of a fun day out in the woods.
While the 20 of us worked our way over the course, the folks at the two manned aid stations – some runners, some adventure racers, some accepting spouses, some parents, and a smattering of significant others – did what can only be described as a phenomenal job. There was water, oranges, candy, pb&js, bananas, cookies, pretzels, chips, Gatorade, potatoes, vaseline, and moleskin. In other words, not only did Renegades come together for the runners in 18 hours, but two aid stations, and a third unmanned station were ready to go when the runners started. As is true, in every single case, the aid station people made the race.
As the rain got heavier and heavier, our course kept getting shortened on either end. First we lost the crossing at Difficult Run, forcing runners on the other side to swim back, then we lost the bridge at 193, then the bridge at River Bend, then at about 2:20 or so, we lost the fire road itself. A few remaining 50K and 50M runners were reduced to running around the parking lot at Great Falls to finish clicking off their miles. Every half hour or so the ranger would come out, slowly shake her head, mumble something, and go back into the dry park office.
Renegades was, at least to me, not really about the miles run, but the running of the miles, and the experience of doing it with such an exemplary group of people in some truly outrageous circumstances. It did nothing but add to my admiration for this like-minded, off kilter community within which I find such resonance. And, it was inspiring. Not inspiring like, ‘wow that’s great, I want to do that’. But inspiring like, ‘I’m so grateful that there are people like this, places like this, and times like this that I get to be part of’.
Not bad at all for 18 hours of preparation, one very annoyed tropical storm, and 35 people who simply couldn’t stand not doing what they’d set out to do.
A website devoted to the race is coming together at: http://renegade50.petershoemaker.com.
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For many years now I've left a trail of flecks across the Internet. Just begun novels; explorations of culture, music, writing, food, the future, mountains, long distances, shallow oceans, deep canyons, oddly-composed music, even more oddly-constructed poetry, impassioned editorials, strident analysis, and a slew of images, sounds, and scribbles. Most of this has passed into the aether, waiting only for some semi-sentient algorithm to pull it from obscurity twenty years hence. In the meantime, there is this lodestone, gathering what it can.