4 minute read
Timothy Olson
Trail therapy
For this ultrarunner, running from Mexico to Canada in the fastest time ever recorded was not just an extreme physical challenge – it was part of a healing process, too
Words TOM WARD
It was around 2.30am when Timothy Olson awoke to the sound of thunder. Poking his head from his bivvy bag, he saw a “breathtaking electrical sky” lit by purple sheet lightning. “It was so trippy, I was in awe,” the American ultrarunner recalls. Olson was about halfway through a 51-day, 4,268km quest to become the fastest person to complete the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT) from the Mexican to Canadian borders, and had stopped, 3,300m up, on the Muir Pass of the Sierra Mountains. A bad place to be in a storm. Pushing on, his gear soaked and with more than 1,600km still to go, a ghostlike figure appeared out of the darkness. “He said, ‘Timothy Olson, you’re doing awesome, keep it up,’” he remembers. “Then he was gone, almost like he was never there. But the feeling of love stuck.”
Love is important to Olson, whose then-pregnant wife and two young boys at home were at the forefront of his mind during the trip. More difficult for the 38-year-old from smalltown Wisconsin is cultivating self-love. The young Timothy Olson, he says, was a lost and anxious kid. After turning to drink and drugs to numb his pain, his life spiralled out of control, and he ended up in jail for possession; then a friend took his own life in prison. “It was a dark time for me,” Olson says, candidly. Beset with thoughts of suicide, he began the slow process of replacing his addictions with something positive. “I cleaned up through running, going for short runs and just throwing up and detoxing. I was so out of shape; it was horrible.”
Olson moved to Oregon, where his local trail literally fed into the PCT. With meditation as part of his recovery, he cultivated the mental fortitude to tackle 100-mile-plus (160km) races, taking several titles in the process. Then, in June this year, Olson decided to tackle the infamous trail, arriving at the Canadian border on July 22 after 51 days, 16 hours and 55 minutes, beating Belgian Karel Sabbe’s 2016 fastest known time (FKT) by almost 16 hours. Here’s what it taught him…
the red bulletin: What part does meditation play in what you do?
timothy olson: Running saved my life, and meditation taught me spirituality and how to connect to nature. Herman Hesse’s [1922 novel about self-discovery] Siddhartha is an important book to me. I read it before every 100-mile run. I’d see these runs as my vision quest. All the demons come up, so it’s about working on the things that don’t serve me. I learned to care for myself again. For an endurance event like this, I needed my mental game as good as my physical game. I wouldn’t think about 4,200km, I’d think, ‘How can I not step on a rattlesnake?’ I believed I could do it, but there was still the doubt – no one had done this. Meditating helped me find the space to resonate.
How has running helped you through trauma?
A couple of years ago, my wife had a miscarriage at 17 weeks. We felt lost and we struggled in our relationship. I was tempted to turn to alcohol, and I felt suicidal again. But then I felt this grace, like I needed to keep living. Running and mediation helped me tremendously, and I wanted to continue to share that. Unfortunately, we went through another miscarriage last year. As part of my FKT attempt, we raised money for Return to Zero: HOPE, a nonprofit that supports families enduring similar situations.
Did you prepare for how your body would react when you stopped?
Stopping felt like a car crash. Canada wasn’t open, due to COVID, so I had to go back 50km to where my crew was. My legs had been hurting the whole time, but that night it turned into a complete spasm that continued for four days. We almost went to a hospital to get me an IV. When we got home, I was on the couch because I couldn’t walk the 4m upstairs to bed. It felt like my legs were being stabbed. I should have been more prepared, but I couldn’t Google “What to do after you run 4,000km”.
How many pairs of shoes did you get through?
Around eight. Six of them, I think, were the Terrex Two Parley. It wasn’t the shoe I was planning to use, but with the sierra heat and all the water crossings, my feet were blistering and expanding, so I had to take care of them. That shoe was money. The cushion felt really good, and the upper expanded with my foot. I’d write the names of my kids and my wife on my shoes – I actually finished the PCT with the shoes that had my new baby girl’s name written on them.
What did achieving the FKT on the PCT teach you about life?
I wanted to show that you can hit rock bottom again and again but get back up and overcome it. The PCT is almost a metaphor for life. You go through the desert where it’s hot and dry and you think you might die. Then you get to the sierras where you’re on top of the world. Then the storms come. There are fires and downed trees in the final section. Things keep coming and it’s up to you to get up every morning for whatever life has to offer. timothyallenolson.com; rtzhope.org
ADIDAS
