Trail Runner #139 Dirt 2020

THE PEOPLE, THE STORIES, THE SOUL OF TRAIL RUNNING

ISSUE 139 / 2020

ONE DIRTY MAGAZINE

THE

DIRT ANNUAL NEPAL’S MIRA RAI CUTS A NOVEL PATH BUS RUN BUS ACROSS THE WEST

BY RICKEY GATES SLAYING THE DRAGON INSIDE THE TOR DES GÉANTS RISING FROM THE ASHES COMING BACK FROM THE BRINK GETTING TO KNOW GOBI THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS TRAIL DOG

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T R A I L RU N N E R M AG A Z I N E / A PR I L 2 0 2 0 / I S S U E 139

CONTENTS

COVER: Hillary Gerardi running from Lac de Moiry to the Pigne de la Lé, Switzerland.

PHOTO BY PATITUCCIPHOTO

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Editor’s Note

The Vagabond

10 Bus Run Bus

Seven days of running and adventuring across the West in a bus named Titus.

By Rickey Gates

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The freedom of sailing his own boat allows this trail runner to get off the beaten track along any coast with suitable anchorages.

A 71-year-old trail vet espouses the joys of “amphibious trail running.”

By Jim Eisenhart

A Particular Kind of Crazy

Sometimes, getting to an ultramarathon is an ultra in itself.

By Claire Walla

52 The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei

These spiritual athletes redefine the term “ultrarunner.”

By Dave Ganci

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60 Rising from the Ashes

Slaying the Dragon

Inside the mind-altering reality that is Italy’s Tor des Géants.

By Doug Mayer

36 The Mira Rai Initiative

From a remote village in the Nepalese Himalaya to the podium in the world’s toughest races, Rai travels a novel path in the trail-running world.

By Ian Corless

Just about every endurance runner has had those painful moments where they’re ready to toss in the towel, but, somehow, rally from the lowest of lows and battle to the finish.

By Howie Stern

68 Running Roots

Tom Riggenbach helps perpetuate NativeAmerican running traditons.

By Heather Kovich

84 Everesting

29029 takes place on a mere 1.3-mile mountain trail and challenges participants to climb the same vert as Everest. What makes this young event so special?

By Garett Graubins

94 Getting to Know Gobi

An ultra-tough trail-running dog just might be the world’s most famous canine.

By Doug Mayer

98 Parting Shot

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EDITOR’S NOTE

By Michael Benge

Band of Brothers and Sisters

TRAIL RUNNERS TAKE CARE OF THEIR OWN

TRAIL RUNNER DNF PODCAST Tune in to DNF—an unflinching examination of failure, picking yourself back up and running toward success.

Hear it at trailrunnermag.com/podcast Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, SoundCloud and Stitcher

Welcome to Trail Runner’s seventh edition of DIRT, our annual blowout issue, striving to capture The People, The Stories, The Soul of Running. This 100-page issue (included in your annual subscription) exclusively contains features, from some of our sport’s best writers and iconic figures. In our regular issues, we feature expert service content, e.g. articles about training, injury prevention and treatment, top destinations, nutrition and more. Seven years ago, we decided to celebrate our sport in a unique way, with an issue that breaks the mold in the running-magazine marketplace.

Poring over the article layouts as we prepare to go to press, I am struck by a common thread—in so many ways, trail runners and trail running are about supporting one another and giving back. Community and teamwork are the keys. In “Bus Run Bus,” Rickey Gates writes (in a biblical sort of way) about a band of 30 runners that packs into a big green tour bus, and shares tight quarters, road time, trail runs and communal meals throughout the West ... with a final cleansing in the Pacific Ocean.

In “Slaying the Dragon,” our contributing editor Doug Mayer, of Chamonix, France, captures the essence of one of the sport’s most brutal and life-changing races: the Tor des Géants in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.

“There is the bond that forms between participants,” writes Mayer. “Over the many climbs and descents, and amid the dramatic vistas, friendships are forged among the runners, who share a ‘Band of Brothers’-like struggle.”

Hailing from the mountains deep in Nepal, where she grew up with a simple subsistence lifestyle, Mira Rai took a convoluted trail to become one of the top Skyrunners in the world. But perhaps Rai’s most significant contribution is founding the Mira Rai Initiative, which focuses on developing a new generation of athletes in Nepal, giving them the opportunities she feels fortunate to have had.

Many of us know the dark depths we can experience during a tough race, but we can often rise back up with a little help from our friends, aid-station volunteers or even a friendly photographer. In “Rising from the Ashes,” the prolific trail-race photographer Howie Stern shares his favorite images of trail runners who experienced such lows and subsequent highs.

Living a frugal, simple lifestyle on the Diné Bikéyah, the Navajo Nation, in the desert Southwest for the past 30 years, Tom Riggenbach not only helps perpetuate trail running in the community, he founded NavajoYES, a thriving youth empowerment organization.

We hope this issue inspires you to get out on the trails and support your fellow runners. TR

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EDITORIAL Publisher / Duane Raleigh draleigh@bigstonepub.com Editor / Michael Benge mbenge@bigstonepub.com Assistant Editor / Zoë Rom zrom@bigstonepub.com Columns Editor / Alison Osius aosius@bigstonepub.com Contributing Editors / Yitka Winn, David Roche, Garett Graubins, Bryon Powell, Rickey Gates, Meghan Hicks, Doug Mayer, Jenn Shelton, Alex Kurt, Claire Walla, Brian Metzler, Kim Strom Editorial Intern / Brooke Warren CREATIVE Art Director / Randall Levensaler rlevensaler@bigstonepub.com Production Manager / Quent Williams qw@bigstonepub.com ADVERTISING SALES Associate Publisher / Ben Yardley byardley@bigstonepub.com Dir, Advertising & Strategic Partnerships / Cynthia Bruggeman cb@bigstonepub.com CIRCULATION Subscription Manager / Cindy Stretz cstretz@bigstonepub.com Retail Sales/Event Coordinator / Drew Whitley retail@bigstonepub.com Subscription Service bigstone@emailcustomerservice.com 800-282-6008 BIG STONE PUBLISHING 1101 Village Road, Suite UL-4B, Carbondale, CO 81623 Office: 970-704-1442 Fax: 970-963-4965 www.trailrunnermag.com

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B U S R U N B U S SEVEN DAYS OF A RUNNING AND ADVENTURING ACROSS THE WEST IN A BUS NAMED TITUS

BY RICKEY GATES

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The bus came by, and I got on … That’s how it all began.

—The Grateful Dead

MAX ROMEY AND MAJELL BAKHAUSEN (ALL)

In the beginning, we gathered at a hostel in the City and became acquainted with our fellow time travelers. Or what I like to call time travelers.

Up and over Telegraph Hill we ran, down to Pier 33, 35, etc. and along the Peninsula to Fisherman’s Wharf, Chrissy Field and out to the first pillar of the Golden Gate Bridge where a small pod of dolphins swam below in the incoming tide. Coastal trails carried us along the water’s edge past a proud naked man and on to the ruins of the once-famous Sutro Baths at the very edge of the City.

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From Ocean Beach we took METRO back downtown and walked back to the hostel in the middle of the City.

In the evening of the first day we reunited at the hostel in the City and walked our luggage and ourselves down to the corner of Washington and Montgomery where the captains of our time machine, Matty and Kevin, waited for us. The time machine was a standard-size, green coach bus converted into a lounge car on wheels.

And the night turned into motion and the motion turned into sleep and the sleep turned into light.

On the morning of the second day we awoke amongst the granite walls of Yosemite and knew that it was good.

The sun shone upon the cliffs, the 12

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water flowed abundantly and the many creatures, both winged and beast, roamed about. The runners donned their packs and set to the trail.

On the evening of the second day, the time machine gathered first the runners in the Valley and then in the High Meadows and they ate of the rations and the light turned to darkness and they again prepared for time travel.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Ascending through Yosemite’s infamous granite; Majell Backhausen basking in the desert warmth; desert incense collected to help scent the bus; Max Romey always finds time for a quick watercolor; Titus takes a break; gathering beyond the towers of Zion.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Garrett Nasrallah and fellow time travelers make their way through the remains of a highcountry Yosemite fire; Christian Kauffman makes his way to the bus stop high above Yosemite Valley.

On the morning of the third day, the runners awakened in the desert, en route to Zion. In the blink of an eye, the granite had morphed into sandstone, the bristlecone into cactus and eagles into vultures. The mountain chill gave way to desert heat and the darkness into light. They moved along the rim; the red towers stood proud just beyond.

On the evening of the third day we did not time travel but rested instead, at the base of the red towers.

On the fourth day we rested and traveled and ran and rested whence we came upon the rim of the Grand Canyon. A cease and desist issued by the National Park three weeks prior to our gathering at the hostel in the middle of the City prohibited us from “conducting running activities above or below the rim of the Grand Canyon.”

On the fourth day, as the light turned into darkness, clouds too came forth to separate the firmament of Heaven from the face of the Earth and water was brought forth revealing the many shortcomings of our camping gear. But then the rain stopped and the clouds moved on and there were stars also.

On the fifth day, as the darkness turned to light, the runners may or may not have violated my cease and desist by going for a run above or below the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was understood that I would never know.

And we loaded into the bus and the bus carried on to the City of Sins and for five consecutive hours the runners ran and the runners drank and the runners imbibed in all that is to remain in the City. At midnight we slithered out of the City and into the darkness that remained dark for several more hours.

On the sixth day we woke and ran and climbed to the top of a mountain high up above the desert floor, so high in fact that not even trees could manage the thin air. An airplane crash, a burned up hillside, fields of flowers and an American flag guided our way to the summit where the hearty carried on the loop and the rest returned along the route we knew.

On the evening of the sixth day the runners climbed into T HE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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On the fourth day, as the light turned into darkness, clouds too came forth to separate the firmament of Heaven from the face of the earth and water was brought forth revealing the many shortcomings of our camping gear.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Exchanging sweat and dust for salt and ocean; running through the morning light pouring into Yosemite Valley; pausing for a moment for a photo op with the indomitable Half Dome; making do with Hostess muffins and emergency candles to bring in a new year for Evgeni Peryshkin.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: The first stop becomes the last stop in San Francisco; a runner pauses to look out over the desert and the towers of Zion beyond; Titus rolls in the desert; Rickey Gates cools off as the other runners return to Titus.

Titus for the journey into darkness beyond the desert and back into the light. At the southern end of the Central Valley, a resupply of sustenance was found at In & Out Burger.

The burgers turned into night and the night returned to motion and again, in the blink of an eye, the runners awoke amid a different view, different air, different temperature, different people. Along the Big Sur coast, the runners joined stride once more. They kick up dust and dirt. The ocean breeze binds it to your skin, your face hurts from smiling, your belly from laughing, your legs, your feet, your feet ‌ how they feel tired but free.

As the midday sun began to descend, the runners entered into the ocean to shed the heat, the layer of dust and perhaps a little bit of animal that is this moment and nothing more. Within a few short hours they will again be amongst the towers of the City.

But that is then. And this is now. TR THE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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EXPLORE

everyman’s exposed Heidi Waddoups enjoys ridgeline views at the Skyline Mountain 55K, near Liberty, Utah.

PHOTO BY JASON K. CHILD

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Slaying the Dragon INSIDE THE MIND-ALTERING REALITY THAT IS ITALY’S TOR DES GÉANTS

High above treeline, a Tor des Géants runner follows the yellow Tor flags before Col du Malatrà.

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STEFANO JEANTET

BY DOUG MAYER

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Moments before the start of the Tor, clouds obscuring Mont Blanc presage the arrival of snow during the first climb. RIGHT: Tackling the final climb of the Tor, to Col du Malatrà.

“When the runners leave Courmayeur, a dragon also leaves town.

The runners go counter-clockwise. The dragon? He goes clockwise.”

Ivan Parasacco, 58, looks up from behind his large, wooden desk on the third floor of the mayor’s office in Courmayeur, Italy. He stops for emphasis. “Are you with me?” he says. I nod in assent because, well, like so many other runners during Italy’s 356-kilometer Tor des Géants, I too have fought the dragon.

Tor des Géants stats are hard to comprehend. Across its 356 kilometers, there’s 89,862 feet of climbing and descending.

Each year, about half of the runners drop out. Those who finish usually take between four and six days, getting perhaps two to four hours of sleep a night. A typical winning time is between 75 and 80 hours. The women are close behind, with top results ranging from just under 80 to over 91 hours. 2,535 runners applied for the 900 slots in this year’s race, and 72 countries were represented at the start line. Thanks to generally good weather during this year’s Tor, 60 percent finished.

To support it all, an army of 3,000 volunteers are scattered among and between 43 aid stations and seven larger, strategically 20

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I am in the starting corral, with 956 other runners, when one nagging thought rises above the pre-Tor static in my brain. I have no idea if I am ready. How do you prepare for something, when you can’t fully grasp the enormity of the task ahead? I flash to a line one of my brothers told me, when I tried to explain the Tor. “You’ve been training for this your whole life,” he said. I grab ahold of that thought. I don’t know it then, but it will power me through the long nights ahead.

The countdown, heard throughout the old village, ticks down— tre! due! uno!—and we are off, running through Courmayeur’s Via Roma, a narrow, cobblestoned pedestrian-only road in the heart of this 800-year old town. The next time I am here, I think, I will have stories to tell.

STEFANO JEANTET (ALL)

“It starts with the hallucinations. A rock becomes a rabbit, then the faces appear.” Ivan pauses, sorting through a decade of memories as the public persona of the Tor, to find just the right example. “One year, it was not very cold, but a runner decided he was freezing to death. He called the helicopter. He was eight kilometers from the finish.”

Ivan speaks near-perfect English, thanks to two years spent teaching skiing in Crested Butte, Colorado, in the 1980s. Today, when he’s not the jovial master of ceremonies at the Tor finish line, he works as a Tourism and Sport Councilor for Italy’s northern Aosta valley and owns a sporting shop in nearby Dolonne. Only the occasional quirky syntax betrays his northern Italian upbringing.

“Another runner, he was completely hallucinated. He tried to jump off a bridge into the river, all the time saying Benvenuto.”

(Benvenuto is the omnipresent Italian welcome greeting, like “hi” or “welcome.”)

positioned “life bases” that offer hot food, cots for sleeping, showers, medical support and even massages. The Tor passes through 34 municipalities, each of which takes responsibility for its slice of the Tor, including organizing volunteers and managing aid stations. A rectangle roughly 40 miles east to west and 30 miles north to south, the Aosta valley region isn’t enormous, but because of the vertiginous topography, the communes are relatively isolated.

The Tor is so big, so long, so hard that in many ways it transcends the very notion of a trail race. Tor participants become wildly loyal to the event and form a unique bond forged through coping with great challenges. Many of them feel fundamentally changed afterwards. Organizers like Parasacco talk of dragons, and the very reality of participants goes so full-on Alice in Wonderland that rocks become rabbits and longtime ultrarunners declare that they have lost their minds.

How can one trail race have such profound impacts?

One place to begin to get answers is the Tor’s genesis moment, at a small gathering of trail runners a dozen years ago.

Reexamining Limits In September 2009, four trail runners set off from Courmayeur, two men and two women. They were setting out to test an audacious concept: could they race a 200-mile loop through some of the highest peaks in Europe, without blowing up? Or, was the route simply beyond the capabilities of most, if not all, trail runners? And if they were successful, what would happen to their bodies?

The idea was the brainchild of Allesandra Nicoletti, then president of a small, local trail-running club called the Courmayeur Trailers. Sitting around the table at a club meeting in 2007, Nicoletti’s eyes traced a gigantic loop that wended its way along two of Europe’s most famous long-distance trails, the Alta Via 1 and 2. In doing so, it passed over 25 mountain passes. The idea was bold—perhaps even a pipe dream.

“We understood it might be possible,” said Nicoletti, 55.

With sometimes errant, graying, curly hair, she f lashes between a stern seriousness one moment, then suddenly beams and laughs out loud the next. “But we also knew it just might not work.”

For the ensuing two years, club members studied the route, poring over maps, measuring distances between huts, even using a computer program to estimate the speed of a trail runner on the course.

In the end, there was just one way to know for sure.

The weather didn’t cooperate for their trial run. The group experienced near-constant rain, with snow at higher elevations.

Nicoletti supported the group with a camper van, while club partner Ermanno Pollet drove a truck, enabling them to reach

ACROSS ITS 356 KILOMETERS, THERE’S 89,862 FEET OF CLIMBING AND DESCENDING. EACH YEAR, ABOUT HALF OF THE RUNNERS DROP OUT. THOSE WHO FINISH USUALLY TAKE BETWEEN FOUR AND SIX DAYS. more remote outposts. 150 hours later, the group had looped its way back to Courmayeur. They had their answer.

The race was greenlighted, and a new company, VDA Trailers (Aosta Valley Trail Runners in English), was formed to manage it. But they needed a name for the event. What could possible capture the spirit of a multi-day loop through the highest peaks of northern Italy?

“The route passes by the giant mountains of the region,” explains Nicoletti. “Mont Blanc, The Gran Paradiso, Monte Rosa and the Cervino.” (The latter peak is better-known by its Swiss name, the Matterhorn.) That’s the first reason for the chosen name.

The second is the participants themselves, whom residents refer to as “the giants.” Throughout the event, the giants receive a hero’s welcome as they move through the towns on their way to Courmayeur. Finally, there is the path itself. The familiar name for the two high routes that comprise the Tor are the Alta Via Gigante, the high giant path, and Alta Via Selvaggia, the high wild path. It was the former that was the original inspiration. VDA Trailers had their name.

A year to the week after that test edition, on September 12, 2010, 300 runners stood on a starting line in Courmayeur, about to follow the route pioneered by Nicoletti and the four runners.

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A runner arrives at Col Brison, nearly 280 kilometers into the Tor.

“Watch the traverse!” my partner Dave’s voice rings clear through the quiet darkness. We are three hundred feet below Col Loson, and it’s sketchy. The snow has been compacted to ice by the runners who have come before. I have erred by not pulling the Microspikes from my big yellow Tor bag when I had the chance, 30 kilometers behind me.

I toss my head right, and my headlamp illuminates a steeply 22

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pitched boulderfield, dropping away to infinity. A slip means a helicopter ride, maybe worse. I fall back to routines from climbing. Weight over my feet, poles firmly planted. One after another, I tick off an airy sequence of moves. Then, I spot a yellow light flashing above me. It’s the top of the col and two guides, bundled in puffy jackets, are making sure everyone is arriving in one piece. In the space of a few feet, the terrain shifts, and it’s time to run downhill.

A Completely Different Mindset “The Tor is to Hardrock as Hardrock is to Leadville.” Roch Horton, 62, for three decades a central figure in ultrarunning in the United States, is casting about, trying to capture just how hard the Tor is. The translation of Horton’s short-hand analogy? Leadville, Colorado’s famed 100-miler is not as hard as the Hardrock 100-miler, just 120 miles away, as the crow flies, in Silverton. Hardrock, after all, has an additional 22,000 feet of climbing compared with Leadville. And the Tor? It’s a huge step up from Hardrock, with yet another 56,000 feet of vert and an additional 105 miles—in essence, the equivalent of running Hardrock twice, back to back, in a single go.

“It’s next level,” says Horton. He should know. A past sales manager at Black Diamond Equipment, he is also the manager of 13,000-foot high Kroger’s Canteen, a legendary aid station that’s part of Hardrock. The Tor marked the 50 th race of at least 100 miles for the Salt Lake City, Utah, resident.

There are several 200-mile trail races in the United States.

But even two of the most notable, Tahoe 200 and Bigfoot 200, still only have half the climbing of the Tor, plus a 100-hour time limit, compared to the Tor’s 150-hour allotment. (Notably, the

GIACOMO BUZIO

Stevie Haston, 62, one of the UK’s notable alpinists, was lined up at the start. This new race seemed incomprehensibly extreme to him.

“Even top athletes were apprehensive,” he says. “Nobody thought it was possible. You’re climbing over 3,000-meter high passes. Anything could have happened. It was in the hands of the Gods. Everyone was willing to give it a try, but we also knew we were mortal.”

Parasacco was there. “Everyone thought it was crazy, that it was impossible, that people could never run that far,” he says. “The runners, their faces had a look that asked, ‘Why the Hell am I doing this?’ The idea was,” Parasacco says, his face screwing up, “a little … dodgy.”

In the end, it worked. Haston finished, 82 out of 179 who made it back to Courmayeur. “In places, it was rougher than the Devil’s ass,” he recalls. Haston has climbed tough rock and ice routes around the world. Still, he says, “The Tor was one of the biggest events of my life.”

As 2010 came to a close, the Tor des Géants had pushed trail running and trail races to the edge of its known universe. And though they perhaps didn’t quite comprehend it yet, Nicoletti and the Valle d’Aosta Trailers had created something unlike any other race in the world.

HARDROCK, AFTER ALL, HAS AN ADDITIONAL 22,000 FEET OF CLIMBING COMPARED WITH LEADVILLE. AND THE TOR? IT’S A HUGE STEP UP FROM HARDROCK, WITH YET ANOTHER 56,000 FEET OF VERT AND AN ADDITIONAL 105 MILES—IN ESSENCE, THE EQUIVALENT OF RUNNING HARDROCK TWICE, BACK TO BACK, IN A SINGLE GO.

STEFANO JEANTET, PIERRE LUCIANA

Gathering for the obligatory photo at Col Malatrà; Passo Alto.

U.S. race calendar in 2020 will include California Untamed, a new 330-mile race that, even at that distance, falls shy of Tor’s vert by about 44,000 feet.)

You need a completely different mindset,” says Horton.

“Forty-eight hours is a great goal for Hardrock. But with the Tor, you’re dealing with four to six days. There has to be a reckoning.”

If there is anything that rivals the Tor’s stats, it might be PTL, an event organized by the UTMB race organization, just on the other side of Mont Blanc from Courmayeur, in Chamonix, France. Three-hundred kilometers long and with comparable vertical to the Tor, the PTL is run in teams of three. The course, which varies each year, includes highly technical ridges, and requires strong route-finding skills.

Importantly, the UTMB organization downplays any race aspect, preferring to talk about PTL as a tough, shared mountain experience.

In the end, looking for Tor comps might be fruitless. “Some things in life just can’t be compared,” says Horton. “They are unique. They stand alone, and that’s what we yearn for. The real comparison is between you and the event.” Horton pauses, reflecting, “By taking part, we give back to them just as they give to us.”

Dave and I have been climbing hard out of the Aosta valley town of Donnas, nearing the halfway point of the Tor. Below, the lights of the Aosta valley are like an electric snake, wending its way from Milan and Turin, north to Italy’s border at Mont Blanc. Up here, there are ancient medieval villages. La Sass, population 152, is next, and before long we hear music.

It is nearing midnight as we run along a cobblestone street hardly wide enough for a car. Pulling into the small aid station, we are welcomed effusively, with residents ringing cow bells for us. The welcome catches me off guard and I feel momentarily bewildered. Is the celebration really for us? Dave and I inhale cake and cookies, reload our packs and push on. There’s plenty of climbing ahead, some of it above treeline, and it’s starting to get cold.

A Bond Amid and Among the Giants If that first edition that Haston took part in was brutally tough, it also had endearing qualities that carry through to this day.

First, there is the Aosta valley region itself, through which the Tor loops. “It’s devastatingly beautiful,” says Haston. Much of the first half of the route goes through the heart of Italy’s first national park, the 271-square mile Gran Paradiso. Groups of ibex and chamois cluster themselves amid the rocky, steep alpine terrain. Throughout the region, herders tend to flocks of sheep and goats, much as they have for centuries. After THE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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A runner welcomes the sunrise at Col Chaleby.

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STEFANO JEANTET

THE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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Virtually all Tor participants employ poles to aid on the unending vertical terrain.

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Into that mix of mountain majesty and deep fellowship, the Tor throws a challenge so extreme, that it sends many runners into a mental vortex that becomes hard for others to fathom.

According to Parasacco, “There is no one who comes back to Courmayeur the same.” Roch Horton was one who plumbed those depths. “Over the years,” he explains, searching for context, “I’ve run myself into some weird, dark places. I’ve had demons on my back.” Horton paused. “But this time,” he said, “I completely lost my mind.”

It’s the middle of our third night. I’m really tired. It’s getting cold as we climb toward the alpine zone. It’s time I let my partner know.

“Dave?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m starting to hallucinate.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The simple exchange is comforting, even as things are getting weird. Boulders turn into cozy cabins. There are people in the woods, I think. A festive villa, glowing with lights, is an abandoned shell when I draw close. I’ve had 2 hours and 15 minutes of sleep so far, and the deficit is taking a toll.

Suffering Through The Magical Mystery Tor “In a marathon you might hit the wall once, in the Tor, you’ll hit it 20 times.” Stephanie Case should know. The Canadian ultrarunner, now living in Chamonix, France, has run and finished the Tor four times, landing in sixth place, twice in fourth place, and once in second place. It is a late summer

STEFANO JEANTET

crossing the deep cleft of the Aosta valley, those who haven’t dropped from the race then yo-yo their way in and out of quiet valleys, the 14,690-foot high Matterhorn on the Swiss-Italian border always on their right.

Then, there are the people. The Aosta region is one of high peaks, and steep, quiet valleys. There is a deep, shared pride here, but the topography makes for an isolated existence. The Tor is perhaps the only event that pulls the villages together.

As such, it holds a special place in the hearts of residents.

“Each commune organizes itself,” explains Nicoletti. “We are an event with 34 organizers, each having to find volunteers, manage aid stations and oversee their portion of the race.”

“Being greeted by villagers with cowbells in the middle of the night at the top of high mountain passes is something I’ll never forget,” said Haston, of that first edition. That mountain hospitality is a recurring theme for Tor participants to this day. Shopkeepers and customers will stop mid-transaction so they can step onto the sidewalk to applaud a passing giant. In the village of Cogne, a streetside cafe serves the giants free cappuccinos, 24/7.

Finally, there is the bond that forms between participants. Over the many climbs and descents, and amid the dramatic vistas, friendships are forged among the runners, who share a “Band of Brothers”-like struggle. “You might be with a Chinese or a Russian runner for 10 or more hours,” says John Anderson, a three-time Tor participant from Tahoe, California. An emergency-room doctor, Anderson approaches the tour with an encyclopedic depth of knowledge balanced by an appreciation for the spiritual aspects of the experience. “You have limited communications, yet you have this really good sense of connection.”

THERE IS THE BOND THAT FORMS BETWEEN PARTICIPANTS. OVER THE MANY CLIMBS AND DESCENTS, AND AMID THE DRAMATIC VISTAS, FRIENDSHIPS ARE FORGED AMONG THE RUNNERS, WHO SHARE A “BAND OF BROTHERS”-LIKE STRUGGLE.

Tor support is renowned, with over 3,000 volunteers spread across 34 villages; cables assist in safe passage on the way to Col de la Crosatie.

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each other, his grandmother having passed away nine years before the birth of his daughter. As Anderson ran to catch them, the scene always floated 10 yards down the trail. “Here was this woman who helped raise me and my daughter she had never met,” says Anderson. “I really wanted to hear the conversation.”

And then, every so often, things go completely off the rails.

It is early morning and I am shuffling through the streets of Champoluc, Italy, 222 kilometers into the Tor. Tears are rolling down my face and I don’t know why.

Maybe it was the hard night before. Climbing a high alpine col, I looked at a cow in a pasture and saw a thousand-pound rabbit.

Maybe it was the look on the woman’s face. I had followed her for a half hour, listening to her out-loud Italian rantings to nobody in particular. When she turned around, I recoiled. Her sunken eyes were ringed with jet-black circles that frightened me.

Was she a zombie, or a junked-up heroin addict in her last hours?

Maybe it was the story I had just heard from a fellow runner who awoke during the night on a high plateau. Lost and confused, she wandered in circles.

Or maybe the answer is a much simpler one that I don’t want to admit to myself. Maybe the Tor is just too fucking hard for me.

I avoid making eye contact with the shopkeepers opening up for the day. I feel embarrassed and ashamed and confused. But I am still moving forward.

ROBERTO ROUX; STEFANO JEANTET

afternoon, as we sit at an outdoor table at Le Dahu Bistro in Courmayeur, mere feet away from the Via Roma that Tor participants will run down in their last moments of the race.

One observation after another about her Tor experiences pour forth from the exuberant Case.

She seems an unlikely person willing to probe the depths of one’s ability to suffer. A lively, hyperenergetic spirit who’s frequently laugh-out-loud funny, Case is a human-rights lawyer and has spent spend much of the last few years in Afghanistan, where she works for the United Nations. As determined in her private life as her sports, she also founded the international non-profit Free to Run, which empowers girls in war-torn regions to get involved in sports. Amid her cohort of hard-driving elite ultrarunners, she has a reputation—nobody pushes themselves harder. In one Tor, Case neared kidney failure. “My kidneys are a weak point,” she explains. There is a hint of casualness in her voice.

“You need to decide ahead of the race what your red lines are,” she says. “One year, I was really struggling. My crew asked me, ‘What would it take for you to drop out?’ I said, ‘Bones protruding from my body!’ You have to ask yourself, ‘Do you think I’m going to do permanent damage to my body if I keep going?’ Usually, there is no reason not to get back up and go.”

Most Tor participants experience nighttime hallucinations, too, the result of extreme fatigue. Case has experienced a particular dramatic version of this phenomenon. “It was my last night, and I wasn’t very steady. But, for a couple of hours, my friend Michael was with me, keeping me company.” Then, Case woke up in a ditch. Michael was gone. “I was pissed,” she says, assuming her friend had abandoned her. “Then I realized he had never been there.”

Some hallucinations probe deeper, engaging with a runner’s psyche. John Anderson once saw his deceased grandmother playing cards at a table with his daughter. The two never knew

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Moments before a plummeting descent in the final kilometers to the finish line in Courmayeur.

“I got to Champoluc and I completely lost it,” says Horton.

It was 1 a.m. in the morning and the town’s streetlights were casting shadows in the town’s park. Horton stopped in front of a series of carved wooden statues of forest creatures that struck him as impossibly eerie. He tried to remember: Where was he?

What was he doing? And, even, who was he?

Horton was found by a passerby in a nearby parking lot. He had been walking in circles. “I tried to say, “’Excuse me,’ but I couldn’t put the words together. My brain,” said Horton, “Was completely gone.” A few hours later, after some coffee at a hut high above the village, Horton remembered the answer to at least one of those three questions. “Oh, yeah, I’m at the Tor des Géants!”

And that runner Parasacco mentioned, who threatened to jump off the bridge? The year was 2016, and John Anderson was there, running right alongside him. It was a stormy year for the Tor, with runners battling both rain and snow. Fifty kilometers from the finish, in the middle of the night, Anderson came across a runner who was staggering and moving slowly.

Concerned for the runner, Anderson stuck with him. “We reached the next aid station, and he tells me, in a thick eastern European accent, ‘No sleep in three days! Just Red Bull!’”

Things started to unravel at the next hut, Frassati. High above treeline, heavy snow was falling. Anderson ducked inside to refuel with espresso and pie. “I said, ‘Aren’t you’re going to come in?’ He just stood in the doorway saying, “Oh, no, no, I’m good! I have Red Bull!”

A mile on, just below Col Malatra, things got weirder still. The Malatra “window” which Anderson and his over-energized friend had nearly reached, is a narrow passage through a high col barely wide enough for a runner. It comes after 332 kilometers. Runners 30

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“THE LOOK THEY HAVE IN THEIR EYES,” SHE SAYS OF THE TOR FINISHERS IN THEIR LAST MOMENTS OF RUNNING, “YOU CAN’T GET THAT LOOK FROM ANYTHING ELSE. IT’S BEAUTIFUL. IT’S SO RAW. I JUST LOVE WHAT THIS RACE DOES TO PEOPLE.” reach Malatra and are confronted with the southern flanks of Mont Blanc. They are, for all intents and purposes, very nearly done with the Tor. Just an easy 16 kilometers remain.

“It’s pouring rain and snowing. He sat down on a rock and took off his shoes and sock, and said, ‘I change my socks here!’”

Worried about his Red Bull-swilling friend, who at this point was uttering nonsense, Anderson—himself more than a bit addled—accompanied him down the other side of the col to a small aid station, leaving him in the safety of several mountain guides staffing the outpost. “I told them, ‘He seems a little off.’”

Indeed. A day or two later, a friend asked Anderson, “Hey, did you hear about that guy?” Anderson’s Red Bull posterchild was found, naked and incoherent, threatening to jump off a bridge into the river below. He had blown a circuit. A helicopter evacuation later, his Tor was over. “He could have slept for two days, and still finished within the 150-hour time limit,” says Anderson, somewhat wistfully. “But he was too far gone.”

“I want to bring this in on my own.” Will, my cheerful partner for the last day or two, is understanding. On the Tor, no one judges you. I understand that soon it will be time to reengage

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CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: 2019 women’s Tor winner Silvia Trigueros Garrote near Rifugio Deffeyes; runners passing over Pont Saint Martin just after the life base in the Aosta Valley town of Donnas; elation at the finish in Courmayeur.

A Giant Celebration Stephanie Case loves to watch Tor finishers come into town.

“It brings me to tears,” she says. “I’ll just be sobbing. The look they have in their eyes,” she says of the Tor finishers in their last moments of running, “You can’t get that look from anything else.

It’s beautiful. It’s so raw. I just love what this race does to people.”

Balancing that beauty is a whole lot of pain. “The second year I did the Tor,” says Case, “I walked up to Bertone Refuge to see the last people on the course. I saw one person walking backwards, with a family member holding the other end of a trail running pole, helping them descend. I saw runners bent over sideways.

There were people,” she says, “Who smelled like they were rotting from the inside out. But there was so much pride.”

Sunday, a week after the start, the Tor class of 2019 gathers for its graduation in the Dolonne Sports Center, across the glacierfed Fiume Dora Baltea river from Courmayeur. One by one, last finisher first, each giant is called to run, walk or hobble down an aisle cordoned-off in the middle of the cavernous sports center auditorium, then cross the stage and receive an ovation from a packed hall of onlookers. All 565 head backstage, where they 32

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change into their new finisher shirts. Dressed in the bright yellow tops, they return to the stage, hold hands, and sing the Italian song, “I soliti.” A sampling of the lyrics roughly translate as: We are those of great passions We have dangerous habits And we are alive almost by a miracle We are free, free, free to fly We have dangerous habits and we have returned safe and sound “It’s a group hug of 500 runners, all hungry and tired and sunburned,” observes Horton. “Whoever heard of that? I have to admit I shed a tear. I’ve never felt that before in anything I’ve ever done.”

Each participant has their own story, each story is different and each is valid. The 2019 Tor finisher Bob Crowley, of Fair Oaks, California, tapped into what might be the one overarching commonality: “In the end, all I can really tell you is this—I’m not the same person I was before the Tor.” Doug Mayer lives in Chamonix, France, where he runs the tour company Run the Alps. Without his friends Simon and Jen, he would still be wandering incoherently around the Italian Alps.

On September 13th, 2020, he will again find himself at the start of the Tor des Géants.

PIERRE LUCIANA, STEFANO JEANTET, GIACOMO BUZIO

with the world. Suddenly, I feel badly addicted. I want the Tor to go on forever.

Barring that, I decide to live these last moments as deeply as I can. I am so far inside myself, the outside world barely registers.

I like this space. Somehow, I find big energy and decide to run hard. Courmayeur is minutes away.

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DIRT ANNUAL / 2020

The Mira Rai Initiative

From a remote village in the Nepalese Himalaya to the podium in the world’s toughest races, Rai travels a novel path in the trail-running world.

STORY AND PHOTOS

BY IAN CORLESS As I walked through the doorway, the bright and intense sunshine gave way to darkness. It took a while for my eyes to adjust. A small window on the left allowed some light to penetrate the darkness and behind a pillar, I could see the outline of a woman, a glowing fire and simmering pan to her right.

Mira Rai’s mother looked up and her smile broke the darkness. Huge white teeth with a gap in the middle provided the warmest welcome. She gestured to the floor and we sat.

“Namaste” was universally offered with hands pushed together, palm against palm as though praying. Three metal plates were laid out with large portions of sticky rice, vegetables and small pieces of chicken. Each person received a small bowl of dahl, and we enjoyed our first dahl baht.

We were deep in Nepal, isolated in the green verdant lands of Bhojpur, the home of Mira Rai. Mira Rai at the 2015 Dolomites Skyrace, Italy.

T HE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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I first met Mira, now 30, in 2015 as she rose through the racing ranks in Europe. Her ensuing story of success on the trails and giving back to her community is the stuff of dreams. From our first encounter, I knew she was special. She was strong, dedicated and had a strength of character based on survival, perfect for long-distance running. She spoke no English, had a huge infectious smile and laughed when we couldn’t communicate, simply saying, “Namaste.”

At 14, Mira had become a child soldier in Nepal’s civil war.

In her three years with the army, she did not see combat, but practiced karate and ran in battalion races as part of her training. Afterward, she returned home, but there were no opportunities for a career. She travelled to Kathmandu and was taken in by the karate coach she had met through the Maoists.

A chance encounter in 2014 saw Mira toe the line in a 50-kilometer Himalayan Outdoor Festival race, hosted by a new company Trail Running Nepal. In her words, she thought she was just going for a run with friends. Mira crossed the line first woman, and, after meeting Richard Bull, one of the founders of Trail Running Nepal, a doorway opened for her.

Bull saw the raw talent and raised funds for her to race. In no time, Mira was on her way to Italy. She was a quick sensation, winning the Sellaronda Trail Race amongst others, but the breakthrough came with victory at the prestigious Mont-Blanc 80K race in 2015. What followed seemed like a Disney Film.

Mira became a top-ranked Skyrunning champion, and all eyes were on her.

Mira ticked off the iconic and legendary Skyrunning races (Dolomites SkyRace, Italy, the Hamperokken SkyRace, Norway, and Trofeo Kima, Italy) and garnered world acclaim, not only as a runner but as a human. It was clear from very early on that 38

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Rai running in the Tromsø SkyRace, which was created

by Kilian Jornet and Emelie Forsberg; and with Forsberg at the finish.

Mira was going to pave a new path in the sport of mountain running.

“Mira obviously loves running and being out in the mountains,” says fellow Skyrunning champ Hillary Gerardi.

“She knows her body and she knows, from her wealth of experience moving through tough terrain in both her prerace life and racing, when to conserve energy and when to push hard. She doesn’t hesitate to encourage or advise other runners, saying, ‘Slowly, slowly!’ when she thinks it wisest to take it easy.

“Sometimes it can seem like Mira is really in her own world,” continues Gerardi. “I feel like behind her friendly smiles and warmth she’s also got a pensive undercurrent. She clearly keeps home in her mind and her heart and wants the best for her small but growing community of Nepalese runners.”

Another top female competitor, the Swedish runner Emelie Forsberg, says, “Mira is one of a kind, and it has been a real pleasure to get to know her. From barely speaking a word of English, an unknown trail girl from Nepal, she has become a role model for all Nepali girls.”

Gerardi shares a story that she observed after the SkyRace in Yading, China. Apparently, a few runners had left behind used shoes in the hotel trash. Mira was shocked when she saw them, and without any self-consciousness, declared, “I know lots of people who could use these!” and fished them out of the trash to bring back to Nepal.

Her victories, personality and backstory provided a platform from which to speak and be heard. And the audience wanted more. Her story was not about running; running was just the end result. Her upbringing, her home, her family her day-today survival transcended the running world. Everyone was interested in the story of Mira Rai. “I would often trek over the mountains to get rice and bring it home,” Mira told me. “It’s a journey that can take days with much climbing and descending.”

I wanted to know more, too. I wanted to know the real Mira and meet the parents who had nurtured her.

In 2018, Mira had just competed in the Skyrunning World Championships in Scotland, and I asked her to travel to London with me so I could learn about Mira and the Mira Rai Initiative, a charity creating opportunities and scholarships for young women athletes in Nepal to train, learn English, broaden horizons, experience different lifestyles and share their culture and stories with others.

Then, later that year, I already had a trip planned to Nepal to work on the Everest Trail Race and extended my itinerary to include meeting Mira in Kathmandu and then travelling to her home of Bhojpur to spend time with her family.

“It’s a long bus ride and some hours walking,” Mira said. “It’s a long way and not always easy!”

“Will there be phone connection?”

“Sun come up. Sun go down. No phone,” Mira replied with her big, broad smile and then a giggle.

From experience, I was well aware that “some hours walking” could mean anything and I quickly contacted friends in Nepal,

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Racing Spain’s Ultra Pirineu where Rai excelled as a Skyrunner; at the Trofeo Kima SkyRace, Italy; and at the 2018 Skyrunning World Champships, Scotland.

mainly Pasang Sherpa of Annapurna Treks & Trails with the question, “What is the best way to get to Mira’s home?”

The response was simple, “Take a taxi to Kathmandu airport, f light to Tumlingtar, 4x4 jeep for approximately five hours and then some hours walking.”

A plan was put into place.

Any plan in Nepal must be taken as a rough framework, though, as timings are approximate and our journey soon conformed with a three-hour f light delay. No 4x4 had been arranged when we arrived in Tumlingtar, so Mira immediately went into action, brokered a deal and within an hour we were on the road. I say road … I mean this in the most vague way. It was a track of dusty sand, rutted troughs and countless potholes. Time passed slowly as did the pace of the vehicle. It soon became clear T HE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

39

that there was no way we would make it to Mira’s home that evening. Darkness came and finally we arrived at a village called Tiwari Bhanjyang in Eastern Nepal.

Tourists do not go there. We walked into a tea house, an impromptu construction made of metal sheets and nailed together wood. Outside, a row of shops sold everything from bottles of Coke to fiery-hot chips. Stalls displayed fresh chilis and fruit, and people were everywhere.

“We will eat here, then sleep,” Mira explained. “Tomorrow we leave early in a tuk-tuk for one hour and then we walk.”

It was evening and the weak orange glow from light bulbs provided an eerie ambiance. Vegetable fried rice was a welcome change from dal bhat. I asked for a fork knowing that Mira would eat with her hands, the traditional method. We were hungry and soon we shared a makeshift room above the tea shop. Mira climbed under blankets; I climbed in a sleeping bag.

Morning soon came and after breakfast we were sitting in a red tuk-tuk for phase three of our journey. Leaving on a road we soon turned down a dirt track that narrowed, and became rutted and increasingly muddy. People and luggage were being pulled down a trail that you would think twice about in a 4x4.

I laughed loudly as we were thrown left and right exclaiming, “This guy is nuts. No way we should be going down here in a tuk-tuk.”

Our driver laughed, embracing the challenge. Eventually the obvious happened and we ground to a halt, sinking in the muddy path. Our tuk-tuk journey was over, but first we had to help our driver lift the vehicle, turn it around and then wave him off up the trail.

Phase four was on foot and we walked down mountain 40

DIRT ANNUAL / 2020

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Tuk-tuks used for transport between villages; the view from Mira Rai’s home; local produce.

trails for t wo hours before f ina lly glimpsing the utopia of a small huddle of houses that made up Mira’s village of 10 people.

Mamma Rai welcomed us with a smile.

Father Rai was relaxed and quiet, and warmly welcomed us with, “Namaste.”

Home was a simple mud structure with a thatched roof, surrounded by cows, chickens, goats and fields full of color.

Mira and her family don’t have paid jobs. Their day starts and ends with the sun and the hours between are spent working the land, fetching water, taking animals to pasture, cutting grass and, occasionally, when needs require, walking to different regions to fetch large bags of rice or to a market to exchange goods. Running is not something the rural Nepali people do. The concept of running for fun is alien.

We decompressed with tea, soaking up the surroundings. It was quiet, so quiet. The only noise came from chickens squawking, a calf chewing grass and a neighbor’s barking puppy.

Mira had not been home for a full year but the emotions between the three family members were sedate.

“Let’s have lunch,” said Mira.

“Mira, it’s 10 a.m.?” I questioned.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Rai relaxed at her home, shoes off, big smiles and daily chores to do; a boy from Rai’s village; Rai’s mother in her home, where she cooks in a homemade clay oven. The bedroom is above the kitchen.

“Yes, lunch is at 10, then we take some rest before working the land, and taking the animals to pasture. Dinner will be around 6 p.m. and then we sleep.”

Inside the hut, the room was dark. A small window allowed in some daylight, and one corner glowed with a fire for cooking.

The walls and ceiling were blackened from smoke. A small ladder in the other corner lead to a room above.

“My parents sleep upstairs. We will sleep outside in the building on the right.”

Mira’s mother loaded three metal plates with dal bhat, and provided goblets of water to help wash the food down.

Mamma watched as we ate, waiting with pans in hand to resupply rice, vegetables or dahl.

“Will Mamma and Papa not join us Mira?” I asked.

“They will eat after us.”

The experience felt so raw and real, and I had to compose myself to keep it together. Papa walked in, sat on a wicker circle and mamma passed him a loaded plate. She then filled her plate and together they ate with their hands, mixing in homemade yogurt.

The meal was functional. It was about fueling for the day and providing a brief social occasion amid relentless work. I quickly realized that life in Bhojpur is simple and physical.

The sun was beating down, and we took shelter in the entranceway to the makeshift building that would be our sleeping quarters. The walls were adorned with certificates and photos of Mira. It was like a mini shrine.

A little boy from the village joined us, his eyes wide and dark, snot candles rolling down his face. A blue beanie kept his head warm and a flash of pink fabric around his neck kept out drafts. He was obviously curious, but a little unsure, finding interaction hard. Quite simply, a balloon goes a long way in Nepal and breaks the ice immediately. It was minutes before we were balloon fighting and rolling with laughter.

THE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

41

Mamma and Papa smiled but there was work to do. Mamma went to the fields to cut grass, and Papa took the animals to pasture. Mira decided to wash her clothes, using running water from a tap, adding some soap, scrubbing them against rocks and finally rinsing them in a metal bowl.

Life here was so different than in my Western world, and it made me realize how far Mira had come. Here, Mira kicked off her shoes, walked barefoot and immediately transitioned to home and mountain life.

Our bedroom had been pieced together from scavenged wood, fabric, plastic sheets and, well, anything that could be recycled. It had been expanded over time to accommodate three children. Now, it lay empty and dormant, always available for when they should return. Two small solar panels on the roof provided some light at night but, in comparison to our headlamps, it was like a fading candle.

Exploring, I noticed several interesting structures inside the main home. Five beehives had been created out of hollowedout tree trunks and placed strategically around the home.

A chicken coop was built in the external wall, and in the entranceway to the property there was space to work behind a fence with a large grinding circle built into the floor.

A transition started to take place at 4 p.m. as animals returned from the field, and Papa took a rare moment to relax before removing ears of dried corn from a rack for grinding later. Mamma disappeared in the house and repeated the ritual of preparing a meal for her family and guests.

Mira smiled at all times; there was never talk or discussion about going for a run. It seemed to be the last thing on her mind. She made more tea and told us of tomorrow’s plans.

“We will walk in the hills, visit some friend’s homes and go to my school. I have not been there for 15 years!”

Mira woke, and said, “Sunrise!” She was gone before I had the time to don shoes and follow her. Days start with the sun, at 6 a.m. Manual labor fills the first few hours. As we had learned the day before, lunch is taken at 10 a.m. and followed with a short rest before more manual labor.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Rai with her parents; her kind-hearted mother; Rai’s father keeps five beehives in the home that supply fresh honey.

Mira loves honey, and Papa decided to remove some of the sweet gold from a hive. It was a family affair and one that involved no equipment other than some smoking paper, a brush and a knife. Papa wore a hat and glasses, looked at me and, in Nepali, said, “In other places I would be in a complete white suit, a net over my face and I would be wearing large gloves.

Not here!”

The smile on his face showed how proud he was of his prowess with the bees. Behind him, Mamma grinned. For a moment, she was a spectator, her role would come once the honeycomb was removed.

After, a large metal bowl was filled with honeycomb, Mira and her mother went into action, occasionally dropping a chunk into their mouths. After sieving it through fabric, they transferred the sweet liquid into bottles for later use.

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MANY PATHS, ONE TRAIL.

“Let’s go!” Mira exclaimed and within minutes we were on singletrack heading down the mountain toward Mira’s old school. The path zigzagged, at times technical with steep slopes and a multitude of rocks.

“It’s about one hour away!”

It was all falling into place. Mira had always been running.

As a girl, she ran to fetch water and food and traversed trails to feed livestock. Her daily trip to school and back was more than a lot of runners might do in a week.

On the trail, the landscape opened up in layers of blue as the mountains in the distance overlapped each other. A river flowed through the valley, and before us were lush green fields and forests punctuated by random homes. Pointing in the distance, Mira explained, “When I was younger, there were no shops. My mum had to walk for two days to get salt and other basic things. She needed someone to go with her, so I went.”

Two women welcomed us on the trail, “We saw you coming down the mountain Mira. Come say hello.”

We were directed to a courtyard. Three girls were sitting on a makeshift bench. One held a baby. Their mother was sitting against a two-tone wall of turquoise and blue, contrasting with her dark skin, red head scarf and red top.

They chatted. Mira is a celebrity in Nepal and they were honored to welcome her to their home. The buzz around Mira is very real and her phone has non-stop vibrations, she is inundated with requests for interviews and face-to-face time from fans.

Her story of founding the Mira Rai Initiative, while injured in 2016, has travelled throughout Nepal and reached the most remote places. She has inspired young girls to seek a different future. She has mentored runners, planned races and training and in the process opened a gateway to sport for all.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Rai’s old school in Nepal; in another world—at the Scotland World Champs; inspiring youth at the school.

Sunmaya Budha is a prime example.

Mira has nurtured her running, and recently they travelled to Oman to race a 50-kilometer race in the Oman by UTMB series. Sunmaya won the race and Mira placed third, her first comeback race after knee surgery. Mira is open with her thought process. She wishes to share her connections with other women and teach what she has learned.

“I want to transfer the chance I got to my little sisters in Nepal,” she says. “I want to help them learn what I learned and reach where I am today. I want them to have as big a name as mine someday.”

It was clear that these women saw Mira as a link to another world. Talk was animated. Two neighbors joined the conversation and, before Mira could introduce herself, they welcomed her by name with a coming together of hands and a Namaste.

Mira’s school was made up of several large single-story buildings and a doublestory building for the staff offices. A makeshift wooden fence and stone wall created a perimeter. Although we had arrived unannounced, there was no awkwardness, and the staff welcomed us with open arms. The headmaster talked to Mira and then escorted us to the middle of the field and described each of the classrooms.

When we were left to our own devices, we visited the classes and talked to the pupils. Mira shone. She enjoys her notoriety and puts it to good use. She is

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comfortable in social situations and the infectious smile and personality would melt the most hardened heart.

The children laughed and played, enjoying chatter in English.

The older students were a little more reserved, the younger ones like wild-eyed kittens just ready to play. The clildren took selfies with Mira, and all too quickly our visit was over.

I stopped and looked back as we walked away. We had talked to approximately 50 children in the space of an hour, and I could already see the impact of the interaction. In Mira, they saw a path to fresh opportunity. Budha summed it up in an interview with Danielle Preiss of NPR, “Girls get married at 15 or 16 …” she said, of her village in Jumla, Nepal. “I don’t think like that. I want to go to other countries and run.”

As we made our way back to Casa Mira, we stopped at a small shop. Here, an elderly lady recognized Mira and they sat together. Her face was a story in itself, with lines telling a tale of hardship and survival. Her gold earrings and nose stud complemented a red top and yellow shawl. “You have come a long way, Mira. I remember you as a child.”

Mira’s phone rang again. (Despite our remote location, the phone network works for calls but not data.) The call from another mentee was a mix of Nepali and English, but the words personified Mira’s character, “You are doing good, sister. Keep working and train hard.”

When we arrived back at the house, Mamma was sieving grain. Papa was taking a rare pause in his day and talking to a neighbor. The sun was starting to leave the sky, and it would soon be time for dinner.

“Tonight I have invited the neighbors, and, after dinner, Ian will show a movie on his iPad.” I laughed at the thought process. Here we are in the middle of nowhere, and tonight we will huddle around an iPad and watch a movie.

But what movie? I suddenly was a little stressed. No sex, no foul language, erm … It is times like this I wish I had some 46

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Through the Mira Rai Initiative (miraraiinitiative.org), Rai has focused her efforts on developing a new generation of athletes in Nepal, giving them the opportunities she feels fortunate to have had.

ABOVE: Rai takes third at the 2018 Trofeo Kima SkyRace, Italy.

Disney movies! The best I could come up with was Batman—The Dark Night.

At 7 p.m., we all huddled outside and watched a movie that Mira’s family and neighbors could not comprehend. It was bliss. They laughed at all the wrong times. A man dressed as a bat, the Joker with his painted face, fast cars, violence and so much noise. I do wonder what passed through their minds.

Mamma left early but the rest stayed and finally as the credits rolled, we all dispersed to our beds. It was 9:30.

I t w a s t im e t o d e p a r t b a c k t o Kathmandu. Mira stayed to spend more time with family. After extensive knee surgery in 2018, she was taking rehab seriously. (It wasn’t untill late November that Mira travelled to the Oman by UTMB race.)

I packed, had lunch with Mamma and Papa and departed on foot for a walk to the nearest village. From here I took a tuk-tuk back to Tiwari Bhanjyang and then retraced our journey back to Kathmandu.

Experiences can of ten transcend and become something so much more than a story. The impact of witnessing a remote and simple life with Mira and her family will stick with me.

The only thing I know for sure, at this moment, is that I cannot wait to go back and live breif ly in that peaceful seclusion once again.

Ian Corless is a photographer, writer, reviewer and blogger at iancorless.com.

DURO | DYNA

Each glorious long run in the mountains is the result of countless hours of training; early mornings, late nights, tired legs and no excuses. The Duro/Dyna makes ever y race or run easier with bounce-free s tabilit y and options that accommodate ever y thing from a f t e r- w o r k j a u n t s t o l o n g d a y s i n the mountains. So keep training.

T h a t ’s h o w t h e G o o d D a y s a r e M a d e .

A Particular Kind of Crazy SOMETIMES, GETTING TO AN ULTRAMARATHON IS AN ULTRA IN ITSELF.

ISTOCKPHOTO

By Claire Walla

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I woke up in a bathroom, shivering, covered in dry sweat, next to a woman I’d only met the day before, which is not typical of most runs. Or ultra runs. Not even 50 miles backand-forth across the Grand Canyon.

“Has he texted you back?” I managed to mumble before my eyelids re-shut.

“Not yet,” Natalie uttered from the john.

We had just spent 17 hours running nearly 4,500 feet into the earth, then winding through the rocky bowels of the canyon floor, only to climb up the other side, 25 miles later, and do it again.

“I’m getting worried,” she continued.

“Rob’s not usually like this.”

Not usually like what, I couldn’t quite say. I’d met Rob only a couple weeks earlier on a trail near our home in Los Angeles with our mutual friend, Anthony.

Quiet, bearded and hidden behind a pair of dark shades, the most prominent things I knew about Rob were that he had two pot-bellied pigs and owned a van.

In the days leading up to this trip, I had been waffling about whether or not to go. I had a full work week with barely enough time to make it out of L.A. before sunset, let alone drive all the way to Arizona for a 50-mile run.

“You can go with Rob,” Anthony suggested. “He’s leaving Friday night.”

It seemed like a better option than “not run,” so I agreed.

As soon as I got to Rob’s, he introduced me to his friend Natalie, who would not only be joining us for the trip but needed to be back in L.A. Sunday afternoon.

“It’ll be a quick trip,” Rob confirmed, as he threw Natalie’s bags in the back of the van next to mine.

Anthony—who hatched the R2R2R plan—had arrived at the South Rim a few days before us with his family and a motor home. As Natalie and I took refuge in the bathroom to wait for Rob,

he was no-doubt at his campsite by now, showered and dozing in an actual bed.

The four of us had run as a pack most of the day, waiting for each other at major junctures along the trail: the suspension bridge that crossed the Colorado River; the waterfalls that emerged along the steep, singletrack up to the North Rim after a spontaneous afternoon rainstorm; the ranch at the bottom of the canyon where many hikers stop for the night and where we had hoped to snag a load of greasy fries from the camp kitchen before our 4,500-foot climb back up. (The kitchen was closed).

But as darkness set in, temperatures dropped, winds picked up and our clothing remained damp. It was every person for themselves up the last series of switchbacks.

Anthony had plowed ahead.

Natalie and I yo-yo-ed for a bit before proceeding together, grateful for the

company of another equally tired, cold and hungry companion. Having driven through most of the night, Rob was lethargic and had fallen behind.

It was now 10:30 p.m. Glacial winds whipped the bathroom door, confining us to our foul-smelling cave, as we began worrying about Rob—who had the car keys.

On the drive, the three of us probably hadn’t slept more than five hours combined. Though we switched off driving, Natalie and I spent most of our time on the plywood beds in the back of the van trying to sleep as Rob drove to a soundtrack of podcasts about serial killers. It gave me pause to realize I was lying in the back of a relative stranger’s van listening to tales of murder and cannibalism. But only for a moment.

It takes a particular kind of crazy to drive through the night and then run 50 miles in and out of a canyon, only to turn around and drive back. And we were all in the same van.

IT GAVE ME PAUSE TO REALIZE I WAS LYING IN THE BACK OF A RELATIVE STRANGER’S VAN LISTENING TO TALES OF MURDER AND CANNIBALISM.

“I’m at the car,” Rob finally texted. He had apparently decided to curl-up in some cold dirt at the base of the canyon and take a nap before the final climb.

When we got to the van, he looked like he was napping still.

Natalie took the wheel and we immediately headed back to SoCal. In a few hours it would be Mother’s Day, and she had plans to get lunch with her kids.

Maybe, driving 18 hours to run 50 miles in less than two days is crazy. But, sometimes, a particular kind of crazy is the only thing that will get you there at all.

Claire Walla is a Contributing Editor for Trail Runner.

THE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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FR OM THE VAULT

The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei THESE SPIRITUAL ATHLETES REDEFINE THE TERM “ULTRARUNNER.”

By Dave Ganci

It is March. It is midnight. Snow still covers the trails of Mount Hiei, which lies just northeast of the ancient city of Kyoto, in central Japan.

Kakudo Suzuki, an aspiring Japanese Buddhist spiritual athlete or gyoja, attends an hour-long service in the Buddha Hall. He sips a bowl of miso soup and chews on a couple of rice balls. Then he dresses. His outfit is pure white—the color of death—the same thing he would be dressed in at his own funeral. It is cotton and consists of a short kimono undershirt, pants, hand and leg covers, a long outer robe and a priest’s outer vestment.

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JEREMY COLLINS

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He wraps a white “cord of death” around his waist with a sheathed knife tucked inside. Tendai Buddhist tradition d ic t ates t hat i f Ka k udo does not complete his prescribed marathon runs and walks, and all the accompanying tasks, he must take his own life by either hanging or disemboweling himself. He also carries a small bag that holds his secret holy book, which will guide him on his journey and help him remember the 250 prayer stops to make along his 18-mile run around Mount Hiei.

Some of those stops will be to honor monks of the past who did not make it and died by suicide. Kakudo also carries candles, matches, a small bag of food, offerings to the deities and a rosary.

Mount Hiei has five main peaks, the highest being O-bie-dake at 2,769 feet. It is a lush landscape of rain, high humidity and winter snows. The mountain is located in temperate western Japan, but the combination of relatively high altitude, trees that block out the sunlight and frigid air masses that move in from Siberia turns Mount Hiei into a “frozen peak ” during the cold months. The mountain is a wildlife preserve full of forest animals—fox, rabbit, deer, badger, bear, boar and the famous Hiei monkey.

Kakudo puts a pair of handmade straw sandals on his bare feet, and carries a straw raincoat and paper lantern. In stormy weather, the rain destroys the sandals in a couple of hours, extinguishes the lanterns, washes out the routes and soaks the spiritual trail runner to the bone.

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••• Kakudo is one of the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, and this will be only the first of 100 successive nights that he will get up at midnight, attend the service and start his marathon run-walk (kaihogyo) around Mount Hiei, completing the route between 7:30 and 9:30 a.m. He will then attend an hour-long service, followed by bathing and the midday meal. After lunch, Kakudo will rest, then attend to temple chores. The last meal is taken around 6 p.m., and Kakudo gets to sleep around 8 or 9.

The only variation in the 100-day ordeal will be a special 33-mile run through Kyoto, robbing him of one night’s sleep altogether.

During the route, Kakudo will sit down only once— beneath a giant sacred cedar for two minutes—to pray for the protection of the imperial family. After a first run with a master, Kakudo will be on his own. He may suffer cuts, sprains, stone bruises and punctures to his feet and ankles. He may run a fever, experience back and hip pain, develop hemorrhoids and diarrhea or suffer from frostbite dehydration and hunger.

But by about the 30th day, according to the predecessors’ accounts, his discomfort will lessen as his body adapts to the pain and strain. By the 70th day he is run-walking with a smooth gait, head and shoulders erect, back straight, nose and navel aligned. He will continually chant mantras to the god Fudo Myo-o. His spiritual goal is to become completely absorbed in the mountain and its surroundings, so that the pain and discomfort of the physical ritual will not be noticed, or at least be ignored. Kakudo hopes to achieve a state of enlightenment—the pure spiritual joy of feeling one with the universe. As rugged as it appears, however, this test is merely a warmup in the ultimate spiritual quest of the Marathon Monks—the complete process entails seven more years and becomes progressively and unfathomably more difficult.

••• It is not clear exactly how these spiritual mountain marathons began, but records show that Chinese and Indian Buddhist texts of the eighth century stated that, “Mountain pilgrimages on sacred peaks is the best of practices.” From about 830 to 1130, pilgrimages took place to mounts Hira, Kimpu and Hiei. Kaihogyo, as the rituals are known today, evolved from 1310 to present.

ISTOCKPHOTO

His spiritual goal is to become completely absorbed in the mountain and its surroundings, so that the pain and discomfort of the physical ritual will not be noticed, or at least be ignored.

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Since 1885, only 46 marathon monks have completed the 1,000-day journey— an ordeal that is an option for the gyoja who passes the 100-day test. Two monks completed two full terms; another died by suicide on his 2,500th day, trying to complete three terms. The majority of monks who complete these odysseys have been in their 30s. The oldest completed his 2,000th day when he was 61 years old. The number of monks who actually died or committed suicide along the path is not known, but the route on Mount Hiei is lined with many unmarked gyoja graves.

••• When he finishes the 100 days, Kakudo can petition Hiei Headquarters to be allowed to undertake the 1,000-day spiritual challenge (sennichi kaihogyo).

If this petition is accepted, he must free himself from all family ties and observe a seven-year retreat on Mount Hiei.

Kakudo will then commit himself to 900 more marathons over a seven-year period. The first 300 are 18- to 25-mile runs undertaken 100 days in a row, from the end of March to mid-October over three years.

Starting in the fourth year, Kakudo will be allowed to wear socks with the sandals. During the fourth and fifth years, he will run 200 consecutive marathons each year and will be allowed 56

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to carry a walking stick. At the completion of the 700th marathon, Kakudo will face the greatest trial of all, called doiri—seven and a half days without food, water or sleep, sitting in an upright position and chanting mantras day and night. If he lives through this trial, which brings him to the brink of death and therefore to the ultimate appreciation of life, he will have attained the Buddhist level of Saintly Master of the Severe Practice (ogyoman jari).

Doiri begins several weeks prior to the actual fast. Kakudo will taper down his food and water intake to prepare himself for this near-death experience, eating simple meals of noodles, potatoes and soup up to the time of his fast. But hunger is the least of the suffering. Thirst, lack of sleep and the agony of sitting upright are much greater challenges.

Working in 24-hour shifts, two fellow monks will attend to make sure Kakudo stays erect and awake. By the fifth day, Kakudo will be so dehydrated, he will taste blood. He will be able to rinse his mouth out but cannot swallow any water.

Defecation stops by the third or fourth day, but urination continues—if ever so slightly—right up to the end. Kakudo’s only respite from the sitting position will be the 2 a.m. trip to the holy well to draw water and offer it to Fudo Myo-o—the principal godhead the marathon monks come to embody. The principle of the Fudo Myo-o is that you must let nothing deter you from the appointed task.

It takes Kakudo about 15 minutes to walk to the well on the first night. On the last day, the trip will take him over an hour, aided by his fellow monks. Doiri is no longer undertaken during the hot, humid summer months because dehydration causes permanent damage to the monks’ internal organs. Two monks perished this way. According to what predecessors have experienced, Kakudo may become so sensitive to life that he will feel himself absorbing mist through his pores, hear ashes falling from incense sticks and smell food being prepared miles away.

He will feel transparent, and experience existence in a state of crystal clarity. He will lose one quarter of his body weight.

••• Following the “700 days of moving and the seven-and-a-half days of stillness,” the next stage toward Enlightenment is the Sekisan Marathon (sekisan kugyo), which takes place the sixth year and consists of 100 consecutive days of the 37.5 mile run/

ISTOCKPHOTO

According to predecessors, Kakudo may become so sensitive to life that he will feel himself absorbing mist through his pores, hear ashes falling from incense sticks and smell food being prepared miles away.

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What can trail runners learn from the Marathon Monks? We can try to emulate their positive attitudes toward adversity and awareness principles to push us into a more spiritual realm. walks that require 14 to 15 hours to complete. The seventh and final year, Kakudo will run two 100-day terms. The first 100 days—considered by some to be the ultimate athletic challenge—consists of a daily 52.5 mile run-walk through Kyoto. That’s two Olympic marathons a day—for 100 days in a row!

An attendant will carry a folding chair for Kakudo to sit on at traffic lights and other obstructions. He will have learned to catch a few seconds of sleep at these stops. A monk saying goes: “Ten minutes of sleep for a marathon monk is worth five hours of ordinary rest.” Kakudo will actually get about two hours sleep every 24 hours. While on his double marathons, he will bless followers along the route in Kyoto, pausing to touch their heads with his rosary. He will consume only 1450 calories a day. Physiologists say he should lose 15 to 20 pounds each month—but Kakudo will maintain his weight and stamina. How can he do this?

Nobody knows for sure.

••• The f ina l 10 0 -day ma rat hon test, during the seventh year, comes easily for Kakudo considering what he has been through. He will finish off his 1,000-day odyssey with 18-mile daily runs. When he takes his final steps up to the temple on Mount Hiei, he will have traveled on foot between 24,000 and 27,000 miles—a distance equal to one trip around the equator.

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Finally, Kakudo will undertake the prayer, fast and fire ceremony (jumanmai diagoma). He will live on root vegetables, boiled pine needles, nuts and water. This fast dries him out, almost mummifying him, in order to keep him from perspiring excessively during the fire ceremony, when he will sit before a roaring blaze, casting patrons’ prayer sticks onto the flames and chanting 100,000 mantras to Fudo Myo-o. This fire ceremony is one day shorter than doiri and allows Kakudo some sittingup sleep. Some monks have felt that this exercise is the greatest trial of all, greater than doiri.

••• How can the human body endure such trials? For 20 years, I worked as a trainer in Desert and Mountain Survival tactics for U.S. Military Special Warfare Groups (U.S. Navy SEALs, Army Delta Force and Special Forces), evaluating their physical and psychological adaptations to desert and mountain heat, cold, fatigue, hunger and sleep deprivation. The testing involved simulated worst-case scenarios where teams were separated from their gear and had to adapt to the rigors of the landscape and the weather with what they had in their pockets—with aggressor forces searching for them.

That experience taught me that it was simply mental determination—athletic ability, size or physical strength attributes counted for little—that separated the “survivors” from the “non-survivors.” As Scott Jurek once said: “When it comes down to it on race day, it’s a matter of who wants it more and who is ready to work for it.” Mental stamina is what determines top finishers.

What can trail runners learn from the Marathon Monks? We can try to emulate their positive attitudes toward adversity and awareness principles to push us into a more spiritual realm. That means opening our senses to the sights, sounds and smells of the surrounding environment. It does not mean coming in first or running the longest. We can enjoy another dimension—one of pure joy in the moment. We don’t need the special blessings of the athletically gifted. We don’t need to feel we must compete or race the clock. It means we can simply enjoy the experience, and learn to flow with the natural world.

In his book, The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, John Stevens sums up the greatest contributions of these spiritual adventurers: “The most admirable thing about the Hiei gyoja is their warmth, open-heartedness and humanity … Facing death over and over, the marathon monks become alive to each moment, full of gratitude, joy and grace … [They] have much to teach us: always aim for the ultimate, never look back, be mindful of others at all times and keep the mind forever set on the Way.” Dave Ganci has trained Navy and Army Special Warfare troops on desert survival. He describes himself as “a middle-aged desert rat whose skin is hard and wrinkled from too much time running, climbing and drinking cheap beer under the sun.”

This article originally appeared in Trail Runner’s March 2003 issue.

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RISING FROM THE ASHES JUST ABOUT EVERY ENDURANCE RUNNER HAS EXPERIENCED THOSE PAINFUL MOMENTS WHERE THEY’RE READY TO TOSS IN THE TOWEL, BUT, SOMEHOW, RALLY FROM THE LOWEST OF LOWS AND BATTLE TO THE FINISH. HERE ARE A FEW TOUGH RUNNERS WHO’VE DONE JUST THAT.

BY HOWIE STERN We all have limits and comfort zones, but that isn’t what running is about. I remember covering a 200-mile race in which my friend and fellow photographer Luis Escobar was running. He was having a very rough go in the late miles and was ready to quit with only 50K to go. His crew and I pulled out all the stops and did everything in our power to turn the tide and get him moving again, much to his disdain at the moment. He was toast, in that dark place many of us have gone where we get tunnel vision and see no way out but taking a DNF. So what ultimately turns things around? Our mind can be both our worst enemy or our greatest asset. Sometimes it comes down to how badly we want it; other times, perhaps we don’t want to disappoint those who support us, whether at the race, back home or on social media. We also can’t discount the incredible volunteers at aid stations who go above and beyond to help us come back from the brink, many of whom have been in our shoes themselves and know the struggle all too well.

In the end, as Luis said after finishing the Tahoe 200 that year, “Do you know what the secret is? The secret is there is no secret. Don’t stop.”

Two days and nights of intense storms and fog will take their toll on the best of runners, and Mauricio Puerto was no exception during last year’s Bigfoot 200. For runners like Puerto, discomfort and sleep deprivation are never reasons for stopping, so off into the night he went.

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Those deepest moments of pain, where everything is about to snap and we’re searching for that magic pill to pull us through the darkness ... In Dax Orion Hock’s case, pulling from my own 200-mile experiences, I was able to pass along advice that ultimately helped him to power through the second hundred miles of his race.

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Taylor Spike (here) and Joshua Malpass (below) find that the first night in some ways is the toughest mentally in a 200. It’s hard to wrap our minds around two or three more days and nights, but look at is as just a bump in the trail. Persist, and we’ll be rewarded in ways we can’t imagine.

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The Penny Pines aid station atop the long climb out of Noble Canyon in the Angeles Crest 100 usually resembles a triage center for the mid-packers to backof-packers. It’s typically a make or break point in the race, and the crew here is first class when it comes to resurrecting runners from the brink.

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“We wouldn’t want it to be easy ...” Sarah Emoto, 80 miles deep in the pain cave of the aptly named HURT 100, Hawaii.

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Ray Sanchez, a multi-time 200-mile finisher, tends to a runner whose race is heading south in a hurry at the Tahoe 200. The experienced support base available to runners is so valuable in helping them escape from the feelings of defeat, and rise up to go on.

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Running Roots

TOM RIGGENBACH HELPS PERPETUATE NATIVE-AMERICAN RUNNING TRADITONS.

BY HEATHER KOVICH / PHOTOS BY NEIL GHOLKAR

Tom had warned me that the turnout would be low but I was buoyant as I bumped down the rutted red road to the race grounds in Asaayi, New Mexico. I had no idea this beautiful place existed. An hour earlier I’d left my home in Shiprock, on the northeastern edge of the Navajo Nation. I drove through familiar dust, tumbleweeds and glaring, relentless sun.

But, following Tom’s directions, I turned off the highway, climbed into the Chuska mountains and arrived at this picturesque lake. Ponderosa pines scented the damp air. I craned my neck back to take in the full imposing height of the sandstone cliffs. As I pulled into the staging area, I mentally planned a return visit to hike and swim with my kids.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT • Daniel Dejolie starts his leg of the Shiprock Marathon Relay.

• Mile 13 of the Shiprock Marathon; the 2020 marathon will be a trail run.

• Miss Navajo Nation, Autumn Montoya, and Miss Teec Nos Pos, Damaris Yazzie, award medals to the finishers.

• Lydia Kim and her son Niam head home for a post-race nap.

• A runner flexes while waiting for her relay partner to arrive.

• Miguel Gomez and Kelvin Chan celebrate their half-marathon finishes.

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It was easy to find Tom Riggenbach in the small crowd.

A head taller than anyone else, visor shading his eyes, he constantly bobbed and moved, encouraging runners, emptying trash cans, filling food trays and delegating to volunteers. This was the first ever “12 Hours of Asaayi,” the newest addition to the Navajo Parks Race Series that Riggenbach, executive director of the nonprofit NavajoYES, puts on. The race course was a 2.4-mile trail loop that he’d rehabilitated over the summer with a group of 8th-grade boys from the reservation town of Chinle, Arizona.

Originally from rural Illinois, Riggenbach has lived on Diné Bikéyah, the Navajo Nation, for 30 years. He taught school for most of this time and organized the youth-empowerment organization NavajoYES on the side.

Now he runs the nonprofit full-time from a community center in Beclabito, a 600-person town on the New Mexico-Arizona border. Riggenbach lives in its small office, having moved his cot there after he quit teaching in 2015. From there, nestled between the red rock of Beclabito Dome and the extinct volcanoes of the Carrizo Mountains, he organizes trail-running and mountain-bike races, and youth outdoor activities.

“It’s a pretty sweet set-up” he says. He is grateful that they have a storage shed out back for donated bikes and helmets, boxes of race T-shirts and medals. He doesn’t mind that graduation parties and local council meetings happen right outside his bedroom door, or that he sometimes has to stand in line for his bathroom.

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I met Riggenbach about nine months earlier, when, on a whim, I entered a race at the Four Corners Monument. I had lived near the Four Corners for a decade, but had been to the monument only once, eight years before. I remembered stray dogs picking through trash while my cousins straddled New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah and posed for goofy photos. I hadn’t been back since. Then I saw a Facebook post about the Quad Keyah: four days of trail marathons and halfmarathons, one in each state. There were running trails there?

At the Quad Keyah race, people laughed and talked like old friends in the registration tent. There was a mix of Navajo runners and people from all over the country, many pursuing a 50-state marathon goal. Riggenbach gave a pre-race informational pep talk each morning, giving the usual route and weather information but also calling out notable runners: those who’d run well the day before, those celebrating a birthday, the 10-year-old running his first halfmarathon. I wondered about this white guy, sun weathered and unshaven, who seemed know everyone.

The race itself was painful: rocky, sandy and steep. But its course revealed the landscape’s majesty—eons of geology displayed in the slickrock mesas and the cut of the San Juan River below. The runners on the trail smiled and encouraged each other. Tom was out chatting and jogging with different people all day. I didn’t even mind (much) when I limped across the finish line of the Colorado Trail Marathon and Josh, the timer, told me to keep running—they’d misjudged the distance and I still had a mile to go. I went home and

For centuries, the Navajo have kept a tradition of waking and running east to greet the sun. While the tradition is not daily practice for most people, “Everyone has a running story,” says Riggenbach.

Tom Riggenbach running near Beclabito, New Mexico.

registered for the NavajoYES Monument Valley Ultra. The next time my parents came to visit, I took them hiking on the Four Corners trail.

Riggenbach founded NavajoYES in the early 1990s when he was a teacher at a small school in the reservation town of Shonto, Arizona. Each summer he led his students on a bike tour of the 27,000-square-mile Diné Bikéyah, a chance for them to spend time outside and get to know their land, with its canyons and mountains, windswept open range and towering rock formations. NavajoYES— the YES stands for Youth Empowerment Services—was initially a way to raise money for these trips, which Riggenbach called The Tour de Rez. Riggenbach was not a runner when he came to the Navajo Nation; he was a cyclist. He had just graduated from college with a teaching degree, and his mentor, who had taught briefly on the reservation, encouraged him to push his boundaries further than Peoria, the town closest to where he grew up.

“He’s like, ‘Just get away for a year,” Riggenbach remembers. He sent a resume to Shonto Boarding School.

They called him on a Monday in August and the following week he was in the classroom teaching third grade.

He’d planned to stay for a year, but, “It was pretty cool place. It’s gorgeous out there and it’s so quiet,” he says. He felt at home in the rural setting. He’d grown up on land that had been his grandparents’ farm, which they’d divided

between their children. He was surrounded by cousins.

“All the neighbor kids, we’d go out and play whatever sport was in season … just play till dinner time. And then go back out for a couple of more hours.” In Shonto, he found a similar community structure, with extended families full of “cousinbrothers.” And in Shonto, where the vast, sparsely populated land inspires long distances, Riggenbach learned to run.

For centuries, the Navajo have kept a tradition of waking and running east to greet the sun. While the tradition is not daily practice for most people, “Everyone has a running story,” says Riggenbach. Schools start cross-country teams in 2nd grade. The Kinaaldá, the coming of age ceremony for girls, includes a daily sunrise run. The girl, representing a deity, the Changing Woman, runs in moccasins and turquoise jewelry. Her family runs behind her, encouraging her, pushing her to go a little farther. The daily distance is often a mile or more.

Desiree Deschenie, 30, of Farmington, New Mexico, was 10 when she completed the ceremony. “It’s 5 a.m. and I was running in full traditional clothing … and everyone was shouting for me,” she says. “I felt that I had a really important role to do.” She laughs remembering that she kept telling herself, “Just don’t fall!”

She became a cross-country runner after that. “The Kinaaldá gave me the idea that running is very important and very sacred.” As an adult she’s participated in the Shiprock Marathon, a NavajoYES race. “Their series of races highlight the beauty in the area.”

In a land where less than 20 percent of the roads are paved, being a runner means running on dirt. “When I came to Shonto, I discovered, ‘Hey, this is a totally different kind of running,’” Riggenbach remembers. “I started running quite a bit and did a lot of trails all over the western rez.” Navajo Nation abuts the Grand Canyon. “I did a lot of rim to rims, double crossings, stuff like that.”

He taught all week and, on the weekends, despite being hours from an airport, managed to complete sub-four-hour marathons in every state between 2005 and 2015. In 2014 he moved on to ultras. The annual Tour de Rez began to incorporate several days of trail running.

NavajoYES expanded its scope over the years and in 2015 Riggenbach quit teaching to focus on the nonprofit full time.

He and Rygie Bekay, a 23-year-old former-student-turnedcolleague, now bring outdoor-fitness programs to schools, teach kids to repair bikes and work with local communities to build dedicated trails for running, hiking and biking all T HE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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over the reservation. They partner with Navajo Parks and Recreation to host races that highlight the trails. Some races are in famous and popular locations like Monument Valley.

Others bring runners to little known areas like Lake Asaayi.

When I met up with Tom at the Asaayi race, he wanted to show me the trail work by the Chinle students. We started toward the trail many times, but he kept getting pulled back to the staging area. When food and trophies were finally organized and we were ready to go, Scott Nydham, a volunteer and NavajoYES board member, reminded Riggenbach they needed to meet about logistics for an upcoming race. Nydham and Riggenback live on opposite sides of the Navajo Nation, 150 miles apart, and this was their only chance to hash out the details in person before race day.

Eventually Riggenbach and I got out onto the course.

The trail was well graded and easy to follow up gentle switchbacks. Tom jogged with four gallons of water and a backpack of Honey Stinger bars to resupply the aid station at the top. He kept stopping. I offered to take some water, but the load wasn’t the problem. “Sorry about that,” he apologized when he caught up to me. “I got a signal back there and I had to send some messages.” This is why he’d had to organize with Nydham face to face.

Much of the reservation has spotty cell service and no internet, including the NavajoYES offices in Beclabito where

He knows the standard narratives of reservation life but he appreciates the complexity, the struggles and the resilience. He taught in the schools for 25 years. He witnessed the traumas of his students and also saw them persevere. He’s also sensitive to the fact that 30 years in, he’s still an outsider, a biligaana. the lack of lack of internet is a constant problem. Riggenbach wants the races to be accessible. He puts his personal cell number and email address on every registration page, but he needs to be able to retrieve the messages. He often drives 20 miles to the McDonald’s in Shiprock, where a dollar buys a hot coffee and fast Wi-Fi. As we jogged up the trail at Asaayi, Riggenbach unwittingly ruined my plan to come back and hike with my kids when he lamented that the trail is closed to the public except during official events. He understands the concerns from Navajo

Riggenbach outside his office and home in the Beclabito Chapter House.

Nation Parks and Recreation. “One, they’re worried about liability and, two, they’re worried about knuckleheads coming in here and jacking up the place.”

We met a family on the trail. They’d come to cheer on Amanda, one of the runners. She is from the reservation but lives in Phoenix and often drives the six hours back for NavajoYES races. “She just looks so effortless out there,” Riggenbach told her father. “Just so steady.“ He resumed his train of thought on public-access trails.

“I’m trying to figure out how to answer that concern without going crazy.” He thinks a gate across the road with a pedestrian entrance a quarter mile from the trailhead would work. “I don’t know too many knuckleheads who are going to go that trouble to drag their 40s that far.”

Riggenbach likes working with Parks and Rec, and he is optimistic they’ll agree on a plan to open the trail for everyday use. Matt Gunn, 42, of Willard, Utah, who operates Vacation Races, has always been impressed by Riggenbach’s ability to build local partnerships. “When you get a permit to run on Navajo land, it requires talking to the families that have the grazing rights and the local residents, as well as the Parks Service and the Navajo Nation. Through years of work, Tom has those relationships. They know when Tom’s doing something, it’s solely for the benefit of their community.”

Riggenbach and I reached the top of the trail, where we could see the staging area and finish line. The band, Red

Riggenbach wants the races to be accessible. He puts his personal cell number and email address on every registration page, but to retrieve the messages he often drives 20 miles to the McDonald’s in Shiprock, where a dollar buys a hot coffee and fast Wi-Fi. Hawk, of Montezuma Creek, Utah, ricocheted Creedence Clearwater Revival off the cliffs. “They will play all day.”

Riggenbach appreciated their enthusiasm. He’d paid them $200, figuring it would cover their gas money, and they were happy to blast a classic rock soundtrack for 12 hours.

Blaze Braford-Lefebvre, a 17-year-old, limped to the aid station. He rolled his ankle in a previous lap and was weighing his options. “Should I pull a Kilian Jornet?” he joked, wondering if he should gut out the remaining six hours on a gimp ankle (Jornet had run much of the 2017 Hardrock 100 with a dislocated shoulder, winning the race).

Riggenbach reminded him that there were EMT’s at the

staging area. He rested for a moment and jogged off.

As we ran down the far side of the loop, Riggenbach pointed out the absence of mud on the trail. A thunderstorm had rolled in the night before while they were out preparing for the race and it turned into an opportunity to check the trail conditions. “We were out here with McCleod rakes, clearing the drainages in the rain,” he said proudly.

When we got back down to the staging area, I asked Bekay how he’d liked working in the thunderstorm. “Oh, that was just Tom,” he chuckled. Bekay and the other volunteers had gone back to camp shortly after it started raining. I’d noticed that Riggenbach always uses “we” to speak of his work, a pronoun brimming with optimism.

I spotted Braford-Lefebvre sitting on a cot as the EMT brought him an ice pack. He was done for the day. His younger brother Soren was still out running. Their family drives down from Silverton, Colorado, a trail-running mecca, for NavajoYES races. “We love the desert,” Blaze explained with a wide smile, “and we love Tom’s races. The energy is so good.”

I realized it had gotten quiet. Only the drummer was still playing; the rest of the band milled around. A singer wandered my way and asked if I had a rubber hose. Their generator had run out of gas and they needed a siphon. I had no hose, but 20 minutes later they were playing again.

I squinted at my gas tank. Maybe $200 wasn’t quite enough gas money.

Rock River Canyon 50K, 27K Munising, Michigan 24.May.2020

Tahqua 25K & 10K Paradise, Michigan 8.August.2020

Photo: Mike Verhamme

Two Hearted 50K, 26.2 M, 13.1M Paradise, Michigan 20.June.2020

Grand Island 50K, 26.2 M, 13.1M Munising, Michigan 25.July.2020

NavajoYES operates on donations and a few grants. They don’t make much money off of their races; they keep the entry fees as low as possible to maximize accessibility. Some of their bigger marathons yield a small profit, but the Asaayi race had only drawn 13 participants, 12 of whom Riggenbach knew personally. After paying for the EMTs, food, porta-potties, race T-shirts and pint glasses, it would not be a money maker.

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Tom Riggenbach in his office.

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Riggenbach works hard to keep costs down. Before coming to Asaayi, he had a meeting with the United Way in Window Rock, Arizona. He had meetings scheduled over two days so he brought his cot and slept in their offices overnight. I asked if they minded. He laughed. The United Way funds some of NavajoYES’s budget. They were thrilled he didn’t expense a hundred-dollar hotel room with their grant.

Riggenbach doesn’t get paid for his work, although he’s quick to point out that his rent (the floorspace for the cot) is covered and his gas money gets reimbursed. Otherwise, he lives off of his teacher’s savings. He’s bashful about this, worrying that people will take his work less seriously if he’s “just a volunteer.” Bekay balances NavajoYES with a full-time job and school—“That kid can work!” says Riggenbach.

“The one thing I wish we could get better at is fundraising.” Riggenbach is forthright. Matt Gunn has raised money for NavajoYES just by having a donation link on his registration website. Riggenbach would like to emulate that.

“I think if we took the message to all the non-rez runners and said, ‘Hey you know, we’re trying to promote health and wellness and we have these projects.’ I think we could do it. I mean, part of our problem is just having someone who’s got the tech skills and the time to do the website stuff.”

It irks him to see other organizations raise money by highlighting the poverty on the reservation. “‘Oh, diabetes is horrible here; healthcare stinks.’ You know, that plays real

Riggenbach’s goal is to get the community, his community, outdoors, to marvel in the majesty of the land that is their birthright, and to take pride in the feats their bodies can accomplish. good … then they get more donations, but I don’t know, we never really tried to play that card.”

“It’s true, diabetes is a problem. Obesity is a problem,” he continues, “but if you just go on and on about it, it not only becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, it becomes a real downer for the folks living here. They’re like, ‘Dang.’” He looks at the ground and shakes his head, impersonating the despondency.

He prefers to be an optimist. “We’ve got a lot of exciting things happening around the area ... Every year we’ve got more races and runs. I mean there’s literally something almost every weekend somewhere on the rez, which is pretty remarkable for a population of this size … Rather than dwelling on all these dire stats, we portray a little happier place.”

He knows the standard narratives of reservation life but he appreciates the complexity, the struggles and the resilience.

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He taught in the schools for 25 years. He witnessed the traumas of his students and also saw them persevere.

He’s also sensitive to the fact that 30 years in, he’s still an outsider, a biligaana.

“We’d have more impact if I was ‘Tom Begay,’” he says, citing a common Navajo surname. “I feel like there’s a little sense from some people: ‘Oh, he’s a missionary’ … Even though I’m a white dude, hopefully, people see me as just Tom.” It chafes when outsiders ask, “‘So how are things on the reservation? … You know, you’re doing such good work.’ .... I’m just living, you know? I mean, no matter where you are, hopefully you’re trying to improve life and make things better for folks.”

He admits that when he arrived on the reservation, “I may have had little bit of a missionary mindset.” After all, he’d chosen to teach after seeing the movie Stand and Deliver, in which a high-school teacher inspires impoverished Los Angeles teenagers to master advanced calculus. “Dang!

That changed everything. The teacher changed the whole neighborhood and the whole community.”

After 30 years in education and nonprofits, he laughs. “I don’t know if that’s really worked out, but that was the way I was thinking, and I’ve pretty much stayed in education and nonprofit stuff since.”

As Riggenbach presented plaques to the winners at Asaayi, runners sat exhausted, on cots and folding chairs,

waiting for the masseuse. Aury Yazzie, 11 years old, shook my hand solemnly, manners intact even after finishing the six-hour race. His mother proudly explained that Aury has known Riggenbach his whole life and has grown up running these races.

Dylan Schwindt and Mike White had come down from Cortez, Colorado. Like Blaze’s family, they make an effort to drive to the reservation for NavajoYES races. Schwindt pointed out that the races immerse him in the beauty of the reservation. “Like in the Monument Valley Ultra, you get to go up Mitchell Mesa,” he said. Mitchell Mesa is a 1500-foot climb in less than a mile, but the top presents a panoramic multi-state view of one of the American West’s most iconic locations. Back at the bottom, runners scarf down quesadillas at Lorraine’s sheep corral and get directions from ranchers on horseback. Tourists, meanwhile, are confined to the paved roads.

Schwindt didn’t mind that there weren’t many participants at Asaayi. “Sometimes really elite runners show up,” he says, “and that’s fun because you get to run with them. But sometimes the turnout is low and you hit the jackpot.” His winner’s plaque stood on the table next to him.

Riggenbach’s goal is to get the community, his community, outdoors, to marvel at the majesty of the land that is their birthright, and to take pride in the feats their bodies can accomplish. TR

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The Vagabond

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DIRT ANNUAL / 2020

THE FREEDOM OF SAILING HIS OWN BOAT ALLOWS THIS TRAIL RUNNER TO GET OFF THE BEATEN TRACK ALONG ANY COAST WITH A SUITABLE ANCHORAGE. A 71-YEAR-OLD TRAIL VET ESPOUSES THE JOYS OF “AMPHIBIOUS TRAIL RUNNING.”

By Jim Eisenhart

T HE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken. —Oscar Wilde.

The cove on Ithaca Island in the Greek Ionian Sea looked idyllic and, equally as important, like a safe place to anchor. So I slowly motored into it on Adagio.

There was no sign of civilization apart from what looked to be an abandoned villa on the south arm of the cove, and the anchorage was empty. Which is to say not much has changed since the peripatetic Odysseus saw Ithaca upon finally reaching “home” in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey over 2000 years ago. The rolling hills were covered with dense pine and lenga forests that dropped down to the crystalline water’s edge, which was fronted by a pebbly beach.

I needed to verify one more thing— access to a trail to run on the island.

Opening Google Earth on my iPad, I located the cove and found a track that traced roughly along the water’s edge and ran well north and south of the anchorage. So, I dropped the anchor, secured it and settled in for the evening. As the water turned a cobalt blue, twilight and then darkness slowly accentuated my solitude in the isolated cove.

Awaking at 8 a.m. I brewed my daily cup of coffee and prepared for the day’s run. “Amphibious trail running,” for me, means going ashore to run either via Adagio’s inflatable dinghy of 70 pounds (ugh!) or, what’s easier and more refreshing, by swimming. Since the water temps in the Ionian Sea were comfortably in the upper 70s, I filled my waterproof bag with the essentials— shoes, socks, shorts, T-shirt, towel (the Mediterranean is notoriously salty) and a liter of fresh water.

Dropping my boat’s transom, or the vertical section at the back, allowed me to slip into the water and swim with short fins while towing the floating waterproof bag with a rope around my neck to the beach 75 yards away. Once ashore, I toweled off, donned my running attire and arbitrarily decided to jog south on the dirt road. I came across olive groves, a herd of goats, an abandoned fishing boat and the ruins of a stone 80

DIRT ANNUAL / 2020

farmhouse during my six-mile outand-back run over gently rolling hills.

Swapping running shoes for fins, I swam back to Adagio and her warm freshwater shower in the cockpit.

During breakfast, I heard the low rumble of a powerboat offshore getting noticeably louder. Looking at it through my binoculars, I could see it was a grey boat heading straight toward Adagio at a very high speed.

The only grey powerboats that travel that fast in the Med are the coast guard—presumably because they can afford the cost of fuel. Sure

The freedom of sailing one’s own boat allows a trail runner to literally get off the beaten track along any coast with suitable anchorages. enough, it was the Greek Guardia Coasteria. As they roared into the anchorage, they did a sharp U-turn some 75 feet around Adagio, gave me a quick eyeball and then, without slowing down or as much as a wave or acknowledgement, hightailed it back out to sea, presumably reassured that there were no illegal migrants aboard.

The boat’s violent wake and the raucous noise of its engines had rudely disturbed my tranquil morning.

Paradise, or the illusion thereof, is inevitably a temporal phenomena.

I checked the weather forecast, especially for wind speed and direction, and sailed south, in search of other anchorages but with no definitive plan in mind. A fixed itinerary is unrealistic given the weather and precludes being open to interesting places that pop up. “Vagabond sailing,” I call it. But in some comfort.

The Beginning: Getting Ashore To Run Trails I began amphibious trail running some 25 years ago on California’s Channel Islands which lie 18 to 30 miles offshore my hometown of Ventura, California.

They are entirely protected by both the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy. There are no dwellings save for a few NPS campsites and the caretakers’ modest residences. Nor are there, from a sailor’s point of view, any moorings or docks to secure to.

You anchor, sometimes precipitously, 50 to 150 feet offshore. That plus the often rambunctious seas and winds of the Santa Barbara Channel keep “fairweather” sailors close to the mainland harbors. High surf often required swimming to ashore. Dinghys or even kayaks could easily get upended.

What this means is that even in the summer you can find a cove and anchorage all to yourself. Running the islands’ over 100 miles trails is a throwback to when California was its native self. And gone, as in removed, are the herds of cattle, sheep, elk and even the feral wild pigs introduced by civilization in the past 150 years.

Why Do It? The freedom of sailing one’s own boat allows a trail runner to literally get off the beaten track along any coast with suitable anchorages. In addition to southern California’s offshore islands, this quirky endeavor has included my spending a couple of winters in Mexico’s amazing Sea of Cortez and the Hawaiian Islands (windy with few secure anchorages), as well as summers in the Pacific Northwest and all the way up to Alaska. Amphibious trail running in the year-round frigid waters of the Northwest necessitates using my dingy or kayak to get ashore.

Hypothermia is not an option. Nor is encountering an aggressive brown bear.

My deterrent of choice? A small air horn

which I fortunately have not had to test.

This “sport,” if I can call it that, is more akin to a lifestyle than a solitary pursuit. It calls for a deep love of sailing and trail running combined with a thirst for discovery. You must be able to deal with the vagaries of weather, a constantly changing and often challenging coastline and frequently sparsely inhabited interiors not even acknowledged in Trip Advisor. Thank God!

Club Med And, now, what are the rewards in the amphibous trail running in the Mediterranean? For one, the “discovery” of unnamed, perhaps historically insignificant, but nevertheless fascinating ruins. For example, in Greece and Italy, running to the top of any good-sized mountain or hill will almost guarantee that you find a small, abandoned stone church of indeterminable age. This beats the crowded cathedrals and citadels of the big cities. Been there and done that.

I stumble into vistas I imagine have seldom, if ever, been seen by tourists. Running past small villages and farmhouses, I encounter rural inhabitants that are invariably courteous, friendly and helpful. Alas, few speak English but they communicate volumes through their smiles and gestures. In lieu of verbal directions, they have even taken me by the arm and steered me several hundred yards to a cafe or other point of interest.

And, certainly, there is always the risk of getting lost, of which I have a history. As a reconnaissance platoon leader in the army during the Vietnam war, I had plenty of opportunities to get “lost,” but always found my way back to my unit one way or another. I’m not above leaving small piles of stones, or self-made cairns, at forks in a trail or road to make returning to the anchorage less uncertain. Yet as some pundit said, “You only discover things when you are lost.” To include, of course, things about yourself. Being “lost” can indeed stir an awareness that fully activates the senses.

Lost and Alone: An Opportunity The joy of solitude. I’m a true believer of the stoic philosophy that

one’s circumstances in life have little to do with one’s happiness or sense of well-being. Solitude in an alien environment, provokes introspection and self-examination that can seldom be achieved in one’s comfortable home setting. Here, in the Mediterranean, my isolation helps to brings out a deep appreciation of the long, tumultuous and multi-layered history of the area, and my own relative insignificance.

Lest I give the impression that I’m a total misanthrope or sailing hermit, one of the most profound advantages of solo sailing and running versus sailing and running with friends is that I’m more likely to engage with strangers.

That could be other boaters in a marina or anchorage, simply folks sitting next to me in a restaurant or locals I meet

“So you travel around the world and meet people like myself and we become friends and then you never see them again?”

“Yes,” I replied, “something like that.” casually in the market. In Trieste, Italy, I once had a lengthy conversation with an Austrian in a restaurant.

Saying goodbye, he added, “So you travel around the world and meet people like myself and we become friends and then you never see them again?”

“Yes,” I replied, “something like that.”

He looked at me querulously and then shook his head in total incomprehension.

My mantra: be curious and adapt.

In the most desolate of places there is always something to experience if you leave yourself open to possibility.

Possibility Amidst Uncertainty I was warned that getting into Croatia would be a bureaucratic nightmare. As I walked into the immigration office at the harbor of Cavtat, I was greeted by a pleasant middle-aged woman who would handle my paperwork. While

making small talk, she mentioned an unusual hobby. You guessed it—trail running. My entry was significantly expedited, and even led to a guided run along a Big-Sur-like coast.

But, usually, you’re constantly dealing with an uncertain environment, which can be frustrating and time consuming.

Like taking a whole day to find a laundromat, learn its nuances, and then actually do your laundry. Or even trying to find a decent meal in a strange village. But, as I often have to remind myself, this all part of the adventure, even if it’s just the spin cycle.

There is also the uncertainty of a trail run on unmarked trails that may lead to the town dump, a pack of barking dogs or even a cemetery.

But cemeteries in the Med can be fascinating and, even, useful.

Midway through an early morning hot and humid run in Turkey, I had already emptied my water bottle with miles to go. There was a modest, small cemetery along the trail. At the head of one of the graves was a gallon plastic jug with about a quart of, hopefully, potable water still in it. The flowers the jug had served to water were as dead their grave’s occupant. After a moments hesitation, I determined my hydration needs were the greatest. It was a very brief moral dilemma.

Uncertainty keeps you present in the moment. This can, be both liberating and unnerving. Unnerving in the moment and liberating once you’ve experienced it. Similar to passing through a stormy gale at sea.

I rented a car in Albania to explore the country’s interior. The flat coastline offered few attractive anchorages or running routes. One of my destinations was the so-called “Albanian Alps,” a bit of a stretch compared to the “real” Alps but nonetheless scenic with runnable foothills.

I parked the car next to a trailhead whose attraction was that it led toward some snowcapped peaks in the distance.

The trail was deserted and bordered by dense, reedlike vegetation. Then I spotted a man. He was an older fellow wielding a long machete with which he was harvesting the reeds for God knows what purpose. Near him was a rusty motorcycle with a basket on it half full of this prolific and somehow valuable T HE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

81

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weed. He looked at me grimly with an expression close to hostility. I waved but his steely expression didn’t change.

Over the next mile the weather deteriorated to a light drizzle as the skies darkened ominously. I turned to run back, hoping to beat the storm. I was then overcome by dread. What if this fellow was waiting to ambush me on the way back? No one would ever know or hear my cries for help. I sped up as I neared his location and picked up a baseball sized rock. Running past him he barely looked, and I reciprocated, avoiding eye contact.

Whew, I might have dodged that bullet, or rather, machete.

Creative Adaptation—With a Purpose On my sailing-trail-running adventures I create my own, simple rituals. As in, I will run every other day. On alternate days I spend one hour on my portable rowing machine. Daily meditation. A daily journal entry.

I’ll spend a bit of time each day reading the stoic philosophers. Audio books and podcasts on a Bluetooth speaker in the cockpit are the perfect companion for a solo sailor on a long day. I try to pick those that relate to the history of the geography I’m in.

Homer’s Odyssey, of course, in Greece.

And Dumas’ The Count of Montecristo in France and Corsica.

On a sailboat it’s easy to drift mentally and physically into lethargy. I need some direction and purpose, yet with flexibility, that is adapted to my circumstances. You need to create your own “balance,” as you go.

Marinas with their towns and cities and fellow sailors dockside can offer a welcome respite from the solitude of anchoring. Some coastlines offer no alternative. There 82

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are no protected anchorages. There’s usually some interesting history if only the ever-present harbor citadel, or a good restaurant and plug-in electricity dockside.

They’re also an opportunity to do some cross training. I’ll often Google local gyms, some of which can be comparable to modern U.S. gyms but some, I’ve experienced, are reminiscent of those from the 1950s or ‘60s, kind of like “Rocky’s gym” complete with the memorable odor of stale sweat. In those cases, I’ll call the swankiest hotel in town and inquire about its day rate. Usually for 10 to 15 euros you’ll have the run of their facility to include gym, luxury spa, sauna and perhaps an indulgent massage.

The biggest issue in solo sailing in the Med might be loneliness. I’ll go days without a conversation in English. I tell myself this builds self reliance and fortitude but it’s always good to see a boat with a north European flag on it— they will speak English.

I have only encountered one other solo sailor in 15 months during four seasons in the Med. He was a 70-yearold weather-beaten Australian I met in a Tunisian marina in 2016, with a 40-foot sailboat that had a busted transmission and tattered mainsail.

Like most Aussies, “John” was typically phlegmatic about his predicament as he drank his beer. “Yeah, I don’t know how long I’ll be here but it’s all OK. No worries, eh, mate?” he said. I admired his stoic indifference.

Other sailors tell me they have run into one or two solo sailors. They consistently describe them as, “Yes, he was a crazy Brit,” or “crazy Swede”.

Having met only a half-dozen crewed American boats during my time in the Med, I have no doubt I’ve earned the moniker of, “Yes, he was that utterly crazy American sailor—who also ran.”

Jim Eisenhart is an avid trail runner, sailor and skier. He has completed over 35 marathons and ultras. His last marathon, the Catalina Island Marathon, he completed at age 70 in 2018. When not living the life of a vagabond sailer and trail runner he lives in Ventura, California. He has been a Trail Runner subscriber since issue #1.

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2020 Spring VIP Races 03/07 SARR Prickly Pear 50K, 5K, 10M; San Antonio, TX; www.racesignup.com 03/08 XTERRA Black Canyon Trail Run 6K, 10K, 13.1M; Black Canyon City, AZ; www.aztrailrace. com 03/14 Bel Monte Endurance Run 25K, 50K, 50M; Waynesboro, VA; www.belmonteraces.com 03/14 Land Between The Lakes 23K, 26.2M, 60K, 50M; Grand Rivers, KY; www.durbinracemanagement.com 03/14 Everglades Ultras 25K, 50K, 50M; Copeland, FL; www.evergladesultras.com 03/14 Old West Trail Runs 26.2M, 50K, 13.1M; Julian, CA; www.oldwesttrailruns.com 03/14 Peyton’s Wild and Wacky Ultra 5K, 50K; Mount Pleasant, SC; www.run4p.com 03/14 Catalina Island Marathon 5K, 10K, 26.2M; Avalon, CA; www.runcatalina.com 03/15 Hills Are Alive 3.5M, 5.5M; Burlington, WI; www.xcthrillogy.com/canicross.html 03/21 Terrapin Mountain 50K & Half Marathon 13.1M, 50K; Sedalia, VA; www.eco-xsports.com/ events/terrapin 03/21 Haulin’ in the Holler 5K, 25K, 50K; Eleanor, WV; www.haulinintheholler.net 03/28 Chesebro Half Marathon 13.1M; Agoura Hills, CA; www.ChesebroHalf.com 03/28 Valencia Trail Race 10K, 13.1M, 50K; Valencia, CA; www.valenciatrailrace.com 04/11 Oriflamme 50k 50K; Julian, CA; www.oriflamme50k.com 04/11 Silver Moon Trail Races 100M, 12H, 24H, R; Reedley, CA; www.silvermoonrace.com 04/11 The Florida Run @ Colt Creek 13.1M, 10K, 5K; Colt Creek State Park, FL; www.thefloridarun. com 04/15 Meraki Trail Adventure Burlington, WI; www. xcthrillogy.com/canicross.html 04/17 Tuscany Crossing 53K, 103K; Castiglione d’Orcia, ; www.tuscanycrossing.com Ragnar Trail Atlanta-GA 125M, R; Conyers, GA; 04/17 www.runragnar.com 04/18 Babcock Gristmill Grinder 13.1M, 5K; Clifftop, WV; www.gristmillgrinder.com 04/18 Cedro Peak Ultra 13.1K, 26.2M, 50K; Tijeras, NM; www.cedropeaktrailevent.wordpress.com 04/18 Yakima Skyline 50K 50K; Ellensburg, WA; www.rainshadowrunning.com 04/18 Spitfire Ultra Trail Challenge 5K, 12K, 25K, 50K; Menan, ID; www.buttingeartrailrunning.com 04/19 Spokane River Run 5K, 10K, 25K, 50K; Spokane, WA; www.spokaneriverrun.com 04/19 Yakima Skyline 25K 25K; Ellensburg, WA; www. rainshadowrunning.com 04/24 Ragnar Trail Richmond-VA 120M, R; Chesterfield, VA; www.runragnar.com 05/01 Growing Green Challenge 3H, 6H, 12H; Rush

City, MN; www.treasuredhavenfarm.com 05/01 Hachie Trail Runs 50K, 50M; Waxahachie, TX; www.runwrc.com/hachie50 05/02 Collegiate Peaks Trail Run 25M, 50M; Buena Vista, CO; www.collegiatepeakstrailrun.org 05/02 Wild Wild West Marathon And Ultra 10M, 26M, 50K, 50M; Lone Pine, CA; www.lonepinechamber.org/wild-west-marathon 05/02 Trail of Four Winds 25K; Kaiser, MO; www. lakeoftheozarkstrailseries.com 05/02 Upland Hills Trail Run 5K, 10M, 10K; Oxford, MI; www.runatuplandhills.org 05/08 Ragnar Trail Zion-UT 120M, R; Mt. Carmel, UT; www.runragnar.com 05/09 Ice Age Trail 13.1M, 50K, 50M; La Grange, WI; www.iceagetrail50.com 05/09 Paiute Meadows 4.5M, 13.1M, 50K; Susanville, CA; www.paiutemeadowstrailrun.com 05/09 Long Island Greenbelt 25K, 50K; Plainview, NY; www.glirc.org 05/09 Sun Mountain 50M 50M; Winthrop, WA; www. rainshadowrunning.com 05/15 Dominion River Rock Festival 5K, 10K, 13.1M; Richmond, VA; www.sportsbackers.org 05/15 Ragnar Trail Kentuckiana 125R; Brandenberg, KY; www.runragnar.com 05/15 Whalers’ Greate Route Ultra-Trail by Azores Trail Run 118K, 65K, 42K, 25K, 11K; Horta, Azores; www.azorestrailrun.com 05/16 PCT 50 Mile Run 50M; San Diego, CA; www. pct50.com/eventInfo.asp 05/16 Highland Loops Trail RunHachie Trail Runs 7M, 16M; Highland, MI; www.highlandloops. com 05/16 Sun Mountain 50K 50M; Twisp, WA; www. rainshadowrunning.com 05/17 Sun Mountain 25K 25K; Twisp, WA; www. rainshadowrunning.com 05/17 Sun Mountain 25K 50K; Twisp, WA; www. rainshadowrunning.com 05/22 Kettletown State Park 5K, 10K, 20K, 30K, 50K; Southbury, CT; www.trail2trail.com 05/23 Mount Wilson Trail Race 8.6M; Sierra Madre, CA; www.mountwilsontrailrace.com 05/23 Stumptown Trail Runs Half Marathon AND 1/2 50K, 13.1M; Portland, OR; www.gobeyondracing. com/races 05/24 Rock River Canyon 50K; Munising, MI; www. greatlakesendurance.com 05/27 Ozone Endurance Challenge 6H, 12H, 24H, 36H, 48H, 72H; Maryville, TN; www.pistolultra. com 05/30 Devil’s Slide Trail Run 4K, 11K, 13.1M, 30K; Pacifica, CA; www.devilssliderun.org 06/05 Scout Mountain Ultra Trail 35K, 60K, 100K; Pocatello, ID; www.scoutmountainultras.com

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EVERESTING 29,029 TAKES PLACE ON A MERE 1.3-MILE MOUNTAIN TRAIL AND CHALLENGES PARTICIPANTS TO CLIMB THE SAME VERT AS EVEREST. WHAT MAKES THIS YOUNG EVENT SO SPECIAL?

By Garett Graubins Photos by Matt Clark

Early winter conditions, including fog and cold, forced 29029 Vermont participants to dig deep.

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Wet snowflakes slap my rental Nissan Sentra as it snakes its way into the Vermont mountains in mid-October 2019. For the past two days, a classic “Nor’easter” has ravaged the New England region.

Wind gusts of 90 miles per hour rake the mountain tops, which still display postcard-worthy foliage.

The temperature on the dashboard reads 29 degrees. I click on the wipers to whisk soggy potato flakes off my windshield.

NPR’s Guy Raz and How I Built This plays on the radio.

I am en route to Stratton Mountain, a popular ski resort.

Despite the weather, I’m not headed here in search of my ski legs.

Rather, I’m signed up for an endurance event that will take up the whole weekend. It’s called “29029”—or “Everesting.” And I’m excited. For a grey-haired trail ultrarunner like me, a new and unique challenge in a foreign part of the country revs my engine.

But I wasn’t prepared for this weather. Guess I should have checked the forecast, or at least packed a shell. After landing in Albany, New York, I stopped at a thrift store near the airport and scored a waterproof jacket for $5.

The straight-forward description of 29029 goes like this: the organizers rent a private mountain and turn it into a basecamp village. There are well-appointed tipi tents mere steps from the starting line, so you can take a break or access anything when you please. There is also a dining area in a chalet setting where participants get three healthy meals per day.

All those special arrangements make the event so luxe that it is easy to overlook the physical challenge itself—which is daunting. To climb up the mountain repeatedly until you accumulate enough “vert” to equal a climb of Mount Everest (29,029 feet). For this edition of 29029, that means going up dirt roads and singletrack trail a mind-numbing 17 times. Each ascent is 1.3 miles and climbs 1,750 feet. Mercifully, participants take the gondola down the mountain after each climb.

Ritzy Welcome Mat I pull into a parking garage where several 29029 volunteers immediately greet me with smiles and offers to help. They take my bags, tag them and say they will be waiting for me in 86

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The Ascent Board; as Everesters rest on the downhill gondy ride, others march steeply upward.

my tent. They fit me for a commemorative cap—the first of countless primo souvenirs that I’ll receive this trip.

As other participants arrive, we’re directed through a labyrinth of a ski village half-resembling a Swiss hamlet, complete with a clock tower, to a more modern, upscale building beside the main gondola. Upstairs, we grab seats in a master events room. Monstrous timber beams tower overhead and a fireplace the size of a Volkswagen van crackles near the main stage, as a parade of speakers shares greetings, information and inspiration over the next two hours.

Mid-Life Malaise I have personal motives for trekking two-thirds the way across the country from Colorado to a not-so-convenient locale for an event that sounds oddly uncomfortable.

Here I am at 47 years old, and life has never been better.

I feel gratitude every day for my family and my health.

Professionally, I’m proud of what I have accomplished. Yet, there is something missing. What it is eludes my grasp, but it is a nagging feeling that makes me restless in the middle of the night, puts a negative twinge in my gut even when things are going well and steers me toward self-help podcasts and personal-development sections of bookstores. It is far from a crisis, though. Call it my middle-age malaise.

My wife, Holly, sometimes asks me (half-jokingly), “Are you unhappy?” as she sees that I’m yet again checking out books that promise to unlock the keys to happiness.

“Of course not,” I invariably reply, often giving her a hug to reassure her of my rock-solid love and that my taste in books has absolutely nothing to do with our family.

Yet that feeling remains. And this is one reason why, earlier this year, Holly pointed me toward an online seminar series

Bibs for the 29029 course—everybody knows your name.

called “Build Your Life Resume.” Hosted by the entrepreneur, endurance athlete and author Jesse Itzler, “BYLR” is described as a life-coaching program that aims to help you to grow in business, mindset and wellness.

I signed up for the course and enjoyed the online sessions while tapping the digital community of support and motivation from other like-minded “students.” If there is a cornerstone theme to Itzler’s program, it’s to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And to do this by setting goals, both audacious and day-to-day.

In 2017, Itzler, the ultrarunner Marc Hodulich and the former pro triathlete Colin O’Brady launched 29029 as a way to give people a perfectly audacious way to get uncomfortable.

Independent of BYLR, 29029, I soon learn, taps into a wellspring of human support and inspiration.

The mountains and outdoors have always provided me with clarity, if not answers, so here I find myself, in Vermont in mid-October.

Not A Race As the charismatic Itzler, with curly hair and a long, lean figure, takes the stage in the lodgy great room, the room erupts in cheers. It seems an unsurprising welcome for Itzler—a majority of Everesters have apparently followed him for years and taken his BYLR class.

“We had one rule when we started this thing,” Itzler says, his arms waving as he talks. “Keep it positive.”

The line has a touch of irony to it, as the weather outside continues to deteriorate. But his message is that the

organization won’t let the event become a sufferfest.

Yet Itzler is a realist and he makes clear that this will not be a cakewalk. The message causes some stirs in the room, where many are endurance newbies. Earlier, when he asked runners to raise their hands if they’ve never done any endurance event, about 60 hands shot up.

“Everybody here will deal with doubt at some point in this event,” he says.

It is clear that there are some seasoned endurance athletes in this room, too. They are the ones with the well-worn trail shoes and water bottles with race stickers on them. A jolt of competitiveness tickles through me as I take stock. But Itzler puts those urges to bed for me and the rest of the group.

“This is not a race,” he says. “This is a challenge. This is you versus you.”

There will not be a race clock except for the one that ticks to the 36-hour time limit. No race chips. No podium. No standings. The challenges for everybody here are to do their best, says Itzler, be in the moment and to grow.

That’s when he freezes the room. “But growth … real growth … only happens when you step into the unknown.

And that is what is going to happen tomorrow.”

I look around the room while it continues to snow outside and former Navy SEAL-turned-ultrarunner Chadd Wright takes the stage. Of the 200-plus participants, many tend toward my age (in fact, the average age is 47—exactly the number of laps I’ve done around the sun) and, I speculate, are probably mired in a similar rut that I am. This could be the ultimate self-help and coaching group. This weekend, that theory will prove out again and again on the mountain.

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Mountains To Climb … Over And Over The next morning, lights line both sides of the bottom part of the course. We gather in the mud at the base of the mountain, our breaths steaming the cold air while we snap phone photos and wish each other good luck. Itzler, clad in baggy shorts while we all shiver in tights, walks 10 feet up the hill, stops and turns around.

After giving advice on layering and fueling, he grows more animated and says, “You signed up for this. This is one weekend of 52 weekends in the year where you can separate yourself from work, from the kids, from all the issues and things going on in your life, and you can be mega present on the mountain in nature, outside with the clouds, with the wind.”

Itzler, who spent weeks living in a monastery as a self-imposed time out, dips into his spiritual well of advice. He continues, “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Don’t congratulate yourself on where you are or how much you’ve accomplished. Separate the ego of the accomplishment and be present.”

And we all begin our upward hike under a foreboding dawn sky that is more black than grey. The clacking of hiking poles falls into rhythm with elevated pulse rates and faster breathing. A random beep from a watch. We are all likely pondering something similar: 17 climbs of this mountain seems mostly impossible at this pinprick of time.

To Adam Jorgensen, 40, of Jacksonville, Florida, just one

climb of the mountain soon seems beyond reality. He took on this challenge because, “I wasn’t taking care of myself for a long time so it was time to reboot that.” Jorgensen had put on a significant amount of weight in that period and the birth of his first daughter meant that “the time in my life when I deprioritized my health is over.”

He started 29029 Vermont intent on completing between eight and 10 climbs. But halfway up climb #1, he slipped on a rock and injured his ankle. “Medics recommended that I stop and ride down, but I was determined to complete at least one climb, even if it took all day and hurt like (expletive).”

A volunteer joined Jorgensen and later one of the 29029 coaches did as well. He had to crawl parts of it, and lost feeling in his feet and one of his hands. Yet he persevered and, five hours after beginning his climb, reached the top.

“I was really proud to have done it,” says Jorgensen, who is heading back to 29029 Utah this year.

Tribal Encouragement Near the top of my first climb, I find myself alone, planting the treads of my shoes firmly in each snowy step upward.

I look ahead and the top is still beyond sight, buried somewhere in the mountaintop fog. Beside one pole plant, I spot a bear print. I smile with a memory when a running friend told me that a bruin is a symbol of strength and power in Native American folklore.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: With an injured ankle, Adam Jorgensen perseveres toward to the summit; despite the snows, the fall foliage still put on a show; event founder Marc Hodulich welcomes participants to the summit finish on day two.

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Liz Frayer, Brooke Grant and Mona Patel click off another summit on day one.

Cresting the top of the mountain, I am greeted with Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” and cheering from several volunteers. My phone tells me that this ascent took 45 minutes. I make a short dash into an aid-station tent, grab a hot coffee, stroopwafel, pretzels and a banana, and head around the corner to catch a gondola down the mountain. “Hold up, hold up,” says a guy behind me as he barely beats the closing doors.

His name is Scott Delamore, and he’s a firefighter from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. As we are noshing on our energy foods, he shares the story of a fraternity brother from his college days at Texas Christian University, a lean, dark-haired, happy-go-lucky man named Chris Devero. In 2010, just months after he and wife, Katy, married, tests found that Devero had an aggressive form of brain cancer.

He had surgery that removed most of his tumors and went on with his life, adopting a Carpe Diem philosophy, turning vegan and following the motto, “Get Busy Living.”

Devero, then 27, took on the first 29029 Vermont, in 2017. He completed 14 climbs that year, as he was preparing for an even bigger challenge early in 2018, the World Marathon Challenge, in which he would attempt to complete seven marathons on seven continents in seven days, all to raise money for the Kids Shouldn’t Have Cancer Foundation. Devero, though, would never make it to that event, as his own cancer returned. By November 2017, his condition was deteriorating rapidly and he left this world mere months later, in the spring of 2018.

“We’re all out here, doing it for him,” says Delamore, back in the 29029 gondola. He explains that he has traveled here with six fraternity brothers to honor their friend and spread his ashes on the mountain.

There is silence in the gondola as I don’t know what to say. Those are real-life problems, genuine tragedies, I think to myself. Losing a loved one makes my mid-life self-pity seem pathetic.

Streams of hikers march below us, some waving upward.

Delamore recognizes one and shouts encouragement out the window. I reflect on how grateful I am to be alive, on a mountain with incredible people and a healthy body.

Several climbs later in the day, I’m hiking with another of of Devero’s friends, Sam Zurawel. We come up on a smiling woman with long dark hair. It is Devero’s 90

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Aspen, Colorado Donning the red Final Ascent bibs is a special feeling.

widow, Katy. “He was a great man,” she says with the kind of forward-leaning spirit that can both help a person overcome tremendous loss and get them up any mountain.

The Right-Hand Turn My body settles into a rhythm—hike vigorously uphill and generate tons of heat (and sweat), at the summit aid station, grab a handful of fuel and head to the gondola.

A few times, as luck would have it, I score one of two gondolas designated as a “Positivity Gondy.” Its windows are a tapestry of multi-colored post-it notes where others have shared inspirational mantras, word salads and drawings. At 7 p.m., in the sub-freezing dark, I sulk into it and collapse onto a bench before looking around at the silent nudges of encouragement.

“The Joy is in the Journey. Free Hugs at the Summit.

Memories Are Made on the Mountain.”

I decide that if you’re at a low point, life can be a little better if you’re open to others’ positivity. How often do we put up walls to shield us from the glowing intentions of others?

At the bottom of each up-down cycle, I summon my legs to rally for another climb. I exit the gondola, walk down a ramp and turn right. If you’re heading back up, it’s always a right-hand turn. A left-hand turn goes to the restaurant, the ski lodge and, farther down the road, a hotel bed.

Twelve times on day one, I turn right. No matter how low my energy level or how mighty the bonk, the mountain-base scene recharges my batteries. Music blasts from all corners. There’s the enchanting smell of a campfire. The master of ceremonies shouts my name every time—as if we’re long-lost friends.

In the center of it all sits the brightly lit Ascent Board.

Made from soft wood, the wall has several monster-size grids on it. Across the grid’s bottom is the name of every participant. Above their name, there are 17 squares.

After each summit trip, athletes return here, grab a nearby branding gun and burn the mountain-shaped 29029 logo into the wood above their name. Each brand celebrates climbing another 1,750 vertical feet, straight up. What’s more, the climbs add to various milestones along the way, each one matching the highest summit on one continent. After my fourth climb, I gain Australia’s

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Kosciuszko. After my 11th climb, I have reached the top of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. And so on.

With each summit, an event volunteer takes a Sharpie and checks the matching box on the back of my white participant vest.

The burnt wood and visible checkmarks add up to a simple yet meaningful sense of accomplishment every trip.

These are basic acts that amplify the achievement, turning it visual and making it tangible. And they motivate me to dig deeper every loop and head back up the mountain.

That is, until deep into the evening on day one, after ascending for the 13th time. On my descent, I shiver on the ride down. I have been soaked for the past several hours and now it’s catching up to me. Ice forms on the gondola windows. I had hoped to finish this thing in one day, maybe even before midnight, but the dark and the cold prove too powerful of a deterrent. At the bottom, I make the lefthand turn, and head to my bed.

Day Two And The Final Leg I awake on day two of 29029 and head to the ski lodge expecting to witness a zombie village of moaning Everesters.

In fact, many of my new friends are surprisingly chipper. I am even feeling refreshed myself. To be fair, there is some mutual exhaustion and stiff-legged walks.

After a tofu scrambler and three cups of coffee, I grab my poles, put on my pack and head out to face the mountain with everybody else.

Halfway up, I catch Mona Patel, whom I met twice the day before. I know it is her, not from the name printed on her 29029 bib, rather I recognize her by the prosthetic leg.

In the spring of 1990, Patel was a 17-year-old college student walking to class. Moments later, she was struck by a drunk driver and pinned between the car and a metal railing. The accident ruined her right leg and foot, and her life was forever altered. Several years of surgeries could not save her leg.

Eventually, she founded a non-profit, the San Antonio Amputee Foundation, which helps amputees in many ways, from peer support to financial aid to education to recreational opportunities. In 2015, Patel led a group of fellow amputees up Mount Kilimanjaro.

I marvel as she makes steady progress up the steep, muddy slope. “Mona, every time I see you on this mountain, you’re smiling—I want you to know that you inspire me,” I say, in one of those out-of-body endurance moments when truth, honesty and sincerity flow naturally.

“Thank you so much,” she says with a smile, then shrugs.

“We all have our stories.”

Seeing Red I continue upward, but counting downward. Three more climbs to go. Then two. And in the late morning, I stand at the bottom, girding myself for my 17th climb.

Beneath the Ascent Board, event staff remove my white bib—with all of the summit milestone boxes checked off.

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an

FOR LIFE ON THE RUN Mona Patel founded a non-profit, the San Antonio Amputee Foundation, which helps amputees in many ways.

There is only one more to go: Everest. They replace the bib with a new one, this one bright red with “FINAL ASCENT” printed across the front.

For the final climb, everybody on the course and even some in the gondolas overhead cheer me on. I catch up to several participants with whom I feel a special closeness after sharing this stretch of mud and rock for nearly two days.

There’s the effervescent woman from Romania. “Big Poppi” in the twill Titleist cap. The Sweden-born writer from Bloomberg Business. Mr. Moxey, the guy who started a supplements business centered around CBD oil and THC. The 14 gregarious souls and co-workers sent here by their company, Impact Partnership, for the ultimate team-building getaway. The mom from Virginia, out to prove to her teenage son that she can do something extraordinary. Perry and Perry, two childhood pals from North Carolina who agreed to tackle this beast together. I see the indomitable Itzler out there, still in his baggy shorts and smiling in the moment.

On a long adventure, how often do we dream of the finish line? We obsess over it and fantasize, thinking that it will deliver perfection and fulfillment—or at least validation, sometimes in the form of 200 Facebook likes. But the true reward and occasional answers are found out on the course.

They are there in the conversations, the hopeful sunrises, the unforgiving cold and even in the monotony necessary to progress. These endurance events do not need to be heroic, stoic, solo journeys—in fact, we are stronger with others around us, united toward that goal.

I crest the final steep pitch and muster a jog for the last 50 yards. Other participants, still with miles to go, give me high fives. Volunteers cheer me to the flags at the summit. And with that I’m done. No timing mat or official finishing time. Or even a chalk finish line. None of that seems to matter.

Garett Graubins is a Contributing Editor for Trail Runner.

When he’s not running trails, he can be found spending time with his family or in the Personal Development section of Barnes & Noble.

Information on the 2020 29029 events (Utah, Idaho and Vermont) can be found at www.29029everesting.com.

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Gobi Getting to Know

THIS ULTRA-TOUGH TRAIL-RUNNING DOG JUST MIGHT BE THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS CANINE.

BY DOUG MAYER

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The Australian ultrarunner Dion Leonard found his four-footed trailrunning pal not in the local shelter, nor at a breeder, nor online on a dog rescue site. He found her, instead, in one of the most inhospitable places on earth: China’s gargantuan, 500,000-square-mile Gobi Desert.

Leonard has the sturdy build of a distance runner who looks like he could also roll tree trunks off the trail, if it came to it. At age 45, he is quick to break an easy smile that creates wrinkles that hint at a life with a few tales to tell. One of those stories had its start at day two of a six-day, 155-mile stage race across the Gobi Desert.

It was June 20, 2016. At the start line, Leonard was running through his final gear check, when he noticed a small dog trying to chew on his gaiters. Go away, you little pain! he thought to himself. A hole in his gaiters would mean sand from China’s Gobi Desert would infiltrate his shoes, impacting a race Leonard badly wanted to win. He shooed away the stray. The dog was unfazed and jumped back to renew its attack on the gaiters. The new routine turned into a game for the little dog with the huge black eyes, who decided to sprint off with everyone else when the starting gun went off.

Leonard finished fourth in that day’s stage, crossing the line to the sound of cheering, clapping and drumming.

“I thought it was an odd response for fourth,” he said. “Then I realized it was for the dog!”

The mutt had run the entire stage.

The day’s racing over, Leonard and others began to realize it was not the first time they had seen the dog. She had been around the prior night, scrounging scraps around a communal campfire.

In the harsh surroundings out of which she had materialized, he coined a nickname for her: Gobi.

During the next day’s stage, Gobi was again trotting alongside. Then, 55 miles into the race, the two came to a river crossing so wide and deep that it proved impossible for the little dog. Leonard undertook an act of generosity that would change his life.

In Leonard’s book, Finding Gobi, which spent over a month on the New York Times Bestseller List, he writes: “I was a quarter way across the river, 96

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when I finally did what I had never done in a race before. I turned around … I ran back as best I could, tucked her under my left arm, and waded back out into the cold water.”

It was a bold decision that could be one of the most memorable trail-runner-anddog moments of all time. Fortunately, for Leonard, the decision wasn’t critical to the podium order, and he went on to finish second in the 250-kilometer race across the Gobi Desert.

“You can’t be sad when you’re with her. Gobi doesn’t know social media. She doesn’t know the news. She just wants us to be happy.

A dog brings you back to reality.”

During that river crossing, Leonard decided he would bring Gobi back home with him to Edinburgh, Scotland, saying that that moment stirred something previously inaccessible within himself.

At that point in the race, Leonard had found himself being driven forward by a negative energy, a frame of mind in which he often found himself.

“I was in a deep, dark place,” he says.

“I was thinking of all of the hateful things people had done and said to me during my childhood. Back then, negative energy was my fuel.

“As a kid, I was beaten, abused physically and mentally,” explains Leonard. At school, he was ostracized.

“The book,” says Leonard, “shares just a small piece of that story.”

When pressed, Leonard gently steers the conversation away from the details, preferring to speak more broadly.

“Human interactions can be wonderful, but they can also be quite horrible.”

“That was a healing moment,” he says. “I felt sorry for her. I saw myself in Gobi. She had chosen me and suddenly I wanted to make sure she had a better life.

“Gobi has enabled me to deal with my demons. She’s given me closure. The great thing about animals is that they do that for you and don’t even know they’re doing it.”

For all of her emotional gifts, Gobi, it needs to be said, would be nobody’s first pick for a trail-running dog. She is squat, her yellow, wiry fur coat morphing gently to white as it reaches her underbelly. She has sturdy legs, but they’re short, very short. Ground clearance is clearly not a strong point. Even if she’s not exactly built for trail running, she might have more profound abilities.

During an interview with Leonard and his wife, Lucja, I found it hard to look away from Gobi. Her eyes are large and black, and they seem to have their own force field.

“She has a special way that she looks at you,” says Lucja. “It feels like she’s looking deep into your soul.”

Gobi seems attuned to the people and goings-on around her, almost as if she understands the human interactions taking place a few feet above her. The critical voice within me brushed the idea off; however, the preternatural sensation stuck with me.

But the adoption process to secure Gobi was fraught with a world-class morass of paperwork that would take months to negotiate. Unable to stay in China, Leonard returned to Scotland, where he and Lucja did their best to expedite the process. In the meantime, they entrusted Gobi to what he thought were reliable foster parents. But, somehow, Gobi disappeared, melting into Urumqi, a city of 3.5 million in the northwest corner of China, not far from both Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

In a reckless act of love and in defiance of the odds, Leonard refused to give up. He took a leave from his job as a business unit controller for William Grant & Sons, an international distiller.

An online fundraiser and a return to Urumqi ensued.

“Sometimes, you just have to follow your heart,” says Leonard. “Leaving my job was scary.”

A weeks-long needle-in-the-haystack search of the city followed. Leonard even recruited volunteers. After a series of false sightings, and just as Leonard was starting to wear down, a volunteer texted him a photo of what could be Gobi. Leonard initially brushed it off.

The dog had a scar on its head that Gobi had been lacking. A half hour later, a second, more detailed photo arrived.

This one seemed more compelling.

Leonard knew it was Gobi immediately when they met later that day. During the race, he had called to her using a clicking sound. Wondering how she’d respond, he tried it again. “ She was by my side like a shot. It was her alright,” he writes in Finding Gobi.

Leonards were drawn here after Dion spent time training and racing in both Breckenridge and Leadville, Colorado, in 2018. (Last year, he finished second overall in the “Triple Crown of 200s,” after completing three 200-mile races in the U.S.) And this time around, Gobi has her paperwork in order, now holding no fewer than three passports.

With fresh visas, they are exploring a new life on and off U.S. trails.

Since the move, the family of four’s pace seems to be more like a sprint than an ultra. A variety of book events and running gatherings are taking them on a meandering tour this winter from Louisiana to Texas, to Idaho,

Gobi and Leonard’s story has resonated worldwide, and the Leonards now routinely get approached by readers who have had their lives changed after learning of the story. In Slovenia, a group of five recovering addicts told them how they felt a special connection with Leonard’s story. Inspired, they ran a local 10K road race. A half-marathon followed.

“These stories touch your heart,” says Leonard, with a forthright earnestness.

The couple are leveraging Gobi’s notoriety to raise funds for pet shelters, too. In Zagreb, Croatia, last year, Gobi’s story inspired 800 people to turn out with their dogs for a 5K road race that raised money for animals in need.

Until Gobi trotted up to him, Leonard had settled into his career, with much of his free time spent working to build on ultrarunning successes. Lucja, for her part, worked as general manager for the IHG hotel chain, overseeing Edinburgh’s Crowne Plaza. She also trail raced, though was less drawn to the competitive aspects.

Finding Gobi—both the act and the subsequent book—has changed all that.

A top-10 bestseller in Europe, Australia and the U.K., Finding Gobi has been published in 22 languages, including Chinese and Bulgarian.

And this past December, the entire family—Dion, Lucja, Gobi and their cat, Lara—moved to the United States. The

Age: 5 ½, or about 38 in dog years. “After I adopted her, the vet said she was about two,” says Leonard. “So, we made her birthday June 20th, the day we met in the desert.”

Gobi by the Numbers

Breed: Uncertain. Possibly a cross between a Shih Tzu and a Chihuahua.

Weight: 17 pounds.

Longest run: 25 miles. “That was stage three of the Gobi race,” Leonard explains. “It was her longest day of the 80 miles she ran.”

Favorite trail run: Gobi loves the steep, technical trails that abound in Chamonix, France, her last home.

Total mileage on pads: Unknown.

Favorite food: Croissants and T-bone steaks.

Siblings: Lara, an America Ragdoll cat. “They get along like most sisters,” says Leonard.

“They argue, they fight and then the next thing you know they’ll be asleep next to each other.”

Worst thing she’s ever done: Destroying a favorite beanie of Leonard’s. “I came home and she had chewed it into a thousand pieces,” he says. “I think she just didn’t like my style.”

Weirdest request of Gobi: A fan once asked for some of Gobi’s fur. “There’s plenty around the house, if anyone wants to vacuum,” offers Lucja.

Pennsylvania and Alabama. Where will they settle? Some place warm, most likely.

“I’m a big desert runner and like the heat,” says Leonard. “It’s looking like Southern Colorado or Utah.”

Trail running will continue to figure prominently in their lives. Later this year, Leonard plans to race a new event, California Untamed, a 330-mile race from the beach all the way to Mount Shasta. There, Gobi will get a chance to meet another of the country’s famous ultrarunning dogs, Catra Corbett’s diminutive TruMan, a nine-pound Dachshund who is a fixture at West Coast ultras. Lucja plans to run Zion 100 this year.

Meanwhile, Gobi’s story is gaining further momentum. 20th Century Fox will start filming a movie about the duo later this year. The film will stay true to the story.

Director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda, The Name of the Father) has a reputation for bringing real-life stories to the big screen.

“Of course,” Leonard laughs, “I’m sure there will be a bit of Hollywood in it.”

Gobi and Leonard, it seems, have rescued each other. The resulting emotional bond was apparent even during my short visit. Gobi kept a close eye on her adopted human companion.

When the two are separated, says Lucja, Gobi intently scans for him, and can spot him from across a huge park. “She has an innate ability,” she says, “to know where he is at all times.”

Other benefits have arisen from the new family member. “Lucja and I have been together 21 years. It’s been a great relationship, but Gobi’s brought us more love and happiness,” says Leonard.

“You can’t you can’t be sad when you’re with her. Gobi doesn’t know social media. She doesn’t know the news. She just wants us to be happy. A dog brings you back to reality.”

Follow Gobi on Instagram and Facebook at @findinggobi.

Doug Mayer lives in Chamonix, France, and has been known to plan his trail runs around his favorite four-legged residents at area mountain huts. Mayer profiles a trail-running dog and his or her human companion each month at www.trailrunnermag.com.

THE TR AIL RUNNING LIFE

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PARTING SHOT

Child’s Take

BEST “CREW” SUPPORT ... EVER When you’re halfway through your race, half a world away from your loved ones, their support comes in the most special of forms. This runner’s daughter had written notes and put them in each of his drop bags. Here Peter Coyle of Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland, is reading one of them, at mile 101 of Washington’s Bigfoot 200 Endurance Run. PHOTO BY HOWIE STERN

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BD Athlete Hillary Gerardi | Switzerland

Dan Patitucci

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