sluicebox 100

It's Tuesday and my body is just starting to feel better. 
This weekend, Mark and I did the Sluice Box 100, a 100-mile adventure race that zig-zags around Fairbanks. You can bike it, run it, or do it as a relay race with up to five people. As luck had it, Mark and I ended up as the only two-man foot team. (All other foot teams had five.) 
If I remember right, we decided to do this after I proposed to Mark this spring that we walk 50 miles. I'd read -- in a fun story about walking -- of an indirect challenge from John F. Kennedy in 1963:
. . . Kennedy had wondered aloud whether Marines of the day could carry out Theodore Roosevelt's order of 1908 to march 50 miles in three days.
"The big surprise was the reaction of the American people," reported Newsweek. "With one idle remark, Mr. Kennedy put more vigor into Americans than his Council on Physical Fitness had done in six and a half years of preachment. Citizens of all ages and conditions, mostly flabby, went after the 50-mile mark in one of the woolliest pursuits since men first chased wild geese." 
Boy Scouts hiked in Illinois. Secretaries sauntered in Washington. Politicians chased headlines and reporters tailed along. The president's brother, Robert, finished a 50-mile walk. . . .  
For some reason, I pictured men walking in leather-soled dress shoes. I imagined painful blisters, and mental fortitude overcoming lack of fitness. I figured Mark and I could pack a lunch and walk dirt roads around town, never too far from a car pickup if we needed it. Mark proposed instead that we do the Sluice Box, 100 miles up and down Fairbanks' highest hills, through swamps, and over rooted, buggy singletrack.
Which is not to say I hadn't dreamed of running an ultra. Studying abroad in Australia and New Zealand, I reveled in long trail runs, gliding over terrain hikers took days to cross. One of my first journalistic endeavors was to review Dean Karnazes' Ultramarathon Man, in which he describes all-night training runs, mountainous and sweltering-hot ultras, runs of 200 and 300 miles. And a few years ago, I paced a friend for the last 10 miles of his first ultra. I just never felt strong enough to do one myself.
As the Sluice Box approached and the opportunity for preparation faded away, I felt a mix of worry and excitement. Last fall, after a long training run of 9 miles, I ran most of the Equinox Marathon and only got stronger at the end -- knee problems be damned! So despite being limited to about 7 miles in training this summer, I still half-believed I would, by some miracle, run 50 miles on race day.
At 7 am Saturday, I took off running. I walked the steep hills and probably never topped 9-minute miles, but I ran. Halfway through my first leg of 23 miles, my knee started to hurt. I stretched. I walked. I watched the camber of each step. I ran more when it felt OK or the bugs got too bad, and I finished my first leg with an average of 12-minute miles. Then I waited. As Mark struggled through the hilly second leg, I bathed, ate, and kicked myself for believing in miracles. I walked my second leg, 29 miles with 5,000-plus feet of climbing and a few painfully steep downhills. I averaged more than 16 minutes a mile, walking fast with few stops for eight hours. Mark ran and walked through the night to finish the race. Four solo runners beat us, but more than that dropped out. Overall, we finished last.
So were we ultra runners or Boy Scouts? One thing that made Karnazes' book fun was his wonder at his own body. Testing one's limits is a goal of many athletes, but for Karnazes the challenge was elegantly simple -- how far can I run? And the answer was truly amazing. I'm not Karnazes, but I still wonder at our weekend feat. My body carried me 52 miles; I could have crossed the state of Vermont. Mark and I each climbed the elevation of the highest peak on the East Coast. The four who ran solo gained more elevation than a typical ascent of Denali -- and could almost have run to Denali Park from Fairbanks, in under 25 hours. It's impressive.
The Sluice Box is a laid-back affair, and prizes are few. But at the post-race party tonight -- pony kegs, babies, stories of recovery -- Mark and I were among those feted. For signing up, and for sticking it out. We won the red lantern. Looking around at the wiry men who'd beaten us by so many hours on foot and bike, I wondered if that's what we should be proud of -- falling somewhere between committed athletes and the average Joes inspired by Kennedy, and just making it happen. 
We were each given an hour's free massage.