The Palm 100 Ultramarathon Relay Race
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 12:17am
"We run. Not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves. The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or hump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable." - Sir Roger Bannister
If you push the human body, it will respond. Push your body hard enough, and it will break. It is when your body breaks that your real potential shines through. As a runner, I push my body every day. Running a marathon, I push my body hard. However, a person does not run an Ultramarathon; it runs you. Ragged. Ultramarathons break runners. The distance taunts you. The heat oppresses you. Time slows and your body rebels. It is in our will, though, to push past the obstacles. Break through the barrier and become something more. It is our will that asks us whether or not we will be strong in the face of adversity.
...
I woke up on the morning of March 28th around 4:00 a.m. I showered, stretched and got ready for the day's adventure. I was exhausted. I went to sleep at nearly midnight and the little sleep I had managed had been broken and troubled. Today's journey however would be unlike any I had previously experienced. Not in terms of climbing to new heights of awareness or breaking through previously impossible barriers, but rather in that I would not be doing this along. Much of the past two and a half years have been spent building and living a life by myself. Especially with running. This would be different. This time I would be running as part of a team in a race that would test each of us as an individual runner as well as presenting difficult obstacles to the team as a whole.
One hundred miles. Eighteen teams. Six members per team. The Runner's Angels. My team. I've always been obsessed with angels. Even as a young child they fascinated me. These messengers of God served innumerable purposes through which the Divine interacted with the mortal world.
God does not communicate or act through direct contact. God uses energy such as through the use of fire; fire is moved through motion of the sphere; the sphere is moved by means of a disembodied intellect. These intellects are the 'angels which are near to Him', through whose mediation the spheres move. Thus, totally disembodied minds exist which emanate from God and are the intermediaries between God and all the bodies here in this world. – Adapted from the Guide of the Perplexed II:4, Maimonides
I thought to combine my love of angels with a humorous team name. So I made a play on "Charlie's Angels" and created the team known as "Runner's Angels". However, a name is meaningless without the people who embody that name. They become a physical manifestation; a symbol behind the meaning of a spoken word. Runner's Angels. So who are they?
First we have Valeria: The Firecracker. The passionate one. The team's confidence and energy. The girl who runs into pain, and then runs through it into the next leg. Next comes Galey: The Blonde Bombshell. The track star. The blister queen. She runs each of her legs like a 5k race and refuses to fade. After that we have Pietro: The Italian Stallion. Mister dependable. Got a bridge to cross? He's got it. Go over it again? No problem. Always ready to lend a helping hand. Up next is Jasper: The Silent Runner. The long leg and the long-legged. Though he was lost in the beginning he came through in the end. Then there's Ed: The Architect. Literally. The Navigator. The man who came through for the team in so many ways. The soul of our cause. I give you the Runner's Angels.
An hour after waking I'm at the parking lot of the Broward General hospital to meet with my teammates and get the team van ready. Excitement courses through each of us as we prepare for the journey ahead. Walking to the start line we say little of importance. Already the bond we are forming has taken the place of verbal communication. Other teams have uniforms or matching shirts. We wear a panoply of different colors and styles. In its place we hold a single-mindedness of purpose. A fierce sense of competition and the will to fight. The will to win. Confidence exudes. The banner goes up. The teams get set. The gun goes off.
And so it begins...
Pain is to be embraced, not feared. The heart is the most powerful muscle that we humans possess. Through hardship, we learn the secrets of our greatness.
I lead the team off with the opening leg. All thoughts of pace and planning are dismissed as the runners ahead of me film my vision over as though I were a charging bull. I settle in behind the lead runner for the first two miles to settle my body into a comfortable state before I begin to push the pace. The lead pack begins to string out until it is just me and one other runner. A few confusing moments about our direction keep us near each other but once the bearings are clear I pull away for our first scheduled exchange after five miles. Ed picks up the team's cause as we succeed in our first hand-off and give clear warning of our intentions: we are here to win. We held the lead for virtually the entire one-hundred miles of the race.
Valeria and Galey each put in a fast set to extend our leg before Japser takes his long leg for the day. Pietro closes off the last leg of our first rotation simultaneously reaching the first checkpoint of the race. Thirty-one miles into the race at just over 3:38. Our lead over second place is four minutes. I pick up again at the checkpoint to begin our second rotation with another five mile leg. The sun begins to make its presence felt and the wind teases us at first providing a cool reprieve from the burgeoning heat and then buffeting us against our inertia as we fight against it. Our second rotation sees shorter legs by the runners to compensate for the heat and the fatigue of having to run for a second time. By Ed's third run we have reached the turnaround and second checkpoint at 53 miles. Our time: 6:18. Our lead over second place is at least fifteen minutes, even with the second place team's runner somehow managing to end up ahead of me on my third leg without having ever passed me. Still, we ran on with our race following the course map and held a solid lead going into the last half of the race.
"It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse." - Ann Trason
We thought the wind had been a factor on our way up to West Palm Beach. We were wrong. That was just a prelude to the real challenge of the day. We spent the entire course south running into a strong crosswind that forced us to fight twice as hard to make any progress at all, let alone run at a decent pace. Yet we pushed ourselves. Through pain, and heat, and wind; we fought on. The elements slowly gave way to our will and the heat's effects slowly diminished as our bodies refused to break. Galey reached the third checkpoint at mile 76 in 9:09 and our lead was now well over 35 minutes. This was no longer a race to win. This was no longer a race for first place. The last 24 miles became a race against ourselves. Instead of victory, we sought domination. We did not want to beat second place. We wanted to break them. We would obliterate them.
The last quarter of the race was hard for all of us. Despite our hunger for victory the day had taken its toll. Although the last 24 miles only took 3:09 to complete it was a hard-fought run for each and every mile we ran. Every member of the team showed their true resolve in that last part of the race. There was no quit in any of us. We kept the same intensity as we had done the entire day. We began the race as a team 6 a.m. Saturday morning on the 28th of March 2009, and that is how we finished; at 6:18 p.m. the same day. From start to finish, we ran the 100 miles from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm beach in 12:18. Second place? Over an hour behind us.
We had accomplished our goals. Every one of them. We ran the relay and finished. We competed and won first place. We had fun. We created a blend of shared memories that will be remembered for the rest of our lives. We created bonds of friendship that will stand the test of time. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to run this race with such great runners and such wonderful people. Thank you all for making this such an incredible experience in my life.
"We run. Not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves. The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or hump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable." - Sir Roger Bannister
If you push the human body, it will respond. Push your body hard enough, and it will break. It is when your body breaks that your real potential shines through. As a runner, I push my body every day. Running a marathon, I push my body hard. However, a person does not run an Ultramarathon; it runs you. Ragged. Ultramarathons break runners. The distance taunts you. The heat oppresses you. Time slows and your body rebels. It is in our will, though, to push past the obstacles. Break through the barrier and become something more. It is our will that asks us whether or not we will be strong in the face of adversity.
...
I woke up on the morning of March 28th around 4:00 a.m. I showered, stretched and got ready for the day's adventure. I was exhausted. I went to sleep at nearly midnight and the little sleep I had managed had been broken and troubled. Today's journey however would be unlike any I had previously experienced. Not in terms of climbing to new heights of awareness or breaking through previously impossible barriers, but rather in that I would not be doing this along. Much of the past two and a half years have been spent building and living a life by myself. Especially with running. This would be different. This time I would be running as part of a team in a race that would test each of us as an individual runner as well as presenting difficult obstacles to the team as a whole.
One hundred miles. Eighteen teams. Six members per team. The Runner's Angels. My team. I've always been obsessed with angels. Even as a young child they fascinated me. These messengers of God served innumerable purposes through which the Divine interacted with the mortal world.
God does not communicate or act through direct contact. God uses energy such as through the use of fire; fire is moved through motion of the sphere; the sphere is moved by means of a disembodied intellect. These intellects are the 'angels which are near to Him', through whose mediation the spheres move. Thus, totally disembodied minds exist which emanate from God and are the intermediaries between God and all the bodies here in this world. – Adapted from the Guide of the Perplexed II:4, Maimonides
I thought to combine my love of angels with a humorous team name. So I made a play on "Charlie's Angels" and created the team known as "Runner's Angels". However, a name is meaningless without the people who embody that name. They become a physical manifestation; a symbol behind the meaning of a spoken word. Runner's Angels. So who are they?
First we have Valeria: The Firecracker. The passionate one. The team's confidence and energy. The girl who runs into pain, and then runs through it into the next leg. Next comes Galey: The Blonde Bombshell. The track star. The blister queen. She runs each of her legs like a 5k race and refuses to fade. After that we have Pietro: The Italian Stallion. Mister dependable. Got a bridge to cross? He's got it. Go over it again? No problem. Always ready to lend a helping hand. Up next is Jasper: The Silent Runner. The long leg and the long-legged. Though he was lost in the beginning he came through in the end. Then there's Ed: The Architect. Literally. The Navigator. The man who came through for the team in so many ways. The soul of our cause. I give you the Runner's Angels.
An hour after waking I'm at the parking lot of the Broward General hospital to meet with my teammates and get the team van ready. Excitement courses through each of us as we prepare for the journey ahead. Walking to the start line we say little of importance. Already the bond we are forming has taken the place of verbal communication. Other teams have uniforms or matching shirts. We wear a panoply of different colors and styles. In its place we hold a single-mindedness of purpose. A fierce sense of competition and the will to fight. The will to win. Confidence exudes. The banner goes up. The teams get set. The gun goes off.
And so it begins...
Pain is to be embraced, not feared. The heart is the most powerful muscle that we humans possess. Through hardship, we learn the secrets of our greatness.
I lead the team off with the opening leg. All thoughts of pace and planning are dismissed as the runners ahead of me film my vision over as though I were a charging bull. I settle in behind the lead runner for the first two miles to settle my body into a comfortable state before I begin to push the pace. The lead pack begins to string out until it is just me and one other runner. A few confusing moments about our direction keep us near each other but once the bearings are clear I pull away for our first scheduled exchange after five miles. Ed picks up the team's cause as we succeed in our first hand-off and give clear warning of our intentions: we are here to win. We held the lead for virtually the entire one-hundred miles of the race.
Valeria and Galey each put in a fast set to extend our leg before Japser takes his long leg for the day. Pietro closes off the last leg of our first rotation simultaneously reaching the first checkpoint of the race. Thirty-one miles into the race at just over 3:38. Our lead over second place is four minutes. I pick up again at the checkpoint to begin our second rotation with another five mile leg. The sun begins to make its presence felt and the wind teases us at first providing a cool reprieve from the burgeoning heat and then buffeting us against our inertia as we fight against it. Our second rotation sees shorter legs by the runners to compensate for the heat and the fatigue of having to run for a second time. By Ed's third run we have reached the turnaround and second checkpoint at 53 miles. Our time: 6:18. Our lead over second place is at least fifteen minutes, even with the second place team's runner somehow managing to end up ahead of me on my third leg without having ever passed me. Still, we ran on with our race following the course map and held a solid lead going into the last half of the race.
"It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse." - Ann Trason
We thought the wind had been a factor on our way up to West Palm Beach. We were wrong. That was just a prelude to the real challenge of the day. We spent the entire course south running into a strong crosswind that forced us to fight twice as hard to make any progress at all, let alone run at a decent pace. Yet we pushed ourselves. Through pain, and heat, and wind; we fought on. The elements slowly gave way to our will and the heat's effects slowly diminished as our bodies refused to break. Galey reached the third checkpoint at mile 76 in 9:09 and our lead was now well over 35 minutes. This was no longer a race to win. This was no longer a race for first place. The last 24 miles became a race against ourselves. Instead of victory, we sought domination. We did not want to beat second place. We wanted to break them. We would obliterate them.
The last quarter of the race was hard for all of us. Despite our hunger for victory the day had taken its toll. Although the last 24 miles only took 3:09 to complete it was a hard-fought run for each and every mile we ran. Every member of the team showed their true resolve in that last part of the race. There was no quit in any of us. We kept the same intensity as we had done the entire day. We began the race as a team 6 a.m. Saturday morning on the 28th of March 2009, and that is how we finished; at 6:18 p.m. the same day. From start to finish, we ran the 100 miles from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm beach in 12:18. Second place? Over an hour behind us.
We had accomplished our goals. Every one of them. We ran the relay and finished. We competed and won first place. We had fun. We created a blend of shared memories that will be remembered for the rest of our lives. We created bonds of friendship that will stand the test of time. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to run this race with such great runners and such wonderful people. Thank you all for making this such an incredible experience in my life.
posted by Marcos Redondo - Running For Hope at
11:08 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home