Race Report – Pete Stringer – Across The Years 2007

Posted on the Ultralist
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 12:33:09 +0000
From: Pete Stringer
Subject: ATY race report, or what might have been

For years I had read about the Across The Years race with interest, knowing how much I’d like to try it. But both the Arizona distance and the time of year made this pretty unlikely, since Jane and I have separate sets of kids, equally far flung and desiring our Xmas participation if we feel like cross-country holiday travel (Kansas, Montana, northernmost Vermont, etc.).
But finally this summer, with the increasing desire to make this race at least once before I get too darned old to be competitive, I decided to enter the lottery. The Sri Chinmoy 6-day I had done in May showed me just how much I would enjoy multiday racing. At my wonderful friend Lynn Newton’s encouragement and wife Jane’s okay, I decided to enter about July while training for Leadville. Nardini Manor sounded idyllic, and Paul Bonnett and Rodger Wrublik had long demonstrated me their absolute class.
My delight in making the list for the 72 hour segment was a real thrill, what i told Lynn was akin to coming downstairs Christmas morning and seeing a gift just for me. My main problem with the Sri Chinmoy race was the hardness of the sidewalk pavement, and I knew the track at ATY was packed dirt, so I relished the opportunity to try this surface.
Jane and I flew from Boston to Dallas to Phoenix on Friday, then got a cab, thinking it would be perhaps a $30 fare. NOT!!
It is $75, something I think should be mentioned on the website for similar travelers in the future. Other runners have made this same mistake their first time. John Geesler, Aaron Goldman. If you are going to be running for three days, you don’t want to rent a car to just sit there, especially when you expect you won’t have the same difficulty hitching a ride back from a fellow runner.
The first thing we noticed on arrival was how unexpectedly cold it was, and how isolated from any store or restaurant. We had been up since 2AM to drive to Boston to catch our 6AM flight, so hadn’t really eaten anything all day. (at this point Ray Ks plan of driving across the country seemed less insane) However, the lovely Tana Wrublik came to our rescue and actually served us a terrific meal up at the house, along with my longtime friend, the stout-hearted J. Geesler and his protege Dave Putney, who was to make quite a splash himself in the 24 hr. race. Both of these fellows have an innate nobility about themselves that makes for an ideal ambiance for the locker room. Putting the armor on, so to speak, for the battle looms…
I slept well, but upon arising could find no place to stay warm in the chill. Finally I found the bathroom, already crowded with huddling runners who also did not have the convenience of cars. The big tent had no heat at this point, and I’ll bet every runner in that bathroom would have anted up extra money for the firing up of the necessary butane tanks this might take. Perhaps this suggestion could be addressed for next year? This was really my only complaint about the race.
I had fashioned out a rough three day strategy that I had arrived at with the knowledge and experience gained from the 6-day, and thought 210 or 215 miles should be within my reality. I had compiled 201 for the first three days at the six-day (over a surface I detested) moving quite conservatively, and though I wasn’t in quite as good a shape, I thought if I covered 150 miles the first two days, I would be well positioned for a real charge over the final day.
Truth be told, everything went perfect. For two days, I nailed it, and it seemed so easy and FUN. I found the cold temps at night manageable, and the air breathable, which is kind of surprising, because I have multiple allergies that I get shots for each week as well as taking Singulair and Zyrtac and inhalors occasionally.
And everything else was so great. I loved the track. I was never a bit sore. The chip timing and flash screen was so interesting to this runner who cut his teeth on track races of every description. I loved running around a circle where you could observe the style and plans of all the other runners, chat a while as you will, enjoy the terrific comraderie and humor of the folks who I so cherish. It was fascinating. And I mean everyone, from the molasses-moving, inexorable Andy to the relentlessly loping Tony Mangan, you all did yourselves proud.
If I have one quality that might make me popular with other runners is that I am genuinely interested in other people’s running, (which they seem to recognize)and to be in a venue where you can watch each many many times whiz on towards their particular goals is a feast for this diehard sports fan. Now here, I am torn to whether I should mention particular runners, because I cannot write about everyone. Let me just say that I was inspired and empowered by you all, and found many glorious moments to savor as examples of the indomitability of the human spirit.
Okay, back to my race. After arriving at 150 miles, I decided to take my hour’s nap, (onset of Day 3)and that’s when the demon flu attacked, while it had me horizontal. I awoke with an awful feeling in my stomach and weakness of limbs, and then began the upchucking and diarrhea that would mark my next 21 or 22 hours. Jane and I fashioned out a bed pan of cardboard and garbage bag that allowed me to not have to try to make the bathroom. I just huddled under layers of blankets and tried to stop shivering. It was really as sick as I can remember being. Yuk.
Thus I completely missed the splendors of the fireworks or the celebration of the New Year. All I could think of was staying warm. It was during this period — when she was her most magnificent as my nurse, my loyal helpmate — that I think Jane lost her desire to remain an ideal support partner for ultras. It was just too squallid and gross for her tastes, just simply too lo-o-o-ong! All the memories and romance of our teamwork defeating Western States and Leadville and Sri Chinmoy were biting the dust! This one pushed her over the cliff, and unless I somehow made them more user-friendly to the crew, I am afraid I am on my own from here on out.
As apologetic as I felt I was as her patient, I knew that first chance I glimpsed of getting out there again, I was going to take. It is ingrained in us, a micro chip in the brain. So when the 71st hour came around, I felt I could move enough to get to the bathroom on my own. And if I could do that, well, why not just move a bit around the track and have the motion register, count on your total? It is this competitive side that I think was responsible for me not getting the rest that would have prevented the relapse that occurred on the long plane ride home. And this further solidified Jane’s resolution that these things were not exactly her drothers. Not now, not anytime in the future. If this is what i choose for my hobby, so be it, but she wasn’t about to be at the scene of the asylum.
Thus, I join the ranks of ultrarunners everywhere who perhaps asked for companionship for one ultra event too many, or painted a somewhat rose-tinted picture of what accomodations and amenities might be like. (“it’ll serve as a restful winter vacation in the Southwest”) And I am totally hopeless in my love of these things, perhaps more so with every missing brain neuron. If anything, they are more interesting and enticing than ever, and as I grow old of limb and loin, I seem to become ever more impassioned with the very soul of what stirs this thing we call ultrarunning.
May it long survive.

Pete Stringer, ATY 2008 155 miles

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