Limits, real and illusory

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      Last spring I was training for the Barkley Marathons, a footrace held each year in Tennessee on or around April Fools Day. In the world of ultrarunning it's legendary. Lots of other races present huge personal challenges to the participants, but none match the character of the the Barkley—it's a life-changing experience (not to make too much of it). The entry field is limited to about 35 runners, all devotees to the sport (just about the only prerequisite). Names are drawn at the end of the year for the upcoming race, so one of the challenges is, if you are serious about the race—and I would suggest that if you're not, you'd best not throw your hat in the ring—you had better be training for it long before the drawing—like months before.

     It's often said amongst Barkers that you're a fool to train hard for this race, since you will fail. The only difference is how long your suffering will last—the better your training, the longer you'll last out there, the greater your suffering. And if you're a fool to train hard, what kind of idiot are you to be training hard before your name is even drawn?! Like all great things, I believe there's something here we can weave into a broader cloth (heh, heh, follow me if you dare).

Melzer, tapped out at the Barkley

      Training for the Barkley is intense, and the echo that follows each participant after they fail effects them deep to the core. (For the very few who complete it, obviously true as well.) It is an epic endeavor, in part because of the details—60,000 feet of climbing (that's 120,000 feet of elevation change) over a 100 mile course known for its natural obstacles (including a time limit of 60 hours). There have been about a dozen finishers out of hundreds who've tried over the past 20 years; all the rest of us are tapped out (literally, a bugle plays Taps to signal another fallen).

      Some consider the race director to be a sadistic man; he is anything but. Sure, he has a streak of toughness like no other, but its tenor is that of a wise teacher. Offering the participants a chance to look close (reallll close) at their own limits is an informing idea behind his race. Why would anyone want to get up close and personal with one's own limits? Good question; I think the answer might be different for each person who wants this experience. It may have something to do with our sense that limits are both very real, and very illusory. Our own limits ebb and flow like the ocean. Sometimes I am more courageous, or more flexible, or more generous...sometimes less. In training for 24n24, I am pushing my limits. Indeed, I find the trick is to push as hard as I can in training—this promises the best outcome, all other things being equal.

      The trick is—and this is the biggest unknown—there's a certain point where training too hard will invite injury or illness. Or is there? That certain point, like one's personal limits in a race, is illusory.... at least up to the point that you experience it. "Okay, so now that I've got shin splints I realize I should not have run an additional 50 miles this week on top of my 50 regular miles." Smarts will help keep you from overdoing it, but to succeed at the Barkley, you really have to push the training into an area that's unsafe. After all, meeting one's limits is the height of unsafe, it can be terrifying, in fact.

      I pushed my training this past weekend, and will do so even more next weekend. I climbed Galena Peak on Saturday and San Bernardino Peak on Sunday. While separating these two hike/runs by a night's rest (and lots of extra protein), I tread the fine line between training hard and training so hard that I'd need a week to recover. I felt the extra fatigue from the day before, yes, but not so much that I couldn't complete it feeling pretty good at Sunday's end. Next weekend I'll do the same, only a few hours longer each day. I'll be caching water, so an additional 8 pounds will be on my back on the climbs.

      By the way, I've attempted the Barkley 3 times. Each time I get a bit smarter, a bit more focused, more determined, and a bit further down the trail. Still far from the end, it's the great teacher Paradox, who stands beside me silently stating "Failure / Success." What will the 24n24 hold for me? We'll see soon enough.