Many The Miles

"Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive"
 - Dog Days Are Over, by Florence And The Machine 


I wrote this three years ago but never got around to posting it. Since then I've done longer runs in this altitude and completed my first half marathon in Texas, yet looking back at past challenges is always a good reminder to simply keep going. 



My alarm went off a 4:50 am and I was out the door by 5:20. It was still mostly dark outside, the sky showing only the barest hint that dawn was approaching. I wore a black jacket and black running pants, but the white bag on my back which held snacks, money, sunglasses, and my cell phone probably stood out like a target. I walked quickly, running down one neighborhood street which was more shaded than the rest, until I reached the highway. I jogged across, grateful that the rest was downhill, about a mile to go until I reached the street where a bus should be waiting to take me to the Endurance Challenge 10k in the small Ecuadorian town of Cochasqui.

I reached the mall with The North Face store, the company sponsoring the race which included not just the 10k I'd be running but a 21k, 50k, and 80k as well. Many of those runners had camped out there the night before in preparation for starting the run in the pitch dark of 4:00 am. I imagined the frigid cold spiked with adrenaline, wondering if I would ever be the kind of runner who would take on 50 or 80 kilometers. Right then, it was enough to get up before 5:00am to meet the 6:00am bus.

Except there was no bus. I ran all around the mall and back. Nothing. It was 6:00 am now, the time the bus was scheduled to leave. Things generally run late in Latin America; how could I have missed it? I ran half-way around again, searching for anyone else who looked like they too might be on their way to the race. I had been told it would be on street Shyris, so I walked a little down one way, then ran the other, along one edge of the large Parque Carolina. It was 6:20 and I was praying like crazy for that bus to appear, somehow. I had run as far as I thought it might possibly be and had just turned around, not quite out of hope but thinking through the possibility of returning home and researching other bus and taxi options that could get me to the race by my 10:00 start time. Just then, I saw a bus coming my way. It was a school bus, but there was something written on a piece of paper on the front. Just as it was passing me by, I read "10K' printed on the front. I swear: the Lone Ranger theme music played in my head as soon as I saw it. I waved my arms and did a 90 degree turn to chase the bus. It stopped and I stepped on, giving my name to the woman who asked, nodding and smiling and telling me to have a seat. I was so incredibly relieved. I settled into a seat and napped, already having run about two miles pre-race.

The bus arrived at the race site at 9:00, just as the 21k was beginning. I cheered them off along with hundreds of others, then put my things in the drop-bag tent, stretching and waiting until 10:00. The sun was warm but the wind was chilly, the normal weather condition of living in the mountains.

The race began by heading uphill. Up and up a seemingly endless dirt road, dusty and uneven. Nearly everyone was walking before long, heavy breathing in the air which was thinner than Quito by about 200 feet. I quickly realized: this could be one of the hardest things, physically, I had ever done.

When we finally crested the hill and began to go downhill, it was through a wooded area, along a trail which was narrow and of course very uneven. Even so, I flew. I may be clumsy much of the time, having broken two mugs and glasses in six months (just to name things in the kitchen), yet somehow I can run downhill as though my feet have wings. I love it. Downhill is what makes going uphill worth it, every time.

Down into the wooded valley I ran, passing race numbers and even a water bottle which had been lost by other runners who were also making up time. Uphill the trail led once more, but this time it was through grass, not dust. The barely-there trail seemed to have been made by cows. No sooner had I thought that, then I crested the hill and saw that we were indeed running/hiking through a cow pasture. The lackadaisical creatures watched us; we, a herd of runners invading their space, soaked in sweat and panting, yet all there by choice. Part of the trail along the hill was so on edge that I had to be careful, knowing that one wrong step and I could go tumbling down the steep incline. Eventually downhill I went yet again, watching out so as not to crash into the person ahead of me when they would sometimes be forced to slow down quickly when the trail made a sharp turn or was marred by rocks. Once, we came to a creek, tiny and muddy and crossable by means of a couple of poles laid across it: one to walk on and one to hold onto. There was a lot of laughing as we all stopped to carefully cross, before heading back uphill.

It was at mile four that there was finally people waiting to hand out water and Gatorade. "Just a couple more miles", I thought, going by the fact that a 10k is 6.2 miles. In this case, that fact was wrong.

We were back on the road, which went from firmly packed dirt and gravel to the uneven dusty part again. We were circling a hill now: along the slopes were fields which men were plowing or burning, the smoke and dust drifting into the paths of us runners. I was on the last mile, or so I thought, and it was once again uphill. My odometer, an App on my phone, spoke into my ear and told me how far and fast I had come, so when it told me I had gone six miles I thought, "Where is the finish line? Shouldn't I see it by now?" My legs and lungs ached. Each uphill step felt tortured. I had never run so many hills in such thin air. I put a hand to my face, trying to block the dust which I would later blow from my nose in black globs. The sun was blazing. I ran and jogged, ran and jogged.

 Ahead there was a bend in the road. I thought, "If I somehow got onto the 21k track by mistake, I don't think I can make it." The trail had been marked by colors for each of the four races, which all shared part of the same track. Cresting the hill and coming around the bend, the finish line should have been in sight. Instead, thankfully, was the next best thing: volunteers cheering the runners on with the words, "Last stretch! You can do it!"

I ran. I ran in the shade past a large pond which looked so inviting. I ran through clumps of grass and over clods of dirt. Another half mile, and then another. It wasn't until I had gone 7.2 miles -  a mile more than I had been anticipating - that the finish line was finally in sight. The cheering grew louder. 7.3 miles. 7.4. I crossed the finish line at 7.45, slowing to a walk and gratefully taking the Gatorade offered me. It took me about an hour and a half, but I had made it.

I was given water and a tangerine. I walked across the large field with the first-aid tents and boom box stereo system and runners milling about and sitting on the grass until I reached some shade. I sat and drank my water. I stretched my legs. I took off my shoes, wincing as I extracted my right foot which had developed a blister on the heel the day before. The skin had opened and bled through the band-aid, leaving a large red blotch on the inside of my shoe. I sat with my socks half-way peeled off my feet, which were ringed with dust. I ate my tangerine. It tasted better than candy. Sitting there in the shade, I didn't feel exhausted and sore. I felt incredibly content. It had indeed been one of the hardest physical things I had even done, but it was so worth it. Sitting there, dirty and sweaty and dehydrated, I was so happy. I had run 7.45 miles at an altitude of 3,000 feet, and I was happy. It was so worth it.