Running on Empty Read Online Free PDF Page A

spring.
    My motto manifested itself not just in my running but also in my pursuit of material success. I invested in a car wash in New York and bought a condo in Steamboat Springs because they came at a good price. And I continued to work long hours, expanding our family business into Nebraska. I went to the plant six days a week, pushing to be the best and take down the competition with an unparalleled work ethic. Year by year, we picked off the other local rendering operations by giving better service. We were the first in our area to pay for the remains we hauled away, and I was one of the few “dead truck” drivers around who didn’t insist that the farmers pull their animals out of the corral. I’d drive right through the open gate, engage my winch, secure my load, and then go on to my next stop quickly, if I was lucky enough not to get stuck in the mud and manure on my way out.
    The costs of my amateur athletics could easily have outstripped my professional profits—if I’d taken time off from work, flown to events around the country, stayed in nice hotels, and paid for other luxuries—but I’ve always been frugal by nature, and kept a keen eye on the bottom line of both ventures. I’d drive to races relatively close to home, sleep in my car if necessary, and always make it back in time to start the workweek. There was a price, though, and my family picked up the tab. They had a good provider, a man who took his responsibilities and commitments seriously. What they didn’t have was a husband and father who made being at home with them a priority.
    Although it wasn’t a conscious decision, I kept my distance.
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    Sometime in 1987, I was reading an article in Runner’s World by George Sheehan that described a monster of a California trail race, the hundred-mile Western States Endurance Run, and I was completely taken aback. Wait. What? People run a hundred miles in a race? How had I never heard about this before? It was probably because ultramarathoners didn’t bother with publicity back then; they were a bunch of guys (mostly) who were willing to go insane distances and didn’t care if anyone else knew about it. The accomplishment was the thing. There wasn’t big prize money, or stadiums of adoring fans, or even an ultrarunner’s club— just bragging rights whenever you made it to the finish. George Sheehan wrote about the silver belt buckle that served as the sole prize for completing the Western States 100 in under twenty-four hours, the outrageously beautiful and brutal landscape of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the small number of participants, and the sometimes eccentric personalities of the competitors. I wanted in.
    Without consulting the family, and now considering myself in training for the Western States, I started looking for a relatively flat course where I could push beyond my fifty-mile distance before taking on the greater challenge of the California race, which was coming up in June 1988. It just so happened there was an appropriate event in New York. Score! I had to visit the state anyway, to check on the car wash and meet with my partner there. I signed up for the twenty-four-hour run in Buffalo, which would be held in a park on a one-mile bike path loop, during which participants would circle the course as many times as they could in the time allotted.
    So, at the age of thirty-six, I set my sights on running at least one hundred miles in twenty-four hours. The math seemed solid: If I could average just under fifteen minutes per mile, I’d achieve my goal. I had no reason to believe I could pull it off—I’d never run that far or that long—but I felt confident: Just as Mom had taught us kids, I believed I could do anything if I applied myself. Knowing nothing about training for this distance, I figured I’d ramp up my mileage bit by bit. So I increased to eight miles every morning with a twenty- or thirty-mile run