This Ultra Life, aka YOUO (You Only Ultra Once)

I know it is 2020, and most everyone I know is feeling like everything is completely off the rails wrong. I’m not so sure of a lot of things, but I do know that I am coping okay today because of the way a few of my friends are living their best lives in the worst of times. On the flipside, I see a lot of people staying busy online and in real life pointing fingers, blame, and judgement around the clock, instead of pointing the finger (any finger, honestly) back at themselves to make a point. For me, lately, it keeps coming back to this statement = If you are pushing others harder today than you are pushing yourself then something is terribly wrong.

In my own down time this year, whether it has been during slower work deadlines and family obligations or feeling bad for other people having a lot more on their plates than I ever do, I have found more inspiration than any year before … and we still have time. Hear me out. I know it is still 2020.

To preface this recent personal test recap, I wanna say that pushing yourself can go well beyond just competing physically. We all have the trifecta of testing ourselves physically, mentally, and/or spiritually. Some test none. Some test all. Still some just quote others who do anything to justify doing nothing themselves. But I digress. I may have finished and retired from my one and done Ironman in Louisville, Kentucky ten years ago (you can read about that here – www.ironmanchuck.wordpress.com), but I guarantee you that my wife pushes herself harder than I ever could on the daily in her creativity and compassion for her community, friends, and world in general (www.efharper.com). Point being, her 0.0 miles sticker proudly posted opposite my Ironman badge is a perfect representation of our joy status. Emily is more of a dancer than a runner anyways. But back to this story.

I have realized that most of my inspiration this year has come from watching friends face drastic life adversities head on. I’m talking about a barrage of major challenges that make Ironman competitions feel as small as the Presidential Fitness Test. Remember those when we were kids? But this is 2020, in case you’ve forgotten. I won’t name names, but here is a short list of a few examples that I’ve seen just this past month:

• A loving father lost his 2-year-old son to a drowning accident.
• A loving mother who had to quit her job earlier this year to care for her 5-year-old son who has been fighting a tumor in his brain stem since January, and also has a 2-year-old daughter, was left by their father in the beginning of the chemo treatments. The son has completed 17 of the 60 expected treatments with his super mom and sister by his side, but this hit me harder than the tornado hit many of my neighbors before the pandemic took effect. If you want to help this mom and learn about another friend in the process, here are two links to check out and share = donations-for-pechawa and the photo fundraising project from another super mom facing adversity at www.instagram.com/abbywanders.

And to really help explain why I did what I did this past Saturday, I’d say the unconscious wheels of momentum started rolling while on a cross country road trip with best friends … like most great things do, for me. About a month ago, smack dab in the middle of Covid, a close friend of mine, someone who has experienced a Groundhog Day worth of 2020’s the past two years, found out that his most recent diagnosis of cancer had returned in full effect. An outstanding father of 3 and a loving husband of an amazing artist, this friend continues to approach every day, moment, and life lesson with such grace that I can’t help but think about and be inspired by his story daily. You can learn more about his family’s story and help here – https://www.gofundme.com/f/64r39-powell-family-support?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=p_cp%20share-sheet&fbclid=IwAR2OnE7l4BdrKZwX6tp_2kZWC2QGUiM5hRfMlp-taryLFeA1HrOCAnxBblE

When my friend Carter called me to give me an update on Jamal, my wife was in full agreement, after Jamal’s wife gave us the green light, that Carter and another mutual friend (Frakes) and I should get in a car and drive straight to Dallas to give the family our love face-to-face … some original FaceTime, if you will. So we did just that. Carter and Frakes picked me up at my Nashville home on a Friday morning at 6am in a big truck. We got to Dallas before dinner, spent the next 24 hours putting up a new basketball goal, watching/analyzing college football, swapping personal old stories and new dreams, sharing love in silence, having the most amazing shrimp dinner I’ve ever had in my life, and then hugging it out before hitting the road back to Nashville before 6am Sunday morning. The best things are left unsaid or written somewhere else in time, but on the road was where Frakes introduced Carter and me to the concept of the Murder Mile.

The Murder Mile is a race that happened in Tennessee this past June. I was familiar with the man Jesse Itzler already, but Frakes said we needed to checkout one of Jesse’s Instagram stories that recapped his experience in the Murder Mile this year. We didn’t have sufficient WiFi on the road to see the story, so we settled for Frakes’ explanation for that time being. Basically, Murder Mile is a race that is what it sounds like. A group of runners met at a small farm in Tennessee that had a mile pathway mapped out on the land. It’s a trail run that has a Tennessee mountain to climb before scaling the other side to connect the mile loop. In this particular race featured, it was a last person standing winner-take-all kind of event. Meaning, everyone took off at the start line and had to be back at the start line for another mile start in 20 minutes time. When you miss the cutoff time, or give up, you are out of the race. You can tap out at any time. Pride is the only prize. The miles would continue to add up until the last person standing finished a lap on their own. I believe the winner, a friend of Jesse’s, ran through blazing heat, a monsoon of rain, and over 80 miles of running to win the deal. It is a Murder Mile, indeed.

I am crazy, and call a lot of crazy people friends, but I’m not that crazy. I’d like to volunteer at a race like that and/or see it live, but my wife doesn’t have to worry about me doing that race. This past Monday, I was at home with enough WiFi to check out Jesse’s story about Murder Mile. It was/is fascinating. But the fascination didn’t stop there. On that day, Jesse announced that he was going to do a virtual Ironman the following day. Not only would it be his first Ironman ever, which intrigued me with my one and done experience out of the blue, but he also declared that he had never biked and then ran (ever), he’d never swam much more than a mile only two times in his life, and his longest run since February was 7 miles. As I followed his Ironman experience online, I was encouraged that his ending was similar to my story. It was all about finishing something we started, no matter how hard it got. I bet he had a lot more resources & finances to help his post-race recovery, but we had similar family support and personal drive.

During the course of tracking Jesse’s Ironman experience, I had some time to kill online, in between regular work duties. I did a little research on the people who put on the Murder Mile race, and wouldn’t you know that it turned out that they were throwing together another crazy run this very Saturday in Nashville! That’s right, the Mid-State Mile/Tennessee Mile (www.bmfjevents.com) was hosting something they called the Smashville 50. People could donate while registering to run either 25 miles (or a marathon), a 50k, or a 50 mile race. It felt ominous and perfectly strange.

I texted my friend Dennis to see if he’d be interested in such an adventure on no notice. He was the race director for the Nashville Ultra Marathon for a few years, and I had helped him coordinate volunteers for his races. The stories and characters from those ultra events could make for an epic book collection of inspiration. Dennis immediately replied a maybe with a twist. He wanted to know how far I wanted to run. Of course, I only had the 50 miles in mind but had yet to say so out loud and because why dream anything less, right? Dennis said he could do the first 20 since he was training for The Flying Monkey race coming up. I told Dennis to hold, as proper life protocol suggests that I needed to ask my wife if I could make this crazy idea a reality. Remember, you are never alone in anything.

I told Emily about everything written above, showed her Jesse’s stories, and told her Dennis was on board to run a chunk with me and then crew some makeshift aid stations the rest of the day and night. Emily gave me the green light. I registered right then and there. I also texted a few friends who have run with me in the past who might be interested in jumping in this trip for a few of the miles after Dennis, if they had the time and interest. They each replied with their own excitement and interest, but only one could definitely meet up on the day of the race. I didn’t want to tell many others, because I didn’t want to overwhelm the idea or myself. One friend asked me how I felt about the race, and I said I felt great because I wasn’t thinking about it at all.  I was thinking about this story and finishing it. I have been constantly thinking about my friends dealing with way more adversity that they have no control over than what I was registering for online and in my head.

I thought it would be smart of me not to run any more this particular week until the race. You know, taper a training that never was. Work smarter, not harder = check. My legs were already feeling tired, after I submitted my registration. Like Jesse, I had not trained for this. Sure, I had been jogging around 4 to 5 miles nearly every day I can, meditation on the go really, but my longest run since official pandemic lockdown settled in East Nashville was somewhere around 7 miles and I’ve never ran more than 26.2 miles in my life. I was pretty stoked at the idea that anything more than a marathon was going to be an instant and forever PR. Sometimes the complete unknown is a delightful place to put yourself in, as long as you are with friends. Do any of us really know what we are doing, beyond making things up with positive intentions as we go along? One friend asked me if there was anything special I was going to eat the night before, assuming I had a plan. I told him that my wife was planning on cooking cheeseburgers so I thought I’d have two. Sounded pretty solid to me. Both cheeseburgers were absolutely delicious.

Fast forward to Saturday, race day. I bought all of snacks and made all of the prep suggestions that Dennis had emailed. I’m notoriously bad at race nutrition when left alone to my own devices, but time has taught me that you can do pretty much anything you put your mind to if you have decent shoes, Vaseline, and nipple guards. Anyways, I packed the car in the dark, and met Dennis beside the Titan’s Stadium at 6am. Turns out that spot would be the 21-mile marker on our race route, and it was perfect for his plans to be the ultimate player-coach. Dennis jumped in my car, and we headed to Bellevue, as ready as we could be.

The race directors, Becca and Jon, had put this race together in about a week’s time. It would start at their home, there would be 3 checkpoints (including a selfie on Love Circle with Nashville in the background and two aid stations), and I would finish back at the house we started from. I met the race directors, saw the sign below to verify I was at the right race address, and then met the others racing. Two college girls were going to run a marathon together. Three elite runners were going to run the 50k route. And that left me being the only one present doing the edited extra route of completing a full 50 miles. I already felt excited since I’ve never won any running race in my life. This already felt like my day.

I asked if they were going to blare an airhorn or play the National Anthem with loud fireworks to begin the race while letting the neighbors know what’s up, but that was just the East Nashvillian talking in me. One of the directors went over the routes, memorized our names, and tipped his coffee cup to our valiant attempts ahead. Remember, finishing was the only prize of the day. When we started in silence, another runner I would come to know as Chris, fell in stride with Dennis and me and said he was going to do the 50 miles too. It both gave me instant joy that I wouldn’t be running alone after Dennis turned from runner to coach after 21 miles, and it also inspired me to still be 1A or 1B finisher in the full 50. The little things mean as much as the big things. This was gonna be a good day.

I won’t go over every detail, just the route and the highlights at this point. If I wrote about everything, it would literally take as long as it took to run/jog/shuffle/walk the dang thing. In the end, the Titanic sinks. In the end, I finished 50 miles. The spouts of rain, the shouts from new friends, the overcast and chilled fall temperatures, everything was perfect to just let me focus on taking one step after the other.

We ran through some neighborhoods for a few miles, until we hit an official nature trail (don’t remember the name) that took us around the private universe called Ensworth. Then we ran a few miles of The Flying Monkey route through the Nashville mountains of Percy Warner Park. That shot us out onto Belle Meade to 70 and the first aid station. We stopped to enjoy the company and a hot quesadilla, before we hiked up to Love Circle for the mandatory race photo op, socially distanced above. The difference of taking your time in the ultra race setting versus racing against time in a regular marathon was heavenly. It allowed for me to appreciate every moment instead of beating my feet and myself up for four plus hours. Dennis had mentioned that he wanted to do a pace of around 11-12 minute miles, and we basically ran a 10:59 pace (says his watch) from the start to his car. I will say that after Love Circle, the route took us straight into downtown Corona-ville on Broadway. Most people just don’t care. We put on our masks until we crossed the river to Dennis’ car. I bet we ran our fastest mile of the day when running as far as possible from the Broadway sidewalk as possible. I just can’t. I won’t go there here.

After Dennis headed home for a hot shower and change of clothes, Chris and I ran towards the final aid station that was a house on 11^th. It had sprinkled earlier in the day, but it came a good rain when we got to the aid station. Again, the company made us feel good. They offered me a Fireball pocket rocket, but I opted for a shot of flavored salt in my cold Gatorade instead. It was perfect. And more than good, with the extra miles Dennis and I added to the race route to make it 50, the next steps would take us right beside my house and into familiar Shelby Bottoms for a few miles. The rain stopped, and I was able to see Emily and Avett leaving for swim practice while I got to change into clean, dry clothes. 23 miles into the race, and I knew I had a long day ahead of us still. Yet, I saw the same look in Emily’s eyes with her rainy pandemic day with a toddler who has the energy levels of the Energizer Bunny. We were both jealous of and respected each other for a variety of reasons. Like always, love kept us going.

In Shelby, Chris opened up about his past ultra race experiences. He divulged that he had actually participated in the previously mentioned Murder Mile and also ran a few 50 mile races in the past. Chris declared his dream that I don’t have of finishing a 100 miler, and he was equally feeling the struggle of going after dreams and still maintaining balance of time and love with his family of four that was at his home this day. The struggles didn’t stop us. But the smell of fresh coffee at Bongo Java East stopped Chris in his tracks. I filled up my water bottle next door, while he waited for his hot cup of joe. I was feeling good in my old store neighborhood. I was where I needed to be all around. The facts that Chris had a better knowledge of the entire race route and the experiences of getting through 50 mile races in general was not lost on me. I would have been lost without him later in our near future from Murphy Road onward home. That said, Chris said he needed my energy (and probably non-stop chatter = I was feeling even better than usual all day long) to pull him out of the walls he was hitting from the miles in the late teens.

We met Dennis beside the Titan Stadium again, and he planned on meeting us every 5 miles until the finish. He was a mobile aid station, friend, cheerleader, and coach. He was not only sending updates to my wife on how I was doing and where I was, but he was the ultimate guide for both of us still in the race. At one point, Chris and I spoke about life goals and money stuff. When the Powerball concept was mentioned, like it always is by everyone, I told Chris that he had already won the lottery this given day because he now had me and (more importantly) Dennis in his corner to finish the race. We all need(ed) each other, and we weren’t too prideful to share the sentiment. One of my favorite things about running distances, besides the feeling of letting go and getting rid of all the noise that doesn’t matter, is that it burns down a lot of social filters. You break down your wants to needs. It makes life simple again, one step after the other. You should try it.

At the pedestrian bridge, the idea for this run came full circle. My good friend Justin, who just so happens to be Frakes’ brother-in-law, joined us to walk/jog for a 5 mile stage. The extra fresh energy, one more person to talk with and to us, and the all-around awesome person in the mix who Justin is on the daily helped us push through the 2^nd time around Downtown with a fast pace. I mean it. We actually ran faster than a party shuttle being pulled by a tractor up Demonbreun. Sure, the driver looked like an 80-year-old Santa playing 90’s hip hop to an over-crowded bunch of virus-denying idiots packed into a wagon, but they were not alone either. We saw a handful of party shuttles packed with idiots in that stretch, from a safe distance. We also passed by two girls running their own race. One of the girls yelled to everyone within shouting distance that her friend was running 31 miles for her 31^st birthday. We smiled and kept going, story of the day. We figured it would be bad form of us to let her know we were doing 50. Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut.

When Justin left us for to return to his own family, we saw Dennis again before we ventured into Sylvan Park. We got some more snacks, some time to stretch, and more encouragement from Dennis. There was still light ahead. Chris’ knee was starting to get rough, but we stopped every time he needed to stretch. Luckily, he had a friend who lived near Sylvan Park that gave him some Advil. Again, different from a marathon mentality, I welcomed every opportunity to rest and stretch. We were going to finish. That was the only goal. At one point, later in the dark of the woods beside Ensworth, I made the comment that we could’ve finished the race 30-45 minutes earlier but we would’ve felt way way worse than we did (and do). Chris stretched beside another random tree and street sign and agreed.

Once we made it back to 70 and Belle Meade, we started a new tradition. Instead of jogging and walking intervals, I thought of Eugene. Eugene was one of the unforgettable hall of fame legends of the Nashville Ultra Marathon lore. He was close to 80 and had run a marathon in all 50 states nearly 3 times over. He looked like the old man in the Pixar movie Up, with a severe hunchback versus any walking sticks with tennis balls, and he always wore those old school Breathe Right nasal strips. Not only did Eugene finish every race he started, but he always did them at the most interesting snail-like pace stride. I called it a shuffle, like an old man in slippers sliding down the driveway to pick up a Sunday paper beside his mailbox. So, when we got to Belle Meade, we walked and shuffled. By the time we met up with Dennis again in front of the stone-walled entrance and steep steps into Percy Warner, I had changed our pace into three stages of shuffling (1 being the easiest and 3 being the fastest shuffle we could muster without it being a walk). In between traffic stops, millionaire mansions, vintage car shows at private country clubs, and the 1% of Nashville with their own police force, we had to invent our own incentives for each section to shuffle to next. I’m not sure we ever used shuffle 2 though.

We were feeling it before Percy round 2. We knew the hardest part was ahead of us. Dennis told us as much, and Dennis is a straight-shooter. The hills were going to be strong, but we had to be stronger. The sun was setting, but we couldn’t let our spirits sink with the natural light. We opted for more snacks and a new power walk technique that helped us work different parts of our legs in ways that helped diversify the pain and experience. Also, we quickly noticed that with the tree coverage in the woods, along with all of the fallen colored leaves on the path, released a natural air ventilation that was as refreshing as the Excedrin Dennis gave me. The difference between the clean air of the park and higher elevation was literally night and day from the fumes we had been taking in in the city. The clean air renewed our lungs, if not our legs.

When we met Dennis on the other side of The Flying Monkey start, it was night. We had just seen and smelled a few fresh campfires on rented campgrounds, and Fall was in full effect. The bright spot of seeing Dennis again, aside from his usual constant friendship, expertise, and mobile aid station, was that he said we looked a lot better after Percy than before. He also said he was going to meet us sooner than 5 miles from that point because we had fewer than 10 miles left. Here is the point I should mention that I outlasted my Suunto watch. My watch died when we hit the 10-hour mark just before 40 miles. I also made the comment around that time, as we entered the 40’s that this run definitely was reflecting my life. 40 was a very strange life marker to experience this year of all years, but the 40’s already felt somehow better than the extra long 30’s (and I loved my 30’s). Seriously, miles 30-40 felt like 20 total.

We had our night lights handy, and we ran the nature trails in the dark. The rain came again, but it was nice. We saw multiple deer in the nature reserve who stared in amazement at us in the dark on their territory. We literally stopped them in their tracks. I’m sure they thought we were crazy too. We met Dennis at the first street light of the burbs. He said we were about 2 miles away from the finish. There was no turning back at that point, if there ever was a turning back point. My lower left shin and calves were sore, sore since the 20’s like Chris’ knee, but my upper half felt great. I felt even better when we passed a house that had all of the figures from Avett’s favorite A Nightmare Before Christmas. It reminded me that I was close to seeing my family again. We are dressing up as characters from that movie and Avett’s favorite movie two years running. He can sing the entire movie like my friend Bruni can quote the entire movie Top Gun (equally impressive to watch). Chris and I found ourselves back into a walk/jog interval for the last 2 miles. And just like that, we looked at his watch and we were .02 miles from our goal. We took a hard left at the next street sign and finished strong. Strong meaning alive and smiling. We finished the 50 miles together. We both won the day.

We had the race directors take a team picture of Dennis, mE, and Chris again. We told them about a few of our favorite moments of the race, some included above, and we went our separate ways home. We were finished.

That’s all I have to say, for now, unless you ask me about this story separately. You know I love to talk and write about things and people who inspire me. And like that, I have officially retired from another extraordinary task that I can firmly add to my life resume. I have no desire to run more than 50 miles or more than a marathon really any more, but I am hear to volunteer, help, and witness others challenging their extra-ordinary distance goals.

Aside from making a very positive memory from 2020, I really wanted to find an interesting way to pay homage to my friends mentioned who are going through a lot right now and could use any and all help you can give or share with them. Whether you are in this story directly or not, please know that I hear and see you. I am inspired by you. I think what Jesse posted before his Ironman experience, with little to no proper training, can be applied to all of us going after our goals. So get after yours already.

We are all so much stronger than we think we are.

And remember to vote.

Much love,

As you were, busy but happy,

Chuck

Above image shows the Garmin stats from our run from Chris’s phone after my watch died and we kept going.