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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
"Nothing matters." This is what I tell Jordan, my super boss crew and Superior finisher, as he drives me to the start line of the Superior 100 at Gooseberry State Park. Maybe I'm talking about the rain that's pelting the windshield in thick heavy drops and is forecast to continue until close to nightfall, and all the mud and wet boardwalks and chafing that will accompany it. Maybe I'm talking about my consecutive DNF runs here in the past few years (despite three finishes in my first three attempts) and fears of another DNF. Maybe I'm talking about the many life changes and stressors I've experienced for the last few months that have impacted sleep, energy levels, focus, training—some days when I didn't know what to do with myself I would put my shoes on and hit the trail, but other days I just didn't have the energy or time for anything extra outside the basic requirements of life and work, although the stress (and healthier eating) helped me lose some weight, a bonus here. I say it again. "Nothing matters," and remind him that if we miss each other at an aid station or if I forget to grab gels or gloves from him, none of that matters—it will all work out, whatever working out in the end may look like. Or maybe I'm simply talking about our timing getting to the start—we're cutting it close and will only have time to pee in the woods next to the parking lot before making it to the start line (we keep forgetting the race starts ten minutes earlier than normal due to a reroute and some extra mileage), where John Storkamp's already giving last minute directions and talking about love being the most important thing. Okay, love matters. John's right on that one. John's usually right.
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
The rain's still coming down as we start and cross the bridge over the Gooseberry River. Before we run a half mile I take off my light rainjacket (Houdini of course) and stuff it into my vest. The rain tingling my arms and face and scalp is electric sparkles of coolness popping on my skin. It's so pure and lovely.
The pavement section to Split Rock is a blur of yelling at honking cars and at friends running. Lots of energy. No one's grumpy yet. No one's hallucinating or stumbling or falling or puking. It's a party moving on yet unblistered feet. I'm already a bit hoarse by the time we hit the single track.
On the west side of the Split Rock River I tell myself to just go with the flow, don't mind the pile ups and traffic jams and don't worry about getting around people—let the pace of the crowd temper my excitement and don't waste mental or physical energy here. It's a technical section so just ride the rhythms of the train in front. Nothing matters here. Do no harm, as Jason Husveth says. It's early. Too early for mistakes. At times the trail is a current of moving rain water, slippery—mud will be a theme from here to Lutsen. I cross the Split Rock River and on the east side the trail gets more runnable, but the train is still tight so I politely pass on the left and feel myself open up a bit climbing to the ridge top. My bib number has popped a corner loose from its safety pin a few times due to the rain and is flapping against my leg. The downhill to the Split Rock aid station and return to the ridge is such a social thing as runners are coming and going and I bomb the downhill with yelling and high fives for those climbing uphill.
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
John Storkamp is arriving at the aid station when I get there, checking on his army of amazing volunteers. I yell out to the volunteers that I love them. I grab some food and turn around and stuff my face walking up the hill and stairs and greet Donny Clark at the top. Donny was the main sweeper for years, and before that he was in charge of course marking. He's always at the top of those stairs these days. I wouldn't know what to think if he wasn't there. Like so many of these volunteers, he has done this for decades. And just beyond him is Tom Kurtovich, who's been doing this since year one and will be at several places on the course over the next two days. He's calling out numbers to the radio operators as we crest the ridge top.
Then I'm alone for stretches, settling into my own pace and rhythm, settling into my head, into my body, into the rain, settling into the experience. It's a mostly runnable section to Beaver Bay, some of the trail old logging road, and at times I run with others and at times I enjoy my solitude in the soft rain. I'm moving well between miles 10 and 20 or so. But I'm thinking about food already, and by the time I get to Beaver Bay I have one thing on my mind—fried chicken. Maybe pizza too. I can't stop thinking about fried chicken.
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
At Beaver Bay a volunteer helps me remove my bib number and with a Sharpie pen writes my number on the pink ribbon tied to the back of my vest that signifies I'm a hundred miler. Apparently many bibs are disintegrating or coming loose from the rain. I stuff my face with whatever I can grab from the aid station table, salty homemade chocolate cookies that are much better than the chicken that's been frying in my head, a Coke, some other stuff too, more cookies, another Coke, and I walk away forcing as much food as I can into my mouth while I try to swallow and talk to Jordan, who's walking with me. In years past my stomach has been an issue—especially in the night when I become a vomit rocket covering the forest floor in bile and froth, but I'm committed to shoveling food and pouring Cokes down my gullet at each aid station this year. And somehow this year it works—except for some slight nausea in the final miles, I am able to eat at every aid station and it all stays where it belongs, in my body instead of recycled as chum for the night critters.
After mile twenty, this course usually starts to hammer on me. The next few sections are in my mind the toughest, through Silver Bay and Tettegouche (I think of the really tough miles of this course as Beaver Bay through County Road 6, though the toughest section of this course is actually whatever section I'm on at the time), but they don't seem so bad this year. Maybe it's the rain—a lovely escape from heat, what normally means being exposed on rocky climbs and ridges in the warmth of the day. Usually miles 20 through 45 or so are usually some of my tougher miles in a 100, the miles where I have to convince my legs that we are committed to this thing through whatever it brings, but this year I just move through those miles. Somewhere just after Beaver Bay I have a conversation with a runner named Norman and he mentions that he's from Puerto Rico, and in our short conversation we talk about mofongo and Playa Sucia and his house in Rincon. The climbing on this section doesn't impact me as it often does.
Jordan's at Silver Bay and I come into the aid station yelling about love, arms raised, looking for something to eat, everything to eat. I down a quesadilla, maybe a grilled cheese, definitely a Coke. More cookies too. I want all the cookies, all the Coke. When I leave the aid station, and I'm leaving them a bit quicker than usual, I realize Jordan has magically removed the trash from my vest and refilled my gels. How did I not notice my stealth crew guy emptying my pockets?
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
It's at this point on that my recall of the race comes from a softer and hazier fold in the brain, like patches of a blackout drunk or images from a dream that appear briefly days or weeks later, with details slowly unraveling, the memory a loose thread on an old sweater, boiling bubbles rising from the subconscious. It's why I'm trying to write about the experience, not only to make sense of it but to remember it as best I can. At some point the race turns away from the head, from thought, and morphs more into pure experience, a place where memory and thinking and maybe even language only stray as interlopers. Something else takes over and logic and reason no longer live here. The regions of the brain that translate senses—the slide of mud, the pain of each step on the bottom of blistered feet, the sparkle of rain on skin, the smell of wet leaves and roots—becomes more prominent and overrides the temporary need to process meaning and thought—maybe that's why human touch is so meaningful to me at these times. I imagine it's akin to how my dog experiences life, and maybe that's why I love these things so much. They put us in the moment, in the experience, and knock us out of our routines and illusions of daily life.
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| Photo credit Jordan Wesely |
That section from Silver Bay to Tettegouche can be cruel in the most beautiful ways. The views are so lovely they're painful, surreal in the rain and the fog that follows it. We are swimming through milky scenes of lakes and trees. The climbs and drops, Bean, Bear, Trudee, and so on, are there, but they don't have as much impact—throughout the winter I improved my weak climbing skills on the treadmill, using its software to move through the Alps, Kilimanjaro, etc. Soon enough I'm on state park trail, smoother, buffed out trail from more foot traffic. The bridge over the Baptism River was washed out in spring floods and the race is rerouted down to cross the river at the highway. I float down the snowmobile trail and hit some shoe sucking puddles on the way. I consider diving headfirst into one of those monstrous puddles, but chafing is already whispering in my shorts and I don't want to amplify it. Everything is wet but it feels good for now.
I remember very little of the Tettegouche aid station. I'm sure there was food and Coke and laughter. But the next section to County Road 6 wears on me. It always does. It's just tedious—that's the word for it. And this evening I hear sirens from the highway—an odd sound bouncing through the trees—and I hope it doesn't mean someone's crew or a volunteer—or anyone really—has had an accident. The sirens keep coming. Something's not good out there on the highway. I think of Jordan driving my car aid station to aid station and hope he's okay. It's getting dark. Or maybe it's not dark yet—maybe it's just the fog and lack of sunlight that makes it feel dark. The rain has stopped in this section but it has left so much mud and my feet are feeling forty miles of wetness, the skin sliding loose and bubbling.
I keep moving and come around to a ridgetop and Scott Rokis is there taking photos.
"I heard a crash on the highway earlier," he says.
"Yeah, those sirens have been echoing forever," I say.
"Traffic was stopped in both directions," he says.
We chat about the accident a bit more, maybe about the weather, about what an achingly beautiful evening it is. I look down at the highway in the distance, the big lake blanketed in fog behind it. It's not dark yet but it's closing in on us.
"I should keep rolling," I say.
"Oh please do," Scott says.
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
Eventually I see County Road 6 below in the distance, hear cars zooming the pavement. This aid station is a transition to night, and it's dark now, and I'm circling around Sawmill Dome, following its sharp descent, sometimes using my hands to drop down over big rocks, assurance against stiff legs. Eventually I'm crossing the highway and following the cones into the aid station. I might sit here—if I do it's the first time I've sat today. Time to regroup, ready myself to move through the long night. Jason and TJ are here with Jordan. Jason decided last minute not to run. TJ had chosen to hike as much of the course as he could this year. But he's not there yet. His race will end at County Road 6, so he's somewhere behind me, still moving.
On the way to Finland I fall off a slick boardwalk bridge. Approaching it I notice the boards are bent and rotted, and with my first steps I slide off to land on a beaver dam. Further on, I'm falling asleep moving, shaking my head to wake up. With so much water so thick in the air my headlamp is like looking through a translucent moon, floating droplets lit in the beam. I follow Susan Donnelly for a brief time and we catch up. I follow Julie Berg for a brief time and we catch up. These night conversations are wonderful, and these people's voices, whether behind me or in front of me, are strings I tie myself to that keep me moving forward.
At the Finland aid station I'm sleepy, grumpy. TJ and Jordan and Jason are all there. I'm happy to see my boys but I want sleep, to just put my head on my knees for two minutes. I'm in a chair and someone next to us is running an electric massager on his legs. The noise is not helping my hope for a brief nap. Someone has wrapped a puffy jacket around me. I may put sleeves on here, maybe a hat too. Jason's asking what kind of pace I've been holding, wondering if he might pace me a bit. I don't know. My answers are confusing, I'm sure. I change my underwear sitting in the chair. If I change socks they will just get wet right away. The boys are telling me it's time to get moving. They're telling me to eat more first. I walk out into the night, away from the noise and lights, with a hand full of food and some Coke in the other hand. I still feel the chafing in my shorts, the rub of wet skin on wet skin. My feet are blistered from the moisture and mud too.
I'm still falling asleep moving and it alarms me. it doesn't feel safe. I briefly lay down next to the trail and try for sleep but it doesn't come. I fall off another boardwalk bridge and slam my wrist hard on the way down. I come into the Sonju aid station and say hi to Bonnie Riley and tell her I'm staying the hell away from that fire—it's a magnet that could keep me here until morning. I grab some pancakes and sit down and put my head on my knees and fall asleep. The sleep lasts less than five minutes I'd guess but I sit up feeling better for now. I grab another pancake—holy smokes it tastes good and I like its heat in my hands. I say goodbye to Bonnie and she says she was just about to come kick me out of the chair.
Back on the trail, in this section filled with roots and swampy muddy dreams, sleep still pulls at me, and I startle myself awake. I find a log beside the trail and lay down on the other side of it, half hidden so passing runners don't think I'm dead or hurt. I close my eyes. A couple breaths and sleep finds me if for only another couple minutes. As I feel passing runners' footfalls on the trail I say, "I'm okay, just resting." Soon enough I'm up and moving. I smell the barn coming into the Crosby aid station, the familiar rise over a knob and then down to the open road and open sky. That short power nap did me good and I'm alert and moving well. The sky has cleared some and the stars are dripping onto my wet skin, thick and sparkly. Walking some on the road, running some too. Jordan finds me here on the road and moves into the aid station with me.
I'm picking up a pacer here. My coach, Jake Hegge—a word on coaching and Jake: for years I never considered a coach. I've run all my life. It's a simple process, left foot, right foot, and so on. But after not finishing Superior a few times, I contacted Jake, and it works for me much like having an AA sponsor does—he's someone who gives me guidance and accountability, who holds me back when I need it and someone who pushes me forward out of my comfort zone when I need it. So Jake texted me yesterday and asked if I want a pacer. He said Gerard Cramer was working the Crosby aid station and willing to run me home once I got there. Poor Gerard—a wonderful guy and a wonderful pacer. And the funny thing about Jake is that he's probably finishing the race, a win, around the time I pull into Crosby.
I ask around the aid station for Gerard. "He's getting ready for you," Mike Borst says while I gargle pancakes. I find Gerard in his van, changing clothes, and he tells me he'll catch up, and he does soon, before we descend to the Manitou River. Climbing the other side we catch and join a guy named Ken and we move well together through that long climb with it's false peaks. Somewhere along here the sun is coming up and the body feels its energy, the resurrection time. I have help and company now in the kindness of Gerard. The struggles of night have passed and we continue to move and somehow I know there will be a finish, a buckle, today.
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
Sugarloaf aid station smells like breakfast. They have hash browns! Jordan hands me a bowl of them and I sit down and drop them on the ground. Jordan refills the bowl and I eat them with my fingers. I put on a dry shirt. I get up and keep moving. Always moving.
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
We move through Cramer. Gerard's voice has become a string pulling me forward to Lutsen. He's a ship pulling an anchor though sand. We hit the Cross River with its water rushing over rocks and the trail's ups and downs and we keep moving. I think I see its bridge ahead but it's just another log, a downed tree, a hope. Campers cheer for us outside their tents and hand me dried mango just before we cross the river and climb away from it. The sun climbs with us. And then we are dropping down to the Temperance River and aid station, making quick work of it, getting food in us, getting out. We are in familiar ground now, less than a marathon to go, and we are moving well along both sides of the river, even with the gentle climb away from it, running some of it, Gerard's voice still pulling me.
Of course we have slowed down but everyone does and few runners are passing us. The faster 50 milers are coming by now, offering encouragement. I wave them by without moving off the trail. I tell Gerard about the construction workers I see ahead on the trail, actually some yellowed leaves. I've already pointed out the human head I saw on a log somewhere around dawn, and each time Gerard says, "No." I decide to keep my questionable observations to myself, but there are so many heads and faces.
The climb up to Carlton Peak is slow but steady and rewarding with its views of the big lake. By this point I'm doing math in my head, considering cutoff times. I'm sure Gerard's math is better than mine. I've been looking forward to the long gradual downhill into Sawbill, but with each step the chafing and blistering pounce on my nerves.
That section from Sawbill to Oberg feels relentless, nothing too tough but every step looks the same in these trees. We talk often about time and pace and cutoffs and we will be close but we keep moving. At Oberg John Horns is there, the sweeper. This is the last aid station and the finish is like a done thing now. Horns tells me he will give me a fifteen minute head start and says, "Just stay ahead of me, Kevin." I feel I can do that. Jordan is emptying and filling my vest pockets and I am eating and wanting to get out of there. But wait, I see one of my favorite aid station dogs, Abby. Abby's here! I bend down to pet her and say hi, but it feels like the entire aid station is telling me to get the hell out of there. "Let's go to fucking Lutsen yall."
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
I know the timing is still questionable. These are slow miles ahead. But I know this race is a done thing, timing or not, I will get to Lutsen on foot this year. My throat tightens at the thought, at the emotion really. My headlamp is back on my head. Gerard is pushing me through and up Moose Mountain. It's so eerie up here, headlamp turned on now, as if there are ghosts among us. Gerard keeps talking about the timing, not a second to waste, no time for rests or slowing. In the swamp between Moose and Mystery Mountains, I say it again. "Nothing matters." And in that moment it's true. Nothing. Matters. This thing we are doing is absurd really. The only meaning to it is what we give it. And while I've given it plenty, there is nothing here that matters outside this series of moments. This step is all there is. If we get there before the cutoff, that's great. And if we don't make the cutoff, we will still get there. Whatever weight I've given that buckle is strictly the weight I've given it. It's only a destination and getting there has been the reward, not just the race, but the training, the spiritual preparation, the camaraderie. Nothing matters here. Just keep moving forward, step by painful and joyous step. I tell Gerard that once we get to the group campsite on Mystery Mountain it's almost all downhill from there, a done deal. At some point I tell him we are passing that group campsite, but we aren't. It's much further ahead. My watch died long ago but somehow I have my phone—that's right Jordan gave it me earlier in the day when I wanted to text my son. I have my phone in hand and I keep checking the time. Gerard seems unsure if we will make the cutoff but maybe he's just trying to keep me moving.
We descend off Mystery Mountain down toward the Poplar River and its sound of rushing water freezes in my throat. That lovely sound makes me cry. It means we're home. Or maybe we've been home every step of the way, because in these moments this is what it feels I was meant to do, even if there is little meaning to it. We are moving to the finish. Gerard starts to peel off and I say, "Oh no. You're sticking with me man." I am hoarse and yelling through the finish in the dark. Norman, the guy I talked with about Puerto Rico yesterday near the Baptism River, must have just finished, and he gives me a big bear hug. Someone hands me a buckle. "I see you're thinking about maybe taking up some trail running," John Storkamp says. I need to sit down. Jordan helps me find a chair. He puts a coat on me. Runners are coming in amid shouts and lights and camera flashes, but I'm looking at the ground. The ability to focus on anything is far gone. I'm in disbelief. I made it to Lutsen. On foot. With eight minutes to spare. I should say we made it to Lutsen, because Gerard and Jordan and Jake Hegge and TJ and Jason and the Storkamps and an army of fellow runners and an army of volunteers all made the long march with me and helped along the way. This is never an I thing, and that's the humbling feeling I get in that chair.
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| Photo credit Scott Rokis |
One thing I've learned about Jordan is that he has an incredible talent with finding ideal parking spaces. It's happened repeatedly for the last couple days, from the start at Gooseberry to Lutsen. The car is such a short walk away and I ask him to help me get there and turn the heat on, seat warmers too please.
Soon we are back in the condo and I sit on the edge of the bed and peel my socks off, a second layer of skin and mud, and the smell hits me. Whose feet are these anyway? I call for Jordan and laugh as his face turns when he enters the room. These feet will need healing. And a shower. That mud is deep under the skin. So deep it's in my blood. A part of me, as this race is. I lean back, feel the body that's convinced I'm still moving, and within a couple breaths I'm asleep.
