This is my report of a solo, unsupported 50-mile run that I did as a fundraiser for Living Wisdom School in Palo Alto, on the San Francisco Peninsula. (www.livingwisdomschool.org)
“Why does he do it?” someone asked Mary Ellen. Meaning: why does George run ultramarathons?
Okay, this is official:
1. For the adventures that lie waiting on the trail.
2. To experience the truth of a saying of a great saint, Sister Gyanamata: “Your spirituality is tested in the cold light of day.”
3. To be out in nature among green things, where all the world’s oxygen is created.
But not for the questionable pleasures of rising at 2:30 a.m. to shower, shave, brush my teeth, pluck my eyebrows, meditate, and abuse my legs for 12½ hours.
For many months, I’d dreamed of running a 50-mile “Bay to Breakers” down near Palo Alto where the Peninsula is fat, crossable mostly by trail, and scenic all the way. Doing the run as a fundraiser gave me the excuse to realize my dream, and at 4:20 a.m. on a Saturday morning, I dipped a finger in the Bay at the end of Embarcadero Road, then beetled off westward toward the beach, 50 miles away in Pescadero.
You wouldn’t believe how many rabbits were hopping about in the pre-dawn darkness of the Baylands. The road was a solid mass of throbbing cottontails from curb to curb. I had to remove my shoes and tiptoe lightly over their little, bobbing backs to keep from interrupting their breakfast.
Nothing much was stirring in Palo Alto, merely an occasional dog barking and wandering out early in an old pickup truck to go fishing, or wending blearily homeward after a party. My fantasies involving the police were thankfully unrealized: “Officer, how many burglars carry energy bars and three quarts of water?”
The sun was peeking over the East Bay hills as I veered across the Stanford campus. I was feeling quite poorly, muscles reluctant, brain suggesting that we call off this madness and return to bed. I prayed, “I’m doing a good thing, running 50 miles for the school and You’re throwing brambles in my path. How typical!”
In fact, my training runs had been blessed by inner guidance, so I hung in and tried to stay as positive as I could. At the Stanford stables, a man was feeding the animals at 5:30 a.m., whistling very loudly and cheerfully.
I jogged up the horse path next to Alpine Road, still feeling sluggish and repeating a short prayer. My mind wandered, inventing t-shirt slogans too silly to mention. The sound of hounds baying in the distance brought me back to a focus. I knew those rascals: they had declared their intention of lunching on a runner sandwich several weeks earlier, but I threatened to pull their tails out through their noses and they hadn’t bothered me again.
The woods at the end of Alpine Road were lovely. Eagle Trail follows Corte Madera Creek for a mile, then joins Razorback Trail, which rises 1800’ to the top of the Coastal Range.
It’s a wonderful route in summer, because you can hike for an hour without ever really leaving the shade. At the top, I popped onto Skyline Blvd. (Hwy. 35) and jogged south for a mile to Rapley Ranch Road, then west a quarter-mile to the Ridge Trail.
The Ridge Trail is a proposed 400-mile route that will eventually circle San Francisco Bay. Why is the trail so long, if driving around the Bay puts only 180 miles on the odometer? Because the trail makes a huge loop south past Gilroy. I reckon it would be difficult to run a trail through San Jose’s vast suburbs.
The trail from Rapley Road to Russian Ridge is seldom used. The overhanging grass was drenched with dew, and my feet were quickly soaked. I continued to struggle with a sluggish body and brain until, descending the last hill to the Russian Ridge parking lot, everything abruptly changed. Suddenly I had abundant energy, and my spirits lifted as if I had passed some inner test. Many times, in ultramarathons, I’ve “worked through a bad patch.” But this was different – it was like falling into a cool, healing lake.
The night before, I had stashed a gallon of water near the parking lot, and I stopped to refill the pack, then chugged on.
The trails south of Russian Ridge are wonderful, with expansive views that look out over twenty miles of meadows and woodlands receding in waves to the Pacific Ocean. Jogging pleasantly through a cool forest of “verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways,” I was thinking of certain outspoken critics of the spiritual organization that I belong to. I was gleefully responding to their criticisms, when I felt God’s inner presence, warm with love, reminding me that He loves everyone, even those who pester His friends. I resolved to polish my own heart and not waste energy arguing with those individuals.
I was grateful when the trail turned downward toward the ocean. But of course God would have His joke – after dipping pleasantly for a half-mile, Ward Road veered sharply uphill again. But the trail soon plunged resolutely toward the upper reaches of Portola State Park.
I hadn’t a clue what to expect of Portola, as I’d never run there. What a discovery! Ward Road became Slate Creek Trail, with mile after mile of lovely oak woodlands and leaf-strewn footing. I ran for an hour without seeing anyone – not terribly surprising, as this area is very remote.
I was jogging cautiously down a steep, root-strewn section of trail, when I suddenly felt God’s presence. I saw the form of my spiritual teacher, familiar as from a photograph, his image blending subtly with my own, then receding and returning again. As it approached, I could see that he was wearing my gecko-decorated bandanna. Then he was running beside me, focused silently on the trail. It was very sweet–I could feel his pleasure that this was being done to support a worthy cause.
The experience began just as the trail entered the most beautiful part of the 50 miles, a redwood grove of astral loveliness beside Peters Creek.
Fir, pine, and oak trees have their lovely auras, but redwoods are majestic – they soar. The lowest branches are so high, and the vast red-brown trunks create a mood of meditation, still and centered, suggesting hidden crossings of spirit and nature.
I continued to feel a spiritual presence as I padded along the gently descending trail. The creek was graced with immense fallen redwoods and brilliant green patches of moss and ferns.
I pondered how I could hold onto God and keep Him with me for the remainder of the run. I laughed, “I don’t reckon I can attach a logger’s come-along to your throne and ratchet You down from heaven!” I relaxed and tried to be as natural as I could after humping along for 30 miles.
God remained with me, but in a different way: when my mind wandered – boom! – I stumbled on a root or rock. It happened time after time – my mind was wandering a lot. I recalled reading a spiritual book that described concentration as “almost the same as will power.” In his book Education for Life, J. Donald Walters remarks that children can learn to concentrate by becoming deeply interested in one thing at a time.
Aware that the hardest part of the run lay ahead, I tried to stay gently but firmly interested in what I was doing – singing silently, praying, munching M&Ms, taking a bite of energy bar, or sipping water. My legs felt beat-up from the endless downhills, though not yet painfully so. It was clear that my body needed attention, and I reached into the pack for some firepower. After popping a vitamin B pill laced with spirulina, I felt much better.
The 15 miles to the tiny hamlet of Pescadero were uneventful, a pleasant run on a fine, sunny day. In the farmlands outside the town, I stopped at a produce stand for an energy drink and water. Arriving in Pescadero, I thought of stopping at the only traffic light and saluting ceremoniously. But several Mexican farmhands were sitting at the gas station across the street, and I was too self-conscious, feeling they might think me loco.
I could smell the ocean now, just three miles away, though it was hidden behind a rise of the land.
Jogging the final miles, I was enjoying the wildflowers by the side of the road. The plant life is lush near the coast, with its frequent fog. I began picking a bouquet, feeling that they would make a nice gift for Mary Ellen, who I fervently hoped would be waiting in the truck to haul away the remains. I jogged across the Pacific Coast Highway and handed them to her silently. She seemed pleased. Two months later, the flowers were still on her dresser, faded and dry.
Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup proved an effective corpse restorer. (Sorry, fellow vegetarians – it’s a long story.) We strolled to the cobbled shore and I sprawled for a photograph, dipping a finger in the Pacific and getting my butt soaked by a rogue wave.
On the way home, we stopped for a treat at the San Gregorio General Store. A live band was ripping through a Woody Guthrie song:
Oh, if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks,
you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why you better get back to beautiful Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden,
a paradise to live in or to see,
But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot,
If you ain’t got the do re mi.
On the drive over the mountains, Mary Ellen talked about a workshop on relationships that she’d attended that morning. I listened quietly, but as we approached Palo Alto I was dead above the ears. I tottered into the shower, ate ice cream, and read a mindless book to relax my buzzing brain. I can’t imagine how I made it to Sunday service in the morning; I suspect it was God, laughing as He pried me out of bed. Doubly amazing, I didn’t fall asleep during the sermon.
