The Everest Challenge

Lessons from the Tarahumara

Jon and I listened to the audiobook version of Born to Run on the way to Bishop. I've wanted to read it for several years, but always told myself I should be working on my dissertation instead. If you haven't read it, I recommend it not just because of the storytelling; it has wisdom we can all use and apply especially about love and compassion in sport. Joe Vigil, the renowned coach for Adams State College studied the native Mexican Tarahumara tribesmen running the Leadville 100 and wanted to discover how they could run for miles and miles in their sandals and flowing white capes with smiles on their faces the entire time. They flowed over the roughest terrain as if their feet were winged creatures. Dr. Vigil concluded that the "secret" was simply love of running. The understanding they have of their connection with Gaia (earth) and Nature as the ultimate source. There was nothing cavalier, ego-centric or competitive about running and racing; just the love for being connected and at one with each footfall, each stone and creek, each nuance of the earth beneath them.

 

 

I thought about the 38 years that I have been running and more recently cycling. I recall my mother-in-law condemning my daily ritual as being selfish and silly, a waste of precious time when I could be working. What she didn't understand was how learning to run saved me from self-destructing. It was the soul-medicine I needed after the death of my mother just after my 16th birthday and soon thereafter, my father's choice to move away with his girlfriend without me. I was alone, without any firm sense of identity, an amputated daughter, a wandering orphan looking for a place to be or soemone to show me the way. My boyfriend at the time took me for my first run straight up a mountain trail. Upon reaching the end, I collapsed in tears and cried rivers and rivers of tears never cried before. Tears I didn't know I kept dammed up behind a safe wall of toughness and Amazonian resolve to survive without needing anyone. And when the tears finally slowed to a few sniffles, I realized I felt one with the ground I wept on. I wanted more because I love the feeling of my breath and the rhythm of my feet touching the ground. I loved engaging all of my senses in my surroundings, the sounds, the smells and the taste of water from the streams. I began racing because a coach at Sierra College told me I ought to. But I hated it at first. It made me anxious and nervous and I could never sleep the night before. I grew to love it when I learned to love myself and to transform the mind's chatter about how much better I should be than so and so, or how much better, thinner, more muscular so and so is than me into more loving self-talk. But my mind has its way of being a persistent and annoying pest when it wants to be so it is a daily practice of gently telling it to be quiet so that I can hear the voice of compassion instead.

 

The outdoors has been medicine, Mother, Father and serenity, a time of silence and solitude away from the noise of the world. I run and cycle alone because I love the solitude more and more as I age. Although I enjoy my friends and the occasional gathering, I find myself more introverted than I used to be. I often imagine myself a Crone in the woods, rocking on the front porch with her Crone husband and feeding the animals as they wander into the clearing in front of our hut.

 

So what does all this have to do with the Everest Challenge, a two-day 203 mile bike race with 29,029 feet of climbing in the eastern Sierra Nevada?

 

If anything will test one's ability to go deep within and draw from the heart's capacity to divine a way through the difficult hours, this event will do just that. The surroundings are magnificent, climbing through the primal canyons of Mother Earth with the aspen leaves turning on the flanks of the towering peaks. All but one of the roads are quiet and narrow with minimal traffic so the only sounds are my breath and the water in the creeks. The smells of desert mingle with the alpine flora and the hot breath of desert wind shifts to cooling breezes from the peaks as I climb higher and higher.

Day One:

I am used to riding alone so the tightly bunched Peloton is a bit unnerving. Neutral start until we turned up to South Lake after which we could race. But the pace was sooooo slow! I was going nuts being caught in this tight pack of women who didn’t seem interested in going fast. I told myself to be patient and just wait but really, it went against my desire to break free. So I went into the lead when I couldn’t stand it anymore and of course, the group sat on my wheel until I decided to move left and see if someone else would take it. Anyway, we went at the speed of drool until we were only about 6 miles from the turnaround. So with about 4 miles to go, Kathryn Donovan decides she’s finally going to go faster (she won last year by about an hour). I knew that pace was too hard so I kept my own pace and was glad to be out of the craziness of a pack. I then found that I could attune to the sounds around me instead of being vigilant about watching other people's bike wheels to avoid a crash. But even if I'd stayed with the pack, I get left behind on downhills because the heavier women can really power and on the flats, they get me every time. So there I was, flying down 168 at 47 MPH but still getting way behind!

Descending back down to the desert and into the rising heat, the second climb through Pine Creek Canyon was a leveler. Several women who had gone out hard with the leaders were suffering in the 90+ degree heat and no wind in the canyon. And the beginning of the final climb, a 22 mile ascent from 5,000 feet to 10,000 feet would be hotter at the beginning and very challenging at the end. I really gained a lot of what I’d lost going so slow going up the final climb from Paradise up to Tom’s Place and then up Rock Creek Lake Road to Mosquito Flat. But the early part of that climb was hot! And I felt myself feeling discouraged, telling myself it was perfectly okay to just stay within myself and realize that this was just a low point where I needed to be gentle with myself and just keep going. Don't force the uphills, just turn the pedals over and be patient. I heard the voice of my heart telling my brain to shut up. My heart said, "You're fine. Just trust yourself and rememeber, this is impermanent, the heat will not last forever." My brain said, "See? I told you this was a dumb idea. Who do you think you are you silly old crone! You should have gone with them when they broke away. Now look at you...drooling along like a snail." Although I'd gone painfully slow at the start thinking I should stay with the pack, I was still within three minutes of last year's time. When I finished, I was feeling woozy and nauseous and a little uncertain of what to do with myself. Should I obey the impulse to lie down right in the middle of the road? Throw up? Keep walking around in circles? Jon was working on a woman who had crashed in the Pine Creek Canyon climb but somehow pulled herself out of the sagebrush, banged up and bleeding, to finish the remaining 30 miles of grueling climbing.

After suffering through the climb out of the desert on Old Sherwin Grade, I felt stronger especially knowing the Jon left an ice cold Pepsi in a cooler at Tom’s Place for me and that was the fuel I needed. Before each endurance event, I drink about 20 ounces of Chia seeds soaked in water (another tarahumara tool). I learned this trick from my children's father who presented me with my first jug of Chia seeds back in 1978 when we were first going out. It had the consistency of snot and looked just as the author of Born to Run described it: "Like a science experiment from a swamp." But those little seeds pack a lot of nutrition and they hold about ten times there size in water so amazing hydration. So I finished strong, powering up the last 10 miles feeling fresh and powerful. So my heart was right...again...It was cooler and my nausea was impermanent!
I'd ridden back down to Bishop (another 33 miles or so) back to our motel while Jon provided massage for people up at Mosquito Flat. I went swimming and sat in a bathtub full of ice water, I chatted with three girls, age 17, 15 and 13 all of whom were riders in the race. Their father was the chief coach and support along with their mother and their 11 year-old sister who would enter her first Everest Challenge when she turned 13. What a delightful experience to see these young girls enjoying a potentially life-changing event such as this.

That night, I ate huge amounts of Mexican food from a little hole in the wall in Bishop where the Mama makes all the food herself.  And Jon gave me a massage.

 

Day Two:

Waking up was so painful. Never before have I longed to just go back to sleep so much. Oh wait...I felt this way last year on Day Two of this race. I told myself I would not be riding in the pack today. I would just do my own thing. They would mow me down but that would be fine with me. I would get mowed down either way. I'd just hoped some would come back to me later on. The first climb takes you from about 3,900 feet up to 7,800 in about nine miles. I didn't really wake up until I was about half way through this climb and then, thankfully, the Chia and coffee kicked in. I began to pass a few women who had gone out hard. I have made it a practice to say a little prayer for us all, wishing us all a safe ride with no mishaps. No ill will. The second climb, Waucoba Canyon was longer than it was last year by about four miles. So much for monitoring my time in order to try to make up any time lost from yesterday on this day. Good. Now I can go back to focusing on what's happening in my body instead of what's happening on my bike computer. Last climb, 22 miles from 3,900 up to 10,100 feet at Bristlecone Forest. Hot hot HOT in the first six miles! I was moving slow and once again focusing on impermanence. I can make it through another half hour, I told myself. It's fine to just turn the pedals over and not force it. No sense in dying out here in the desert and being eaten by vultures. At the aid station at 6,000 feet, I asked them to dump ice down my jersey to cool my core temperature. That did it. The wind changed from hot breath to cool alpine breeze and I felt fantastic. The final 15km is a showcase of the entire eastern Sierra showcased against a flawless blue sky. Although I kept my eyes focused on what was right in front of me most of the time, I could glance up and feel like I was flying above the earth. The pain of the 20% climbs seemed more a product of my judgement about them more than anything else. "Omigosh, I am going SO slow! I might as well be going backwards!" said my mind. "Well duh...it's 20%. And you've gone what...195 miles so far in the past 36 hours? Of COURSE you're going to be just getting the pedals around and hoping you don't tip over! Relax!It's all good!" said my heart.

 

I pushed hard over the last 5km, going deeply within myself and focusing only on the rhythm of my breath. I was thankful for being able to finish and even more thankful for all those volunteers at each aid station who took an entire weekend to stand in the heat and make sure we were all watered and fed. This event is always an experience in faith, a lesson in gratitude and a return to the essence of why we find ways of testing the reaches of our phsyical and emotional endurance. For me, there are no greater lessons available than what I learn by shutting everything out and going within.