How Not to Run 100 Miles

The badger mountain challenge.

It brings a great sense of calm to declare that my body feels free of cancer and chlamydia as I sit to write this. That wasn’t always the case. One day, back in 2019, while preparing for my first attempt at a 100-mile foot race, I felt an unusual pain in my balls while out training. Once home and in the shower, I realized that something was wrong. The discovery of a swollen lump on one of my testicles caused me to feel faint. Testicular cancer. I’d heard of this afflicting other men around my age, and as unfortunate as this self-diagnosis was, I felt lucky it wasn’t of a particularly untreatable variety.

Racing to the internet, I started searching for symptoms, solutions, and all pertinent information related to what was happening to me.

It didn’t take long, maybe an hour, before I questioned the accuracy of my earlier analysis. A different potential cause took center stage. Fucking Angelica. At least I’m pretty sure it was Angelica.

(I wonder about including this next part. I worry it may cause some readers to doubt the authenticity of the rest of this writing. So before moving on, let me just say- when you’re going out and really living fully, whatever that means to you, then reality starts to become much stranger than fiction. As I type this, like right fucking now, sitting at the next table over from me at Cafe (redacted) is the aforementioned Angelica. I know she noticed me come in; I’ve seen her here before, often with guys who I always try to send psychic signals to about the importance of wearing a condom, at least with her. Anyhow, I regularly rant about how Medellin feels like a small town, constantly seeing the same faces around, and this latest encounter further solidifies that belief.)

Now, let’s back up a bit. Christmas day, 2018. Terribly hungover, but having been recently inspired by UltraRunner and all around savage, Tony Leigh, to sign up for a 100-miler, I knew that I needed to train no matter how bad my head was hurting. I managed to get 18 miles in, running past party-goers still dancing through the day with the help of Colombian marching powder and the Christmas Spirit, and returned home to lay on the living room floor, eagerly chugging *Bretana like a just-rescued desert wanderer.

*the greatest liquid on planet Earth. A soda-water brand here in Colombia. The importance of replenishing electrolytes was still a mystery to me in those days. Water was all I needed, I ignorantly believed. I knew nothing back then; I was an idiot, and I hope to be able to make this same claim about my current self five years into the future－never stop learning and growing.

Anyway, lying there, out of breath and exhausted, I turned my attention to the vibrating phone by my side. Angelica informed me she was coming over. She was already close, and so I hit the shower just in time to be refreshed and in a towel when the doorbell rang minutes later. I came to regret accepting the invitation that she’d given herself to my house, even more so because as Angelica and I interacted in the bedroom, Yuli ended up downstairs, also apparently fond of out-of-the blue Christmas day drop-ins. I seem to often end up with the option that gives me more problems in the short term but at least leaves me with some good stories in the long run. Looking back, Yuli would’ve caused far fewer issues, but in those days I was taking whatever showed up first, and with Angelica having beat her there, Yuli was left outside on Christmas, calling and repeatedly ringing the doorbell while I was busily banging away upstairs. In many ways, we all get what we deserve, and this anecdote confirms that. The just deserts spreading through my body long before they manifested symptoms leading to conscious regret.

Nearly a week passed, and with the year expiring and a job waiting for me, I decided to return to the States and stay there until the race three months later.

A few days after being back in North America, and with aching nuts, I knew that I needed to visit a doctor. In the office, I was assured that cancer was unlikely, but so was, the Doc believed, my latest assumption that chlamydia was to blame. The lady Doc felt confident about gonorrhoea being the culprit. We debated it a bit before she took blood and urine samples. Later in the week, her office called to confirm that I was the winner of the debate and all the accompanying antibiotics to make the problem go away.

With a clean system, I resumed training.

In the months leading up to the race, I ran a few 50Ks (31 miles) and marathons (42K / 26 miles) to prepare, and even won one small event, The Seattle Locks Marathon. But my first time running over ten miles had been less than a year prior. My body wasn’t hardened enough to last 100 miles.

The big day came, and I finished the first 50 miles in under 10 hours and felt great, but at mile 55, my calf pulled and caused a limp until mile 83, when it gave out further, causing me to throw in the towel with less than 20 miles to go.

First attempt: DNF (Did Not Finish). Depending on the year, about 40-60% of participants who start this race end up finishing it within the 32-hour time limit. The weather makes a big difference.

Undeterred, I resumed training once healed and registered for the same race the following year. However, that second attempt would be delayed due to the unprecedented failures of incompetent and corrupt politicians and public health officials who exposed themselves as petty tyrant simpletons wholly uninterested in truth, science, or health while going so far as banning outdoor running events for no good reason whatsoever.

Fast forward to 2024, and I was once again ready to run the Badger Mountain Challenge 100-Miler, this time with much more experience under my belt. Although it should be noted that in the years between my first and second attempts, the longest runs I would complete would be less than half the distance of what the race requires. It’s hard to go out and run more than 50 miles just as a training day, and although that would’ve been wise, it never happened. The longest training run I completed in preparation for the second attempt was 23 miles with about 5,000 feet of elevation gain, a few weeks before the event. Needless to say, many doubts remained as I finished my training and mentally committed to giving everything I had to crossing the finish line. I was fearful that my body would again give out or that the desire to finish had faded or changed in some way, and that when it became difficult, I’d find an excuse and talk myself into quitting.

“Fatigue makes cowards out of men” is a quote you’ll see in many gyms and locker rooms, because it’s true.

At this point, all the worrying in the world would do nothing to help.

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” Mark Twain

It was time to live the dream. To chase a goal that not long ago appeared impossible. Something that once discovered as being within the limits of human potential still seemed impossibly out of reach for someone like me－a normal person.

“The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer,” African proverb introduced to me by the late great Frederick Calvin Wiggs Jr.

To get to the race, I left Medellin on a Tuesday, stayed the night in Florida, flew to Seattle on Wednesday, and drove to the Tri-Cities on Thursday afternoon to be present at the starting line on Friday morning. One effect of all this travel being dry muscles and leg cramps early on in the race. I ate the last of the 30 salt tabs I brought around 40 miles in. It worked. No leg cramps the second half of the race.

Hearing the stories of 100-mile finishers had me believing that accomplishing this feat would require enduring discomfort on a level never before experienced. This did not end up being the case. At least not in a way that surpasses other rituals I’ve become accustomed to that also demand you endure difficulties in order to arrive at a point abstractly defined as being better than before. 

For example: Hot yoga (at Hot Yoga Inc, where the heat is turned up to a point that makes other “hot” yoga studios seem mildly warm at best),

and drinking Yage (aka ayahuasca), in which a single night can feel like years of psychological struggle accompanied by body aches, vomiting, and diarrhea.

In comparison to those rituals, running 100 miles is hard, but not absurdly so. By making hard things a part of your daily routine, you’ll be set up for success when challenges arise that push you beyond comfort. Being uncomfortable becomes normal, in a good way.

I’d also heard it said that running 100 miles changes who you are, that it transforms you in some profound and meaningful way. This I did find to be true, although it took some time and reflection to arrive at that point. One of the side effects of running 100 miles is brain fog brought on by sleep deprivation, meaning that in the immediate aftermath, you’re not at the peak of your cognitive powers. It took a while to analyze everything that happened during the 26 hours and 50 minutes that it took me to finish. And this is what I’ve arrived at thus far:

There is never a good reason to be shitty to anyone, ever. No matter what. Even if you’ve been running for seventy-five miles and it’s 3 a.m. on top of a mountain with cold rain coming in sideways due to high winds, this is still no excuse to lose your cool. Because what good will it do? You’ll feel worse for having lost control of your emotions, and those on the receiving end will have to deal with the impact of that negativity being aimed at them. A true master of the mind and discipline feels the physical and mental strain after enduring difficulties but would view this not as an excuse to lower your standard of behavior and treat people worse than normal, but rather as an opportunity to test your ability to remain upbeat and positive even when facing pain and fatigue.

To add some context to what I’m talking about- after the 50-mile mark, you’re allowed to have a pacer accompany you on the course. I had two of my closest friends out there with me for this purpose. At Mile 68, my friend Miles started to run with me. At one point we had differing views on the necessity of charging a head lamp, resulting in me shouting like an Inside Edition era Bill O’Reilly, “Jesus fucking Christ, I’ll do it myself!”

We went back and forth a few moments, and I soon realized that my actions were not only not helping us reach our goal but were also souring something that should be beautiful in its ability to strengthen the bonds between us.

Miles also quickly changed course in order to get us back on track. I still don’t know whether he believed it or not, but the next thing he said after I had lashed out was this: “If we can pick up the pace a bit, you can still finish in under 24 hours.” It was the perfect message to recenter the focus and motivate me to keep pushing at a decent pace. Thank you, Miles.

We headed into the aid station at mile 82, and I’m embarrassed to say I found some schadenfreude at discovering another runner had also just thrown a temper tantrum, albeit a much more public one than mine, and was now making his rounds apologizing to those who experienced it. Fred was there, ready to run by my side through the night while wearing Carhartt overalls, and confirmed that although most of the people manning the aid station took that runner’s ill-mannered behavior in stride and readily accepted his apology, one gentleman maintained a distance with a “go fuck yourself” expression. Can’t say I blame him.

What can I say about the final 18 miles? I can say that although I wasn’t at Fred’s wedding or his father’s memorial service, he was there to run 100 miles with me. Most people will never have a friend like Fred. I’m sure I don’t deserve his friendship, and can only hope that someday I’ll be able to even the scores.

The last leg of the race hurt. The weather was awful. My feet were swollen and pressing against the creases of the shoes. I felt like I could fall asleep while standing at any moment. I loved it.

There was a mantra that I repeated for much of the race. I cribbed it from the world’s greatest living author and marathon and ultramarathon runner, Haruki Murakami: “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

In life and in running, there will be pain. How we choose to react to that pain, not the presence of pain, is what will define us.