When Just Crossing the Finish Line Makes You a Winner

Mental fortitude matters as much as physical fitness. Biba Kayewich

On a Friday evening in September, 294 men and women lined up on a white chalk pathway in Virginia’s Natural Chimneys Park to begin the Grindstone 100-mile ultramarathon. Behind them on the stage, the musicians had set aside their instruments. Family members and friends surrounded the runners, calling out last-minute good wishes. The announcer asked everyone to face the American flag that flew over the starting gate, as the National Anthem began to play over the sound system. Then came the countdown, and at 6 p.m. sharp, they were off and running.

Grindstone

The throng of contestants started thinning out before they even left the park, as participants quickly set their own pace. Through the night, they ran beneath a mist-covered three-quarter moon, their headlamps bobbing across national park service roads and damp trails. Sometimes, the steep inclines of the mountainous terrain forced them to walk, taking care not to twist an ankle or a tumble on the rocks.

On they jogged, into the morning and the afternoon, pausing at aid stations to snag a drink or a snack, where they were attended to by supporters and sometimes joined by pacers, friends, or family members who’d volunteered to run some of the distance with them.

With a time of 21:23:46, Gavin Prior arrived first at the finish line, followed by Anton Krupicka just 30 seconds later. These times were extraordinary. The vast majority of runners would still be pounding the trails when, shortly after 6 p.m., a thunderstorm would shoot bolts of lightning from the clouds, and a deluge of rain, mixed with hail in some places, would beat down on the slopes and pathways where they were running.

Twelve hours later, early on Sunday morning, the last runner crossed the line just minutes under the required qualification time of 36 hours. Of the 294 entrants who had started out on this trek, 168 finished the race.

Mental fortitude matters
as much as physical fitness. Biba Kayewich

Motives

When ultramarathoners cross that finish line, they are in various states of exhaustion, physical and mental. One hundred miles of running means 200,000 steps, and their muscles and joints burn with stress and pain. Many of them have not slept for more than 30 hours, and some experience mild hallucinations. The friends and family members awaiting them steer them to a bench or chair, help them remove their shoes and small packs, and then guide them to the parking lot and the blessed relief of a car or truck.

So, a question: What drives these men and women to inflict such pain upon themselves?

Few of these runners are competing against each other. Instead, the ordeal of the race is their real opponent. Ultramarathoner Mark Harris of Nashville, who was crewing for a friend at Grindstone, looks at it this way:

“For myself, I enjoy tackling big challenges, and I want to push myself to see what I can achieve. If you’ve already done something, that’s in the rear view mirror and isn’t particularly satisfying. The hunger that drives you is for what is next.

“Once you’ve done a marathon, you think to yourself, ‘That wasn’t so bad, I can go further.’ So you tackle a 50K race. Then a 50-miler, then a 100K, then 100 miles. Each step along the way I’m curious to see what it feels like and how much I can take. If you’re 100 percent sure you can do it, for me, it doesn’t have much appeal.

“Mentally, I’m chasing that feeling of exploration, challenge, and uncertainty.”

In Memoriam

Like Harris, Kelly Cearbaugh of Indiana, father of two daughters, sat out this race to act as coach and crew, in this case for his wife, Ashley, and a friend. The Cearbaughs competed in their first ultra in 2014, a rain-sodden event where they were among the 80 runners who finished out of 240. They followed this up with some 50-mile races. Then came a catastrophe that would change their lives forever.

“In August of 2016, our 22-year-old daughter passed away in a car accident,” Cearbaugh said. “That’s the worst thing that can happen to a person. And it was our running group that helped us to keep going. They were able to get us going again after a long period of not running.

“So we both run for our daughter Kaila. We dedicate our runs to her. That’s always in our hearts.

“I’ve been through hell already, so a 100-miler is just temporary. When you lose a child, it’s there forever. The hope is that someday our grandkids will look back on our running career and say Grandma and Grandpa could get through it.”

The Challenge Is Inside Your Head

Though long-distance runners follow different preparation and practice routines, being in top physical condition is clearly a priority. Diet and exercise are key.

But an equally vital component for this test of fortitude is mental fitness, both before and during the race. The main competitor in an ultrarun is the voice inside your head.

“There are huge emotional swings in these races,” Harris said. “You feel absolutely bulletproof and strong at times, and at other times, your brain is doing its best to try and stop you. Pain and doubt creep in, and it’s endlessly fascinating to me, the gymnastics one part of your brain will go through to try and convince you to stop: ‘Everyone will be proud, you don’t need to prove anything else, you can stop,’ ‘That pain in your knee could be serious, you should stop,’ and ‘Just stop and take a quick nap.’”

Harris has found two things that help him quash negative thoughts. “I tell lots of people about my goal, so I feel the pressure to perform. I don’t want to tell them I couldn’t finish the race, and that’s one of my big drivers out on the course,” he said.

He then attacks the race itself through incremental segments of time and effort. “If you think about the 80 miles to go, you might not be able to see a pathway to get there, but you can always run another five miles, or just another mile. And when things get really bad, I just think about taking the next few steps. Just get to that next tree, then the next tree, and you have a confidence that at some point you’ll feel better,” he said.

Everybody Claps

The 100-mile Grindstone is not for the faint of heart. Courtesy of UTMB

When a runner enters one of the aid stations, the people there clap and cheer encouragement, whether they know the runner or not. When drivers pass a runner on the road, they often beep their horn and give a thumbs up. “Aid station folks made us feel like rock stars,” Cearbaugh said of his first ultra.

Harris seconded the importance of support. “On the way to that aid station, you'll be thinking about who is waiting for you for an hour before you get there, and once you are there, a familiar smiling friendly face can just boost your mood tremendously,” he said.

As a coach at Grindstone, Harris understood the importance of accentuating the positive. “You absolutely bathe them in positivity. ‘You’re doing great, you can do this.’ You’re helping them counterbalance the negative thoughts in their own heads, helping the part of their brain that wants to get through this over that part of the brain that wants to stop,” he said.

Meeting these distance runners, chatting with their crew and family members, and seeing first-hand what they endure inspires awe and reflection. In many ways, their long slog serves as a metaphor for the hardships and calamities that afflict all of us at one time or another. Harris, Cearbaugh, and others point us toward the tools needed to get through those challenging trials: the power of motivation, the mental and spiritual equipment necessary for the suppression of doubts and defeatism, and the invaluable benefits derived from the support of others.

When disaster strikes and thrusts us into a marathon of suffering, it’s fortitude, that powerful fusion of courage and persistence, that will carry us across the finish line.