It was Saturday night in Palo Alto, California. I sat at an outdoor table at an Italian restaurant with Sam and eleven of our friends, partaking in a birthday dinner. At around 8:45 PM, after a hearty dinner and some cake, our group began saying our goodbyes and dispersing for the evening. Only I wasn't going home. In fact, my night was just beginning. I was going to drive four hours to Lake Tahoe and run fifty kilometers straight through the night upon arrival. No one except Sam knew what I was about to do until towards the end of dinner, when I spilled my guts and my plans for the night were out in the open. We're all runners, but I have a reputation among this group of folks as being a guy who does some crazy shit. Despite the persona that I maintain within this circle, I still got some surprised looks from my friends. "Dude, you're going to drive all the way to Tahoe tonight? Are you sure you don't want to just drive to Marin and do your training run there?" This was coming from my buddy Arjun, who just completed his first fifty-miler a couple of weeks ago and crushed it. Marin County is beautiful, and yes it's only an hour away, but it's not Tahoe. Tahoe is a special place with so much personality. But seriously, why would I drive somewhere four hours away to do an all night training run besides experiencing the majestic setting that Tahoe presents? I like to look at it as a creative way of training. The Canyons 100K was less than a month away, and it was time to push it to the max with regards to distance training. An essential skill when running an ultramarathon is having the physical and psychological strength to keep moving forward even when you're dead tired. And if you're like the majority of people, you're going to be tired while running an ultra, especially if it's your first one. There's no way around it. Driving four hours late into the night and running until dawn is very exhausting, to say the least. It's these kinds of adventures that help train my body for the types of conditions I can expect during Canyons. In order to maximize my chances of finishing the race, it's important for me to not only train to go the distance, but also push through the exhaustion and pain. Sam and my friends wished me luck as I left the restaurant. I walked down the street, jumped in my car, and off I drove into the night.
I arrived in Tahoe City at around 1:00 AM after a fairly uneventful drive. The road was desolate and quiet as I pulled into town and I made my way to the place where I always park my car when I run in this area, a small parking lot behind a restaurant off Grove Street. As I made the preparations for my nighttime journey that lay ahead, I realized I didn't feel tired, which was a good sign. Still, I drank down a 5-hour Energy shot for good measure. I was still dressed in my birthday dinner clothes from earlier in the evening. Looking down at my attire, I thought about how cool it was that I have this "other" life that the majority of people in my life hear about, but very few have truly witnessed up close. I looked like any normal guy you'd see in Palo Alto on a Saturday night having a dinner gathering with his fiancé and friends. Any passerby that saw me out and about would probably have never guessed that after dinner that night I'd be driving four hours to Tahoe and running through the night. If only they knew. I struggled to change out of my jeans and button down shirt and into my running gear in the cramped space of the front seat of my car. I figured it would be much easier if I just stepped out of the car and changed standing up. It was the middle of the night and I was all alone out here, so why not? Just as I was getting ready to pull the lever on the car door to let myself out, something caught my eye and I froze. I wasn't alone after all. There was movement in the parking lot, about a hundred feet away from my car. "Holy shit, is that a bear?" I asked myself out loud. It was. He or she was just lumbering around in the parking lot minding their own business, but I quickly decided that it was probably a better idea to just change in the car. Eventually I was ready to go, and the cold, crisp mountain air poured in when I opened my car door. After surveying the scene to make sure that my new buddy wasn't lurking anywhere, I set my GPS watch, turned on my flashlight, and took off running down highway 28 towards the Nevada border.
The route that I was on, although labeled as a highway, was actually a two lane road with a bike lane that circumnavigated Lake Tahoe. My plan was simple. Run east on this road until I hit fifteen-and-a-half miles, then turn around and go back the way I came. This journey would involve crossing over state lines on foot, which I thought was pretty dope. Before long, the lights of Tahoe City's main strip faded behind me as I progressed into a darker, less populated area. During the day this road was typically fairly busy, but at this hour of the night, automobile traffic was almost non-existent. I wore a reflective vest, reflective ankle bracelets, I had a blinking red light attached to my pack, and I carried a bright flashlight. I would be pretty hard to miss if anyone were to drive past me. Most nights in Tahoe are cloudless with millions of shining stars up above, but tonight I ran under a mostly cloudy sky and the moon cast off very little light. The temperature, however, was perfect. About thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit with low humidity levels. Within the first few miles, hunger began to set in. I had taken down a big plate of spaghetti with meat sauce and some cake during dinner, so how could I already be hungry, I wondered. Then I realized that was six hours ago. I carried a couple of Clif bars in my pack for emergency fuel, but I wasn't quite ready to tap into those yet. The route that I was running had plenty of gas stations and 7-Eleven stores along the way for refueling, so I figured I'd be coming up on one soon. Sure enough, just then, the lights of a 7-Eleven emerged up ahead. Upon entering the store, I didn't see anyone except for the clerk, who was tending to the Slurpee machine. I gave him a wave and a nod as I walked down the aisle, searching for something packed with calories and easy to digest. I found exactly what I was looking for; S'more flavored Pop-Tarts. They were loaded with sugar, had 370 calories per pack, were very delicious, and were priced very conveniently at 99 cents a pack. After making the purchase, I unwrapped the Pop-Tarts, threw away the wrapper in the garbage can outside, and continued onward, eating as I ran. I had the two Pop-Tarts stacked on top of each other and ate them like a sandwich with nothing in the middle. This method of eating was working pretty well, however Lake Tahoe sits at 6,300 feet of elevation. Running at high altitude is challenging enough, even when you're not stuffing your face with Pop-Tarts. It was tough to catch my breath, so I chewed with my mouth wide open to allow a sufficient amount of oxygen to flow into my lungs. Occasionally I would exhale too strongly and the force would send chunks of partially chewed Pop-Tarts flying out of my mouth and onto the road below me. Even if it wasn't a perfect system, it did the trick and my hunger was eventually satisfied.
On I ran, into the night, as the hours passed by. When I wasn't listening to music, the only sounds to be heard were my feet hitting the ground and the occasional howling of coyotes in the distance. During most of the run to the turnaround point, Lake Tahoe rested peacefully in the darkness to my right, except for a few stretches where the road diverted slightly inland, a few hundred yards from the water. To my left lay dark woods, granite rock walls, cabins and houses, and the occasional meadow. I passed through small outposts with closed up stores and offices decorated with colorful Christmas lights lining the road. There was the occasional incline, which was followed immediately by a downhill. A guy pulled up next to me in his car and offered me a ride. When he noticed that I was in running gear and I told him what I was doing, he gave me kudos and drove off into the darkness. Another car drove by a short while later and the occupants offered hoots and cheers as they passed. It must have been a trip for these people to see some dude totally lit up, running along the side of the road at 3:30 in the morning. I passed through Kings Beach, and eventually crossed over the Nevada state line. The lights on the shoreline across the lake sparkled on the water as I admired the dark mountains on the distant horizon. As I entered Incline Village, hunger set in again, along with exhaustion. It was approaching 4:45 AM, and luck was on my side once again, as the gas station I was running past had just opened fifteen minutes prior. I bought another pack of Pop-Tarts and a small cup of piping hot coffee to help with the exhaustion. As I was about to leave Incline Village, I reached the turnaround point and began making my way back to Tahoe city. The Pop-Tarts had really helped with the hunger and the coffee had carried me along pleasantly for a little while, but unfortunately the caffeine buzz was short lived. I had gotten a decent night's sleep on Friday night, but on Saturday morning I ran eight miles in the morning and managed to get an hour long nap in before the birthday celebration. By the time 6 AM rolled around, I had only gotten one hour of sleep in the last twenty-four hours. On top of that, I had driven four hours, and was twenty miles into a thirty-mile training run. As you could imagine, the exhaustion was quite overwhelming. At one point, unbelievably, I found myself nodding off as I ran along the side of the road. I was starting to feel miserable, but then I remembered this was exactly why I was doing this. It was important to train my body and mind to keep moving forward even when I was dead tired. That was what was going to get me across the finish line at Canyons, and the other two ultramarathons I had on my calendar over the next few months. As tired as I was, I kept moving forward as best I could.
Shortly after crossing back into California, something beautiful happened. Morning came. The sky turned from black to dark blue, and the newly arrived dawn began slowly filling the distant mountains and the lake with vivid color. Despite the skies being mostly cloudy, the first rays of sun eventually peaked over the snowy mountains. And just like that, I was awake again. After my journey through the night, the arrival of a new morning put some life back into me. There was something very powerful about the experience, as is always the case when I run through the night. I thought about Sam who was back in Silicon Valley, staying at a client's house, probably still sound asleep. I thought about the cool life we had created and how excited I was that we were going to be parents in four months. I was filled with emotion and the experience left me feeling loopy as I plodded along, reeling in the final miles. Eventually I arrived back in Tahoe City, the distance totaled fifty kilometers, and I clapped my hands in celebration as I completed the run. It was just after 8:00 AM on Sunday morning, and the main strip of Tahoe City, which was dead quiet when I departed at 1:30 AM, was now hopping with people out and about, going for their morning walks and getting something to eat. After a brief recovery back at my car, I stumbled over to Rosie's Café. The S'more flavored Pop-Tarts had done their job in getting me through the run, but now I wanted some real, hot food. With a fresh plate and a hot cup of coffee, my appetite was satisfied. It was a long rally to get home. I barely made it to Truckee before I was so tired I had to pull over next to a snow bank in a parking lot and take a snooze. Eventually I got back on the road, and made it home safely by early afternoon. I enjoyed the experience so much, I almost immediately went to work on this blog post. But because of things getting busy at work and life happening, here I am almost two weeks later finishing it up. It was yet another amazing running experience that served as great training for the challenges that I'll be facing at Canyons in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed that the distance training will pay off. We'll see how things go!
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