The Longest Race: A Lifelong Runner, An Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance - Softcover

Ayres, Ed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1615190880 ISBN 13: 9781615190881

Verlag: The Experiment, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

Among endurance runners, there are those who have run very long distances, and then there are those who have run very long distances for a very long time. Ed Ayres exemplifies the latter; having run in over 600 races across fifty-five years, he is arguably the most experienced American distance runner still competing today. A book no one else could have written, The Longest Race is his urgent exploration of the connection between individual endurance and a sustainable society.

The Longest Race begins at the starting line of the 2001 JFK 50 Mile―the nation’s oldest and largest ultramarathon and, like other such races, an epic test of human limits and aspiration. At age sixty, his sights set on breaking the age-division record, Ayres embarks on a course over the rocky ridge of the Appalachian Trail, along the headwind-buffeted towpath of the Potomac River, and past momentous Civil War sites such as Harpers Ferry and Antietam.

But even as Ayres focuses on concerns familiar to every endurance runner―starting strong and setting the right pace, the art of breathing, overcoming fatigue, mindfulness for the course ahead―he finds himself as preoccupied with the future of our planet as with the finish line of this 50-mile race.

A veteran journalist and environmental editor who harbors deep anxiety about our longterm prospects, Ayres helps us to understand how the skills and mindset necessary to complete an ultramarathon are also essential for grappling anew with the imperative to endure―not only as individuals, but as a society―and not just for 50 miles, but in the longest race we are all called upon to run.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ed Ayres has been running competitively for fifty-five consecutive years, and he enjoys it as much now as he did when he joined his high school cross-country team in 1956. Ayres placed 3rd in the first New York Marathon in 1970, and he is the only runner of that race still competing today. Having participated in the early growth of American interest in roadrunning, trail-running, and marathons, he also became one of the pioneers of ultrarunning. He placed third in the US 50 Mile championship in 1976 (in 5:46:52), first in the JFK 50 Mile in 1977, and first in four US national age-division championships at 50K road, 50K trail, and fifty miles. He was the founding editor and publisher of Running Times magazine, and also worked for thirteen years as the editorial director of the Worldwatch Institute.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Longest Race

A Lifelong Runner, an Iconic Ultramarathon, and the Case for Human Endurance

By Ed Ayres

The Experiment Publishing

Copyright © 2013 Ed Ayres
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61519-088-1

Contents

Map, 
Preface, 
1 | Boonsboro, Dawn The Start — When Life Begins Again, 
2 | South Mountain The Rush — and the Dilemma of Pacing, 
3 | Appalachian Trail What Are My Running Shoes For? The Journey from Barefoot Hunter to "Boots on the Ground" to Where I Am Now, 
4 | Weverton Cliff The Art of Breathing and the Music of Motion: Do My Feet Have Eyes of Their Own?, 
5 | Keep Tryst Road With a Little Help from Our Friends: The Not-So-Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, 
6 | Towpath Learning from Quarterbacks: The Slower-Is-Faster Phenomenon, 
7 | Antietam Aqueduct Redemption: A Recovering Strength for the Human Runner — and for the Human Race, 
8 | Killiansburg Cave Becoming a Persistence Hunter: The Long Day of Tracking, the Grateful Kill, the Celebration, 
9 | Snyder's Landing The Energy-Supply Illusion: Carbo-Loading, Body Heat, and Naked Skin, 
10 | A Boiled-Potato Miracle Burning Fat in a Carbohydrate Fire: A Secret of the Inca Messengers, 
11 | Taylor's Landing Negotiating with Fatigue — and Turning Long Hours into Moments, 
12 | Dam Number 4 Seeing Around Bends: We Came, We Envisioned . . . We Got Disconnected, 
13 | Country Road The Blessing and Curse of Competition: Why Vince Lombardi Was Dead Wrong, 
14 | Williamsport If You Fall, Then You Crawl. What Is It About Finishing?, 
15 | Late Afternoon The Fading Light, 
Postscript: 2012, 
Appendix Notes for an Aspiring Ultrarunner, 
Author Q&A, 
Notes, 
Acknowledgments, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

Boonsboro, Dawn

The Start — When Life Begins Again

I don't remember being born. I doubt that anyone does. But I wonder if the moment you push off from the starting line of a long-distance footrace might be a subliminal replay of that long-forgotten launch of a new life. As the big moment approaches, you're jammed up behind an unyielding human wall — the too-close backs of other runners' necks, shoulder blades, elbows, thighs, and calves not quite ready to let you surge forward. You're about as naked as climate and social convention will allow, and at the same time you may feel your shoulders and hips bumping unavoidably against other shoulders and hips that are not yours but that, in a way, you feel kinship with. Then suddenly you're breaking free, and the long journey — in the company of others, but very much on your own — has begun.

There's magic in a moment like this. It's not only like being reborn each time you race; it's like having been given the secret to the most astonishing means of propulsion ever to appear on earth. And, arguably, that's what the human body offers, as many endurance runners are discovering. A horse can't compare. A bald eagle can't compare. For that matter, even a 24,500-mile-per-hour Apollo rocket to the moon couldn't have compared. Now, as I waited at the starting line, it struck me that our long-lost president John F. Kennedy, whose vision had brought that Apollo rocket into being, might be pleased by what we were about to attempt here in this fifty-mile trail race that had borne his name for the nearly four decades since his assassination.

It was late November 2001. The World Trade Center had been destroyed just over two months earlier, and the country had been staggered by the shock. But life goes on. There were a lot of Marines in this race, and no well-trained runner needed to be reminded that "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" — a credo generally attributed to President Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy. Elite Marine distance runners were as tough a breed as you'd find on this planet, and as we waited for the countdown I could see that the guys in red and gold were poised to take off like cannon shots. God help any baby who's born quite like that.

Along with the seven-man All Marines and Quantico Marines teams, there were contingents from the US Naval Academy and the army's 82nd Airborne Division, among others. The military presence at this race had been strong since the first running in 1963, maybe because it was JFK's challenge to the Marines in 1962 — see if you can walk fifty miles in a day, like Teddy Roosevelt's Marines did — that had been the original inspiration. At the time, Kennedy had reason to fear that the physical fitness of the American military was in severe decline. But this year, in the wake of 9/11, the "when the going gets tough" spirit seemed almost palpable.

A few yards away, I spotted Frank Probst, a guy I'd had a competitive rivalry with for most of the past decade. Frank was fifty-seven and still worked at army headquarters — although what he did there I didn't know. On that blue-sky September morning nine weeks ago, he had just stepped through an exit on the southwest side of the Pentagon, on his way to another part of the building, when a Boeing 757 roared very low across the adjacent road, coming straight at him. As it clipped off a utility pole, he threw himself to the ground and the plane missed him by about fifteen feet before exploding through the Pentagon's massive concrete wall. In the following days, as the attack's prime surviving witness, he'd had to replay his near-death experience in intensive interrogation, but now here he was — ready to run.

My reasons for entering this race were as complex — or simple — as my reasons for wanting to be alive. I'd been a competitive long-distance runner for the past forty-four years, and I was undeniably addicted. I had also just turned sixty, and it can feel disconcerting to a man at that age to find that he no longer has the strength or mojo that he once had, and that has always seemed an essential part of who he is. Part of my motivation was that I wanted to see if I could still run with guys who were in their twenties or thirties — or even forties. I had reasons to think maybe I could.

Possibly the biggest reason I was standing here, though, was about that most irreducible of all human needs — the instinct to survive. An ultramarathon race, or ultra, (any footrace longer than a marathon) is a ritual of survival. In a world beset by ever-more ominous threats — now heightened by those tragic events of two months ago — the need to not just hope and plan intelligently but to actively practice the art of survival had put a tightening grip on me.

Nearly a thousand marathon-hardened runners were entered — the maximum number the government would allow to run on the Appalachian Trail. I was one of the oldest people in the field, but I knew I had two advantages. First, I might well be the most experienced runner in this race, if not in the whole country, and I wanted to find out to what extent experience could trump youth, or at least keep pace with it. Our culture was more and more dominated by youth, and I frankly needed to know if I still counted. In a short-distance run, or sprint, there was little — well, nothing — an old guy could do to compete with a twenty- or twenty- five-year-old. Guys my age, no matter how tough or strong they might be, could never play wide receiver for the Redskins or Steelers, catching passes and sprinting for touchdowns. In a long run, though, it might be a different...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: The Experiment
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1615190880
• ISBN 13: 9781615190881
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar