Runners' Stories
The King of Pain
No one knows how to push through a bad patch better than Scott Jurek, one of the greatest ultramarathoners in history. But recently, Jurek has endured a string of painful setbacks that have him questioning everything—even if he wants to keep running.From the April 2010 issue of Runner's World
It is the first weekend of October, an overcast, chilly day, and one of the most accomplished and confused long-distance runners in the world is preparing to run in circles for 24 hours. He wants to discover who he is. There is a fat man at the starting line, and a violently limping woman with what appears to be cerebral palsy. There is a husky middle-aged man with a back brace that contains a large American flag and a sign that says "Freedom isn't free." There are, as will become clear soon, self-immolating sprinters and carefree walkers, stolid joggers, and grimacing shufflers. At the northwest edge of the course is a small army of camping tents and tables groaning with vitamins and energy drinks and cookies, pasta, sushi, and unrecognizable foodstuffs. This is where the crews for the runners will stand and shiver and chat and sleep (and, in one case, nearly come to blows) until tomorrow morning.
The race is the NorthCoast 24-Hour Endurance Run, and it takes place in Cleveland, on the shores of Lake Erie, on a flat concrete path nine-tenths of a mile long. One hundred and seven competitors will circle the track for one day, and whoever completes the most laps, wins. The winners will receive $900.
There will be no fields of wildflowers to beautify the effort, no jagged cliffs or eerie desert landscapes—all terrain the great runner has traversed before. There will be no earthly beauty to help him forget what is at stake. Instead, there is a short, skinny little guy going for a world record at 100 kilometers. There's another fat man wearing a helicopter beanie. There is a tall, gangly bald man who survived cancer and is running to raise money for cancer research. There is a smiling, voluptuous blonde who looks like a 1950s pinup model, and who elicits a disdainful "She's got an attitude!" from an iron-jawed female Romanian crew member working for the favorite in the women's division.
Men and women who race at distances longer than marathons—also known as ultrarunners—are by reputation and reality a strange, obsessive, and somewhat socially awkward lot. Among ultrarunners, those who choose 24-hour races around flat paved tracks are acknowledged to be the weirdest of them all. Even though serious athletes have shown up for the Cleveland event—the short, skinny guy is Mark Godale, who holds the U.S. record for running 24 hours; Connie Gardner has placed in the top 10 in prestigious trail ultramarathons—no one at the event approaches the stature of the runner trying to find himself. The confused champion's presence here is akin to LeBron James competing in an AAU dunk contest at a suburban garage hoop.
The night before, trying to explain why he chose this bizarre-even- by-the-standards-of-bizarre event, he said, "I wanted to find the perfect tool to pry me open and see what I was made of."
At 9 a.m., a race organizer says, "Okay, now we're going to have the national anthem," and then, a few beats later, "no we're not," and the runners head off. In the middle of the pack, the great lean runner, steady, stolid, not overly graceful, sets out, on his way to what should be redemption and the ease he has certainly earned but has such trouble accepting.
The race is the NorthCoast 24-Hour Endurance Run, and it takes place in Cleveland, on the shores of Lake Erie, on a flat concrete path nine-tenths of a mile long. One hundred and seven competitors will circle the track for one day, and whoever completes the most laps, wins. The winners will receive $900.
There will be no fields of wildflowers to beautify the effort, no jagged cliffs or eerie desert landscapes—all terrain the great runner has traversed before. There will be no earthly beauty to help him forget what is at stake. Instead, there is a short, skinny little guy going for a world record at 100 kilometers. There's another fat man wearing a helicopter beanie. There is a tall, gangly bald man who survived cancer and is running to raise money for cancer research. There is a smiling, voluptuous blonde who looks like a 1950s pinup model, and who elicits a disdainful "She's got an attitude!" from an iron-jawed female Romanian crew member working for the favorite in the women's division.
Men and women who race at distances longer than marathons—also known as ultrarunners—are by reputation and reality a strange, obsessive, and somewhat socially awkward lot. Among ultrarunners, those who choose 24-hour races around flat paved tracks are acknowledged to be the weirdest of them all. Even though serious athletes have shown up for the Cleveland event—the short, skinny guy is Mark Godale, who holds the U.S. record for running 24 hours; Connie Gardner has placed in the top 10 in prestigious trail ultramarathons—no one at the event approaches the stature of the runner trying to find himself. The confused champion's presence here is akin to LeBron James competing in an AAU dunk contest at a suburban garage hoop.
The night before, trying to explain why he chose this bizarre-even- by-the-standards-of-bizarre event, he said, "I wanted to find the perfect tool to pry me open and see what I was made of."
At 9 a.m., a race organizer says, "Okay, now we're going to have the national anthem," and then, a few beats later, "no we're not," and the runners head off. In the middle of the pack, the great lean runner, steady, stolid, not overly graceful, sets out, on his way to what should be redemption and the ease he has certainly earned but has such trouble accepting.
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