Death Race Recap - Zombie Apocalypse in Pittsfield

Ripped, filthy clothing.  Drooling bipedal things.  Inarticulate gruntings and flailing hand gestures. Bleeding creatures struggling to their feat from the mud.  They keep falling on their face as they are without coordination - and they struggle to rise again and again.  

The Zombie Apocalypse.

But as you watch these particular zombies there are striking irregularities from our fabled zombie-lore .

Questions arise.  One is forced to ask, why are these zombies all wearing backpacks?  And why are they carrying logs?  Doesn’t that slow them down when chasing humans with their maddened, flesh-eating hunger?  

These undead do have axes (which are very useful in murdering humans) but do zombies kill with axes? No, death by teeth and claws are the standard.

But these zombies ARE convincing.  They don’t think to walk where one is supposed to, namely, a road or trail.  The zombies haunting Pittsfield stagger up and down rapid-laden rivers.  Or they go up and down mountains over primitively bushwhacked ravines.  This while perfectly good snowmobile trails abound.

Zombies?  Yes.  Also known as Death Racers.

25 hours into the Death Race one such zombie emerges from the woods by Roger’s Cabin.  He is shaking and howling.  The 30 lbs log on his shoulder plus the 40 lbs backpack strapped to him have evidently caused this non-dead walker much distress.  This zombie was shivering and not making much sense. 

(Of course zombies never do, do they?)

I was this zombie.  This Death Racer.  And I was about to pull out of the race.

*

I loathed my backpack from the start of the Death Race.  I was wearing it as we picked up a heavy rock, pulled it to our chest, and put it back down again.  100s and 100s of times.  5-6 hours worth actually.  Rocks up to what I can only estimate as being 30-40 lbs.  For we switched rocks.

Yes, another heavy object with a different shape.  How f'ing exciting.  5-6 hours!

For the readers that don't know:  I hate stuff like this.  Picking up heavy objects and putting them back down is how I’ve always described the ritual practiced within gyms across America, where people punctuated this ritual of picking up and putting down heavy objects, only to gaze at the size of his or her biceps in the floor to ceiling mirrors. 

I loathe such activities.

Well with a 40 lbs backpack, I’m starting my Death Race by doing everything in my power to forever traumatize my muscular structure.  Three day later my body feels each lift.  This is for me a nightmare.  A 6-hour upper body gym routine laden with a weighted backpack.

I know cyclists who bitch about a 6-hour bike ride. 

STFU.  That will be my response from now on.  With all good humor and mirth – and maybe an air of Death Race enlightenment.  Not that this is harder than cycling.  No, cycling 6 hours at tempo can be grueling.  

BUT, cycling is much more scenic.

*

After rock picking up and rock putting back down I took my backpack on a 2-mile walk upstream against a staggering current.  And then as I swam across a spring fed pond perpetually at 40 degrees 7 times – my swims only punctuated by carrying a candle around a field praying it doesn’t go out.

Zombies started to slow here, almost frozen.  Stuck to sides of the river bank scared to move forward fearing they might slip backward into the ice water.  Humans saving zombies soon ensued.

Then my backpack followed me over a mountain to do some wood chopping.

Did I mention that is was on again off again pouring rain?

How about the hypothermic shakes?

Or, I can’t cut wood to save my life? 

I was demonstrating this very fact as I stood there while Hobie Call caught up to me and passed me.  He did the whole task at this station while I tried to split 3 logs in to 24 pieces.

Here, while humping the backpack around I had to hoist a tree stump that was probably 30% of my body weight up the mountain and then down the mountain.  Midway I had to memorize a verse from the Bible. 

Try remembering your name at this point.  You're trying to remember why the hell you signed up for this!  You see, to play out Rocky IV montages in your brain:  YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER THEM.

At this point in the race things got messy.  The shit hit the fan.  

I remember looking at a nearby tree covered in vines, surrounded by epics of ferns and saying, “Shit just got real!”  The tree nodded in response. 

Kneeling I rolled my stump as best I could.  I flipped it end over end.  Maybe I cried a little bit. 

Finally, you realize that you either go home or do what you have to do.  With the full prospects of a double hernia and no health insurance before me I threw that stump on my shoulder and went screaming through the woods, up the mountain and down – spittle and grumbles falling from my lips.

A zombie was born.  But one who just had faced failure and did not bow out…the first time.

That time would come.

*

Many of you know what kind of athlete I am.  But for you that don’t, let me in brief illuminate the ridiculousness of Jason Jaksetic being in the Death Race. 

Barn Beast or not, this scene is not for the likes of a former Ironman speedsters.

Within the first 5 hours of the Death Race I had done more ‘lifting’ than I had in the past 5 years.  

When I came to VT I came to get burly.  I managed about 10-15 pounds of burley and it didn’t translate into as much power as I hoped.

This put me at quite rough odds against the bigger zombies strolling around who were 235 lbs of sheer muscle mass.  They were using the stumps that killed me as tooth picks.

I knew that unless a 100-mile run without our backpacks was ahead, my race would soon be over against these guys.

*

Around the 20-hour mark I was carrying my second log up another mountain:  Rogers.  The ‘trail’ was a mixture of mudslides and pieces of lush forest somebody pretended to machete.  

(They maybe waved scissors around while they pushed themselves through the brush and fallen trees to mark the ‘course’ with ribbons.)

Heading up to Rogers I had to make up the time that I lost playing with the rocks and tree stumps.  I had to find Hobie.

I passed about 20 zombies on the way up.  

Dangerously tired zombies laying on the side of the course face in hands.  Sad zombies.

Others could only laugh.  Laughing zombies.

Most just raised a hand in half salute and I nodded and grunted in response.  Communicative zombies.

The rain had caused some serious deterioration of the ‘trails’.  I slipped once and slid a dozen feet down a hill beneath my backpack and my log.  (My bald scalp still shows bumps and scratches).

Certain things were becoming evident.

1) I was freezing cold.  I had started at the bottom of the mountain sweating and down to a t-shirt.  Now it was raining and I was chilling to the bone.

2) I couldn’t move my arms.  My shoulder blades were bruised and bleeding from humping logs about on them.  I couldn’t make a fist as my forearms were completely fatigued from all the clasping.  I was loosing motor skills fast.

3) I was MABYE 1/3 or way through race.  And there was a fuck load of wood chopping and lugging still heavier things up and down muddy hills.

*

So I mentioned earlier in this recounting that I burst forth from the woods at Roger’s cabin.  A zombie if ever there was any.  And there I saw the zombie bus stop.

Six zombies of the Death Race apocalypse were waiting in line for rides down the mountain.  They were out of the race. 

There was no talk.  Just acceptance.  Eyes read:

I gave all I could and I have nothing more to give.

I understood completely.  I looked down the mountain.  It was almost 6.30pm and it would be dark soon.  A huge thunderstorm of cold, cold rain was beginning to deluge.

I foresaw me unable to carry my log (but too stubborn to abandon it) lost on the side of the trail, unable to move or stay awake, freezing to death without shelter of even a rain coat.

I saw the rest of my season ruined with nagging injuries.  I saw that I didn’t have health insurance.  I started trying to guess what a helicopter evacuation would cost.

I pulled the plug.  I quit.

*

Why is the Death Race truly like a zombie apocalypse, aside from obvious appearances?

Because the Death Race is like beating down a brick wall with your forehead – something zombies can do.  There are three possible outcomes though:

1) Your neck muscles lock up and you can’t continue.

2) You knock yourself out cold and can’t continue.

3) You knock the wall down!  You are a finisher – one of the ten percent.

I realized I was #1.  This wasn’t a matter of ‘pushing through’ or ‘being tough’.  This was a matter of knowing that:

1) I was beaten.

2) I was underprepared.

3) I was not strong enough.

This is what makes you quit.  The Death Race is for the elite of the elite.  And a special elite. 

My Kona Ironman credentials do NOT figure in.  My age group record setting ultra cycling does NOT figure in.  My ultra-marathoning does NOT figure in.

I was a green ass-rookie who got his ass handed to him.  Bad ass endurance racer can equal miserably weak Death Racer.

*

And I can live with this with my chin up.  Why?

Because I gave it all while stepping to the plate.  I’m 50% on finishing my crazy endurance races this season.

What does this mean?  This means that I am pushing my boundaries.  This means I’m right where I should be.  I need to find failure to know I'm on the edge...the boundary.

So regarding the Death Race?  The Zombie Apocalypse?  I didn’t survive.

What a pleasure, though.  What an amazing event.  What testament to humanities' drive to push.  Push until you are half alive.  Till you are half dead.

Till you are truly living in a half-life that is more than most will ever touch from the safety of being a spectator.

Silence: The Strongest Euphemism

Fuck the euphemisms.

I've been shouting toned-down-reality within my mute shouting.

I failed.  Lost.  Broke.  Came up short.  

I went bigger than my capabilities.  Too short to ride this ride.  Go home.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect your medal.

Humbling?  Quite.  

I DNF'd the McNaughton 150.

It should be obvious at this point.  I haven't posted since pre race projections and plans.  

Surely, by this point, everyone can deduce that things didn't go according to plan.

Why the delay?  A simple fact of human nature to which I am now privy.

~

We are programmed to litter the data-scape with our accomplishments.

Photos of sonograms.  Relationship status changes.  Links to race results.  Notices of office promotions.  Wedding photos.  Anecdotes about the greatest nights of our life...

Even Friday is a proclamation of success.  "I made it to the weekend.  I live for the weekend.  TGIF!  The 5/7ths of my life I hate didn't get to me this week!"

Maybe it's time to announce the times we didn't make it to Friday, so to speak?

Photos of funerals.  Explanations of our relationship status changes involving our infidelities and other inadequacies.  Links to our DNF's.  Divorce proceeding announcements on FB?

People look at social media and proclaim the beginning of a confessional society.  People transparent and open about their secrets ~ leveling them out before the whole web.  An honesty and development of self reflection and confiding in others.  

Nope.  Only idealistic avatars for the most part run free on the range of our public face.

We confess only our successes.  

Wake up.  It's a farce.  

Where is rock bottom and failure in our resumes?  

~

And I'm as big a part of the joke as anyone.

And I'm ready to make amends and move forward.  

So, yes.  I bombed the McNaughton 150.  I was over-hyped.  

I wrote checks my body couldn't cash.

I let people down.  I painted expectations that were farther than my reach.  We can spout many many things and reach very few.

My absence from writing the last few weeks has convinced me of an irreparable shortcoming of the human ego to stand upon the shoulders of a failure.

But here that's exactly what I'm going to do.

I own my DNF.  I'm cultivating the DNF.  I'm ruling this DNF.  I'm ruling every DNF.

American Zofigen

ADK 540

Eagleman

Ironman Kentucky

McNaughton

And crafting this into pre-race supplement for the Peak 50 and the Death Race and a Double Ironman.

~

And each of these future events offers yet an other avenue for public disgrace.  

And my arms are wide open for it!

Rise upon your failures, stand upon them as a stack of bodies.  Bodies of former selves you've slain and are climbing upon.

Note to self:  get over yourself!

Prelude to Overwhelming: Before the First Step…

I wish I could tell you why I do what I do.  But I can’t.  It’s an epistemological problem rooted in the inadequacy of language.

While studying philosophy in college I became preoccupied with the axiomatic principles from which everything could be derived.  The stuff buried deeper than Euclid’s five axioms and Riemann’s reduction of geometry to four foundations – those pesky parallel lines meeting after all. 

The substance that makes engraving symbols possible.

I was interested in the existence of 1 and 0.  Something and nothing. The elemental reality that runs my computer and yours.  

It actually runs everything you see and don’t.

For what are all the wonders of calculus without an understanding and explanation of what a number is?  Of what something is as to opposed a nothing (the indefinite article before nothing being a contradiction in and of itself)?

For that matter how can we get to a notion of information or data theory without granting a certain groundwork for existence?  The groundwork for groundwork. 

Kant’s metaphysics and Hegel’s labyrinths’ unravel under the weighty assumptions of their semantic architectures.

In my world everything comes down to:

~(a v ~a)

It is not the case that A can both be A and not be A at the same time.

An object can either be or not be; it can’t be something in-between.  This is the law of the excluded middle.

It’s the nature beneath all mathematics and language.  It’s cemented right into the fabric of your entire phenomenology and empirical existence.

There ensues a chicken and egg question regarding how we evolved to be dependent and interwoven with it

Does reality not have the excluded middle so we can’t see it?  Or do our perceptual frameworks not have the excluded middle so that reality appears not to possess it.  Stalemate ensues.

If we want to have sensible discourse the excluded middle must be left out.  That much is clear.

We really can’t spend much time talking about the banana that is both the banana and not the banana.  Not much get’s done between people speaking in paradoxes.  In nothing but Zen koans. 

That’s why the monasteries are awfully quiet, I’m guessing.

Wittgenstein finished his greatest work with the simple declaration:

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." („Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.“)

And I’ll be mum, too.

Yet…

I’m going to run towards that which we can’t speak of.

That is the overwhelming.

That is the mind bursting tears and laughs simultaneous imbuing your fear and pleasure.  Of wanting to die you’re living so much.  The anxiety and dread of being a self and not being a self.  The pleasure and revelatory glory of being a self and not being a self.

To see and not see.  To step into the river and not be in the river.

Somewhere in the run it happens.  Mile 10?  Mile 45?  Mile 125?.  It doesn’t matter how far.  It can happen on your front porch.

Of course, I can’t tell you about it.  And you can’t tell me about it.

I just want to say that it’s overwhelmingly fucking beautiful to me.

That's why I do what I do.


Ultimately, it doesn't matter.  It's nonsense.

Ultra Essentials: Supplements via Max Muscle

Where would I be without my nutritionist Matt Showalter?  (mshowalter@maxmusclenebraska.com)

Probably dead.

Ok - that was hyperbolic, but I never would have finished the snowshoe 100...and maybe I would have passed out in a snowbank...and THEN I'd be dead, maybe.  Anyway - Matt's nutritional and supplement wisdom is important!

If I could, I'd be like the Tour de France racers who spend their nights hooked up to IV's getting pumped full of fluids, calories, vitamins, and other important stuff.

Why?

Because the human body can only absorb so much stuff naturally.  And riding your bike they way they do day after day in the world's hardest race, is well, not natural.  It's not possible to do what they do at the speed that they do it 100% 'naturally'.  (Now, let's leave the whole doping question out of this discussion.  What I'm talking about is LEGAL.)

Well, there were no IV's for me to plug into during my 100 mile snowshoe.  Which, arguably is not a natural thing for a human body to do.

Training the way I do wasn't really a requisite of our hunter-gatherer ancestry whose genes I carry.  My digestive track can only process so many nutrients and break it into supporting proteins, carbs, and amino acids so fast.  (Disclaimer:  Nutritionists like Matt are rolling their eyes at all the technical stuff I'm getting wrong and my over simplifications.)  I need my 'foodstuff' delivered in the most effective way.

Fact:  I can't get the nutrients I need from eating food alone.

I need suppements.  Pills and magic concotions of fluids that get my dying muscles as much 'stuff' as they need to keep me alive when working out for 48 hours.

I will follow up with some of my favorite vitamins and supplements in another post.  For now, ask Matt.  He knows his stuff, and whatever it is you are trying to do - he'll get you there.

It's Just A Freakin' Number.

Disclaimer:  Touchy subject - probably worse than religion or politics during holidays after everyone is flush with alcohol.

13.1, 26.2, 140.6...

You see them all over the highway, proudly donned on the back windows of vehicles before you.

Honestly, I find them as uninteresting, uninspiring, and ultimately, less revealing that "I Love My -Insert Breed of Dog Here- ".  

5k, 10k, 50k, 100k...

Finally, American get the metric system...but for the dumbest of reasons.

"What's your distance?"  Runner.
"Sprint, Olympic, Half, Full?"  Triathlete

It's amazing what we cling to as a matter of pride.

And I wasn't immune.  I proudly slapped a 140.6 sticker on my car the day I earned it.  (It sat right beside a 'Buck Fush').  And I imagined myself careening down the highway with every driver pulling their foot off the gas pedal and fading away behind me enamored in my accomplishment.

"Look honey, there goes an Ironman!"

Let's look at reality.  Running a 14:00 5k probably hurts more and takes 100x more training than running a 12-hour Ironman.

Are there olympians and elites out there rocking 5k stickers on their cars.  I haven't seen them yet.  (I'm sure some swimmers have them!)

There is a sense of grandeur with going far.  And pride.  But where does it end?  Who is the most bad ass?  When will far enough be far enough.

Dean K ran 350 miles in 82 straight hours.  Where's his sticker?

Today I ran 31 miles...and you know what, I didn't even blink when I crossed the 26 mile mark.  Why?

a)  I was slow as hell and had nothing to be proud about 'marathon wise'
b)  It's just a number.  It is not hallowed.  It is not sacred.  It is not the end all.  It is 100% arbitrary.

Now maybe you started at a 5 k and dreamed of one day working up to a marathon.  And you did it!

You SHOULD be so freakin' proud of that.  You should tell everyone you know YOUR STORY.

But lay off this number business.  Here's a secret.  No one cars.  The only people who understand it anyway already have their own sticker and aren't impressed anyway.

I don't want to see 26.2 on your window.  I want to hear that you ran a marathon 3 years after becoming a double amputee.  Or that you got your 13.1 after loosing 120 lbs.

And what about 14, 15, 18, 36, etc.

Why don't we plaster these all over the place.  They are equally interesting, no?

I'll tell you what's interesting.

Running.  Or doing triathlons.  I think they are rad, regardless of the distance.  (Hobby stickers, such as 'tri guy' fall into the category of "I Love My -Insert Breed of Dog here- " stickers, btw.)

Overcoming your previous self doubts and exploring the limits of what you thought was possible.  That's interesting.

And that happens somewhere between 100 meters (Track and Field) and 3000 miles (RAAM).

Get out there and go earn your 15.6 and blog about your revelatory experience you had at mile 12 while the sun set over the mountains.

So trash this sticker business.  Do you know what they cost to make?  About 25 cents.  Now don't you really feel like an @sshole for spending $5 bucks on it?

PTFU Day 3

Plenty tired.  Didn't want to train yesterday.  Thought it the perfect opportunity to try something new!

"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey." ~Kenji Miyazawa

McNaughton 150 Rule #1 and #2 and #3 and #4

There's no right or wrong way to train for a 150 mile run.  Just prepare the f@ck up!  Rule # 1 for McNaughton training.


This ran through my head as I climbed on all fours up a 20% gradient in 4 inches of fresh powder while dragging a truck tire behind me.  It was filled with heavy, water-laden snow.

Maybe make a better harness than two loops of heavy rope that I threw my arms through.  This is definitely gonna leave a mark.


That was my next thought.

So it's begun.

Rule #2 for McNaughton training

Any run under 10 miles of trails require that I drag a tire for at least half of it - if not all of it.  I suppose I can drop the tire for speed work on a steep grade.  Then I wear a weighted vest

There is no way to go out and practice 150 miles.  There is no way to find the time to anyway.  So for two hours a day I'm going to prepare the f@ck up.

After 4 miles of dragging a tire through the snow I reached the tractor tire and flipped it up and down Joe's long drive way - while still dragging the truck tire.

Then I ran home - still dragging the truck tire

Rule #3 for McNaughton training

Fatten up.  I'm down to 145 pounds from 160 when I arrived in Pittsfield.  I've been so busy working and training I forget to eat.  I neglect this vital component.  Right now I could ROCK a marathon.  You only use glucose and simple sugars for the most part in an intense 3 hour or less run.  But for 150 miles you burn fat.  You burn muscle.  You burn your freakin' soul if you can get an ounce of forward momentum from it.

Maybe I'm just lighter because I shaved my big Vermont mountain-man beard.

This brings me to...

Rule #4 for McNaughton training
Last race is over - time to begin anew.  Lessons learned, moving forward.  No dwelling.  No attachments.  No nothing.  Brand new.

No rules.  Just prepare the f@ck up!