Running on Empty by Marshall Ulrich

for a run across America. I suspected that this idea of a transcon—and of me doing it at my “advanced age”—might catch Charlie’s eye; he respected me, I believed, plus he had a reputation of being a smooth operator, someone who could sell ice to an Inuit, exactly the kind of guy I wanted on my team if I was going to get the cross-country ultrarun under way now.
    I laid it all on the line. At the end of my e-mail, I revealed my thoughts about challenging the record:
    . . . That would involve running at least sixty-eight miles per day (or more) for a forty-four-day finish. The old record is sixty-seven miles per day for forty-six days. Publicly, I would say I’m going for the Grand Masters (over fifty years old) men’s record of sixty-four days, completing forty-five miles a day. Confidentially, I would be going for the overall record——at least giving it a shot. . . .
    I realize that it would be a huge effort, and I don’t take this lightly. What you guys are doing is unbelievable——keep it up!!!
    Â 
    Marsh
    Calling a transcontinental run a “huge effort” wasn’t hyperbole. If anything, I was underplaying it. This would be the biggest thing I’d ever done, the hardest, the longest, with the most potential for both injury and enlightenment, my magnum opus. At the time I wrote that note, I didn’t fully grasp the impending transformation, the personal revelations that would turn something I’d believed for my whole life upside down. How it would completely alter my sense of reality and relationships, my definitions of independence and self-reliance. How the distance would chastise my body and the experience would scald my soul.
    But I wouldn’t fully understand that until later, during the run. What I did understand, even just contemplating this, was the intense effort it had taken Frank Giannino, who’d set the record with his second attempt in 1980 at the age of twenty-eight.
    When I’d contacted Frank, some months before I wrote to Ray and Charlie, and asked his advice about challenging his record, he had been encouraging and told me to go for it. He’d also admitted how difficult it was, during his first crossing in ’79 (coincidentally, the same year I started running), to start out with a friend, have that friend falter and drop out, and watch his crew disintegrate. It ruined the friendship, and he wasn’t satisfied with his finishing time.
    The next year, he’d come back with his mother, father, and brother to crew, run alone, and set the record on his own, completing the course in a little more than forty-six days. Frank counseled me to get into a routine as soon as possible, as I’d need to have small, consistent things to look forward to as I ran. He never said anything about how physically demanding the run would be. That was understood, a basic fact, an undeniable reality of what would come.
    I also understood there’d be no second chance for me: Unlike Frank, I didn’t have the youth, the money, or the heart to put my family through this ordeal twice. As with Everest, I was going to succeed, or fail, in one try.
    Â 
    It took Ray a while to get back to me. He and Charlie were busy putting in forty-mile days across the largest desert in the world. But when I heard from him, Ray’s news was positive. Yes, Charlie was interested. In fact, Charlie decided later that he’d like to attempt the run with me, to take his own crack at the transcon record set in 1980.
    Would I like some company on the road?
    Sure, I said. Let’s do this thing.
    We’d have to map out a course, sticking to legal pedestrian roads, per the Guinness World Record guidelines, choosing the most direct, legal route. We’d both need to recruit our own crews, two separate groups of people who’d take care of us on the way. We’d have to secure some vehicles, product sponsors, and financial backing.