Here’s to Failure!
John cresting the first climb toward the mouth of Bair Canyon, Wasatch Front 100, Utah. September 8, 2023.
Issue #17
The summer of 2023 was one of chaos and massive fails.
My good friend and fellow runner, John Mathis, and I were aiming to complete the ultramarathon Grand Slam after my own unsuccessful attempt in 2019. An A-type personality with endless optimism and an infectious laugh, John runs a successful investment banking firm with his wife. I’ve always cherished his companionship on and off the road.
Our first race on the 2023 Slam roster was the Old Dominion 100-miler in Virginia. We ran together for the first fifty miles, thoroughly enjoying the camaraderie, the remote trails and fire roads of the Massanutten Mountain range overlooking Woodstock, Va.
John in the first hours of the Old Dominion 100, Massanutten Mountains, Virginia. June 3, 2023.
At mile 52, John hit the proverbial wall and struggled. Worried about holding me back, he barked, “Pirate rules! Get going, Dave, and I’ll catch up!”
I pushed on in order to make the 75-mile cutoff by midnight, which I did by ten minutes. I managed to finish that race, but John did not. Strike one.
Our next race was scheduled to be the Vermont 100, through rolling hills and trails that are also used in a 100-mile horse race. That year, however, a catastrophic storm blew through the area a few days before the event, causing widespread and severe damage that forced the race to be canceled. Strike two.
Although John’s slam was technically over, we decided to go ahead and run the Leadville 100 in Colorado, as we both had secured entry. Besides, another friend had given us his home nearby to help with acclimatizing to the altitude. So, for two weeks, John and I hunkered down in the house — our man cave — as we got altitude fit. They were fun days. We were like two 58-year-old freshman college roommates.
Race check in at Leadville, Colorado. August 18, 2023.
However, we both DNF’d at Leadville. John narrowly missed the cutoff at the 12,600-foot Hope Pass checkpoint. I had trouble with my lungs coming home over the pass and had to call it quits. Strike three.
The final race on our card that summer was the Wasatch Front 100 in Utah, featuring a grueling course from East Mountain Wilderness Park to Soldier Hollow with roughly 24,000 feet of elevation. Just for the heck of it, John and I decided to go for it.
I made it up the first climb of the race to the mouth of Bair Canyon and then, with great difficulty, reached the first checkpoint. But my breathing was ragged and my heart rate was so rapid that I ended up in the hospital. It had only been three weeks since Leadville, and my lungs hadn’t fully healed.
Before leaving, I saw John eating a slice of watermelon at the aid station and called out, “John, you gotta go on, man. You’ve got to finish this off.” I wanted him to succeed for both of us. And off he went.
Several hours later, I was lying in the hospital emergency room following a battery of tests, the doctors telling me what I already knew about my lungs, when John called.
“Dave, when you get back to the hotel, let’s go celebrate!”
“Did you finish?” I asked.
“No, man, I had to bail. I missed the cutoff again. Zero for three,” he said, laughing.
I laughed, too.
By all accounts, it was a summer of utter humiliation. Ambulances, hospital beds, airbags, missed cutoff times, DNFs everywhere. We accomplished nothing, no boxes checked, no victory laps taken. We even had to endure the taunts from our friends: “The summer you boys got Grand Slammed!”
And yet, that summer remains in my mind as one of my greatest memories, brighter and shinier than any medal won. The times John and I spent in hotel rooms and in the Colorado house, cooking for each other, cleaning, talking about our families, kids, businesses, discovering little towns, running through spectacular landscapes, sharing laughs and beers in a cowboy bar, toasting our dreams about daring to take on something that big — those are the moments that I’ll be thinking about when I’m an old fart, my best years behind me, shuffling to the bathroom at night.
The summer of 2023 when two men connected like brothers, going after something audacious and getting their butts kicked time and time again.
And I know I’ll say to myself: It was so wonderful.
Hope to see you on the trails.
Cheers,
David.
