by Mike Stzrelecki

I still remember when I first decided to run 50 miles. It was the day I learned my father was dying.

"It's a tumor," revealed my mother by telephone, her quivering voice hinting to its seriousness. Any further details she offered became lost in the vortex of emotions and tears into which I descended. Right then, I inexplicably decided to honor my father by running a 50-mile trail race-an unusual concept being that I was not a runner.

Nine months and 1,500 training miles later, I was pacing a fog-veiled parking lot on the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Lynchburg, Virginia, battling nerves and five-in-the-morning autumn chill, awaiting the start of the Mountain Masochist Trail Run. The race course traces a 50-mile scribble northward over high mountains and across narrow valleys, ending at a modest cluster of isolated buildings that calls itself Montebello. Darkness cloaked the scene as runners made last-second preparations and received supportive hugs and encouragement from crewmembers. My father's cheers would not be heard that day. He passed away two months prior.

The race began and the cheetahs sprinted off into the darkness. I hung back, plodding with the mountain goats. The metronomic thumping of running shoes served as reminder that 100,000 foot strides lay ahead. "Go out easy," admonished veteran ultarunners. "Walk the uphills and run the downhills." I nudged my way into a slipstream of other runners moving at my unhurried pace, and emulated their relaxed cadence. Running an ultramarathon requires reigned-in patience, especially early in the race.

My father taught me patience. When I was four, he took me on my first fishing trip to a farm pond crammed full with bluegills, where he knew I would fill my creel and get hooked on the sport. I left with a stringer-full of panfish and a smile wider than the pond, anxious to return another day. The following week, a second fishing expedition ensued. This time, he purposely took me to a particularly unproductive, slow-moving stretch of water where he knew I would have very little luck. As we sat watching the lifeless bobber, my father made a point of diverting my attention to birds flitting around the riparian area and mayflies drifting skyward. We skipped rocks across the water, and identified trees. Eventually, a hefty bass-a whale in my eyes-found its way to my worm, punctuating a wonderful afternoon. That day, my father taught me that patience not only pays rewards, but also opens up new channels of discovery.

Back on the trail, darkness soon broke, and scenic Appalachia opened like a morning flower. From high vantages, mountains of deep gold and russet rolled to the horizon like swells on the ocean. The Mountain Masochist course links one mountaintop to the next. Runners climb a lung-searing 8,040 vertical feet over the 50 miles, like sprinting up the Empire State Building five times. The first significant climb came at mile six - up three miles of wide, deeply rutted trail strewn with fist-sized cobble. The exertion erased the morning chill and the stones battered my feet. Other punishing climbs followed, assuaged by gentle downhills and lovely crossings of Otter and Cashew creeks. The crucible climb began at mile 22, near the Lynchburg Reservoir. It was 14 continuous miles of uphill, weaving and winding to the top of Buck Mountain. The three-hour ascension left my legs aquiver and my spirits squashed. The climb demanded exceptional strength and fortitude.

My father, a teacher by vocation, instilled in me the importance of building a strong body and mind. During my teen years, we passed summers working side-by-side along the sheer cliffs of a trap-rock quarry. Using 15-pound sledgehammers, we reduced giant slabs of hard blue rock into building stone.

"Crack it along the grain," he'd tell me, encouraging hard swings of the tool.

We hand-loaded the broken chunks into the bucket of a front-end loader for weighing. On a good day, we'd chop and hoist ten tons of payload. The work was brutal and demanding. It left us sweat-drenched and with achy backs. My father made sure I understood that hard work develops strength in body and character.

By mile 30, however, the distance was taking a toll on my body and character. Simple but vital functions became difficult. I forced myself to eat even when my stomach wretched, and drink Gatorade even when it tasted like bile. I painfully changed socks when too sore to bend over. Forward locomotion was the immediate goal.

At mile 34, runners entered a challenging five-mile loop of single track where the course became more muddy, primitive, and overgrown. I spent precious energy scrambling over rocks and fallen logs. I wore mud splats from falls like purple hearts. But through it all, I felt an inextricable connection to the environment through which I was passing. A trail run combines and reduces runner and nature to its most intimate and immediate form. It requires from the runner an abiding respect and admiration for the enveloping natural world.

My father instilled in me a profound love of nature and the unbridled urge to be outdoors. We spent twelve summers together fly fishing the gin-clear waters of Yellowstone Park. On one particularly sunny afternoon, we worked hand-tied flies through riffle water deep into a canyon carved by the Gardiner River. In the water, hefty cutthroat trout were gorging on thick orange salmon flies-a fly fisherman's nirvana. High above us, however, a herd of sure-footed bighorn sheep clambered over a talus ledge, kicking scree down the cliff side. My father pulled me away from the feeding trout, and led me high onto a nearby ledge where we could spy the maneuvering sheep. We passed the remainder of the day observing one of nature's great theatrical performances. As a youth, I naively thought our quarry was the trout, but on that day I realized it was not. It was nature.

Late in the race, my emotions vacillated like the terrain I crossed. I laughed with other runners, became agitated during spells of soreness and nausea, and sang high praise to the mountains in the midst of adrenaline surges. During the worst stretches, my thighs could conjure up no lift. I was reduced to a shuffle, stumbling over one rock after another. I prayed for steep hills for they would call into action muscles that were fresh, ones that didn’t hurt as badly.

Yet the physical pain paled in comparison to emotions surfacing. At mile 45, when I realized that I would complete the race, I broke down and cried.

The finish was simple and understated: some slaps on the back from friends and a handshake from the race director. A few runners milled about in various stages of angst and elation. There was no fanfare. It proved the perfect complement to such a personal and profound experience. I laid down in a field of cool grass to rest my withered legs and watched wispy clouds race by. I recalled my mother's phone call nine months prior, the one that sideswiped my life and brought me to this lonely field for one last outdoor adventure with my dad.

And then I realized: I didn't finish the run to honor my father. I finished it because of my father.

Mike Strzelecki lives in Baltimore. His full story-along with 38 other inspiring personal accounts from ultrarunners-appears in Running Through the Wall: Personal Encounters with the Ultramarathon, edited by Neal Jamison and published by Breakaway Books (www.breakawaybooks.com). Jamison is currently working on a collection of adventure racing stories.