The Running of the Bull Run Run

Or, how I looked for a bluebell and found a 50-mile race.

Jeff Horowitz

© 2010 42K(+) Press, Inc.

I don’t believe in ultramarathons. I want to be clear about that. I mean, I know they exist, unlike Santa and the Easter Bunny. It’s just that I don’t think they’re something I can do. Not that I haven’t done them—I’ve run two 50-milers and a 34-miler. I just don’t feel like I really owned them, you know? Like I knew what I was doing and ran them the way I wanted to, like I do with the marathon. I guess you could say that I’ve got issues with ultras.

So running another ultramarathon wasn’t really on the top of my to-do list when Gaynor brought up the subject. Gaynor can best be described as being kind of like Sandy Duncan doing Peter Pan, but in an even better mood. She’s small, with an angular face and short hair, and she’s always upbeat and smiling, even when she’s complaining, which is a trick I’ve yet to learn. Gaynor is my massage therapist, so I’m always happy to see her, even when she’s beating me up on the massage table and I’m wincing in pain. Maybe you could say that I’ve got issues with my massages, too.

When I received an e-mail from Gaynor one morning, then, running an ultra was about the furthest thing from my mind. I was expecting to hear about when she could fit me in for our next session, but instead, she had written to tell me that registration for the Bull Run Run 50-Miler had just opened. That’s a race I had signed up for a few years earlier but ultimately had to skip because of a scheduling conflict. I had heard that the Bull Run 50 is one of the best ultras in the country, a beautiful but difficult run with a few small stream crossings that can get very muddy in wet weather. At the time, I had thought it would be a great race to try. I had long since gotten over that when I received Gaynor’s e-mail, so I ignored the subject when I wrote back to her. I thought if I didn’t respond, maybe she would forget that she brought it up at all, and it would just go away.

Fat chance. A few days later, when Gaynor had me on her massage table in a weakened state, she brought up the race again. Gaynor was going to run it and wanted a partner in crime, so she wisely appealed to my vanity by saying how easy it would be for someone in my excellent condition to run it. The unspoken subtext was that I was a fraidy-cat if I didn’t do it, and I didn’t want to be shown up by a little wisp of a girl, did I? Her tactics were juvenile and completely transparent, so of course they worked. I went home that night and signed up for the race online. As soon as I hit the send button, I wondered, and not for the first time, whether someone with all the schooling I’ve had shouldn’t be a bit smarter than that.

And that’s how I got roped into doing the Bull Run Run 50-Mile Race.

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