Oil, Fire, and the Number of the Beast
Act I: The Devil Went Down to Titusville
There are several ways to prepare for a 100K ultramarathon, and during the two months preceding the 2015 Oil Creek 100K, I managed to select most of the sensible ones while also pursuing several of the least sensible ones with the enthusiasm of a Labrador discovering an unattended picnic.
I spent August running around Penn’s Woods, including excursions on the Laurel Highlands Trail, a 50K training loop at Oil Creek, and the Megatransect, while ordinary training runs became increasingly elaborate excuses to wander into the woods and see what happened. On September 6, I ran 30 miles on the Laurel Highlands Trail from Route 31 and felt pretty good until the final five miles, when my legs began submitting increasingly formal complaints to management. On September 19, I ran another 30 miles through Ohiopyle State Park and, somewhere along the way, something finally clicked.
I was breaking through.
The following week I returned to Oil Creek for another 50K training run, completed one loop of the course, and absolutely dusted Todd Lewis, who was training for the 100-miler. I was fast, confident, and possessed of exactly the kind of irrational optimism that makes ultrarunners say things like, “I think I’m ready,” immediately before spending fourteen hours discovering new and exciting ways in which the human body can fail.
Still, I had put together some solid long runs, and for the first time I genuinely believed I could have a great race.
Which was fortunate, because fate had apparently decided that I would also have bib number 666.
Tom Jennings, the race director, announced several days before the race that the unlucky recipient was me.
There are moments in life when the universe gives you a warning.
There are other moments when the universe hands you a flaming pitchfork and says, Please be funny with this.
I chose funny.
Act II: Honda Element, Honda Hell
I drove north from Altoona in my father’s Honda Element on Friday afternoon, spending roughly three hours following school buses up rural Route 36 toward Titusville, which is a spectacularly effective way to reconsider every decision that led you to a sport where driving three hours to run for fourteen more hours constitutes recreation.
My cranky right ankle and left quad began complaining during the drive, although both had been injured long before this race, so I assumed it was merely the result of sitting in a Honda for three hours and not some sort of sinister foreshadowing.
That was optimistic.
I arrived at race headquarters at the middle school around 6 p.m. and found Luke Ebeling, Shaina Gilbert and several others from the Lock Haven area putting up a tent beside the football field. I heroically assisted by supervising the operation without lifting anything, which is an important leadership technique I have since described as delegation, although witnesses may have called it “standing there.”
After congratulating myself on my contribution to the infrastructure of ultrarunning, I went inside to get my packet from Brian Newcomer.
Before settling in for the evening, however, I followed my father’s instructions and threw a tent over the Honda Element.
He called it the “Honda Tentament.”
I called it the “Honda Ele-tent.”
Neither name improved the product.
Essentially, it was a tent with the floor cut out and then thrown over the vehicle like a giant tarp, creating what may have been the first-ever automobile-based solution to the question, What if camping, but with significantly more contortion?
I slept in the back of the Element with the rear seats removed, which was comfortable in roughly the same way that being stored inside a shipping container is comfortable. Throughout the night I woke approximately six times to walk across the parking lot to the school to use the bathroom.
Every trip required me to perform a complicated sequence of maneuvers in which I contorted myself around the front seats, reached for the front door handle from the back, opened the front door, opened the rear side door, and crawled out.
Yoga time.
By race morning I had apparently become sufficiently flexible to qualify for the Cirque du Soleil production of The Fellowship of the Bladder.
But I had a bigger problem.
I had to run 100 kilometers.
And I had the number of the Beast.
Act III: Enter the Beast
Before dawn, I quietly dressed inside the Element and watched my friends prepare for the 100-mile race. Then I collected my timing chip, returned to the vehicle, pinned 666 to my shorts and put on a pair of plastic glowing devil horns.
My plan was to wear them for the entire first 50K.
Bruuuuuhahahaha...
This was either going to be hilarious or profoundly stupid.
Since those two conditions are not mutually exclusive in ultrarunning, I felt confident.
At the race briefing I waited in the cafeteria with the other 100K runners, horns glowing above my head like Satan’s least intimidating intern.
Then we were released onto the course.
We crossed Oil Creek at Jersey Bridge, turned onto Bank Street, followed the bike path for a mile, and entered the Gerard Hiki
ng Trail.
Concerned about going out too fast, I deliberately hung back with Brian Newcomer and Dave Hunter. The course remained crowded for the first half-hour, with runners moving through the darkness in a conga line.
I had run the course before, but never at night, and the difference was remarkable. Roots became booby traps. Holes became existential questions. Rocks became small geological arguments between your ankle and your future.
Still, everyone was in good spirits.
Then the course began to spread out.
And, inevitably, I found myself alone.
This is a problem for me because I do not particularly enjoy running alone. When I run with someone, conversation tends to mute the internal monologue, or I can subconsciously push or pull another runner along. Alone, however, I become trapped inside my own head, which is not a place that has ever passed a health inspection.
I rounded a rise and heard Brian talking about fifty yards behind me.
Excellent.
I immediately decided that I needed to get away from him.
This was not because Brian had done anything wrong.
This is simply how my brain works.
I reached the top of the rise, hit a fast section of singletrack, and pressed the accelerator. I flew down the trail, trying to create as much distance as possible before reaching the first aid station at Wolfkiel.
Seven miles down.
Fifty-five to go.
No problem.
The Devil was loose.
Act IV: Hell Has Aid Stations
At Wolfkiel, the volunteers wanted a picture of me in my devil horns, which was inconvenient because I was technically racing and had places to be, but also because once you are wearing glowing devil horns with 666 pinned to your shorts, you have surrendered any reasonable expectation of anonymity.
It was now light enough to ditch the headlamp.
After the climb beyond the aid station, I fell into a group of about eight runners, and we moved through the woods like an express train powered entirely by poor judgment.
Choo-choo, motherfuckers!
We rolled into Petroleum Center at mile 15 after two hours and fifty minutes.
Twenty-seventh place.
Everything seemed to be working.
Except my left big toe.
There was a hot spot developing on the outside of it, which I mentally categorized as “Future Ben’s Problem.”
Future Ben would later discover that present-day Ben was an asshole.
The section after Petroleum Center became a blur.
I entered full race mode and stopped thinking about the larger distance. I was simply chasing whatever was in front of me, which is one of my favorite strategies because it removes the need to comprehend the terrifying mathematical fact that a 100K race contains approximately 100 kilometers.
At the top of Heisman Hill, named for Titusville native John Heisman, I finally stopped to investigate my toe.
The problem?
My sock was inside out.
There was a wad of fabric bunched around my toes, rubbing the same spot over and over.
I fixed the sock and resumed running.
This was the first of several important lessons from the race:
Always check whether the thing causing your suffering is actually your own sock.
Act V: The Devil and the Rabbit
Somewhere after Heisman Hill, I found myself racing with a fast runner.
He would gain ground on the downhills.
I would gain ground on the climbs.
Then he would sprint away again.
Naturally, this became personal.
Not angry personal.
More like the personal relationship between Wile E. Coyote and gravity.
Every time he pulled away, I chased him.
Every time I caught him, he accelerated.
It was perfect.
At various dirt roads and side trails, he had a cheering crew waiting for him with banners, signs and cowbells.
I began wondering who this guy was.
Meanwhile, I was running through the woods wearing glowing devil horns while signing to Foo Fighters earworms, so I suppose the more appropriate question was probably whether he was wondering who I was.
As we passed other runners, spectators shouted:
“It’s the Beast!”
“You go, running devil!”
“It’s the devil! I must be in hell!”
This was fantastic.
I had accidentally become a minor trail-running supervillain.
The fast guy kept looking over his shoulder, increasingly frustrated that he could not shake the devil.
At Miller Farm, mile 24, I lost track of him. Maybe he continued ahead. Maybe he stopped at the aid station. Maybe he escaped the underworld.
I don't know.
I ate very little and lost a pair of gloves, because apparently the Devil has no dominion over proper fueling or personal property.
From Cow Run Boy Scout Camp through Miller Farm and toward the middle school, the miles seemed to disappear. The terrain was demanding, full of climbs and hollows, but I felt fantastic.
The forest also periodically provided the soundtrack.
From Drake Well came the loud metallic bang of the oil pump hitting metal.
It sounded like the Smoke Monster from Lost had taken up residence in Pennsylvania.
You would hear the bang and assume the end of the Gerard Trail was right around the corner.
It wasn't.
Sound travels.
Hope does not.
Oil Creek itself is one of those places where the landscape is doing several historical things simultaneously. Colonel Edwin Drake struck oil here in 1859, triggering an industrial explosion of derricks, boomtowns, fortunes, disasters and dead men. The woods have reclaimed much of it, but pipes, equipment and remnants of the petroleum industry still appear among the trees, and stories of blowouts and ghosts linger in the hills.
So while I was running through the birthplace of the modern petroleum industry wearing the Number of the Beast, I suppose I was technically participating in a very niche historical reenactment.
Unfortunately, my reenactment lacked adequate funding and included more chafing.
Act VI: 50K and The Devil Gets Cocky
On the rolling singletrack toward Drake Well, I joined several other runners.
At one point I joked that, at our current pace, we could reach the middle school, take a nap for several hours, go into town for dinner, start the second loop around 11 p.m., and still finish before the cutoff.
This is one of the great features of Oil Creek: the generous cutoff makes it an excellent first 100K.
It also makes it an excellent place to become wildly overconfident.
I went through the Drake Loop, down the asphalt bike path and toward the middle school, seeing runners traveling in both directions.
I passed Todd Lewis and Jenn Kline near Jersey Bridge as they were heading out.
Then I crossed into the middle school.
50K: 6:18.
I had run a personal-best 50K.
I had moved from 27th place to 16th.
My overall pace was 12:11 per mile.
From Petroleum Center to the middle school, I had averaged 11:38.
Fantastic.
I was flying.
I was the Beast.
I was Satan with a Garmin.
I was also about to discover that the second half of a 100K is not, in fact, simply the first half again but with more confidence.
At the middle school I had no crew, so I went through my drop bags myself. Jeff Calvert and David Walker were there, hanging around before pacing other runners later.
They asked how the race was going.
“Fantastic!” I said.
This was technically true.
It was also the sort of statement that makes the universe reach for a baseball bat.
Act VII: The Devil Gets Hungry
I headed back onto the Gerard Trail.
In daylight, everything looked much faster.
Then, somewhere between the middle school and Wolfkiel, the wheels came off.
I became dizzy and lightheaded.
I couldn't remember what I had eaten at the middle school.
Actually, I couldn't remember whether I had eaten anything.
This was less a nutrition strategy and more a live demonstration of why nutrition strategies exist.
I had experienced this before, so I recognized the problem.
I wasn't eating enough.
Two gels later, I started feeling better.
Sometimes ultrarunning is remarkably sophisticated.
Sometimes the solution to your deteriorating metabolic condition is literally, “Have you tried putting calories in your mouth?”
I caught Todd between Miller Falls and Wolfkiel. Earlier, he had slipped on a small wooden bridge and torn his quad, although neither of us yet understood how serious the injury was.
We ran together briefly before Todd told me to go ahead.
At Wolfkiel, I stopped for a while because I needed to poop.
There are certain moments in ultrarunning when dignity becomes an optional accessory.
Todd caught me there.
While waiting, I finally slowed down enough to think.
I decided to eat.
A lot.
No more sugar crashes.
No more pretending that gels were a food group.
No more trying to negotiate with my gastrointestinal tract as if it were a hostile foreign government.
Todd and I climbed out of Wolfkiel together.
Then he told me again to go ahead.
I did.
I would not see him again.
The section from the middle school to Petroleum Center had taken considerably longer than I realized. My splits showed that I had slowed substantially, although at the time I felt like I was moving well.
I passed runners.
I pressed forward.
About halfway to Petroleum Center, I passed Jenn Kline, which suggested that either she had gone out too quickly, Todd had slowed considerably, or both.
Then the blisters started.
Specifically, my middle toes.
I had nothing useful with me.
So naturally I improvised a medical device from a plastic shopping bag.
I ripped off a strip of plastic, wrapped it around my toes, and used my sock to hold it in place.
It wasn't elegant.
It wasn't medically advisable.
It was, however, McGyvering.
And in ultrarunning, “McGyver” is often the final word in a treatment plan.
At Petroleum Center I had gone 45 miles in 9:35 and moved up to 14th place.
My overall pace was 12:46.
The first time through this section I had averaged 12:08.
The second time?
14:08.
The numbers were beginning to tell me something I was not emotionally prepared to hear.
Act VIII: 13:33, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Chase the Finish Line
At Petroleum Center, Jeff Calvert, David Walker and John Weaver helped me despite the fact that I didn't have a crew.
I felt okay.
My legs still felt good.
There were only two sections left.
I figured I would finish somewhere around fourteen or fifteen hours, perhaps a little under fourteen if everything went perfectly.
Then I left Petroleum Center and something strange happened.
My legs came back.
After Heisman Hill, there is a long stretch of relatively flat running toward Boy Scout Camp, and I started passing people.
A lot of people.
More than a dozen, in fact, while only two passed me.
I didn't bother checking bib numbers, so I had no idea whether I was passing 100-milers, 100K runners or 50K runners.
It didn't matter.
I was moving.
At the Boy Scout Camp, I didn't even stop for water.
One of the scouts yelled after me:
“What happened to your devil horns?”
I had apparently become a recurring character.
Then came Trail Dementia.
I had run the course twice in training and once already that day, so I knew what was supposed to happen next.
At least, I thought I did.
In my head, I simply needed to run downhill to the next aid station, climb one big hill, follow the canyon, drop toward the creek, run the Drake Loop, take the bike path and finish.
Easy peasy.
Except I reached the next section and discovered that the trail went uphill.
Uphill?
I didn't remember this.
What the hell was happening?
Was I on the wrong trail?
Had the race changed the course?
Had someone secretly rotated the topography?
Was this Ida Tarbell's revenge for my disrespect toward the petroleum industry?
I descended the hill and reached the railroad tracks.
Then the trail went up.
Again.
I became convinced that I was trapped inside some sort of geological Groundhog Day.
Eventually I reached the aid station just before the Golden Hour, where I remember seeing Jeff Nelson.
I am not sure what I told him.
Probably something along the lines of, “The forest has betrayed me.”
From there I knew the route.
One big hill.
A couple of hollows.
Then rolling trail above the canyon.
Then the descent.
Except there wasn't one hollow.
There were six.
Six.
I didn't know this until a training run a year later.
At the time, every hollow looked exactly like the previous hollow.
It was Purgatory by Repetition, a Pennsylvania version of The Twilight Zone in which Rod Serling has been replaced by Ida Tarbell and the punishment is six identical ravines.
Eventually, finally, mercifully, I reached the top of the plateau.
I could hear the Drake Well pump hitting metal more than two miles away.
The trail rolled gently along the side of the canyon.
The woods were becoming darker.
I looked at my watch.
And something in me changed.
I wanted to finish in 13:33.
Thirteen hours and thirty-three minutes.
The number of the Beast.
I had started the race with 666 on my shorts.
I had spent fifty kilometers wearing devil horns.
Now I had decided that my finishing time should also have an infernal numerical theme.
This is what happens when an ultrarunner gets tired enough that arithmetic becomes mythology.
I wanted 13:33.
Act IX: Satan Trips Over a Rock
The final downhill off the plateau was glorious.
I was flying.
Whenever the trail flattened or descended, my legs spun.
I passed runners like they were standing still.
I felt fantastic.
I was a Rock Star.
I was unstoppable.
I was—
My right foot caught a rock.
I went down.
Naturally.
After running more than sixty miles, I had finally encountered my most dangerous opponent: Pennsylvania.
The fall happened in slow motion. I got back up, brushed off the dirt and grime, and kept moving without breaking stride.
I entered the Drake Well Loop.
The forest was dark enough to require a headlamp, but the open area around the loop was still bright enough that I could turn it off.
And I kept checking my watch.
13:33?
No.
Wait.
Maybe.
Yes.
No.
Perhaps.
I was riding a fifteen-second roller coaster between ecstasy and despair.
My entire remaining existence had been reduced to a single question:
Can I run fast enough to make a number happen?
This was no longer a race against other people.
It was a race against a clock, a joke, an arbitrary number, and increasingly questionable cognition.
I reached the bike path.
I wanted to walk.
“No.”
I kept running.
“Thirteen thirty-three.”
“No.”
“THIRTEEN THIRTY-THREE.”
I ran down Bank Street, crossed the iron bridge, rounded the corner of the school grounds, crossed the grass and—
DONE!
I crossed the mat.
13:33.
Or so I thought.
There was no cheering.
No race director.
No officials.
No dramatic finish-line reception.
Jeff and David looked at me with expressions normally reserved for people who have just wandered into a wedding reception wearing a wetsuit.
Something was wrong.
Act X: The Devil Gets Directions
David looked at me.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean? I finished.”
He stared at me.
“This is not the finish line.”
Pause.
“This is the aid station for the 100-miler.”
My brain briefly stopped functioning.
“What?”
“You ran past it. The finish is behind the school.”
Oh.
Oh shit.
The 100K finish line was behind the school.
I had just run past it.
I had crossed the wrong timing mat.
I had not finished the race.
I had merely arrived at the wrong destination with tremendous confidence.
David began pointing toward the field, explaining where I had gone off course, but I was already running back the way I came.
I rounded the corner.
And there it was.
The actual 100K finish.
It was illuminated like an airport runway.
There were flags.
There were arrows.
There were enormous signs made from windshield sunshades.
It was not subtle.
It was, in fact, approximately as subtle as being hit in the face with a flaming devil trident.
Somehow, I had missed all of it.
I ran down the lane behind the school.
This time I crossed the actual finish line.
13 hours, 35 minutes.
Not 13:33.
Thirteen.
Thirty-five.
Two minutes late to my own punchline.
Had I not made the wrong turn, I would have hit 13:33 exactly.
But I didn't.
Because I am me.
And apparently the universe had decided that if I was going to spend fourteen hours running around Oil Creek wearing the Number of the Beast, I was also going to finish by demonstrating that the Beast does not understand basic directional signage.
Still, I was done.
And it was the best race ever.
I finished 12th overall in the 100K, with an 11:12 average pace.
I had started the day with a bib numbered 666.
I had worn devil horns for the first 50K.
I had chased a mysterious fast runner through the Pennsylvania woods while strangers shouted that I was Satan.
I had nearly bonked because I forgot to eat.
I had wrapped my toes in a shopping bag.
I had hallucinated an infinite sequence of hollows.
I had fallen over a rock.
I had attempted to negotiate with a stopwatch.
And, finally, I had crossed the wrong finish line.
In retrospect, 13:35 was probably the more appropriate finishing time anyway.
After all, if you're going to run 100K as the Beast, you might as well spend the last two minutes proving that you're not actually the Devil.
Just a guy in plastic horns who needs better course markings.
Or, more accurately, a guy who needs to look at the course markings.
Because apparently Satan, like many middle-aged trail runners, has selective vision after 60 miles.
And that is how the Number of the Beast became the Number of the Beast Who Ran Past the Finish Line.
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