No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

Real and imagined memories from an uncertain yet perfect day

You’ll have to forgive me, my memory of this particular day is broken at best. After all, I was suffering from exertion, lack of sleep, and probably dehydration. My feet were numb from pain, I was secretly fighting for a goal I was afraid to voice, and there were so many people making suggestions in my ears that I couldn’t tell one from the other. Eat more! Eat less! Drink more! Drink less! Slow down! Speed up! Plus, the sun was going down and I didn’t have my glasses. And since I tend to have trouble seeing just after sunset, the things I saw may not be what was actually there. But make no mistake, what I saw will always be what I saw.

So many of the details of my first hundred mile race I now recall like a childhood memory. Stories and photos have filled in the blanks and now they’ve hardened like cement. I can no longer tell if my recollection comes from my experience or from an anecdote someone told me after the fact. Memory is funny like that. It’s easy to stand behind because there it is, clear its day in my brain. But really it’s tough to depend on. Plenty of times I’ve shared a story I was certain about only to have someone tell me later that’s not how things went down. It’s enough to make me question everything.

Years later, during another ultramarathon, I neglected to drink enough water while I pushed the pace harder than I had planned. Right around mile fifty, I come around a bend after an effortful climb and encountered a group of four men on horseback. The men and horses were decked out in clothes and tack with ornate silver accents. The men’s hats, I recall, were extra fancy. Wide brims with dangling tassels. Not quite sombreros, but sombrero-like. They cheered me on in lively Spanish, clapping and pumping their fists. My spirits elevated, and for the next few miles I increased my tempo and reveled in their wake.

At the next aid station I told a volunteer about my encounter. A runner who had been a minute ahead of me, now plopped down in a lawn chair taking a breather, overheard me go on about the jubilant cowboys. “Yo,” he hollered over. “I didn’t see shit back there. Especially no cowboys! That last stretch was totally empty.” I couldn’t help but disagree. I mean, those guys were impossible to miss. I even high-fived one of them As I refuted, he shook his head. “No man, you’re seeing things,” he pleaded. “All that’s back there is sun and dust. Just sun and dust, man!”

But the day I’m recalling here is a different day, on which there may have been hallucinations, but none I’m aware of. Probably at this point the memories I have are the memories I will always have. But hey, you never know.

It was 2007 at the Rucky Chucky way point, mile 78 of the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile event stretching between Squaw Valley and Auburn, California. It was a relatively dry year, so the American River crossing was done afoot using a guide rope for safety, rather than in precarious shuttle rafts captained by race officials as is necessary in other, high melt years.

My pacer Dana Gard, an local ultra legend, had been with me since Foresthill, mile 62. Together we traversed the sixteen miles down the canyon to the waterway. Was it thirteen switchbacks from top to bottom? Was it fifteen? Whatever it was, Dana and I had run it so many times in training that I could do it in my sleep.

On this particular day, I was flying. To such a point that Dana told me I might want to think about bringing things down a notch. But really, I was feeling great. I was eating, drinking, and still peeing, all good signs, and I felt confident that I could keep rolling along as I had been since Foresthill. Dana had more experience than all of my training buddies put together, so his thumbs-up to my response up was all I needed to keep on charging. “Hell, if you keep up this pace you’re gonna break twenty-four,” Dana said. I heard him, but I didn’t say anything in response. Rookies aren’t allowed to think about, let alone make predictions about their finish time.

The river was still glowing orange when we arrived. We hadn’t beat sunset, but it wasn’t totally dark yet. I hit the brakes and prepared to endure an unavoidable cold soak. The shock of cold water and massaging current was therapeutic and recharged my waning batteries. Unlike the three runners on the bank ahead, I had no intention of changing my soggy shoes on the other side. I smiled at them as I stepped onto dry ground, suddenly putting them a few places behind me.

As I turned to begin the climb up to Green Gate, I was surprised to see familiar faces. A handful of my coworkers had made the hike down to the river to pump me up. Dusty, Jeff, Justin, Jonny, Patrick, Bob, my brother Joel and girlfriend Rita, I believe, and perhaps more folks, too, hooted and hollered as we took the first steps up the steep grade. Everyone except the race leaders walked this one mile section.    

I hadn’t even noticed that Jeff was carrying a boombox on his shoulder—not until he hit play, anyhow, suddenly filling the air with an old school Beastie Boys classic:

It started with a percussive—NO SLEEP ’TIL…

And then that guitar riff you’ve heard a million times before.

Followed by an elongated—BROOKLYN!

“No Sleep ’Til Brooklyn” was released by the Beastie Boys on March 1, 1987, twenty years and a couple months before the running of this race. It was the band’s sixth single on their debut studio album, Licensed to Ill. The four minute and nine second song, according to Wikipedia, “describes an exhaustive tour and all the events that make it tiresome, but also emphasizes [the band’s] determination not to rest until they reach their home base of Brooklyn.”

An apropos song choice for the job at hand. Determination not to rest, hell yeah. Except in my case it was like, no sleep ’til Auburn.

We marched straight up for .9 miles, singing along party style to the Beastie’s banger. I don’t recall any of the next few tracks. Pretty sure it was a mix of classic hip hop. So maybe 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny?” Or Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks?” Perhaps it was Run-DMC’s “Sucker MC’s?” Jonny had put the CD together, and he had all this kind of stuff. Still, far as I’m concerned, it was “No Sleep ’Til Brooklyn” for twentyish minutes, all the way up.

At some point, maybe at about half way, we passed a runner who looked to be running out of gas. I mentally ticked him off my chase plan, thrilled to be reeling in people so late in the event. “What the hell is this?” the runner asked us, incredulous. Then, looking at his pacer he shouted, “Yo man! Where the fuck is my music?”

At the top my friends gave us hugs and bid us farewell. “See you at the finish!” they all said encouragingly. For the next half mile or so I could still hear them rocking out with the music at full blast. Dana and I fell back into race pace on the rolling foothills with me in the lead on the single track. Once our strides were in tune Dana said, “Those are some good friends you’ve got.” I agreed, and in doing so I got all choked up. For the next mile I blubbered ecstatically. Until I didn’t have any more tears to cry. Until I stopped sniffing and snorting and found my breathing rhythm again.

I cried because I knew this moment, this day, would always be a part of me. I also cried because, well shit, I still had twenty more miles to go before I could rest. Before I could sleep. And if I’m being honest, I cried because I still didn’t know if I’d make it to the finish line as a finisher, or as someone who fell apart this close to the end. Would I make it to Brooklyn? I could only hope.

As my bellyaching subsided, Dana asked if I was OK. “Yeah man, I’m good. Let’s get this shit done,” I said. He nodded and asked about the pace. Wondered if I was willing to ratchet things up a little. “Hell yeah. Let’s do this,” I said. I listened to the sound of Dana’s foot strikes and matched mine to his. The pace felt good. It felt right. “It’s a good thing you let it all out back there, Tom,” Dana said. “Those tears are fuel for anything you’ll ever do that’s worth doing. Including this. You got this, my friend. And I got you.”