The Running of the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey
July, 2007
Odyssey. n. Any long journey, esp. when filled with adventure, hardship, etc.
Last Saturday, my Pendola Training team completed running the third annual Reno Tahoe Odyssey, created and directed by Eric Lerude. The adjective I’ve most often heard to describe it is “fun.” “Fun” is way too simplistic.
I’ve never run before in any kind of competitive event–much less one covering a twenty-four plus hour span. I have trained with weights and aerobic activities three times a week for the past three-plus years, but the training for running lit up a whole new dimension of effort. It began when Matt Pendola suggested I sign up for the Odyssey. I said, “I couldn’t do an event like that, Matt.” He said, “Yes, you could.” That was the end of the initial conversation. “Hmmm,” I thought to myself later that day, “I wonder if I could? Nah.” Matt mentioned it a couple of more times, and I knew from previous experience that Matt was often a better judge of my physical capabilities than I was. Besides, there was this kind of a panache about others around the gym who had run the Odyssey the year before. They all shared something between themselves that the rest of us didn’t. It wasn’t any kind of elitism, but more of a shared self-satisfaction with a barely detectable nuance of smugness. Curiosity goaded me on.
“Do it.” Matt urged me. “It’s a one-time-in-your-life event.” “Wouldn’t it be nice to look back and think that, just once, you did something like this?” OK, Matt. OK.
Paggy (she had never run any kind of event, either) and I talked about it, but neither of us were too keen on the idea. Then, somehow, we kind of started goading each other, until it finally got down to a I’ll-do-it-if-you-do-it kind of dare and double-dare, and before we knew it, the net dropped on us. We agreed to sign up and train for the Odyssey, some four months away. (Oh, who’s Paggy? That would be Maryanne Paganetti who is, I think, in her mid fifties but looks forty. If there were ever a foxy-grandmother contest, Maryanne would win it.)
Training began, and it really wasn’t that bad, at least I didn’t ever throw up. Close, a time or two. I quit smoking, at the same time. This was no triumph of will power, but, simply, the realization that I wasn’t going to work so hard running and then smoke to make it even harder.
The first week was “run three minutes, walk seven,” to be repeated three times each day for three days of the week–OK, a half-hour each on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. I could certainly run three minutes, couldn’t I? Harder than it sounds if you haven’t done it in, oh say, 40 or 50 years. Wednesday evenings were training at the Reno High track and Sunday mornings were running on Steamboat Ditch. Each week, Matt ratcheted up the training level: 3/7, 4/6, 5/5, 6/4, 3/7, 2/8, 1/9 went the walk/run intervals. Distance runs stretched from one-half to two hours, before training tapered off before the race. The hardest weekly transition for me was the move from 7/3 to 8/2. It wasn’t too hard running the additional minute, but the loss of the walking/recovery minute was tough. Is it getting “fun” yet?
The training wasn’t the same for everybody, of course. Some of the team were highly trained and experienced runners, but some of us weren’t. I couldn’t get “What am I doing here” out of my head for weeks. The age range of the team ran from nineteen-year old Lauren to sixty-eight year old me. It hadn’t hit me until now, but that’s nearly a 50-year range. I have to admit: I felt like the Reno Tahoe Oddity.
One facet of the Pendola Team began to slowly dawn on me: it wasn’t how fast you were, it wasn’t how old you were..it was just the fact that you were on the team and putting in the same hours of training as everyone else. This team had some really talented runners, but it didn’t have any better-than-you champions. Each person on the team trained as hard as they could and supported every other person. Now, you would think of a running event as an individual sport–at least I always did. What I didn’t know, but came to know, was that the team effort, the team support of each individual on the team, made the whole greater than the sum of its parts. “When it all comes together; when it connects and hums, when it roars forth - exploding free of its constraints, that is Synergy.” [1]
Race day, June 29, seemed so far away when we started training but slowly grew near. I have to say, it takes a goal to train as hard as I did. I would not have gone out and done what I did without a purpose–and, it was a little bit fear-driven–the fear of not being able to complete the event. As we got toward the end of the training, and the pace intensified, it was the thought of race day that kept me going. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t going to be able to complete the race, but it sure as hell was not going to be for lack of maintaining the tough schedule. Toward the end, it got to six days a week, including one spin class. “Don’t miss running on Monday morning,” I kept reminding myself. If I did it would mean double days later in the week. “It’s only a few more weeks,” I’d tell myself, “You’re almost there.”
But, as in so many other things in life, the rewards exceeded the effort. Some of the stubborn, extra pounds I’d been carrying melted away–or else repositioned themselves elsewhere in my legs, back and core as muscle. I could wear those size 34 Levis that I had optimistically kept in my closet all of those years. I began to get good comments on my muscled legs–from girls, at that. (Well, OK, a couple of guys, too.) This is all heady stuff for someone who’s officially a senior citizen.
It was good for my little boy, Zachary, too. He came with me Wednesday nights to the Reno High track and either ran with me or played on the infield. Monday nights, he came to spin class with me and usually spent much of the hour on the elliptical trainer. At five years old, he came to see physical training as just a part of our lives–for him as well as me.
One of the earliest jokes I can recall hearing as a kid involved the Little Idiot (perfectly correct in those days.)
“Little Idiot”, the person asks, “Why do you keep hitting your head with that hammer?”
“Because it feels so good when I stop,” replies Little Idiot.
Well, much of running is like that, and, I suspect, all of us runners have some of the Little Idiot in us. It does feel so good when you stop. The team would stay around after practice, sweating, gulping water, stretching and chatting. Sometimes, you just didn’t want to leave. And I just felt so much better about myself. My conditioning level was excellent, and I had accomplished things I’d never done before in my life.
A few weeks before the race, I began to slowly realize that I had been totally duped by Matt Pendola. “Just once in your life,” he’d told me, “Just once.” But the thought crept in to my mind: what am I/we going to do when this race is over? I’ve spent so much time and hard work getting into good condition. Am I just going to let all of that go? Give up my Little Idiot feel-good? Oh, that Matt: he knew this, all along.
On race day, we all donned our Pendola Training jerseys and pinned our team number 83 on to them. I was running the first leg for our team and was anxious to get going. I knew I could do it–I wasn’t anxious about that–I just wanted to...go! My normal resting heart rate is 62 beats per minute. I glanced at my heart rate monitor: 93 beats, and I was just standing there waiting for the “go.” Finally, Eric Lerude sounded the “go,” and a number of us left the starting gate. I felt just a little bit silly pacing away in my race garb, but that feeling was overcome by the pride in being there.
The van stopped a couple of points along the way, giving me water and inspiration. And my leg was over before I knew it. Lauren was off on the second leg, and the five of us in the van tagged along, stopping at intervals, offering water and shouts of encouragement.
And so it went, until late afternoon. The middle section of the race had been cancelled, due to a major fire in the Tahoe Basin, and we resumed the next morning at 5:30 a.m. in Carson City. I started that leg just as the sun came up, running straight through to the finish of my leg, for the most exhilarating run of my life. Was it fast? No. Half-way through, I couldn’t even see the rest of the runners, they were so far ahead of me. Before I got to the finish, a strong, young runner starting the same leg with the team behind our team loped by me. “Good Going! Right on!” he yelled as he went by. Here was a guy who was, in effect, lapping me–but making me feel good about it.
This particular incident capsulized the mood and feeling of the other runners I came into contact with. Each runner was individually competitive, but was also part of the larger group-joy at just being there. It wasn’t exactly that every other runner was your friend, but someone who respected and encouraged you for just being there. I felt the same way about the 1,000 plus people in the event. Strange!, at least to me. I had never encountered such a large-group dynamic, before.
Our half of the team was scheduled to finish around 9:00 a.m. in Virginia City. Sharon had the last, and most difficult leg: the uphill stretch from Gold Hill to Virginia City. The only flat spot on the whole leg was not reached until approaching the finish line. The rest of us in the van (Chad, Mary, Mike, Lauren and me) wound slowly up the road ahead of Sharon. We passed a highway sign: “15 degree grade ahead. Trucks and Campers not advised.” Chad (as he had with nearly all of the other runners in our van on their legs) carried some water and ran part of the way with Sharon, pacing and encouraging her just by his presence.
Finally...the finish of the leg in Virginia City. Sharon handed off to Mike Kelly (and the other half of our team: Matt, Mike, Doris, Samantha, Paggy and Shaun). Our group, finished with our portion of the race, met at the Bucket of Blood Saloon for a beer at 9:30 in the morning. I can’t honestly remember the last time I had a beer at 9:30 in the morning, but it seemed the perfectly natural thing to do–as it did for the 100 or so other bar patrons–all runners. It was a short-lived party. One beer and everyone pretty much vanished to follow the last legs of the race.
The Odyssey was to end mid-afternoon at Idlewild Park. Our van drive back to the gym and disbursed until it was about time for our last runner–Paggy–to finish the last leg and cross the finish line. Although it wasn’t preplanned, the whole Pendola team managed to meet up a few blocks ahead of the finish line, gather up behind the finishing Paggy and run across the final line as a team. Then, we just hung out with each other, whiling away the afternoon as the rest of the teams came in. Some of my favorite team names were Running With Scissors, We’re Probably Cheating and the winning name, Scrambled Legs and Achin’.
Lauren, Chad, Mary, Mike and Sharon . Team buddies. Van buddies. We spent an exhausting, exciting, sleepy, fun, occasionally humdrum and sweaty 24 hours together, spiked by an exciting team finish. I don’t think I’ll ever feel quite the same about these people, again. I feel a curious mixture of love, respect, dependance and brotherhood with them.
Along the way, I discovered something about the sport of distance running: you don’t have to beat someone else to win. Tennis, bowling, basketball, baseball or whatever all involve beating or doing better than somebody else. For example, my goal in the Odyssey was to run my last leg straight through–no walking here and there for a couple of minutes. The leg was short, 3.8 miles, but I had never run 3.8 miles straight through, before. I worried over it the night before and dawn found me ready to run that last leg. I started off. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” the words of a book of my childhood ran through my mind. Five minutes into the leg, I knew I could do it–and did. As I crossed the finish, I realized I had won–won my own personal goal. I don’t know who was the fastest person in the Odyssey, but he wasn’t any happier crossing the finish of his leg than I was with mine.
Much of the excitement and zing of the event were infused into it by Eric Lerude, whom I still think of as a kid, but isn’t. I’ve know him a long time. Eric has the soaring spirit of a lawyer gone renegade, the legal mind giving way to the flighty spirt of a runner/businessman who loves his Reno-Tahoe. Eric’s layout of the course, the different legs and they way they were timed shows this passion. I know that hundreds of the Odyssey’s out-of-state runners will never forget it. His legal training also provided for a meticulous attention to detail, making the whole event flow with an apparent lack effort. His almost giddy enthusiasm on the microphone helped push the assembled runners to their own highs and infused the group with such a serious, party atmosphere. Go Eric!
.
But the hero of the event–not to the hundred-plus other teams, not to its organizers, but probably to the rest of the Pendola Training Team is...Matt Pendola. Matt is a champion distance runner and an excellent running coach. At least half of our team were fit and competitive distance runners, and Matt could have filled out the rest of the team with like competitors. He could have put together a mixed mens’ and womens’ team that could have kicked butt and won it all. He would have been the recognized coach/team member who made it all happen. The Winner! The
Champion! Look at me!
But he didn’t.
Matt focused on what, to him, his Pendola Training business is all about: taking pretty-average people and turning them into, well, athletes–at least, athletic enough to train for months to see if they were good enough for such an event as the Reno Tahoe Odyssey. His focus was on average, 68-year-old me and Maryanne (Paggy). His joy at seeing us finish matched our own.
As our training resumes, Matt’s focus is on two, new team members, who at this stage of the game, probably harbor serious doubts as to whether or not they can compete in and finish the next Odyssey. They will–if they train.
Did I mention the Tucson Odyssey coming up the end of October?
John G. Metzker
