Sources of Motivation

Aaron and many other ultra athletes have gotten used to hearing the same curious refrain from people when they mention how they spend their weekends and vacations: “Why would you want to do that?”  Their answers are surprisingly simple: These events are thrilling. They’re challenging. They’re fun. Rondi Davies, 37, a decorated long distance swimmer who’s currently training for the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon swim this July, says it was a natural progression for her take on open water races at 19. “My body seems to be able to go and go, so I instantly gravitated to this sport. Plus, I like the adventure and the challenges to deal with in a race,” says Davies, a geologist with the American Museum of Natural History. “There’s always so much going on, like strong water currents, boat traffic, floating cranes, thunderstorms, and jellyfish. It can be quite chaotic and crazy.”

For others, motivation is rooted in far more personal, even ego-centric aspirations: Some want to bust down physical barriers, go after records, achieve the loftiest of goals. Bergland, for example, had little trepidation when it came to covering 153.76 miles in 24 hours on a treadmill, a Guinness World Record. “I wanted to be the fastest and run the longest,” he says. “I could pretend I was doing it for a higher purpose, but in the end, it was a totally self-indulgent lifestyle. You’re living your dream and it’s hard to find time for what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

Bumps in the Road

And with that somewhat selfish, extreme lifestyle may come rather hefty consequences, too. Just consider the many tales of danger and near-misses you hear from the trails, like that of elite adventure racer Danelle Ballengee. Out for a training run in the Moab Desert with her dog in 2006, she slipped on ice and took a tumble down a 25-foot cliff. Unable to move, Ballengee spent two nights in sub-freezing weather with a cracked pelvis and internal bleeding before her dog lead a rescue team to her broken—but living—body. Those who manage to escape catastrophe still walk (or hobble) away from the finish line with some stellar battle scars. Blisters, chafing, and sunburn are standard; other injuries and after-effects  can get even more gruesome. After his record-setting treadmill run, Bergland’s body finally succumbed to years of hardcore racing. “I didn’t have a death wish…I knew I wasn’t going to die and kept on pushing myself,” he says about continuing racing despite spotting blood in his urine during a race. He pushed himself all the way to the ICU with athletic induced rhabdomyolysis, or renal failure. Perhaps as sign of his otherwise pristine physical condition, he made a full—and fast—recovery, though he’s since retired from the ultra scene. “Ultra events are a slow burn. Eventually, the miles take their toll,” he says.

Other missteps are much less physically taxing than they are mentally maddening. Though adventure racing is supposed to be, well, an adventure, local athletes Rodney Villella and Amy Bartoletti have had their share of dizzying blunders. The pair, who live together in Manhattan, have completed countless adventure races together, including Primal Quest, a 500 mile trek over rugged terrain  (the June 2008 race is in Montana) involving hiking, mountain biking and climbing, horseback riding, rappelling and kayaking. Still, one lapse in judgment during the Fogdog 24 Hour Adventure in California had the pair stumbling for six hours as they attempted to navigate their way to a checkpoint. “We were coming off the rappel and needed to make a navigation decision. Not quite sure which way was the best to go, we hooked up with another team who said that they knew the area,” says Villella, a 38-year-old municipal bond portfolio specialist. “When we came to a T-junction, I thought we needed to go left, the other team said right. So we went with their judgment and got completely lost. Later we found out that if we went left, we would have been at the checkpoint in about 15 minutes.”

Weather can be just as plaguing as poor navigational decisions. Evans vividly recalls one wild run in the Western Sahara, with the mercury rising to a sweltering 126 degrees and a sandstorm sending tents and debris adrift across the barren desert. As night set in, she sidled up to the sturdiest thing she could find—a tent pole—and wrapped her face in a bandana to protect her skin from the stinging sand. “It was so bad, it was almost comical. I kept bursting into laughter—especially when I saw my belongings fly out of the bottom of the tent,” she says. Still, perhaps because she had little choice otherwise, Evans persevered for the next day’s run, a marathon. In fact, she says the harrowing experience energized her. “The next day was one of my fastest, easiest and most enjoyable stages of the race,” she says. “I was happy to be free from the sand, and figured I could deal with anything after that night.”

Endurance cyclist Aaron experienced less-than-favorable weather during last summer’s 1200-kilometer Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) ride. With thick, gray clouds and fog shrouding the French countryside, he struggled to stay the winding course. Aaron managed to keep his eyes trained on another rider ahead, but one of his friends wasn’t so fortunate. As dusk fell, the friend became disoriented under inky black skies. Recalls Aaron, “His headlight failed, and he lost track of any riders in front of him. There are no street lights, so he just had to stop and wait until light so he could see where he was going, and eventually missed the time cutoff at the checkpoint.”