Going the Distance
This seasoned runner proves it pays to stay curious
Story and Photo by ROSE CARR
The moderately warm winter day begins just like any other. She wakes promptly at 7 a.m. and fixes herself the same breakfast she’s been eating for as long as she can remember: Raisin Bran with soy milk, bananas, blueberries and a cup of tea.
The only difference is that in two hours she would be standing at a starting line, waiting to begin a journey of running 100 miles in 48 hours during the Across the Years ultramarathon race, located in Glendale, Arizona.
She dresses herself in clothing left out the night before; black leggings and a gray long sleeve. She tightly threads a time chip through her neon pink shoelaces. She’s not nervous, though. She is never worried about the long races. She has all the time in the world to finish, which is exactly what she has come here to do.
This year, Barb Macklow has challenged herself to keep moving, even at 82.
Barb has been anticipating the Across the Years race since she last attempted to complete the course in 2015. In her first attempt she reached around 75 miles before she couldn’t go any further.
Barb steps up to the starting line among 67 other racers. Her breathing is calm. It’s a beautiful start to the race with blue skies and the sun above that appear to stretch forever.
The race director and spectators begin a countdown.
“Five!…Four!…Three!…”
Although she stands tall and confident, Barb isn’t immune to doubts. Going into these races she always feels like she hasn’t had enough training, hasn’t put in enough time or enough mileage. Barb reminds herself that she will just do what she can the best way she can.
“Two!…One!” Cheers erupt from the crowd and runners. Someone is erratically sounding off their blow-horn.
Barb runs across the time mat, glances to see her name display on the time board and begins her 100-mile journey.
The race is a fixed time event. Runners and walkers can register for a 24-hour to six-day race, in which they have that allotted time to run as far as they can.
The participants race on a 1-mile, packed-gravel trail that surrounds seven baseball diamonds. Trees and grass line the gravel pathway, creating a pleasant environment for the runners. They run one direction for four hours, before turning around the other way for another four, switching back and forth.
According to an article published by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, roughly 35 to 44 percent of adults 75 years and older are physically active.
At 23 miles, Barb takes a break to breathe. It has been almost seven hours since the race has begun. She takes a two-hour rest to nap, eat, drink and get ready for the next round of miles she’s scheduled.
At her last race, she was 18 miles away from completing, with 10 hours to spare. Around 1 a.m. Barb’s body needed to take a rest before finishing her last leg. When she moved to crawl down in her tent and lay inside her sleeping bag, Chuck, her son-in-law, convinced her to sleep at the hotel room.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” he told her. “You can sleep in a heated room and in a bed. It’s too cold out here, you won’t get any rest anyway. You’re shaking!”
Reluctantly, Barb went and slept seven hours. When she woke, she was disappointed that she had slept for that long. She now only had three hours to finish 18 miles.
After that, Barb decided that she wasn’t going to listen to anyone, but herself.
Barb came out of her first 25 miles unscathed. Aside from one bandage change for a blister on her foot, she wasn’t cramping or aching. Barb was feeling ready to start the next round.
Barb hasn’t always been the athlete everyone knows her to be. Some would say she started her running career very late. When Barb was 51, she found herself as a new empty-nester. With her last child — of five children — graduated from high school and off at college, she had ample amounts of free time. At first, running was just a hobby to stay fit but she found herself constantly pushing her mileage in training and races.
Thus began her accomplished career as an ultra-marathoner.
“I just was curious what it would be like to run that far,” Barb explains. “I just started pushing the distance. I did a 50-miler just fine, I’m sure I was in my 60’s by then.”
Barb has always felt comfortable going long distances. She and one of her daughters completed a 1,000-mile bike ride from Bellingham to San Francisco, continuing to Los Angeles.
When Barb reaches the 80-mile mark, the whole race is now a mental game. The last 20 miles become the toughest part of the whole race. Up until that point, she was pushing her body as hard as she could. Physically, she’s expelled all her energy and her body was exasperated. Mentally, she has to remind herself to keep going, she might quit.
“People are telling you ‘Good job, you’re doing good!,’ which is all a lie,” Barb jokes. “But it does give you a little boost.”
Karen Bonnett Natraj, who was 60 at the time of the race, had finished all the laps she was going to do and decided to run and walk with Barb for the last 20 miles.
“She actually saved my life, because I had planned to run until I collapsed on the trail and couldn’t go any further,” Barb says.
“She told me, ‘Barb, don’t run. You’ve got a strong walk. If you just walk, you have plenty of time to make it before the cut off. If you keep running you’ll fall and hurt yourself.’ She stayed with me ’til the end.”
During those final miles she’s having the same conversation with herself, over and over — a continuous pep talk to keep her body moving.
“You’re going to keep going, so just keep moving. This is it. This is your last chance. You’re not going to do this again. Keep going, keep moving. You’re going to go through another whole year of training? Are you kidding me! You did the training. Now just finish the race.”
Even if Barb feels she has to walk most of it out, it doesn’t matter to her.
“There are a lot of elite runners and other runners better than me that won’t finish 100 miles,” Barb says to herself. “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of if I don’t make it. I’m 80-some-years-old!”
When she does cross the time-mat for the last time, Barb is relieved, elated, and mostly proud to have finally finished what she set out to do.
“I had tried several times and fallen short,” Barb says. “This meant so much to me. It was not easy, but I managed to persist and make my goal.”
Her family gathers around her and shares her joy. Her final time is 47 hours, 21 minutes and 12 seconds. She places 36 out of 67 in her 48-hour group. Barb makes a new world record with her time for women aged 80 to 84 in the 100 mile distance, as officially noted on USA Track and Field Masters Road Records.
Barb sits and prepares to take a shower by untying her laces with exhausted, cold, wet arms. She delicately peels her socks off to reveal blisters in between and on top of her thin, weathered toes appearing like gnarled tree roots that have been pushing the ground up for years. Some toenails are missing.
Exhausted and ready for a nap, Barb musters the energy to attend the award ceremony. There she is presented with a belt buckle that shows off “100 Miles” squarely imprinted on the front, and a large beer mug.
She had a goal and she conquered it.
“I’m happy that I can train and do them. I just want to finish and I don’t even mind being last,” Barb laughs. “I try to go out and enjoy it.”
Barb no longer runs competitively, but you can find her running the roads and trails of Bellingham, enjoying life, one step at a time.