50/20
Wildwood Trail
A 50/20 consists of walking 50 miles (80 km) in less than 20 hours.
We started at 9:00 p.m. and walked all that night and most of the next day.
It was an excruciating 19 hours, but we succeeded.
Upon returning home, we literally crawled into the house, where a wonderful wife and mother had prepared a lovely dinner, which we didn’t touch.
My younger son collapsed, totally exhausted, on the couch, while my older son crawled downstairs to his bedroom.
After some painful rest of my own, I went to my younger son to make sure he was still alive.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Dad, that was the hardest thing I have ever done, and I never want to do it again.”
I wasn’t about to tell him that I would never do it again either. Instead, I told him how proud I was that he had accomplished such a hard thing...
I then went downstairs to my oldest son. I lay by him—then touched him. “Son, are you alright?”
“Dad, that was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and I will never, ever do it again.” His eyes closed—then opened—and he said, “Unless my son wants me to.”
APRIL 2015 LDS General Conference•Larry M. Gibson•Fatherhood-Our Eternal Destiny
Prepared
I do my running early. There aren’t many conflicts at 5:00 in the morning so it’s just a battle between running and sleep. And I’ve gotten pretty good at tipping the tide toward running. I’ve completed a couple trail marathons, have run relay races, and obstacle course races. I find my pace has been increasing as I age and rain has become an excuse to sleep in. I’m good with it. I’m hoping one of my kids talks me into another marathon one of these days but can’t think of much that would motivate me to do one other than that.
All that and I’d never heard of a 50/20. I was excited to try it and even better Sarah was willing to give it a try with me. Maybe we could get Arwen to go too. We’d get a few training hikes in before hand, then just do it. The distance wouldn’t be a problem, I’d run marathons, 26.2 vs 50 I know, but we’d be walking. My calculator told me we’d need to hike at a 24 minute/mile pace to make fifty miles in twenty hours. So we’d walk at a 20 minute/mile pace, allowing us a few breaks here and there and a little buffer time. The lack of sleep wasn’t going to be that bad either. I handle sleep deprivation pretty well during long distance relay races, and I still manage to function pretty well after an all night drive down to California. What else was there? Food and water. We toyed with food drops along the route but figured we’d just throw what we needed into a backpack and avoid having support, or having to plan ahead to much for drops. I mapped a few fifty mile there and back again routs from our front door, none of which felt that exciting. I tried some 50 miles drop off a car routs at the end from our front door. All in all there were too many stoplights, too much cement, and not enough nature. Time passed and our planning got more and more hypothetical. May. June. Weekends were over scheduled, training hikes never happened, summer was coming to a close. July. August. Perhaps next year.
September
The 50/20 is on! We’re going to start on the northwest end of the Wildwood trail in Forest Park and hike 25 miles, there and back again. It’ll be just Sarah and I this time. We’ll get the kids on one when we all start hiking more. We packed 100 oz water bladders, protein bars, nuts, fruit, and some nasty energy gummies Thursday night. I skipped running Friday morning, went to work, forgot a lunch, came home, ate some burritos, I made a few extra for the hike, said goodbye to the kids and hopped in the truck with Sarah.
It was the 4th and this hike was my awesome birthday present. There was only shoulder parking at the train head and I worried a little that the truck would get broken into. Something that kept my mind off of hiking now and again for the next twenty hours. We started walking at 6:00 that afternoon.
Sunset: 7:45 PM
We walked as long as we could without headlamps because we didn’t know how long our batteries would last and it was going to be a long night. With no moon and the thickness of the forest we had our lights on around 9:00. I used red light. We talked, or we didn’t. The weather was perfect, good company, and still too early to be tired. We were in the thick of the adventure. The night was dark but for the occasional glimpse of city lights off to the northeast. We took a wrong turn about an hour before moonrise. It was dark and we missed a sign and kept merrily walking along what we thought was the path. The trail was unkempt compared to what we’d been on and after half a mile we decided to turn back. We found the correct turn and continued on.
Moon Rise 11:42 PM
Moon rise came without notice as far as I remember. It should have been visible when ever we got a glimpse of the city. On occasion we were close enough to hear city noises, distant voices. Our packs began to weigh us down. I was constantly adjusting straps and the waist belt trying to find some formula that would make the pack weightless. So it passed the time. The trail listed to the left and I began to feel it’s effects on my joints. The night wasn’t half over. At five miles till turn around Sarah had a brilliant idea. Ditch the backpacks. We swigged some water and stashed a few snacks in pockets. Not that we’d seen a soul we nevertheless stashed the packs behind a tree buried in some ferns and hoped and dreaded we’d find them again. We weren’t skipping, but ditching the backpack definitely lightened our spirits. We began heading down hill. So far we’d seen about 2300 feet of elevation change and we're starting our 700 foot descent to the old stone house. It got colder and colder as we dropped in elevation and soon became uncomfortable. I was shivering when we reached the old stone house. On the way down we realized that our 25 mile turnaround point was going to take us up a 600 foot climb in a quarter of a mile. The switchbacks from the stone house up to Cornell Road. So I went over and over the math making sure we had it correct. With the extra half mile detour that we wouldn’t repeat on the way back and the early hour it was hard to come to a conclusion. In the end we decided on another quarter mile down and back along Lower Macleay trail would put us back on track. It was really cold down by the stream. I walked a little further than the quarter mile to be sure as my GPS was not all that accurate under the tree cover and in the canyon. We rested at the old stone house for as long as we could before forcing ourselves to climb out of the canyon. A few nice things about the climb, we were on our way back to the truck though it hurt thinking about the distance ahead of us still. The immediate nice thing was that it noticeably warmed up as we climbed to the point that the cold no longer added to the many discomforts of the hour. With only a few hours till sunrise I switched from red to white light. I longed for the sun to rise, the darkness was weighing on me. I figured we’d get back to our packs just before sunrise. During one of our breaks Sarah laid down in the dirt and looked so comfortable, she could have slept for hours. I also felt like I’d fall asleep mid blink. It felt so good to close my eyelids. My joints were sore, my muscles were sore, I was tired, I was sleepy, we were a long way from home.
Sunrise: 6:36 AM
It was miraculous what a difference the light made. The sun's slow rise gradually extended our view. I was less and less likely to pass into slumber mid step with every blink of the eye. Conversation started back up. I was able to distract myself taking pictures and videos. Though the light didn’t relieve the wear on my knees and hips. We began to see people, running people, smiling people, people that had just woken up. People that had no idea how miserable we were. We said good morning, and Hi, and smiled back. Our pace was slipping and we were at risk of not making it in twenty hours. I needed to stop and stretch every quarter mile to keep going. The quarter mile markers became my milestones. A sip of water, a bite of food, and stretching as a reward every quarter mile. When we’d averaged a pace that insured our failure for a few miles Sarah told me to go without her. I resisted, this was our hike, we’d do it together. But then we’d fail together and all Sarah wanted was for me to make it. I wasn’t sure I could make it. 
I needed to bump up my pace and I was having a hard time with the current pace. Sarah told me to make it for her, so for her, I left her. I increased my pace and soon Sarah was out of sight. Quarter mile after quarter mile I continued toward the finish line. My legs were swollen and stretching forced the fluid out of my joints for a little while. Pressing on my shins would leave indentations like playing with silly putty. I thought that perhaps jogging would use my joints and muscles differently and I theorized that maybe I could switch off walking and jogging. I made it perhaps 3 footfalls before I gave up on that idea. I was worried about Sarah. I calculated her pace as I passed through the last trailhead. I had five miles to go. If Sarah kept at her pace by the time I got to the truck and drove around to the Germantown road trailhead she’d be around 10 to 15 minutes beyond it. I didn’t know where she was and I prayed that she was okay. It started to rain. It felt good but I worried about it weighing me down. I worried about Sarah. It didn’t rain hard enough to soak me. Blue diamond marker after marker painted on trees counted down the quarter miles. I was on track. I hadn’t figured out what to do yet. Sarah might be waiting at the previous trailhead but we had no way of communicating. I doubted I’ve have the strength to hike back and look for her once I finished. There were too many possibilities. I prayed that she’d get a ride, or know that I’d come to get her and the last trailhead. She could be just an hour or so behind me. I reached the mile 30 marker, the end, at 19 hours and 50 minutes. I still needed to walk the tenth of a mile or so up to the truck. Just as I started I ran into Sarah. I was so happy to see her. So relieved that she wasn’t struggling back on the trail or wondering if I’d come looking for her. So happy to be done. So happy to have done it with Sarah. So happy she did it with me. Definitely this was one of the best and most memorable Birthday presents I’ve ever received. 
