Finding Ultra (4 page)

For the first time in nearly two decades I began working out almost daily—running, biking, and swimming. I had no thought of returning to competitive sports; I was just getting in shape. After all, I was closing in on forty-one. Any desire I had to compete in something physical had dried up in my early twenties. I simply needed a healthy channel to burn off my energy reserves. Nothing more.

Then came what I like to call
the Run
.

About a month into my vegan experiment, I headed out early one spring morning for what was intended to be an easy trail run on nearby “Dirt Mulholland”—a tranquil but hilly nine-mile stretch of fire road that cuts along the pristine ridgeline atop the hills of Topanga State Park near Los Angeles. Connecting Calabasas to Bel Air and Brentwood beyond, it's an oasis of untouched nature smack in the middle of L.A.'s sprawl, a wide sandy home to scurrying rabbits, coyotes, and the occasional rattlesnake, which offers stunning views of the San Fernando Valley, the Pacific Ocean, and downtown. I parked my truck and stretched a bit, then started
my run. I didn't plan on running more than an hour at the most. But it was a beautiful day, and feeling energized by the clean air, I let myself go.

And go.

I didn't just feel good; I didn't just feel amazing. I felt
free
. As I ascended shirtless, the welcome sensation of the warm sun baking my shoulders, time folded in on itself as I seemingly lost all conscious thought, the only sound that of my easy breath and my legs pumping effortlessly beneath me. I recall later thinking,
This must be what it means to meditate
. I mean really meditate. For the first time in my life, I felt that sense of “oneness” I'd only previously read about in spiritual texts. Indeed, I was having an out-of-body experience.

So instead of turning back after thirty minutes as I'd planned, I kept running, with a mind switched off but a spirit fully engaged. At two hours in, I was painlessly cruising over rolling grasslands above Brentwood and the famed Getty Museum, without a soul in sight. And as if being aroused from a sleepwalk, I slowly began to come out of my trance-like state to find myself transfixed by the dip and rise of a hawk flying overhead. A moment later the realization hit—I was still running
away
from my truck!
What is going on? What am I doing so far away from home? Am I nuts? It's only a matter of minutes before my calf seizes up in a cramp and I'm lying facedown in a meadow in the middle of nowhere without a phone or any way home! What if I get bitten by a rattlesnake?
But I didn't care. I didn't want this feeling to end. Ever.

I crested a small hill to see a fellow runner coming my way—the first person I'd seen all morning. As he passed, he gave me a quick nod and a gentle thumbs-up. There was just something about this tiny gesture that was profound. It was barely noticeable. Yet it was everything, some kind of message—from above, perhaps—touching my soul. It let me know not just that I'd be okay, but that
I was on the right track—that, in fact, this wasn't just a run. It was the beginning of a new life.

I did turn around, eventually, even though I really didn't want to. It certainly wasn't out of fatigue, dehydration, or fear, but because I realized I'd scheduled an important conference call that I couldn't responsibly skip. As I ascended a particularly steep hill on my journey back, reason told me I should at least slow down a bit. Or better yet, why not stop and take a break? Instead, I accelerated, chasing a rabbit that scurried out of the brush and harnessing a power in my legs and lungs that I'd had no idea I possessed. I was on top of the world—both energetically and literally—peering down on the Valley far below as I painlessly hurled myself up a sandstone ridge, fluidly cresting yet another steep, craggy ascent, bearing the full brunt of what was now the midday desert sun without notice or care. And not only did I make it back to my truck in one piece, I felt superb right to the very end, even quickening my pace over the last five miles to a flat-out, downhill sprint, my dust-covered running shoes kicking up bits of gravel in my wake.
I was flying
.

When I arrived where I'd begun almost four hours earlier, I was overcome by an absolute certainty that I could have kept going all day. Without ingesting any water or food as I went, I'd run what I later discovered (after reviewing trail maps) was in excess of twenty-four miles—the farthest I'd ever run in my life by a long shot. For a guy who hadn't run more than a few easy miles in countless years, it was remarkable.

It wasn't until much later that I'd fully appreciate the extent and impact of the morning. But as I showered the grit and grime from my worn legs that afternoon, my body hummed with excitement and possibility. And without conscious thought, a huge grin spread across my face. In this moment I knew one thing for certain: I'd soon be seeking a challenge—and it would be a big one.
This middle-aged guy—who'd just run a huge distance, who'd just awoken something inside himself, something that was fierce and tough and wanted to win—this guy would soon be making a return to athletics. And not just for fun. To actually
be competitive. To contend
.

Long before I'd ever met Julie or heard the word “vegan” or thought about running up a hill—before, even, I'd run one step, not to mention walked—
I swam
. I had yet to reach my first birthday when my mom hoisted my scrawny, diapered body off the cement deck of the neighborhood swimming pool and launched me into deep water, leaving me to thrash and struggle. Not until I was about to drown did she come to the rescue, scooping me up as I gasped for air. But I didn't cry. Instead, she tells me, I just smiled and cast a glance that, in her interpretation, could mean only one thing—
When can I do that again?

I can't say I remember the moment, but I wish I did. What she did may seem harsh, but her motivation was pure: She simply wanted to give me a love of the water. It was the same love that defined her father and my namesake—a man who died long before I was born yet, I'd later come to understand, embodied so much of who I'd soon become.

Thus began my own lifelong love affair with water—a passion that would carry me far, yet prove no match for the grip of addiction. It was a devotion I'd rediscover in sober middle age, once again floating my life with meaning and purpose.

Long before that day, Nancy Spindle was a cheerleader with a deep tan, twinkling brown eyes, and short-cropped dark hair, swirling pom-poms for her high school sweetheart Dave Roll, who played
center for the Grosse Pointe High football team. The year was 1957, when life could seem at times like a series of scenes out of
American Graffiti
. Affectionately known as “Muffin,” my father was a hardworking senior with big dreams, a popular school leader and textbook match for the cute girl with the kind smile known as “Spinner,” a few years his junior.

Despite the years and miles that divided them when my father enrolled in Amherst College in 1958, they successfully kept their courtship going and were reunited when my father returned to go to law school at the University of Michigan, where my mother was still an undergraduate and a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

Diligently studying through the summer months, Dad completed his law school courses early, married Spinner, and settled into law-firm life back home in Grosse Pointe, with a modest house in the suburbs and a white Dodge Dart in the driveway. It wasn't long after that I entered the world, on October 20, 1966. With my birth came no indication that I'd have a future in athletics. In fact, all evidence was to the contrary. I was a frail baby: rawboned and often ill, prone to earaches and allergy attacks; a cross-eyed weakling and a regular at the local pediatrician's office.

My earliest memory surrounds the birth of my younger sister Mary Elizabeth, two years my junior. Fearing that I'd feel “left out,” my parents bought me a toy garage set. Frankly, I don't remember feeling any inkling of abandonment. Instead, I relished the alone time with my toys, the chance to become deeply immersed in something. It was an attitude that foretold the loner I'd later become. As it turned out, Molly, unlike me, was a robust baby, strong and full of vigor. Affectionately known at the time as “Butter Ball” (a nickname my now beautiful sister would rather forget), she, and not I, was the safer bet to one day be the Roll child who covered herself in athletic glory.

In 1972, when I was six, my father was offered a position with the Antitrust Division of the Federal Trade Commission, and we settled into the middle-class suburban enclave known as Greenwich Forest in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside D.C. It was a safe neighborhood that teemed with young families, and I distinctly remember the cherry blossom trees that canopied the streets in white and pink during spring. I began first grade at the local public school, Bethesda Elementary. And the three years that followed marked my descent down the public school system's academic chute and into the rabbit hole of prepubescent social exile. New to town and feeling overwhelmed by the forty-plus kids crammed into each classroom, I was surpassingly shy. It was easy for me to withdraw into a dreamworld—and so I did.

Worsening my situation was an outward appearance that made it even harder to fit in. In an effort to strengthen the weak left eye that had left me cross-eyed since birth, I wore beneath my thick horn-rimmed glasses an eye patch over my stronger right eye. And if that wasn't enough, I had to wear orthodontic headgear—a 1970s torture contraption in which heavy metal wire emanated from my mouth and ran across my cheeks, where it was pulled tight by an elastic head strap. Then there was the
playground—
that awful coliseum of pain. Even with corrective eyewear, I've always lacked any semblance of hand-eye coordination. To this day, I can't throw or catch a ball to save my life. Needless to say, I was always the kid picked last for any game—whether it was softball, touch football, or basketball. Tennis? Forget it. Golf? You must be kidding. I was—and still am—terrible at all of them. So I usually found the kickball bouncing off the glasses that shielded my patched eye. In an effort to correct this terrible wrong, I joined the local soccer team. And my football-loving father even volunteered to coach. Not only was I hopeless, I was completely uninterested. Typically, I could be found staring off at some bird flying overhead
or sitting down in the middle of the game picking daisies. Soccer was not for me. In fact, it looked as though I had no future in sports whatsoever.

In retrospect, I can't say I blame the other kids for making fun of me. I made it too easy for everyone. I stuck out like a sore thumb: a weakness that had to be rooted out, put on display, and exploited as part of the natural order of things. Kids will be kids. But the inevitability of it all didn't salve my intense pain. At the school bus stop just up the street from my house, Tommy Birnbach, Mark Johnson, and a band of older kids would shove me, fully aware that I wouldn't strike back. And whether it was on the bus or in the school cafeteria, I generally sat alone. During winter months, the kids would make a hilarious daily game out of stealing the wool beanie that I wore. On countless occasions I'd slink home from the bus after school, defeated and hatless, my head hung low, and cry in the warm embrace of my mother's arms.

And as I continued to withdraw, my grades followed suit. I didn't care about what was happening in the classroom. The academic train was pulling out of the station. It was only third grade, but I was already quickly getting left behind.

Solace came during the summer months, when my family would vacation in quaint cottages on Lake Michigan with my beloved cousins, or at Deep Creek Lake in rural Maryland. And during Washington downtime, I could generally be found at Edgemoor, our local neighborhood swim and tennis club. Times were different back then: Mom would simply drop off my sister and me at Edgemoor in the morning and leave us there all day under the guidance of the lifeguards, only to pick us up when it got dark. I officially joined my first swim team at the age of six, dog-paddling my way across the pool to modest results in summer-league meets. But the results didn't matter. From the moment Mom submerged my infant self, I loved everything about the water. From the smell
of chlorine to the whistles of the lifeguards, I relished it all. Most of all, I loved the silence of submersion—that womblike feeling of protection that enveloped me when underwater. What can I say—there was a feeling of completeness,
of being home
. And so, left to my own devices, I learned to swim.

And then I learned to swim fast.

By the time I was eight, I was winning local summer-league swim team races with regularity. I'd stumbled into something I was actually good at. I enjoyed being part of a team, but more important, I loved the self-determination of it all. The idea that hard work and discipline left me solely responsible for the result—win or lose—was a revelation.

Summer-league swim team meets were the highlight of my youth. I felt part of something meaningful, but more important, I was having fun. The Edgemoor team was composed of kids of all ages, from six to eighteen. I looked up to the older kids, even idolized a few, especially Tom Verdin, a Harvard-bound Adonis who seemed to own every pool record and win every race he entered. He was a great swimmer, and smart.
Someday I'm going to be a great swimmer, just like Tom
, I thought. And so I followed him around like a lost puppy, relentlessly pestering him until he took me under his wing.
How did you get so fast? How long can you hold your breath? I'm gonna go to Harvard, too!
And on and on. But to his great credit, Tom patiently mentored me. He made me feel special—that I could be someone like him. Before leaving for Harvard, he even gave me his swimsuit—a suit he'd worn in many a victory. It was a passing of the torch, and meant the world to me. I'll never forget that.
Screw those kids at the bus stop
, I thought. In this world, I could be myself. I could look people in the eye and smile. I could even excel.