Wizards of Mohican IV
Origins of the Wizardly Imagery
Be sure to read WoM I, WoM II, and WoM III before unfurling this one. I thought that a single fortnight after the footrace would provide the requisite temporal distance to think objectively, reflect meaningfully, and write clearly about my experiences on the trail, but it turned out I needed more than thrice that time. And still, before I can describe the 2024 run, I need to dig into some Wizardly history. The lore before the lore.
Moss, Dad, and I were driving away from a successful, but extremely taxing, climb and descent of the Grand Teton — the high point of Wyoming at 13,775’. It required a 20-hour push from Lupine Meadows trailhead up to and down from the summit in August of 2020. Feeling a bit invincible and altitude-tipsy, I proposed that we hold our own 100-mile footrace in Mohican. Moss had wanted to run the Mohican 100, regularly scheduled for June of 2020, but the pandemic had caused the race to be postponed indefinitely (the official race did eventually happen that fall, but without the trails in the state park that make up the entirety of the normal course, essentially rendering it unrecognizable from the event that had us both stoked for an eventual attempt).
Moss didn’t take much convincing on the go-it-ourselves 100-miler idea. By the time the car had pulled into the parking lot at the Wild Iris climbing area for the next leg of our trip, we had set a date 10 weeks after our return to Ashland, dubbed our little scheme the MoFundo, and enlisted Dad to crew. It was all settled in about 20 minutes. Now we just had to train and prepare for what would be our biggest physical challenge to date.
Right around sunrise on a crisp October day, we set off on the first of four 25-mile loops around the park, following a course that was loosely based on the official race, but avoiding the closed trails that are illegal to poach outside of a permitted event. A merry crew of runner-friends joined us early on to tackle shorter distances themselves and to generally provide us some social support.
One friend, Joel “run or die” Vanderzyden, was also attempting the full MoFundo. I’ll go ahead and tell his part of the story now and then set it aside for myself and/or others to take up at a later date, which I sincerely hope we do, because it belongs in the lore of record alongside the most outlandish and entertaining entries. He bravely battled beyond 50 miles, his longest ever run, got lost in the middle of the night after taking a wrong turn up on Hickory Ridge — tripping on exhaustion from 14 hours of continuous motion in neon yellow short-shorts and a cut-off poncho and frequently hollering “biiiigggg dogggg” to the trees, the deer, and Mohican itself. Quinn eventually had to set out to find him by headlamp on his mountain bike. At around 2:00am, Quinn collected Joel — off course, semi-hypothermic, and with just enough energy to trudge back to camp under Quinn’s guidance. A valiant effort.
Moss made it a good chunk farther, but ultimately did not cover 100 miles. Again, this tale deserves long-form treatment, so please receive my promises to goad him into writing up the experience some day. We both tried to sleep at the halfway point but failed. Then we slurped a pot of ramen, scarfed some peanut butter toast, and slugged a pot of coffee. We set out into the blackness for lap 3 sometime around midnight. Moss made it roughly 10 more miles before spewing the ramen all over ODNR Road 51 at one of the few crossings on course, turning yellow, shivering, and generally having a very bad time. We only had one crew car, piloted by Dad, and Moss was now going to be lagging far behind if he continued. His options at that point were to bail, quest on alone in the dark with no support system and no promise of a repeat-rescue performance by Quinn, or risk holding me back in my own attempt at finishing in under 32 hours (the time cutoff for the official race, and our arbitrary target for the Fundo). He fell on his sword, took a ride back to our cabin, and graciously allowed me to push on with full crew support.
I can’t wait to be in his corner when he crushes a 100-miler soon. Rumor has it that may be quite soon indeed. He’s already familiar with the joys and sorrows, the weird weightlessness that settles over you when there’s 85 to go and you’re fresh and warmed up, the nagging fear that some critical bodily component will fail at any moment after mile 50, once you’ve pushed beyond where any reasonable person goes in training, the animalistic calm of roaming loose on the land with your pack, the falling away of all but metronomic foot-strikes and self-generated wind on your damp skin. It’s about to be finished business. Moss is going to close the loop.
My knee locked up around mile 70 — late in the overnight lap, while I was being paced by Blake Roebuck. Blake is a good friend and ever-willing hard-charger that I met at Indiana University and occasionally reconnects with for surgical strikes. When I bent my knee more than about 10 degrees, I could feel something in there “crunching,” and intense pain shot up and down my whole side-body. I was able to keep moving, but quite slowly. Luckily, my hallucinations were mild and somewhat pleasurable. You know how aspen leaves “twinkle” in the breeze? All the trees were doing that in the still night. And you wouldn’t believe the sudden proliferation of mountain mammals that suddenly inhabited the Mohican of my exhausted mind.
After the second sunrise my cognition realigned with reality. I popped on my hiking boots and tackled the last 25 miles using a peg-leg march. I experienced an immense amount of pain, but I never doubted that I could hobble along to the finish line. Soundgarden’s “black hole sun” brought me to tears and I knew I was only 8 hours away from a hard earned F for the Fundo.
Moss — fresh off a shower and a few hours of weird sleep — came back to the park and joined me for the last 15 miles. Spoiler alert for future WoM installments – he’s done some very pathetic Mohican walking with me in both the distant as well as not-so-distant past. I even got to pop Kai on my back in the Deuter for the last half mile.
The next week, Moss presented me with a wind-up Wizard statue. I took it to Ohio Fire on Ashland’s Main Street, saddled up to the bar, cranked up my new favorite possession, and drank a couple beers alone listening to the little guy. I’ve repeated this procedure — publicly playing the Wizard tune — all across the continent on various camping trips and proper rips. It might be my favorite song.
For the most part, I find that I align with the sentiments of Buzz Holmstrom — an early speed-record-setting rafter of the full length of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon — who said, “I find I have already had my reward – in the doing of the thing,” but I must admit I was quite chuffed to possess such a beautiful and mystical object to treasure and commemorate my achievement of covering 100 miles on foot in under 32 hours.
After about 1,000 listens to the Wizard’s tune, and about 1,000 other days out in the woods, I started to feel a bit Wizardly myself. No longer young, I embraced the gray-bearded-elder status. I own a bit of wisdom that only comes from long-accumulated experience. I know how to keep moving — day or night, hot or cold, dark or light, scared or bold — until I choose to rest.
The Wizard has thus come to symbolize that hard-to-describe but impossible-not-to-grasp-once-felt melding of oneself, the natural world, and the mystical forces beyond rational explanation and human limitations.
The Wizard is of Mohican.
Mohican is of the Wizard.
The Wizard’s song calls out for you to join them...
wondrous!