Search and Rescue: A Beast Coast Blunder

This summer I specifically set out to challenge myself to get better, stronger, more resilient as it relates to my crush, my obsession, trail running. My "hero race" for the year is The Rut 50K in September. In a story for another day, a free bib for the event fell in my lap and I was smart enough to accept it for as formidable a course as it is. Even smarter, I have been training like a lunatic to prepare since the start of June.

A major "competitive" advantage of mine is my running group. At a certain age, trying to coordinate and team up with other adults can be a major challenge. Almost two years ago I fell ass backwards into a long-standing, single-track-loving, adventure-seeking crowd. I brought nothing to the table (at first) and all I got in return was centuries of collective wisdom, loving tutelage, and a couple dozen great friends.

For the last six weeks I've been pretending to be an elite athlete while being very much not one. In parallel, two friends have been training for a 100-mile race in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. An absolute beast of a course: An out-and-back clocking in at 110+ actual miles with 27,000+ feet of vertical gain. To put that into perspective and save you from your calculator, that’s 5 miles of climbing. To save you from wikipedia, there are only 5 mountains in the world that achieve that height.

Maybe it was because their race fell perfectly into my training calendar. Maybe I just wanted to experience their particular brand of lunacy. Maybe I needed to see people do something nuttier than what I was attempting for more inspiration. Whatever the combination of those things, I quickly volunteered to be a pacer (or demanded, who’s to know at this point).

Once I was on the team I asked to take on the absolute gnarliest segment to pace; the one that nobody else would want. Do hard things. Do the hardest things. How bad could it be?

How does 34 miles and 11,000 feet sound? How about we start well after sundown. What if it takes 14-18 hours? Does that sound gnarly enough?

My assignment was to provide safe passage over that segment for Joe; an extremely strong runner with multiple 100-mile races under his belt and 4 weeks removed from a 50-mile race which he crushed. Spirits were high all around. 

He had pulled himself from this same race last year at mile 40 when he reached the aid station that I would be picking him up from. The expectations were higher than the spirits. I was hooked on this "redemption race." What a story it would be for him (but also maybe just a tiny bit for me too).

My running since the beginning of June has averaged 54.5 miles and 9,158 feet of gain per week. With control over the physical preparation, attention was turned to mental and emotional preparation.

Everything became personal. “YOU can’t fail because HE doesn’t deserve it.” Conquering the demons of 2023, was now my own vendetta. I trained like I would be pacing him for the whole race. Confidence built as the miles and hills disappeared behind me. 

During the final pacer planning meetings, I started to push for more. More responsibility. I was living in his headspace whether he wanted it or not. “Last year he made the decision to drop before he reached my waypoint. If he lets me pick him up earlier, I can make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Little old me who has one 50K race under his belt; not a 100-miler, not a 100K, not a 50-miler. Joe shook me off (as he should) and had it under control (as he should).

I focused on the things that I could control. Knowing my pacing segment inside and out. Making maps. Calculating climbs. Planning my nutrition. Packing the necessities. Preparing for everything. Being ready for anything.

Just your average inflatable flamingo on the road to New Hampshire.

The race started at 7:00AM on Friday morning. Virtually, I watched him make his way from the tiny ski village out to the trails on the Garmin inReach tracking map. A couple short hours later, I was in the car driving the 274 miles to meet him. He made good time. We made poor time. Good thing I didn’t have to be there until 9:00PM. Far too many Nuu Yawkers traveling to their summer houses on the New England coast. 

We arrived at Pacer HQ with approximately five hours to prep. I did what I do before my own events - the meditative process of double-checking my gear, visualizing the course, last minute adjustments to my laces, triple-checking my gear, staying hydrated and fueled. I was ready. We all tuned into the tracking map as it updated every few minutes.

With three, maybe four hours left until the projected pick-up time, the tracker stalled. This was normal, right? I mean, he was in the middle of the forest, without a clear line of sight to the sky, the tracker couldn’t work. We made dinner, stayed focused, quadruple-checked the gear. But the tracker didn’t update. 6:12PM was the last ping.

Shortly before 8:00PM we received a message from Racer HQ (yes, a second HQ) that Garmin had received an SOS from Joe’s inReach saying that he couldn’t move. Authorities had been notified. He needed to be extracted. I turned to our designated driver and said “take me out there.” I put on my race kit, quintuple-checked my gear. 

We had no idea what had immobilized Joe. Did he break an ankle? Did he hit his head? Was it uncontrollable diarrhea? Shanked by an over-competitive runner? “I can’t move.” 

The trained EMT in our group walked me through how to use a splint and stashed additional first aid supplies in my pack. Another one of Joe’s pacers was hot on my heels. Strength in numbers we piled into the car and made a mad dash out to the course. The drive would be an hour. We were losing time.

All we had was that last ping from the inReach. The initial idea was to get to the aid station Joe was en route to and work backwards to try to find him. It was part of the course I hadn’t studied in depth and I was feeling a little bit out of mine. As we blazed along the streets of NH I was in the backseat studying the segment and saw that there was a trailhead about four miles away from the last ping. Maybe if we start from his last known whereabouts we have a better chance. We called an audible… and lost cell service. We would be flying blind from here on out.

When we pulled up to the trailhead which was a jeep trail into the woods, we saw a police officer. “Are you here to find Joe?” we asked. “Is that his name?” he asked.

The officer said he had gone down the trail and made it about 2 miles before he hit a hidden boulder in the middle of the road that tore up his undercarriage and had to come back. “There were only 1,700 miles on this car, my boss is going to kill me” he said. This could have been the cruiser’s maiden voyage and his boss could waterboard him for all I cared.  

“Can we go find him?” I asked. 

Leaving the woods.

He wrote down our names and the three of us - two stranded pacers and our Subaru-driving Sherpa - were off into the woods as pitch black absorbed the sky. It was 8:57PM, three and a half hours after the last ping. I took off. I didn’t even tell the other two. I just kept accelerating into the woods. They would catch up when I found him.

Did you start your watch to track the run? Yes. Was it to get the credit for the miles? I don’t know. Why are you thinking about yourself? We’re here to save Joe. Are you mad that you’re not going to be able to do your gnarly segment? Dude, lay off me. Is he scared? I can’t imagine how scared. Are you scared? I’m terrified.

As I ran down the empty corridor, my fear turned to anger. I started to wonder if the cop was lying. “He didn’t drive down here, I don’t see any tire tracks.” Why didn’t any of the other runners on course help? “I thought this was a community built on support.” Knowing Joe he told each one of them to continue on, “keep going, it will pass, I’ll be fine.” Stupid Joe. How much farther should I go down this trail? “Where the hell is the real search and rescue team?!”

I did in fact come across the boulder that the police officer ran over. The stench of transmission fluid was inescapable. One person off my hit list. I pulled my safety whistle from my pack. Run, pause, call out. “Joe. JOE! JOEY BOY!!” Listen. Nothing. Run, pause, call out.

I passed the trailhead he would have taken if his race had gone according to plan and I continued to the spot that I thought the last ping came from. “JOE!” I had lost the image of the map on my phone because I stupidly refreshed the webpage when we had no cell service so all that stared back at me was Chrome’s fail dino saying “no internet connection.” I ran a little farther. “Maybe he went back toward the other aid station. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.”

I needed to stop. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I turned back and ran to my trailing friends. “Could you hear us calling for you?” they asked. “Nope. Could you hear me calling for Joe?” I asked. “Nope.” Fear consumed me. How can you find anyone if the woods are just going to swallow the cries for help?

As we made our way back to the race course turnoff point to continue our search operation, a four-wheeler came speeding down the jeep trail.

“How’s it going,” the driver asked. A member of the Fish and Game team. Finally someone who at least had the appearance of knowing what the hell they were doing.

“Not as good as we hoped,” we said.

“I thought you found him.”

“Nope.”

“Do you drive a Cybertruck? I heard that someone in a Cybertruck found him.” 

“Nope,” but this question gave us hope. Our friends do indeed pilot a Cybertruck and they were certainly out looking for him as well.

He tried his radio to get confirmation. He didn’t get a response.

“Where are you headed now,” he asked. 

“We are going to head up the course,” we said.

“Please don’t. There are three more of me out here looking for him. Go back to your car.” He sped further down the road where I had just come from.

I know a “kindly fuck off” when I hear it. We headed straight back up the fire road with a glimmer of hope that Joe had been found and faith that we were at least searching in the right area since the authorities were converging. We did something right in the chaos and while we were a little bit late, we were still an hour earlier than the actual search and rescue team. 

As my friends ran up the fire road, I took a beat and rested against my trekking poles. I cried. I wanted to find him first. Not for the glory. He was supposed to be my responsibility. Somehow I failed before I even had a chance to begin. I was mad again.

If he had just let me pick him up early, we could have avoided all of this. What if he wasn’t in safe hands yet? We’re just going to quit on the advice of this joker who was an hour behind us in starting his search? I could have and should have been there. Three hours out there by himself! It could have been 30 minutes while I ran down to the road and flagged down help.

I caught up to my friends and eventually the ATV guy caught up to us. Joe had been picked up by our friends, the A-Team. He was safe. We were relieved. I was mad. We got back into the car and I pulled up the course map again. There was an earlier spot we could have started from. We might have found him faster had I seen it. I tried to take a deep breath. 

When we entered cell service again at 11:00PM, we got the flood of texts with the good and bad news. Joe had been overcome with full body cramps. No amount of tylenol or salt tabs made them better. He just had to wait it out FOR THREE HOURS(!) laying there in the dirt. The A-Team search squad knew those woods and found the faster way to find him. Thank goodness, but also fuck everybody. 

Still high on the adrenaline rush, we were back at Pacer HQ telling the tale, taking inventory of our emotions. I quit. I quit trail running. I quit this group of people. I quit. I pretended to be OK with everything, made my usual jokes, maybe a little darker than normal. They get to see a new side of Paul. Who cares? It was all fucked anyway. 

I woke up the next morning groggy from poor sleep, the adrenaline rush, not eating, the stress. I checked my phone.

“You interested in bringing Todd in from South Moat to Bartlett.” It was from Joe.  It was the second half of the segment I had been planning to take him. The text had been sent at 5:02AM. It was 7:18AM. It wouldn't/couldn't work.

An epic adventure deserves and epic photo.

“I might be too late on this one. Finally waking up. How are you feeling.” I thought he was trying to be nice by giving me my own shot at redemption; to run at least half of what I planned to run. I hadn’t even rubbed my eyes, my pack was still drying out on the patio, and Todd was probably long gone.

I quit. My nutrition and hydration plans were already screwed. I quit. I was unprepared mentally. I quit. I wouldn’t be able to get there in time, it was at least an hour to drive out there. 

More text messages from other people “V needs to drop. Can anyone come in and pace Todd.”

“Take me out there,” I said. I un-quit. I was questioning my sanity, my ability, my everything. 

Once again, we went to an intermediate trail junction to meet the course. I saw Joe for the first time, he had come to pick up V. He was hobbled, but alive and doing his best impression of a person trying to make everyone not worry about him. Fuck you, Joe.  

We ran down the trail to the course. I picked up a hollow-looking man 60 miles into his journey and relieved a hollow-looking woman. She had found the strength to pace Todd, on the very segment I was supposed to be pacing Joe, after having been the A-Team search and rescue ops the night before. Both my heroes in so many ways. Fuck you, heroes.

Todd and I made our way up the course. It was the most challenging 13 miles of my life, yet it was the easiest. I had purpose. It was mixed up with a lot of self-doubt, but it was purpose nonetheless. Doing the thing that I was supposed to be doing, tackling this challenge of terrain and vert, was comforting and centering. The night before was on the back burner. “Eat, Todd. Drink, Todd. Yes, we’re on the right trail, Todd.” Uneventful in all the right ways. Five and a half hours of safe passage.

We made it to the aid station unscathed and maintaining his margin against the cutoff time. I handed Todd off to the next pacer, a kid. A literal 18 year old manchild. He doesn’t know how hard any of this is. The miles. The climbs. The caring. Fuck you, childman. 

Back at Pacer HQ, the rest of our trail party was planning an overnight run along the ridges of the White Mountains. No thank you. Fuck that. Fuck you. What if someone needs to be saved again tonight? 

I realized at that point I hadn’t eaten a real meal in almost two days. I hadn’t been taking care of myself at all. You can’t help someone drowning if you can’t swim. Once the house cleared out I ordered two dinners from the tavern down the road and ate, took out the trash, tidied up the kitchen, and tried to sleep. 

The next morning I woke up to an empty house. Two friends out on the course pacing another friend running the 50-mile event. The three others out on the ridges. Todd’s tracking showed a 1PM finish time. This is the part where I admit that I forgot to hand off the Garmin InReach tracker to child-man-child that relieved me from my duty. Pacer HQ had coordinated for Todd to pick up at the next aid station, but the message was not received. Another fail.

The house filled up again quickly as I finished a first cup of coffee. The adventure group returned safely from the ridges braving some ridiculous weather. Then one of the pacers returned and said she “just saw Todd. He’s going to be done soon.” There’s no way, the tracking predicted 1PM it’s just after 8AM. I pulled up the tracking again. Todd had crossed the finish line just two minutes earlier. I failed again. Nobody was there to greet him. I wasn’t there to greet him. I scarfed down some eggs and sped down to the finish line. Angry. I cried again.

I got to Todd. I shook his hand for a long time. I told him he was my hero and I wasn’t lying. Such an inspiration. I had asked him during our run together what his motivation was. He said “to do really tough shit.” This was the toughest shit. Fuck yeah, Todd. 

He got up to find the bathroom. I asked if he wanted company. He said no. I let him get a limping 100 foot head start and followed him surreptitiously. Not again. Not on my watch. Fuck you, Todd.

The rest of our team of pacers and runners made their way down to the finish line. We were all together for the first time in this ridiculously chaotic journey. We would be there to see our two friends cross the finish line for their 50-mile race. We laughed and cried together. Crazy people doing crazy things. I was somehow broken and without hope yet inspired at the same time. I love all these people, yet deeply hate them. 

Homecoming.

The benefit of hindsight still hasn’t come around fully, but I know that these emotions aren’t actual anger. They are fear and faith and everything in between. They come from a place of deep and dark trauma, yet buoyed by my own comeback and redemption.

I know all too well what it’s like to need help and have none. I know how it feels to be completely helpless and watch capable people grasp at straws trying to make it better. More often than not when the chips fall I’ve found myself on the “helpee” side of the fence. 

For the big “H” help, I am usually Joe. I am the person going through the trauma. I am the one looking up into the eyes of family, friends, and professionals staring back at me without being able to help. I am the person the next day dismissing the severity of everything that just happened. 

For big “H” help, I had never really put myself in the shoes of the person trying to save the day without the benefit of a cape and coming up short. “It’s fine. You did your best. It’s not your fault.” 

For small “h” help, I pride myself for being able to find solutions. This time I didn’t know what to do when there were none available. I did my best, and it wasn’t good enough. I was prepared for anything but that.

This is a lesson that will be repeated in perpetuity thanks to having kids of my own now, and I have to admit that I’m not too impressed how I handled this particular trial/trail run. 

That’s one of the things that we don’t realize about our own trauma. We’re so busy trying to just survive. It has an extended impact on everybody around you. There are secondary and tertiary ripples and aftershocks that emanate from your hypocenter to your partner or your kids or your extended family and friends. Is big “T” trauma more difficult for the Helpee or the Helper? 

One thing is sure, I have mountains more empathy for my parents and for my wife and all the people in between that tried their best to help me at my lowest lows over the years. Over a 54 hour period I turned over far too many emotional boulders. Victim blaming? Check. Authority questioning? Check. Self-flagellation? Check. Throwing up my hands and calling it quits? You’ve been reading this, haven’t you?

I apologize that you’ve made it this far, and I don’t have a tidy bow to tie around this little story. As my friend says, “humaning is hard.” Caring is hard. Investing in others is hard. It’s worth it, and I’ll do it again. I’ll jump right back into it all headfirst… again… right after I stop being “angry” at everything and everyone. Fuck you, you.

Questionable people doing questionable things.