Raising our son, Ben, was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. Rick and I moved into our new underground home in the piney woods of Claiborne Parish the week Ben was born. Now thirty years later, we’re still living in the woods of Claiborne Parish and the son we raised now lives in Taiwan.
The following post was written by Ben. I think it is an extraordinary piece of writing that I thought was worth sharing.
Ben’s recent adventure included a trip to Borneo, Malaysia where he competed in the Sky Runners Super Cup 25th International Climbathon. This race up Mt. Kinabalu was held on October 23. The experience is as extraordinary as his written account. It’s a true piece of art. Just as some artists use graphic imagery to communicate a feeling or a moment in history, Ben’s writing is just as powerful and just as graphic. In other words, it is unedited. So, if you are sensitive to graphic language, here’s your opportunity to opt out.
Here is his account of that day. ( Note: The runners in this race are expected to make it to the top of Mt. Kinabalu in 2 and half hours or suffer elimination. Of the 200 that competed, 115 were disqualified. Ben was the 25th runner to make it to top and qualify to finish the race.)
Ben vs Mt. Kinabalu
I landed in Kota Kinabalu on Saturday afternoon, just after the bus I was supposed to catch took off with all of our esteemed international runners on board. So, I opted for the cheaper, more public transport; an old white van loaded with salt of the earth mountain folk hitching a ride up to some hut in the hills where they sell hats, or vegetables and stuff. This sums up my traveling in Borneo, relying on strangers for food and transport, offering tobacco pouches that I advertised as “premium European tobacco, you know, the good stuff,” and asking clerks and waitresses how many “ribbits” I owed them (the official currency is the ringet). In short, I was in over my head the whole time, yet completely fortunate and probably a bit lucky.
I remember rounding the mountain top in the “public bus” when I finally got my first look at Mt. Kinabalu. She was a monstrous, wicked beast, with a back like a thick retarded sail fish and a base that reminded me a lot of our junglish, Taiwanese landscapes but with bright orange clay. She was partially hidden in a ring of fawning clouds, every once in a while peaking her sharp grey head out to wink at me as if I were some fresh-faced prisoner with an ass for the taking. My initial reaction was excitement, but after a few seconds this quickly disintegrated into sweaty palms and hot collars. I was quiet all up until the gun went off.
Thoroughly intimidated and worried, I had built this race up to be something that I would complete no matter what, and now it was dawning on me that not only might I not finish in time, but also that fates a thousand times worse could befall me; in short, death or injury. I also noticed that this race wasn’t about all the participants; it was about the world championship of crazy-fuck sky runners who get paid to burn ass at the top of the world. Everyone clapped when these guys showed their faces, they were the champs, the heroes, and the rest of us peons should be thankful that we were given the opportunity to eat their mountain dust for one day.
Before the race I had met quite a few nice, ordinary folx like myself who were looking for a real challenge. I was as friendly as I could be, sharing stories here and there, but I wasn’t much fun. I was gotten, shook, back on my heels; that bitch of a mountain had wormed her way into my head and was pulling my levers. This thing needed to start, and fast or I was going to lose my shit, literally.
The gun goes off. I’m running hard up the 1km road before the trail head and already feeling out of breath and faint. My motor wasn’t running, I just needed to push on. Finally the red-dirt trail started and I could tell that the rocks around these parts were much less forgiving than the ones I was used to. They were sharp and oddly shaped with barely any room to land a foot without lodging it somewhere in some painful position, and the ground beneath them was just as solid. The ascent started quite immediately, no foreplay, no gentle slope to sooth the soul, but this was all for the better. My motor started to warm and I began passing a few of the people in front of me.
Going up the trail there were a few straightaways between each intensely steep climb, mostly pretty short, usually only tens of meters long and riddled with those god-awful rocks. I was reminded of my friendly stair case back home and running with Master Jed. “Remember your training” he would say while meditatively snagging a mosquito with his chopsticks, “and take it easy for fuck sake.” My mind began to buzz. My hands on my thighs, right leg up, left leg up, over and over until I slowly started to notice the sun as I was reaching the clouds. The trees began to thin out, the rocks changed from red to grey and everything became drier and brighter. I could hear a crowd at some important point ahead hooting and howling as the top runners passed by. I wasn’t too far behind; I was moving well and feeling good as my fear started to turn to excitement. I just kept climbing.
Eventually the trees and I parted ways and before me lay the very slab of saw-toothed rock that I noticed from the first time I looked at the mountain. I had one more kilometer of altitude to climb and it was by far the toughest and steepest. It was about this time that the first place runner was descending. This guy was flying down the slab, running and sliding on the rocks at the same time, as if controlled sliding on the side of a mountain were every bit as natural as running around the track. He flew by me as the support team kept repeating fearfully “sir, the rope, please grab the rope!” Yeah fucking right! This guy was about to grow wings right in front of us! What’s a rope going to do? I stopped to watch him disappear down the side of the rock face, and I felt extremely humbled. After him came the next two, racing each other intensely in a way that only pros can do. They ran with the grace of two exotic animals that you would see on the Planet Earth Series, both jockeying for position on a razor thin precipice without the least symptom of caution or concern. Meanwhile, I stopped running to stare like some dumbstruck halfwit, thinking to myself “WTF is going on here?” After gawking and making primitive non-verbal sounds of approval, I continued.
Partly on all fours, sometimes pulling myself up with a rope, and at other times assuming the traditional hands-on-thighs position, I climbed way above the clouds. I was a tender little pink ball of mushy flesh next to these rocks, just waiting to be crushed and brushed aside as soon as my welcome was worn. But, in the back of my head a thought was born and slowly gaining momentum: I’m actually going to make it in time. At last, the very summit, like some craggy granite nipple poking the sky right in front of me. Holy shit. With no breath left and every muscle burning like lava, I couldn’t think straight and started seeing shit that wasn’t there, birds here, little black bugs over there. “Great job, sir!” I heard the nice young guys say as I pulled myself up the last rock. There in front of me stood the summit sign that I dreamt about, the one I was supposed to touch to make it official. I collected myself, stood up and grabbed the sign as I looked around at where I was. It was here that I began regressing to some infantile state of shock. I was way, way above the clouds and higher than I’ve ever been physically, geographically, and emotionally. My mind exploded. I noticed that I had taken to low, elongated grunting and deep breathing, and that luckily my tears were camouflaged by ice-cold sweat. I pulled my shit together, all the while sounding like I was taking the world’s biggest dump, or more likely, that I had just undergone a successful lobotomy. I slayed the fucking dragon boys! But, she wasn’t totally dead yet, her death rattle would catch me on the way down, like some stony fist pounding me into human pulp.
Every step was like a hammer to the knees and gut. The mountain was sucking me into its center like I was a piece of chicken caught in its teeth. I fell a few times and quickly forgot the joy I had so recently experienced. These next two hours were terribly rough, so rough that I started swearing at my situation and the mountain; she was irritating the living piss out of me, and I wished for someone whose ass I could just kick the hell out of, someone I could pick on. I wanted the shit to roll downhill, but the buck was stopping with me. The blows just came one after another and there were as many hits as steps that I took; each one worse than the last because of my energy deficit. I drifted through every emotional state that I have, all randomly and rapidly until two hours later I was at the base of the dead beast. That finish line kept moving further and further back, I started swearing again, at no one and everyone. Finally, after 4 hours and 23 minutes my ordeal was complete, and my retarded jubilation came rushing back, yes sir! I hobbled through the crowd of cheering onlookers and took a knee somewhere secluded only to wrap my head around what had just happened. What a race! I give it an easy 10.
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