My encounter with a real runner

Joshua Medaris is not a runner.
At least that’s what he said at the beginning of the Northwest Passage Ragnar Relay July 23-24. In fact, the nearly 200-mile relay was his first running race – of any kind.
It was Ernie Neumann who persuaded him that he was capable of joining with 11 other “runners” in making their way from Blaine, Wash., which is near the Canadian border, to Langley, Wash.
“It sounded cool in February,” he said after running two of his three legs. But at is approached, he began to doubt whether it was really something he could do. Ernie reassured him that it would be fun and that the team, Steel Gumbies, didn’t care about times.
“You say time doesn’t matter, and then you talk about the spreadsheet stuff,” he said with a grin.
Ernie said the two exchanged e-mails in the weeks leading up to the race, but the eternally optimistic team captain didn’t see Medaris’ questions as a problem.
“I didn’t see them as doubts,” he said. “When you think about it, it can be overwhelming. We just talked about it.”
“I followed as best I could the training that Ragnar offers on its website,” he said. “Some occasional nights out ruined some of my Sunday training, but for the most part, I stuck to it.”
Medaris began cycling and entered a race when he turned 40. He finished 15th out of 30 in his age division without really knowing how to train or race.
Then two years ago he began experiencing an arrhythmia in his heart. Doctors couldn’t really figure out what was causing it, but eventually cleared him.
“I have no concern,” he said of running. “What I found helped regulate my heart beat was exercise.”
He began riding a bike to work and found that helped more than any medication doctors gave him to control the rhythm of his heart.
So when Ernie offered a “journey of transformation” through a long-distance relay, he was game. He turned out to be the second-fastest runner in Van 2 – proved to him by the spreadsheets.
He sailed through his first two runs and felt great. But he didn’t get much sleep, and he was forced to run his last leg – the final 4.6 miles of the race – on a hot, muggy afternoon.
Our team was the second-to-last team on the course, but we were sure to make it to the finish line before they folded up the tents.
So as Joshua made his way up one of the long hills, he wondered why he was suffering. We weren’t going to win. Even if he walked, we wouldn’t be last. So why push up that hill? What is the point?
He said he had the debate between “Good Joshua and Bad Joshua” throughout the race. He walked for the first time. But eventually, convinced himself to push again.
After he cross the finish line, he called it one of the toughest things he’d ever done.
A few couple of days later, Ernie suggested a couple of other races to his Steel Gumby team members.
“I am totally in for more!!” just like any “real” runner would.

This is Joshua running up a monster hill near Deception Pass. Beautiful but ragnarly for sure.

Runner 11 and 12…The buoy (me) and the anchor (Joshua).