Sideline Stories: Bucky Love, 100 Mile Wilderness Challenge
My running story is not a grand tale of overcoming a tragedy or regaining my health. I have been lucky on both those fronts. It has kept me healthy and helped me deal with the emotional turmoils that life throws at us all. I don’t have an epiphanic moment where running entered my life. I do remember why I started running. I was 10 years old, in fourth grade, when I participated in my elementary school’s two-mile trail race. I vividly remember the feeling of sprinting through the forest, down the pine needle riddled trail, circling a hayfield, and sailing back to the finish. I remember my lungs burning, sweat pouring off me, muscles churning to keep up to my heart’s desire, to simply win the school, to be the fastest. I wasn’t, but I came in second, outpaced by a 5th grader…
From that moment, I was hooked; thus began my dedicated running life. A passion arose, not one focused on winning, but one searching to find my limits. How far and fast could I go? I had lost sight of that passion and reason for long periods, where winning the race or reaching an arbitrary time goal on various road races from 5K’s to marathons was all it was about, but I eventually found my way back to the trails through ultra running.
That rediscovery of my running passion brought me back to my college days, where I hadn’t run for time or accolades, where I just ran for me. That is what Ultra running brings to my life; me against nature, me against the trails. My time is my time. As long as I enjoy the adventure, it is well worth the effort.
My 29 years of running have all led to my recent desire to tackle the daunting task of my first 100-mile run. My course of choice, Maine’s 100 Mile Wilderness. The wilderness terrain is unforgiving with lots of elevation and technical foot placements nearly every step. Over the course of 37 hours, my trail running partner, Brian Emerson, and I would face this challenge head-on, together. With the exception of a no-choice, sleep deprivation 20-minute power nap on my part, we kept a steady pace and finished the course strong. We had our aches and pains along the way, but I thoroughly enjoyed pushing my body to the edge, being on the trail for hours on end, and trying to find my limit.
I don’t think I found it out there on this trail, but I know I was close. Part of me will always wonder, how far could we have gone if we just kept going that day? It is that wonderment, that passion, and love for being out on a remote trail or mountain, that will keep me going for years to come. I may not be setting the fastest known times, or be even close to them, but I am there just the same, hitting the trails in the darkest hours, pushing my limits, with my lungs burning, sweat pouring off me, and those same muscles of my first trail run striving to keep up to my heart’s truest desire. How far can I go?