Ultrarunner
By Matthew Halverson
Photograph by Peter Newcomb
With all due respect, a conversation with Jan Ryerse can put you to sleep. Not because he’s boring—no, it’s that his sport of choice is so physically taxing, so self-torturous, that just talking about it can be exhausting.
Ryerse, a 61-year-old professor of pathology at Saint Louis University, runs in ultramarathons, which are every bit as insane in reality as they seem in theory. Yet despite having fashioned a necklace from toenails he’s lost in his grueling feats of foot soldiery, Ryerse is very much lucid and excited to talk about the sport to which he’s devoted half of his life.
What is an ultramarathon? An ultramarathon is any race beyond the distance of a marathon. But common distances are 50K—which is 31 miles—50 miles or 100 miles.
What do you run? All distances. I’ve also run some races that are beyond 100 miles. There’s a race in Death Valley, in summer, and it’s 135 miles. It was, like, 130 degrees. It was great fun—well, it wasn’t all great fun.
Was that the farthest you’ve ever run? Oh no. I’ve run two timed, 48-hour races. I did 166 miles in one and 172 in the other.
Wait … 172 miles in 48 hours? Right—and I’m not one who likes to stop and sleep. It’s what they call relentless forward progress: If you just keep moving forward, that’s the way you get your miles. You can’t be sleeping. You snooze, you lose. I did one 72-hour race, and I ran 241 miles.
Did you sleep on that one? I did not, and that was really a big surprise. I thought for sure I’d be down and out of it for at least a couple hours each night. But I laid down late on the second night, and I was just so high from everything that I literally couldn’t sleep—so I figured, “I’m wasting time just laying here.”
Your mind must start playing tricks on you. I’ve had hallucinations on the second night of the 48-hour races. One track I did it on was blue, and I started seeing blue birds coming out of it. I remember a few times looking off across the field at the woods, and I saw all these sparkling lights. It was like the whole woods were lit up with Christmas-tree lights.
Can anyone do this? The first one you do, you don’t have a clue what it’s going to feel like when you get beyond 40 miles. So you really have to be committed. I don’t mean institutionalized—I mean that you have to say, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but to the best of my ability, I’m going to finish it.”
Do you dream about running? Not really. I daydream about it. Well, actually, I do occasionally dream about it, but they’re frustration dreams: I’m running on my knees.
Do you eat? Oh yeah. On that 72-hour race, it’s a third-of-a-mile track, and they have, essentially, a fast-food counter next to the track. You can stop and tell them, “Oh, I’d like a toasted-cheese sandwich, and I’ll pick it up next time I come around.” Potatoes are a really good source of energy when you’re running, so they’ll make mashed potatoes with lots of salt on them. I kind of consider these things moving buffets.
So you run in a circle, eating a bowl of mashed potatoes? [Laughs] Or soup. But you have to be really careful with that if it’s hot.
How do you occupy your mind? Some people look inward and focus on how they’re feeling physically. They almost ignore what’s around them. And then other people focus outward, looking at the scenery. I guess I do both. When you’re out there for a day and a night, you can think about all sorts of things—or you can think about nothing.
Are you a masochist? I don’t think I am. I would say that I’m very determined to see a challenge through to the end. There are some painful times, no question, but part of the process is working through that. And then the feeling when you make it through is, like, “Man, I’m self-sufficient.”
Cool Runnings
Ryerse and other members of the St. Louis Ultrarunners Group (SLUG for short) will compete in the 50-mile Berryman Marathon on May 19, in Rolla, Mo. "It's a single-track trail through the beautiful Mark Twain National Forest," Ryerse says. "If you like to run distance and you like to run in nature on trails, it's just a natural kind of marriage."
