Being Time, The Sequel: Sierra Vista Trail 100K

What was your time? That was the question I was most asked after finishing the Sierra Vista Trail 100K two years ago right before the Great Pandemic of 2020 shut everything down. Well, my time was 256,003,967,220 instants, which was about 4,266,732,787 moments. How do I know? Because, a wise old sage has said that there are 6,400,099,180 moments in each day. One moment is equal to 65 instants and there are 60 moments in one finger snap. I wrote about being time in this post following the race in 2020. I ponder what my time might be this year as I embark on another Sierra Vista Trail 100K. What is time anyway?

Robledo Mts

About 15 runners are shivering, here at the start of the race at 6:00am. There will be many more 50K and 1/2 marathon runners on the trail later this morning. I am very grateful for the opportunity to spend the day and evening on this beautiful trail in the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in Las Cruces, NM. 

The course is an out-and-back that runs south almost to the Texas border with one short loop at the beginning. Once the runners get under way, I hang back and make sure to pace myself carefully. There’s a chill in the air, but the wind hasn’t picked up yet. This is the windy season in the Desert Southwest with frequent days of blowing dust and red flag warnings.

Organ Mts

The jagged needles of the Organ Mountains are silhouetted by the rising sun on the other side of the peaks. Eventually the sun makes a full appearance and bathes Tortugas Mountain (A-Mountain), in a warm glow. I am reminded of the time, last fall, when I ran around it 15 times for a total of 60 miles during the 24 hour A-Mountain Challenge. It seems just like yesterday; my how time flies!

Tortugas Mt, aka A-Mountain

Anyway, I finally start to warm up after about 10 miles of running, and my pace is pretty fast so far, which means time is moving slower than if I was standing still. Wait, What! Time passes slower the faster you are traveling? Yes! In addition, time goes faster the higher in elevation you are. Time on Mt Everest (29,032′) passes quicker than time in Death Valley (-282.2′) because of gravity. 

According to this article, scientists recently set a record by measuring “time dilation, at the smallest scale ever, showing that two tiny atomic clocks, separated by just a millimeter or the width of a sharp pencil tip, tick at different rates.” So, if you want your face to age slower than your feet, stand on your head or, better yet, sleep upside down! What is time anyway? It doesn’t pass at the same rate anywhere in the universe.

 Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST

50K runners

I run along the base of the Bishop Cap, a pointy pyramid shaped peak with an iron trussed tower on top, while I nibble some boiled potatoes and fruit. I zig and zag in and out of  arroyos and traverse a rock outcrop with lots of beautiful cacti and other pointy plants like Spanish bayonet yucca, shin dagger, and sotol. Some of the deep cuts in the earth are narrow in places and full of rocks making the footing difficult at times. The wind continues to pick up making me chilly. I reach some power lines where a water table is set up for runners to refill bottles. 

Bishop Cap Peak

Before long my stomach starts to rebel and my energy begins to wane. Is this going to be a really bad day or just a bad morning? I tell myself that it will soon pass as time goes on; just keep putting one foot in front of the other. For the time being, my mood sinks further as I reach a flat overgrazed cow pasture where I’m pummeled by gusts of wind. The overwhelming stench of dairy farms wafting in from the west doesn’t help my nausea. Nevertheless, I keep a running pace across the field and snake through a patch of creosote bush. The trail takes me up and over some sandy hills and then I run on a dirt road into the Vado aid station at mile 18 where 50K runners get to turn around and head back towards Las Cruces. 

The "Rock" Garden

The Cow Pasture

100K runners, on the other hand, have the privilege of running the most unpleasant stretch of the course, an eternal straight road that roller coasters along some power lines that hum overhead. When you reach the bottom of each hill a sand trap awaits you. The sun is getting high in the sky so I stop to slather on some sunscreen. My energy has returned and stomach has settled. I run down a hill and then slowly slog upwards while heat radiates off the sand making me sweat. I make sure to drink plenty of water so I don’t dehydrate and end up a bleached skeleton half buried in a sand dune, vultures picking off the remaining morsels. 

Eternal sandy road and Franklin Mts, TX

Suddenly, I feel like I’m in a dream where I’m running as hard as I can through deep sand, but getting nowhere. Am I delirious? Just then, I realize that it isn’t a dream, and I really am running as hard as I can through deep sand, but getting nowhere. I start to walk, but it still feels like I’m going nowhere. Has time stopped? Maybe time doesn’t exist, I don’t know.

The thirteenth century zen master, Dōgen Zenji, in his  Uji (you- shih), Being-Time, wrote that time doesn’t flow. Why? Because the past isn’t real; it is gone and the future doesn’t exist either, because when it comes, it is NOW, the present. Does now exist? If so, which now? The one at my feet or head? On Mt Everest or in Death Valley? Dōgen says, for the time being, you are being time. 

The time being is like this. Arriving is fulfilled by arriving, but not by not-arriving. Not-arriving is fulfilled by not-arriving, but not by arriving. Mind fulfills mind and sees mind; words fulfill words and see words. Fulfilling fulfills fulfilling and sees fulfilling. Fulfilling is nothing but fulfilling. This is time.

 —Trans. Kazuaki Tanahashi

This gives me much to ponder as I suffer through the hot sandy terrain where a throat parching wind whips through the arroyos. After much toil and misery, I make it to a wide sandy wash where I turn left. In a short while, I make another left and pick up a hard packed dirt road and head towards the mountain range. I slowly grind my way up to Webb Gap and run along a single track trail where a fast young lady approaches from behind and passes me. Where did she come from?  “I got off course,” she says with much disappointment. My guess is she continued through the wide sandy arroyo and missed the 2nd left turn or maybe the first one and continued on the eternal straight road. I’ve missed turns out here on training runs in the past, which doesn’t exist by the way. 

Once I reach the pass, strong gusts of wind hit me in my face. I run down into another aid station at mile 28 feeling quite beat. This one is staffed by the Mesilla Valley Search and Rescue and, after a conversation with the fast young lady, a volunteer hops on a four-wheeler and takes off. Maybe there’s a runner in need of assistance. I fill my water bottles and keep running. I fast hike uphill for a while; running when the terrain allows. The Franklin Mountains in Texas come into view so I know I’m getting close to the turn around point at Anthony’s Gap. Sudden gushes of wind continue to rush down the mountains and stir up dust on the road; sand blasting my face.

I make into the aid station where I have a drop bag with some more food and a dry long sleeve shirt that I grab for the night part of my run. I tuck everything in my pack and take off. Another runner left a short while before me, but eventually I catch up to him. The wind makes it feel chilly and I can’t wait to get across the mountain chain again and into the sandy area where it should be less windy and warmer. The temperatures in the desert this time of year are extreme; going from freezing in the morning, to blistering hot in the afternoon. My saving grace is the outstanding mountain view, the sierra vista; The Franklins behind me and the Organs in front.

Mesilla Valley Search and Rescue

Eventually I find myself back on the eternal dirt rollercoaster of hell. I keep reminding myself that this is the worst part and will be over soon. I dare not look at my watch, which will just confirm that time has come to a standstill. The fifth century Christian theologian, St. Augustine wrote about time in his Confessions, book XI. Like Dōgen, he says that we are always in the present, because the past is gone and the future has yet to arrive. He also believes that we are time. 

It is within my mind, then, that I measure time. I must not allow my mind to insist that time is something objective. When I measure time, I am measuring something in the present of my mind. Either this is time, or I have no idea what time is.

Well, after many hill repeats and much sandy drudgery, I make it back to Vado where the sun is sinking lower on the horizon. The good people at the aid station take care of my needs and send me on my way. I get to the flat cow pasture and am greeted by a lone brown yearling cow. Where did you come from and where’s your momma? He playfully takes off running like a little puppy, coaxing me to play with him. Suddenly he darts across the trail and runs around on the other side, all the while watching me. Sorry little buddy, but I’m much too tired to play “tag, your it”.

Soon it’s dark so I put on my headlamp which casts an eerie shadow, making me feel dizzy. Having developed some balance problems in my old age, night running isn’t as easy as it once was. I have to watch the trail very carefully keeping my gaze on the oval of light directly in front of me. The trail is tricky in spots where it hugs the precipitous rim of an arroyo and then descends into the deep trench in the earth. If I trip, my head turns, and I lose sight of where I’m going which is very disorienting. I find myself staggering around like a drunk sometimes, but luckily it’s dark and no one is around to see me. In spite of this, I really enjoy the evening. The wind has died down, It’s very quiet and peaceful, and the sky is filled with stars. 

The starlight I see is actually several hundred to 2000 light years old, meaning I could be observing light that left the star around the time Jesus walked on water. WOW! What is time anyway? I’m reminded of my race here two years ago where I quoted Dōgen, 

Everything whatsoever that exists in the whole universe is a series of instances of time. Since everything is for the time being, we too are for the time being.

Dōgen Zenji says time doesn’t exist, but ultimately WE are time. St Augustine says time doesn’t exist, but ultimately WE are time. Modern day physicists confirm what philosophers and spiritual masters have known since beginning-less time; that time doesn’t exist. Carlo Rovelli, the founder of loop quantum gravity theory, also believes we are time. What makes us believe in time is our memories of past events, the anticipation of future events and the fact that everything is in a constant flux of change.

In his book, The Order of Time, Rovelli writes,

At the most fundamental level that we currently know of, therefore, there is little that resembles time as we experience it. There is no special variable “time,” there is no difference between past and future, there is no spacetime. We still know how to write equations that describe the world. In those equations, the variables evolve with respect to each other. It is not a “static” world, or a “block universe” where all change is illusory: on the contrary, ours is a world of events rather than of things.

The surprise has been that, in the emergence of familiar aspects of time, we ourselves have had a role to play. From our perspective…we see that world flowing in time. Our interaction with the world is partial, which is why we see it in a blurred way….

Perhaps the emotion of time is precisely what time is for us. I don’t think there is much more than this to be understood…When we have found all the aspects of time that can be spoken of, then we have found time. …

And we begin to see that we are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come. The clearing that is opened up in this way, by memory and by anticipation, is time: a source of anguish sometimes, but in the end a tremendous gift.

So there you have it. My memories of past events and my yearning for this race to end cause me to believe in time. Therefore, I do my best to simply dwell in the present moment as hard as that is.   

By this point my legs have turned to jelly and I’m completely drowsy, but I don’t give up. I’m inspired by the city lights of Las Cruces that blanket the desert floor in the distance. My pace feels painfully slow and I have to walk quite a bit, but eventually I reach the last aid station. I don’t even stop, because I know it’s just a few more miles to the finish. In no time, I run down a steep slope into an arroyo where I can hear the sound of a faint cowbell. I pop out on the other side and clammer up into the finish. What a relief! 

It’s mostly a deserted ghost town at this hour of night, but I’m congratulated by the race directors, Peter and Dan. They put on a great race every year which raises funds for the Southern New Mexico Trail Alliance. Thanks to all the search and rescue volunteers, aid station workers, trail maintainers and volunteers for your selfless efforts today. This is a great race with unmatched scenic beauty in one of our great national monuments.

What was my time...

See you on the trail.

Be careful if you decide to go down this rabbit hole.