March 15-18, 2019

A few months ago when Nate started teaching at Loyola he was given a list of upcoming events to prepare for, one of them being the Bataan Memorial Death March in White Sands, New Mexico. When we catch word of events, they go directly on to our shared calendar for “notice” so we don’t accidentally schedule something on top of a required event – “if it doesn’t go on the calendar, it doesn’t happen.”

In December, the event was finalized and it was certainly going to happen for him. We talked about it over dinner one night and I realized that the event was something I would actually like to do because, 1. I had always wanted to do a marathon, 2. I was terrified of RUNNING a marathon, 3. He was already going, and 4. I had never been to New Mexico! He checked in with his team and suddenly I was purchasing a flight to El Paso, Texas and a registration for my first marathon.

We started planning our training schedule in January. Yes, this was pretty late to start training for a marathon – but the worst of it was that we didn’t ACTUALLY start training until about eight weeks out (“Google, search for 8-week Marathon training plan”). We both had a good bit of fitness built (I had been going to Orangetheory Fitness twice a week and he had been doing physical training every morning at work), but for a marathon?! Neither of us had moved more than five miles in the previous three months. So it started, on the treadmill (it was below zero pretty much every training day). 30 minutes of walk/jog to 1 hour of walk/jog to 2 hours of walking to 3 hours of rucking together outside. Eventually I started meeting him at work after I dropped off the kids at school on Thursdays. We had an 8-mile ruck, then a 12-mile ruck, 15, 15 (I didn’t even do this one because I had a horrible sinus infection), and finally 18 THE WEEK BEFORE. Each time we hustled to get back in time to pick up the kids. The final ruck we had to call the school to let them know we were running late.

My parents generously offered to watch the kids for the weekend and my mom flew in on Wednesday before the march (dad came Friday). Thursday I received an alert from American Airlines that my flight was ready for check-in, and as I started to check in I was offered a First Class upgrade, so I took it! Nate ended up on an earlier flight, so 3.5 hours in First Class sans kids or husband – I watched “A Star is Born” and sipped complimentary drinks and snacked on mixed nuts.  It was SO worth it. 

Arrived in El Paso Friday afternoon and realized half of the cadets from Nate’s team were on my flight, so we all arrived together which was perfect. Procured a couple of vans and a uHaul for gear and made it to the hotel in Las Cruces, New Mexico around 6pm, back in the vans and off to a Mexican restaurant down the street (If you fly from Chicago to New Mexico, you have to get Mexican food. There is nothing like it in Chicago). I went to bed at 9:30pm on Friday night and woke up at 7:30am on Saturday morning. That was TEN hours of beautiful, uninterrupted sleep! Vacation!!

Our hotel in Las Cruces, the Staybridge Inn & Suites, was actually super nice. We were in a two-bedroom suite and had a king-sized bed with our own bathroom, a kitchenette in the middle, and another room with two queen beds with their own bathroom. We were able to buy a few groceries to keep in the fridge there since we were going to be leaving at 4:30am Sunday morning.

Saturday morning the cadre had breakfast at Cracker Barrel (gotta carb-load, right?!) and then picked up the cadets to head to the convention center. I checked in, picked up my number/chip and t-shirt, then we got some coffee and hung out until the “Meet the Survivors” portion. Tip: get there as early as possible. This panel fills up very quickly and people were being turned away from the doors after the room was filled. This was my favorite part of the event. They had two survivors in the room, each gave their story about their experience at Bataan. It was absolutely incredible to hear about the things they endured, torture and sickness, death, miserable living conditions, and even the pain of returning home to a society that didn’t support them. When we left the convention center, it was obvious that the words from that room really hung on everyone. Absolutely incredible.

We stopped at Olive Garden for an early dinner and then back to the hotel to pack our rucks for the morning. Bed by 9:30 and up at 4- not a super night of sleep for anyone. It took about an hour from our hotel to get to the White Sands Missile Range and we were all pretty sluggish by the time we arrived. Apparently this was the largest march attendance to-date, so the line of cars to get on to post was ridiculously long. We parked the vans in a field and walked to the start where we stood together shivering in the dark until the sun started to rise and the march began.

The cadre started together but it was clear pretty early on that we were not going to maintain a 15-minute-mile pace as we had in training. We were all pretty bottled up the first two miles, then a 10-minute latrine stop at mile two pushed us way behind. By mile eight it had been three hours – a full hour behind schedule. At that point we had all started to separate, catch up, separate again, etc. Nate and I stayed together most all of the march which was really great. At least 50% of this march is about mental fortitude out there – having a “battle buddy” is a game-changer. There were water stops about every two miles with water, Gatorade, bananas and oranges. I would have liked something crunchy at one of the stops, but I had packed a ton of GUs, Honey Stinger waffles, Cheez-Its, M&Ms (for the last few miles!), Honey Stinger chews and salt pills. Thankfully they had latrines at every water stop (though we did have to “pull off the road” once around mile 6!) and medics to patch you up when necessary. I also carried my own water in a Camelbak and a Tailwind soft flask of Tailwind fuel. I would absolutely recommend carrying your own liquids if you decide to attempt this march.

Around mile eight was the beginning of the uphill portion, when the memorial marchers branched off to head back and we started to see marathon runners heading back towards the finish. At ten we passed a previous co-worker of Nate’s who was on his way back down the hill as a runner with a ruck – he was at mile 18! When we reached the top of the hill, we took about a 15-minute break to wait for some cadre, refuel, tape up blisters and use latrines. Down the hill after that but through the mountains – that was a pretty tough part mentally.  I broke out the M&Ms and we joked around with attempting to eat sunflower seeds to stay busy. 

Around mile 20 we hit the infamous “Sand Trap.” This part of the course is deep sand and hills. We passed a lot of marchers really trudging through the sand because that was clearly the point when things really started to hurt for everyone. During the sand trap a blister on my right foot that I had been taping along the route burst and I was suddenly in hobbling agony, but we made it to the next water stop to get it taped up with a little Bacitracin. That took a few minutes longer than I would have liked but I felt incredibly better and was able to push on with very little pain (in that spot, at least). 

After the blister fix Nate and I got in a groove. We stopped briefly at the next water station to use the latrine (I’m pretty sure this happened at every water station after mile 4), then we pushed a 15-minute-mile until mile 26 where we ate pickles (the saving Grace!) and waited with other cadre until the rest had arrived so we could all cross the finish together. Remarkably, we were stiff and sore but not in unbearable pain and I attribute the majority of that to the mass intake of water and electrolytes along the route. Major props to my triathlon coach from 2017-2018, Elizabeth Waterstraat, who taught me all kinds of awesome tips about nutrition that seriously saved my butt (and the butts of all the people I dispersed this knowledge to, whether they asked for it or not!).

Additionally, the weather was AWESOME for us this year as it is apparently usually unbearably hot and this year we got a cool 50-60 degrees during the entirety of the march. The sun came out around mile 10 and we all burnt a little (even though we put on sunscreen) so that tells how intense the sun was out there, but overall it was a cool day and perfect for what we were doing. ALSO, it rained (and snowed?!) pretty much all day Saturday which completely fixed the dust problem for us. We had little to no dust and even the sand pit didn’t seem to be all that bad as far as depth and dust.

Our total moving time was 9 hours and 30 minutes. I wore a Garmin Forerunner (with satellite) and according to that we had 7 hours and 30 minutes of “moving time” which meant we were stopped for approximately two hours during the 26.2-mile march. Amazingly, we finished with one blister between the two of us, and that was my little toe on my right foot – it was squished against another toe and pinched to a blister. We both wore Darn Tough socks which got pretty sweaty out there but kept us both cushioned. We attribute the lack of blisters to this amazing product called, “Friction Block” which we bought two packs for $20 at the convention on Saturday before the race. When we would start to feel a hot spot, we would slap that tape on and keep going. 

I was a little worried about what shoes to wear since I wasn’t rucking in boots, and ended up choosing my waterproof On Cloudflyers for the event. My thoughts being, these were the shoes I had been training in (snow in Chicago) so my feet were used to them and they have a waterproof outer which made me believe maybe they would help keep the sand out of the mesh. I also ordered a set of gaiters from a store on Etsy called, “UltraGam,” which kept the sand from entering the top of my shoes at the ankle. Unfortunately one of the Velcro tapes came unstuck pretty early on in the march but I was able to stick it back well enough to work properly when I needed them. I would either carry extra Velcro patches or get a cobbler to sew those in next time. I never got sand in my shoes, though, so everything worked out as needed.

I switched out of my shoes and in to my Oofos recovery shoes as soon as we returned to the vans and chugged a shaker bottle of Tailwind recovery (chocolate is my favorite!) and slept on and off the whole way back to the hotel. After a nice shower, compression socks, pizza and a beer, it was lights out for all of us by 10pm.

Monday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and helped the remaining cadets and cadre get dropped off at the airport. Nate and I had booked a later flight, so we took the uHaul and explored El Paso a little bit – ended up having Mexican at a legit restaurant in El Paso and then off to explore Fort Bliss. They have an awesome PX and shopping area! We talked about the area and made some mental notes about what life would be like if we were ever stationed there. We don’t hate it!

We didn’t have too much time so we returned the uHaul, grabbed an Uber to the airport and made it through security without a hitch. Nate had a chat with the lady at the terminal and suddenly we were boarding with complimentary First Class tickets back to Chicago. It is really comical to be in the El Paso airport after Bataan. You can tell exactly who did the march because we all walk around like we’re stepping on hot coals all the time!

So we completed the march and I completed an item from my bucket list. And with a 9.5 hour marathon- I’m sure to PR next time!