Going the distance, the long distance

Duane and Debbie Grigg, who now live by Lick Creek between Howard’s Ridge and Mammoth in Ozark County, lived along the Kuskokwim River in the Alaska bush  for 17 years. The first part of this story, published in last week’s Times, shared some of the adventures the Grigg family had while living in Alaska. In the conclusion of their story, published here, Duane describes how he got started running long distances – really long distances – while they lived in the Alaska wilderness.

In 1987, Duane and Debbie Grigg had been teaching in the tiny village of Chuathbaluk, Alaska, for around seven years when a well-timed comment from one of Duane’s students kicked off his desire to get in shape and led him to develop a passion for long-distance running.

The village of Chuathbaluk sits above the flood plain of the Kuskokwim River. The high school where Duane taught sat on a bluff overlooking the elementary school.

“We had to walk down to the elementary school for lunch. That’s where the cafeteria was,” Duane said. “The native cook made the best fry bread, and we had these big number 10 cans of USDA jelly. That started becoming my lunch – fresh fry bread with jelly.”

After awhile, Duane began noticing that it was getting harder and harder to make it up the steps to the high school. “One day, I walked into class from lunch, and one of the senior boys said, ‘Mr. Grigg, you’re getting fat.’ When you came up from the village, there was a set of 53 wooden steps up that bluff. I went out that afternoon and walked up and down those steps 25 times. I was determined.”

He dug his Converse All Stars out of his closet – the same shoes he had worn to play high school basketball as a teenager – and made countless trips, walking and then running, up and down those wooden steps. As his endurance and strength increased, his waistline went down, and he began noticing other positive changes in his life as well.

“Where we were living, in the winter, the sun would come up about 10:30 in the morning and make a little arc in the south, so daylight ended around 2:30 in the afternoon,” Duane said. “The rest of the time, it was dark and so cold that you didn’t want to get out to do anything. Before I started running, I was getting where I was going home on Friday and sleeping all weekend, just waiting for school to start on Monday so there was something to do. I was probably getting into pretty bad shape from depression because of the cold and dark and having nothing to do. I am someone who just has to have something to do.” 

After Duane started running, getting those endorphins flowing again, he started feeling better mentally and began setting goals to improve his running and overall fitness.

“I don’t remember how long it took – it was quite awhile – but once I got to where I could run up and down those steps 50 times, I moved out onto the road,” Duane said. “I would train on the gravel in the fall, the packed ice and snow in the winter. I’d run on the the frozen river and the packed snow machine trails through the woods.  After the air strip was built, I spent a lot of time running up and down it.”

Duane ran outdoors unless the temperature dropped to 10 degrees below zero. “When it got colder than that, I’d move into the gym,” he said. “But the gym was only half a gym, so that made for some pretty tight turns. There were several times that I’d go in on a Saturday and run six hours at a time.”

Becoming an ultra runner

Ultra runners – people who run and compete at distances longer than 50 kilometers or 31.07 miles – were relatively unknown to the general public at that time. “Ultra running had been going on forever, but it was made up of a very small group of runners,” Duane said. At that time, the community of ultra runners was so small that race results listed in the back of Ultra Running magazine included the names of every single finisher at each event.

Duane trained hard the rest of the school year in Alaska, working on his endurance and speed. 

That summer, the Griggs came back to the Ozarks for their summer vacation from school. “A couple of guys in Mountain Home who were runners took me to Little Rock, where I ran the Firecracker 5K, which was the first competitive run I was ever in,” Duane said. “One of them, Jackie Edmonds, showed me a copy of Ultra Running magazine - and I thought, ‘Wow! This is what I’ve been looking for.’ I’ve always wanted to do something that not very many people were doing. So I went back to Chuathbaluk and trained all year.”

The next summer, in 1988, the Griggs drove back to the Ozarks via the Alaska Highway. On the way down, they made a stop in Canada so Duane could run the Lakeland Challenge in Vermilion, Alberta. He ran 50 miles and completed his first ultra running event. 

“It was on the cross country ski trails of a junior college,” Duane said. “So it was a lot of steep ups and downs. I just beat myself up, not knowing how to run hills. I had been mostly training on flats.”

Still in the learning stages of ultra running, Duane had previously signed up for a 70-miler in Pennsylvania that would take place just two weeks later. With his legs still beat up from the hills of the Lakeland Challenge, he made the trip east and toed the starting line. “I hadn’t recovered from the Canada run, and I was coming out of Alaska where your blood really does get thick,” Duane said. “I made it 45 miles, got dehydrated and started having severe leg cramps. I dropped out. It took me 18 years, but I finally went back to Pennsylvania and did that run and did it well.”

Duane never let a race get the best of him. If dehydration or exhaustion caused him to have to drop out, he made it a point to go back later for redemption. “I think there were four or five 50-milers and one 100-miler that I didn’t finish because of those types of problems,” Duane said. “Every one of them, except one, I went back and finished. The one I wasn’t able to do was because they never had it again.”

Duane trained for and ran a big ultra event once or twice a year after that. “While we lived in Alaska, I was only able to run one or two ultras in the summer, because Alaska didn’t have them yet,” Duane said. 

Then, in 1996, Duane teamed up with Mountain Home friends he’d known all his life – Jackie Edmonds, Hiram Byrd and Gary Phillips. “Brad Knight ran a few years with us, too,” Duane said. “We started traveling, and we’d run in events about once a month. We ran in Texas, Minnesota, California, North Carolina – we just went everywhere – sharing the driving and the expenses and running. They all retired from it a few years ago. I slowed down for a year or so because I didn’t have anyone to go with me.”

However, Duane found he wasn’t ready to end this chapter of his life. He still wanted to stretch his limits, still wanted to see new places and still wanted to run. “So I started going by myself,” he said. “Debbie goes with me once in awhile, but mostly, I go by myself. I get up in the middle of the night, drive to Willard and run the Frisco, then drive home. I did a night run in Indiana that started at 7 p.m. I finished at 3:30 in the morning then drove the eight and half hours home. 

“I’ve always wanted to test my endurance, and that’s what I’ve done.”

71 and still running

Duane, now 71 years old, has been running for 34 years, has done 188 ultras and shows no signs of stopping. He’s run in 32 states and two Canadian provinces. He’s completed three 100-milers, one 70-miler, two 100Ks, 41 50-milers and many other races with distances ranging from 31-47 miles. He’s crossed the Grand Canyon three times, he has run in Death Valley twice and he ran a rugged trail to the top of Pike’s Peak. He ran along the beaches of Florida and the Rio Grande in Texas. He ran in Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, through the slot canyons of Antelope Canyon in Arizona and among the hoodoo rock formations in Goblin Valley in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Twice, he ran the Resurrection Pass Ultra in Alaska, a mostly self-supported run – meaning  there are no aid stations with nutrition and water. “You carry your own supplies and use a water filter to drink from streams,” Duane said. “And, of course, you have to watch for bears, because, after all, it is Alaska.”

His key to success

Duane traveled back to Alaska recently, and on a last-minute whim, signed up to run the 49K Ultra in Anchorage with his son, Cole, who lives in Alaska and is also an ultra runner.  He has filled the rest of the year with other ultra events, at least one a month.  “Signing up and planning keeps me motivated,” he said. 

Currently, Duane is registered to run the Hennepin 50-kilometer ultramarathon in Illinois on Oct. 1. The race runs from Sterling to Colona along the historic Hennepin Canal State Trail. Then, the third weekend in October, Cole is coming down from Alaska to run the Pumpkin Holler 100-miler in Oklahoma, and Duane is going to run the last 31 miles with him. In November, Duane is headed to Vienna, Illinois, to run the Tunnel Hill 50-miler.

“For 34 years, I’ve stayed in shape,” he said. “So much of it is in your mind. It’s amazing what the human body can do if the mind will just keep telling it to do it.”

Duane said the key to success in staying fit is consistency, and he has no plans to stop running or to stop pushing his limits.

After all, one never knows what adventure might lie just around the corner, and it’s important to be ready for it.