My brother JC is running next to me. I know this because I can see his headlamp and hear his Altras hitting the dirt. The new moon is up there somewhere, I guess, but it’s not giving us any light. His headlamp hits the side of my face as he turns to say something, but instead he kind of cries out and stumbles backward.

“What?” I ask him, startled.

“Your head! You’ve got blue tracers running down the side of your head!”

I feel the side of my head, although blue tracers are probably not something you can feel. My headlamp strap? Maybe it looked weird when his headlamp lit up my headlamp strap.

We’re about twenty hours in on this adventure, so mild (or even extreme) hallucinations aren’t really unexpected.

“Weird!” I say, and we keep running.

This was not as bad as the hallucination he had when my daughter J was running with him. A dip across the road somehow turned into a barricade, a concrete barricade like you see during road construction. This brought JC to a complete stop.

“How do we get around it?” he asked J.

“Get around what?” she asked him, looking around.

He stood there a minute, reality slowly coming back.

“Oh. Nothing.”

The Pony Express 100/50 is a different kind of pony, as ultras go. Runners are required to have their own support crew and vehicle, except for a few rare exceptions for runners who have proven they can self-support. There is one aid station, at the finish for the 50. There is absolutely no cell phone service. None.

I think a trail race, more than any other type of event, reflects the personality of its Race Director. Pony Express RD Davy Crockett is a bit… eccentric. He just completed a treadmill 100, so maybe eccentric is being kind. Maybe he’s downright crazy. I don’t know, I’m no doctor.

When my brother first told me about the race, and I read about it on the website, it sounded like it could be slightly boring. 100 miles on dirt roads through the Utah west desert? Sounds flat. Sounds dry and desolate. Sounds… intriguing.

As a child, I grew entirely sick of the sagebrush and wild grasses where I spent my summers playing. I longed for trees and lush forests. Don’t get me wrong, I love trees and lush forests. But as a grownup I’ve spent hours and hours and hours running through sparse landscapes where scrub oak and juniper are the tallest trees. This has given me a deep love for the more subtle beauty of the desert. It has become a partner, in a way. I love it the way you love your bike or your horse or that worn old running jacket.

The Pony Express 100/50 takes this beauty to a new level. There is no artificial light. Other than a few buildings at Fish Springs, where the course turns around, there are no buildings except for one primitive restroom made of stone. A tumbleweed tumbles for miles. Hundreds of miles. This is a place that tested the mettle of early American pioneers. This is a place where many of them failed that test.

The start is staggered, based upon your estimated finish time. JC got the earliest time, 5 a.m. At about 1 a.m., I left my house and drove South and West, gassing up my Jeep at the last possible gas station. Jackrabbits ran in front of me every few miles, but I missed them all. I managed to screech to a halt just a few feet from an owl feeding (on a less fortunate jackrabbit?) in the middle of the road. The animals out here aren’t used to traffic this time of night.

I don’t get lost. I feel like this is a great accomplishment.

JC spent the night in the back of his Suburban. The start area is a campground, and most runners have opted to spend the night. Finding him turns out to be pretty difficult and I start to worry that I won’t find him before his start. But I find him, and we quickly transfer a bunch of supplies from his car to mine. He just makes his start, running down a path lined with lights. I give the runners time to get on the road and spread out a bit, then I drive five miles down the road and pull over to wait.

Some runners have several people helping them, some even have multiple vehicles, but due to work schedule conflicts of other family members, JC just has me for now. This is fine, except that I can’t pace him. The plan is for my daughter J to come out in the evening. I will be driving back to the finish line (about 16 miles from the start) to pick her up, leaving JC unsupported for however long that takes. After that, we can take turns pacing him.

The dark is so complete that it’s hard to see the runners. A headlamp will appear suddenly, or a reflective vest, sometimes a glo-stick. I make a mental note to make him more recognizable next time. When he reaches me, he’s feeling really good and doesn’t even stop. He tells me to drive five more miles. This gives me some time to snuggle up in my blanket and doze for a few minutes.

At 10 miles JC is still feeling good and right on pace for his #1 goal. At 15 miles, I take advantage of the only restroom for fifty miles. JC declines. He turns down a road to Simpson Springs Corral (16.4), which will be the finish, but is now the first check-in. I go down the road a ways and meet him as he comes back to the road. He sends me on another 5 miles and I wait for him. The roadside isn’t always conducive to pulling over, so many times I add a little to the 5 miles. He doesn’t have a GPS watch, so he doesn’t know. It’s my secret way of prodding him a little further. Sorry JC.

At Riverbed Station (24.4) I notice a monument down a side road. By now I’ve been in a car for quite a while, so I take advantage of the opportunity to run down the road to see the monument. This Pony Express Station, it is said, was difficult to staff because it had a reputation of being visited by desert spirits. In the bright light of day, I don’t feel or see anything unusual, but I’m kind of hoping I’m not parked here alone in the middle of the night.

Everything seems fine at this point, except for the ominous, brooding, dark wall of foreboding to the west that spans the horizon from one end to the other. The wind is picking up a bit. When JC reaches the car, I have to be careful to only open one door at a time so everything doesn’t blow out.

The next ten miles are a bit troublesome.

The ominous, dark wall reaches us shortly, as walls of foreboding tend to do. It brings hard winds, biting sand and tumbleweeds the size of my car. I’m five miles down the road from JC, but the storm spans at least ten miles. My car is rocking on the side of the road like it weights nothing and I pity each runner as they stumble past me, head down and posture determined.

When he catches up to me, he asks if I’ve seen the movie “Hidalgo”. I remember the scene he’s talking about, where Hidalgo is racing the storm.

“This was just like that!” he says.

Except, of course, this storm hit everybody from the right side. There was no outrunning it.

The next check-in is at Dugway Topaz Well (33.3) and the storm is about finished. Now the course turns right and approaches the only significant climb on the course. At the start line, they kind of joked about the “hill”, but it’s a pretty good climb. Crews can’t stop on Dugway Pass (37.5), so I stop a little bit before the climb. JC approaches with a few other runners and stops to tell me to go on ahead. I go over the pass and wait on the other side.

So far, the only problem I see with JC is that he’s not really eating. I offer him different things that I have and he takes a bagful of sweet potato crackers (thanks mom!) and eats them. He’s drinking enough water, but I don’t think his calorie intake is enough.

You can’t make somebody eat. Not even your big brother.

As we get further into the race, he has me pull just 2 or 3 miles ahead. I think this is closer to what other crews have been doing. He’s only been in the car twice, once to change socks, and once just to warm up. Runners are allowed to sit in a car, as long as it doesn’t move.

I reach the finish line for the 50 mile race (actually mile 48.5, the 50 mile runners do a little out-and-back at the end), the only aid station, and I’m treated to a delicious Portobello sandwich. When JC gets here, he grabs a few chocolate bars and takes advantage of the rare and precious porta-potties.

He sits in the car for a few minutes, and makes the mistake of leaving his chocolate bars in the car. Yes, JC, I ate them. I ate them all. Then, he’s off again and I drive down the road, waving and cheering for each runner as I pass them. As I pull over to wait, I realize he should have put on his reflective gear. The sun is angled low enough to really affect visibility. At this point, the only traffic is other crews, so I decide to just sit and worry, instead of going back to him.

As the sun drops, the temperature plummets. I pull some sweats over my running tights, and put on a warm beanie. JC adds a layer when he catches up to me, but he doesn’t change yet. He plans to change into warm clothes at the turnaround at Fish Springs (58.2). In hindsight, he probably should have changed sooner, because by the time we reach the turnaround, he is so cold that his fingers aren’t working and it takes him a long time.

The ten miles to Fish Springs are cold, with a biting wind. It’s also the hardest part of the course to find places to pull over, so most crews are just kind of stopping. We’re the only ones out here, so it’s not a big deal, and it’s better than ending up with the passenger side of your car in a two-foot ditch.

At Fish Springs, we check in and I head down to the actual, bona fide, complete with flushing toilet, restroom while JC changes in the car. There is a truck parked near the restroom with headlights on, so I don’t take a light with me. A couple of women are in the restroom and we talk for a bit before they leave. I guess the truck was theirs. The restroom is on the back side of a building, and as I come out, I’m greeted by the deepest darkness I’ve ever experienced. I can’t see ANYTHING! At first I’m frozen with helpless fear. After a few minutes of this emotion, I turn and stumble through the dark, in the general direction of the corner of the building. I remember coming down a hill from my car, so once I feel the corner of the building, I start walking up. At last I see a little bit of light.

Stupid. I have a headlamp and flashlight sitting in the car. Middle of nowhere, no moonlight, remember?

JC is still in the process of changing and I make him some broth. As soon as I leave him, I’ll be racing the forty miles back to Simpson Springs to pick up my daughter, and then back to wherever he is by that time. I’m feeling pretty sick about leaving him alone while I drive for at least 2-3 hours. It’s a washboard road in many places, and it’s full of runners, so speeding will not be possible.

But I leave, knowing it will be worth it when we can pace him. He’s freezing and I don’t think he’s entirely emotionally stable, but he sends me off cheerfully, sort of.

I drive through the darkness as fast as I safely can, slowing to a crawl for runners, praying for the jackrabbits that race across the road, since I can’t hope to slow enough for their last-minute antics. I start watching for cars coming the other way, just in case J has come looking for me. We have no phone service, so finding her is going to take some miraculous, worlds-colliding, perfect alignment of stars kind of thing.

I approach Simpson Springs and there she is, slowing down to look at who’s coming her way! I’m about an hour later than our plan, but she’s not worried at all, she just assumed that such a thing can’t be planned with much accuracy.

We throw some of her things in the car and head back the other way. My vision is just starting to get sketchy, and I try to do some quick math to figure how long I’ve been awake, but I give up.

We really don’t know where we are when we reach JC, since he doesn’t have GPS and our out-and-back was hard to calculate, but we figure he’s around 70-75 miles. He’d stopped again at Blackrock Station (mile 67.9 on the return) and had some broth.

It probably seemed like a good idea.

It wasn’t a good idea.

There are many heroic acts. In my opinion, one of these is continuing on, knowing you have about thirty miles to go, after losing your broth.

I keep my back turned as he vomits, not because it makes me sick, but because I don’t want him to see my immense pity.

“You want to walk a little?” I ask when he stops.

His answer is not words, but more retching sounds.

We repeat this exchange a few times, and then he starts to walk.

My mom had wanted to join us at this point, and I’m very grateful that she is not here. It doesn’t matter how old your baby is, if you see him in this state, you will make him get in the car.

But he’s my brother, and I can tell he’s okay, and I know that the pain of not finishing will last for a year, but the pain of losing his broth will only last for… thirty more miles.

We walk for a while, then we run a little. My daughter J has pulled ahead just a mile, and by the time we reach her, he’s feeling a little better. We take turns pacing a few miles at a time, and this is when the previously mentioned hallucinations take place.

JC starts to worry about the cutoff time, and we reassure him, although we are a little worried too. If everything goes all right, he will have time to finish even at a brisk walk. But if he gets sick again, it might push him over the time limit.

He takes tiny sips of water but pretty much doesn’t eat anything at all. We don’t offer him things, because we don’t want to say the wrong thing. You know how hearing the name of the wrong food can put you over the edge when your stomach is enraged? So we don’t say any food words.

He keeps going, steady and determined. J paces him over Dugway Pass (78.9) because she hates hills less than I do, and a few miles later we reach the last check-in at Dugway Topaz Well (83.1) with time to spare.

I think I’m parked near the Riverbed Station Monument (92.0) which is haunted, when I have my own hallucination. I’m sorry, but it’s not a cool ghost hallucination. I’m staring at two bright stars over a hill to my right. They are perfectly even, their brightness, color and shape exactly the same. I’m pretty certain, as I look at them, that there is only one star.

I close my eyes for a few minutes and look again. For a split second, there is one star, then it separates into two again. So I close my eyes again. I wake up to the sound of voices outside the car. JC and J have caught up to me. Apparently I’ve taken a five or ten minute nap, and my vision problems are cured. I glance over at the single star above the hill, nod with satisfaction, and get out to pace.

Dawn is approaching. The sky slowly brightens to gray, then a pale violet. The sunrise is beautiful, with shades of pink and purple spreading across the horizon. J takes another turn pacing, and just as they are approaching the car, a white Subaru pulls up.

“Mom!” I say, after this fact slowly sinks into my sleepy mind.

Actually, mom is in the passenger side and my niece S, JCs oldest daughter, is driving!

So for the last six miles, JC has two pacers at a time. At first, S asks JC if he wants this drink or that snack. He very kindly turns her down, but I see him doing that little gag thing.

I whisper, “Don’t offer him anything! Don’t talk about food!”

She is so awake and energetic that she helps drag us all to the end. We leave our cars about half a mile from the finish line and we all finish together. As we get close to the photographer at the end, I tuck in behind everyone else, because I’m doing this stupid, full-body sobbing thing that I do when things are just too emotional for anything else.

I know what it took for him to get here. Not just the bitter cold and brutal winds, the sickness and the hunger of the past twenty-nine hours, but the frustrations and disappointments of the year leading up to this. I’m proud and relieved and so, so happy.

And I can tell, as they hang a medal around his neck, that he is proud and relieved and happy, and that none of the pain or disappointment matters at all.