The Drive to Win Marathons Runs Him Off the Road

Fred Shufflebarger runs off-road ultra-marathons. Standard going on these 50- or 100-mile races includes rugged terrain, numbing fatigue, night running and 9,300-foot climbs in elevation. The more grueling runs can include blizzards and mudslides.

And when he is pounding a trail that’s barely visible in the chilling dark at mile 78, his blood sugar so low that his brain is fogged beyond even registering the pain and cramps anymore, his feet stumbling dangerously over rocks, where does Shufflebarger turn for help? Why, to little butter mints , of course. That’s right folks, little butter mints are the only mint recognized by. . . .

OK, stamina, training, willpower and flat-out insanity also factor into a winning equation, but Laguna Beach runner Shufflebarger does like his little mints. “I eat a couple of them and I snap right back,” he claims. Keeping a fanny pack stuffed with them is the least of the preparations he puts into his runs.

He adds: “I’m very serious about my races. It dominates my life, I’d have to say.” Backing that up, he won his last 100-mile race last October, the Angeles Crest 100, with his time of 19 hours and 22 minutes edging out the next closest runner in a field of 117 by 56 minutes, and setting the second-fastest time ever run on the course. There is a photo from the race in the current issue of UltraRunner magazine of Shufflebarger as he crested Mt. Baden Powell, looking for all the world like he’s just had his brains scooped out in an “Outer Limits” episode.

Talking in his bachelor apartment--Spartan except for all the Alfa Romeo parts lying about--he looked to be an entirely sensible being, and a heck of a lot younger than his near-45 years. Shufflebarger speaks about his races in such an upbeat but offhanded manner that it is hard to put in perspective that what he’s talking about, basically, is lacing up your Asics and running nonstop to Palm Springs, with a couple of extra mountains thrown in for laughs.

While ultra-running is nothing new--some of its longstanding records were set back in the 1800s--its modern popularity is tied to the running boom of the ‘80s. More recently, according to Shufflebarger, “it’s become less and less of a bizarre thing. Instead of these nut cases who just want to go out and show they’re tougher than anybody, it’s become more a sport run by normal, reasonable people, more or less.”

He says he’s not a running addict, but trains to win. That merely entails running from 90 to 125 miles a week when he’s preparing for a race. If he’s going to be doing the Angeles Crest race, which goes from Wrightwood to the Rose Bowl by way of Mt. Wilson and other choice peaks, then he’ll take four-day weekends, pitch a tent in the area and run the trail for several days. He does the same for the Western States 100 in Northern California.

Locally, he likes running the San Juan Trail, the Santa Ana Mountains, the Harding Truck Trail and Modjeska and Silverado canyons, along with the hills above Laguna. He also likes the quiet and the soft surface of the orange groves in Irvine enough to ignore the “No Trespassing” signs surrounding them.

Though he’s fared well in some paved races, he much prefers the courses nature had a hand in. Some on-road marathons carry $20,000 prizes and free cars, while the most an off-road ultra will earn you is a belt buckle. He estimates it will cost him a couple of thousand dollars to run the Western States race this year, between travel, lodging, registration fees and other expenses. But there are compensations to the off-road life, he feels.

“It can be a magical feeling to run these things. In some of these areas if you’re a front runner, you’ll stop and you won’t see anybody or hear a thing. It’s rugged and beautiful out there. And it’s all yours.”

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, Shufflebarger noticed early on that none of his friends were ever able to catch him at tag. On a go-cart course behind his house he began timing himself at running miles and kept getting better. He ran track in high school and kept at it as a hobby in college. Then he left the sport behind.

He supported himself for a few years by buying Porsches on the East Coast and driving them to California where they often sold for $2,000 more. “Porsche 914s are great cars for cruising,” he recommends. “You could run them at 100 all day.”

He’s still in the car business, though his coast-hopping ended when he fell in love and settled in California.

“I hadn’t run for about 10 years. I got involved with this woman and she’d run a couple of miles a day. At first, it was challenging to stay up with her, then after a couple of weeks she couldn’t keep up with me. We eventually got married (they have since divorced) and I became a running nut, and she stopped completely.”

He got involved in running marathons. Then, “I’d seen some of my friends running 50s, and they’d be laughing when they finished. And I was thinking, ‘How can they be laughing after running 50 miles?’ I know now that when that finish line comes up you’re so damn happy.”

In his first 50-mile race in 1985 he beat all his friends, and began thinking he might really be suited to such efforts. Eight months later, he took on the 50 K Mule Run in Bishop and won it by a 10-minute margin. He has since won four of the last five Pacific Crest Trail 50s in San Diego County, including times when the race was spiced by a blizzard and a freezing rainstorm. “I like those conditions. I do real well in them,” he remarked.

He has now entered five 100s. At his first, the top-of-the-sport Western States in 1988, “I just died out there. I’d overtrained and was burned out going into it. I got my silver belt buckle for finishing in under 24 hours, but I didn’t do anywhere near as well as I should. I was on the trial going, ‘God, what am I doing here? I’m never doing this again!’ People were passing me and I was just, ‘ Let ‘em go by, I don’t care!’ ”

He’s had races he was unable to finish, but he thinks those led him to the point he’s at today.

“The artist M.C. Escher talked about the years and years he spent mastering the technique of his art, that then he could get on to the art . I think I’ve just got to that point now. I don’t want to over-stress the ‘art’ thing, because people will go, ‘Right, he thinks he’s an artist,’ but being able to put together a great race really feels that way to me.

“I know it’s going to be hard and that there’s a lot of pain involved, but I welcome it. How many times in life do you get into something where you are really challenged to do absolutely the best you can physically and mentally? A mountain trail 100 is an incredibly massive obstacle. But it is really amazing what your body can do, how you can keep pushing through pain and fatigue.

“If you can imagine concentrating for 20 hours, that’s how focused you are. In a really good race, it’s almost what I understand a Zen state of mind to be. It is being . You feel almost a oneness, disconnected from your body and into something else.

“In races, you’ll start and you’ll hold back and be pacing yourself, and as it progresses you’ll be holding back less, and there will be some point where you’re not holding back anymore. The gates come open and you just let it out. And it’s a sensation like there’s this wild animal inside of you that’s just going and covering ground, and he’s just a maniac.”

Currently, Shufflebarger is concentrating on the upcoming Western States 100 in June. “I’ll be 45 in June,” he said. “If I’m going to do my masterpiece, it’s got to be soon.”

Along with the thought that age will catch up with him eventually, he’s determined, “I can’t really afford to make ultra-running the major focus of my life. As it’s structured now, it is the major focus, and a lot of other things have been neglected. I think I need to change that. Eventually, you have to worry about other things, like financial responsibility, though I guess it’s a little late to be thinking about a career.

“I’ve just gone on this way because as an athlete you have very little need for money. You’re not going to be going out to a lot of French restaurants.”

Though he has lots of friends, Shufflebarger said he is a solitary person. He lives alone.

“Life is certainly simpler that way, though it’s something I don’t always enjoy,” he said. “I think being this way helps in running. You’re very much alone out there.

“My coach, John Loeschhorn, thinks people run because they want to be immortal. They see themselves getting faster and faster and faster, and unconsciously speculate ‘I’m going to keep getting faster (and) pretty soon I’ll be up there with God. I’ll never die. I’ll just be perfect.’ I thought that was bull until I really thought about it, and now I think he’s got something there.”