At mile 27.4, I took in some calories, electrolyte, changed top, switched shoes and headed for the finish–right on schedule.

I carry around this little race bell in my old truck and every once in awhile I get it out and clang it. But since Run Rabbit Run–the 50 miler I ran two weeks ago– it is hard to ring that bell without being transported back to Colorado and to the third third of that grueling course.

I was making my way from Long Lake (mile 36) up the rocky, forested trail to Mt Werner ( mile 44) as the sun was making its sinking movement in the west over that big ridge. I was beyond spent–I was wasted on the way IN over this stretch and here I was over 8 hrs later wheezing my way along the up and down, rolling path at over 10,000 ft. Everything in me was a conflict of stop and never stop.

There were two twenty somethings in front of me and I pass them. I pass some guy who wans to visit about the positives and negatives of Hoka shoes. I said little as I brushed by. I pass this couple who were supporting each other as the darkness creeps in on all of us.

I ignored my watch, knowing that for the first time all day I was late and it was getting risky that I could hit my target time. And for the first time all day, that target time (14 hrs so as to set the mark for 64 year olds) took second place. The higher priority became to finish strong. Its a life identity that I have: I am a finisher.

So then it seems like every small ridge ahead is the last one and I am loosing it. It becomes really hard to even get my breath. So I run, walk, run, walk, run–hurry, hurry, hurry. And I am beyond exhausted.

Then out of nowhere, I hear a sound–not the wind in the pines, not another runner’s footsteps, not my own rhythmic breath I have been pushing out since 6am.

It is a bell. Like a race bell. Like the race bell I have in my truck. And I can hear it in the distance faintly. Like 2-4 miles away kind of faintly –but I can hear it.

And it just keeps ringing-clang, clang, clang, clang.

At first I can’t tell the direction that sound comes from. But then I know that that bell means the last aid station at Mt Werner is really there. And its all downhill from there. And I know it is a road–not a trail– from there down. And I know they have water and soup and electrolyte–and I need all of this desperately.

And I know son Wilson will meet me just below there some 2.5 miles. And I know we will run together all the way the last 4 miles to the finish in the dark–he will help me.

And then I know that we will run across that little Burgess Creek and along that walkway at the base of the Steamboat lifts and I will get that hug and mug and see my wife and I will finish.

I know all of this simply by hearing that little bell sound wafting along here and there in the trees.

And that bell clanging helps me get my head together to direct my body to do what it seems it cannot do–run hard and finish strong.

Someone is ringing a bell for an old guy, who no one (including her) has ever heard of. Who is 7 hours behind the lead runners. Who hurts all over. Who is struggling to keep moving–hardly even a runner at this point.

Who is a finisher.

And so 25 minutes later, as I fight my way up that last rise to Mt Werner, I see this volunteer, standing on a rock 30 meters above the trail, ringing this bell and shouting “You’re gonna make it!”

And I did–thanks in large part to that bell and its ringer.

I finished strong.

So–get up on a rock and ring that bell people!