The ultra-marathoner who just won’t give up
Julie Glandfield Smith was volunteering at an aid station deep in the Ontario forest when she first heard the name Jack Judge.
Other volunteers kept mentioning him, and would glow a little as they spoke of his kindness and all the stories he had to tell, and how he was a retired teacher or maybe a retired firefighter or maybe a retired social worker — they could never quite remember which. But Judge could build things with his hands. He recycled his socks. He had even hitchhiked across the country.
More stories about him spilled out as runners rolled into the aid station at the Haliburton Forest Ultra-100 — a brutal 160- kilometre race through an iconic corner of Ontario woodland not far from Algonquin Provincial Park.
Judge ran with a smile on his face, the runners would say. He stopped to help others during races. He stopped to pick up garbage. He wore old T- shirts. Run with him for a stretch and one might learn something about solar flares, say, or sailing solo around the globe.
“I kept thinking, who is this guy?” Glandfield Smith says. “And then there he was, at the aid station. Jack has this deep voice — you can listen to him all day — and the man, he talks, he talks nonstop.
“Jack is old school. Jack Judge is a legend.”
Jack Judge is an ultramarathoner of great renown. But what marks him as extraordinary isn’t his ability to win races but his inability to (officially) finish the Haliburton forest 160-km race.
“If there is one word that would describe me, it would be slow,” Judge says.
An ultra- marathon is nearly four standard marathons in length. Runners take months to prepare. The Haliburton course record is 17 hours and 18 minutes. Finishing within 24 hours is considered a good time. Finishing, period, within the race’s 30-hour time limit, is a monumental physical achievement. About half the runners who start fail to reach the end each year.
A f ormer marathoner, Judge first entered in 2005. He failed that year, and the next, and for seven more years before finally crossing the finish line in 2014. Alas, he crossed in 32 hours and 45 minutes, or about three hours after the race officially ended.
“I still see it as a victory,” he says. “It might not be the most legitimate victory, but it was better than failing for the 10th time in a row.”
Judge returned to Haliburton in 2015 for an 11th try, an effort that foundered when his foot began to ache, forcing him to bow out after 13.5 hours. He will be back again this weekend and feels more optimistic than ever — at age 65 — about his chances at breaking through the elusive 30-hour barrier.
“I am still able to get faster and stronger,” Judge says. “I know I can finish.”
Theories abound among the ultra-crowd as to why he struggles in Haliburton. The most common explanation is that he talks too much to other runners, to aid station volunteers, to whomever he meets along the way.
Judge di s misses t his theory as “folklore,” while insisting what causes him to be “so slow” is that he is in fact “slow.” He can run forever. He just can’t quite get to where he needs to be in the time he needs to be there.
But the talks-non- stoptheory isn’t so easily discounted. After a cup of tea and a lengthy conversation in Judge’s book-filled apartment in Kingston, Ont., we put on our sneakers and drive to a trail near the city limits.
We talk as we run, at an easy pace, although Judge does most of the talking. Seamlessly shifting subjects from the Queen — he’s not a monarchist, but if we have to have a queen, then Elizabeth II is as good as they come — to Robert the Bruce to the massacre of Glencoe (in 1692) to the death of Canadian manufacturing to the deceptions of Hillary Clinton and, finally, to chemistry.
Judge keeps to the trail’s grassy border, to better simulate the uneven footing in Haliburton. We go 11 minutes before turning back. We consciously accelerate the pace on the return leg. Or at least we think we do.
“We were two minutes slower coming back,” Judge says, checking his watch.
Most ultra- runners run with a hydration backpack — picture a backpack with a bladder full of water and a tube leading out of it that the runner sucks on. Judge runs with a yellow water bottle. He tracks his progress not with the latest in GPS/ Swiss timing technology but with a watch he bought at a supermarket for $ 15. His headlamp is from the local hardware store. Judge customized it, so that instead of wearing it on his head, he can clip it to his belt for increased comfort.
“The problem with headlamps is that you get raccoon eyes,” he says.
Judge is a throwback in an age of gear- heads, where amateur athletes outfit themselves with the newest gizmos, and gobble down energy gels to give them that added edge on the trail. Judge refuels with bagels, bananas and boiled potatoes with salt.
“Jack is completely lowtech,” says Glandfield Smith. “It i s one of things that makes him so endearing.”
Judge’s chief concession to modern running practice was asking Derrick Spafford, an elite Canadian ultra-marathoner, coach and a Haliburton ultra- winner, for help a few years back. Judge had relied on a marathon-training manual from 1984 for guidance before Spafford agreed to take him on pro bono.
“I wouldn’t describe Jack’s stride as being particularly graceful, but he is very determined and runs with a purpose,” Spafford says. “Jack’s game plan on race day is all about moving forward and limiting time spent at aid stations.”
Judge still views himself as a newbie to the ultrarunning scene, more so than some weary, luckless veteran. When he ran his first marathon in 1981, he says, he didn’t even have a water bottle. Now he has a coach.
But has he learned enough to conquer Haliburton?
The legend isn’t so sure. But he will say this: “I’ ll be doing this race until I die.”