Morgan Henderson biked about 10 miles from his West Seattle home to Fonté Coffee in the Denny Triangle neighborhood to meet The Stranger. While that commute would tax most musicians, it didn't seem to faze him. It's merely a tiny fraction of the mileage that he's run in races such as the Cascade Crest 100 ultramarathon.

To put it lightly, musicians—especially those of Henderson's renown—are not famous for their love of pounding the pavement on foot for several hours. The Seattle multi-instrumentalist is part of a small crew of musicians who compete in long-distance running events. Morgan's buddy Ben Gibbard is probably the most notable among them, and, yes, Henderson's logged many miles with Death Cab for Cutie's frontman.

Given how in-demand this excellent and adaptable player is, it's amazing that Henderson, 46, has time to train for the Seattle Marathon and other much longer races. Aside from his main gig as MVP (Most Versatile Performer) for folk-rock phenoms the Fleet Foxes, Henderson has bolstered some of Seattle's most celebrated and unjustly obscure groups over the last 25-plus years. A partial list includes rustic indie-rockers the Cave Singers, post-punk savants Past Lives, Spencer Moody's weird new jam band, the Blind Seekers, and dual-sax experimenters the Ocean. He's also contributed to records by and performed with the Walkmen, Hamilton Leithauser, Russian Circles, the Dead Science, and J.R.C.G., among others. And, most newsworthy of all, he's returning to bass/keyboard duties for post-hardcore nerve-frayers the Blood Brothers' reunion tour, which will celebrate the 20th-anniversary reissue of Crimes throughout November and December. More on that later.

As a young man, Henderson preferred practicing his instruments—which include upright and electric bass, guitar, keyboards, violin, percussion, saxophone, flute, and clarinet—over running. Although he was a bike messenger in the early '00s and therefore fit, his initial foray into running went poorly. One day a friend who rode for Recycled Cycles's racing team told Henderson he was going to go for a run instead of a bike ride, and Morgan couldn't understand why. He thought running was terrible, even though many people said he looked like a runner.

Watching a documentary about the New York City Marathon in 2010 swayed Henderson to tentatively explore the sport. He recalls, "I tried to run on a Blood Brothers tour once and I probably had on Converse shoes and jeans, and I couldn't walk the rest of the day. I probably ran half a mile. I thought, 'I'm not meant to run. I'll probably never do that again.' Because it hurt."

How wrong he was. 

The mother of Henderson's wife, Jessica Tjalsma, knew someone who'd competed in a 135-mile race called Badwater in California's Death Valley. This ultramarathoner advised Henderson to obtain running shoes and seriously try running. He did so, just a mile a day for many months. Then one night he impulsively did three miles, shocking himself. "And that's how it started," he says. "What does running mean? It feels good, it hurts, it's a challenge. It'll feel terrible and then all of a sudden it feels incredibly easy and amazing, and you don't know why."

After a couple years of training, Henderson ran the Seattle Marathon—which has a 1,600-foot elevation—in 2012. His best time for that distance is a respectable three hours and 18 minutes. He's also run a 100k (62 miles) in Oregon, a 50k (31 miles) in Bellingham, and the aforementioned Eastern Washington 100-miler, Cascade Crest. His best time at the latter distance is 27 hours and change. 

Just being awake for 27 hours is a challenge. How does Henderson actually complete this race? Does he nap during it? "I don't sleep for it; some people do. There's a section of the race called No Name Ridge. It's a very long access road [that I usually encounter] right as the sun is coming up. You're coming out of that point of the night when you're very delirious, and you're starting to wake up because the sun's coming up. And I've seen people who are in the dirt, sleeping. And then they come hauling ass behind me later in the race. Maybe I should sleep, because this person's going to finish before me... Because I don't sleep, the hardest part about the recovery of those races is missing a whole night of sleep. That has me fairly messed up for a week afterward.

"Mainly, [ultramarathoning is] about maintaining your ability to drink and eat food, and you just keep going. Some people can run the whole thing. Some people hike up the steeper climbs and take breaks. For me, it's a mixture of running and hiking. Sometimes I'm hiking really fast and other times you're just down to a crawl."   

As a former marathoner myself, I find it odd that runners eat during races, but ultras are a much tougher endurance activity than your basic 26.2 miles. At last year's Cascade Crest, Henderson consumed Maurten Energy Gels, which "kind of taste like marshmallows, but they're very mild. I had some other stuff that was way too sweet and way too salty, and I really suffered. But at the end of the run, it's 100% water and Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola's recipe of sweet and salty—especially if it's flat—I can get that down, I don't get sick, and I keep going.   

"It's a weird thing to do. I really love long-distance running, but there's no part of me pretending that it's the healthy way to run."

Henderson described this year's Cascade Crest as personally disastrous. "I ended up getting heatstroke and had to bail out at 30 miles. Had I finished, it would have been my fifth finish there. You get a special belt buckle if you finish five times; I was really looking forward to that. I'm going to have to try again next year."

Henderson spent all of August recovering from that ordeal. He's begun training 50 to 70 miles a week for the Seattle Marathon in December. "I biked here because I'm still trying to make sure I can take the speed-work portion of marathon training." 

Maintaining a running schedule when touring often presents logistical problems—but also some fortuitous revelations. Henderson raves about an amazing stretch during a Fleet Foxes European jaunt for the Crack-Up album. "We were in Montreux for a couple of days and I ran up into the mountains there. I'd wake up early and I was energized by [the scenery]. It was so beautiful."

While in Montreux, the Foxes attended a session at the house once owned by the late founder of that Swiss city's jazz festival, Claude Nobs, where they had the rare chance to jam with the Roots. "And I had to pick between jamming with the Roots or running in the mountains. I love the Roots, but I gotta go into these mountains. [The Fleet Foxes] still have footage of them hanging out with the Roots, and I really missed out. One [reason], I had a race. Two, I just had to be in those mountains."  

There you have it: Morgan Henderson's priorities in a nutshell! He laughs and says, "I know! I just couldn't stay up that late if I was gonna wake up at 4:30 am or whatever to do a 20-mile run, recover, and play a show. In that mode, I basically have nothing to do all day." After a long morning run, he usually takes a nap in the afternoon before a show. "I wouldn't do [a long run] with the Blood Brothers, though. There's not a lot of headbanging going on in the Fleet Foxes." 

When I asked Henderson in a club a few weeks ago if he thought there's a symbiotic relationship between running and his music, he said he didn't think there was a connection. But now he admits "the process of practicing and working on music is the same as working on running. When I'm going on a workout run, I am practicing running. I practice my instruments every day, so there's the discipline it takes to get better at an instrument; to get better at running takes the same discipline. 

"As far as the creative side goes, running is not a place where I often get inspiration. It's more like I'm getting some space from the concentration of working on something. That being said, there are times when I'm stomping out, and all of a sudden, a rhythm or something is coming into my head, and I might pull out my phone and try to [document it] so I can make sense out of it later."

Unlike many people, Henderson doesn't listen to music while he runs. "I did initially, but the tempo of whatever I'm listening to is too distracting to run to. For [100-mile races], I've downloaded the same audiobook, Jon Ronson's Lost at Sea, for when I get bored or tired, and I have never listened to it."

Going back to his musical activities, it's clear that Henderson is as mobile in that realm as he is on roads and trails. While his first bands—Dempsey, Nineironspitfire, the Blood Brothers—trafficked in post-hardcore's broad-shouldered aggression, Henderson's newer projects (including soundtrack work) explore more nuanced territory. For example, the Blind Seekers, Spencer Moody's low-key deviation from Murder City Devils. Featuring Afrocop's Noel Brass Jr. and Andy Sells and Henderson's partner in the Ocean, Joel Cuplin, the debut LP, The Blind Seekers, deals in low-lit jazz rock over which the leader orates cryptic tales, like a hip priest. 

"I said yes, not really knowing what to expect. Nobody came in with anything prepared. We just kind of went for it. When I listen to tracks from that record, I still question, 'Was I there for that? I don't remember doing that.' [Cuplin and I] overdubbed some horns on it afterward. It was very groove-oriented and everyone went with their first instincts.

"It was maybe two days of recording, and I didn't think about it again. I barely thought about it while we were doing it. Here's a bass line, here's a groove, and we just went. Spencer's voice, the words he chooses to say, they have a way of contextualizing any music that's happening. It's an interesting record as a result. The label [Displaced Snail] does a particular lathe cut that makes it very noisy and textured, which adds a whole other dimension to it. 

"Spencer is such a unique person and artist. The way that I would've approached recording that album is not the way we did it. Everything was very loose and fit into Spencer's world."

Henderson entered the Ocean at Cuplin's request. The Constant Lovers saxophonist/guitarist convinced Rabbit Box Theatre owner Robynne Hawthorne to let him host an open-format music monthly—also called the Ocean—at the Pike Place Market space. They looped in former Dead Science drummer Nick Tamburro for frequent appearances and invited various guests, such as Pseudo Saint/Constant Lovers flautist Brenna Kamppi, to join each session for spontaneous, free-form concerts that result in illuminating surprises for both performers and audiences. [Full disclosure: I DJed at one of these events.] 

"It quickly became clear there was something there that I really wanted to explore, specifically with Joel and me. So, maybe we do two sets where the second set is [a collaboration], but the first is Joel and I trying to work out this thing that I have a hard time defining. It felt like I'm chasing an idea.    

"I'm trying very hard to arrive somewhere that where I'm not even sure where that is. [On September 8 at Vera Project, we opened] for Colin Stetson. We put a lot of effort into that show, trying to have material that is where we're trying to go. We played the show and immediately I was like, 'Okay, now I got it.' After every show I think that."

For the Ocean, Henderson uses an Octatrack MIDI controller that controls two synthesizers—a Moog Siren, which creates the bass sound, and a Nord Drum, "which fits between rhythm and tonic sounds." Cuplin deploys a looper and effects units, so his loops correlate to Henderson's actions.  

He views the Ocean as the truest expression of his musical abilities "because it demands a bit more of me. Because I'm trying to be present and make something happen in the moment, but also write things, as far as the electronics go, that set up a world in which to explore. Not unlike any jazz or improvisational music where they might have some structures that they built ahead of time—songs that they're going to play around in. It takes quite a bit to be in the moment, listening to what Nick and Joel are doing and try to make something happen in that moment."

Wow-wow, Henderson's cross-country duo with NYC-based Pollens member Jeff Aaron Bryant, might be the most interesting project in his discography. Their highly percussive, strangely textured instrumentals sound vaguely like ceremonial South Pacific Island excursions transplanted into an organic techno matrix. It's thousands of miles away from Fleet Foxes' wholesome folk hymns and proves that Henderson's creative impulses are getting more adventurous as he goes. It's no surprise that Justin Gallego of J.R.C.G. tapped wow-wow to open their recent album-release show at Clock-Out Lounge.

So, this autumn, as he trains for a marathon, Henderson will also be helping to resurrect the spasmodic, heavy rock of the Blood Brothers, who are coming off a decade-long hiatus. Anticipation for the band's return has been fervent, and they'll do two nights at the Showbox (November 14-15), although Henderson was too busy to dwell on the reunion's impact.

Have the group had to do a lot of rehearsing to relearn the songs? "We got together months ago, long before we confirmed that we were going to do the show, just to see what it felt like to play. I'm the only [member] who's still professionally a musician, so it's like getting up to speed for them. I'm not saying that critically; they just don't do it every day like [they used to].

"Despite me having bands before and after them, those guys are—no pun intended—like my brothers. It's a very familial relation between the five of us. The people are the same, the jokes are the same. We wrote those songs a long time ago in part to have fun and to flex our creative freedom, and it still feels that way.

"As far as learning them goes, for me at least, when you are part of the creative process of something, the logic is all still inside of me. It didn't take a ton of time for me to remember [the songs]. It was more about remembering the logic of what I was playing rather than certain parts.

"It's very heartening to see how excited people are. It feels like people are excited about loud and heavy music still. And that's encouraging to me, because growing up, that's the music I gravitated toward—things that were a bit outlandish."


See the Ocean with Chris Icasiano of Fleet Foxes and Pure Bathing Culture on Wednesday, October 9, at Rabbit Box Theatre, 7 pm, $16.69, all ages.