If You Do Nothing Else, Finish

I guess I should have known I would end up being a loopy runner from the beginning.  You know how, years later, you are able to look back at something and say, “Ah.  Yes.”  Well, that’s how it is for me now with my first 50 miler.  I should have known there would be many loops in my future.  But I didn’t.

From the moment I was smacked upside the head by the idea that I wanted to be an ultrarunner, I only envisioned myself running trails.  Long, glorious tree-lined trails.  Which is, frankly, very odd considering I live in the desert.  But you know how visions go: singing in the shower can magically transform you into making your Broadway debut in Rent.  There was no basis in reality for my belief that I would be a trail runner, but there was no basis in reality that someday I would run for twenty-four hours around a one mile loop.  What the hell did I know?  Nothing.

So, when it came time for me to pick my first ultra, I started looking at Colorado trail races (obviously – doesn’t the state claim to have invented trail running?) and then slowly dialed it back until I felt comfortable. Which means, I ended up picking a 24 hour looped race on a seven mile trail in Boulder.  Of course!

You see, my “square-thinking” brain was at war with my “adventure-woman” brain, just like it always had been.  I wanted adventure, but I wanted structure.  I wanted excitement, but I wanted control.  I wanted freedom, but I wanted safety.  I didn’t see it at the time, and wouldn’t for many years to come, but I wanted it all.  In every aspect of my life.  I just thought I had made a few wrong choices for my life, when in reality, I was trying to make every choice meet every desire. And they never would.  But I didn’t know that at the time.

So, I picked trails, but then made sure they were  “safe”.  I picked a distance – 50 miles – but then chose to do it in a 24 hour event so I could control my time.  I was trying to appease both sides of my personality, a war that I would wage within my noggin for many years to come, and not just in my running.

I’d always swung between lots of adventure and physical activity and complete stillness. Three hours of swim practice and then…nothing.  Reading on the couch for hours, or at least until I was called to the table for a meal.  I could spend all day creating some elaborate musical production with my friend, Marianne (our favorite was the Wizard of Oz) and then go home and take a two hour nap.  Just like my dad.  He’s a napper, so I blame him.  Move. Stop.  Move.  That’s how we like it.

But when I became a responsible adult, that is, I had little people relying on me not to burn the house down and to make sure they were fed, clothed and had appropriate mental stimulation so that they didn’t start school thinking that Barney the purple dinosaur was their father, I wasn’t sure exactly how to handle my high energy/complete calm personality. School had been fabulous – you go to class, you run, you study, you nap, you eat, you chat with friends.  The ebb and flow of the academic life matched my own personal rhythm perfectly.  But you can’t (or I couldn’t) stay in school forever, so when I graduated from law school, got married, had babies, decided I would become a crazy person if I didn’t have some sort of goal, and chose ultrarunning as that goal (see previous post), I had to commit to actually running an ultra.  Damn.  Put up or shut up, as they say, right?

And that’s how I found myself in Boulder, Colorado, standing in a parking lot of a state park, waiting for them to call us to the start of my first ultra. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing other than I had twenty-four hours to run 50 miles and not get eaten by a bear. Beyond that, I had no real plan.  I had a random sports drink that I’d read about on the Ultralist in my fuel belt that was an unfortunate red color and would eventually leak out all over my backside making it look like I was bleeding from my unmentionables.  I had Tim and the boys standing faithfully in the parking lot for the first and last loops, pretending that they thought this was fun, or at least not like the stupidest thing I’d ever come up with (Bravo, my men.  Bravo.).

But even though I was woefully unprepared, I had one thing that has been the only thing I’ve taken from that race and continued to use in my running to this day – an absolute stupid level of commitment to finish.  When I haven’t had it, when it has waned and convinced me it is irrelevant, I haven’t finished.  And I think that’s what it all comes down to.  With all of it. Running, parenting, a book, a math problem, Soduku.  You have to unwaveringly commit to finishing.  Even when it sucks.  Even when every self-help book out there tells you that you are “allowed to give yourself a break”, that quitting is a sign of maturity and growth.  Even when you have every reason to quit.

That day in Boulder, my first of many ultras, I didn’t know later in my running career I would struggle mightily with quitting.  I didn’t know I would train mile after mile only to hit sixteen hours in a race and decide “I just don’t want to do this anymore” even when I did.  I didn’t know I would have to come full circle and realize all the training miles I did would mean nothing if I wasn’t committed to finishing.  I only knew I was going to finish, one way or the other. And what I learned much later was that that was the most important part of any training I had done.