I have been rolling my thoughts around in my head for a few weeks before trying to tackle this post. What can I say about a race that I placed 3rd in, but also missed my goal to qualify for the 100k team by SO much, it just made it feel like a miss, even though parts of me felt proud to have gotten to this race and finish in the first place.
I needed to put it into a different perspective, and looking at the race itself wasn’t allowing me to do that. So I googled myself in ultra-running magazine where they keep the overall fastest times of 2021. Scrolling down I saw my name at position 24 for overall women’s times at the 100k in 2021, ok….then I remembered, I’m a master now, 4th fastest master’s women 100k time for 2021. Reading those two pages helped bring things into perspective. First it was a long time goal to get onto the top 100 fastest race times that Ultrarunning Magazine publishes, and second to continue to be competitive in my 40s.
The USTAF 100k championship was so far out of my comfort zone for several reasons, first its all on road, second its 10 laps of the same 10k paved loop, third, no music or pretty scenery to distract myself from the monotony or pain, fourth it was extremely hot and dry and a bit smokey, fifth what if I actually succeeded? I am so comfortable being a ”semi elite” runner, what if I had to change my identity and actually succeed in something really hard?! Finally…the training…I sure mixed in plenty of trail running when I could, but the main focus had to be road running, and it was really lonely, who the heck wanted to run a 30 mile training run of 6 miles loops at a 7:30 pace around town in what often felt like 105 degree weather when you factored in the humid NC summer. Thankfully Drew was so supportive and slogged some miles, and biked others to dump water on my head so I wouldn’t overheat or get too bored in training.
In writing about the race, I found this quote that resonated; Success is found in the ability to hold on and let go; have a plan but be fine when things get messy; care but not worry; be confident but coachable; be results driven but process oriented; put your all into what you do but not be defined by it.
In order for me to process my race, I broke it down into those parts of ”success.”
Success is found in the ability to hold on and let go. I did a lot of that during training, I held onto goals, but also let go of expectations. During the race I held onto splits by way of how I felt, but let go when the extreme heat started to take its toll. Instead of pushing though aid stations, I did the smart thing and sacraficed some time by stopping for ice and to get doused in water valuing my body over splits.
Have a plan but be fine when things get messy. Several years ago this was one of the hardest things for me. Ultras will hit you with this over and over until you learn it. I can remember a certain race I ran several years ago, I was nervous because it was the first time traveling to a race out of state with my husband only..no friends to keep my type-A mind loose. At the pre race brief I had handed my pack to my husband so I could pee without it, and then I couldn’t find him with minutes to spare before the start; I panicked. I did finally find him but that feeling of panic colored my whole race, and I was a grump, It rained and was cold and I could not shake the negative feelings of panic. I finished the race, but both me and my husband were in quite a mood. Lesson learned! This race I had a plan; 2 gels an hour, some chews, a bottle of skratch each lap, fig newtons or pretzels. Inevitably the heat took a toll on my body, and my skratch bottles got warm and my stomach rejected those, it did however still allow the gels, so I adjusted and did 3 gels an hour to try to make up for the lack of chew and liquid calories. Looking back I should have also found more salt somewhere, but I was fine when things got messy, I embraced the pain of the constant pavement pounding my body isn’t quite used to anymore, and the intense dry heat of CA in a drought.
Care but not worry. This one could have saved me. Sometime around mile 40 my lower back started to hurt. What could that mean? Potentially Rhabdomyolysis? Could be the back pain, it was hot, I was doing more hard miles on road than I had ever before, I could be dehydrated..lets not panic, lets find a place to pee and then assess if I should adjust or stop completely. I found a port-o-john and peed on some toilet paper…darker than normal, but nothing alarming. Therefor I could care about my back but not worry; the pain is just from my gait getting tired and the hard surface. Carry on.
Be confident but coachable. I am definitely coachable, as for confident, I still have work to do here but I think it will be an ever ongoing journey and race results won’t actually help me truly have confidence. Pertaining to the race, I can only be as confident in my training, and I was mostly confident in it.
Be results driven but process oriented. I was really driven to finish in the 8:40 qualifying time, that comes out to an average pace of 8:23 min/mile. My training said totally do-able. I was regularly running 30 mile runs at a 7:50 pace, with less than half of the miles being ”race pace” feeling. The training process was going well, and I was both loving and hating it. Loving it because sometimes running fast and getting 30 miles done in 4 hours is really nice, hating it because, well the repetition and the solitude. Somewhere after about the 30 mile of the race, as the temperature warmed up and my back started to hurt, I was right on the line of 8:40, I had slowed to an 8:20 pace with stopping for ice, and I knew the stops would get longer so I could cool down more…
Put your all into what you do, but do not be defined by it. I think about this in many ways. I put my all, physically, into the first 35-40 miles, until the heat started. Even though I let myself slow down some, once I knew 8:40 was impossible with the conditions that day, I still put my all into it but my ”all” had changed. No longer was my goal to run a certain time, it had shifted to learning about running 100k on the roads, and being a good participant. I started focusing more on the spectators and volunteers at each aid station. I was already thanking them, but now I slowed down and chatted and joked with them. To be a whole person/participant in the ultrarunning community doesn’t just mean doing well at races, but also connecting with other runners and volunteers and showing appreciation. I could be upset about not making a time goal, I could drop out, or I could use the time to finish in a way that my soul would be proud of.
After 10 hours of running in circles, eating 300 cals of gel an hour, soaking myself with water, I was just happy to be done. An hour later I was thinking about all the things I had learned and what I could do better, a day later and I was pondering signing up for another.
As always, I cannot achieve these things alone. I want to thank my friends who are always there for me, as well as a really special thanks to Drew, my coach Meghan Canfield, and Danielle Snyder-who is helping me sort out my head.
Trail Wisp(erings) 