Why Would Anyone CHOOSE to Run 100 Miles with Sand In Their Eyeballs?

2017-06-19 2 Replies

Short answer is, well, no one. Not on purpose. But there WAS sand in my eyeballs and I dealt with it and I continued. That’s what running an ultra is often about. Certainly, that’s what the 2017 San Diego 100 was about.

Two things happened in early June. I finished my 9th 100 mile race, and I was infected with Taylor Swift. The latter is a highly-contagious condition, passed through the air in the form of sound waves, affecting those most susceptible: the nervous and tired. And try as you might, it is incredibly difficult to Shake It Off.

It started somewhere in the parking lot in the cool dawn hours before San Diego 100. I heard the chorus of Shake It Off, a song I didn’t previously know that well but now is intimately familiar. Chirping along at 160 beats per minute, nearly the perfect tempo for a jog on the trails (though too low by most exercise physiology standards), and damn if some of the lyrics aren’t good for an ultramarathon kind of mindset. You can’t blame me, can you?

“. . . I keep cruising . . . Can’t stop, won’t stop moving”

But first, how did I get here, to this hamlet of a resort a few hours south of my current home, on this sunny weekend in June? Of course, it started with a little website called Ultrasignup and a credit card. San Diego 100 joined my 2017 race list in January, thanks to a tip-off from a few friends that this historically hot race was actually pretty darn fun and scenic, to boot. This meant I’d be able to focus all of my spring training on bulking up miles and doing heat acclimation, the latter a task I actually rather enjoy. Cycling through the recently-typical but still frustrating loop of train/injury/train/injury, I cancelled a 50K, skipped a long-awaited 110K, and finally toed the line for Leona Divide 50 in April, dropping down to 50K when it was evident that even 50 miles was too much, too soon.

All of these race cancellations and punts put doubts in my mind and a little nagging voice in my head that said, “whoa, there, cowboy”. Who wants long-term injury woes when the evidence points to just taking some REAL healing and rebuilding time? No one . . . except many of we ultrarunners when it comes down to it. You know you shouldn’t eat that extra snack if you’re trying to lose weight, but holy crap is it hard to soldier on when treats are all around us. To ultrarunners, that snack buffet is the massive list of races just waiting for your credit card and itchy typing fingers.

My coach bounced (literally, knowing him) between unbridled enthusiasm/support and cautious warnings to back the heck down. That 110K (Coyote Backbone)? Definitely cancelled. Leona Divide? Not advised, but worked out pretty OK. Jemez 50K in late May, bumped up from the 15 miler? Tentatively accepted. Even the whole shebang of getting to the start line of San Diego? Not adviseable with the extent of my recurring pain patterns. But then again, I’d found from my PT that much of my discomfort was NOT in fact a hamstring injury but rather some extensive referred nerve pain. I didn’t know whether to be estatic or freaked. Nerve issues can be long-lived, but then again so can hamstring complaints. At least I didn’t feel like I was going to be actively risking a muscle tear. THAT made me feel way, way better. Armed with exercises to retrain movement patterns and relieve that nerve, I (ill-advisedly?) decided that running with and through my rehab was an OK proposition.

At Jemez 50K, sailing.

And so, despite any sensible long-range recovery plans, my need to run San Diego persisted and I followed it right to that starting line at 6 a.m. on June 9th. We set out slowly down singletrack. Actually really slowly, like walking a lot of the first mile, chuckling as we came crashing to a single-file halt from each brief jog. It was necessary through the swampy meadow, the path set through the grass and cold misty air. That cold was almost painful now but we knew we’d love to have it in about 8 hours.

A bit about San Diego 100’s weather: this is known as a hot, hot race. Want to run ‘downhill’ in the heat? You do Western. Want to run in the mountains in the heat? You do Angeles Crest. But in the last decade, the appeal of running moderately tough trails in the heat has brought a lot of talent to San Diego, making it well known as a sleeper tough 100. I prepped for heat for months; it’s what any pragmatic runner should do. Actually, I’d make a case for doing heat training in late spring to ALL ultrarunners, just because it better prepares you for any heat you encounter, and makes you a more efficient sweating machine in all temperatures, too.

All that in mind, I had no fear about heat. I knew to drink more than I want to (already being one of those low-drinker types), and to just not push the effort level under the mid-day sun. We ambled along out of the meadow and up a good fire road climb with ample rocks. I chugged along and said hi to a few known faces (hi, Summer! hi, Robert!) until we crested the climb and started down a fairly nasty Zane Grey-ish trail. The moniker of “sneaky hard” 100 owes some of its reason to ample sections with bad footing. If some runners find their weakness in long or steep climbs, I find it in technical terrain. I can grind out the worst longest steepest uphills and leave some folks in the dust, but throw me on a flat trail strewn with rocks and everything balances out. That’s a long way of saying that quite a few people passed me here, and that it’s not a concern. Some of them I’ll pick off on climbs later, some of them I’ll pick off in the last 30 miles, and some of them I’ll never see again. I’ll run my race and try to have a good day while finishing strong.

As the sun inched upward, any full blast of rays was just a teaser for how quickly the thinner air at a mile high can transfer heat to our skin. A dry breeze came and went, along with preemptive advice from early aid station volunteers to “drink up, drink a lot—that wind will dry you right out!” We passed through mile 8 aid, mile 12 on a friendly little out and back where I spotted more friends like Constance Wannamaker and Amy Chavez, two ladies I knew would do well and I’d likely not pass them later on unless they bonked hard *and* I had a phenomenal race. (They didn’t, and I didn’t.) Onward to the first major stop with drop bags and crew at mile 21. This would be mile 91 on the way back, and boy did that ever feel like a LONG way away at 11 a.m. with the temperatures rising. My crew and able photographer Geoff Cordner refilled bottles, fetched snacks, and sent me on my way to the next stop at 28. I made a note to really try to get through aid stations quickly as they can be quite a time-sink.

andrea coming into mile 21 san diego 100

Mile 21, stripping down to refill.

“…I’m dancing on my own; make the moves up as I go…”

Today—like usual—there is nervous and friendly chatter in the early miles, but my threshold for engaging in conversation varies widely. Some moments I’m the chatty one, other times I just grunt when someone is more chipper than I have bandwidth for. Today I wanted to say hi to a few known friends, and have a few quick meet & greets with new faces. After that, I’m usually good for the next 24+ hours of near solitude. Running solo is my preferred way to train, giving my brain the space to just wander. Oh, and music? Not my gig, either.

I talked a little with a guy from Ventura named Mallory nicknamed Mooey (Mooie?) (http://www.ultralive.net/sd100#tracking/runner/107) wearing RaceReady shorts. I complimented him on his old-school style, but he’d just bought them recently on a running store recommendation. That company was pretty much the only game in pocketed-shorts-town back in 1999-ish (check out this chafing discussion in 2001 and this gear summary from 2002). These days, I’m more of a better-than-naked fan, but hey, those mesh-pocketed pioneers carried my gels through a few ultras back in the day. Glad to hear the company is actually still around.

As the heat rose, I felt pretty good, all things considered. I was taking it at a medium-effort, staying near many of the same faces at least for now. Miles 30-45 can be the crux of this race: hot, with a pavement section that can destroy some knees, followed by an uphill trail slog with the sun directly on you as you clamber over technical terrain. This is Noble Canyon. It is 3pm and yes, it is toasty. But actually, it’s not *that* toasty. We are surely lucky, for now. Last year’s high was about 108. This year will barely crack the 90s.

Nothing beats desert clouds, really.

Since San Diego almost fables itself as a scorcher, I had a vision of Race Director Scotty Mills seeing the mild forecast and then placing an Amazon Prime order for hundreds of cordless hair dryers, one for every runner to make up for the missing heat. Ultimately, the race had one of its mildest years on record, but that doesn’t mean we had pleasant temperatures. And boy was that wind dry, sucking the moisture out like a straw. I still saw serious ashen faces at aid stations and saw one guy step off the trail to launch his lunch. In the end, the race probably went through hundreds of pounds of ice instead of thousands.

The weather bonus was yet to come: we were about to be delivered a very different “treat” out there after dark, out in the moonlight. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.

I chatted a bit with a guy from somewhere near Redlands about his first 100 miler (this one). He was a little worried about what would happen after 12 hours, as he’d never gone that far before. He worried about lack of sleep and hallucinations but at least I reassured him they’re not crazy or trippy like pink elephants and stuff. I hope. My experience has been more like this: hey, an SUV parked near the trail, nope, that’s a rock; whoa, a big tent next to the trail, nope, that’s a rock; why is there a house out here right on the trail? nope, that’s a big rock; are those folding chairs sitting next to the trail? nope, that’s a tree. And on, and on. Mundane but out of place things is my style of visual fuckery. I would have a much harder time with night running if my hallucinations were actually scary. Now let’s hope I didn’t jinx everything forever.

Speaking of night, here it comes. The day’s heat dissipating, I roll into the 48 mile aid station just after dark, more or less on schedule. I’m not as fast in the dark (who is, really?), so this next stretch might take a little extra effort to keep things moving. It’s 7 more miles before our big honkin’ out and back downhill to the turnaround point at mile 64. I know, 64 miles is the turnaround? Hang tight.

Here’s the general layout of the course: picture one long out and back with a little loop at the beginning and a bulge in the middle where the trail diverges. Like a snake with a huge head and a gopher in its belly, and we’re going to follow the outline of the snake body. We do the loop (8 miles), then go down the first stretch of trail for about 20 miles; we’ll come back on this later. Then the trail splits and we go one way for about 25 miles, then join the snake tail for a 14 mile out and back, then come back up a different and shorter split of the trail for 20 miles, then join up again for the last 9 miles. Confusing? Yeah, I get it. Take a peek at the map on my Strava file: https://www.strava.com/activities/1032406160/overview

“…I don’t miss a beat; I’m lightning on my feet…”

Remember how we we dodged a bullet with the “pretty warm” temperatures instead of “scorching hot”? Here’s where things got interesting. Just when the moon was rising full and buttery over the PCT on that 7 mile downhill, it came: 50mph sandblaster dermabrasion treatments. A moonlight spa right there on the PCT, yeah, that’s what it was. I bet some destination resorts charge for this kind of torture just to tighten up the pores, or something. What it did for us was tighten up our jackets, and made me wish I still had my sunglasses to protect my eyeballs from dust. I’d turn my light up full blast to make up for the glasses and just get on with it. One switchback with blinding gusts, kind of sort of running, then the next with a tailwind so strong it was chilly without gloves. Repeat . . . until you almost can’t take it anymore, and then it’s another half mile to the aid station. I saw Constance on this stretch, headed back uphill and chilled without a jacket due to a mixup with drop-bags. Boy did I wish I had gloves to give to her since she does NOT have fun when it’s cold.

Eventual winner Kris Brown’s race report summed it up well, “A beautiful and serene day turned into a chaotic and violent night, but by then I was engaged.” I was engaged, too. Focused on getting the heck down that trail so I could go back up and get OUT. So here’s the thing: I passed about 15 people on this stretch. That’s where I can do alright at these things: when the going gets obnoxious, I can soldier on better than most. When folks around me are having the shit annoyed out of them, I see that and I get just a little stronger, seeing their trepidation. A fondly remembered high school XC teammate used to make us both chant as we strode upward, “I love hills! I love hills!” Everyone else’s bummer was our chance. Thanks, Robin.

“…I stay out too late; got nothing in my brain…”

I leapfrogged at least a few down at the aid station, and then trudge/jogged back up the trail. I passed a few more here, and started getting into my later-race groove: count the people you pass, try not to let any/many pass back. Repeat until finish line. These solitary miles were what I came here for: all static in my brain slows, all planning and worrying and scheming dissipates. During ultras I don’t have big brainstorms and new ideas, but I don’t have much of anything else that clogs my neurons, either. I just GO. Sometimes that’s all I can think about and it is a relief to the psyche.

As the night got deeper and we left the climb for more mild trail, I tried to reel more folks in but it was getting harder with how spread out we were. So I just went down into my cave and just tried to move as efficiently as possible when your feet hurt, you ass hurts, your actual ass hurts, and you could do with a little nappy right about now. Coffee instead? Yes, indeed! Leaving the 3:30am aid station with a jolt was just what I needed to get on with getting to my pacer at mile 84.

Only 5 more miles to the next aid, my drop bag, new socks and shoes, and a place to ditch my lights as soon it will finally get a wee bit light. But first, more miles in the dark, more gusty winds and sand blasting, and a bit of a slowdown in my pace. This is one of my slowest sections, despite the coffee. Just before dawn is often sleepiest, tiredest, and so on. Most runners have pacers through here (though San Diego is set up *perfectly* for solo runners and awards them accordingly with a different buckle), but mine will join me for the last several hours. This is a choice I make often, to run without a pacer or with one only for a short key section, or only if they want to join me. Just another introvert thing, probably.

At mile 80 the aid station is here and the light is indeed coming, so I ditch the headlamp and handheld and sit down to swap out shoes, but realize with my feet already swollen my new pair are just not going to cut it. So, I wipe my feet down and change socks only, which feels at really good. It turns out (after later inspection) that one of my socks had worn a big hole right in the heel over those 80 sandy miles. That could have been just one more of the sources of foot discomfort. Ok, get the heck out of here; I’ve already blown at least 10 minutes doing this swap out.

Despite the dawn, the winds do not abate and in fact become a bit stronger on this stretch, nearly picking me up on a few switchbacks over this open terrain. It’s an incredibly scenic section but difficult to enjoy with sand in my eyes. I picked up a few things on the trail that must have been dropped or blown off their runners, to hand off at the next aid station. I wonder how many things were blown off that didn’t land on the trail but are far, far away…. I’m a little hungry but not feeling the food situation. This leaves me low, mentally. A little sad, a little melancholy.

Actually, repeat #3-#5 for hours as necessary.

Mile 84 arrives and with it another drop bag full of gels (VFUEL gets my vote for the last year+) and one more pack of chews for extra salt and, well, just something to chew on. I’d exhausted my ginger chews already. This aid station and last actually had salty rice balls so I ate ate least one of those on my way out. They are hard to chew and move, but seem to deliver good calories. Must experiment more with this, as I don’t eat enough in these races to, well, race.

My crew/pacer/cattle-prod Geoff and I set out, now making better time because I still think I can crack 30 if I don’t majorly mess up. Earlier one of the pie-in-sky goals was 27, but I knew that would be a stretch. So I marked out the splits for 28, 30, and “finish” to be prepared. Mostly I’d been hitting the 30 hour splits but was behind those by 30 minutes right now. It is hard to apply last year’s results to this year as the heat was awful then, but it’s all I had. I know I am relatively strong at the end compared to most folks, so I can usually beat late-race projections, so off we went.

I was in a mental low point a few spots here, needing to run, wanting to run, but not actually getting the mojo. I felt a bit queasy, even a little dizzy for a spell, but realized that was because my stomach was completely empty. So it wasn’t bad food nausea, but rather NO food. This is actually a common problem for me: I get behind on calories not for lack of appetite but just because I don’t accurately refeed at the level I require. Sometimes I think I eat enough by grazing at the aid station but usually it’s far from the target. This is still something I am working out in order to be able to RACE ultras rather than just complete them.

So we ran, sometimes slowly but what I could muster.

And I walked, sometimes crabby and morose.

I was told at one point that my pace was falling off and that almost made me burst into tears. Not at the concept of missing any time goal, but because I felt like I was being scolded. Low points in an ultra must be like being a toddler again. No cookie? Wahhhhh! This is what having everything magnified feels like. Honestly, the emotional ups and downs that we 100 mile runners feel should go a long way to helping dudes understand, just a little, what PMS is like, when these moods and emotions just seem to come out of nowhere. How ya like that now, boys? Super-fun, ain’t it? But the key in both situations is this: know that it is normal, and wait it out.

Math in my head showed me that going sub-30 was a sure thing, and now it was just a matter of by how far. So we ran. I passed a few more folks but everyone was moving pretty well so staying in front of them was work. That made me happy: I was surrounded by runners like me, strong at the end. One quick pitstop and I lost another place, but it was totally necessary. The end of Wasatch in 2014 was nearly catastrophic, so I hoped to not repeat that situation.

We rounded the lake, and saw a finishing chute, all uphill, and I had to run it. No walking at this point, no way. Not like my jog was anything resembling a kick, but walking across a finish line just doesn’t compute. And then, it was done.

Aftermath and notes for future injury assessments: my ass hurt in several ways, only one of which was a deep aching at the inside hamstring attachment (not the priformis, that one I know well). But with that pain now gone I am not worrying about it. Some outside knee pain, the same kind as over the last month. Receded after 10 miles never to return. Hip/groin flexor pain: a little and manageable. Painkillers: 6-ish ibuprofens, plus 10 of these buggers after learning about them on a physio podcast: Meriva Curcumin. Can’t hurt, and maybe they helped even more than I realized.

That song? Yeah, it was in my head throughout the race without me even knowing all the verses. It’s actually not a terrible little pop song. Now, of course, I know it well, and now I can infect you, bwahahaha: Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off.

The gear:

Salomon Sense Ultra 3 pack (a little too big even in size S, but otherwise very comfy)
Salomon old style soft flasks – the new ones with the firm bottom hurt my ribs.
Target C9 Champion shorts circa about 2011: the only shorts that NEVER chafe me; this black pair have been with me on at least 4x 100s start to finish.
VFUEL shirt: nothing special about the shirt, just what it represents as my first ever ambassadorship in ultrarunning. Curious about VFuel? Give it a go with 20% off: use the code ANDREA20%
Julbo photochromatic shades: darker in sun and lighter in shade. I could have used these overnight against that wind!
HOKA ONE ONE Speed Instinct shoes: just a tiny bit too “light” for a 100? But really nice wide toebox and good but not aggressive tread. A thin rock plate would make these perfect.
Smartwool socks: super comfy but prone to getting holes when abraded
The food:
VFuel: about 15 gels in all flavors, plus Ginger Twist drink taken double-strength. I might lobby VFuel for chews, too, with the same flavors as their drinks. Or, maybe… maple bacon WAFFLE! Waffles are huge right now. Hint, hint.
Waffles: 3 GU gluten-free waffles. I like these except that they are too sweet. A little more savory, guys?
Chews: Clif chews mostly in margarita flavor for the salt.
Aid station food: not a heck of a lot. 2 rice balls, a handful of m&ms, a few pieces of potato.
Total estimated calories: 2500-3000? Not terrible if I were a better fat burner. Not enough for a carb burner.

I almost feel bad that I wiped off my feet at mile 80, which ruined the awesomely black coating of grime on them for this post-mortem photo op. My leg “tights” are still pretty impressive, though.

Like my tights?

My Veins Are Blue, Impressive, And Not Girly

2017-04-01 3 Replies

Like Madonna (if the tabloids have managed to reveal truth), I have a body full of visible, proud veins. They’re impressive and decidedly not girlish. The backs of my calves have a few starting to poke out. My feet are a roadmap of blue pathways and beige flesh. My inner forearms, a streaky aqua. The backs of my hands, well, they’re the masterstroke: aggressive pale worms poke out under the thin skin like snakes in a sock.

When it comes to blood draws and plasma selling — pocket money in college — I’m a favorite patient for their needle. Blood draw folks LOVE me — sometimes a little too much. They would see the vein in my inner elbow and send over the noobs to practice on my willing tubes of fluid, only once ever to ill effect.

Blood plasma folks love this arm.

Accepting My Big Blue Roadmaps

It took a long time to like those veins, let alone appreciate them for what they do. It’s only recently that I’ve realized they are metaphors for much of my personality, in all its strengths and weaknesses.

For starters, I have low blood pressure, an inward mirror of my outward unflappability. Getting a rise out of me is nearly impossible, figuratively and literally. Sometimes I get dizzy standing up, as the blood struggles to get back up to my brain from my strong legs. In a similar way, my brain suffers a bit of existential pain when it realizes it’s along for some epic day (or days) my legs took us on out in the mountains. The low blood pressure directly contributes to the bulging calf veins: the blood *needs* pressure to get back up the body. If not enough pressure, too much blood pools down low and that stretches out the veins. Simple mechanical process, not a pretty aftermath. So, too, can my unflappability and slowness to action cause my whole life to “pool” in one spot, unable to progress onward and upward.

What makes the veins so visible? That’s a slightly different question. Perhaps my skin is thinner than average. In outward temperament I often look impenetrable, unperturbable, cold. But those veins stand out in the open, trusting, showing their hand without much apology.

Feminine Hands Contain No Veins

Then, there’s the prettiness or feminine aspect of having “man hands”. Since young I’ve always been not-quite-a-tomboy. Not wanting to be typical, I actually relished the descriptor of “weird!” as a kid. And yet still I wanted to be liked for my own strange brand of girl power. There’s vulnerability in showing off those strong veiny calves and downright masculine hands and saying, “THIS IS ME. I contain possibilities not yet fulfilled, potential still to be tapped out of this pulsing stuff of life.” Blood courses through me just like everyone else. The evidence of said blood is much more visible on my body through these bulging tubules of turquoise.

My veins are both me and represent me. They’re bold, unafraid, barely hidden, full of life . . . and sometimes prone to stagnation, weaker than they could be, and gender-inappropriate.

I think they’re pretty rad.

Well-veined hands typing at the computer

Man hands, typing this post.

[Also published on Medium as Man Hands, Girl Power]

Almost Too Wild & Tough: Three Dawns at Hardrock 100

2016-07-25 7 Replies

Q: What’s brown, long, and sticky?

A: First of all, where did your dirty mind just go because . . . EW! Secondly, the answer is a stick. A Stick.

These are the kinds of jokes that propel me along at mile 90-something of a 100 mile race. It’s not in the telling, actually, but in the run-up in the miles before: thinking about delivery, planning for when I am going to unleash my childish humor on my pacer, wondering if they will smirk or eye-roll or chortle at my selection of amusements. I thought about this one for nearly an hour before it tumbled out of my mouth in the darkness of the 2nd night here out on this course, 2016’s Hardrock Hundred, while we are both fighting fatigue and potential failure.

So it goes. I paid good money to be at Hardrock this year, to take time away from the day-gig, to hand over money to local businesses and boarding establishments, just so that I could be cold out in the mountains after dark, falling asleep on my feet. If the Stoics lived now, they would surely say, “first world problems.”

So, then, WHY?

Ultrarunning is something you could call selfish. But so, I’d argue, are a lot of things. Things that are hard and personal and that we crave acceptance for are also “selfish”. Things that we like to get recognition for from friends or loved ones or just our community at large. How much different is it to the greater social population when evaluating one person’s accomplishment over another’s? Let’s say you’ve always had a problem with getting through the written word ever since small, but you worked hard for weeks and finally finished Don Quixote? That’s an achievement to be sure. Maybe you spent some sleepless nights worrying about the fate of the characters; perhaps meals were skipped, meetings missed. You suffered to get that book done. But get it done you did. And now, you can deservedly receive some congratulations.

When I think about it, an ultramarathon might not be much different than the non-reader finishing a great novel, smiling in contentment at their book club’s congratulations. Or standing back and admiring the deck you just built with a circle of friends over for a BBQ. Or completing your first (or 10th) knitted sweater and showing it off to the needle club and your Facebook group of knitting maniacs.

Ultramarathons are something that I personally pay (not a tiny amount of) money to enter, spend considerable time researching and crafting training plans. Then I must travel and ultimately do some literal suffering to complete the task. Afterwards my gait is a little stiff, my immune system compromised, and my ankles have taken a trip to third-trimester pregnancy status. Even my skin is sunburnt in odd places like one little strip on the right arm and a band on each calf. But I’ve done something that required time and a bit of discomfort, even if that something has no meaning to everyone on the planet save for myself and other participants. Getting a high-five from a small crowd of them is pretty awesome.

To the world, an ultramarathon is at worst stupid and at best a personal victory that is still mostly inconsequential. But to another ultramarathon runner (or “novel reader”), it is really something.

The Janked Up Knee: 2016’s Hardrock Hundred Preamble

I janked up my knee at Fat Dog 120 last August. In the bad weather, the cold, and the petroleum-jelly clay-mud, my knee started doing strange things at mile 25: random shooting discomfort, instability, and, most disturbingly, outright collapse. Most of these symptoms I had had before, so I knew them well. But that was years ago. It was the sudden appearance that was troubling.

To make that long story tolerable, the knee worsened from run to jog to walk to hobble to DNF at mile 80. The 8 months of treatment afterwards (including a couple of unfortunate months of stalling) made me think that it might have been a good idea to DNF at mile 50 instead of 80, but in the moment it is really hard to know what’s going to happen in the aftermath…. whether that’s a long term injury or a finish (or both).

I don’t always camp, but when I do it’s at 10,800 feet.

After my name was drawn in the Hardrock lottery in December, it got real. I doubled down on actually rehabbing my knee (by then a hamstring/glute problem instead) and pondered the coming summer. By March I was doing some medium length runs. By April, days of 25-30 miles were doable, though still infrequent. By June I’d done a 70-mile 3-day weekend and things felt…. stable. This might actually work.

I never looked at my training mileage to compare it to previous years: it was less and I knew it. BUT, it was likely more than the first time I finished back in 2004. Those days I ran weeks in the 30s with barely a double-weekend in there for fatigue training. And yet I finished, in a not-horrible time. Although, I was 30 and living at 7000′ elevation, both of which were factors. Now I’m 42 and this is a good thing in many regards. My legs have way more experience with 100s and mountainous trails in general. But, I live at 500 feet these days and have learned that with each passing year I both value and need my sleep hours. With the prospect of a 2nd night out at Hardrock, I was leery.

Heat training occupied my late spring, partly for the planned pacing stint at Western States, partly for the altitude-like EPO effects from increased blood plasma volume. A little bit of time training between 6000 and 10,000 feet helped, too, but nothing at all like actually living there. So I set off 10 days early for Silverton with my work projects in tow and began camping at 10,800′ to make some more red blood cells. Because this course averages above 11,000 feet. Yeah:

Hardrock’s Course Profile

My Secret Sauce for Finishing 100s With Gas Left

And then, quickly, race day Friday morning came and we started climbing and I was right back to how things were in 2004. Up to Putnam basin and ridge, slowly like always as I start races. Honestly, I know a lot of folks who find success at 100s by holding back in the beginning so that they have legs and stamina in the middle and final stretches. Previously at Hardrock and at other 100s, my 2nd halves have been barely slower than the 1st half of the race. What’s my secret? Honestly, I think I don’t have a top gear. No top gear means I can’t go out too hard. I just go at what my speed is, and I can do that speed, more or less, until I’m done. If that’s a secret, it’s not a sexy one.

The women of 2016, 16 of us, had decided that we are all going to finish and make history. The word is passed around the field: no woman drops. I like this pressure. Just a little bit of extra push to keep me going. Not that I planned to drop, but who does, really?

By KT (the first aid station), I was exactly on the same pace as 2004. This is neither a good nor bad sign – if much faster I might have been happy but worried. If much slower I would have *definitely* been worried. When chatting with another runner nearby we talk pace and I mention that I of course plan to finish but that 40-44 would be ideal. At this moment I have the thought of a finish right before the end, something like 47:59, and I shudder. That sounds really, really awful. Two full nights out? Dear gawd.

Then the hike up to Grant Swamp pass ensues and the marbles-on-hard-dirt descent. Along the way, Geoff is taking photos and the flies are biting. Luckily the latter isn’t going to last or else I might go out of my mind in the space of a few hours.

On the way to Grant Swamp Pass. Photo by Geoff Cordner

Like usual, I’m doing a combination of steady but measured uphills, jogging downhills not as fast as I’d like, passing on the ups, getting passed on the downs. Quite a few folks slip by me on the way down Grant Swamp, where I am as timid as a 90-year-old on crutches. Per Josh Gordon, “That was straight up hazardous!”

Over the next miles I meet a few friends that will spend some back and forth time with me over the next 40 hours: Tina Ure on the way to her 5th finish, Mark Heaphy of a bazillion finishes already, John Horns, Ellen Silva of Santa Fe, Ken Ward, and more. Not all will finish, sadly. But many will do fine. They always do.

Not eating enough: an ultra-only problem

I struggled mightily on a few of the ups, more so than my usual. Enough that it was clear things were awry. Calorie intake in 100s is typically a problem for me, but I don’t always notice it with the ease of other runners who crash on the side of the trail for lack of blood sugar. I’ve seen spectacular bonks in my friends that let them know loud and clear they need more food. With me, however, I just gradually slow down and feel sluggish. Cueing into that should be a key to better race performances, and then not eating the point of gut upset, also a common problem in races. Basically I don’t eat enough, I slow down, I feel slow, I get actually hungry but then I get nauseous because my stomach is empty. It’s a circle.

The slog up Oscar’s at mile 20 was fine. I passed a few folks. After Telluride, however, the climb to Virginius Pass and Kroger’s Canteen was painfully slow and, disturbingly, a little wheezy. But then that climb was over (sketchy final bit done, sketchy snow slide done, sketchy rock/snow slide done, whew) and I was running down the road to Governor’s Basin, and then, Ouray. In the darkness I ran what I could, hoping it was not too early to be doing that. But I made a food mistake while sitting in the warmth of Ouray. Leaving Ouray with eggs in my belly was the wrong approach. Hashbrowns would have been smarter: carbs and a little bit of fat/protein, rather than a boatload of both and no sugar.

Once on the Bear Creek Trail I wanted to stop about every 5 minutes, so I did, breathing hard and then slower and then slower. This is not like me. I typically just grind, grind, grind, passing folks who are stopped for a breather. Now I was the breather girl and folks were passing me. It was embarrassing. Finally Engineer Aid arrived and I realized I need more starch. Potatoes, yes. GU, yes, but yuck. Coke, yes.

Not surprisingly, the rest of the climb to the pass was far better, and the run down into Grouse almost tolerable. Despite being almost an hour behind “schedule”, I felt a bit better and ready to pick up Brenden, my pacer. We warmed up in the tent, pounded down a small amount of food, and set off again into the dawn light. Again I wanted to know if all the women were still in it. You know, just in case I thought I might need to drop and didn’t want to let everyone down. No one had. Off we go. I made it to the Grouse-American pass without too many pauses for recombobulation.

Handies, too, was OK. Slow as I anticipated but not awful. My lungs still felt weird. Not fully “full”. But I was still moving OK, I think. I worried about the descent on the other side, loose and scrappy as it is. But it was far more tolerable than Virginius and that was a relief. We did what I figured was some jogging on the way down to Burrows for more calories. Coffee with hot chocolate? YES. Fried rice (hello, wonderful folks of Burrows!!)? Oh, heck yeah.

For the entire run I took in gels but not enough. They started tasting not so great after only a third of the race, and later on the second day I had to eat each one in 3 stages rather than just knocking each one back in a go. Stay down and digest, digest you little calories! At least they all stayed down. Whew.

The heat on the way to Sherman was noticeable, tolerable. I thanked my hot spring yet again. Then I waited to get to Sherman to ask if any women had dropped. Nope, not yet. Good for all of us! Yet my mind still said, this sucks and maybe you might have to drop, just don’t be the first or only woman. Up the nearly 10 miles to Pole Creek and I saw the aid station in the distance no less than twice before it actually was there in my vision like a mirage. The first time I spotted white and I swore we were almost there. I bet Brenden that the white tent we saw was it.

I lost.

The real Pole Creek consisted of a good literal pit stop, some food, and then we were setting off for Maggie, 4.3 miles that passes like about 43. You’re not yet at that barndoor stage of the race, not with this many miles to go. It’s afternoon and I am falling asleep on my feet, 36 hours into the race. I mention to Brenden that we have at most 12 more hours to get through, which doesn’t at all sound like my idea of a fun weekend.

Nap Time

Suddenly, I wanted to take a nap. The desire was so pervasive and NOW that I think it sounds like an OK tradeoff to just lie down, doze off, and let the race clock run out. This is new. Let’s talk about the past and being 30 and 31, when I first finished this race. How mountain adventures are pretty, well, adventurous. Scree slopes with crazy angles and trails cut into them for a band of runners to traipse over? Awesome. Nighttime storms? Bring it on. Two nights without sleep? Nothing but a few hallucinations and a little surreality.

Oh, but now this body is 42. Sleep is suddenly something of importance for regular functioning. All of those Hardrock “old timers” in their 50s and up who do go the 48 hours without sleep? At this point they are gods. Youthful sleeping habits are surely wasted on the young and the ability to keep standing and moving forward on singletrack trail for two days straight is all of a sudden a fantasy nearly untouchable.

Sleep right at that moment, mid-afternoon on the second day, sounds awesome. So I tell Brenden, “10 minutes. Now.” and set my pack down as a pillow in the low sunlight. For about 3 minutes I am disappointed when sleep does not immediately take over. Then I decide to just get up and keep going and Brenden says, “that was 8”. So I guess there was a little shut-eye, despite my worry. But does it help? Not a lot, and I trudge up the hill.

Into the sunset goes the sleepy runner. Photo by Brenden Goetz

I went deep into my head here. I realized that a lot of what I was feeling is what I was supposed to be feeling, and what I expected to feel. Including the desire to stop. But that didn’t remove any of the feelings or desires, unfortunately. Still, my brain plotted how to be OK with DNFing, even after the last 36 hours of work and toil, and the 36 weeks before that of training, planning, and hoping.

Deciding to DNF

When did I decide that it was going to be the end of my race? I’m not actually sure. I knew that my lungs felt off and not quite up to par. I knew that my legs felt totally fine. But I worried about my speed. Maybe I was just monitoring everything from miles 40 onward, that awful climb up out of Ouray, watching the clock, worrying. By mile 80 I was definitely concerned. And so I gave myself a good talking to, in which I made the very sane assessment that dropping is OK, if that is what needs to happen, if I have junk in my lungs and I cannot climb. I cried just a little at this realization, because I do want to finish. Maybe that’s a good sign, if the pending DNF gets me all sad. Or maybe it’s just a sad thing and not a sign. I think about the races I’ll have to do to re-qualify for this and for Western, the fall training. All of it occupies me for the better part of 5 hours. It seemed perfectly logical. Dropping seemed like all I could do. How could I finish? I could not. Therefore, I should stop. It seemed simple, even if it was difficult to admit.

And then we hit Maggie, finally. Everyone there is happy and that is awesome. Kristina Irvin is here and I ask her how she deals with being sleepy. She says, “sometimes I wake up in the bushes.” Har, and hmm. Not what I was hoping for. Otherwise, I like this aid station because I feel like the climb out of it is not so bad. But I do always forget the climb is two-fold. The first one is OK. The second one is gnarly. I take it slow and feel the lungs doing their icky thing again. I wonder if I am imagining it. Imagining what pulmonary edema feels like without really knowing. Maybe I’m not so bad off. But then I get sad again.

Green Mountain descent right, Divies ascent left, Cunningham center. Photo by Geoff Cordner

For the record, the final descent from Green Mountain is FAR FAR FAR better in the light. Remember that. In the darkness I am reduced to scared tip-toeing down the sliding trail using my poles as legs and generally freaking out nonstop for an hour. In that mess we pass by a huge herd of sheep, bleating in the dark, the yips of their dogs measured and urgent. I thought to turn off our lights and just LOOK through the moonlight to see them, but somehow I never said anything or did it. I regret that. And then I start sliding down the hill again. It ain’t pretty.

Brenden knows what has been going on with me wanting to drop. He is a little resigned about it, too. In retrospect that’s not a great sign, but he doesn’t know me. What is he supposed to do? He is supportive but nudging without being a commander. For the most part, that’s been working. We keep going down, then I get my second dose of brisket for the race. Within a half mile of Cunningham there is someone posted as a trail guardian who warns us about the next stretch and asks how I’m doing. I say that my lungs feel junky and he says that I have “Brisket” and should get down ASAP. Yep, I’m on it, dude.

At the bottom of the trail into Cunningham stood 6 people, silent, with their lights off. It was eerie and a bit somber. Like they were watching our horrible progress and just waiting to see what terrible shape we must be in, what help we might need, what medical attention was required. But all I wanted was someone to listen to my lungs. I plopped down on the chair in the tent and was promptly swaddled in massive blankets, Jabba the Hut style. Two separate med folks listened to my lungs and proclaimed me clean.

Wait, what?

Now that that was resolved and there were 5 and 3/4 hours left on the clock, Cunningham was all business. My friends from Albuquerque set out on their task of getting me out of the aid station and headed up that last crazy mofo climb. But. But… I was done. Quit? Why in the hell would I do that? I had plenty of time (and in fact one of them actually asked me, did I want to take a nap!?) and my lungs were perfect: what’s the problem here? The problem was this: nothing but a whiny ultrarunner who thinks that they can just stop when they want to.

I was to be ferreted out of the tent and back on to the course without even a peep of recognition that here was the place that I was going to drop. Those sentiments were just not heard. When it seemed true that I *was* continuing, I still could not wrap my head around it. I even said out loud, “I just talked myself into being OK with dropping fro the last 4 hours!” To flip that around was excruciating. But according to the folks in that tent, nope, not gonna happen at this aid station. We’re mile 91 and everyone leaves here with a solid chance to kiss that rock. So shove food in my maw they did. Change my socks they did. Instruct me on how to cross the river in backup shoes so that I could put dry shoes on after I crossed and then throw the wet ones over to them. Dang, those guys were genius.

So I guess I’m going…? This is happening. We left at 12:45, a full 4 hours after I left in 2004. I have 5:15 to finish, and I know I’ve done it in 4:50 but that year I felt pretty good. This time, what’s going to happen? I’m going to bust out the poop jokes, that’s what. Brenden brings out his knock-knock joke:

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Britney Spears.

Britney Spears who?

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Britney Spears.

Britney Spears who?

Ooops, I did it again.

And we carry on up the hill. That awesomely steep climb I did 4 times in the last 10 days as part of my testing and training. We get up it in 2 hours, the same as in 2004. I am massively relieved, because I know the downhill is ugly. And scary. Some of the singletrack high up has slide areas that make me almost whimper in fear. I make Brenden watch me just in case he needs to stick an arm out. I make it across them all, shaky.

I go back into my head on this downhill, where I ran with my brother 12 years ago. I think about what is happening. What my body and brain have been doing to me. Where does the physiological meet the psychological? In the realm of the psychosomatic, that’s where. In an ultra it explains everything perfectly. Why the lungs didn’t seem to be at full capacity, but there was nothing actually wrong with them when listened under stethoscope. Why the stomach rebelled at the idea of food but then usually would digest what was eaten. Why the arms became sore, why the achilles tightened and moaned, why the ass chafed: because they are SUPPOSED to in a race like this. It’s expected.

In the pre-dawn tinge, Brenden and I still didn’t know how far to the finish. I told him about 2 miles. He says, “it’s 5:15 and I’m worried. Do you think you have another gear?” So I run. Or it feels like running but I’m quite sure it is a 14 minute per mile gimp-jog. The light begins to appear. We bust out above town, bumping down the hill to the ski hut and I see Geoff waiting. We jog. Another runner is coming behind us. I hope it is the doubler guy (Alan Smith), but it is an unexpected treat: Kris Kern, friend and president of Hardrock’s board of directors. He’s had a rough 2 days, too.

We run the last few blocks together before he lets me go ahead—after I tell him he is welcome to the caboose award train tickets with a grin. Knowing we’ll be the last few finishers is dawning on me. The dawn, too: that’s dawning on me. Boy, my brain is fried.

Before this weekend began, before the unraveling mental state, there was that baseline expectation: a finish. It comes.

A hat-head hanging heavy. Photo by Geoff Cordner.

So That Happened.

And, the surreality. 16 hours after finishing my third Hardrock 100 I have had two “sleeps”, two meals, and one awards ceremony and none of it seems like it actually happened. I’d been planning on Hardrock for a long time, through injury and training and thoughts of a decent time despite any setbacks. And yet, here it had JUST HAPPENED but you could have told me that that was just a dream and Hardrock was still weeks away and I would have accepted that. The brain is a strange animal, in coexistence with my animalish body. And I love that.

Going back to my real life is too fast, even now, a week later. I want a slower on-ramp. I want an easier chute into the hubbub and meetings and deadlines and expectations. Again, to hear the Stoics in my head is therapeutic:

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” – Marcus Aurelius

The postscript and material stuff details:

Gear: Ultimate Direction AK pack circa 2011 or so. Altra Lone Peak 3.0 for first 40 miles, then Hoka One One Speedgoat. Both had excellent traction and crappy water drainage. Tech t-shirts, arm sleeves, Target running shorts that have finished at least 3 100 mile races so far. Switched into Pearl Izumi 3/4 tights in the first night for extra hamstring support. Black Diamond Polar Icon headlamp, Fenix E25 handheld. Black Diamond Z poles. Tailwind drink, GU gels, various real food.

Total eaten during the 48 hour stint: 12+/- gels, 1 cup instant potatoes, 2 cups coffee, 2 cups hot chocolate, 1 cup hash browns, 1 cup soup, 1 cup instant mashed potatoes, 1 handful M&Ms. 1 bite of brisket that stuck to the roof of my mouth for 10 miles. So…. not a lot. Oh, and 2 scrambled eggs which, as mentioned, were a lead balloon in the gut.

**Brenden was a 4-star Yelp review kind of pacer. He packed everything he would need in this tiny little vest, from pants to jacket to foods to extra lights. Why not 5 star? Only one niggling little thing; nothing I fault him for. He took a quiet wait-and-see approach to my idea that my lungs were janked up and I would not be able to finish. It ultimately worked out fine. Next time he paces me I’ll ask for a little more dictator kind of handling if needed. Thank you, Brenden, for the company and the pushes when we were on our way in!

The packed-up gear pile ready to go home.

Just. Like. That.

2016-04-06 1 Reply

I was flying over the petroglyphs, the winding river, pointed at the mountains through the clear clear air. I hadn’t seen it all in about 10 months and that was shocking to contemplate. Bewildering, almost.

In those 10 months I’d spent inordinate amounts of time training, running, and working, and working, and working more. And it had evaporated like time does. Just like that.

But seeing Albuquerque again after so abruptly departing 16 months ago was unexpectedly emotional, too. It heightened the sense of how quickly things can turn on a dime if you let them or want them or make them. After 17 years in one place, I changed tracks on the high-speed railway. Just like that.

These days I am externally a rather different person in my choice of employment, day to day associates, and home than I was 2 years ago. Little changes inside, of course. That’s why you can hop tracks but you’re still your own make and model of train.

Learning Los Angeles Ain’t Easy; And It Is

2016-02-13 Leave a reply

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“Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles” -Frank Lloyd Wright

It took only a few weeks for me to feel at least adequately comfortable in my newly adopted city of pale angels. The streets and shops and feel of Highland Park seemed a little too easy, like putting on a sweater when the air takes on a chill, as it seems to do most winter mornings in this part of the world. I claim the chill comes from the humidity, having grown accustomed to the near single-digit percentages of the New Mexican high desert. But try telling someone in Southern California the air feels humid and you’ll not get much in the way of sympathy.

The metro sounds were somewhere between comforting and loud when heard from the window a few blocks away. The barely-hipster coffee shop next to the nail salon next to the definitely-hipster yoga joint all seemed to exist in weird harmony. The fire truck being washed on a sunny weekday. The flocked trees lined up for sale before the holidays in 70 degree weather. All of these things were lovely to me. I made a photo spread of these early days into a calendar gifted to friends and family.

It seemed likely that the homeyness would continue to grow and new aspects of this area an the larger metro would become second nature. But, thirteen months in, it feels the same as it did after just a month. There’s that early familiarity and a sense of acceptance, but the feeling of understanding this megalopolis hasn’t budged in many months. Using smartphone directions probably doesn’t help much. I need to get lost a little bit more and trust that I’ll come out the other side, back in the neighborhood I expect.

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The second honeymoon with L.A. started with Derek Sivers—one of my new favorite introverted humans—and his insightful take on Los Angeles, which helped me get past that feeling like I didn’t get this city. What does it take to know this place, this crazy city of 20 million humans, really? More, and less, than you might think. Here’s a few things I’ve learned: going from newbie to seasoned resident in Los Angeles is a tricky affair. Perhaps only those that were born and raised here feel the city as rusty and comfortable as an old jalopy, one that will take them where they need to go, slowly, surely, sputteringly.

Newcomers like myself go through a few stages along the way. Some are pretty simple. First, the usual linguistic adjustments: mentions of highways become “the” as in, “the 5”, “the 101”. I hear that phase 2 is calling them by their actual names: “the Hollywood”, “the Santa Monica”, “the Golden State”, but I’m not there yet. Neighborhoods begin to get their due as the distinct entities they actually used to be, like Frogtown and Lincoln Heights and Atwater. All of these are but a few of the dozens of independent enclaves that were encircled decades ago under the city limits of Los Angeles. Derek speaks of this thusly,

Not long ago, it was just a bunch of small towns: Venice, Pasadena, Burbank, Encino, Beverly Hills – but then for tax reasons they drew a circle around about 30 small towns and decided to call it Los Angeles. So if you go just understanding it’s a bunch of adjacent towns, each quite different in character, and don’t go expecting a city, then it won’t be so frustrating. When someone says they hate LA, you have to ask, “Which neighborhood?” Because Santa Monica is not like Silverlake is not like Van Nuys is not like Hollywood, but they’re all inside that circle called LA. It’s completely de-centralized. (And “downtown” is just another neighborhood. Unlike most cities, it’s not the center of everything.)

And then there’s the adjustment to how things just are. The new normal, in other words. Hazy day? Eh, that’s normal. It’s the days of crystal clarity from La Canada all the way to downtown that are worth commenting about, or those that are totally brown and smoggy. Food trucks are not interesting in the way that Starbucks everywhere is not interesting. They’re just convenient, while still being pretty awesome. They’re just not “a thing”.

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Also gone from one’s conversations are mentions of “oh my gawd the traffic is awful”. The traffic is what it is and does what it does. What’s the most interesting thing about the famous Los Angeles traffic? It’s the fact that most locals don’t experience traffic to the degree that visitors do. Here’s why: Visit the city of angels and you’re likely driving a rental, or you are getting ferried around in your host’s vehicle. So you wake up in the morning and you say, “Hey, let’s go to the museum. Or how about the beach? The Getty?” So your hosts say, ‘OK, sure, you’re our guest’. Or you get in your rental and you just go. That’s not how a local would do it. That’s the equivalent of just going to a sit-down restaurant on Valentine’s Day and expecting to get a table. Or going to the post office at 4:45pm on a weekday. No, no, no. You have to plan. If you live here, eventually you know how to cope without spending much brain power on it. (It certainly doesn’t hurt that many locals are freelancers and have a little latitude about when—or if—they drive to work.)

Want to drive clear across town, to Santa Monica, to the beach, to Hollywood, to downtown, in the middle of the day or afternoon? Heck no. You take the metro (though sadly not many do, even now). Or you go early in the morning. Or you JUST DON’T GO. Guess how many times I have been around a local in the last year who has said, “hey, let’s go to the beach” and they just up and go? Never. They just don’t do it, and it never crosses their minds to even consider it.

Unless they have visitors. Then, they are usually polite about it, maybe even “showing off” the traffic situation in the hope that even more people won’t move to their chosen city and drive up the rents even more. But that could be me.

Who’s up for a trip to the beach? It’s Saturday afternoon: let’s go!

How To Let A Midlife Crisis Year Go By In Moments

2016-02-09 Leave a reply

When I was a bit younger I started to notice the sensation of time speeding up. This just wouldn’t do, no. I commented on it to a friend and they agreed, so we accosted the very next person we encountered on our run to ask them. The 50-ish woman obliged our off-the-cuff inquiry, “so, does time just keep getting faster?!” by answering immediately, “yes!”. We were disappointed but not at all surprised.

Cue a decade later and some major shifts in my situational and emotional trajectory. Or, as some regular folks like to call it, a “midlife crisis”.

In 2014, a small series of personal events set off a chain of reactions that far exceeded the initial tipping mechanisms. But like a convoluted domino setup, the chain reaction had been waiting, building. All of these things happened and all contributed: my cat companion died, I quit my job, I recovered from eating disorder after-effects, I started meditating, I turned 40. Still I knew there was more to change, one big thing. Whether or not it was the final thing I needed to regroup I did not know at the time. I only knew it was coming and it was finally time to do it. I ended a 15 year relationship and moved away from my home of 18 years.

For a few months after that galactic shift, I was still in shock, floundering around mentally. I embraced the new location, leaned into a new relationship, ran a LOT, and pondered. And then I started getting busy. I took on work that turned into more work and more work, finding myself with 60+ hour weeks by mid-summer that hasn’t let up since. Running flamed out after injury and has yet to come back.

But all of those things I want to do with my old life—reaching out, communicating, thanking, reconciling—those things were lost in the slipstream of work, work, work and trying to run again. It has been 14 months, just like that.

Time is doing that thing again; I don’t need anyone on the trail to tell me what’s what.

I don’t have answers as to how I can start that process again, connecting with lost stubs of friendships and withering roots to a locational past home. I hope to figure it out for I miss those old connections.

Recovering From Blog Loss in Two Easy Steps

2016-01-30 2 Replies

silverton-pano-pre-dawn-winter-md

Accept.
Create.

I let life get in the way of taking care of administrative tasks like renewing my domain host, and consequently lost 2 years’ worth of data. 240 blog posts in total, and their photos. Stuff about ultrarunning, philosophy, writing, and food. The things I love.

Now why would I lose those in this age of file storage and such? Surely I made backups. Well yes, I did. I’m not that out of touch. Thing is, I backed them up to the hosts’ servers. When my account was deleted, no more files. I only have an xml download of the posts’ metadata. No images, no content. Just tags and categories and titles. Even archive.org hadn’t trolled the site due to my robots.txt setting. Wow.

Having the titles is sadder than losing everything, because I can now see what was lost. I can remember the posts and think, yeah that was a good one. I didn’t write often so when I did write it was usually long and thought out.

So what’s the answer to all of this? Nothing, really. I’m already a fairly good Stoic so this is not difficult to accept, or at least to know that I will accept it quite soon. I’ve lost data before. It’s data. It’s 1s and 0s and words that ultimately was a personal blog read by almost no one.

That’s OK.

I’m the same person with the same capacity to create. And I will.

Post Ultramarathon Funk And How it Sucks Balls

2015-02-21 1 Reply

It is pretty well known that the more a person does ultramarathons or marathons, for the most part, the quicker one recovers. Recovery from one’s first 50 miler is nothing like the 10th or the 20th or even the 5th. The body figures out, bit by swollen bit, just what in the bloody hell was laid down upon its bones and joints and muscles and skin and how to look around and pick up the pieces. You’ve Humpty Dumpty’ed yourself over and over again and the king’s horses and the king’s men are getting quite good at this game.

However.

The rest of it, the head stuff, is weird and troubling and kind of common.

After an ultra, I have a day, maybe two days, of a kind of awesomeness. I’m tired. Blissed out. Exhausted. Content. And then, things happen in the brain and it all goes kaflooey. It doesn’t happen to everyone. A few studies have even “debunked” the whole idea of feeling like crud after endurance races. I’m not convinced by one study – maybe familiarity with a mood test taken daily for weeks on end makes you feel better about your life in general, who knows.

At any rate, a scholarly search on this phenomenon gives me some great stuff to work with like theories about amino acid depletion and such, but that doesn’t tell you the STORY. The story of feeling like a old bloated whale with arthritis who never lived up to Moby Dick’s expectations and is likely to end up as lamp oil ASAP. The story that digs into why it might happen, with a little science as background but a lot of first person experience to bring it together in the flesh. I’ll run through the stages, best as I have known them.

Stage One: Finish Day

So here we are. It’s that first day, the day of the finish. There’s a few hours of just shock. You walk around a little bit, making sure you’re warm and fed (if hungry, though that can take hours to come back normally, too) and not bleeding all over the place if you took a trail stumble or bashed up your feet. Mingled with that shock is some bliss, coming from endorphins and a general sense of accomplishment. People are probably telling you ‘great job’ and ‘nice to see you out there’ and stuff like that. What happens from here on out varies, depending on the length of the event and the time of day you finished. After a 100 I generally fall asleep mid-day, often during the awards ceremony. After a 50, it’s evening-ish already and all you need to do is try to eat something and get back to where you’re sleeping.

Stage Two: Sleeping

That night of sleep can vary as much as any night of sleep can. You could toss and turn in pain and get little rest at all, or you could sleep like a baby on benadryl with possible short interruptions for a muscle cramp here and there.

Stage Three: DOMS day(s)

The next stage is a lesser version of immediately after the event. You’re sore, a bit stiff, a bit hungry, and still basking in the congratulatory glow. Maybe you’re back at work with a tan and some trail wounds and someone there actually gives a shit about your weekend. But at this stage, the glow is fading. The muscles are beat all to hell and while they feel better by the hour, the real damage will take weeks to repair.

Stage Four: FML

Ok, so now you’re in the place we came here to talk about. Song lyrics appear in your head full of melancholy: My head is an animal. It’s empty in the valley of your heart. That kind of stuff. Your body is well on its way to repair, though it has a long way to go. You get out for a run, or two. It feels ok, or it doesn’t. Sleep is better. Legs aren’t as twitchy. But you, in your head? You feel like that event was a mirage. It barely happened, the pain was barely perceptible, the joy was fleeting, and it seems like you won’t feel that excited about something again for a long time, maybe ever. THAT’S IT. It’s a funk, or its depression, or its the suck, and you’re in it.

Why does it happen? Here’s a theory, cobbled together from research and experience (my own and others‘). Firstly, some people are more prone to this than others, and those people often seem to have general issues with “lower” moods throughout their life. They aren’t necessarily what you’d call full blown depressives, worthy of medication. I’m simply talking about us who get a little anxious, get a little nervous, get stomach pains, get a little obsessive. The sensitive people. It seems we get that post-event funk/blues/suck moreso than others.

So that’s the correlation, but the causation could be something more real and simple: amino acid deficiencies. See, brutal and prolonged exercise really hammers on a few key amino acids like choline, but depletes them all to some degree, including tryptophan, tyrosine, and phenylalanine. Those three are required to make your happy chemicals serotonin and epinephrine. So there’s one of the big theories. The combination of a person with melancholic tendencies coupled with a huge hit on key nutrients = FUNK. Serious funk.

Now what? Basically, wait it out. Feed the amino acid machine – eat great quality food: eggs, sustainable organic meats, cheese if you want, sardines. Get your levels back up to normal, the real food way.

And, don’t beat yourself up if you engage in guilty pleasures. I’m known to abuse a little of the chocolates during this time, and snack food in general. I just need to remember to eat good protein and sleep lots. And it will end. Really.

40 Is The New Something-Other-Than-40

2015-01-22 Leave a reply

It’s a great headline: “[insert sort-of old sounding age here] is the new [insert younger age here]!!!” It’s been used by marketing agencies, greeting card companies, and social media acolytes for many years. See what things look like when you just search Google:

There’s certainly the desire to embrace better health insights, younger fashions, and a little bit of silliness. Fashions tend to veer a little bit too young – I’m old enough to have grown up when what your mom wore in her daily life was NOTHING like what her teenage kids wore. Nothing. And both groups were pretty happy with that demarcation.

We also know a ton more about health than we used to, mostly by finally beginning to ignore a lot of the bullshit fed to us (sometimes literally) over the last few generations: that margarine was good, that cholesterol was bad, that low fat was good, that animal-anything was bad, that relaxing in front of the TV was good, that cleaning your own house was bad (or a waste of time), that gyms were good, that getting sunshine was bad . . . and on, and on. Health is finally beginning, just a little bit, to look more natural. Eat real food. Go outside. Don’t buy all the things. Sit quietly by yourself. Sleep in. We’re starting to get it, and it will only get better. I just hope it gets better before we go broke from healthcare.

Now, the silliness. I cannot tell you how many people in my own life that have stepped out of the woodwork (women, mostly) to reveal that they, like me, have gone through a major life and/or relationship shake-up at the age of 40 or so. Is it a midlife crisis? Is it reaching the end of childbearing years and realizing you’ve got a lot more to squeeze out of life than an 8-lb human through your vagina? I have no clue. Ok, I do, but that’s for another day. Starting “over” at 40 is refreshing even when it is scary. I (we) are still young. Maybe we spent the last decade kind of spinning our wheels psychologically. By cleaving off and pulling up the anchor it can feel like you’ve shed that previous chunk of years. At 40 a person can feel both young in body as well as empowered as all get out with a bunch of young adult wisdom acquired.

Which leads me to . . .

“40 is the new . . . ” works both ways.

Life – your life, everyone’s life – has been happening, even if certain aspects of it were stagnant. Now we have an alternate way of looking at things, something more like:

40 is the new 60!

40 is the new retirement! (If you were lucky and did something smart like Mr. Money Mustache)

40 is the new golden age!

Think of the possibilities when you combine a healthy corporeal space, an optimistic outlook, and the insights from a past that you’re sad to leave behind but couldn’t see it any other way forward. It’s gonna be awesome, this life, and it’s gonna be real interesting.

How to Write More: Insomnia and a (non) Tuesday Tribute

2015-01-14 Leave a reply

Image courtesy of Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig: https://flic.kr/p/aUMTi8

Tuesday Tribute: Insomnia, and Two Months of Life

Here’s a new Tuesday Tribute for y’all: Insomnia. How it can be a muse and a curse, rolled into one.

It’s common that people with problematic insomnia stress about the insomnia itself. Because my insomnia is typically sporadic and directly tied to psychological background noise, it’s less of a worry that “I’ll never sleep a full night again!” or “I could never survive the next few months/years like this!” Because I am a general worrier, I can see how that kind of insomnia about insomnia would be terrifying. For now, it’s a muse and I’m using it. Writing can flow with more guts and insight when in that 5 a.m. wired state, watching the slow glow of the pre-dawn sky, keyboard tap tap tapping away.

This is why I find myself up at 4 a.m. on a night that I really needed sleep, itching to ruminate and write and pay bills and get stuff “done”. Marking off the checklist for the next few days. Googling for things that stressed me out enough to wake me up. Writing a blog post, this one right here, posting it before too much editing will get in the way of the flow.

Image courtesy of Fairy Heart: https://flic.kr/p/a2pCgZ

I’m shocked to see that my last iteration of the Tuesday Tribute series was a whole two months ago. For that, I apologize. I’m personally both flummoxed and OK with how fast those two months have gone. Time in general speeds up as we age, most often it seems when we are trying to get things done or figure out our whole tangled lives or something profound in that regard.

And yes, I’ve been figuring out that tangled stuff for quite some time now, with the snowball finally rolling over me about two months ago, taking me along in its wake. Of course, it was a snowball of my own creation. I am the the one who makes snow. I am that thing that makes it possible to ski in New Mexico in November. I accept this, philosophically and metaphorically.

I like quietness. In my head, typically. I used to think I liked it in my heart, too. Not too many complications, not too many things external to me to rely on or need to worry about. It’s part of why I don’t have kids – I would probably make a good parent but dear GAWD the pressure and stress and all that would drive me to either really screw them up or just put myself into an early health decline from all the freakouts in my own head. If nothing else, I think to not screw up a child in my care I’d have to meditate about 2 hours a day. I wonder how many parents attempt to modulate their own stress directly in that manner – with mindfulness and calm – rather than just suffer and slog through it, sleepless and stressed.

The quietness in the heart? That’s something I question lately. Perhaps that’s a midlife crisis sort of thing – the slowly awakening realization, sometimes over years, that you just might want to crank up the volume knobs on one’s own experience – not just the good and the not-so-good but rather the extremes of AMAZING and (potentially) DEVASTATING. Or, perhaps the midlife crisis so enmeshed in our culture is not so much a volume adjustment as it is a swap out of the walkman constantly strapped to your head for a window-shattering car stereo you can ride off with into the sunset. Or some B.S. analogy like that. I apologize. Usually my analogies are way better.

So here’s my real Tuesday Tribute, posted on a Wednesday but thought up the night before: my own insomniac muse. May she continue to spur little writing jaunts, bursts of productivity, and displays of heart-on-sleeve that seem to only result in long-term good in my life. Cheers to the muse.

IFS with Andrea