Three Sisters from Broken Hand (image: Kori Barnum)
It’s been a really, really odd summer. For all of us, I imagine. Dealing with my first persistent injury in 11 years, trying to train sensibly (keep moving, move enough, don’t move too much)…it’s been a challenge. The focus the last several weeks has been on getting healing time outside, hiking with some running when it felt good, working on my PT strength exercises.
Almost Heaven, Eastern Oregon (image: Kori Barnum)
Work has been really busy, demanding from both a time and an emotional standpoint. It has sometimes felt like another form of training, trying to work hard but also leave that energy at work so I can be fully at home, so that I can rest and heal and recover. Even with mindfulness training, this separation hasn’t always been successful and Dan has had to shoulder my fatigue and sadness. Combined with my jittery, anxious, not-very-patient handling of the inability to run long distances has not put me in the running for spouse of the year. Good thing that man is patient.
Another plan bites the dust Another plan bites the dust And another plan gone, and another plan gone Another plan bites the dust
image: bing.com
Well, 2020, aren’t you a shit-show of a year. Systemic racism, institutional injustice, global pandemic, record unemployment, fear and uncertainty pervading all levels of our lives…Every time I hear the word “unprecedented”, I kind of want to punch someone. Which I realize is a totally inappropriate response, but in my defense, that word is being bandied about A LOT.
My refuge has always been activity. Through physical movement I find peace and solutions, I think about how I can become a better person generally and how to address specific issues. I heal. And now, for the first time since 2009, I have an injury that has lasted longer than a few weeks and I’m freaking out. The oblique strain from April has morphed into all a revolt involving all of the muscles in my right hip, and I think they’ve managed to recruit my left knee into their sphere of bad influence. What. Is. Happening. I tried following my six stages of recovery: 1) denial, 2) rest, 3) denial, 4) proceed with original training plan, 5) lose all hope, and 6) admit I need help. I’m currently 80% at stage 6 with occasional remission to stages 1 and 3.
In what felt like the final nail in the coffin of my summer training dreams, the Chicago Marathon announced on my birthday that they are canceling this year. Although the cancellation was no surprise, was obviously the right thing, and was way overdue compared to that of other World Major Marathons, it felt a little personal. I’m working on finding joy in the glory of summer, the fact that I am still healthy and can still move and my chronic pain is so tiny and insignificant to what countless people live with every day. I’m approaching my first PT appointment in August with optimism and an open mind. I intend to be running ultras at a very advanced age, heckling the kids, and crushing my age group because I’m the only participant in my age group…so it’s time to put on my big-girl running shorts and do the work. Stay tuned.
06.15.20 – 06.21.20: T 8 miles speed, W 3.5 miles trail + Recharge strength, F/Sa backpack Middle Sister 11.5 miles, Su 13 mile treadmill long run. 36 total run miles
06.22.20 – 06.28.20: T 10 miles trail + Bend Rock Gym, W 4 miles trail + Recharge strength, Th 8 miles lactate threshold, F 7 miles trail, Sa 11 miles trail, Su 20 miles trail. 60 total run miles
06.29.20 – 07.05.20: M Bend Rock Gym, T 10 miles trail, W 4 miles trail, F 11 miles trail, weekend food poisoning. 25 total run miles
07.06.20 – 07.12.20: the week that wasn’t. 70+ of work with multiple crime scene call-outs. W: 4 miles trail.
07.13.20 – 07.19.20: M 8 miles trail, T Bend Rock Gym, Th Bend Rock Gym, Sa 14 miles trail. 22 total run miles
Ultra Marathon: any running race longer than 26.2 miles (traditional marathon distance). Typically run on trails, ultra marathons may also be held on roads.Also typically, ultras involve a lot of walking as well as running. You know, because they are SO STINKING LONG.
Finn is a writer and runner with a pretty legit marathon personal best of around 3 hours (consider that most marathon finishers never break the 4 hour mark and you get an appreciation for his fitness level). A lifelong runner, he admits at the beginning of this journey to a bias towards fast events (read: traditional track and road distances) vs. ultra and trail events. But a job offer to run and then write about the multi-day Oman Desert Ultra Marathon (just over 100 miles) seals his fate and begins an obsessive dive into the rich history, training philosophies, and interesting characters that populate the sport. This ambitious immersion culminates in completing the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, a trail ultra with approximately a gazillion feet of elevation gain that circumnavigates Mt. Blanc through three countries and is one of the toughest ultra races on the planet.
I would consider this book to be primarily a memoir, and I found Finn to be a likable and entertaining writer with a personality familiar to any endurance athlete or long-suffering loved one of an endurance athlete – Unrealistic expectations? Check. Ability to minimize potential effort/risk? Check. Borderline obsessive personality? Check and Check. As someone new to this type of running, Finn spends a lot of time questioning others as to why they run ultras, and as he struggles with injury and uncertainty, he ultimately decides that “putting our finger on why we do this seemingly mad sport is almost impossible. The real reasons seem to lie just beyond the reasons we give. Sure, we want to win, we want to finish, we want to do our best, we want to find our limit, we want to make people proud…but none of it quite explains it. It’s an unfathomable urge, a deep, primal call, to be out there, to stand facing oblivion, and to come through to the other side.” (228) I totally get this – it’s why I can’t stop myself from finding a new goal each time I accomplish the last one. It’s why I love ultras but also why I love road events – I want to go longer, I want to go shorter and faster, I want to KEEP GOING. I love the work towards the goal even more than I love the actual event I’m working towards; there is peace and joy in the work. There is nobility in the effort. It’s meaningless and it means everything, all at the same time.
As an ultra dork, I was already familiar with most of the people and events that Finn explores (which didn’t make it less interesting to read his depiction, it just wasn’t new to me) with the notable exception of his treatment with NeuroKinetic Therapy (NKT), which I had never heard of. Partway into his ultra career he develops debilitating Achilles tendon pain, which remained unresolved after seeing multiple specialists and physical therapists. After working with an “Anatomy in Motion” provider (a similar approach to NKT), Finn is surprised to learn that breaking his left wrist three times may be contributing to the pain in his lower leg. By incorporating the NKT techniques, he is able run harder, longer, and faster with improved form and no pain. As David Weinstock describes it to Finn, “what we’re doing is essentially rebooting the computer in the brain that controls movement. In an NKT session, we interview people, then watch them move. We want to figure out what’s over-working and what’s under-working. Then you release the over-working muscles, or activate the under-working muscles, which helps re-program that dysfunctional pattern in the brain.” (126) What did not surprise me about Finn finding success with this method was that by embracing a systemic approach that views the body as a complex, integrated organism rather than isolated muscles and joints, he was able to resolve the issue.
Why I’m a runner: I don’t really think of myself as a runner. I have spent the vast majority of my life hating running. I’m sure there was a time as a child when I enjoyed running while playing tag or chasing butterflies, or for simply joy and freedom. Sometime thereafter I began to hate running. I’m not sure how or why it happened, but I have a pretty good guess that it’s linked to punishment. By the time I started playing softball competitively, running was hell! I would dread our warm-up laps before practice or the sprints we would have to do after. It’s no coincidence that my favorite position was a catcher, which pretty much required the least amount of movement. Running is every coach’s favorite form of punishment. Show up late to practice, you run laps. The team makes too many errors, you run sprints. The majority of my running life was forced upon me by angry authority figures tying to prove a point. To this day I have a memory that induces queasiness. I had a college teammate who failed to show-up to our mandatory study hall that was required of scholarship athletes. As a result, we all were punished for two straight hours of running sprints with burpees along the football field, stadiums and hills. We ran until a few of us, myself included, threw up. If I didn’t link punishment to running before that day, I sure did after.
After I graduated college, I had a level of freedom that I hadn’t had since the 5th grade. No more getting up at 5 in the morning for weight training and conditioning! It was a dream come true, but also a slow and steady decline of my physical health and mental well-being. I started graduate school and found myself over-worked, over-stressed and over-whelmed. My nutrition started to suffer and I rarely engaged in any physical activity. There were a few blips here and there, particularly in the months leading up to my wedding (the only event that will make any woman get up at 5 in the morning for boot camp classes!). But, eventually I got sucked back into the stress of graduate school and I never kept up with it. Now many years, more than I would like to admit, and two beautiful children later, I find myself overweight and looking back at my “glory days” with nostalgia. While I never considered myself a runner, I was an athlete.
I had always had this weird bucket list desire to run a half marathon, probably because it seemed an impossible task for me. Being a catcher for so many years took a significant toll on my hips and back, and those areas always seemed to flare-up after a few weeks of trying to run. What I didn’t know was I was going about it all wrong. I mean, you just put and shoes and run until you want to die, right? My memory fails on how exactly I got started on this new path, but I believe it was because I made the mistake/best decision of telling a certain, wonderful but persistent new friend of my bucket list item. With her encouragement and my desire to start getting back into shape, I decided to start exercising again. It has been a bumpy road, and a bit of a learning process. From making sure I’m not pushing too hard too fast, which is particularly difficult for me as a “balls to the wall” ex-athlete, to making sure I am doing proper warm-ups and cool-downs to avoid injuries.
So, why am I a runner? I am honestly figuring that out every day since I started this new course. Some days I’m a runner because I want to be healthy and have a better chance of living a longer life for my family. Other days I’m a runner because its my only me time, damnit. Some days I run when I need to clear my head because stress and anxiety are wearing me down. Other days I’m a runner to get out into nature and put myself in the path of beauty. Sometimes I’m a runner because I want to encourage others who, like me, don’t look like “runners” to get out there and move their body, to celebrate what their body can do and not focus on what it can’t do…yet. Most of all, I’m realizing running is my salvation now, a far cry from the years of associated punishment. I now run on my terms. I’ve returned anew to the joy of it, the freedom it provides. I’m young again, chasing butterflies.
I’m pretty awesome at: Man, this question is even harder then the first one! It hasn’t been very long since I started running, so I don’t feel like I am awesome at much yet, except for maybe towing the line of getting over-use injuries for trying to do too much too fast! I guess I would say I am pretty awesome at being determined and following through on my goals. I am not a fast runner, not by any stretch of the imagination. I probably never will be, and I am okay with that. My race, my pace! I am not quite ready to tackle that half-marathon yet, so I wouldn’t say I am awesome at longer distances. I am awesome at showing up, at putting in the work.
Future goals: One of my goals is to eventually complete a half-marathon, as previously mentioned. But my main goal is to just keep going. To keep learning to find the joy in what my body can do, without judgment for what it used to be able to do but maybe can’t right now. To continue to find the peace and freedom that running has provided.
Random fun fact: I am extremely clumsy. So much so, that my husband is nervous whenever we go on trails together. I have been known to trip over my own feet, or simply nothing at all! Since I started running, I have already bit the dust once on a relatively easy road, scrapping my knees, hand and elbow. But, as one of my favorite running tanks says, “bruises are like trophies you get to wear!”
Th – 5 mile road run a little faster than long run mile pace (~9:30 minute miles). Wanted to try race pace (8:45) but legs were still too tired from the new stress of ski touring. + climb @ Bend Rock Gym
F – 10 mile trail run with Chris, 10:05 pace
Sa – REST
Su – couple laps of ski touring on Bachelor with my beloved
Look at those tracks! Those are OUR TRACKS!!! Image: Kori Barnum
Kept the physical activity very much on the down low this week, trying to get my pesky oblique to calm down and recognizing that this is a rest space before marathon training starts. Gym climb Tuesday, easy 5 mile road run Friday…And Sunday? Started ski touring!!!
A scenic photo where Dan looks legit and I am futzing around with my bindings. image: Joe Spampinato
If this activity is new to you, it involves putting “skins” on your skis (basically ski-shaped stickers that adhere to the bottom of your skis and are covered in synthetic hairs which enable you to ski up slope without sliding down), using a cross country-style movement to ascend the slope, then tearing off the skins and skiing down. Your ski bindings are different too, allowing for the heel to be released and with risers under heel to make climbing less torturous on the calves and achilles tendons. This is my new favorite thing on the planet, and I’m not just saying that because my skis are bright orange.
A scenic photo where I look slightly more legit. image: Kori Barnum
This book has been on my nightstand for months (I tend to harbor a tall to-be-read-soon stack) and I started reading it a few weeks before the incident in Central Park. Lanham’s prose is so heartbreakingly lovely that I have had to read a few chapters, slowly savoring the gorgeous language, then put it down to rest – I feel as if I want to start reading it all over again as soon as I finish.
The implicit and reflexive biases that cause one to see an African American man with binoculars walking through a park not as a birdwatcher, but as a threat, can be unlearned. I see you, birdwatcher. I see you belong in the wild places. I hear that you have things to teach me, and I am listening. The wild places hold us all.
I am working to recognize my own biased thoughts and actions, and to replace them with openness and inclusion. And I am researching ways to further support diversity in the outdoors with my time and my economic choices. The wild places hold us all.
Why I Am A Runner: I was in cross country in high school for two years, but didn’t “love” running at the time. I signed up for it because my mom told me I had to! I got away from running and didn’t run a step for a long time after high school. I got back into it for the same reason anyone does. When I was 29 I was in not so good shape. I was not exercising and had all the wrong eating habits. On labor day weekend of that year I threw my back out and was in horrible pain for weeks after. It was that wake up call that got me exercising again, which eventually led me back to running. After much prodding and cajoling from a friend, I did my first marathon at age 38. Shortly after that the same friend sent me an article on a 50-mile race in Nevada and jokingly said “I found you your next challenge!”. I was dumbfounded to find out that people actually ran distances longer than 26 miles. I started reading more and more about ultras and was hooked on the idea. I started training and ran my first ultra, the Mt. Hood PCT 50-mile, in 2009. I then went on to volunteer at the Cascade Crest 100-mile race later that summer, and I haven’t looked back since!
I’m Pretty Awesome At: Race directing. Although I love running, I’ve never put 100% of my effort into it. I had some early successes and did ok. Like most runners, when I started it was all about “me”. I finished on the podium a couple times, and in the top third of the pack at several more races, but I never found the urge to work harder. I enjoyed the training process, and I enjoyed races, but I didn’t fall in love with competing. I finally figured out I was happy just running at my own pace and having fun along the way. Race directing fell into my lap in 2015 and I immediately knew I’d found something that I could put 100% effort into. Just like running, the harder you work at something the more success you get. But with race directing the success belonged not only to me, but everyone that raced, and to everyone that volunteered. As a runner I only made myself happy, but as a director I made a whole group of people happy, and along the way I found more joy. I also discovered that the finish line of a race was even sweeter when you were the one that made that finish line possible. Every runner that finishes gives me the same rush as finishing a race myself. But the up-side is that I get to experience that finish line feeling over and over. [Jason directs the Badger Mountain Challenge, Sole Survivor (a backyard ultra), Run With The Goats, and Jump Off Joe – and if that isn’t enough, he also co-directs other races and hosts aid stations. I got tired just typing this.]
Future Goals: Longevity. One nice upside to not pushing yourself to the max is that you don’t burn out. By taking a chunk of time off from training every year, and by not pushing to 100%, I’ve been able to run ultras for over 12 years now. I’ve had plenty of injuries and had to take time off, but each time it happened I came back smarter and better prepared than I was before the injury. I have finished one 100-miler every year since 2011 for a total of 9 buckles (and hopefully a tenth buckle will be earned this year). I like to call it my “stupid streak”. I’d like to be able to continue this streak as long as possible.
Random Fun Fact: I got into Western States in 2015 on ONE ticket! It was the first time I’d tried to get in and I couldn’t believe it when I found out my name had been drawn. In 2015 entrants with only one ticket had less than a 5% chance of getting picked (since then the odds of getting in on one ticket have obviously gotten WAY steeper). Finishing that race on the track in Auburn was one of the highlights of my running career. I’ve tried to go back every year since then but not had the same luck yet. Next year will be my 6th attempt to get back to Squaw Valley. Wish me luck!
I’m not saying twice is a trend, but for the second time in two years during the month of May I find myself harboring deep thoughts and reservations about my training goal. Last year I was registered to run what would have been my first 50 mile trail race in Southern Oregon on my birthday in July – what could be more perfect? Completing a new trail race distance for the first time on my birthday on a glorious and warm summer’s day in the mountains? Answer: nothing!!!
And yet, the porridge just didn’t seem right. I had a fun training plan, I was only running 5 days a week, it should have been perfect. But I could tell after much soul searching that my heart wasn’t in it, I was training because I felt like I should and not because I wanted to. Despite frequent exasperated reminders from my spouse that I’m not a professional athlete and I don’t have to take this all so seriously, I do take it deadly serious because I love the training process and I worship at the church of physiological adaptation.
So in 2019 I bailed on that birthday race. We still traveled to Southern Oregon, we ran a really hot really fun 10 mile trail run just the two of us, read our books in the sunshine, took a nap, and had a nice dinner. Then on December 8 I ran my first 50 miler in Arizona and had a blast – it was the right race at the right time and it was a joy to train for.
This year I thought I was being sensible, not running hard during ski season. But when ski season ended abruptly in early March, and the climbing gym and Smith Rock closed, I thought the universe was sending me a sign – run many road miles, girl, work on your speed, try to qualify for Boston on a flat course. Perfect, I said, I will – I will train hard and run lots of miles and attempt a 3:50 time at the Chicago Marathon in October.
Then, inexplicably, the drumbeat of rethinking the goal started again about a week ago. I was run/walking on of my favorite sections of Shevlin Park, overwhelmed with gratitude that this trail system is basically in my back yard, overwhelmed with gratitude at that wonderful smell of warm pine and warm dirt that happens when the temperature is perfect and the sun is shining, and I thought – this is what I want to do all summer. I want to run a shit-ton of trail miles, I want to run most of those with Dan, I want to be caked in dust and carrying my water and food and running when it feels right and hiking when it feels right.
I don’t want to work on being faster.
I want to work on running farther.
I want to always been in the kind of running shape where I can drop into a 50K race on a whim.
Can I see the forest for the trees?
I had thought that I’d chase this 3:50 goal, knowing that if (when, let’s be realistic) Chicago is canceled, I could still do a flat 26.2 race on the paved loop behind my house. But what if trail races start happening again? They’re already significantly smaller events than even most small road races, and social distancing on the trail if everyone is running the same way tends to happen organically. If trail events open back up, I want to support those events.
Technically, I haven’t made a decision yet. Technically, my #350project training schedule starts June 8. If I do decide to put this goal on pause, it will be just that – a pause, not a retirement. I’d still like to train hard to qualify for Boston on a flat course (I don’t intend to actually run Boston ever again, but that doesn’t dull the shine of qualifying attempts). But for now, for the direction my soul is leaning, I think we might be looking at a goal pivot.
