WOW.
Just….
Wow.
Had you told me five years ago that I’d be spending these past few days resting up as I prepared to travel to Colorado to go run 100 miles through the mountains, I would have laughed out loud.
Had you told me I would be resting after spending weeks up in Colorado living out of my car, free to choose any mountain to climb or trail to run as I pushed myself in one last big effort to train, I would have been in a state of disbelief.
Yet, that’s my reality, and as I’ve been sitting here these past several days giving myself so much space to relax and recover, it’s all been so much:
- so much listening into the lessons I’ve learned
- so much reflection on the insane number of – and serious degree of – obstacles it took to overcome to get here
- so much asking of myself to just be in this space as I relax, letting all the hard work I put in settle so that I can show up on race day and crush it
- so much joy as I continue to settle into a realization that I actually made my own, strange, yet beautiful version of a brilliant life unfold
I’m going to be honest with you all… sometimes it’s overwhelming when I look at what’s happening to me now and compare it to what was happening 2-3 years ago. The path out of my old life in the city wasn’t easy, and often times it is too easy to let old patterns and memories find their way back in and take hold.
Then I remember every single difficult and often excruciating decision I made to get here – to turn down the path that was laid out before me – a path that I could have so easily followed to widely held definitions of success and a certain version of “look at her, she made it.”
And as I follow that trail of events all the way to this past month spending day after day sleeping in a mattress in the back of my car, all I can do is SMILE SO FREAKING WIDE.
Life is a strange and crazy thing, but if we get out of our own ways, it’s often the case that there is so much magic just waiting to rush in.
As I sit here in these rest days and reflect on the journey, here are 5 lessons I learned on the twisting path here.
Lesson #1 – The delicate art between choosing my head or my heart to lead me forward
It took many years to increase the distance from my first races at 13.1 miles up to 100 miles, and with each step along the many different journeys I would travel along to get here, I learned to find my own self.
It’s cheezy, I know, but within the cliche there is a very real story of a girl who signed up to run 13.1 miles while living a life that had been forever run by her highly analytical head, and how that journey from the roads, to the trails, and along every step of increasing distance brought her closer within her fullest, truest self.
The part of this I found most interesting, is what, exactly, this means!
Who the hell am I, anyway? Am I that voice of reason that speaks to me so clearly? Am I that pulse of sensation that drives me off in new and exciting directions? Am I a rhythmic flow to the day?
Or, am I something deeper?
It’s a question that I get to ponder as I spend mile after mile in my own head; and, in my own body.
It’s also a question that we don’t get to answer today, for I have a second one that is more pressing:
Given the beautiful mess of complex interweaving that come together to form the whole that I am, what piece of it all do I follow to guide myself forward?
The funny thing is that, as much as the cliche tells us to follow our hearts, I’ve found that it isn’t always the optimal path forward.
For most of my life I followed my head, and while that didn’t often lead me to the most beautiful places imaginable, it did offer a hell of a foundation for me to build off of. It is my head that got me through two college engineering degrees and into a job that provides stability in my life. It is my head that plans out the details when it comes to racing. And for that, I am grateful for all the forces that came together to instill in me a mind that is capable of making rational decisions.
Of course, there’s also that bit about how a full reliance on my head drove me forward to a life full of a whole lot of problems and lacking in a lot of that light I speak to today. It turns out that our heads – while they can be so logical and otherwise helpful – don’t always have all the best information needed to serve our own, truest selves.
However, the flip side of an often sited spectrum (i.e., following my heart) wasn’t necessarily the best path forward, either. At one point along the journey (somewhere around the 50 mile / 100K mark), I decided I was done with my head and dove fully into the path of my own heart. And, while it certainly got me going in the right direction (yayyy more mountains!!!), the journey, itself, was full of far more harm than was necessary had I only spent more time checking in with my blessedly logical mind.
Altogether, through the painful unwindings of patterns and creation of newer, more beautiful pathways, I learned to embrace a special way to move forward:
- learning to listen into the spectacular dreams and other forms of ideas and tuggings flowing from my heart
- learning to listen just as closely to the dark pulses that also flowed from this sacred space (because that darkness, too, provides important information)
- all-the-while, regularly in conversation with my highly logical mind about how to work with it all and move myself forward into brighter spaces
Altogether, this fuller representation of my whole self, has, on the whole, been much more successful than any one piece of my whole self could create. Of course, there’s much more on this all over the Upward Slopes blog.
Lesson #2 – Choosing myself is seriously fucking hard in today’s world
When I first started pushing the distance in running, I was called crazy, and there were many attempts to talk me out of it as I kept moving the needle to higher and higher distances.
In these earlier days, things were a real struggle as I conversed with others:
- is this really a reasonable way to be spending my time?
- is this really a reasonable amount of stress to put on my body?
- is that really a sane thing to do?
It was hard enough having external forces regularly questioning these decisions. It was hard enough being surrounded by others that could hardly comprehend what it meant to spend so much time on the trails and why anyone would want to put themselves through any amount of suffering that comes with it.
Still, the most difficult voice to get past for those many years was my own:
- maybe I shouldn’t deplete myself so much so I have more energy to work
- maybe I should spend more time with others and not by myself on the trails
- maybe this thing really is stupid and I should just get back to a real career
This is all to say that the voices – both internal and external – telling me to leave ultrarunning behind have been plenty, and learning to tune down their volume so that I am able to listen to the supportive and truer-to-self messages has not been easy.
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The thing is, there’s this very deep problem in our world that has to do with how others think we need to be living life. I know, it’s a much deeper conversation for another time, but I think we can all get on a similar page if I spend just a moment pointing it out because, well, we all know some version of it.
It’s the voice of a wheel that continues to be driven by forces out of alignment with what serves each of us most truly. It’s a voice that has been programmed into us from each of our own experiences in this world:
- from partners or other close individuals who think they know better about my self than my own self
- from cultures that have instilled beliefs that reign supreme and ooze into every corner of society
- from parents who think they know the best thing for their child (fortunately, I never had this particular flavor, but I do know so many who do)
The point is, life is full of voices that have been programmed to speak up to tell us how we should be living life, and this continues to ooze into one of the greatest pools of bullshit I’ve found on this planet. When we follow voices that come from out there (and yes, that includes our own voices that have been programmed to tell us the story of another), we end up making decisions that don’t align with what serves us best. And this misalignment creates rifts that perpetuate darkness in all shapes and forms.
It’s a path that leads nowhere good, no matter how strongly we’ve been programmed to believe the outcomes are beneficial.
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The magic of this lesson is that, with every brutal step away from listening to these sorts of voices, I have found new ones – and these voices arrive with brighter tones and a much higher resonance with that which lights me up and serves my truest self.
They are voices of support and encouragement. They are voices intent on a conversation and not fixed on an outcome. They are voices filled with curiosity. They are voices that center on love.
This leads to the next lesson.
Lesson #3 – Choosing myself leads to a much more beautiful world
So far, I recognize this conversation has been a bit self-centered. Which, as I’ve learned, is totally, completely okay!
Yes, hear that loud and clear: It is completely okay to put your own self at the center of your view from time to time. I only recommend that, as you choose this path, you do so with intention and do not hold it as the only perspective. There’s an art to putting yourself first so that you don’t do so in a way that drags the rest of the world down.
To follow up on this is a magical lesson I have learned on this journey is this: That by following my own heart and listening into my own needs and desires, I actually cultivate a life filled with others who are also bathing in a greater light. This is to say, when we choose our own selves we are able to support our own needs, and this enables us to show up in the world as much better versions of ourselves:
- we have more energy to do the things we need and want to do
- we have a brighter, and simultaneously realistic, outlook
- we shed more light onto others, having more kindness, compassion, empathy, and the other qualities that nourish a brighter world
It turns out that choosing our own, truest selves lights us up in a way that lights up others, and I don’t believe this is a coincidence. I have learned that it is a natural part of being a biological being, forever interconnected with the world in more ways than we will ever fathom.
We may live in a world that tells us we have to fight for what serves us best and out-compete others, and this may serve some for a short while.
But, as we get to witness all around us (and perhaps, within), it’s not a framework that serves us well for long, and it certainly isn’t a framework that serves to bring light to all.
Still, as talked about in that last Lesson, we are capable of detaching from the wheels that spin and tell us one thing, and we are free to choose our own beautiful and truest selves – those that are interconnected with the many other beings in this world as we all move forward, together, learning to shine our lights more fully, together.
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Saying yes to being an ultrarunner has meant me moving away from people and places that don’t align with this lifestyle, and in doing so, I have found my people. I have found those that will support and encourage me, and I believe the reason for this is because I am so fully in it.
People can sense when you’re serious about something. People know when you’re showing up fully.
And those that can’t figure it out – well, they get to fall away.
Lesson #4 – Listening to my own body is everything
Over the years I’ve read or heard many bits of training advice. I’ve attempted to follow different plans and I’ve approached different running seasons with different mindsets.
In the end, what I’ve learned matters more than anything is the essential skill that is listening to my own body.
My own body – she’s the one that is out on the trails day after day. She is the one that is being hit with different forms of stress. She is the one with her own, specific goals.
And she is the one that is going to show up on each day with her own set of challenges.
Therefore, it is only her that can make the best decisions about how to train on a certain day.
Of course, the logical plan gets to play a role here. I do what I can to follow a general training strategy. But when it comes time to show up each day, there is an important player that gets to chime in with how things are going to go. Learning to listen to her has been a process, and the consequences for failing to do so have been pretty terrible (hello me tumbling hard down onto the ground).
Learning to listen to her has been a process, but these days I get a whole lot of guidance from within:
- when it’s time to push hard, I know
- when it’s time to slow down, I know
- when it’s time to forget the running shoes and spend an extra hour in bed, I know
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Ultrarunning will, inevitably, bring up deep and dark challenges.
They may be physical: rolled ankles, upset stomachs, mysterious ribcage pain that won’t go away.
They may be mental or emotional: traumas, anxiety, grief.
Often times they are a mix of both.
When we set off on the trails with a fixed training plan and are hell-bent on sticking to it, we may be able to push our way to success, but a continued focus on this sort of strategy almost always leads to injury. It also means that we miss out on much of the magic that trailrunning has to offer.
When we show up with a strategy in mind that accounts for fluidity as we move through each experience for what it is, well, as I’ve found, a much richer experience unfolds.
And that experience leads ever deeper into a richer relationship with my own, fullest self, and that, I belief, is one of the most precious lessons that I can take from the trails and into life.
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(Note, these last pictures are from the top of Tabegauche Peak at 14,000+ feet, looking out on much of the High Lonesome 100 mile course)
Lesson #5 – How to create more space for joy
I’m going to be honest – this one still confuses me the most. After all these years, and after all the messages I have received, I would have thought that it would be easy – natural! – to seek out more joy.
Joy – isn’t it one of the highest, best feeling emotions of all! And if it is, doesn’t it make sense that joy would be the thing I would spend the most time seeking out?
The reality has been that joy, while clearly present, is difficult to find in my past. I know the moments are there, but when I look back, it is often difficult to find them.
I think the reason for this is two-fold:
- When we experience joy, we don’t relish in it. We don’t let it sink in. We don’t bathe in the light and let it infuse itself into every cell in our bodies. Instead, we quickly embrace the hit of dopamine only to move onto the next thing
- We have been programmed to focus on work, work and more work, and to put this above all. This means that we have much less time for joy, and it also means that (as said in that last point) when we do find joy, we don’t go around talking about it.
On my path to 100 miles, I have experienced more moments of this fierce and piercing joy than ever before, and it has been a struggle to allow it to seep in, to flow through me, and to truly brighten me up.
Oh, the irony that is struggling to let something so bright and beautiful simply flow.
Still, it is what it is, and here today, I am learning to make it a practice of basking in the light when it comes my way.
And I hope you can to, because, well – here’s the deal.
Our world is seriously fucking tough right now. Big things are happening. Wheels are being dismantled. New, more beautiful patterns are being woven together.
And, what I understand more than anything, is that we need more individuals who are willing to spend more time filling their own buckets with bright light.
But the trick is to do it in a skillful way – because if we just blindly dive into the path that we think our hearts are setting forth for us, then, well, we can end up in some deep shit.
Still, perhaps if we can cultivate the power of our heads and our hearts, and if we can cultivate all the other truest parts of ourselves, and if we can allow ourselves to be the beautiful wholes that we are, then maybe along the way on whatever journeys we each are traveling we can experience more of those truly magical moments – the ones that only come when we push ourselves out of our comfort zones, put in the work, and always settle deeply into our own full selves.
