RESET: Long Haul 100

After getting injured during running Daytona 100 in December 2019, I was clear: I needed to heal up and recover well, as I had big plans for 2020, and at this point in my life, feeling good and enjoying running is critical to me. I immersed myself in cross training, cut way back on the running, and was studious with rehab, to include physical therapy, acupuncture, and massage.

I was looking forward to winding down a very hectic 2019, and ready to regroup so that my start to 2020 included more balance and less 24/7 hustle. So, when January hit and my life was once again all on, all the time, I began to grow disillusioned. It’s not that I don’t love and crave the hustle; in fact, I often instigate it as I have a lot of passions and interests. But I also believe that we all need silence and space in our lives for ideas and creativity to flourish. And for me, the hours I am not in front of a computer screen, on my phone, or in a meeting and instead am immersed in the world outside are often when my ideas take on their own identify and I dream big. To me, it’s in this “floating space” that the magic happens, and without it, I feel withdrawn and flat.

I knew that I needed to shift my 2020 and fast, and while I made promises to myself daily to modify my routine, not to work late into each night, I felt stuck – there was too much to do all the time. I knew that Long Haul 100, which I had run twice before, was about to take place in Tampa, FL, but I also knew that my injuries were not healed. The pain traveled along my calf and Achilles tendon; I needed a few more weeks to move past my injury. I was clear about this, but as the days became crazier, I was also clear that I needed to get out to the trails and do a reset before I drowned even deeper.

What better way than being surrounded by my Florida buddies, on a 10-mile loop, where I had access to my drop bag throughout the race? Then there was the fact that if I could finish, I would have 35 completed races of 100 miles or more. Not that I was counting the races, but it was what the races signified: survival, perseverance, resilience, and growth. I completed my first 100-mile race in October 2011, six months after I had lost my mom to her battle with cancer. When she had passed, I didn’t know how to go on. But somehow I did go on, and I shifted my life into a more positive, uplifting mode, just as my mom had when she battled cancer. For me, the races signified forward motion and a will to persist.

In January, amidst all else, Ram Das, one of my spiritual gurus, died. Ever since I read Be Here Now over twenty years back, I’ve been hooked on Ram Das. I’ve read his books, watched his documentary, Fierce Grace, and listened to his lecture collection, Experiments in Truth endless times – probably thousands of hours of listening. “You have to know there are people like me,” is one of my favorite comments of his. He was referring to people who would challenge, who would defy, who would be happy and peaceful in spite of all that was. Sometimes, when I am running in a race, and I am dying inside – everything in me screaming, “this sucks! Stop. You don’t have to do this. It’s bullshit” – I channel my inner Ram Das. Because I know I am going to keep going and I know I am going to do what I can to finish, and so I think, “you have to know there are people like me.” People who are going to go the distance. Who are going to say you cannot scare me away, pain. You cannot take over my mind, my life, doubt. I am more than this. I am bigger than this, and I am going to finish, and I am going to be kind and love myself and love others and do great, small things on a daily basis. Because I can. Because it matters. Sometimes when I think this, tears fall down my face. Sometimes, I think of my mom and marvel at her strength. Other times, I think about who I am and who I aspire to be. I keep going – in life and in races – because I think that despite all the bullshit we may face, life is pretty awesome, and that getting to move through it and look around, is hitting the jackpot.

Wednesday late afternoon of what was a hectic week – with a work trip to Dallas on Thursday during which I was partaking in a panel thrown in – I signed up for the race, which was to take place that Saturday. Yes, this induced more franticness, as now I had to secure flights, a rental car, make time to pack – and for me, packing for races is nothing short of horrific as it requires a mindfulness I don’t always have at the end of a long day – but somehow, once I made the commitment to show up for the race, I felt peaceful and took care of the travel details, with an aim to pack up on Thursday night when I returned from Dallas.

Then it was Friday after work, I was in Tampa, and like everyone else, race eve is always a battle of turning off from the work week, and focusing on getting myself prepared for the race, from strategically packing my drop bag, to arranging my race-day outfit, to anticipating what I may need and when I may need it during the race. As I tend to prefer running uncrewed – i.e., sans pacers and support – when packing drop bags, I have to stay focused, strategic, and always plan one step ahead for any race-day mishaps. Most importantly, I have to be sure to get into bed at an hour which enables me to get something close to a good night’s sleep knowing I’ll be pushing through with no sleep come Saturday night.

And then suddenly, I was running. The race was happening, and while there was initial pain due to my injuries, within 7-10 miles, the pain began to subside, and I began to enjoy seeing so many of my friends as dawn became daylight and we moved through the out and back spurs. The first few hours of an ultra are always the toughest for me – I need the miles and hours to pass to ease into a race and accept it – but being out on the Land O’Lakes trails, the sun beginning to cast its warmth across the fields, and seeing friendly, familiar faces, left me feeling happy and free.

There was the first spur with it’s wild grass and fields-forever picturesque beauty, and then loop back out to the road, drop bag/crew city, where there were tons of friendly faces ready and willing to help with anything, and up the road to the second spur, which was armadillo and pine cone alley with reaching pine trees and dirt and twig trail, interspersed with roots down to the second aid station with amazing volunteers supporting us runners, then back that way again, onto the road and out to the third spur, which was more roots and grass and even more roots and soft sand and trail and then back out to the road, to run down to the timing mat to clock a ten-mile (actually a bit longer) loop.

Races induce the world will wait aspect of life for me. Life does in fact go on outside of the race, but sometimes, when you step away from all of the noise outside of you and tune in to yourself, work through all of the noise going on within you, experience nature, listen, look around, you are better equipped to join the world when you return. You are harder in some respects, but softer, and more vulnerable, too. You grow more accepting of yourself, which makes you more accepting of others. You learn that it’s okay to suffer, it’s okay to feel like you want to quit, it’s okay to feel miserable, because it passes. And once it does, you realize that anything and everything is possible. Crossing the finish line always cements that to reality.

Again and again, races remind me of what matters. The trails and open sky are abundant; the sunsets and sunrises teach me that I am not the center of the universe, but rather, a very small part of its design. And I learn, over and over, to appreciate the world around me, the world within me, and the experiences I am fortunate to have.

I signed up for the race with a goal of resetting, but somewhere along the way, I accepted that maybe my life is exactly as it should be. Maybe I don’t need to reset; maybe all the go-go-go is part of who and what I am, and maybe I just need to go with it, see where it takes me, where I take it. The race may not have helped me to get back on course, because maybe it’s about being flexible and open to new courses that lead us forward and down paths we haven’t yet traveled.

Doubt crept in for me around mile 40, when it seemed impossible that I would run another 60 miles. But I made little promises with myself: try for 50 miles. Then try for 60. Then I began to think about having 40 miles left, and how no way did I have that in me. But somehow, the miles came and went. It’s about believing in yourself and knowing there will be an end. It’s about keeping going and trusting that sometime in the near future, the race will be over, and your life will go on, and if you don’t finish, it will be okay, but somehow disappointing. It always seems harder when you are in the struggle, but when it ends, there’s the illusion that it was easy, no big deal.

In a race, you have to be comfortable with yourself and okay with the silence. Because after a while, all you hear is your mind and heart speaking to you. The story you tell yourself is what manifests. What I know about races, like life, is that you have to want to keep going even when or if everything starts to fall apart. You have to be okay with the discomfort and the monotony. Acceptance is key – of the situation, of yourself, of the course, of reality – as is the ability to adapt and shift when it starts to rain, or get a bit colder, or you take a nasty fall from tripping on a root approaching mile 30. And then somehow, as if you were sure of it all along, there’s the last few miles, then the last mile, and you are moving towards that finish line, both joyous, and nostalgic, because when it’s over, it’s over. There’s no fireworks or parade, or any big celebration at all. There’s just the satisfaction of knowing that you stuck it out and went the distance, and somehow, that is everything.