don't think, just breathe

I hate sandbagging. I hate it when athletes show up at a start line not ready to give their best…and to take the pressure off, they say it. I especially hate it when those athletes are pretty good and make the podium despite claiming they hadn’t trained for it.

Yet I feel I did a pretty damn good job of it accidentally this weekend. At least that is how it looks on the surface. However, I did train for this race. I put in a bunch of solid weeks, I practiced nutrition, I wanted to compete. I am not in the business of letting myself off the hook competitively. I signed the contract, I am in this for two years. I do my best to show up to races where I give my best effort and try my hardest.

I learned in the week before the race, that running doesn’t care about me. I can put in every effort I want, do all the recommended exercises, sleep 9 hours a night, and still wake up one morning a week before the race and simply not want to run. That is what happened in the seven days leading up to the Leadville Marathon.

Opening a restaurant takes a lot of work. The work is so meaningful and I am still in awe that I get to do it everyday…but it takes so much effort. Since opening day January 18th both Chef Aaron and I have put everything we have into making Skratch Labs Cafe a success. Not only is the actual act of opening a restaurant difficult, we opened it in Boulder (notorious for lagging permits) and in the middle of winter. Our lack of business in the first three months meant we didn’t have the money for labor and a full staff. We had to let people go and cut hours for everyone except ourselves. Thankfully, business has picked up and the cafe has a manageable routine, yet we still work incredibly hard to make everything flow. Except when I went out to Gorge, I cannot remember a day I didn’t step foot in the cafe either working a full day or to help out. Again, this is what I signed up for, but when the fatigue hit, it really hit, and there wasn’t much I could do…except not run and rest when I wasn’t working.

The week before the race I ran once, the day before with my friend Jon. It was a simple 50 minutes on a flat gravel path. I barely made it through that. I woke up the Sunday before and my legs were just so tired. My mind just not even present with what we were doing. I just didn’t have the capacity to run. When my friends and family texted me good luck the day before, I told them honestly, “I don’t think I have this mentally. I really don’t know if I can be out there for 5 hours. I just don’t have it anymore.” Before the fatigue wall hit on Sunday, I had been feeling lackluster about running for a few months. Having a soft tissue injury sucks. It sucks because there is no healing timeline and though it is limiting, I can run on it, I just don’t have all my power, which makes running difficult, meaning I need to use more of my mental bandwidth to get through it. Honestly after every long run, when my watch beeped to the exact mile, I started walking. I couldn’t (didn’t want) to run even a step more. I was over it. Every single long run. "

23 miles. Click. Done that was…meh ok I guess…hamstring still there? Yep. Ok well guess it’s time to walk home.

18 miles. Click. Done. I cannot run another step or I will die.

15 mile. Click.. Thank God that’s over I wish I had a bike.

I am actually glad I am suffering with this and my training partners who are running Western States have been feeling really good. I completely volunteer as tribute for all the maladies…but damn the mental load is just vicious.

Cut back to the day before the race. I drove up to Leadville anyway despite feeling 90% like I wasn’t going to start. I had agreed to table with Skratch at the expo handing out samples and talking with the other runners. That was really fun. Skratch is a special group of people and it looked like the sun was coming out. At about 4PM it started hailing. I do not mean little ice crystals, I mean HAIL, that lasted for an hour, followed by rain for the whole night. We took shelter in our van and I think I told everyone I wasn’t running. Our field marketing manager Peter was really supportive because he also was not running due to a concussion sustained a few weeks ago. I was just tired, low energy, and honestly if it was going to hail I did not want to run in that. Leadville’s mantra is Grits, Guts and Determination, none of which I happened to resonate with while driving (still in the rain/hail) to the Pho place we decided on for dinner because we were too cold to want anything other than a bath of salty broth. At the AirBnB that night again I told Corrine, Riley, Ann, Anthony, Amelia, and the Skratch team that I most likely would drive home in the morning. Then I collapsed on the bunk bed.

I woke up feeling a bit more optimistic because it wasn’t raining and I could see a blue sky. As I ate my oatmeal I knew that I’d still probably not start but I might as well drive to the race start to cheer on the other runners. My mood was better and hey, I wasn’t going to run so I think I let myself off the hook for anything else.

Walking up to the starting corral who do I see but Rachel and Jon Rea who had driven up from Boulder to cheer (ME!) some of their friends who were running. Jon is a week out from Western States and seeing him and Rachel standing in the 35 degree weather was oddly comforting…so I decided to get into the start corral. I could always just walk out after hearing the announcements. While standing there deciding what to do, I bumped into my friend Molly (subscribe to the Consummate Athlete!). We started talking and all of a sudden the gun was going off and I couldn’t really get out of there. We actually walked off the start line to begin the slow grind to the first climb. Even though I felt oddly calm, I still told myself I could drop out at aid 1.

The Lord must’ve blessed me because I found myself latched onto a guy in a yellow Outside Inc. shirt because he had a good pace up the first climb. I had been deciding whether to hike or run up and noticed he was keeping a slow and steady jog up the climb which was faster than I was hiking. He farted on me twice but honestly I got up the climb and asked if he was a veteran because that was a killer pace. It was then he imparted the exact words I needed to hear at mile 5 of a race I wasn’t sure I should be in. He simply said

“don’t think, just breathe”.

Don’t think. Just breathe. So simple. Don’t look ahead. Breathe and move forward. Don’t think. Just breathe.

That became my mantra for the race. I ran with him (Chris from Outside!) for a few more miles before we were separated after an aid station. He also set up my slow jog/grind pace, which I used for the rest of the race with the exception of the hike up to mosquito pass and the final ascent. Don’t think, just breathe. Don’t worry about the snow/hail/sleet. Just breathe. I needed the permission not to think. I needed the permission not to have responsibilities. I needed to just breathe. To just run.

Besides meeting Chris and my fall at mile 23 (got some ice in my eye and took a barrel role), I think I saw some of my old self. I have been questioning whether I have ultra-running still in me anymore. Whether I can mentally do these long things. Leadville reminded me that the beauty of running is to be able to turn my brain off. Don’t think, just breathe. How perfectly simplistic. What a moment to get exactly what I needed.

I don’t think I am ready for longer ultras yet, but this race was huge in building back the mental skills I will need to tackle other challenges. After the race, Corrine and I discussed the path forward. I am resting this week until I pace Riley at Western States. After that Corrine and I will work on a schedule that helps me with work-life balance. Most of that is on me. Chef Aaron also says I need to take two full days off each week where I do not “check-in” at all. I just do things for me. He is right, and that will also happen. No more long runs going straight into work. No more helping out when I am not scheduled. I trust Skratch and the staff I hired, it’s time to believe in what we’ve built.

After all…I did win a gold coin…so I might very well see Leadville again in August…

4:02…almost beat Jon’s time…there’s always next year. Photo credit: Leadville Race Series

Thank you to Skratch Labs for letting me join in tabling in the hail. Thank you to the Leadville Race Series event staff and volunteers who stood out there all day in the snow. Thank you to Jon, Rachel and Liam who were there in person and understood if I didn’t start the race. Thank you to On Running and my trail teammates. For a while now I don’t feel like I’ve deserved to be on the same team as you incredible people. You inspire me everyday.

LASTLY LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOULDER CONTINGENT (non-ugs)!