It was NOT love at first sight.
The first time I tried trail running, I really, really, really hated it.
A little over 5 years ago, I saw a race listing for a 15k at a local state park. I’d completed a half marathon at that point, so I felt okay with the idea of running 9.3 miles. I’d been to the state park in question, so I knew I would be running on hiking trails instead of on asphalt, but how different could it be? I mean, running was running, right?
Wrong.
Less than a quarter of a mile into the race, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. The first stretch of the trail brought us down into a gully, which, thanks to the rain which had predictably afflicted Alabama for the previous week, had transformed into a mud pit. Immediately after coating my feet in sludge, the trail insisted I run up a hill. Like, a pretty decent-sized one. Then the trail narrowed and went up some more.
One mile into the race, I had rechristened the 15k “the Death Stumble.” There were so many rocks! And roots! You were constantly in danger of tripping! And the up and down was relentless; the trail almost never seemed to level off. What was this hell? Why would people do this to themselves on purpose? I mean, sure the scenery was a lot nicer than that of a road race, but at what price? Give me a gas station, some urban blight, and a flat road.
There was one aid station. I stopped and ate three bananas, an orange, and two cookies. I had never seen cookies at a race before, and this, so far, seemed like the best thing about the whole operation.
“This is my first trail race,” I told the aid station workers. “I can’t believe how hard it is. Or how slow I’m going.”
One woman gave me an expression of sympathy. “Yeah, a trail race isn’t a place to look for a personal record, that’s for sure,” she said.
I will add that she seemed a little surprised that I didn’t already know this.
Around mile 5 I gave up on running entirely and just started walking. And walking. It had been like 15 minutes since I had seen anyone. I was tired and hot and my legs hurt. And there was So. Much. Uphill. I didn’t know how it was possible, but I was nearly completely convinced that I was running uphill roughly twice as much as I was running downhill. If you had asked me at the time how far it felt like I had gone, I would have said, “Somewhere in the vicinity of 83 miles.”
Two solid days passed, or, rather, about 3 hours that felt like two solid days. By the time the finish line came into view, still a half mile away, two things were clear: 1) I was, by a significant margin, the last person still out here on this course, and 2) the race organizers had more or less given up on me and had begun disassembling the finish line.
One very compassionate young man jogged back toward me and shouted words of encouragement at me as I heaved toward the end of the race. “You’ve got this!” he said, with the sort of boundless enthusiasm that is only forgivable in a 20-year-old. “Just think, you’ve already beaten everyone who slept in today! That’s awesome!”
I tried not to hate him. It wasn’t his fault that he was in shape and happy and I was neither of these things.
By the time I finished, they had put away not only all of the bananas, but the finish line itself. Even though I now know that there probably wasn’t more than about 1,200 feet of elevation over that entire course, it took me more than three hours to finish it, and the leftover race volunteers had mostly forgotten I existed by the time I finally did.
I staggered to my car and fell into the front seat. “Never. Again,” I said to my sweaty face in the rearview mirror.
Here’s the thing with me and running, though: I’m like that woman who gets fed up with dating and is like, “That’s it, that’s the last time I go out with a man ever, I’m taking up oil painting and rappelling and if that’s not a good substitute for a man I don’t know what is” and then the next day is thumbing through the dating apps.
That’s me, except with running instead of a guy.
The first time I ran a 10k, I said, “That’s insane, 6 miles is too long for anyone to run, I’m never doing that again,” and then two weeks later signed up for another one. The first time I ran a half marathon, as I crossed the finish line, I told myself, “13.1 miles is stupid, I hated that, the 10k is the furthest I’m ever going to run in the future, that’s plenty long enough for anyone,” and now I have a “regular” half marathon I run every year. After I ran my second marathon, I promised my husband I was done with marathon running, it was stupid, I was crying from how badly my legs hurt, there was no way I would put the two of us through that again. And then I signed up for an ultramarathon.
My learning curve is a flat line.
The best way for me to guarantee that I would be doing trail running in the future was to say I was never going to do it again.
Trying to remember why I decided to try trail running again is something like trying to remember exactly what you did that one Friday night you were really drunk, except I wasn’t drunk and I was paying someone to enable me (Alex, my running coach). I think part of it was that Alex recommended books about runners who did insane trail running things, like Scott Jurek and Dean Karnazes, and I kept reading them and asking for more. Part of it was that I got exposed to people who ran on trails for fun, and I hate feeling like I’m missing out. Part of it is an unnamable incoherence of non-logic that I can’t begin to justify.
And that is how I’ve found myself, since my ultramarathon three months ago, running three trail races this summer and doing a weekly trail run with a group of other crazy people at 5:30 every Thursday morning.
Yesterday, I got up at 5:00 am even though it was clearly a Saturday and nobody was forcing me to do this, and drove 45 minutes to the third of these races: a 10 miler with three separate summits. Alex had pitched this race to me as one of the most challenging of the series, with a bunch of vertical climbs, and since I am completely susceptible to peer pressure I registered.
The thing about milling around near the starting line at 6:45 on a Saturday in the middle of a heavily wooded State Park is that you know you’re with your tribe. These weirdos in their hydration vests and idiosyncratic outfits and hats and excitement even though it’s not even solidly morning yet are clearly the same kind of weirdo I am. We’d looked at the course map and the elevation and were like, “Yep, I’ma pay some money for someone to make me do that,” and here we were.
The starting gun went and we were off. I felt good, which surprised me. Every time I start off a run feeling good, it’s a gift. I can’t remember which incredibly wise runner said this, but I have experienced it: “Whether you’re feeling good or you’re feeling bad, it’ll pass.” I knew I wouldn’t feel good on the entire run, so I was determined to enjoy it as long as it lasted.
The morning was a soft, watery grey; the pressure cooker that is usually August in the South was nowhere in evidence. A cool breeze wisped through the trees. I stuck to the back of the pack; I’m not fast, and I don’t want to make people pass me.
The first real climb happened after mile 2. I slowed down, dug in; the incline was steep and rocky, but to my surprise it felt fantastic to be clambering up. I felt strong, exhilarated. I hadn’t expected to feel like this. I’ve historically disliked hills. In my July 9-mile race, I audibly groaned when I encountered this nightmare of a climb:
I also suspected that my legs would feel more or less blown out by the time I finished the first climb, and was delighted when they didn’t and when running again felt natural.
The second climb was more vertical than the first. I used my hands to help pull me over rocks and across boulders; I encountered other runners, all of whom were just as winded as I was.
And then.
And THEN I crested the hill, and I saw the sun peaking and spilling limitless gold through the mist that hung low over the trees. The wide, lush expanse of green spreading into the infinite valley, the texture of treetops, the comforting petrichor, the outrageous beauty of the world around me, married to the elation of summiting that hill, nearly overwhelmed me.
“Wow,” I said, and stopped short. “Wow.”
I paused there, breathing hard, sweaty as hell. I had stepped into a different universe, a realm where there was no separation between me and the veins of mineral running through the boulders beneath my feet, between my heartbeat and the deeper, rhythmic pulse of the trees with their fragile, abundant leaves.
And that was when I realized I was deeply, passionately, irrevocably in love. Head over heels, lost to reason.
I loved clawing up this trail, both occupying this same world with my tribe and yet completely solitary. I loved the fight for it, being consumed by the challenge and the beauty.
Also, when I reached the aid station, they had cookies.
This isn’t to say that I didn’t have a powerful impulse to quit around mile 6 – I did. In fact, on one of the climbs, this other runner and I kept passing each other, and at one point she said, “Can you believe we paid money to do this?” and I said, “I know, right?” except what I meant was, “What else would we spend our money on?”
This isn’t to say that my legs didn’t hurt – they did. But that was part of the joy of it, the wanting to quit and not quitting; pushing through the discomfort and choosing to focus on the beauty instead.
Also, I felt that it was very likely there would be cookies at the finish line.
Like that race 5 years ago, this one took me 3 hours to finish – this time, not because I was reduced to walking, but because the hills made me dig deep and find out what I was made of. I didn’t complete my laborious trek after the finish line had been rendered obsolete – I crossed under the arch and headed straight to the snack table, near where the other crazy people like me were hanging out.
I’ve spent some time with my new love today, learning more about what they’re about. We’d been flirting for so long, and now here we are, in a relationship. I know I’m gonna get my feelings (and probably my calf muscles) hurt, I know it’s not going to be smooth sailing, I know that I’ll be challenged and disappointed and hopeful and euphoric. I can’t predict the future, but I’m excited to see where this is going to take me.
Isn’t that what love is all about?
