Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
It’s alright, you can afford to lose a day or two…
When will you realize… Vienna waits for you?- Billy Joel
What I love about crazy-long races is that they enable me to fall apart again and again, in a contained period of time, and find ways to put myself back together. They remind me that no one can do the work for me, that it’s always about one foot in front of the other, and that my mind is the loudest voice I hear, so I better teach it to say good things! As much as I want to use excuses – my hip hurts, I am too tired, work is too much, the world is a mess – races require that I turn the channel, and move forward. They require me shut down, turn off, and keep going, all at the same time. They require that I persist, even when everything inside of me screams STOP, you cannot do this. Although races involve the physical, the mental aspect of them prevails. They require positive self-talk every step of the way. They are about the hands (sometimes visible, sometimes invisible) that pull me through life by believing in me, and whispering to me that I am good enough and can accomplish whatever I set out to.
Races teach me that hard things are hard, but that they matter. They teach me that there is an end, and that the end is often the beginning. They teach me the significance of being all in. They remind me to be good to the people around me, not to take myself too seriously, and instruct me on how to allocate my energy. They teach me that I am so much stronger than I think I am, and that kindness is something I have to cultivate within before I can bestow it upon others. They enable me to clear my mind and soul and ultimately, recharge my batteries.
When I arrived in Tampa in anticipation of running Long Haul 100, one of my favorite crazy-long races, I would have bet on anything that I was going to spend the weekend running. But then I was immersed in work all day Friday, and when nighttime came and it was time to tune out of work and immerse myself in race prep, a strange thing happened: I didn’t feel like doing anything. It wasn’t so much about the race, but about my mind, which felt too full. I was tired. I didn’t want to organize my stuff again (if you run 100s uncrewed, you likely can relate to this sentiment of figuring out what you need and when you may need it and packing and planning all accordingly);I didn’t want to get up early the next morning and rush and then run and run and run, and then organize and pack back up again and get on a plane and go back to life and work – in the middle of what promised to be an eventful inauguration week in downtown D.C.
At 9 pm race eve, I decided that I was not going to do the race. I am learning, slowly, to let go of what I think I have to do, or am supposed to do, and do what I need to do. I am learning about restoring instead of continually depleting myself. Because this is my life. It has to matter in the here and now. Every day, every action, every choice has to be meaningful and align my heart and mind. I am learning that it’s about listening to my inner voice, so that I can breathe and smile and live authentically. I am not supposed to beat myself up and be disappointed with myself when I don’t live up to expectations I create that have no grounding in reality. I am striving to be a human that gets to be human. Which includes building in time to rest and turn off and have fun. It cannot always be about doing for me. I know I am most creative when I am in a lost-in-space-zone, so I need to let myself get there more.
When I told my buddy and running partner Chip, who tends to know me pretty well when it comes to running and life, that I was not going to run the next day because I didn’t want to, he listened.
“Why not see how you feel when you wake up?” he asked.
My immediate thought was no. I want to sleep in, but I also knew that my mind would work better after some rest. And I know that flexibility is the bedrock of life. So, when my alarm went off race morning at 4 am, and I felt okay, Chip and I made a pact to run for six hours, see how we felt, and then reassess. I had a plan. Six hours. Roughly 30 miles. I was up for it. In fact, it excited me to think about running for six hours and then getting on with my day.
Once I was out there on the course, though, the transformation happened pretty quickly. The trails – chilly and damp and spacious at daybreak – the camaraderie, the peace of being in nature, the wide-open sky and reaching longleaf pine trees pulled me in. Until my legs started to ache, and my mind was trying to speed up the six hours. Every time we intercepted with ultra-buddy Justin Yonker, his good cheer lifted me up. When I told him, more than once, that I was definitely stopping soon, his race euphoria gave me pause, “where else in the world would you rather be? This is amazing,” he reminded me. Then he planted a seed: “you cannot stop before the magic happens.” That got me. I knew all too well about the magic and the possibilities that came with it.
We hit six hours, then seven hours, then eight, and I was okay. Better than okay: I was happy. Moving along, taking it all in. Yes, there were aches and pains – there always are. That’s part of running ultras. When Chip and I finished the fourth loop, or 40 miles, and were about to start the fifth, we immersed ourselves in our 1/1 run/walk pattern, mostly to occupy our brains and get caught up in the game-like aspect 1 minute on/1 minute off induced, and we also opted to play music. Two big boosts at once. We took turns playing D.J. and sang along. My first pick was a song that had deep meaning for me: Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” In high school, my friends used to sing it to me in regard to my overachieving, always-on self. Singing along on the nippy trail, the daylight beginning to fade, I felt the magic: I was exactly where I needed to be. “Slow down you crazy child, you’re so ambitious for a juvenile…” The words resonated, but when it came to, “you can afford to lose a day or two…when will you realize, Vienna waits for you” everything in me shifted. Being out there running was saying yes to losing a day or two. It was saying yes to living my life and not worrying about what came next or what I needed to get done. I felt it loud and clear: the world would wait. I could in fact afford to lose a day or two.
Then, when we completed that loop and we clocked 50.9 miles, we had a brief discussion.
“Will you feel okay if you stop?” Chip said. “Are you going to measure yourself by this and feel bad?”
I thought about it. I was tired, which was normal. I was cold, also normal – the temps were dropping. Sure, I would feel bad in some way, but doing things for the sake of doing them makes me feel flat and empty, as if I am going through the motions of my life versus living it. I like to finish races. I’m anxious that stopping may make me mentally weaker. I don’t want to become a quitter, but I also get tired of being a zombie in my life. Of struggling to find my feelings because I am living at such a distance from myself because I am worn out.
“I’m going to stop,” I said. “I’m okay with it. I need a break.”
It was the first time in a really long time that I gave myself permission not to have to keep going. To take a time out for me. For no other reason than I needed it and wanted it. I do not live by regrets as a rule in my life, but a decade back, when my mother passed away, I gave myself a few days to mourn, and then went back to work. I wasn’t ready to face everyone at work, but I felt that going back was the right thing to do. My friends and colleagues told me to take time – to process and give myself space to mourn. But I didn’t listen. And my life moved back into it’s always-on speed. In retrospect, what I needed then, was time and space. I needed the void to process everything, but I didn’t allow myself that space, because I was afraid, I suppose. So when I sense I need the void in this here and now of my life – even if I only have it for a day – I am going to take it.
And when I stopped the race, the world didn’t end. I didn’t feel like a terrible person or a failure. I felt like me, going through some tough times, and giving myself a little TLC, as opposed to being the tough girl I so often am. “You can afford to lose a day or two….” I push through work. I push through any issues that pain me – my dad’s growing old. Pain in my body. Feelings of now what when I consider the situations of the world. I push and I push and I push. Because I always have. Because it’s in my DNA. Grad school, my career, my writing, yoga teacher training, one race after another. I push. And sometimes it makes me feel euphoric, and sometimes it makes me feel disillusioned and lost. Always, I come back to myself through a run. Through yoga. Through writing. Those have been my surefire tools for decades now. I don’t cling to them – they are not habits or chores or obsessions. They are my tools to shine myself bright when I feel dulled and down. When I feel less than, which can be often. When you are always pushing, though, there comes a time you need to let it be okay to stop. When you opt to lose a day or two.
This was the first time in my long-distance running adventures that I didn’t beat myself up. That I didn’t feel the need to make up the miles, or sign right up for the next race the following day. It was the first time in a really long time that I remembered it was okay to listen to myself and not have to dig deep or redeem myself in any way. Instead, I took a vacation for a few days! I ran and walked on the beach in St. Petersburg. I took in the vast horizon, and I didn’t think of where I needed to be, or what I needed to do. I just was. And I took time to listen to Billy Joel’s “Vienna” a few more times, and kept finding my magic, long after I left the race, long after the manic pace of my life started back up, and I was working, back in DC, witnessing the world shift. I remembered it’s okay to stop sometimes. And it’s okay to keep going again, whenever I’m ready.
