Er, well, maybe a few words. In writing a race report for the CMMM, I wanted to keep it short and to the point, not one of those wordy ramblings full of tangents and cryptic references I usually cough up.

So I thought about it for a bit. “In one word,” I asked myself, “what was this race experience to me?”  Well, that was easy.

“The word is instinct. It was all about the return of instinct,” I thought, “But then aren’t all endurance events at least a little about that for me?” I always seem to have this on my mind before a race, but forget exactly what it means until I am in the thick of it. A long race for me is like hitting life’s reset button. Going into it, I know this, but in my heavy, pre-race anxiety I have to ask myself ”Why do I do this? Why must I tear up my body so in order to restore my soul?”

But in the thick of the run, there is that sweet recognition of the return of instinct; a deep, calming sense that guides and directs, that blows me back on course. Carried away are every worry and fret of unimportance, leaving me with–as–something of substance, something tangible and golden, truth.

Running in the mountains at night brings on a return of instinct unlike any other experience I have had. (But then I have yet to tango with a mugger or visit a war zone.) For me, running itself does this, running long does it better, running in nature–especially the woods and the mountains does it best, and running at night? Well, with all of these elements in place, it switches on senses I forgot  I had.

I chose to run this race for practical reasons. I am an ultra newbie. Though I have run some night races, they haven’t been on single track nor as far as 50 miles, and I hoped the experience would help me prep. for a 100m. I opted for one headlamp (with a back up and extra batteries in drop bags) to guide me rather than the head lamp/flashlight combo. For trail running, I like to keep my hands free in case I need to catch myself or scramble up a bank. Or in the case of this race,  climb some spruces around a mud pit. The fog turned out to be thick on the trails, and the ferns nearly as tall as me at times. Visibility was spotty. Though I could have used the extra light, mostly I was glad I had my hands free.  As the night wore on, I began to rely less and less on sight and more and more on other senses to direct me. How much progress were the runners up ahead making? I could judge by sound. Pretty good? Trail is probably smooth. It’s probably safe to pick up the pace. This was just the beginning. Even the plethora of smells along the trail told so much. After a while, I realized I could smell the mud ahead though I couldn’t tell the depth. I could smell the water when approaching streams. I could smell the woodsmoke of the campfires that promised aid stations. Through it all was the pervasive smell of spruce, thick-sweet blossoms, the acrid ferns, the pungent forest floor: the fungus, the rotting wood and leaf mold, the moss.  Oh, the moss!  Like none I had ever seen!  At stretches, so thick it would swallow my feet! There was such beauty in the smells, in the velvety silence. After the constant din and choking smells of city life, it was like a balm for the soul.
At one long, lone stretch, I turned off my lamp and felt the darkness. It was magnificent.

For the first half of the race, I wore these lovely Merrell trail gloves with Vibram soles which offered no rock plate protection from the rocky, gravelly road stretches, but were fantastic on the trails.  Six ounces of grippy rubber and soft slipper upper, they put less between my feet and the ground than my house slippers. I knew it would be a crap shoot to wear these on this rough terrain, but after training a couple hundred miles in them, I didn’t want to go back to regular shoes. They are amazing. I received so much sensory input from my feet, I felt at times I could have run without a light. Surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt much to run on the gravel or the rocks in them. However, when I got to the mud, I was in for some problems. I liked to tie them loosely which meant they were like giant spoons when I dipped my feet into the shin-deep mud. It felt pretty good oozing between my toes, but I nearly parted with the shoes several times. At the first drop bag (mile 23) I opted for my old, beat up Newtons. These are great shoes, but after the Merrells, they rendered my feet blind. It was a tough adjustment and turned out to be an interesting experiment. I was shocked at how much information I had been receiving from my feet and responding to instinctually.

A couple of days after the race, I received a call from my dear grandmother. My grammie is 81, blind, and loving her independence, insists on living alone.  She has been partially blind for most of her life, has never seen color, and though she doesn’t see at all now, knits beautifully. She says she always knits with her eyes closed. That way she can see better. She never ceases to amaze me. She told me of her recent knitting exploits, blue and white hats for Joe Paterno and his wife, and nearly two hundred hats for the soldiers in Afghanistan. She said she couldn’t fill the orders fast enough, that she wished she could knit with her feet. She went on to explain the she no longer wears shoes in her house, that her feet have become her eyes. Without telling her about the race, I told her I understood.

After this, I thought about my experience again, about the little oddities, the serendipitous coincidences of life. One of the things I carry with me on long races is a little white linen kerchief edged in lace crocheted by my grandmother’s grandmother. It is a practical thing. I use it to wipe the sweat from my face. But it also serves as a reminder that I am part of something greater, that I am but a thread–albeit lovingly knitted–into this reality. The kerchief was handed down to me from my mother. It is a fine gift, though it seems my great, great grandmother crocheted so frequently, there were pieces of her lace everywhere around when I was growing up. In race prep, I had picked up the kerchief  for practical use only, without a thought to its heritage–to MY heritage.

Maybe more than instinct, the word to sum up my race experience is “gift.” It was a gift to be able to run it in the first place, to enjoy it so thoroughly, to finish, though slowly, without injury. It was a gift to be in those beautiful mountains, in the heart of that splendid, dense, silent pine forest at night, a gift to see new friends and old running acquaintances, Jim and Doug, and especially the awesome Jenny Nichols who took 2nd place for the women!, and to make even more. It was a gift to be so graciously looked after by cheery volunteers and considerate fellow runners. It was a gift from Adam, the race director who put together such a fabulous race, a mountain of hard work. It was a loving, selfless gift from my husband who knows so well how much running means to me that he would take time out of his busy schedule to haul my butt down to the mountains to do it, to offer kind words of loving support and encouragement even when I barked and fretted with pre-race anxiety, to be there with me at beck and call, waiting for me at the finish to congratulate me on a job well done. I don’t ask him to do this. He volunteers. He is a rock, that man. And it was a strange and unexpected gift to have had the opportunity to feel around  in the darkness, and finally get a sense of what it is like to take a walk in my grandmother’s shoes–or shoelessness rather—to be reminded that we are privy to so much more sensory input if we but open ourselves to it.

I tried and failed once again to keep myself from making that rookie mistake of going out too fast. Every time, I try to care about the splits, but I am bad, bad, bad. The adrenaline is simply too much for me. I indulged my inner horse, and just let it go. I am a terribly undisciplined runner. But luckily the crowd was thick and folks were forcefully elbowing for their positions, everyone struggling to press ahead. It never thinned throughout, so I soon settled back into a comfortable pace and just watched the shimmering, bouncing colorful snake we made as it stretched and writhed out in front of me. What a spectacle!

So I wasn’t spent by mile 16. That little bridge hill that used to give me such grief was easy this time, and I strongly powered up the Newton hills that closely followed. Even Heartbreak didn’t seem so bad. Sure I pushed. Sure, I slowed. But it just wasn’t so bad this year. And I flew down the hills just as I always love to do, an indulgence that I usually pay for later. But even now, my quads aren’t sore. Terrapin mountain has its gifts, it seems.  A more competitive part of me surfaced briefly on the hills, and I was grateful to pass so many and still feel strong. But for some reason, I couldn’t harness that competitive edge. I just wasn’t fighting for speed. Just wasn’t pushing. Why?

Feeling a little dehydrated, I walked at several water stops to make certain I got a good drink.  I ran very strong. But slowly. It was as if some part of me was rebelling. At some point after mile 20, I became most acutely aware of the state of my body. The skin on my face, neck and arms was being burned by the relentless sun (my sunblock rubbed off and lost to several dowsings at water stations) and now I could feel the numbness in my feet from the constant slapping of pavement, the achy joints and cramping calves  I only get when running hard on pavement. I thought about running at age 80. I wanted to be able to. I reigned in and lightened my stride in an attempt to save my joints. Oh, where was my moxie today? Last year, I had felt it, had wanted to pull ahead, had elbowed my way through the crowd, and PR’d nicely.  This year, even beforehand, I knew I would be slow. It wasn’t because of my training. I am stronger–even faster than ever, I know.  But that friendly competitive spark, that push to give it my all was simply not there this year.  Perhaps I had lost it somewhere in the mountains.

They say that three’s a charm. In finishing Boston #3, I learned a lot about myself, but in the end, it left me with more unanswered questions. I am still quite the newbie, after all. It was my slowest attempt at a race that is all about making a fast time.  I blew it. What a shame, I thought.

At the expo, I felt like a fraud, alone in a sea of runners, a pony amongst the gazelles. What used to feel like a big family reunion to me now felt like someone else’s family reunion I had crashed. I felt set apart, a slow, roly-poly creature. I was so aware of that competitive spirit around me. There was a constant undertone of speed. It is all about the numbers, I was reminded. Numbers. I noted the 26.2 printed again and again on so many surfaces, a source of pride for so many, and to me, sadly, such an arbitrary number. Wistfully I looked about for hints and clues from the ultra world, but saw none. Then I bumped into a woman I had met before the JFK. It was great to see her. I felt a little less alone. She was running her 8th Boston, this time, with her brother who had traveled in from Oregon. He was far behind her in the seeding, but she was going to move back so she could run with him.  It was so welcoming to hear of someone running Boston for an experience other than the numbers. Boston is a celebration of running, after all. It doesn’t have to be about numbers. I talked to some first-timers before the race. It was great to be able to answer their questions, give them tips about the course, and to tell them to relax and enjoy the experience. Most said that they were just there to finish; just there for the experience that is Boston–to feel part of it. But all of us hope for the best time, especially the newcomers. More than a strong finish, we want to finish fast. We want the numbers to reflect our effort, our hard work and training–to show what we know is inside of us–that steely core we know as runners we possess.

I was sadly failing at the number game this time. On the final 6 miles, I was ready to motor forward. But a painful ankle and slightly crampy calves–things I could have mentally powered through last year–kept me short. I ran in surges. My Garmin had died about half way into the race, so I was a little unsure of my pace once I started to stiffen and tire. At that point where all of the running strength is mental, I suddenly discovered my will had softened. Where in the Hell was my moxie???

As we made that hard last turn on to Boylston street, the part where I love to hotdog and floor it till I’m out of breath, I paused, even walked for a few seconds. Then I found it, the finish in sight, and ran hard. And ah, the relief! It felt so good to be done. This was new for me. Yeah, sure it always feels good to finish, but usually that sense of relief is overshadowed with a sense of accomplishment, with a joy that is giving it your best. But I hadn’t. I was sore, I was tired, I was burnt and dehydrated, but I was okay.  Even talkative.  Sheesh.  I had turned into that chatty Kathy that running sometimes turns me into. It was so crowded this year there were several people finishing the same time as me, and we all congratulated each other. Then I spotted an Umsted100 race t-shirt in the crowd of finishers, and simply had to call out. Ultra=family, it seems to me. We talked ultra, and were instant friends. And it turns out we had a lot of mutual friends. He was racing for time, though half playfully in the way ultra runners do, having trained but two weeks, and I soon realized that finding that shared perspective was the highlight of the finish for me. Throughout the race, my mindset had really been elsewhere. I floundered to comprehend the loss of moxie, the change of mindset. I pondered: plenty of ultra runners still love to competitively motor through Boston as much as they love to competitively motor through ultras, races that are still to the newbie ultra me, lone, self-challenging ambles through the woods. I decided it was a temporary loss, a newbie adjustment, that my moxie would return. I would want to press through Boston again, and race for the numbers. But I had to go somewhere else first.

Still trying to shape my thoughts around this, today I picked up a book I had found on the giveaway table at work, and read my own feelings about it laid out in plain words, perfectly executed:

“A childish enthusiasm had prevented me from seeing that the marathon is really a spectator sport, and a false scale against which to measure our true capacity. What long-distance running is truly about  is measuring ourselves against a challenge that exceeds simple arithmetic, covering miles that we had not necessarily foreseen. It is knowing how to cope when the world turns against you.” –Robin Harvie in “The Lure of Long Distances”

Slam! It all fell together then, and I breathed a big sigh of relief. I thought of the awards ceremonies at some of the ultras I had run, lighthearted mockeries of the pomp-and-circumstance-filled trophying that accompanies so many running events. There were awards for being the fattest runner and the runner who got bloodied the most on the course. Most of the awards were not trophies or medals, but fine outerwear. Ultra runners have a slightly different value system when it comes to running. They understand why they run, and that it has nothing to do with numbers or trophies. We all do it for ourselves. Sure there is competition, community, celebration and ceremony. But the proofing is mostly to ourselves and not to one and other. We crack wise about not training, not tapering or breaking all the training rules before a run. We run for the love of running and for what the untested distance and harsh terrain and conditions have to teach us about ourselves.

Any distance can be a challenge, be it 100 meters, 3, 26.2, 50 miles, 100k or 200 miles. The distance, the time, the numbers don’t matter. It is about pushing ourselves, about facing the unknown inside of us. Alone on the Boston course in a sea of runners, I had come face to face with myself, had called my motivations into question. I forced myself to not care about the numbers, because it shamed me to care about them. In the end, I realized I had run a good race. I may not have pushed to run my fastest, but I ran strong, I took care of myself, kept myself from injury and dehydration, mindful of the long runs for the decades to come. I hadn’t blown it after all. It is just that my values were different now. For better or worse, my goals had changed. It seems I had somehow moved beyond, to a different set of challenges. But even so, I knew this was but yet another step in some growth process as a runner. I had but to look at the plenty of seasoned and wise that traveled from all over the globe to run the Boston. And I knew I would be back.

“Inspiration, move me brightly light the song with sense and color,

hold away despair

More than this I will not ask

faced with mysteries dark and vast

statements just seem vain at last

some rise, some fall, some climb

to get to Terrapin…”

Hunter/Garcia–Terrapin Station

Though by now I probably shouldn’t, I still find it surprising and strange that at this late point in my life I would find such profound meaning imbued in every other line or so of an old song penned by Robert Hunter  and Jerry Garcia. Though I could never have been truly called a Deadhead, never worshiped and revered them as some of those fans I had known,  I have marveled at that phenomenon that was the Dead. And I have certainly always worshiped at the alter of music’s mystery.

I have never found Terrapin a particularly strong or meaningful song.  But even at his weakest, Hunter has a poetic way of dragging us through the mythic–of surreptitiously slipping us a cryptic line or two that suddenly reveals the bigger pattern some decades later when we are doing a bit of soul searching. And it seems for me that at this particular point in my life Hunter has with his song, come once again to pull the thread.

It is, in fact, both the first song I ever heard the Dead play live, and the first time I had ever heard it. At a particularly low point in my life, a college drop-out ostracized by family, hitting rock bottom depressive states, and recently displaced to a bad part of DC, thrown in with a few scary strangers I hoped at some point to call friends, I was spiraling down into despair and becoming more and more lost.  I had come to this Dead show with a guy I was seeing, but had not known for very long. We were separated in the crowd, and I knew not another soul present.  The crowd was huge, surprisingly rowdy and a bit frightening. Much like my place in the world, I didn’t know where to look to find my seat, where to stand, where or how to be.

The music meandered around loosely the way it does with the Dead, the way it does with the song Terrapin Station, without a strong rhythm, without much structure, and still the crowd sang and swayed. Then Jerry’s guitar refrain peeled through the din, and everyone together screamed the lyric  “Terrapin!”

In the focus and intensity of the crowd, I suddenly  found that I no longer felt lost, found it but a state of mind, an illusion that fell away with the music, and realized that I was  exactly. where. I. was. supposed. to. be.

It was a solid if fleeting moment, and the recognition powerful. Music has always had a way of doing this for me, of bringing me back to myself, if but briefly, of reminding me of my place in the universe, of lighting the way so that I might not lose my footing on those dark and winding stretches.

Lately, I have been running a lot. In part, in truth, I have because I have needed to desperately. I have been passing through some great emotional challenges, and it has kept me strong.  Also, I have been preparing for two races: in April, my third try at Boston, and this Saturday, a mountain trail race called the Terrapin Mountain 50k.  Surely it is this race that has brought the old song back into my head. That, and it simply happened to coincide with so much else that made the song ring true.

“While you were gone these spaces filled with darkness

The obvious was hidden

With nothing to believe in the compass always points to Terrapin..

I have been writing. I write of where I place my faith. I try to focus on not what is fleeting, but on that which abides.  But everything in this world seems to shift and change with lightening speed, and recently, if I do manage to pull myself out of that ticker tape stream of consciousness if for but a little, perplexed, I find myself standing on the edge of a vastness, naked and alone before the beauty of the universe. And it frightens me. I know, there are only but a few things that can bring me here.

“and I know we’ll be there soon

Terrapin -

I can’t figure out

Terrapin -

if it’s an end or the beginning

Terrapin…

Not particularly conscious of the approaching race, that old refrain of “Terrapin!” and its message that had so long ago set me back on the path kept sneaking back into my consciousness until  once again I sensed those mental bees at work, that subconscious stirring that goes on before a big change/challenge, and I awaited that familiar snap! That thunderous clap of the master’s hands that suddenly brings in line again the workings of the conscious and subconscious.

Yes, I have been writing. I have been trying excruciatingly slowly on my wobbly new writing legs to learn to pen memoir. Cautiously, one foot in front of the other, painstakingly trying to figure out how to reach back into that darkness without losing myself in it again, I have been searching for the right balance of elements, for the correct recipe. I read others’ words. They all seem to be able to bravely open themselves up and lay it all on the line. I know that it takes immense courage. I read between the lines for what they don’t reveal. I feel it out for myself. How much detail? How much of the self do I share? Can others’ relate to this? How and when should I refrain to protect others? What can I brush over, where must I painstakingly tell all? I find myself writing then editing then deleting, then rewriting, and more often than not feeling like I am losing ground; Penelope forever weaving and then tearing out her fresh work on the burial shroud.

But in hopes of what? That I will at last be reunited with some long lost heroic part of myself returned to give me the strength to say what needs to be said? For the hope of saving myself from the past by recreating it as art, holding it up for all to see? Perhaps. For so long I had been awaiting the return of my instinct, for the return of my strength.  It came in running. It is the light that scattered the darkness and with it, I have burned my own burial shroud.  But now I must progress further. Now I must fund the courage to climb on, to lay it out for all to see in an effort to help others.

“Hold away despair…

The obvious was hidden…

In the shadow of the moon, Terrapin station…

So I will run long again. Up into the mountains where it works the best. Where I will find my strength again. Where I always manage to find myself.

“Some rise, some fall, some climb

to get to Terrapin…

I make light of it. It is not a race for me. I am slow. I do not compete but with myself.  It is just a little run in the mountains. I’m doing it for fun. I’m doing it for joy. I’m doing it because I have to. I’m doing it because I can. I’m doing it because it saves me from myself. I’m doing it because it holds away despair.  I’m doing it because running long is what creates that music of my mind that when played over and over lifts me out of the gray streets.

In my training, I sometimes run long from my house to the National Cathedral, its spires beckoning from far in the distance, glowing like the moon in the slanting sunlight, visible from many streets,  from many angles.

“Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright:

the spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best…

From the northwest corner of a brand-new crescent moon…

But it is in the running, in the journey through the dismal streets that I reach its heights.  My husband explains to people who don’t understand my love of long distance running,  that running is for me a religion.

“Some rise, some fall, some climb

to get to Terrapin…

It has always been a spiritual journey for me, and I have been climbing in one form or another for years.  It is different each time, each place.  But it remains a constant in that it immerses me in nature, even in the city, in beauty, in the sacred, in physics, in numbers.

“crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune

Terrapin Station

in the shadow of the moon

Terrapin Station

and I know we’ll be there soon

Terrapin -

I can’t figure out

Terrapin -

if it’s an end or the beginning

Terrapin -

but the train’s got its brakes on

and the whistle is screaming:

TERRAPIN !

March 27, the day after race day

March 27, a very special day

The day after a race is always special in that you experience a release from tension, a clear-headed-ness that often comes with the long run and the finish of something monumental.

I completed my first journey to the Terrapin Mountain summit.  An initiation come late in the game within the realm of my short running life, it proved like many races, to yield even more than I could have hoped. Mountains–like races–I was reminded, are all different, and if we listen each has something important, even life-changing, to teach us.

I never seem to do things in a natural order and in my pre-race anxiety, I had arrived once again at that place where I ask myself so many questions for which I thought I had already answers,

“Why?  Why am I doing this? Why this 50k now?  And why does it worry me so?”

I considered. I should be confident. I had completed two 50-milers as close as last November. I had even set some lofty goals for the year, selecting a few more 50-milers, one held at night,  and considered maybe a 100k or a 100m before year’s end. I had been training hard all winter, but training for Boston. I am still new to ultras and the 50k worried me. Maybe mostly because I wasn’t sure why I had chosen it. It seemed an illogical choice. Ill-planned for my schedule, it was too early for use in training for a longer trail race, and smack in the thick of my Boston training. I thought again of the distance, and then of my marathon pace. For the 50k distance I worried about having to run faster than the nice, relaxed 50-mile pace. And I had been training for speed on flat pavement. On mountain climbs I am terribly slow. Would I go out too fast? Would I burn myself out or get hurt? And the mystery remained: why did I choose this one? What does this particular 50k hold for me? “

“More than this I will not ask

faced with mysteries dark and vast

statements just seem vain at last

some rise, some fall, some climb

to get to Terrapin…

I wrote about it, attempting to solidify my thoughts, attempting to draw the reason from my subconscious, reminding myself of why I run long trail races, of why I run at all, of what it teaches me, of how it changes me, of how it helps me help others. But the mystery and the anxiety remained.

“While you were gone these spaces filled with darkness

The obvious was hidden

With nothing to believe in the compass always points to Terrapin…

The turning over of the New Year had left me lost. I made solid resolutions, but fumbled in my discipline, felt weak in my resolve. I had somehow lost my footing, felt unprepared for the year to come. Now contemplating my choice in this race,  I even pondered, “What is left in this for me? Would this be my last ultra? Have I come to the end of the trail?”

“I can’t figure out

Terrapin -

if it’s an end or the beginning…

Came at last the fulcrum in the void–race day, gateway. The day moved like a lifetime, slowly at first, quickly at last, and as I traveled round the mountain,  pivoted round the moment, I felt the new day’s fresh memories bend my old perspective as light though curved glass.

Now the word, that name that is also a mountain, a race, a song, a place, a lyric “Terrapin” took on new meaning with each fresh memory, each new layer of metaphor, with each newly burned connection of my pattern-finding brain. Among these, there was that familiar imprint, that weird hint I sometimes get when first meeting someone or someplace I later come to know well and for a long time. I would see this mountain again. Some portions of it felt like a race,  felt a lot like other races, even like races I had yet to run.

“till things we’ve never seen

will seem familiar…

The race, the day was but one long, singular moment. There were long stretches with the field thick with many racers, even stretches with fellow racers whom I had met before. Sometimes we ran in conversation, sometimes in silence. At times it felt like one of those weird dreams one has of a family reunion where family and friends present could never coexist in a true time line. At one point, someone mentioned that we were running part of the notoriously tough Hellgate course, and  “Oh!” a light went on in my head and I pondered, “Here is what my hidden brain has in store. Perhaps this will be the year I will run Hellgate. That is why I am running this now. I have already begun prepping for next winter.” And with that thought I realized that in the thought itself I had begun prepping for the challenges the end of the year would bring. Maybe I would attempt the aptly named Hellgate.

“Which of you to gain me, tell

will risk uncertain pains of Hell?

I will not forgive you

if you will not take the chance…

But a year felt like forever, and forever is a long time.  I would not commit. Time will tell, I thought. The terrain shifted, and the group fell apart. I barreled down the mountainside. In the focus and intensity of the running, I suddenly  found that I no longer felt lost, found it but a state of mind, an illusion that fell away with the music and cadence of the run, and I realized that I was again  exactly. where. I. was. supposed. to. be.

Just after I found myself alone on the trail. Unknowingly approaching the Terrapin summit, I was but following the race streamers, following the path that lead up and up to steeper and steeper climbs until at last the rugged terrain shifted again, this time from loose rock and gray-brown trunks and dead leaves to a winding brilliant green, mossy way through a dense, twisted wood of emerald rhododendron foliage. They way was so steep now, I pressed my hands hard into my quads, occasionally reaching for trees to pull myself up. Heart pounding, up, and up, I climbed slowly until the trail leveled out a bit, and then I ran along the mountain’s crest, peering out now and again at the far reaches  of the Blue Ridge and the green/brown patchwork of farmland on both sides below, until the trail ended and at last I found myself standing at the narrow, rocky point that is the Terrapin summit. Here I could see out in nearly every direction. On the edge of this vastness, I felt it again, that feeling that I had had before the run, of standing naked and alone before the beauty of the universe. But now I was no longer frightened. Now, I was here. And I know, there are only but a few things that can bring me here.

“and I know we’ll be there soon

Terrapin

November used to be the month I dreaded more than any other.  The cold, short days, the leafless trees and gray-brown landscape; the time of year when many gave up the ghost, could be overwhelmingly depressing. But like it has done with so many other things for me, running has turned November around.

It is quickly becoming a big race month for me, and this  year by Thanksgiving, in addition to my health, my wonderful husband, loving family, and awesome colleagues, I had even a great deal more to be thankful for.

The month’s two 50-milers came and went without DNF or injury, and left me with nothing but new friends,  smiles, good memories, and a positive outlook for the season to come.

Saturday, I ran the JFK50, my last ultra of the year. It did not disappoint. It was enormously fun, even more so than last year. Knowing better what I was in for, I could relax a bit. And two weeks before, I had run the MMTR which gave me a great deal of confidence.

Since I am new to the sport and have but a few races under my belt, I cannot yet personally compare these east coast 50-milers to any of the vastly different races held elsewhere.  But my experience of them and of two JFKs has solidified the notion that no two races are ever alike.  So despite their proximity in time and place,  it felt as though the only other thing they had in common was the distance, and a few of the runners.  My experiences of them really couldn’t have been more different.

In addition to the difference in the terrain (JFK goes up over one mountain, climbing around 1200 feet over some rough, extremely rocky single track of AT , and is followed by mostly flat, river-side miles.  MMTR has stream crossings and connects two mountains, climbs 9200 and drops 7200 feet with most of the serious climbs in the second half of the race). MMTR has a field of roughly 300 while JFK has roughly 1000. The folks racing the MMTR, though there were some first-timers and a few newbies like me, were mostly hardcore, seasoned ultra racers–an impressive if humble, welcoming, fun-loving group, but nearly all strangers to me (of course, I’d read about a lot of them–to me they were more legends than people). And though the aid station folks were extremely nice and helpful, I had no one crewing for me that day.  I was in essence alone with my heroes and strangers in the mountains. At the JFK, in addition to many seasoned racers, there were plenty of newbies, and it seemed there were sooo many people I knew, either running or crewing, it was as much a reunion as a race.

Both were fantastic experiences, and I cannot say I preferred one to the other. It is a comparison of apples and oranges to be sure. Both tested me differently. While the vertical climbs of one were challenging, the continuous faster pace on the long, flat distances of the other was as well. But both managed to pull me out of the confines of self and make me one with the landscape. Both challenged my brain to grasp at wisps of that beauty and vastness that is the universe.

For the JFK, the weather could not have been more perfect. And since I was feeling strong, and had the support of so many wonderful people, spectators, fellow runners and crew, especially my Coast Guard friends and the Reston Runners, who are the most fantastic group I could have ever lucked into finding,  I decided to race a little bit,  and managed to shave 42 minutes off last year’s time.  Coming in just under 9 and a half hours (9:29:15) placed me at 292nd out of 1014 finishers; not too bad for a slower runner like myself. I guess it surprised me. It gave me confidence. Sure, like all runners, I want to be fast. But at the same time, I don’t run to race, and I love the slower pace of the long races. It’s not that I’m lazy, but I just didn’t want to waste the race purely focusing on a fast finish. Maybe if I WERE fast, that would make  sense. But I did feel a challenge to do better than last year, and to offer something to show for all of the loving support I was given.

Even though it was not the first time, it was still a great feeling just completing the race distance. I read in a fellow JFKer’s blog that less than one tenth of 1% of the U.S. population has ever completed a 50-mile race. While I’ve heard the stats before, I still find it shocking, after seeing the large crowd at JFK, and after seeing how the running boom has transformed marathons into these huge commercial running festivals.  When I went to register for Boston this year, I was quick to do it, and just made it in, it seems. They had a record 8 hours before the registration filled.  Last year it took 2 months to fill.

I find myself with mixed emotions about this running boom. Truly I want everyone who can to run, and to run far. I think running is one of the best things a person can do for their physical, mental and emotional health. And I think running a marathon (or an ultra) is a most worthy goal. I try to encourage everyone I know who shows even the least bit of interest to try it. Like with my own, running far has changed the lives of so many I know. It heals like nothing else.  And setting a goal like a marathon helps make that happen.

Yet I see what the boom has done to racing. I worry about the commercialization of the ultra world and how that might change the closely-knit, selfless, ultra community. I wonder if eventually ultras will become the circus that marathons have become.

At the start of the race, I spoke with a runner who was running his 18th JFK. I asked him how it has changed over the years. I rather expected to hear how big the race has become, how commercial it is by comparison with previous years, but he said the that it ebbs and flows. He didn’t share my concern.  Booms are faddish after all, and ultra distances are not for everyone.

While marathons can get up to as high as 20,000-30,000 in field size per race, only around 20,000 people total in the U.S. participate in all ultras combined over a given year.  So there is a difference. And plenty of room for more folks to try an ultra. While many find the distances daunting, they are certainly achievable. And not as painfully as one might think.

Now that the racing is done for me a few months–well, maybe for a month–and winter is setting in, it is a time once again for me to focus on other pursuits, and to perhaps dream a little.

Maybe it is true I have lofty dreams, but I believe it would do us all good to run a little farther and dream a little bigger. So. Join me in dreaming this year of bigger and better things for yourself and for the world– things like democracy in Burma and running ultra distances.

If you haven’t run an ultra and are thinking about it, go for it! Shoot for the mountains and the moon. What you experience will be priceless, and you may just surprise yourself.  : )

At about an hour and a half before dawn on Saturday morning our buses arrived at the start.  While some opted to stay in the warmth of the bus, I stumbled off  with most of the other runners, and we lined up for the porta-johns.  Then we gathered moth-like around a large spotlight and Clark Zealand, race director and ultra winner and runner extraordinaire, clipboard in hand, checking off names to make certain he and his volunteers had accounted for everyone that had not checked in on the bus.

The spotlight cut rather harshly through the predawn, its generator creating a racket and belching out chokingly foul smells. But every now and again a mountain wind would bring on the smell of leaves and snow, and remind me of just where we were and what was to come. I glanced around. It was hard to see the surroundings. Just feet from the light stretched that kind of absolute darkness you forget about after living in the city for more than a year. We were in the Blue Ridge Mountains in southern Virginia, at the very end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Between the treetops and the moonless sky, there was a thick blanket of cloud cover. It began to snow.

It was a seemingly small crowd. I knew there were somewhere around 300 running that day, but in the brief pool of light and surrounding darkness it appeared to me to be about 40. Lots of folks still on the bus, I thought, seasoned runners who have the confidence to rest right up until the start. I shivered, feeling once again that I had bit off more than I could chew in signing up for this race.

The runners around me chatted nervously and shifted feet, trying to stay warm; the few of us out here who didn’t want to miss anything, or simply had too much adrenaline to stay on the bus or in our cars. Newbies, I thought. We are the newbies.

Cool calm and collected amidst our newbie fidgets, Dr. David Horton, the ultra-running living legend who had created this race some 27 years ago, leaned rather nonchalantly on the hood of a nearby car, arms folded, eyes smiling.

“So what’s your name?” he said to me.

He’s addressing me? I thought. Unbelieving, I looked about at the empty space around me. Maybe I had been staring at him. Giddy from lack of sleep, too much adrenaline, and well, more than a bit awe struck, I approached the legend.

“I’m Dani Seiss,” I announced matter-of-factly, in a tone that must have come off as “You know, Dani. It’s me, Dani!” as if he surely had heard of me, as if we had been close friends for decades. He needed no introduction. But I felt like we had a mutual understanding–a shared love of mountains and of running that revealed itself purely by our presence here in the Blue Ridge at predawn. Without thinking, I addressed him as David, not Dr. Horton, and he never corrected me.

Horton has held records for the 3rd fastest on the Appalachian Trail, covering its 2175 miles in 52 days 9 hours, 3rd fastest for the Trans-America Run of 2906 miles; fastest ever on the Pacific Crest Trail, 2650 miles in 66 days 7 hours, 3rd fastest on the Long Trail 272 miles in 4 days 22 hours , and not to mention is 1 of 7 finishers ever at the Barkley 100 Miler (a notoriously hellish experience), and 2-time winner of the Hardrock 100. And I was about to run his race.

“Danny? What, did your dad want a son?” he joked.

“No, he has sons,” I said. “I think he is more proud of his daughters, though,” I smiled.

He laughed.

I asked him what he favorite race is.

“Oh, Hellgate,” he said with gusto and without batting an eye.

“I would LOVE to run Hellgate,” I responded, sounding a bit too enthusiastic to be serious. But I really did want to run the aptly named Hellgate. I knew I would have to work up to that one, though, and it was the conditions and not the distance that I would most likely have to worry about.  The race is a 100k in the mountains in December. It has more that 11,000 feet of elevation climbs, and starts in the middle of the night, so the temps can get pretty cold. Many years there is ice on the paths, and feet, numb and wet with stream crossings have trouble navigating this. Weather conditions can get bad. One year, runners had problems with freezing corneas because of the constant wind.  Why did this sound like fun to me?

I flashed back to when I was a teen. Before I had ever heard of this extreme sport of ultrarunning, I had loved the challenge of the cold and the mountains and the peace they brought me. I spent a lot of time hiking around the Pennsylvania portion of Appalachia in every season, weather condition and every time of day.  I even bivouacked at times. The mountains there are not the sharp peaks they are in southern Virginia, but as mountains, they could surely hold there own. And with more limestone, there are more foothills, so it was often even a challenge just getting to the mountains.

When I was 17, I had my wisdom teeth out over Christmas break.  They were impacted, so they had to knock me out and smash the teeth before they could be extracted–the bottom set had roots wrapped around nerves and the top had their roots embedded in my sinus cavities. The surgery left me swollen, in stitches and in pain. After days of subsisting off nothing but Ibuprofin, broth, juice, books and television; home alone,  I began to go stir crazy and long for the mountains. We had had some heavy snows, and there was about two feet of it on the ground.  One morning, the sun finally came out but the temperature was still stuck at  0 degrees F. I decided that if I layered right, with that sun, I could tackle the cold. The town where I lived was about 4 or 5 miles from the nearest mountain, and with two feet of snow, I wasn’t walking anywhere but on the roads.  But a plan began to develop.  In the barn at my step dad’s farm, about 4 miles away, was a pair of cross country skis that belonged to one of his band mates.  I had borrowed these before, and knew I could use them. So I layered properly, donned  a heavy down coat, and tucked into it my Walkman and two cassettes: the jazz group Oregon, and a nice collection of analog synth songs called Deep Breakfast by experimental music pioneer, Ray Lynch. Adding the finishing touches, heavy hat, ski goggles and an oven-mittish pair of gloves, I took to the road and made the slow trek to the farm. Once there, strapped into the skis, I climbed the fire road to the top of Williamsburg mountain.  I soon forgot the pain in my face, and spent the day skiing the mountain. It was sublime. The day was lovely. The snow sparkled in the sun. Ray Lynch’s song Tiny Geometries spilled colorful, bubbling synth noises all over the day.  This was bliss.

The cold. The mountains. They made everything right as rain. And this was why I knew I wanted to run Hellgate. This is why I was here to run the MMTR. If I was able. Time would soon tell.

MMTR is no walk in the park.  And it is no JFK.  All 50 milers are not alike. MMTR climbs 9200 feet, and drops 7200, with most of the serious climbs in the second half. There are several stream crossings, and so the added joy of running in wet feet.

I told David I would be happy that day if I could simply make the cut off times. I was worried about the vertical miles, and how slowly I would take them. His demeanor softened.  He pitched a few of his 50ks then, Promise Land he said was good. I have to run that one.

Why did I have no confidence? Usually when my confidence wavered about a race, others would bolster it. “Oh, you’ll be fine,” they would say. Not so with the MMTR. When I had expressed any doubts about this one, they would more often shrug. “Just give it your best shot,” was the best I got, even from my ultra running friends. To say the least, it left me with lingering doubts.

Now David–notorious for lighting fires under people and getting them, non runners even, to run ultras, either by convincing them they could do it, or challenging them that they couldn’t, was steering my attention to some of his shorter races.  What have I signed up for? I thought again. Well, too late now.

Nobody I knew, not even the inspiring David Horton was going to tell me honestly what I could our couldn’t do. It was going to have to be up to me to light that fire under myself.  So I drew on my favorite mantras and memories.

“Trust the process” Yassi Ghinsberg had told himself over and over, a mantra that had saved his life when he was lost and injured for three weeks in the Amazon.  I reminded myself that 90 percent of everything is just showing up, and well, I was here. I was about to attempt my second 50-miler. This wasn’t even my first, I assured. And then I remembered what Reston Runner den mother Helen Hips had said to me when I flagged and fretted before last year’s  JFK50:  “Don’t fight it. Just let the mountain embrace you.” And back then, as now, I knew what she meant. And this reminded me of the most important thing that running and mountains had taught me. There is no clear line between you and the world, between you and those mountains. It is an illusion. That boundary is a Mandelbrot fractal. It’s a strange thought, but when you are out there running, you experience it. Hokey as it may sound, that line disappears. It simply falls away and you are one with the day,  one with the place. You experience a true present. For some reason, this makes the running virtually effortless.

Just as that line disappeared that day I went skiing on the mountain–the snow, the sky, the bubbling synth sounds, my breath, the cold, the mountain, the pain in my face became all one and the same–so it would be I knew, once I was running the mountains of the MMTR, Dr. David Horton’s Mountain Masochist Trail Race. It sounded like a carnival act to me and began to take on a surreal quality. And now I prayed that I could make the cut off times at the aid stations just so I could remain out there, so that I would once more achieve that bliss.

We  gathered on the road for the start, huddled together for warmth, and when given a quiet word to begin, suddenly bolted down the road.  I knew well to pace myself at the start of any race, and of all races, I knew I would have to now. But within seconds of the start, we left the light behind, and it grew quite dark and cold. A Chinese dragon of bouncing LEDS and glowing white skeletal outlines of tech clothes, we glided swiftly down the road, padding along, soft running shoes on pavement, occasional sniffs and chatter, sticking together as a pack, trying to stay warm in the predawn snow flurries and wind. At one point, I glanced ahead and saw the sinewy built hams of a runner I was trailing, and I realized simply by her build that I was far too ahead in the pack. I looked at my Garmin and it said we were traveling at a cool 8mph. Yikes! This was much too fast for me to be starting a 50.  But I wanted to get warm. I compromised that I would keep the pace up just long enough to get warm, then start backing off. Luckily there was a long up hill. This warmed us quite nicely and took the pace down. As we crested it, dawn came. Then we came crashing down the other side and crossed the James river. Here we hit the first aid station, and started on the first trail up a good steady, climb. We were all warm now, but still held a good pace.

I decided to try and keep up with the pack for as long as I could. I figured I wasn’t certain how much of this run I could do, so instead of conserving, I figured I’d just try to have fun.

The dragon, now colorful in the full morning sun, rose and fell and twisted and turned over switchbacks at a good clip. Everyone was fresh and energized, and when we’d crest a hill, some of the younger guys would let out yelps and warrior cries and we’d all barrel down the descents. It brought on bouts of laughter from some of us. At one point we flew down an incline, rounded a turn, and flew up over the steep banks of a water conversion ditch, launching into the air from sheer speed to their howls, BMXing without the bikes.

I stayed with the pack for just over the first 20 miles, then we all started to spread out.

From there, I started to relax. We were almost half way into the race, and I was making the cut offs with 45 minutes to an hour to spare, and feeling strong, so I figured I was good to go. Though it should have seemed far too fast to start out, I figured the slow inclines to come would use different muscles, and I would have to run as fast and hard as I could on those stretches that proved runnable. Then I hit the first major incline. Um, mountain rather. Wow.

It was going to be hard to keep a good walking pace up this, I thought.  Under 5’2”, and much more practiced at running, I am a very slow walker. But I couldn’t run this.

At the last aid station, I had passed a woman, and we had chatted briefly. Now she caught up with me and we talked to the top of the mountain. With her holding the pace, we made good time.  I introduced myself as Dani, and she said her name was Abi. Oh! I said, “You’re Abi!” She smiled. (There were only 67 women in the entire race, and only one Abi.)  Abigail Meadows, that is. I had read about her. Abi races ultras competitively. She had pulled a hamstring the month before, so she was taking it easy today. But she wanted to finish this MMTR because it would be her 10th, and she would get a pretty sweet Patagonia jacket for finishing. This made me smile. Will run 50 miles in the mountains for a jacket. Hell, I was doing it for a tech shirt that claimed I finished. Sort of. Really, I was doing it for the bliss of the mountains and of running. And because I was there.

She told me a little about herself, and we found we shared histories in having grown up dirt poor in small coal towns in the rust belt of Appalachia. A tough life is its own reward, we decided.

She had been an Olympic kayaker before becoming an ultra runner, and she did fire and rescue for the Park Service for a living, which she loved. Her race schedule for the year lined her up for 22 ultras, and she was almost done. She had run Copper Canyon in March, which she said was great, and her next after the MMTR would be Hellgate. I smiled wistfully.  Here was a woman living my dreams. And she had sponsors courting her for her running. I told her about my book, my own Hellgate, and we both agreed that writing often made running ultras feel easy. But the thing that really made her beam with pride was her children–her eight babies as she called them. She spoke mostly of the oldest, 16, who loved to run, and though she was careful about letting him run far distances at too young an age,  he had just finished his first 100K, and she was quite proud. She talked of the youngest who is 7, and wants to be a climber.

When we crested the hill, I knew I would have to fly. I had to make up lost time at something I was strong at, and for me, that is flying down the hills.

So I told her I’d see here when she passed me later, smiled and promptly flew down the hill. I was on my own again.

I would meet several other runners this way. But for some long stretches, I was on my own with the mountains to experience that blissful state I’d hoped to catch up with again. And I did. The day was lovely. I ran round the Lynchburg reservoir, and thought of my mother who had lived in Lynchburg for several years. This very place, these mountains, and particularly the area around the start of the race, were quite special to her.  On her deathbed, she told me of a place she had claimed for her own, a large rock just off the road at the end of the parkway where she used to go and sit quietly and just be–to be alone in the forest.  She never said pray. She had a mind ruled by logic. She was an engineer. She had lost her god long ago.  Or so she said.  She had had a hard life with a lot of pain. What remained of her spirituality was tied to this place. It was the most sacred place on earth for her, and she wanted me to take her ashes there.  She drew me a small map. She even had a photograph of the rock. I have searched in vain for this place for 7 years. Every year, my husband and I would camp nearby, and hike and drive the area in search of this special rock. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are so many rocks of that shape and size.

Before the race, I dreamt I  would find it on race day. I even considered taking her ashes along. But I knew it would be dark as we passed through that area, that I would be focused on the race, and that the chances were incredibly slim.  But the specialness of finding myself in this place was not lost on me. Indeed, it took on new meaning and gave me great strength when I crested those mountains. I thought of her dying, how hard she had fought. They gave her 6 months, and she’d lasted 2 years. She pushed and struggled to stay alive in ways I could only imagine, and when she took her last breath, her heart continued on as if it could alone sustain her. These mountains somewhere held her most special sacred place, and now I was here in a hightened state, a running state, taking part of these mountains into myself, and leaving a part of myself behind.  Right then, I knew I would find it– her rock–when the time was right. It was not to be today. But I would be back.

It was pure coincidence that I happened to be running a race in this special place. Last year’s JFK 50 miler was my first official ultra, and a lot of the first leg is on stony trail (largely AT) that takes you up over a mountain. The rest is mostly flat, C&O tow path along the river, and some paved rolling hills of farmland at the end.  After the race, I realized I had enjoyed the mountainous climb most of all. So I sought another race with more mountains.  I looked for something recommended for newbies, with plenty of aid stations, and for something close to home.

Headquarted in Lynchburg, VA, a sub 4-hour drive from home, and in a  part of the country I was at least familiar with,  MMTR seemed like a good fit.

I read as much as I could about it. I asked around my corner of the ultra community for recommendations. Everything and everyone said give it a shot. So I registered. And then I worried. And started training early. Too many hill climbs too quickly and a tendon in my foot knocked me out for a good three weeks. I bounced back rather slowly.

The race proved to be a stresser of a goal for me.  When I worried aloud to my husband, he offered me sage advice and insights only a person who has known me for so long and so well could have offered.  He reminded me of my tendencies to worry needlessly over things. He reminded me how I always stress before a race. He told me that I was strong and in decent shape, that I could handle it,  but also to remember that I had nothing to prove, and didn’t have to run it, and also that I could run part of it, and that there was no shame in dropping out. DNF is par for the course in any ultra runner’s history, because so many things have to come together to make a race that distance possible. Weather conditions and your health being the biggest, but also even tiny things can blow a race when you are going long: a blister can become a disturbing mess, a small sprain can become a major injury. Even a little chafing over a long enough period of time can take you out of a race, or at least reduce the experience to misery.  When longer periods of time are involved, even tiny impedances wear like water on stone.

For this race, other than making the cut off times, I had two major worries. It had some pretty serious climbs late in the race. I knew from experience that my concentration waned after 40 miles, and I didn’t know how nimbly I could manage mountain trails at that distance. Also, there were several stream crossings that would undoubtedly soak my feet, and there were no quick opportunities for a change into dry shoes.  So I wasn’t certain if blisters would be an issue.  I had one drop bag at the half way point, so if I could make it for the first 26.9 miles,  I could change shoes there if I had to.  My shoes were relatively new, and I hadn’t had the opportunity to run over 20 miles in them wet, so I had to take my chances.

As it turned out, the stream crossings did soak my feet, but they stayed fairly warm, and blister free.  I made all of the cut off times without a prob, and other than a brief stint with hyponatremia (fluid/sodium imbalance) at mile 43-44 that was corrected quickly with some sodium/potassium caps lent from a kindly and well experienced former tri coach, I raced problem-free.

I took it easy those last eight miles as I had enough time to walk the entire way and still make the cut off time. But as I started feeling better, I was able to pick up the pace. When I hit the final stretch of pavement running, and when I rounded the bend for the last quarter mile stretch, I decided to walk. Here I caught up with a couple of seasoned-looking fellows, one sporting military hair, who greeted me with smiles, and protested that with only a quarter mile to go, I couldn’t walk now.  In fact, they said, I should run it with them. And if I didn’t they threatened, they’d carry me. I laughed, but it got me going, and I ran the last quarter mile with them. About an eighth in though, one of them jokingly said, “Well, this is the part where we sprint.”

Of course, I had a sprint left in me and ran the last 8th full tilt to crowd shouts, slapped my husband and then Clark Zealand five, crossed the finish, and David grabbed me and gave me a congratulatory bear hug, and said “You made it!”   I’m not sure which of us was more surprised.  Then he gave me hell for having too much energy at the end to sprint, as he has been known to do, expecting racers to give it their all until there’s nothing left at the end.

I never had the chance to explain to him that I always sprint the end. The sprint is not for me. It’s for everyone else.  It is out of love and respect for my mother and her painful struggle, and for her yet unfulfilled dying wish of a final resting place. It is for everyone, my husband and the race planners and volunteers, who has stood around and waited in the cold for hours, for everyone who gave their precious time and energy to make the day possible, to take care of us runners so that we might run. We were all running this race together, after all. There are no lines separating us, no boundaries. Running makes them fall away.

Plus it happened to be all around my old stomping grounds: Harper’s Ferry, Shepherdstown, Antietam, and the C&O Canal tow path.
I lived in Shepherdstown and just outside for 10 years, and in that time I have put many miles on the tow path: be it training, racing, or even long, healing runs.
So each portion of the course held a lot of memories and special meaning for me.
I once blogged of the tow path:
“I have cut my ‘running teeth’ on it through every season and weather condition, speed and distance.  In fact, it is partially responsible for my long-distance running. I have learned its topography, its flora and fauna, its feels and smells and idiosyncrasies. It is my playground and my training ground, my testing ground and my home in ways that I can call no other place home. It is by far, my favorite place to run, and I am always overjoyed at the opportunity to experience it in some new way.”
The FR experience was this for me: a fresh perspective on some good, old familiar territory, just as I had hoped and expected. What I did not expect was to come away from it with such a new perspective on my own running and my relationship to my environment, and such a deep appreciation for fellow runners and friends.

A marathon, though it is a race and so requiring constant concentration, struggle  and push, still has those basic elements of a long run. So the neck and neck, just-for-fun-and-camaraderie, friendly competitive sparring that makes up most shorter races is interspersed with slower, more contemplative moments in which one can enjoy the weather, the solitude, and the rhythm of deep meditation that is long distance running.
At some points, as I often do on a long run, I imagined I could feel my brain burning new connections as I ran: the present and the past coming together in unique new ways. Memories of tow path runs in every season, weather condition and state of mind surfaced with every step. And yet I felt fully present–enjoying the race itself as a new challenge, a new experience of time and place. I was reminded of how despite similarities, every experience, every moment is unique; indeed, how we ourselves, are ever-changing.

The Antietam portion proved to be an even more meaningful experience than that of my beloved tow path. Running long puts us in a state of mind where we are often more perceptive and receptive; more thoughtful. I had spent much time knocking around these battlefields, but had never experienced them in the state of mind brought on by the long run.  Not sure why, but as long as I had run in this area, for as many hills and mountains I have tackled, I had never really tested my strength and endurance on those Antietam hills. It was quite a challenge for me–physically and emotionally.
As I struggled up some of them, I couldn’t help but imagine what a hellish experience they might have been for the Civil War soldiers fighting and dying here. And here I was struggling so–on a happy occasion, in perfect weather, in a fresh, well fed and hydrated state, in sound shoes and mind. My heart went out to them. At that point, in a way I had never experienced before, these strangers that but a few generations before had given their lives here, all became my heroes, and gave me a strength I didn’t know I possessed. So I tried somehow to give it back to them, to push up those hills in their honor.

The topography here has been well-preserved. Indeed, at one point I remembered having seen slides of photos taken after that bloodbath, the rows of bodies that once lined these very sections of road. It was sobering, but strength-inspiring, and a subtle reminder that despite the passage of time and changes in our surroundings, we are never far from our history, nor are we ever entirely separate from our environment: there is an impression we leave, a part of ourselves the we contribute every time we visit a place, and a part of that place that remains with us when we leave.

It was palpable now.

I was truly grateful then to be having such a positive, healthy experience of this chronotopal place.  Interspersed with these graver notions, was a sense of celebration, of fun, and a deep sense of hope for humanity-that we can overcome these dark moments in history in turning this hallowed ground where so many fought and died into a shared space for quiet contemplation, education, and now even into a race space:  a personal testing ground, an opportunity to come together and work hard, to help each other press on, to dig deep and find our inner strengths, to remind ourselves again of what we are truly made of, of our own humanity.

The runners around me brought on a good spirit of competition, but at the same time seemed to all be helping spur each other on. The feeling was strongly one of camaraderie.  We strangers would all pass, fall back, pace together, fall back and pass again in true marathon form. But after a while we fell into a rhythm, adapting to each others’ paces and ran together wolf-pack like. And every once in a while I would see the welcome familiar faces of fellow running club members  also running that day.

Afterward, it was much fun to share time, beer and race stories with friends and fellow racers. In a town where I had grown and changed so much, the finish could truly have been designed with me in mind.  From Antietam and Sharpsburg, we ran into Shepherdtown, which in itself felt like a homecoming for me. We ran over the Rumsey bridge–which years ago I had watched being built, that I had run over so many times en route to the tow path or back home.  We passed the spot where I had wandered around hiking and healing after my very first marathon, over the trees I had run under after my mother’s death, passing within view of the tiny park where my husband and I exchanged marriage vows some 10 years ago.

Everyone and everything accelerated and seemed to converge then in a sense of urgency: the wolf pack of runners I had run the race along side, my fellow club members, my friends, my husband. All running or cheering the runners, pushing me to dash up the last hill, and round the corner to the finish.

In some ways, ending a marathon feels a little like what I would imagine it to be like to die. It is the final cap of a mighty long,  fine celebration, full of hardships and trials, reprieves and elation, and you watch yourself from some greater vantage point, giving it your all, your last final push, your last blast of breath.

One last crowd scream-fed fly down one hilly hair-pin turn into the stadium, awareness shifting to feet adapting to the switch from pavement to turf, the sight of the numbers,  the sound of my heart pounding through music, a medaling, a few high fives, and a futile attempt to remove the sweat from my stinging eyes; and the experience, the day, was now another part of history.

For me, one who had been seeking a mere training race, the experience proved to be truly priceless.

So, instead, I cross trained–biked quite a few miles, did a lot of walking–including some hilly speed walking which is getting much stronger and faster–and now my aches and pains have subsided almost completely. The main thing  I notice: my feet are feeling stronger and more flexible than they have in months. The state of my feet was one aspect of over training to which I had not been paying much attention. Excessive pounding can certainly damage nerves in the feet, and desensitize them over time. (In addition to pounding them into the ground regularly, I also choose to stand at my desk at work, which probably isn’t the best thing for them either. Though that said, at the end of a day of standing they really do not complain.)

Some details on my feet, if you will: despite the beating I give them, they seem to have become more sensitive–in a good way. They talk to me a lot: tell me more about what is going on with them and with the rest of my body. I have a tendency to carry a lot of tension in my feet, and sometimes have to consciously relax them.  I have become more picky about my shoes, and like a child, want to forgo them whenever possible. Even socks are almost unbearably confining at times. And, yes, my feet hurt sometimes. I think there would be something wrong if they didn’t, with all of the running  and walking I do. And sometimes I wear stupid shoes (the name I give for shoes that were designed with something other than the comfort of your foot in mind) which doesn’t help. I do injure them on occasion.  I ask a lot of them, but for the most part, I try hard to take care of them, and when I do, they behave well.  They heal fast–many times over night.  I have come to recognize well that strange healing sensation when after a serious many-houred pounding of pavement, they swell and get warm at night, when the insides–especially the fascii get a weird “itchy” dull ache, not unlike a healing scrape. In the morning, they are a little stiff,  but usually after a good stretch, feeling good and strong, and right as rain.

I have watched running change them. They have grown stronger. They used to be rather slender and delicate.  Honestly I had always thought they looked like someone else’s  feet. I’m built like a Shetland pony–dainty feet are just funny on me. But over time they have grown more sturdy. Though still slender, they are a bit thicker from arch to top, and the little hammer toes I had are gone; in fact, the stretching of the tendons in the backs of my legs and feet has straightened my toes enough to go up a half shoe size–something I have read is not uncommon when one takes up running. I have a lot more control over the muscles governing the individual toes now, and now my toenails have finally stopped falling off from bad running shoes. Even blisters when the happen, heal really fast and don’t cause me grief.

Listening intently to my new, highly conscious feet, I decided to nurse this arch pain. And I looked for the cause of the problem. Maybe standing a lot is taking its toll, though by itself, it doesn’t seem to be cause for concern. I find there are so many benefits to standing vs. sitting, that I want to be able to continue. So I will be more careful of the shoes I stand in and see if this helps. I took a closer look at my shoes. I like to think my feet are strong enough to run in just about anything, (and I really wish I were brave enough to forgo shoes altogether), but I know, at least for mountain trails, I do need new running shoes.  I’ve put a lot of mileage on those poor Newtons, and there really is no tread left on them. Luckily, new ones are on the way.  So maybe this is the long and short of my achy arch, and after I break in the new ones, my foot problems will be history, and I’ll be ready to boldly tackle the mountains.

I have found that much of my outlook and confidence is really rooted in my feet. When they feel good, I feel ready to tackle anything. They have become a good gauge as to where I stand in my training and my readiness.  So I do have cause to baby them a little, and despite the week off from running, now that they are feeling better, so am I.

But even aside from the feet issues, I have been feeling stronger and more confident. Putting to practice some of the knowledge I have gleaned after the summer injury on listening more carefully and more intently to what my body is telling me has yielded more than just injury prevention.  I have been better able to assess my energy levels and know my paces better.  I have run the last two training races sans watch, and the pace challenging Freedom’s Run as a training run could not have been more perfect. It was on varied terrain: dirt and pavement, hilly and flat, shade and sun–all of those elements which vary the pace. Without Garmin or watch, I took it easy as planned. I aimed at 10 minutes slower than my marathon PR, and without watching the time or the miles, I came within three minutes of my ETA. Not bad, especially considering I walked a few hills and took a couple of pit stops I hadn’t initially bargained for.  So now I am feeling more confident in my ability to gauge my paces–a definite necessity for the races ahead.  More than anything, though, I know I will need to be able to assess my energy levels–esp. glycogen stores, hydration,  and mental as well as physical state in order to complete these  upcoming courses safely and efficiently. And with just a few weeks to go, I have my work cut out for me.

Now I am ready to ease back into it, fear fighting and readying for the next bout. But despite the strength of Saturday’s race, right after, I was worried. Contrasted  with where I was last year at about this time, it didn’t seem so strong. Last October, I had been running some pretty heavy mileage comfortably–even tackling the Marine Corps marathon as a training marathon  without a taper–running 26 miles the Sunday before (okay, I didn’t know I was going to run it until the Friday before when I bought someone’s bib. I sort of did it last minute on a whim.). But it turned out to be a strong run, and fun, and so close to home, I only had to walk a few miles afterward. I had run it in trail flats, and these were great in utilizing more of my calf muscles. There’s no cushion in these, and my feet and calves did feel somewhat sore after all of that pounding of pavement.  Also, there’s no give in the toes which cost me a big toenail.  A lot of the soreness–except for my toes–went away with the walk home, and I really enjoyed not worrying about my time.  This year, my training marathon was 5 minutes slower. When I compared more closely though, I considered that this year’s course was much more hilly, and I really did try harder to take it easy. I came out of it a bit stiff for the first half hour, but afterward no soreness other than the arch. No soreness. Though for the most part I was taking it easy, I really flew down some of those hills, (gawd, that’s so fun I can’t resist it) and thought surely my quads would pay. Nope nothin’. When I listened in, I heard crickets.  My legs were silent–maybe a whisper of “What? This is all you got? We can take it! No prob!”  But well, my cranky foot was shouting to take it easy. Over training may have cost me a week of no running, and as a result, a few days  of anxiousness.

I run for many reasons, mainly to keep psychologically and physically healthy, but also as training for races that keep me motivated, confident and help me grow.  Sometimes these goals conflict. To stay mentally healthy, I run what would be considered a lot of junk miles that are not good for training, and sometimes in training, too hard on too much mileage to overcompensate, and I end up knocking out that daily mileage that serves to keep me psychologically fit. Such was the case with this week. Down time is very hard for me to navigate. Despite cross training, and a good attitude toward it, sometimes it still feels like the end of the world.

Curiously, I have come across in two different publications this weekend, tricks for finding a training sweet spot, and strategies for “listening in” more while you run. I know there has to be a sweet spot for these varied goals of mine, and that it probably will be found if I practice more of that “listening in” I have been trying out. Maybe I have simply to think more with my feet.

I plan to run the Freedom’s Run marathon a week from today. It’s all around my old stomping grounds: Harper’s Ferry, Shepherdstown, the C&O Canal tow path.  Despite it’s proximity to my old home, I have never run it before, and I look forward once again to a new run giving me a fresh perspective on some old and beloved, if familiar, ground.

Some of my friends in the Reston Runners ultrarunning crew are running it, as it is a good prep for the JFK50–sharing stretches of tow path, and thus a good familiarization run as well as an aptly timed training marathon for the next month’s ultra. While not needing the familiarization, I do need a good training marathon well enough in advance of  November 6 as well as the JFK, and time-wise, it seemed like a good fit. In addition, my husband is running the 10K, while some of his friends are running the 10k and half-marathon as well. And we can stay with friends.

So it will also be a social event. It should be a fun time. I should be looking forward to it, and I suppose I am. But there has been this disturbing lack of enthusiasm for me–a flatness to my thoughts surrounding it that I cannot explain. Perhaps it is simply that it is a training run, and not a race. I will not attempt to run it for time–neither hard or fast, but still with a little more umpf than I would a regular 26-mile long run. Perhaps it is that the setting is TOO familiar. And maybe perhaps I am a just bit over trained.

My tweaks it seems have left me a bit “tweaked,” and not completely in a good way.  In the long run, I am hoping the whole experience will have made me stronger–or in the least, wiser. The amount of mileage I have been taking on has not been excessive for me–since the midsummer bout with tendonitis, I have been very careful about adding mileage slowly and have kept the hill training to a cautious minimum. But I have tweaked my training in other ways that have been adding what could be excessive stresses–like running carb-depleated for a lot of my runs and eating more fat to train my body to burn it readily, and running back-to-back long runs Sundays and Mondays to help me train through fatigue. Though the Monday run has not been seriously long, still putting in 12 to 15 miles before breakfast–e.g. sans carbs, after Sunday’s long run has been some of the most tiring running I have ever done.

I have been trying this in accordance with some reading I have been doing on the latest research on recovery runs and how the body responds to fatigue, and to a few training plans for ultras I have discovered online. In a nutshell, the idea is to learn to adjust to being on your feet for long periods of time and to learn to deal with (e.g. burning more fat) running on low levels of carbs by following a long run with a next-day, long recovery run that forces you to adapt to extreme fatigue.

Some of the research behind this is explained by running guru Matt Fitzgerald in an article on the subject of recovery runs that appeared in Active.com, in which he writes:

“The real benefit of recovery runs is that they increase your fitness–perhaps almost as much as longer, faster runs do–by challenging you to run in a pre-fatigued state (i.e. a state of lingering fatigue from previous training.)…there is evidence that fitness adaptations occur not so much in proportion to how much time you spend exercising but rather in proportion to how much time you spend exercising beyond the point of initial fatigue in workouts. So-called key workouts (runs that are challenging in their pace or duration) boost fitness by taking your body well beyond the point of initial fatigue…Recovery workouts, on the other hand, are performed entirely in a fatigued state, and therefore also boost fitness despite being shorter and/or slower than key workouts.”

In addition to these, I guess I have been doing some rougher stuff–fast trail runs, even tried a little parkour training. And not to mention that life in general is particularly busy and tiring this time of year for me. It’s a busy season at work, and also the music season for me, and that has taken up some time and energy as well. I have been having a lovely time, but have been recouping rather slowly. At first, I thought it was just my age getting to me.  I seem to like to blame things on my age. :) I even gave my old, tired self an extra rest day during the week. When I still seemed to not be recouping well enough,  I cut my mileage back to 50 a week, and added some more carbs back into my diet, and cut the recovery/fatigue run down to a mere 7 miles. This helped.

Since cutting back has helped, I decided to do a taper for the training marathon. Spring! One good week–tapered back to 47 miles and some biking, add a few good nights’ sleep, and I have had so much energy, I can’t sit still.

I’ve made it through the first week, though I pity my poor husband and coworkers who have had to deal with my anxious, talkative behavior and hyperactivity. Only one more week, and I’ll be back to normal, folks!

(Here’s hoping!)

: )

If you are a runner, you don’t need me or that blurt of car radio 80′s nostalgia to remind you it’s been a cruel, cruel summer.  And I am probably not alone in that I’ve been doing A LOT of treadmilling this season–more than I think I have ever done in a winter it seems, because of this summer’s constant high temps.  I kept thinking I must be getting soft, that I used to tolerate the summer heat better. I always, if begrudgingly, went for long runs in the high heat and humidity. But I checked the running logs, and this season is indeed unique. For me, 95 feels a lot like 85 until after the first 10 miles.  Then, well, my feet just turn to stone.   Short distances may be fine, but when you go long in the heat week after week, it just takes lots and lots of energy and fluids and recoup time, and well, for me–the joy–out of the long run. That, and well, I guess I personally just don’t have the constitution for it. It would seem there is no Badwater in my future (but, well, maybe an Arrowhead ; )  ).

It’s been a cruel summer for me in more ways than one; a summer of compromises and set-backs and falling short on training. But in some ways, so far, they all have proven themselves to be pay dirt.

I have a couple of good, long mountain runs looming in that distance that is for me yet but a fuzzy idea of what will be November, the MMTR and the JFK, and the fear of one of them drove me to some early overtraining on hills. This aggravated a tendon in my foot; a tendon before which I didn’t even know I had. From what I have read this tendon is a fine example of poor design in the body.  It said “hello”  in the form of Peroneal tendonitis, a way that like a pesky relative could not be ignored and went on demanding constant attention and refusal to let me run for a good three weeks. Then, after much bicycling and a little kayaking and very little walking, and heavens, NO running, it saw fit to say abruptly: “Mmmm. Okay! You can walk and run again.” And just like that it stopped its screaming as if it had never hurt.  So after the end of July and beginning of August’s 6 accumulated pounds and 400 miles of mind-numbing stationary bicycling, eyes glued to the Tour de France, I gingerly climbed back onto the treadmill and cautiously jogged a few snail miles.  And even that tiny taste brought a tear and an ear-to-ear grin. I was once again reminded just how precious and valuable running is to me–even treadmilling–and what a gift to be able to do it at all–something I will never again take for granted.  (Until of course, the long miles will cause some other part of the anatomy to scream aloud. Here’s hoping what I have learned will keep that in check.)

What I learned was how to listen far more carefully than ever before to my body. Sure, I have had other injures and this lesson before. Sure, it’s been drilled into my head in every other running article to “always listen to your body.” But in that slow and painful climb back up from a mere three weeks off, I learned more than any previous injury, race or training regimen has ever taught me. There are different types and levels of listening. This time, I really dug deep and tuned in, and found that there was a lot being said that I had never before heard: muscle weaknesses and tension in places I hadn’t been aware of, how to really relax my body and my breath, and to breathe to maximum capacity and in coordination with movements, ways to adjust my form and stride that increased running economy and decreased impact.  Intense focus and running at the much slower pace allowed me make minute adjustments in form and stride that I never knew I could.  And I could take this relaxed form up to much higher speeds. It was like I found a whole new extra set of controls. But this was the least of it.

There was such a sense of heightened awareness–of being fully present, of fully being.  To be present in running is something that is almost a given in the outdoor environs, but it has more to do with being immersed in the surroundings, of becoming one with the environment. This was a going within; a deep meditation that really awakened me to things going on of which I had not previously been aware.

Running for me is the gift that keeps on giving, and I saw this as yet another gift of running, and I marveled at how the practice could teach one so much about it through its absence.

So not so much was lost in the mid-summer cease-run after all, and as a glorious finale to this summer of no running, slow running, intense listening and outdoor deprivation, I was given this marvelous opportunity of a trail run with the fabulous Reston Runners: good friends, new and old, who share in the joy of running. On a favorite stretch of mountain trail in the most perfect sunny, clear, cool breezed, weather we tested and trained our bodies and minds for this Fall’s JFK, smiled, laughed and afterward picnicked.

Recharged now, mentally at least, I am ready to tackle the challenges ahead; those blessed mountains that loom in the distance. I don’t know how it will be. Will they make me or break me? But I’m embracing them early-on, and either way, to prepare now, I feel all I need are a few more stony trails up and down a mountainside, and well, maybe afterward a good massage.

This year, I had the honor of being invited to join the team of the director, Roger Butturini.

Being a loner when it comes to running, I wasn’t sure if this experience was for me, but David reassured me Tom’s Run was a terrific experience, and in the end, I was most glad I agreed to participate. As it turned out, meeting these wonderful people and running Tom’s was to date, perhaps the most fun ever I have had running, and in some way, a profoundly life-changing experience for me that I am still trying to figure out completely. Here are some ramblings on–and a few details of–my own experience with Tom’s.

The run has been over (officially) for weeks now. But not for my feeble brain. It just keeps on running, poor thing.  I would have posted about it much earlier, but alas, it seems my brain–at least when it comes to writing (and calculus) travels at a snail’s long-distance runner’s pace. My only hope is that the comparison carries over completely–which means in writing about Tom’s, it will perhaps finally arrive at some further destination. Or, in absence of that,  that hopefully others will contribute, and maybe  Zeno’s Paradoxes and some other goodies will be involved and we will find our belief in plurality to be false, and that we are all one; we will prove space-time illusory; that there is no destination, only the journey, and finally that we will all have indeed already arrived at our destination before our running/writing/thinking/calculating has even begun (and then we can neatly solve it all with calculus). But that’s a lot to put on the experience of one run.

M’kay,  so maybe it’s not just Tom’s. I have certainly mentioned before that like any long-distance runner, more than once, I have run to that point where, thoughts racing, I experience that particular time-space distortion, where boundaries fall away,  and I find myself once again staring face to face into the gaping maw of eternity. No doubt, there is something weird going on with long-distance running in general, something extra-sensory about it that upon your first experience will knock your socks off, where your usual perceptions will break down–really;  something Philip K. Dick could have written about maybe (and I must say, during that first leg of Tom’s, running through the foggy, bullfrog croak-echoed, blossom-scented, bouncing headlamp, half-moon-lit night into the dawn, his name and Bradbury’s came up more than once. Indeed, we all told each other our favorite works). But lemme just say, long-distance running experience noted,  if you are going to pin all of that aforementioned inspiration to deduce and calculate metaphysical mumbo jumbo on an experience of any one run, let it be Tom’s.

Yeah, the ol’ subconscious has been stewing and brewing on this one, taking its good old time. And whether or not it will arrive at any conclusions,  it does seem, at least, that it has been up to something.  Really, I have known consciously that there was something unique about this running experience that I could not quite wrap my brain around–something that made it truly special, and I hadn’t been able to put that into words just yet. But enough time has passed for me to at least give it a shot.

As you can see I am not quite there yet. But I am hoping writing (and perhaps your insights as readers) will finally get us there. However, this may be a big one involving much time and thought: this may be the edge of that vast ocean of “why” run, “why” anything; so watch out! I take no responsibilities for where your thoughts might take you.    ; )

As I have mentioned many times, when it comes to running, I am a loner. Be it long weekly runs on city streets or on the trails, quick daily runs on the hamster wheel, or races,  I mostly run alone, and I like this. It is time well-spent with my thoughts. I prepare to write, I work on music, I do math, I plan, I dream. It is quality time.  The exception to this alone time is an occasional run with my husband, or during ultras–the slower pace and long distance make conversations and camaraderie with fellow runners possible, perhaps inevitable.  And Tom’s took it step further– I was part of a team. It being my first experience of a relay, I was afterward indeed enthusiastic to write about it immediately –especially the colorful cast of characters involved, and to approach it McDougall-style even,  to take creative license to the point of practically spinning yarns about our fetes, and granting each member of my team the legendary status he and she deserves. But at the end of the day, it is just a race, or not even, but a run, rather, (yes, I am comma happy without apology) and we are all just regular people, after all.  Aren’t we?

I mean, aren’t we?  (let us revisit this question)

Let me first say, again without apology, that I have never been so high from a run. Afterward, I was floating for days. Certainly my first post-race impressions were influenced by this (un?)natural, chemically-enhanced mental state. I mean, I know for a fact that my brain was indeed pickled from running and lack of sleep, so I had to give it time before I could reflect clearly, and for my thoughts to be no longer  “under the influence,” if you will. But of course, this inevitably lead to the thought, if one follows the philosophy that long-distance running is a natural state for us humans, that perhaps the state of mind it produced, as well being natural–maybe more natural, maybe more open and even enhanced in some manner, brings us perhaps to a deeper sense of truth. So maybe writing in such a state makes more sense–well, at least as far as accuracy of the description of the experience is concerned.

And of course, then I had the thought that after I “came down” (again, if you will), that I would reach a sense of greater mental clarity, and have a better sense of what was special or perhaps not so special about this run, indeed I even expected the sinking realization that there was nothing particularly special about it–that it was simply my endorphin-bathed brain painting a rosier picture of the cast of characters and the events that transpired. And strangely, this took me back to McDougall’s book.

Perhaps the dramatic literary style of ” Born to Run” is not simply for impact. Maybe McDougall had also been writing from that same place, that post-race endorphin rush and imaginative delirium that would be the natural result of any raw physical experience of long-distance running in a breath-taking natural setting with a tight-knit band of colorful characters, an experience I have found to be not unlike Star Wars (the original) on acid. How does one write about that sort of experience less dramatically? For anyone who has lived it or something of the like–even a tiny taste as what I have had–it IS a dramatic experience. It boarders mythic. I can’t even begin to touch it with mere words. Though sadly, I must try. Ramble on, I will.

I can break it down into a few simplicities.

For one, the run was mostly on my beloved C&O Canal tow path. The route begins in Cumberland, MD (for most teams that’s at about 2 am on dark, foggy Friday morning after a sleepless night), and continues on the tow path to Fletcher’s Boat House, then follows the Capital Crescent trail up to Bethesda where it winds through Rock Creek Park and ends at the Naval Hospital in a nice, neat 200 miles–hopefully at 11 am on Saturday. For us, it was 11:30am. Not bad considering we were down a few people before we even started.

I have spent a lot of time on this tow path. I have run races on it,  some long ones, and I have cut my “running teeth” on it through every season and weather condition, speed and distance.  In fact, it is partially responsible for my long-distance running. I have learned its topography, its flora and fauna, its feels and smells and idiosyncrasies. It is my playground and my training ground, my testing ground and my home in ways that I can call no other place home. It is by far, my favorite place to run, and I am always overjoyed at the opportunity to experience it in some new way. For that, Tom’s was perfect. I could run with others on it, experience it through their feet.

So there’s the other thing. These new people: all strangers before this experience. Now I call them family. Let’s get back to that earlier question about our runners: we’re just regular people after all, right? Sure. But the experience of them, of each other, is unique.  The experience of running alone will bring people closer. It has a way of opening people up. Add that to a situation where the comfort of sleep is taken away, and force us to trust and rely on one and other, and you begin to learn what the word team really means.

As it turns out, after I gave it some time for some settling, clarifying thought and introspection, the “special” feeling did not fade. The weirdness I couldn’t wrap my brain around did not dissipate.  If endorphins did indeed paint a rosier view for me, something about that proved itself and stayed with me, and I’ve simply had to come to accept it as a true picture of how things were.  So let me cut to the chase: I do believe the experience enhanced my own perceptions of it, rather than distorting them.

I remembered how at some points we stood in the darkness, waiting, worrying, tensed for our chance to spring into movement, watching for our teammates, reduced to bouncing blue LEDS, to come jouncing along the path toward us, growing larger from that point of total darkness until they became recognizable. For me, it became a game of how well could I recognize the gate of my teammates, who mere hours before, had been strangers.  It was hard to escape the surreality. Staring into darkness watching for tiny lights after sleep deprivation can produce some strange sensations, and at one point I was struck by the sheer beauty of how all of us at this point had been reduced to nothing but bouncing, shining, tiny blue lights.

There is something about an experience such as this that takes a group of friends and strangers, pulls them far outside their comfort zones and plunks them down in an austere and beautiful setting, that strips away all that is bunk and reveals life for what it truly is; shows humans as who and what we really are. And, baby, we are magnificent when seen in this light.

So that’s it, I guess. It gave us all a chance to really shine- and relax and have fun while we were doing it.