Quad Rock re-cap

I have so many awesome things to say about this race and have struggled keeping it concise and interesting. I think the biggest take away I have from the race is improvement. In running sometimes it's hard to see your improvement when each training run blends into the next. Races are great, especially repeating races, because you have a quantifiable time to tell you if you've improved or not. This year I feel like I had that tangible "heck yeah you're getting better at running" moment and an intangible "you're figuring out what you need to do in a race" moment.

The tangible...

The most exciting part about this race for me was beating my time from last year by 32minutes! I finished

with a time of 5:37:58. I cannot tell you how surprised I was to see that time when I came into the finish. This finish gave me a huge confidence boost in regards to the 50 miler, knowing I can conquer such a tough course and do it so much faster than I even planned was awesome.

My finish time is also the most concrete way I can communicate to people outside of the running community how I've improved. Trail running and trail races are difficult to explain to the outside world. Road races, for the most part, have set times that allow you to judge how fast of a runner you are. It's also easier to relate to someone who has done some races. You finished the marathon in under 4 hours is easy to relate to. Trail running depends so much on the trail, the weather, the elevation. You can run one in 5hours, the next can take you 7. So being able to say I took 32 minutes of my time is easier to grasp than I finished in 5:37.

It was awesome to have such a concrete symbol of all the hard work I've put in the last few years and it makes some of those really horrible training runs finally seem worth it. I would have been happy to finish with the same time as last year, but it tastes a little sweeter knowing I kicked last years time in the butt.

The intangible...  

Here's how race day started for me. I got up at 3:30am to make coffee and eat a burrito. I took a selfie with a stuffed tiger named Raja, packed up my bags and headed to Liz and Becca to carpool to the start. We got to the start with plenty of time and with rockstar parking. Quickly I realized I left an entire bag of post race clothing along with my head sweatband, various hats, and watch back in town. There was no chance we could go back and get it so I had to forget about it and move forward. I was more worried about managing my food/fuel without a watch but had to rest of the fact that I could judge when I needed to eat based on the aid stations

The beginning of the race is about 2 miles of flat mostly dirt road to spread out the crowd. I didn't think much about where I was in the pack and just tried to use that time to wake up my legs and get warmed up for the first climb. The first climb put me right in the middle of a big pack of people. This is where I made the best decision I think I made all race (and in my running career) - to walk. I didn't realize it at the time, but making a strategic decision is something I never really thought about in regards to improving myself as a runner.

I'm a slow walker, I usually justify running as much as I can because I believe my walk is even slower. However, with the 50 miler in my  mind, I thought practicing walking fast uphill wouldn't be such a bad plan. I didn't have a watch to gauge my time, but I was in the middle of a pack going uphill on single track so now was as good of time as any to give it a try. I employed this tactic throughout the rest of the race. Walking anything that was steep enough to make me resort to my tiny slow uphill run/shuffle. I committed myself to do the walking fast, with larger steps, and if I could to keep up with someone ahead of me.

This seemingly small insignificant decision translated into a huge victory. My legs did not implode after 3 hours or at mile 16 - 18 like usual. My legs actually felt great. I had some moments of knee soreness which usually goes away after I finish running downhill but I did not suffer from any tightness in my IT bands, quads, hamstrings, or shins. I also had zero chaffing, which is a miraculous feet unto itself.

I'd like to give a special shout out to my friend Donny (aka Donald Roguelstein) for some advise he gave the bearded wonder during his 100 miler on walking fast: concentrate on using your arms and really swinging them to push your legs up the hill. Whenever my legs felt tired I focused on moving my arms and before I knew it I was up the hill.

In the past forgetting my watch and all my stuff would have taken a mental toll on my for the race and I could have easily rested on that mistake as a reason I didn't do well, or felt poorly, or finished slower. Instead I put it in the "irrelevant" box in my head and ran. It's hard to measure or show that improvement because it was a lot more than a number like 5:37 or 32 to me. My improvement as a runner has gone beyond just getting faster and stronger. I feel like I'm smarter and more strategic about what I need to do to feel good in a race and can let the other stuff roll off me if it won't help me keep putting one foot in front of the other.

*a quick note on my leg injury. It's doing well, I didn't get stitches, but I'll have a gnarly scar I'm sure. It happened near the end of the race so it was a lot easier to just suck it up and finish rather than worry about it or look at it. I looked at it once and it almost made me puke so I tried to ignore it. Trail running...it's not if you fall it's when.

Quad Rock Preview

This weekend is the Quad Rock 25/50 in Fort Collins. I'm doing the 25 miler for the 3rd year in a row. Right now the weather is looking to be pretty amazing, 72 and clear. Perfect drinking beer after running weather. Again I'm going into a race feeling so/so about my training. I haven't put in the longer trail runs that I would like, but I have been running a lot so hopefully that translates well.

Looking ahead for this race I'm looking back at a training run I did a couple weekends ago with the North Fork 50 people. We did a 16.3mile section of the 50 mile course. The course felt great, although the climbs are no where near what we see at Quad Rock. I'm still experiencing the 3hr leg implosion and I'm debating about how to approach it for this race. Since I know it's coming and I know I can get over it (I managed to bust through that wall at Salida so I think I can do the same here) I'd like to do everything I can to either get over it quicker or lessen the pain. I am going to continue to push nutrition and salt pills early and often. It's so tempting to wait an extra 10/20 minutes to do a gu when you're feeling good and don't want to stop running or slow down to fiddle with the packaging. I recently purchased a new supplement for my water that has 300 calories in it. I used it for my training run and it didn't have an obvious impact. I'm going to bring some to mix into my water thoughout the race, but I don't want it to get in the way of my hydration since you're supposed to alternate between this mix and straight water. Perhaps the biggest thing I can do is actually stretch/roll the night before. I am so bad at doing this and it really should be something I do on a daily basis. Especially after I play ultimate. My sprint/climb muscles are what specifically hurt and get tight at the 3hr mark and it's probably because I don't do enough on my off time to take care of them. I'm trying to do a little bit of stretching and rolling the week leading up to the race.

All in all I'm excited to get out of the city and run a race! It feels like the Salida Marathon was so long ago. I'm also psyched to add to my race t-shirt collection and coffee mug collection :). Here are my goals for this race:

1. Finish close to my time from last year.

I'd like to be right at the 6hr mark again. Depending on how I feel I could try and push it to get under 6 hours, but that will be a game time decision. Right now I'm happy to run it about the same as last year since my focus for this season is the 50 miler and this is just a well aided training run.

2. Minimize chaffing

Yeah, running isn't glamorous ok... I have body glide, but sports bras are stupid. I am going to super glide up and see if that doesn't help. I'm also going to get a new running bra and see if that helps.

3. Learn

It's easy to get wrapped up in the race and you might miss some valuable piece of information that will help you in your next run. I'm going to try and not just survive each moment, but learn more about what I need to get me through the long hall. That includes noting pains, weaknesses, stomach issues, energy issues, feelings of of strength, and my overall outlook of the race as I go through it. The benefit of races such as Quad Rock is you have a lot of time to think out on the trail, it's not uncommon to be alone on the trail for a mile or miles and while the views can knock your socks off I hope that I pay more attention to myself and my running.

I'm feeling optimistic about my speed since I got my hair cut. That has to shave 10-20 seconds off my time right? I am a little worried about what to do with it. I am so used to putting it up in a braid and now I cannot even put it in a pony tail. Fashion aside...I'm always worried about minimizing distractions and things that make me feel uncomfortable while I race so I need a solution that will keep it out of my face. I have 4 days to figure it out....

I'll check in with a race re-cap. Wish me luck!

running without a rope

*I had a really hard time with this post. It's been rewritten so many times I finally just decided to throw it out there.

Molly Brown spent a lot of time on the mental game of Ultimate. To help we asked Scott Gurst to give occasional talks to our team about training your mind. I love all of his talks, I've heard a lot of them several times, yet each time I find something new to ponder or implement in my life; both in ultimate and beyond. One of his talks is about fear and "climbing without a rope" and it seems even more relevant to me at this stage in my running career and life.

sometimes ropes are helpful when river crossing

In rock climbing there's a style of climbing called "free soloing". It basically means you climb without the aid of a rope. If you want a more in depth description you can google-fu it. There is no room for error, all you can do is climb up. If you read impressions from free climbers you'll hear similar assessments of the challenges. The difficulty is not the physical challenge of climbing, but the mental difficulty of staying focused. With a rope you have something to catch you, a safety net in case things go wrong. What do you do when that net is gone?

Running solo is less risky than free-soloing but there are more similarities then you would expect. I think one of the biggest ones is the idea of letting go and just running. It's easy, especially when you're feeling fatigued or frustrated during a race, to stop the free rhythm of running and focus on everything else. You start to think about your past training, your food intake, your pace, your clothing choice, how long you've been running, how much longer you will have to continue running. While there is a time and a place for some thought (nutrition, pace, and clothing), the rest is stuff you cannot change and therefore need to push it out of your head. It's really hard to stay focused and not let your mind wander to things that hint at failure. You can't worry about your training because you're there, you're running. The best thing you can do is just keep running. If you don't just believe you'll be able to run uphill forever then it's easy to just want to give up on running that hill in the first place.

Another similarity I see is the concept of being solo. Running, in itself, is a solo event. It makes sense, your mode of transport is you. If someone is carrying you, it's not really running. Do they have marathon piggy-back races? But many runners will tell you that the act of running is often a very social experience. We depend on each other for motivation, for intel on trail conditions, or for an extra gu when we've run out. Although we runners pride ourselves in the self-propelled nature of our sport, running solo is often a scary thing.

Not piggy back, but I doubt Eric would have carried me around the whole tournament

I start running, really running, 8 years ago. For the entire time I've had the same running partner. Having someone else to depend on to make decisions on where to run, what to wear, what to eat, when to eat, even what shoe to buy was a pretty secure rope and safety net. Someone to complain about the weather to, to share in the misery with, to celebrate a good run with, and to drink a beer post run with. If I failed it wasn't really my fault since I didn't make any decisions without his input. If we got lost on a trail I had someone to blame. I didn't have to just go out and run and see what happened, I depended on a safety net to guide me to what I needed to do. It was really nice to not have to make decisions, all I had to do was show up. It was also nice to know there was someone right there who know exactly what you were going through. Plus, everyone knows a celebratory beer tastes much sweeter with friends. Now that I'm running without a rope I have to make all the decisions.

Ok, I admit, that sounds a little overly dramatic. Yes I can still ask people about trails, I can still go running with people, I can probably still bum food off of people if need be. But there is a sense of loneliness when you start venturing out on runs on your own. You lose that safety net and it's easy to say no to a challenging run or route. A safety net, which could be a running partner or even a familiar route/trail, allows us to stop focusing on our individual goal and the motivation to challenge ourselves can be lost. I was in charge of my own training now, coupled with a race distance that is completely new to me, so I had to figure out on my own how to approach it. It is way too easy to bail out and skip a new run or a new running partner.  But I didn't sign up for a race to bail out, I signed up to work towards running 100 miles.

So how do we move forward? How do we run without a rope? Scott Gurst shared another important piece of advice during this talk, borrowed for the author/athlete John Bringham. Bringham wrote a book called "The Accidental Athlete" and in it he wrote:

"We never know what is going to be our last best day. the race that turns out to be our last best day can't be recognized in the moment, it can be seen only in retrospect."

You never new what race will be your best, your peak, until after it's happened. If we continue to run and train with a bail out, a rope, we might never reach our goal and run the risk of looking back at our running career with a lot of missed chances. This doesn't mean go out and try to win every trail run and race, but if you move forward always thinking that you can save it for the next run or the next race, there might not be one. Maybe you'll get hurt, maybe life will happen and you can't sign up for a race. I look back at my ultimate career and wonder was 2012 my last best chance at a nationals title? I probably won't know that for another few years, but I want to do whatever I can to not wonder that about running.

Looking at my training as an opportunity to put it all out for the next race, so if it is my last best chance, I know I put it all out there. This helps overcome the fear of failure or the unknown. If Quad Rock is my last best chance to run that race well, then I'm going to put in the work leading up to it. That means planning on some good hard trail runs to get ready for it, packing my own food, bringing my own water, and double tying my own trail shoes. Luckily I know there will be some awesome people at the finish line ready to imbibe in that celebratory beer with me.

Was 2013 my last best chance for ultra running? I don't think so. I've just dipped my toe into this field and I'm excited about all the strides I've made thus far. It's scary to go at it alone without a veteran ultra runner by my side all the time, but sometimes that rope can also be a weight that holds you back from your real potential. The weight has been shed, the rope is gone, whether I was ready for it or not and there's no where to go but up.

Salida recap

I didn't realize he took the picture until it was too late.

Final time: 5:32:53

Well the first marathon of the season is in the bag and my body is telling the tale and likely will be for awhile. There's no getting around it, this was the toughest marathon I've done. I experienced a lot more discomfort and pain during this race then in any of my other races - the 50k included. Here's my assessment on specific parts of the race for me:

Nutrition

I actually feel like I did pretty well on the nutrition front. I think that played a big part in me being able to finish semi-strong and keep my time similar to last year. I ate a lot more gu then I have in the past. Largely to do with the Honeystinger fruit smoothie gu, it was so delicious! That aside, I felt like I had good energy, it was other parts of my body that broke down. I kept my salt pill intake up, but could have probably done a bit more near the end. As the tendency in races, you start to forget about good nutrition intake near the end because you rationalize that you just need to get to the end and it's so close. In retrospect, I think I should have kept my gu/salt pill intake going in the last 7 miles. My water intake was good and I was fully hydrated using a mix of water and Acclimate. On a final note, the M&Ms at the last aid station helped me power through the last two miles of downhill and for whatever reason I saved a cookie in my pocket from mile 8ish until later in the afternoon while watching TV. Tower was jealous.

Training

Yeah, I didn't train enough for this race. I did train enough to finish the race and power through some pretty painful moments. But I did not do enough long runs to keep the pain monsters at bay after about 3 hours. Which, coincidentally, was the longest duration of running I did leading up to the race. I'm pleased that my past experiences and overall badassness overcame this deficiency enough to keep me in the same time bracket as last year. However I would like to see what I can do next year combining all of that with dedicated training.

Pain threshold

They say women have a higher pain threshold than men. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. But I learned a lot about my pain threshold over 5 and a half hours and I passed a couple dudes in the last 3 miles so maybe that says something. Here is a run down of what hurt:

• Ankles/Achilles/shins. This felt more like an impact related pain response. Which makes sense, when you are pounding on your legs for that long things get sore. I am surprised that I haven't felt that more in the Quad Rock race which has way more punishing descents. I do think more overall running will strengthen this area up over the next few months and I'm not too worried about it.
• Hamstrings/Quads. Pretty obvious that these things hurt. Just your typical soreness, but I definitely felt them for a lot longer during this race then in previous races. Again I point to not enough long run training. I also experienced a lot of Quad fatigue and that made other muscle groups work a lot harder throughout the race.
• IT Bands. Holy cow, I have not experienced this level of pain in a race before. Usually after a race or a hard frisbee tournament I get the usual tightness/soreness. But this go around I felt them starting at mile 13 and pretty much on and off the rest of the race. It was physically difficult to move my legs forward because of the pain. I actually think a contributing factor to this was playing ultimate the Thursday before the race. Although I wasn't playing 100%, there was some sprinting, and quick changes of direction which are all the things that contribute to my IT Bands hurting. So in the future...no ultimate 2 days before a race.
• Knee. Ugh, my knee gives me trouble in every race. It's something that I've just gotten used to, but it still hurts just the same. I don't know much more that I can do about it except for just dealing with it. It hasn't hurt so badly that I've been sidelined in either running or ultimate so I'm calling it a symptom of being old.
• Pelvis. (Insert some lame sexual innuendo joke here). This was a new one. I have never had my pelvis hurt while running and it didn't hurt so much during the run, but after and through the next day. My theory on this pain is related to the IT Band and Hamstring/Quad pain. Because of the fatigue in my muscles and the tightness in my IT Bands, other muscle groups were working to keep my legs powering forward. I feel like I've gotten a stronger core over the last few weeks, but this race required me to activate muscle groups I haven't had to depend on as much in the past and I felt it.

Mental toughness

There are a few things that contribute to finishing a race and Mental Toughness is just as important as physical ability and proper nutrition. I was feeling pretty bummed near the end and had to give myself several pep talks to keep going. Thankfully, when those pep talks were not working, Abby (an amazing ultra runner) came bounding past me and kept me going through the hardest part of the race. She's been having her own running woes and to see her push through it and encourage me to keep going helped me climb out of the abyss of miles 20-24 and let gravity do the rest for the final 2 miles. 

I'm proud of myself for pushing through the pain and frustration to finish the race. Realistically my time is much better than it probably should have been, and for that I have been physically paying the price for the last few days.

Conclusion

Marathons are hard. If they were easy they'd call them 5ks (am I right? hahahaha). Anyways, long distance racing is tough and there are a lot of factors in play that lead to success. I'm really proud of the other runners who were out there running and killing it. There were some PRs and that's awesome. When you feel good you feel good and just rip it. I'm thankful that I had to survive this challenge because it's only going to make me that much stronger when I tackle 50 miles in a few months. It's almost guaranteed that at some part of a 50 miler you're body is going to want to break down and quit and I'm thankful to know that I can at least get through 13ish miles of body breakdown to finish a race. So it's onward and upward. I predict many long training runs in the next month and a half as I prepare for Quad Rock.

Oh hi come here often?

Don't mistake a lack of posting for a lack or running. I've actually been putting in a lot of miles over the last few months just not a lot of typing. As the weather warms up it's about damn time I talk about running, hill repeats, snot rockets and beer.

There is some exciting news on the horizon race wise here is what my calendar is looking like for this running season:

Salida Run Through Time Marathon
Where: Salida, CO
When: this weekend! EEK!

This will be my second year doing the marathon and I'm pretty excited about it. Not because I'm prepared to run a super fast marathon (I have a surprisingly low number of really long runs on the books to prepare for it), but because I really like this race. It's a beautiful course (except for the road) and well put on. I'm also just really ready to get out there and run a race. What I've lacked in long runs I've made up for in hill repeats and consecutive running days. I'm hoping that this translates into something good. My time last year was about 5:32 so it would be great to get under 5:30. Honestly though, I'm just glad to get out and finish. And to eat a lot of M&Ms at the aid station.

Quad Rock 25
Where: Fort Collins, CO
When: May 10

After spending time on the wait list yet again I was just accepted into the race this week. I'm shooting for a faster time as I gear up for my big race of the season in June (more on that later). This is a really tough race and a great way to practice running on tired legs. I'm also hoping to nail down some of my hydration/nutrition stuff so I'm maximizing my energy output with my energy intake. My time last year was around 6 hours so I'm shooting for under 6.

Northfork 50miler
Where: Pine, CO
When: June 28

Yes you read the above correctly. I signed up for a 50miler! I felt like this was the year I wanted to do it. That and my friend Ryan (aka Wrong Way Ryan) scared me into thinking they had filled up before I made the decision prompting an early morning registration. I want to get a fast time in for Quad Rock so I can work on making sure I meet all the time cut offs for the 50 miler. This race is going to be a test mentally and physically and I am going to be so pumped to just finish it. I choose it specifically because I'm familiar with the trails and will have great support at one of the aid stations.

Additional races:

I'm looking at doing one other race in April. I'd actually like to do a fast road half marathon so I can build some confidence going into the rest of the spring. I've looked at the Platte River Buckhorn Exchange Half and an Xterra half in Colorado Springs. The Buckhorn exchange one is pretty pricey for a half ($70) but you do get a lot of food/beer at the end and a free light rail ticket back to your car in Littleton.

I'm also thinking about some fall races. I am leaning towards a year off from Molly Brown largely because of the 50 mile race. I love this team and this team deserves someone on the roster who can put in 100% from the get go. Realistically I won't be able to do that until July which puts me in a tight spot for tournament prep. I haven't ruled it out (I never do until the last minute), but if frisbee isn't in the cards for me this season I'm looking at some fun fall races. I may even convince my sister to run the Twin Cities Marathon!

Looking ahead:

As I gear up for another running season I'm looking forward to growing as a runner. This has been a side passion for mine for so long and it's about time I kick it into a higher gear. I'm at a place in my life where I can focus 100% on this passion and do it, as they say, on my own two feet. The support I've had in the past as been great, amazing actually, but I'm ready to go find my own trails to run and do it without chasing anyone else but my own goal. It's scary to think about taking on such big races on my own, but I think I can do it.

You sure are fast! - Yeah it's because I'm four

I went to surprise my nephew and mom 2 years ago for their birthdays (they share the same birthday) and while visiting with Braden we were walking to our rental house and he was doing these little sprint bursts down the road. I told him "wow Brado, you're really fast" and his response "Yeah, that's because I'm four". So in the spirit of speed I'm deterring from my recent philosophic ramblings and I'm going to talk about my new fast trail shoes I just got.

I don't know if my new shoes are really the "speed demon makers" that I think they are, but if you consider them under the realm of my total "quiver" of trail shoes they make me feel fast.

My first pair of trail shoes were Mizunos. I just did a quick check and I couldn't find the exact shoe anymore, but my guess is they are similar to the Wave Ascend 8. My road shoes are the Mizuno Wave Alchemy and I've had good luck with them on pavement. They've been good at alleviating knee pain on longer runs and hold up pretty well. I apparently turn my knees in so these shoes correct it. It made sense that I would then get a similar pair of shoes for my first pair of trail shoes. I really liked them, they are sturdy and strong and I felt good running in them. However, as I progressed in my running I found them to feel clunky and slightly unstable running downhill. The instability is probably from the more structured base of the shoe. I felt pretty separated from the trail and not in a good way in a "I'm not sure what's under me" way. However, I am very pleased with this shoe as my initial trail shoe and it's proven to be a great hiking shoe in its second life.

PROS: good intro to trail shoe, sturdy
CONS: heavy, felt less connection to unstable terrain

My second pair of trail shoes are (because they are still pretty new) the La Sportiva Helios. I initially wanted a shoe that was a little less focused on over correcting my weird running style and also lighter than my current shoes. I tired on a pair of Altras, but they did not have the correct size for my freakishly small feet. They did have the correct size in the Helios and I immediately fell in love with how light they felt. I've been running on them for about a year and am overall pleased with their lightness underfoot and the closer I feel to the trail and the ground. Unfortunately...they started to wear immediately. There is a piece that comes over the toe and after one day on the trail it was already peeling off of one of my shoes. Now  I know that trail running is going to result in stuff getting dirty and ruined. But I was disappointed that it happened so quickly. It was like buying a new car and then someone door dinging it the first day you park it at the grocery store. I am pleased with the weight and the swiftness I felt running, but not pleased with the overall construction of the shoe.

PROS: light weight, responsive to the trail
CONS: started falling apart after the first run. <---I will note that it hasn't fallen apart any more so I guess it is good construction after it sort of fails...

My current and newest pair of shoes are the Pearl Izumi EM Trail N1. This is probably a way premature post on this shoe because I've only run on them twice (and one time was on the road), but I really really liked the shoe right off the bat. It is light weight but still has a sturdy sole. It responds really well to whatever your foot lands on. And it is freaking FAST down hill. I'm serious! I didn't believe the guy at the running store (Denver Run House on Tennyson shop local!!!) that I would notice a difference but I did. I flew downhill in these shoes to the point that I felt like the shoe was just running downhill and I was along for the ride. Beyond that I also felt really strong on the uphill. It's true that I'm better at running uphill, but I do believe the way the shoe is constructed it allowed me to strike the ground at mid foot which allowed me to use my butt and quads more on the uphill and rely less on my calves. I'm really excited to to see how they handle for the long haul and will get my chance in March at the Salida Marathon!

PROS: light weight, responsive to the trail, good foot striking
CONS: I didn't get them for free :(

Desert Runners - Why we Run

I was lucky enough to attend a screening of the movie Desert Runners at the Denver Starz Film Festival a few weeks ago and wanted to take a moment to encourage anyone I can bug to see it when it comes out on digital media in December. If you want to check out the website and trailer here you go: Desert Runners. Don't accidentally try and download Dessert Runners, which would be an awesome movie too. If it doesn't exist yet I am willing to help make this happen because running and desserts go hand in hand in mouth.

The movie follows 4 runners as they attempt to complete the Grand Slam, running all four desert races in a single year. This was the first time I had ever heard of any of these races let alone that there was an added challenge to doing all four in a single year. Each race is 250K (155miles) and goes across the Atacama Desert in Chili, The Gobi Desert in China, The Sahara Desert in Egypt and a specialized loop course in Antarctica.

I'd rather have you watch the movie to see how it all plays out, but something that really stuck out for me was the one woman they followed throughout the movie. Samantha from Australia is a badass. Plain and simple. She was the most exciting person for me to watch throughout the movie and had to overcome some huge hurdles that touched the core of what it means to be a runner. There was an incident on the race course in the Sahara that changed the tenure of the rest of the challenge and no one would have questioned her dropping out. The story is best left to actually watching the movie so please do if you are able.

After the movie, the director did a short Q & A for people in the audience. One question really stuck out for me, someone asked her if she's signed up for a race yet herself. She acknowledged the feeling you get with runners at races, being part of a family, and that she got about 60% there to signing up for a race but hadn't. Her main reason; she said she lacked the "why". Following the runners that she did during this movie, she said each had a very compelling "why" that came out during the most difficult parts of races and that why helped them keep going or make the tough decision to stop. She said without that why she didn't think she could muster up the toughness needed to finish a race.

It got me thinking about why we run and why I run. I know I've touched on it some, probably in every post. But her answer made me think about what my "why" was.

Running isn't something I did when I was in high school or college. Running was a secondary thing I did to further some other athletic goal; tennis, softball, ultimate, etc. I ran my first race in 2002. I was living in Washington DC at the time and my roommate invited me home for Thanksgiving in Connecticut. We ran a 5 mile turkey trot, further than I had ever run in my life. I cannot remember my time, but I remember feeling like that was the hardest thing I had ever done. Flash forward to 2006, I was living in Breckenridge and started participating in the Nike Summit Trail Running Series. I wouldn't say I enjoyed the running, but I did enjoy the happy hour deals on snacks, the drink tickets, and the raffle. In 2007, as I was finishing up my internship and trying to plan my next steps I decided that I was going to run Grandma's Marathon. This was a race that I grew up with so it seemed like a fun adventure, besides it was in my hometown and I was going to be home anyways.

Choosing to run a marathon because you're going to be in an area anyways seems sort of silly. Marathons takes months of training and do a number on your body. Plus I had never done a race longer than 5 miles so I tacked on some additional shorter races to do to see how it felt. Side note I still cannot run through water stations to drink, I have to stop walk and gulp. But I ran that marathon and have been racing/running consistently ever since.

There are a lot of people in the racing community who run because they lost someone to a specific disease, or they are battling internal demons, or they wanted to get in shape and running transformed their lives and their health. A lot of people run to give back, to raise money for a charity, or to prove to themselves that they can do it. I cannot pinpoint a special moment or inspiration that made me start running. Beyond the convenience of a race being in my home town and having several months of unemployment to occupy my time.

But why do I keep running?

This question is harder for me to answer because there is not one thing that keeps me running. There are many things and most are tied to a specific race or goal which is constantly changing. That being said, I was able to come up with a sort of list on why I run.

1. Tradition

I run Grandma's Marathon because it was my first exposure to a race. I remember cheering for runners as they passed. My favorite memory is leaving an all night frisbee tournament to go down to the corner of 21st and London Road with my friend Matt to pass our friend James some Jolly Ranchers as he ran by. The crowd at this race is one of the best crowds ever and I keep coming back because being there feels like tradition. I give a nod to Lombard street as I run by in memory of my grandma and boompa, and I am still chasing the illusive sub 4 hour marathon on the way to Duluth from Two Harbors.

2. Fitness

I've always been athletic. I started playing sports so early I don't really have a memory of not being on some sort of organized team/league. Therefore I never took up running to get in shape or lose weight. However...I've never felt in better shape for life then after I started running. The year I started training for my first marathon I noticed a considerable improvement in my ultimate game, especially with defense. Running has helped me stay in shape in the off season and has kept me focused on being active year round.

3. Identity

Running has become part of who I am. It's more than just putting on shoes and putting one foot in front of the other. I've encouraged friends and family to start running. I volunteer at races or help crew/pace. A lot like ultimate, running has become a community that I am thankful to be a part of. I keep running not because I'm afraid of what would happen if I stopped, I keep running because it's just part of me now. If I wasn't able to run, I'd still be a part of running in some capacity. Much like an artist will always be an artist, once a runner always a runner.

To conclude, the director of Desert Runners is right that having a "why" to get you through the tough part of races is important. But lots of us runners make that why up on the spot in the race. Whether it's something deep like doing it for a lost friend or something superficial like "I don't want that person wearing the barefoot running shoes to beat me". Heck, sometimes you keep going because it's shorter to just finish than it would be to drop out. And sometimes, you don't keep going. You drop out (DNF) and no matter what your inspiration is that got you out there, sometimes you don't finish. But that doesn't mean you hang up the shoes for life.

In conclusion; the why isn't what helps you finish a race, the why is what keeps you going out for runs whether you're wearing a bib or just out in your neighborhood for a short jog.