Love the Ramble, Not the Race (Why I Am Not Afraid of Ironmanization)
The best part about corporations and their money flooding the Ultra and Trail Running scene is that I do not have to care.
In February of 2013, I proposed to my high school girlfriend. She said yes, and the rest is… complicated. Almost immediately, I got scared. My chest tightened up. My dreams went dark. In my last semester of college, I completely lost interest in my degree plan. I felt like my world was closing in and yet spinning out of control. There was no good explanation for my reaction. My girlfriend and I dated all through college, enduring many spells of long-distance dating. We had talked about marriage for years, discussed timing and money, and had approval from our parents.
Yet, the moment I handed over the ring, I felt ungrounded. I was completely freaked out at the prospect of such a dramatic life shift. Life-long commitment. I could barely commit to texting my friends back, and now I was going to forever wed my soul to another human being? Spoiler alert: It did work out. We’re celebrating 10 years this summer.
At the time, though, there was only one thing I could find to ground myself and keep the nagging thoughts at bay: Running. Barefoot. For hours.
Knowing what I do now about movement and physical activity’s effects on depression and anxiety, it makes complete sense. But, at the time, I had very little exposure to either running or anxiety. My newfound emotions and how I needed to deal with them were completely foreign to me. But, the proof was in the pocket-sized energy gel pudding: Running calmed me down and helped me focus on planning a wedding and finishing my undergrad.
I wasn’t unathletic in high school and college, I just wasn’t a joiner. Team sports required commitment (seeing a pattern here). They required practice and discipline and I didn’t care enough. I was happy with a game of pick-up ultimate frisbee or sand volleyball, but I’d rarely run more than the length of a pot-holed, public soccer field. By 2013, I was bike commuting to my job, but that was more functional, not “athletic”. My wife had bought me a pair of running shoes, but I barely wore them. After a few runs they felt stifling. Clothes made specifically for running sounded kind of pretentious to me, so I ran in swim shorts.
It was an immediate revelation. That first year of running barefoot through front lawns and local golf courses was a spiritual experience that I still try to recreate to this day. It curbed my anxiety, and once I did get married, gave me a creative outlet and a much-needed excuse for time alone. I eventually got some running sandals after too many run-ins with broken glass, but the ecstasy remained. Tramping through the neighborhood shirtless, shoeless, and careless, I felt like a completely new person. I read Born to Run and realized I was only half-crazy. I discovered The Zen of Running and made it my bible.
What I remember most about those first few years of marriage, which included several job changes and a bout of unemployment, was all those muggy, evening runs. I didn’t think about pace or distance. I didn’t race. I didn’t listen to music. I barely tracked anything. I didn’t know people carried water or food with them, so I planned routes around public water fountains. I just ran and thought and dreamed and escaped the uneasiness of being an adult with bills.
The thing is, when people talk about or ask me about running, what they’re usually asking about is numbers. It’s easy to oblige. After 4 years of regular neighborhood tramping, I ran my first marathon in 3:41. After my 2nd marathon (3:38), I ran my first trail 50k. After 3 years and a few more 50ks (in which I placed 4th 3 times in a row), I ran a 50-miler. Three months later I ran my first 100k. It took me 13 hours.
What is not asked about, though, is everything else.
For the first year of my son’s life, he had a penchant for waking up at the very moment I would open the back door for my 5:30 morning run. My wife, after a long night of feeding, would rush him out to the running stroller before I could run away. During my entire 50k training block that season, I pushed a stroller through our faintly lit neighborhood streets. The rock of the stroller would put him back to sleep better than I ever could holding him in my arms, in a rocking chair, or pacing around his bedroom. Each morning as I finished my last mile, the sun would crest the neighborhood roofline and shine in his eyes, and he would wake with a giant smile on his face. Those mornings spent together will stick with me forever, and I’m convinced that the hours he spent as a child with the wind in his hair will set him up to be a professional kiteboarder, cyclist, or downhill longboarder.
My kids are a little older now, so when my long runs end at the house, they love to run “just a little more” with me around the block. I see how running gets their animal toddler brain out of itself, and fills them with joy. We are not that different. On a recent family hike, my son tossed his shoes off and yelled “Let’s run!” He ran barefoot all the way back to the car. Tears of joy ensued.
As I signed up for trail races further and further away, they’ve become family road trips. Racing mostly in state parks, the kids have fallen in love with camping, an activity we might have otherwise waited to start until they were older. My kids have waved inspirational signs at me, rang bells as I ran through aid stations, handed me watermelon juice and tacos, and asked me continuously “When are you going to be finished?!” My favorite comment is from my daughter, completely exasperated that I kept running in and then out of the same aid station: “But Daddy you’ve been running all day!” That’s the point, I want to say.
The point of running comes up more often than most runners care to think about. It’s clear by now, I hope, why and for whose benefit I do this. Ritual. Spiritual. Familial. I don’t think I am at all unique in this. Lots of people have found running to be a spiritual, family-focused, or life-affirming activity. Plenty of men and women have built their families around the pursuit of adventure sports, and many have done this more smoothly than me. My point is to, hopefully, disarm those who are starting to get fussy about the future of trail and ultra running.
The more I get into this running thing, the more I’m noticing the flashpoints of a booming sport — Ironman grabbing Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc, rising entrance fees, doping, even some strangely luxurious ultra marathons that include a personal butler. If I’m not careful, I am susceptible to start preaching about the “purity” of running as much as the next old guy. I am, after all, at my core a barefoot runner, whose evangelistic urges are second only to the vegans.
Yet, if I’m being honest, the various debates about growth and money and integrity of the sport are really only a tangential concern. It’s a hypothetical, philosophical concern. It actually has nothing to do with me at all.
Will I ever run UTMB? Maybe. It does sound like fun. Do I need to? Of course not. We all know this, we just forget it the moment we find a post’s comments section.
Right now, there are dozens of trail races in state parks and recreation areas around me with small entrance fees and no waitlist. And I live in Texas. Take a look at neighboring states within a day’s drive, and there are true mountain races without waitlists. Not to mention the fact that the trails our ESPN-covered races are run on are also… just trails. I can strip down to my swim trunks and ramble barefooted and bare-chested across almost any trail in the world whenever I want to. Racing in an event is great fun. It’s an experience I will continue to cherish and seek out. Yet, I know better than to proclaim that the meaning of our sport somehow depends on them. The meaning of trail and ultra running depends on me, and is up to me to define it. All my running memories from the past, and the ones I made this morning on my local trail, are ultrarunning.
This past January I was in Bandera, TX for my 100k — The HOKA Bandera Endurance Trail Race. It was the biggest trail running “event” that I’ve experienced, and it was a perfect example of the growth of the sport. The dichotomy of the name alone is evidence enough: HOKA, a shoe company owned by the globally known Deckers Corporation, with an international cast of sponsored athletes; and Bandera, a town deep in the Texas Hill Country that, as of the last census, takes up only 1.2 square miles and has 829 residents. The race had a live stream, major national brand presence, and a who’s-who of Western States hopefuls. Several running podcasts aired previews of the race the week before, and recaps of the race the week after, capitalizing on the excitement of the Golden Ticket narrative (top 2 men’s and women’s get automatic entry into the Western States Endurance Run). I had heard that trail running was getting big, but I never expected to experience it.
I had a wonderful race that day. I don’t mean that I was vying for the podium, or that I PR’d or anything. I mean that I had a wonderful race. I paced myself right on the double-loop course, running the first loop just conservatively enough that I still had legs for the flat sections at mile 50. For a day that started with rain and ended cloudy and muggy, I hydrated well and digested every piece of food I ate. It was an ideal experience. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever get to do it again. Is there going to be a waitlist next year? It was already the most expensive race I’ve entered, but could it get worse? Will they pack up the post-race party before we 12-minute milers get to the finish next time? The answer is, yeah, probably. Maybe it’s a decade away, but it will probably happen. I’m prepared for that.
I’ll probably still run it too. If not the weekend of the race, then maybe on a weekend when I only have to share the trails with 400 fewer people. Because the reason that I was out there in the muggy January rain was not to get my face into the live stream (I was actually a little creeped when the drone was whizzing over me), but because at the end of the day, nothing is going to beat the experience of the ramble. Sometimes, I find it in a race, and most other times, I find it in the simplicity of an unnamed trail on a random Saturday afternoon. I don’t need the race to love the ramble, and because of that, I am going to be alright. Trail running is going to be alright.
