Ten Junk Months — Gazzellie

Do I really still have it? Do I still have the drive to finish ultra distance races? Can I mentally wrap my head around running anything longer than three hours?

I’m not so sure.

It has been ten (almost eleven months) since I last ran an ultramarathon. That race was my first 100 miler at Western States.

When I run I feel fine and dandy but also super happy to be done when I finish. I feel spent after three hours and looking forward to sitting down. I wish my legs had more, my body had more, but most long runs it feels like it doesn’t. Sure, after my runs I usually go and work a shift, so it’s not like my body was spent…but my mind is ready to be done. Most days. Other days my hamstring is ready to be done and my mind wishes it could go on. My mind wants me to be an ultrarunner, but maybe wishing isn’t enough.

Most days when I look in the mirror, I don’t see a trail runner. I see someone who runs on trails, but my heart feels drawn toward other things. Maybe this is the phenomenon stemming from the grass always being greener, but really I’ve wanted to spend more time on the road for a while now. I think what’s kept me on the trails is my friend group and also the notoriety that I have somehow cultivated as an ultrarunner, one I’m not sure fits with who I am. I am also really struggling building up speed. Road running is faster running, that’s just the nature of it. My legs need to be able to turnover and have a shift in gear. The niggles that I’ve been presented with these past 10 months have not allowed me to shift gears. I am still doing workouts indoors, my hamstring being the limiting factor right now. It’s not that I am not enjoying trail running and all the things I am able to do…but I would be lying if I said that style of running does it for me. When I talk to Riley or Corrine about what kind of training they would do everyday, it’s simple for them: they would love to run two hours on trails easy everyday with some longer, all day efforts every few weeks. That to them, is bliss. In theory that sounds really fun, but if I started to do that I would be bored after a few days. I need to taste metal. I need to hurt. That’s part of running for me. I do not mean the inevitable hurt that occurs to everyone after they’ve run for a long time. I mean the hurt that happens in a short interval workout of 10x60 seconds on/off and can be done in an hour. I mean the tempo intervals against the wind where all I can think about is this ten seconds, then the next ten seconds, in order to get through 3 minutes of effort. That’s what I crave during the week that allows me to enjoy the long, easy things on the weekend. The self-flagellation I am succumb to right now is not being able to even get into that zone. It took me a while to get to that effort on the elliptical (it’s boring and hard to get the movement down). Finally I was called out by my friend Jon when he asked “does that even feel like a workout?” so consequentially the past three weeks my effort has increased greatly and I am just as tired after those indoor spins as I would be outside. Still, it’s not the track. It’s not the same.

In an ultramarathon race, I will not approach the speed I would run my intervals. I know that and yet it is not comforting at all. It feels like I am giving myself an excuse. I am putting a band-aid on this hamstring niggle because for some reason I am hoping the speed it will allow me to run for my next race is enough to both finish and also perform mediocrely. Anyone can run or slog for 3-4 hours and that simply is not the runner I am. I don’t have the mental fortitude yet nor do I know if I want it. Like I wrote, road running appeals to me very much right now because I know in order to do it I have to work a hell of a lot harder. I want to work so hard and it really bums me out that the tools I have to do it are limiting me this way.

Ten junk months. Ten months of running where I’ve had glimpses of fitness. Ten months of learning so much from a brilliant mind who coaches me and not being able to show her how much she’s transformed my training. Ten months of incredible training partners and runs where I don’t feel like I am translating opportunities into performances. Ten months where I constantly relearn that I am so much more than a runner, that I have to be so much more. Ten junk months.

The funny thing about junk miles (or junk months) is that they are usually some of the most fun as well. In the past ten months I moved across the country, helped start a business, manage that business, meet a new group of friends, help others at races, watch my friends succeed in their dreams, help them train for big races, host potlucks, and continue to grow into the whole person I love that I am. Though I cannot claim to want ten more months of the kind of running (or lack there of) I have been doing, I can say that this kind of running has not limited my friendships, community and happiness.

Ten junk months, sure, but also none that I regret.