The Trail Race
I never made it to the starting line with all the other runners. I was finishing getting myself ready when they all took off. My race began about a minute or two behind everyone else. That was fine though, for a few reasons. First, because we had a little over 20 miles to cover. There was plenty of time. And also, I would never be trying to hang on to someone I shouldn’t keep up with.
This weekend was my first trail race in nearly twenty years. Before that I did one 5-mile race, one time in high school with my mom and my sister. And some cross country races in high school and college ran through the woods at times, but those races were different. I don’t even run trails often. Maybe a dozen times or less in the hundreds of runs I go on every year.
So, it only makes sense that I signed up for a trail 20-miler. One with some serious climbs and a course map closer to 21 miles. But the pictures were of beautiful single track trails through the woods of West Virginia. And I thought, why not. Who cares if I’m good at it. It will be fun to spend some time exploring those beautiful woods.
No one ever asks me why I run anymore like they used to when I was younger. Maybe these days it’s more obvious that running is just a part of who I am. No questions needed. And I’ve never felt like I sacrificed anything to be a runner. Instead, I’ve gained much more than I could ever put into words.
Running offers an unrivaled variety and monotony. You can get in a couple miles nearly any place you are, so the baseline ritual will always be there for you. But after that, the options are endless. You can change the route, location, terrain, effort, type of run – everything. Plus you never know exactly how you’re going to feel that day, putting one foot in front of the other. It’s pretty incredible. And I like chasing the variety more than personal records.
For the first 5 miles, I spent a lot of time moving up through the single file line of runners. But after that, I hit a gap in the people I was chasing through the woods. For most of the next 10 miles, the only people I saw were the volunteers at aid stations and guiding us through key turns on the course. It was just me and the trail.
It was during mile 7 that I considered not finishing the race. Either the footing was just that technical or I was tiring early, but that mile was a tough one. I stumbled a few times, barely catching myself before face planting. My foot slid while crossing a slick rock, leaving me frozen in a low squat inches above the dirt. A few steps later, my butt was on the trail and my feet were a little unsure of how we all ended up that way.
But, within a few minutes, I started to feel better. More stable, both in my decision to run 20 miles and on my own two feet. I got back to enjoying the views and the challenge at hand. You couldn’t think about the whole course, only the section right in front of you. When I hit the sign for Deer Trail, I actually saw a deer just to my left. And on the overlook after yet another hard climb, there was still morning fog in the edges of the park below.
When the course got technical with a few miles to go, I didn’t get intimidated again. I simply went slow, hiking more on the downhills than I ever expected I’d need to. But once the steep descent and knotty roots were behind me, all I had was open trail ahead. In the last few miles, I ran stronger than I expected. Again I was moving past other runners, my legs finding their familiar stride on the flat river trail.
My finish time was where I expected it would be. And other than knowing I didn’t overestimate my current fitness, my time doesn’t matter to me. The course was nearly a mile longer than the advertised 20 miles, and not a single finisher complained about it. It was refreshingly different from the loads of complaints you overhear at the end of a 3.2-mile road 5k course. And while I doubt I’ll be heading to any start lines any more often, I felt more at home among the trail runners than I ever do in proximity to the most neurotic of the PR-chasers.
Running and life mirror each other. Rarely do things go exactly as you expect. Rarely is the course perfect, or the conditions for that matter. But you do the best you can today, putting one foot in front of the other. And tomorrow will be a new day to do it again. Some days we succeed and other days we fail. Some days we scrape ourselves off the ground and other days we bound through, nearly weightless.
I’ve never seen the point in stressing yourself out over covering an extra almost mile, or even an extra 150 meters. Especially after you’ve already done it.
