The Process of Endurance - Part 1
The sun shines brightly, a nice change from the overcast and rainy days that have consumed the area for the past week. A question from wife comes to life, “Do you feel unmotivated?” To be honest, being blinded not only by the sunlight but the question she asked, came no answer and a wave of silence. In the past, a full on explanation would come to the surface to mask feelings and emotions towards something deeper than just getting out for a long run or having to write a three-thousand word research paper. Today, that very question is a bullet that does not penetrate me like it once did. Her beauty puts me in a daze as she turns the steering wheel heading back from breakfast that morning.
Over the last few months, the urge to tie up my trail shoes to get out and start running took hold of me, as it once did half a decade ago. Where a running spree of chasing the next biggest distance that came with a set of accomplishments in completing a couple hundred mile races - Kodak 100 and San Diego 100 - on foot through the mountain ranges that comprise Southern California. At the end of twenty-nineteen, my wife, and newborn daughter who was no more than 6 months old, decided on moving out to Utah where the mountains allowed me to play even more and get into some more rugged terrain. Before this big move, two events hit me in the face like a bag of potatoes knocking me into dreamland.
The first was the DNF (Did Not Finish) in Tahoe, were the two hundred mile foot race took place. If you’ve never heard of this event, it is a multi day race through the mountains overlooking the beautiful body of water that many human bodies come to visit for relaxation and partying. In the winter, you have tourist in search of the best line possible in those mountain ranges causing a headache for many locals in the area. Before making it to the start line came a deep urge to focus on the family deep in my gut, and put running ultra-marathons on the back burner for the next phase of life. It was the right choice long term that ultimately led me to sitting here four years later with my daughter who is now three and half and a son who is no more than a year and few months old and my two oldest who are ten and eight with a bond stronger than ever.
Our drive to Tahoe was actually amazing, with lots of laughs, quietness, and a six week old baby in the back of the car with landscapes that drew a sigh ever time the sun would rise bringing light to our lives and a start of a new day. Then to the sunset giving night time its space shine.
With every great road trip comes a great poop story and my wife almost exploded in her pants from drinking too much cold brew and in turned this whole experience that women do, in fact, poop and there is no getting away from it. Ask any man who is married or in that close of a relationship with someone and they will agree with you … especially if they are parents.
My training leading up this race was decent, but not the greatest in comparison of my previous training blocks. Training was based off how the mind and body felt and most times it was my mind winning the battle of not training. Yet, lining up on the start line was not the problem, or finishing the race, the emotion of selfishness smashed my legs like a bat over the nine-thousand vertical feet of climbing that came in a window of eight hours and forty-five miles. The mind kept telling me to quit and go hangout with the family and the body a complete mess made it that much easier to quit.
Now, quitting doesn’t run through my veins, but in this moment, this choice to DNF was a decision that served as a catalyst towards changing my selfish acts. After going back and fourth with myself the choice to pull the plug and DNF, came from the heart, a feeling that seemed foreign. It’s taken almost four years of running long distances for me to feel my heart beat. In that very moment is when it was time to put the trailing running shoes away and learning to love endurance in another manner than to punish myself or stroke the ego in it’s ability to do hard shit.
The second big breacher charge in learning how to feel my heart came from spending time in the hill country of Texas at a trail running camp called Band of Runners. This camp was off the grid, no cell service, no interaction with the outside world, a perfect getaway to do some deep searching and that is what happen. In this window of time, a chip on my shoulder and the pressure started to turn unbearable. No one else able to see it but me, and it was weighing me down, causing me to suffocate slowly.
During this week long camp, my legs must have accumulated over eighty miles in that week, and my mind felt the affects. This environment turned into a shovel that helped me dig even deeper and what helped the curtain drop came during a last man standing race. This race lasted about four hours total, with a time cut off every new mile that was completed and if you miss the time cut off, you were out. The run started under the nighttime canopy filled with stars casting light onto the trail that each of us used to move. With music in my ears and the energy of being in my home state where a lot of crazy shit happened growing up as a kid and through my adolescences, made for the connection to be that much more potent than the cocaine that I regularly sniffed growing up.
Fast forward four years later, with a move to Utah and back to SoCal, married with four children, my wife back on her feet attacking life in a different way than before, earning my bachelors in Sports Psychology, now chasing my masters degree in English and over twelves years of working in the human performance world and turning thirty-four only passing the fifth kilometer distance in life. The choice to step away from racing and long distance efforts never truly stopped internally. The action changed from running through the mountains to learning how to endure in different aspects of my life, both internally and externally. So, when my wife asked me, “Do I feel unmotivated?” The answer later came on my run, moving closer to the start line of my next hundred mile race in the summer. In life outside of racing comes no time to feel unmotivated, not when you rely on you, the family relies on you, and the world relies on you.
The last four years have taught me to always take one more step but not just any step, make sure it is fueled from the heart. Because the heart is never unmotivated. Endurance is a skill to survive, learning to connect the body, brain, and heart takes time and also becomes a skill that is learned over time. But, as an artist of our lives we must practice feeling our beating heart before we can lead with our heart.
