spectacular and uneventful

That’s how I would describe the last month.

Let’s start with the Spectacular: Sierre-Zinal. 

An electric, visceral experience. An opportunity to see practically every friend I’ve met at every international running event the last few years. A grind in my favorite way.

With 7100’ of climbing and a fraction of the descending, it was easily the most grueling race profile I’ve tackled. Spectators were scattered all over the entirety of the 31 kilometers from Sierre to Zinal, some so enthusiastic that they had carried legitimate chainsaws to their trailside viewpoints and revved them nonstop as athletes paraded past. 

Running down the finishing chute I cried and smiled at the same time, completely overwhelmed by emotion. It wasn’t that my 6th place finish was a shock – I believed I could – but rather just the appreciation of what my body and mind had done for me in light of what I had been living through. I’ll just say that life outside of sport had not, and still has not, been the easiest. My strong result symbolized more to me than just my dedication to training. It represented my resiliency as a whole person. I was just so proud and exhausted it made me cry. 

Photo: Victor Barcus

I left Zinal feeling very motivated and inspired. With a crew of Golden Trail World Series (GTWS) athletes and staff, I next bounced over to Locarno, Switzerland, via a VERY windy road that had me feeling significantly more unwell than I did at the end of the race the day before. After a few hours of wondering when I might lose my lunch, I was relieved to leave the rental car in a parking garage under the city center. Emerging into the evening light, we took a small trek with our luggage over to a funicular train, rode halfway up a mountain to an aerial tram station, and rode the tram the remainder of the way to the summit. Our hotel for the next three days, as well as a magnificent view over the city and glistening lake below, awaited us. 

The next few days were spent exploring the location of the GTWS Final (which takes place mid-October) on exhausted legs. A few sleeps and a few more delicious meals later, we did the whole commute in reverse, plus a 1.5 hour (much straighter, thank goodness) drive to the Milan airport, and two flights towards Eastern Europe. Next thing I knew, we were in Zakopane, Poland, the site of the second GTWS race on this particular leg of the tour. I’d never been east of Austria and really had no idea what to expect of the mountains or the culture in that corner of the world. Despite the fact that I spoke not a lick of Polish and almost laughably could not find any gluten-free food other than boiled vegetables to subsist upon, the welcome felt warm. 

What wasn’t warm? The race a few days later. Within the first 5 minutes of the start, we were running through the thickest, heaviest rain I’ve ever witnessed. And actually, it was hard to see – I wished I had goggles to keep the stream of water out of my eyes. The sky was literally dumping on us like an overturned trough, and I couldn’t help but laugh. 

Running into the first aid station at mile 7, already completely soaked to the bone, I saw the four women who had pulled ahead of me on-course slowing their strides, talking with race officials, and dejectedly turning away from the mountain we were supposed to be running up… Moments later, rather than being handed my soft flask and gels from the aid station staff, I too was delivered the news that the race was on hold due to rain and lightning. The race might start again in 30 minutes, they said. Go stay warm, grab a tea in the hut over there, they said. We did as we were told, wondering how 100 shivering women were going to start running towards the alpine again in a matter of minutes… I realized quite quickly that this was going to be the first mid-race cancellation of my career. A lackluster and unexpected ending to my two week European escapade.

And that’s when the Uneventful began: Impromptu Training Camp.

The last few weeks, since my return from Europe, I’ve completely given myself over to training. While I typically put a lot more than just training hours into my success as an athlete (maybe one day I’ll share more about what I actually do other than run on a daily basis), I haven’t lately. The aforementioned chaos of life outside of sport has made me appreciate the comparative simplicity of my daily existence, if only I let it be that way. Lately, it has just been some combination of: run, ride, eat, lift, sauna, recover, sleep. I’ve let life be simple; I’ve let everything be forward motion towards the one goal of getting faster. And I’ve let everything else fall to the wayside.

This simplicity has afforded me the ability to refocus in a way that my Type-A brain usually cannot. I’ve been able to read for pleasure, watch a few shows (something I really don’t do much of), and write nearly every day. This routine reminds me a little of the 3-week pre-season cross country camps I went to with my college team each fall during my time at Washington. I always had more time for journaling, reading, cooking, and just sitting with friends being slightly bored but entirely content at the same time. And just like I would start to feel refreshed and excited to return to the rest of my life by the end of camp, I have begun to feel the same way about emerging from the at-home “training camp” I unintentionally just attended.

Last week, Ren and I went on a brief road trip to Oregon to reconnect with family and friends and say hello to some high-alpine mountains (all of which we are starting to sorely miss living in the Bay Area… to put it lightly). Just one day into our visit, though, wildfire smoke from some fires raging to the east of Bend blanketed the sky. Our frequent trips to Oregon have become a constant reminder that the climate is in peril, affecting quality of life for so many people and beings. After just one day of working out in the public gym, we made the decision to cut our trip short and return to more favorable air in Marin.

We arrived home well after sunset. And because I had not wanted to spend a single second more of my time running up stationary mountains or biking into manufactured headwinds generated by an electronic fan, I still had an 8 mile run to get in. I had permission from Coach to bail and make it a rest day, but weirdly enough, I was sort of looking forward to being enveloped by the darkness and joining the coyotes, deer, mountain lions, and whatever else lurked out in the trails behind the house at night. I felt like perhaps the growing, burning craving I’d been having for alpine starts and big adventures like the ones I have back home (Wyoming home, I mean) would be satisfied with a little extra fear of wildlife. I slipped into some shorts, cinched a headlamp over my tangly hair, told Ren where I was headed in case I didn’t return, and plodded up into the woods. 

For a few minutes, I did get a bit of a thrill. It was quieter than usual out in the neighborhood, and much easier to listen to my breath and feel my heartbeat. It was peaceful and meditative, watching my legs alternate rhythmically in the spotlight, like watching the same short clip over and over on a black and white TV. But once the relative novelty of being in these woods, alone, in the darkness, wore off, it became a little spooky. I lost track of how many times the bushes rustled a few inches from the trail and I jumped. At one point, I instinctively threw the beam of my headlamp into the woods, towards the sound of an unnervingly loud crack a few meters away. It met two glowing eyes. A hot gush of adrenaline pulsed through my entire body, and although it slowly subsided with continued motion, I spent the rest of the run jumpy and uncomfortable. As I remained mentally steadfast about pushing onwards, I could practically feel a head cold crawling into my immune system and a little niggle starting to wear on my body. It became apparent that I had been burning the candle from both ends already for over a week. And then I remembered that I could just go home, eat the hot dinner Ren was probably (hopefully) cooking, and get some sleep. I opted for that, and woke up feeling just fine the next morning. And The Uneventful wore on.

But if my calculations are correct, today is the final day of The Uneventful.

Tomorrow begins the excitement of the next round of Golden Trail races, here in the US, as it is the day before Headlands 27k. The race is here in my backyard in Marin. It’s funny calling it “home” since I’ve just barely been running here for 6 months (most of which was training for track!), but I suppose it is more “home” than “not home”? And then we all head up to Mammoth for the final race of the main season, taking place next Sunday. Time to buckle up.