To Pieces.

I’m sipping freshly filtered mountain stream water from my water bottle, huddled down on a damp rock beside a roaring, splashing, slick cascade. I’m at 11,000 ft an on early season hot summer day, surrounded by tall withering pine trees. The air feels fresher, cooler, delightful. And I’m bawling. Not some sad little tears I can stealthily wipe away, which I had been shedding far too often of late, but a full on wail. No one else was on this trail; I’m alone and I could scream if I wanted to. And I do want to. So I’m sitting here sobbing alone in peace, mostly from anger, and entirely at myself. Mad at how I reacted today; this week; this year. At all the times my mind makes up too many stories of every horror that could befall me, and convinces me that it is the here and now.

Which is, of course, how anxiety works.

It’s getting to me more than usual, on this trail on this day at this time. So I let it, for once. My final pity party before I pick up the pieces of the mess I’ve made of myself this year and move on.

This photo felt right.

You see, for a brief moment in time, I had done it. Taken a big brave leap. I was registered for the difficult and devastatingly beautiful High Lonesome 100. I kept going back and looking at my name on the list of entrants, not really believing it. I was seeing what it felt like to be among all the excited, gifted athletes preparing to toe the start line. Pretending that I felt like one of them. It was anti-climatic, registering. I told no one, just filled out the online form in the middle of the work day and went back to responding to my daily deluge of emails from frustrated architects, just as if I’d gotten up for another cup of coffee. The excitement wasn’t there, but I was just doing this to feel it out. Test the waters. Try to be someone I’m not.

I always knew I would fail. Some stretch goals are so far fetched that a finish is out of the question, but at least I could succeed in something else along the way. It was a bucket list item, to try this race even just once, and I had won a discounted, guaranteed entry through volunteering in previous years. I hadn’t quite felt ready - my long term plan had me throwing my name in the general lottery MAYBE in 2026 at the earliest, and even that felt too soon. But the option to sign up this year was presented to me (I didn’t put my name down for anything! They just randomly draw from all volunteers!), and I didn’t want to spend my life refusing to do things because I didn’t quite feel ready. So when I saw my name on the short list of volunteers invited to register, I knew I wouldn’t turn it down, even in the midst of a turbulent year of running. After all, every year of ultrarunning feels a bit turbulent.

Plus, there was the issue of The Date. I say I’m not sentimental, but the 2025 High Lonesome race, which circles through the mountains I explored with my dad in my youth, begins on what would have been his 65th birthday (instead, it’s 5 years, 10 months, and 29 days since he died, but who’s counting). He would hate this. I couldn’t say I was doing it for him - I think he would mostly be worried about me if he knew what I did these days. He’d probably say something about my knees and suggest I do something reasonable, like a half marathon, instead. Even so, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate his life than to spend time running through his forest, so yeah, I’m a little bit sentimental.

I would have registered even if the race had been scheduled for any other day of the year too, but that’s beside the point. I don’t believe in fate but goddamn; The stars were aligned.

Storms over my mountains

I jumped into action when the volunteer lottery was announced, making a plan with my coach to squeeze in a 50 miler by the end of 2024, a requirement I had to meet in order to accept my lottery spot. It felt good to have a goal again, and a plan, even if I was only halfway in. I loved having direction and a reason to do what I’m doing besides vague notions of “getting better”.

I reframed what failure would mean. First, failure meant not finishing the qualifier; not getting the choice. In another stroke of fate, my plane ride to the 50 mile qualifying race flew directly over the High Lonesome course. Staring at the Sawatch mountain range from above, I imagined what it would be like to traverse 100 hard grueling miles through those austere peaks. I could pick out the prominent peaks and snow-filled couloirs. The next time the snow was melted, the race would be starting. Just one long winter season and then I’d be starting my attempt. I watched each ridgeline pass below, looking so small from up high, looking so stunning. Could I do this? And maybe more importantly, did I want to?

I spent a lot of time exploring that Why, and I needed to understand that answer deeply, truly, and quickly because this is no normal race, nothing like anything I’ve done before, and the only real thought that would come through my head is that I had no business being in it.  It’s 100 hard miles and there’s no way in hell I’d finish. It was going to force me to face some pretty serious fears beyond the shame of a DNF. That was fine. I could handle it. I thought.

I definitely wasn’t going to finish if I couldn’t answer why I was doing it to begin with.

Is it a sense of purpose? I sure loved the feeling of going from directionless training to cramming in a 50-miler. Even if things weren’t going swimmingly, I had reason to push through. I started taking some more chances, including a solo run up in Crested Butte when camping with friends, and I didn’t even panic. “You have to brave if you want to do High Lonesome” I would say to myself. It also motivated me to get back to PT to try to make some headway on the leg/ankle/nerve situation. Healthy eating was a must. I ignored the biggest elephant in the room, my fear of thunderstorms. I didn’t know how to tackle that in the fall, when the skies were safe. I’d just have to practice being brave and taking risks. Time to buckle down and run my first official 50 miler.

And I did it. I finished the race, through grit and pain and faltering determination (another story for another day). By January, I was officially in the 100 mile race, my short little name nestled between all the others. My trepidations immediately surfaced in my inability to even tell people I was going for it. I had to add a caveat every time it came up, that I wouldn’t be finishing and I wasn’t sure I’d even hold my registration spot for more than a few months. I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet but I knew that I would and I voiced that loud and clear. It’s important to set expectations, you see.

Pre 50-mile feels

Knowing how my body felt after 50 miles (bad! It felt bad!) my resolve wavered, but I didn’t change course, not yet. I had another goal: feel healthy training, honing many of the necessary skills needed for this 100 miles to be remotely possible. To enjoy training. To get through months of determined running and strength and consistency and resiliency. To feel strong. To feel capable. To have some big mile days and hold up to the stimulus.

Winter was hammering out some flat road miles, building in speed work with my coach and letting my ravaged 50-miler body heal. There were frigid, dark, early mornings; midday interval workouts where it was still so cold my eyelashes frozen to themselves; misty hill repeats on the least muddy dirt I could find. I built up a little strength and my nervy leg bullshit even calmed down for a few months. Even so, the first 30 mile training weekend in March left me feeling destroyed. But by early May, I was handling the same training load with quick recovery (can I recommend Carbs and Hydration?).

Somehow along the way, I ran two 50K PR’s and a 10K PR, non of which I was specifically training for. At least not for my “A” race. I spent hours out on the trail with new and old running friends, bolstering connections and building new ones. Disgruntled, I practiced using poles while running, which began to feel easier and even helpful at times. Despite my unease with running in snow, especially up mountains, I summited Green Mountain with a friend on a deep spring snow day, frolicking through fluffy mounds of powder, hollering in joy together.

Snow on Green

To an outsider, it may have felt a bit sudden when it all came crashing down. All things considered, I was Doing It: doing the training. But inside, each run was getting more and more challenging. I was struggling to adequately prepare the night before; sleep turned into anxious tossing and turning; work stress took me away from time I needed to cook healthier meals; I hadn’t had a period since December - a PCOS diagnosis suggested that it wasn’t due to running, but I didn’t feel healthy. I could feel the cortisol ripping through my veins. And I could feel that grating, hot, burning leg pain again. My nemesis. It had returned, ever present on each run, getting louder. My body felt so bad.

My mind didn’t feel any better. My ever-present depression was getting worse, and then there was the issue of the weather. Here’s another thing about High Lonesome 100: The course spends a lot of time above tree line. Which I love. The open high alpine tundra, where you can see for miles and miles, rolling waves of alien plants and wee little flowers and the thin line cutting a trail through the short prickly grasses. On top of the world, which is beautiful and stunning….and definitely not where you want to be when the inevitable afternoon thunderstorm rolls in. There is no way to run this course without spending a significant amount of time exposed to this risk. Runners just have to accept that they will be above the protection of the trees, even when afternoon storms are common. Some folks are comfortable with this risk; some folks don’t like it, but are willing to push through it for the race. As for me? The fear consumed every ounce of my thoughts.

My fears started with being chased off a ridge line by the reverberations of close lightning strikes as Kit and I retreated on dead tired legs at the tail end of the backpacking trip back in 2017. For years after, my desire to sleep outside in the middle of the mountains diminished into a haze of fear. I adapted my activities, choosing adventures that generally brought me back to the car well before noon. This was okay, but every year, it worsens. A cloud at 9am is enough to make my heart skip a beat.

It’s not rational, but it is my reality.

I thought building into this race would give me the motivation to overcome this, but instead it built up into an insurmountable task that overwhelmed every other barrier. I talked to a lot of people about it, hoping someone, anyone, would give me some wisdom that would somehow twist my risk-adverse mind into understanding the real danger, which is statistically minimal. Instead, I obsessed about it more than ever. By the time thunderstorm season came around, it become clear to me that I could not do this. I only felt dread. There was no Why. There was only a Why Not.

Wanting to do something is not the same as wanting to be the kind of person who can do it.

6 weeks before the race, I formally withdrew my name. I thought I’d feel relief. Instead I felt nothing.

So I’m here by the mountain stream. I had planned a trip out to these woods, these mountains, to run on the High Lonesome course, when I was signed up for the race. Even though I had withdrawn, I figured it would still be fun to come out. After all, I love these mountains. I decided to do a little run from St Elmo up towards Cottonwood, on a small stretch of the course I had abandoned in fear, anger, and pain. I thought maybe it would be good closure but instead I just feel panic. I’m back where I started last summer; no plan, no short term goals, just trying to be in a little less pain and feel a little bit better about life.  I don’t even know what I’m panicking about anymore. A leaf blows in the wind and I startle, the metallic taste of adrenaline creeping into my mouth. For nothing. For wind, for the sounds of nature. The sky was bright, blue, and devoid of any clouds. The fear doesn’t even have direction anymore, just crippling feelings. Constantly on edge. Every rustle leaves me shuddering, stopping, stalling. I turn back, way too early. Before the good part.

I’m being dramatic, full body sobbing by my stupid little stream. It’s just running. It’s just a hobby. It’s just a life raft to hold onto in the chaos of life. It’s just shaping how I see myself, and it’s a mark of failure when I come up short, over and over and over again. So I let myself fall apart

to maybe

fit back together

a little differently

next time.

L,

A