It’s Monday. Two days have passed since I ran the Glacial Esker 40, my first 20-mile trail race. The tension in my shoulders is starting to subside. My hips and knees are getting some mobility back. My quads are still holding onto the effort, but I suspect that will ease by the end of the day. My head has a dull ache and the pesky effects of dehydration are clinging to me like a dryer sheet on a sweater. In many respects I’m more depleted than I’ve ever been, but in other ways more invigorated than I can remember feeling in a long time. It’s tough to capture the spirit of the day, but there is certainly plenty to share.
A 6 a.m. call time
For 15 weeks, I’d been checking off boxes on a printed training plan on a half sheet of paper. My best friend Jackie, who I’ve known and adored since our freshman year of high school, miraculously stepped in during week 5, after my brother tore his ACL and it became clear he wouldn’t be able to run. We would greet the sun on Saturday mornings and layer up for training runs around the GE course at Chain-O-Lakes state park, a little over 30 minutes away. Even then, in the company of about 30 other runners, who we’d never met before I knew there was something special about this trail and this tradition.
Around the 5-week mark, I found out that my sweet friend Libby would also be running. Throughout the weeks leading up to the race we’d exchange the occasional text message about how underprepared we were. I’d encourage her and offer tips from the training runs. She’d respond with sweating emojis and exclamation points.
The night before the race, four bags in tow, Libby arrived from Ohio. We went for burgers and ice cream with my crew and then sat on Spike’s bed to sort through the gear she brought. While in hindsight, the day might not have been made or broken by the choice of a mid- or full-length legging, in that moment, it sure felt that way. The weather didn’t really help. It was supposed to be about 36 degrees at the beginning, rise up to the high 40s and then start raining and drop again.
We went to bed around 10 o’clock Friday night. In order to get around, have a cup of coffee, pick up Jackie and make it to the park in time for packet pickup, which began at 5 am, we had to wake up around 3:30 Saturday morning.
At 5:45 the participants, volunteers and race organizers gathered in a heated tent for a brief download. It was like standing inside a sealed container packed tight with concentrated doses of optimism and nervous energy. We were all just waiting for someone to pop the lid off. Standing in the warm tent, sandwiched between two women I love and respect, I said a silent prayer that we would all make it through the morning. It was nearly 6 o’clock and we had six hours to get the job done.
Outside, the sapphire sky was dotted with the brilliant glow of stars above and the runners’ headlamps below. There was no gun or canon, no playing of any national anthems, no pomp and circumstance. Just a simple, “Go get ‘em!” and the group started to move up the hill toward the mouth of the trail. We’d calculated that, given Libby’s typical road race pace, she should be done about an hour before us. The second things started shifting, she was gone, and we wouldn’t see her again until we came back around the lake we stood next to now hours later and crossed the finish line.
Sunrises and sandwiches
There’s something truly extraordinary about watching the world come alive through the eyes of the forest. There was a small window where we trotted along tentatively under the modest square of light cast down by our headlamps. But very shortly in, I looked up and saw the neon layer cake of dawn filling the gaps between the tree trunks. Everything felt good in that moment – the crisp air in my lungs, my fresh, rested legs.
We hit the first aid station at 2.5 miles in the blink of an eye. The volunteers were phenomenal, offering tater tots and broth and various protein-packed baked goods. I put a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich down over my empty stomach and we continued along the path in a faint, beautiful light.
I knew Hank was going to be at the next aid station, Rally Campground, at mile 8. He was bringing a change of shoes and socks, bandages and drinks. As we came around the corner, under an arch of pine trees and a bed of their needles, I stepped right into a deep puddle of mud and screamed. Six strides later, my little girls had their arms around my waist.
I debated changing my shoes at Rally. It certainly wouldn’t have hurt anything, but I remembered something LIbby said the night before as she was sorting through gear. “Run in what you know.” I’d trained in these shoes. I knew what the trails felt like in these shoes. A little muddy water couldn’t do that much damage. I sipped some broth and ate another half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Jackie and I took off down the gravel road out of Rally and my two older girls jogged alongside us, joking and giggling. Without intention we reconnected with our slow, carbon copy stride.
All the mud
Jackie and I had never been on the other side of Rally Campground. We had no idea what the terrain would be like.
“It’s kind of fun,” Jackie said in those first couple of steps, “not knowing what’s coming next.”
Within minutes we discovered exactly what was coming next, as we encountered a stretch of mud four inches deep that stretched for as far as our eyes could see. We started by trying to go around it, which proved a fool’s errand. Soon, we realized that no matter which lane you chose, you were going to get dirty. We started plowing up through the middle of the puddles, praying our shoes would stay on and fighting the suction below us.
After we made our way through the first mud pit, we naively expressed our optimism that we might just be through the worst of it.
“OK,” Jackie said. “Maybe it gets better from here on out.”
We heard chuckles behind us. It was a gentleman we’d chatted with many times on our training runs and a friend of his. Both of them had clearly been on the other side of Rally before.
“It’s just getting started,” one of them said. We looked at each other.
They weren’t exaggerating. The next six miles was like navigating the slip and slide from hell. We slid, we tripped, we jerked our feet up out of the earth as it tried to suck us in. Everything burned – my butt, my hips, my thighs. At one point, I stepped down and my foot was entirely submerged in thick, warm, wet dirt.
“Cheese and rice!” I complained. “It feels like I just stepped into a gorilla turd and it ate my foot alive.”
After working through a large stretch of mud, it took a good 20 strides or so for our bodies to remember how to run normally. Our feet were heavy. Our socks squished and rubbed against our toes. We were streaked in brown and still miles from the finish line.
The worst watch malfunction in history
The day before, Hank told me that he would be at Rally Campground and then meet us again at mile 16.5. My watch vibrated on my wrist indicating we’d reached mile 17, and I started to hypothesize with my trailmate.
“Huh, I know this part of the trail from camping up here, and I know there isn’t a road for a while.”
“Yeah?” Jackie panted.
“Yeah. Hank must have calculated wrong.”
“Maybe.”
When the mileage on my wrist read 18.5, I saw Sloppy Joan running down from the top of the hill. Her momentum took over and she face planted up ahead of us. Her heels kicked up behind her. She lifted her dirty chin and started to cry. I reached her, and the other two, and picked her up off the ground.
“You guys are going to have to help her,” I instructed. “I’m too tired to carry her.”
We jogged on, leaving my girls to sort out the suffering of their smallest member. I came up to Hank at the final aid station. In my mind, we had 1.5 miles to go and I wanted to get rid of everything. I took off my hydration pack and my vest. I was shedding clothing like I had fire ants under my shirt, except for my handkerchief. I tucked that into the back of my pants. I chugged a small sports drink, kissed him on the cheek and took off again. We were almost done, and the volunteers promised it would be all downhill.
My watch vibrated every half mile to alert me of our progress. After the second vibration, with what should have been just .5 left to cover, I started to worry.
“Jac, where is the lake?” I asked. “Like, if we have just a half mile left, shouldn’t we be able to see the lake? And why don’t we hear any cheering?”
“Maybe no one’s finishing right now,” she offered. But we both knew something was wrong. She waited a few minutes and then said, “What if Hank really was at mile 16?”
“There’s no way my watch is that off, right?” I negotiated with her and also with the universe. “I mean, that would mean it was like multiple miles off.”
As we jogged along, our bodies turning to rust with each exchange of our hips, it became abundantly clear that the watch could, indeed, be that far off. If there was any moment that broke our spirits that morning, it was that one. It didn’t happen on a steep hill or in a mud puddle like we thought it might. It happened two miles away from the finish line on a relatively flat path where we momentarily misplaced our hope.
“Well, it is what it is, right?” Jackie finally said. “We have to get out of here one way or another. It’s just gonna hurt really bad.”
And it did. It hurt really, really bad. It packed the sting of disappointment and the brilliant burn of exhaustion for at least 15 minutes. An older woman came up behind us and announced we were at 19. The news gave new life to our limbs as we picked up our pace the slightest bit. It was a shift undetectable by the untrained eye, but we felt it.
The woman was waiting for her husband. “We always cross the finish line together,” she shared. And soon the couple, and their daughter, ran right past us.
“Stage 4 cancer survivor!” the daughter said to us over her shoulder.
“If I can do this, anyone can!” the older gentleman, her father, added.
We could hear cheers now. We were that close. The last stretch of trail ran parallel to the lake. We could see the tent and the parking lot less than a mile away. I can’t remember what we said to each other in those final minutes, but I do recall hearing, “Let’s finish this.” It might have come from my lips, it might have come from hers. I could see my girls. I could see Libby. I saw Hank standing off to the side with his phone recording the moment for us so we’d never forget. The race organizer gave me a high five as we crossed the finish line, just before 11 am. I cried and pulled Jackie in for a hug. We each got a wooden medallion on a string of twine placed around our necks with “GE 40 – 20 Miles” burned into the face. The medal was a token of accomplishment taken from the trail we’d just conquered and in that moment it meant more to me than gold.
My starving child
I hobbled over to the car and changed out of my blocks of mud. Libby had been done for an hour, just as we predicted. She looked rested and glowing with achievement. She’d loved the race. Every bit of it, just as I’d hoped she would.
Someone mentioned there was food in the tent where we’d been briefed earlier that morning. The girls were at my sides as we surveyed the offerings.
“Does this cost anything?” Sloppy Joan asked one of the volunteers. It was a question I had never heard my almost five-year-old ask anyone ever. The volunteer laughed.
“Can I have a grilled cheese?” Spike asked. One of the women running the griddle kindly obliged and handed her half of a sandwich.
“Me too, please,” JoJo said. “And a cup of soup.” Again, the volunteer obliged.
But when I asked for two more, for me and Sloppy Joan, I started to get the sense we might be abusing their generosity. It all clicked for me at once. The half portions, the tiny cups of candies, the hamburger buns cut into fourths. We were unknowingly ransacking an aid station! This wasn’t a celebration meal for the families. This was a fuel stop for all of the amazing men and women who planned to continue on and do the 40 miles.
“Let’s wait and make something at home,” I told Sloppy Joan. But, like a bad dream, she was already mid motion, picking up a giant spoon they’d placed in a bowl of goldfish crackers and shoveling them into her hot cocoa-rimmed mouth.
“Everything is free!” she cheered, and I wanted to crawl in a hole.
“Four year olds,” I said, mortified, and handed the volunteer the spoon with her greedy spit on it. It was time to take my homeless child out of the tent and get everyone home. It was time to let the healing begin.
All the stuff you feel later
Libby ended up finishing fifth overall for the women in the 20 mile race. Such a badass. Jackie and I were a little closer to the back of the pack. I’m just in awe that it’s over, and experiencing a bit of a race hangover to be honest. I can remember being in my 20s, and talking to people who ran about how much I wished I could be a runner, but conceding I just didn’t have it in me. We tend to achieve what we believe. I believed this myth that you had to go at a certain pace or look a certain way, but watching my silhouette move across the ground as I racked up more and more mileage, I accepted a new belief. I accepted that a runner is anyone who can cover the distance. It’s the person who shows up. Our race might not have been the prettiest, but we put in the time and training and we saw it all the way through.
For my first long distance trail run, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Every single person involved with the GE 40, from the other runners who checked in as they passed by, to the volunteers who offered to fill water bladders and fry up tater tots in 30-degree weather, to the organizers who treated every participant like a friend, it was a blessing. One of the organizers told me I’d be ruined for any other trail run and I imagine he’s right.
I am so proud of Jackie and Libby, for being brave enough to throw their hats into the ring and make the race what they needed it to be. The most treasured part of the process for me is the opportunity to be around these positive, uplifting women and be witness to their wins. They say intense situations tend to make people bond faster and more intensely. I don’t know about that, but seeing two people who are really important to me, who didn’t know each other five hours earlier, embrace and share in such a joyful moment, is what it’s all about. I’m constantly amazed and inspired by their abilities, their support and their sisterhood.
Without ever stepping foot on a trail before that day, Libby came out and killed the game, but she treated us like we finished right behind her. She wears her success paired with a touching humility and they just don’t come any better than that girl.
Jackie is my ride or die. We’ve been breathless and broken together more times than I can count, and we always come out on the other side a little bit stronger. She understands my “why” because hers is ultimately the same. We have things to prove to ourselves and we’re just getting started.
But race day MVP goes to Hank. He picked up the slack all those Saturdays when I went to knock out a training run and never once held it over my head. He got the girls around and up to the park at 6 o’clock in the morning and anticipated our needs and put them above his own comfort and convenience. He showed up. It wasn’t easy, but he showed up. In the cold, early hours of one of my biggest accomplishments, he was there. That’s what love should feel like, look like, sound like. I would run all over this earth for a love like that.
Glacial Esker 40 Mile Run from Red Tide Productions on Vimeo.
Every time I try something new and it doesn’t kill me, I’m reminded of how much I love seeing what’s on the other side of the mountain. Every time I face what intimidates me and choose to cross over that bridge between who I was and who I just might be, I discover a whole new depth to this life. There’s a richness in exploring what comes after the fear, after the pain, after the doubt. If you want it bad enough, you simply refuse to quit. You accept that it’s going to hurt like hell, and you put your head down and you keep moving until someone puts the medallion around your neck. Until someone hugs you and you know you made it.
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