I wasn’t as pleasant to be with when I blew up this year at Western States as I was when I blew up last year at Western States. I kept thinking things like, I started doing this sport so young and I had so much potential and now I’m in my thirties and this is what I do more often than not. Wasted potential. Unfocused. Unable to execute on a plan or a goal. Trying to do too much and doing a bad job at it all. “This is how I do everything in my life,” I kept thinking. “I get all this attention and then I go out too hard and blow up. Running, school, Footprints — it’s all the same fucking pattern.”
Even at the time I knew deep down that I was being exceptionally hard on myself, but it was hard not to be. It was embarrassing to blow up again, to do almost literally the exact same thing as last year. I maybe made it one mile farther down Cal Street before my legs seized up in exactly the same way. Only this time it was physically as well as emotionally worse. My toes were in serious pain from slamming into the front of my shoes with every step all day, something that had never been a problem during training (in the same shoes.) And my legs…I don’t know how to describe it. I think hammering downhills for 65 miles was just more than they could handle. I couldn’t stride out anymore, I wouldn’t work hard, all I could do was just shuffle the flats and walk the climbs. After running so fast for so long with the leaders, repeating the same damn mistake as last year was humiliating.
I am inconsistent. But my god I try so hard. I really did do better prep than last year. I trained more consistently and in a way that mimicked the race. I did lots of heat training. Then I took a risk with the early pace, but I never led the race. I thought it was all in control and then it all slipped away.
The way I manage my thoughts and emotions during these frustrations and disappointments is up to me. I knew that in the long hours of slogging from the river to the finish with Martina. And honestly I think it’s okay to be negative sometimes. That was a disappointing result and those were my feelings. I tend to take it too far, but it’s possible to feel frustration and disappointment and also gratitude. I have so much to be grateful for and my heart falters at the thought of it: my strength to be able to run this race and finish under 18 hours on a “bad” day; the many people in my crew — mom, Martina, Nick, Mireia, Evan, Mike, and more — who went so far out of their ways to support me, to share in that experience whatever it turned out to be; the fact that I personally knew dozens of fans and media people and staff along the course, all good friends I’ve earned through years of dedication to the community; the simple beauty of being outside in this beautiful landscape from before dawn to after dusk and seeing all the changes in between.
If my crew were nervous or uncertain, it was only because they were worried I was upset. And when I think about watching Jim Walmsley leave Michigan Bluff just before me and then charge out of sight in very little time, I of course feel some jealousy that I couldn’t do that. But mostly I’m just fascinated, even grateful, to have seen a master performing his craft at the highest level. It’s always impressive to see something difficult made to look easy, and I had a special perspective of it by having run there myself.
When I think in a longer perspective, the overall goals shift a little. Obviously I’d love to have a long list of impressive victories on my résumé, who wouldn’t? But I already have more than that by participating in the community in other ways. I hope Jim can find something to fill him up when the time comes that he can no longer do what he did at Western States this year. I’ve worked hard for a long time to find an expression of this whole experience of trail running and Footprints is a lot closer to it than any race result.
This isn’t justification. I’d still love to win. But I have an opportunity to be more than just a competitor, and there’s probably no better way to show that than when my race goes poorly. When I move through these experiences with grace, I lift people up alongside me. When I express the negativity that’s inevitable in such situations, I drag us all down. When I struggled through my first Hardrock I expressed every negativity and found that it did not contribute to moving forward and that I felt shame thereafter for my immaturity. At Western States this year I expressed several negativities but kept the majority to myself because bitching wouldn’t have helped me move forward or my people to be better.
Everyone out there just wanted me to succeed, and in the largest sense my success is defined by how my life and actions affect the people around me. I am imperfect. But I am trying so hard. To be a good friend and family member and runner and leader. I’ll pick apart my race and my training and try to find some answers as to why this fell apart competitively. But first I have to reorient my mind to the fact that my race at Western States was a success. Not by some clever accounting that redefines success, but by reminding myself of how I truly want to define success. I am healthy. I am strong. I am surrounded by people I love and who love me in return. I have a great deal of privilege and the opportunity to pass it on to others.
If that’s not success, then nothing is.