Month: August 2015

Big Horn 100

The Power of Being Alive in the Moment

By Betsy (‘Boots’) Nickle

As I came up to the line at Big Horn, I knew that I had a long day ahead of me. I had lost an essential part of my race gear: lube. I knew going into the race that I was going to suffer as result. At the start of my first Western 100, I felt small in the crowd against the towering mountains. Many of my VHTRC buddies were there to see me off. My first 100-miler pacer (Judith) gave me a motherly hug and best wishes. I was thankful for her kindness!

Standing there with good running shoes, a pack, and my Bull Run 50 miler visor, I had one of those “What the heck am I doing here moments?” Bang! The gun sounded. Like the sound of the gun, I came to quick conclusion; I was here to finish a 100-mile race in the West.

Within the first few miles, I felt my lungs constricting as I was talking to another runner. It was a little overwhelming because I have had asthma attacks while running. I was concerned that it might happen again. I let the other runner go ahead. As I found myself climbing a hill, ants appeared to be summiting the mountain ahead. I realized those could be my friends.

The noon sun beat down on us. However, the scenery was captivating. We were running in a meadow that you find on computer screen savers. I didn’t know if I was hallucinating. Thankfully, I realized that cannot happen at mile 5. I used the scenery to my advantage. Rather than get caught up in my breath problem, I busted out my iPhone and took photos. My thought was that at least I’d have photos even if the day went haywire. Honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to make it to mile 50. After my picture-taking break, I found myself much more grounded.

Rather than dwelling on what the race was going to dish up, I found these words from my meditation practice echoing in my mind “Nothing else is supposed to be happening right now.” Step by step and hour by hour, I found myself embracing the beautifully difficult terrain with a real sense of presence. As a trail runner, I find that my mind wonders to the future: what food do you think they will offer at the next aid station, how far ahead of me are my friends, will I have a good enough day to finish. Yes, those thoughts came up as they always do. Today, I labeled them as thinking, rather than creating a story that had no bearing on my performance. That action helped me create a sense of spaciousness, where I found myself enjoying the race and connecting with other runners on the trails.

During ultras, we experience great highs and lows just like life. I have found the key is to embrace the moment. There might be some major soul-sucking suffering. Like the moment when I found myself shoeless in a huge mud-whole (both of my shoes were sucked off) or the moment at mile 90 when the bottoms of my feet hurt so bad that I walked down hill and counted as 20 people passed me. During these moments, I just accepted that suffering is part of the experience.

The suffering makes you appreciate the runner’s high moments much more. Like running along the mountain ridgeline in the moonlight and observing how the moon reflects off of the mountain. Or climbing up a 16-mile hill experiencing altitude over 10,000 ft, to sit with my friend Misha who helped me change my shoes and brush my teeth. I felt so comforted on many levels: the camaraderie, embracing a creature comfort of a toothbrush, and accomplishing something that my mind was trying to talk me out of doing many miles ago.

As I found myself running along the trail, I became captivated by the fields of wildflowers blooming on the tops of mountains. Weeks ago, these flowers did not exist. In fact, they were covered with snow. Often we associate snow and winter with bleakness or depression. Yet, these flowers served as a beautiful reminder for me. That even though something might seem dead on the surface, there is often something underneath that with a little bit of light and/or encouragement; it will surely bloom.

Often in our lives, we find ourselves in difficult situations where the journey ahead of us seems overwhelming. Yet, running has taught me that breaking an overwhelming task down into little pieces gives me faith in my ability to achieve it.   When I crossed the line after running down the road with my brother by my side, it was rewarding to share that experience with him in hopes to inspire him. There was also an amazing sense of accomplishment in doing something that is really freaking tough, persevering through the struggles, and accepting that I did the best that I could do on that given day. Honestly, it made this finish the sweetest one for me.

Even though, it’s a personal worse for me by 19 minutes. It was one of the best races because I embraced the beauty and struggles in the present moment. I also worked hard to not allow something that happened in the past be an indicator of my current performance. Over the course of the race, the hours rolled by like minutes and minutes felt like hours at other times. Yet, they were filled with many pleasant views including a 10 minute sit down with my brother in the middle of a field only to embrace the beautiful scenery in the moment. Spending the time to embrace nature is the real reason why I run, I’m thankful that I had such a beautiful course to take the time to do it.

Often I find that people (including myself) are so caught up in the performance, that we busy our minds with unnecessary anxiety and pressure. I learned that taking moving from a performance based focus to enjoying the present moment enabled me to create more memorable moments with the people I love. I hope look back on Big Horn 100 in many years with my brother and say, “Do you remember when I told you that we needed to sit for 10 minutes and look at the scenery?” I hope his response is, “Yes, it was amazing, but remember your sock issue.” Then, we will laugh.

In March, I lost my cousin. She was in her late 30s. Her death reminded me of something important. The only thing that we are sure of is the present moment. While you may be spending your time planning for life in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, they could not happen. Over the years, I have seen successful runners suffer with injuries that have sidelined them for months. That has helped me recognize that our running careers in the present moment may appear to be infinite. Yet, they could be taken away from us initially.

Trail running has taught me that being is more important than doing. As a city person, I’m rushing from thing to thing, but I often find that I miss out on being in the moment. All that rushing creates so much anxiety. When I take a few extra minutes to anchor in the present and connect with my environment, I find my contentment increases. Honestly, I don’t think my performance is hampered.

Racing on trails is a lot like life. I’m not quite sure when the end is near. At least if I’m being, I know that when things end that I enjoyed the experience. When you find yourself lost in your rushing mind (happens to me all the time) remember: “Nothing else is supposed to be happening right now.” I hope that statement will bring you ease and comfort in a world that expects us to do rather than be.

 

Grand Teton National Park, WY

August 2015

Jack’s family scooped us up in the Jenny Lake parking lot.  Jack’s wife and kids must be awfully used to his trail running shenanigans, because they were relatively unfazed by the fact that it was 9:45pm, pitch black, we were hours beyond when we said we’d arrive (we did manage to text them from the trail and give some heads up).  And they had pizza and beer for us!

 

 

 

Some people endure all the travel so that they get to do a race.  I endure the race so I get to do the travel.  –Martha Nelson, July 19, 2015

When we realized that Steve’s wedding in Jackson Hole would conflict with the Lurray triathlon in August, we scrambled to find another triathlon to do this summer.  I had several criteria:

(a) open water swim in a clean lake (no pools, no dirty rivers)

(b) Olympic or half-ironman distances

(c) less than 4 hour drive from DC

(d) gotta have some hills (so many of the triathlons cater to people trying to get PRs by being pancake flat. bo-ring.)

(e) gotta fall on one of my few free weekends this summer (I’m having an epidemic of conferences that spill over into the weekend this summer)

After scouring the calendar of tris, we came across Anthracite in Jim Thorpe, PA that seemed to fit the bill.  It was Olympic distance, in a fresh lake, and meandered through the hills adjoining Pennsylvania coal-mining towns, the biggest of which was Jim Thorpe.

Aaron and I have been swimming fairly consistently this year.  We try to swim every Tuesday morning, and occasionally on Thursday, but with my travel schedule this probably averages out to about 3 swims a month.  Not enough to really get in swim shape, but enough to consistently work on form.  I set a very low bar at last year’s Lurray Tri.  But I can now breathe to both sides.  And Aaron promises I’m don’t look like I’m drowning, even if it feels that way.

I can’t really say the same about our bike prep.  I think Aaron has been on a bike for a total of <5 hours so far this year.  The fact that I’m double that made me feel like I had done some training.  But 10 hours of biking doth not a training make.

The day before the race I purchased my first wetsuit.  It went something like:

‘Um, it’s kind of tight around my chest, I can’t take a full breath.’

‘Good fit.’

‘It’s kind of choking my throat.’

‘Perfect.’

My lack of wetsuit experience would become apparent during my 5+ minute transition zone 1 time.  I felt like I was trying to skin a seal.  An angry, stubborn seal that did not wish to part with its epidermis.

After buying the wetsuit, Aaron and I shimmied up rte. 70 all the way to Mauch Chunk Lake, besting the packet-pickup deadline by four minutes.  ‘Mauch Chunk’ was the original name for the town of Jim Thorpe. Let’s see, on one hand we can name our town after a great Olympic hero, or as an alternative something that sounds like mouse vomit.

On our drive up to the lake, the road became noticeably steeper.  ‘Whoa, Aaron, there are hills here.’  We decided that we’d better drive part of the bike course to get a better sense of what we were in for.  There was a lot of muttering of curse words.

‘Mile for mile, Aaron, have you ever done a harder triathlon bike course.’

‘Nope.’

‘Maybe we should have done some training?’

‘Maybe.’

‘It says it’s a high of 92 degree tomorrow.  We’re gonna roast.’

‘Yup.’

We picked up our race packets and listened to an extraordinarily efficient pre-race briefing by the no-nonsense RD.  The key message was: don’t fly down the big hills because there will be 90-degree angle turns at the bottom and you will crash.  Got it.

There was only one B&B where you could book for just one night (most have 2 night minimums on weekends).  You couldn’t book online.  Nor by email.  You had to actually call and leave a message.  The kind little old lady who ran the B&B called me while I was boarding a plane in O’Hare and somehow I managed to give her my credit card info over the phone before jetting to Ontario.  She sent us a confirmation in the mail.  With stamps.

The B&B was one of the highlights of the trip.  It was a old Victorian right in the middle of town.  We were put in the ‘Arizona Room’ decorated for Sedona hippies.  Since we had to rise at 4:30 am for the race, our fridge had been pre-stocked with milk and juice and bowls were on the table along with homemade granola and coffee.  And, most beautifully, we were allowed to check-out late so we could shower after the race.

Jim Thorpe is a surprisingly cute and touristy town.  We thoroughly enjoyed Stone Row Pub (which we returned to for post-race brunch).  And the long lost pleasure of thumbing through CDs at a real brick-and-mortar record shop (I bought Aaron the latest Florence + the Machine).

‘Just so you know, this is not how triathlon starts normally go,’ Aaron clarified.  I guess the nice thing about a super hilly bike course is that super type-A triathletes are deterred.  There were plenty of tricked out bikes, but the air was not drenched in testosterone.

The whole Organization of the Gear part remains my Achilles heel.  I had a couple gear fails: (a) my goggles kept fogging up, so I couldn’t see anything (I couldn’t even make out the giant red balls marking the swim course until I was right on top of them); (b) it took me twice as long to get out of the wetsuit as everyone else; and (c) I ran out of fluid on the bike in the baking sun and entered the run completely dehydrated.  When Aaron finished his race, he was amused to see that the water bottle from his bike had been pilfered.  Apparently, a dry-throated marmot had drunk everything in sight after its bike ride and strewn it on the ground.

Triathlon is a perfect space for me to practice not being competitive.   I’ve been a front-pack runner since the day I set foot on a track my freshman year of high school.  I really had no experience in being a leisure athlete.  Even on family ski trips, Nelsons don’t wait for each other.  Nelsons blast down as fast as they can go, and if you can’t keep up…..well, hope you know the way.  My stubby skis and diminutive size meant that turning was never really an option for me.  So when I had to do a mandatory wrestling tournament in 7th grade, my honed survival instincts shot me through the elimination bracket.  I had never pulled girls to the ground before, but being a Nelson had prepared me well, and in the finals I defeated a tomboy named Kate who was 5 lbs heavier (quite a lot when you’re only 75 lbs to begin with).  We had only two weeks of training in wrestling moves, so they were really just cat-fights.

So enjoying being a back-of-the-packer is not really in my DNA.  Ultras have taught me a lot about how to rein in the testosterone and just enjoy the day.  And after a temporary setback at Holiday Lake, where my attempt to run non-competitively this year left a bitter taste that no amount of alcohol and honey has been able to clear, I got Operation Tame the Marmot back on track at Manitou’s.  It’s not the greatest feeling in the world to pop out of the water and have all the bikes gone (it kind of feels like you’re entering a disaster zone of a previously inhabited city that’s been destroyed by a tornado).  But I just take my merry time in the transition zones, enjoy the cool fresh lake and the wind in my face on the bike.  There’s a balance to racing in a way where you’re in check and just enjoying being out there, but exerting enough to still feel satisfied with your effort.  I’m still trying to find that balance, but triathlons are an ideal venue for experimenting.

The old me would have rolled my eyes at placing 3rd in my age group at a dinky triathlon (I think there were only 5 women total).  But Marmot 2.0 held up my little award and smiled for the picture with pride.  Anthracite is kind of a Race for the Birds of triathlons.  Prizes for all!  We even saw some highly acrobatic Eastern kingbirds darting along the shoreline during our post-run splash in the lake.