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I like perversities. When things turn out curiously the opposite of what you expect. As a recent example, Aaron and I discovered that having a baby actually made us more likely to join group runs. Our ten-month old Bjorn gets full credit for us finally making our first Pub Run in Thomas, WV in February. And it wasn’t because new parents are in desperate need of alcohol.

No, the explanation is pretty simple. In the past, the biggest barrier to joining group runs was the early start times. We had the whole day to kill and weren’t getting anywhere by 8am. But now we have our own little human alarm. It doesn’t matter if we put Bjorn to bed at 6pm or 9pm, he starts chirping at 6am every morning. Now we can finally do Sundays in the Park.

Joining group runs means meeting new people and getting invited to more group runs. By doing the Pub Run, we learned of Katie’s plan to do a FKT on the 24-mile North Fork Mountain trail. A trail that Aaron had always wanted to do. And which would apparently be the first documented FKT in West Virginia. How could we say no?

Bjorn’s 6am wakeup call eliminates a primary barrier to group runs, but introduces a secondary barrier: childcare. One of my major roles as Momma Bjorn is to direct his weekly circus of caregivers, who punch in and out in 4-5 hour shifts. Bjorn is extraordinarily accustomed to being in the arms of different people.

One of those people is Gary, Aaron’s boss. Gary’s main charm is his extreme enthusiasm for certain things (from the Washington Capitals to a certain Greek pizza). Fortunately for us, he has recently directed his enthusiasm towards Bjorn. Who, we must admit, is the world’s biggest charmer of a baby. Still, it was a big ask to have Gary come out to WV for an entire weekend and babysit for a good chunk of a Saturday (we left at 6:45am and returned around 3pm). We spent a portion of our run wondering if Bjorn had managed to bite Gary’s nose.

Childcare issues aside, the chief challenge of running the North Fork Mountain trail seems to be the logistics of shuttling folks on a point-to-point course. There were at least 20 emails exchanged about this particular problem, none of which I read (no human has enough bandwidth for baby AND vehicle logistics).

Eight of us met at a designated parking lot, including some WV folks I already knew (Lucas, Adam, and Katie) and some new out-of-towners (Tom, Todd, and Kate). We met our 9th guy Bill at the trail head. I didn’t quite understand whether the FKT was intended to be run socially, maybe running as a couple groups and maybe splitting more at the end, or whether everyone was supposed to go balls-out. I realized it was the latter when Bill took off before we’d even finished our group photo at the trailhead.

Being pregnant and having a baby takes you down a couple notches. It had actually been two years since I had done a mountain run over 20 miles. Or any run over 20 miles, for that matter. Fortunately, Aaron and I are into equal parenting, and he felt just as beat-down as I did. I didn’t pressure him, but I was secretly hoping he would just take it easy and run with me.

I fished my wish, and Aaron and I ran together start to finish, setting a new FKT on the trail for women (4:06). The men’s FKT was set by Lucas (3:10), who earned the moniker ‘Honey Bear’ because he ran the entire trail carrying nothing but two 10oz plastic bear-shaped honey containers filled with water. Boy’s a camel. I had two large water bottles, went totally dry, and spent the last hour or so feeling loopy, thirsty, and feeling like there was a reason I had been keeping my runs short lately. Most of the North Fork trail coasts along a forested ridge line with good tree cover, but it was an unusually hot day with strong sun. Aaron and I went off course for about a mile on a hilly and completely exposed gas pipeline, and that took some wind out of the sails. Apparently we weren’t the only ones to succumb to the heat. Tom went miles off course and got so loopy he started hallucinating and asking perplexed hikers on the trail if they had any margaritas.

Coming back to running after having a baby is a gradual process. I’m almost completely physically recovered from childbirth and pregnancy (thank you, pelvic PT), but there’s a lot of mental fatigue. I found myself having a hard time staying focused on the trail, which was mildly technical (at least by WV standards). Aaron noticed how I uncharacteristically kept stumbling on rocks and roots and coming frighteningly close to falling, even at the beginning of the run. Highland Sky is coming up in three weeks, and while I do believe I’m physically capable of covering the 40 miles (even if this FKT attempt was my only training run), I worry about being able to stay mentally focused for that long.

The best thing about getting hot and dehydrated on a long run is how good it feels at the end to recover. I told Katie I would do any run she wanted me to as long as it ended with sipping a beer in the sun at the lovely waterhole we found at Seneca Rocks. ‘We’ refers only to the diehard waterholers, as Aaron and others decided the creek was too cold. I’ll admit, it was frigid and you couldn’t stay in long. But Todd made my day by swimming beers across the creek to the opposite side where we were sunning on rocks. Pro gear tip: Altra shorts have perfectly beer-shaped mesh pockets for transporting up to four cold ones.

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Maybe it was the beers, but we all agreed we would definitely do the North Fork trail again, and maybe make an annual tradition of it. If I ran it again, I know I could easily slash my FKT time by doing simple things like (a) not going a mile off course (maybe Go Big this time and actually glance at a map the night before), and (b) having at least one prior mountain long run as training. A cooler day would help too. And a little less new-baby-sleep-deprivation. But it would also be fun also just to run it socially and with a chance to stop for all the beautiful views along the ridge. I stole enough peeks through the trees just to have a sense of what I was missing.

Acknowledgments: 1- Katie (event organizing), 2- Aaron (gamely running with me), 3- another guy named Aaron, friend of Bill’s (supplying a gatorade at the finish when all my stuff was in car parked elsewhere — I told you the shuttle stuff was complicated), 4- Todd (swimming beers over at the water hole).

The Backyard Burn #3 at Lake Fairfax Park was sticky and humid and everyone was tearing their soggy clothes off mid-run.

I was barely a mile into the run when I started clawing at my shirt, trying to tuck it into my sports bra so my belly could breathe a little.

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The day before at VHTRC’s Bull Run Run 50-miler, they’d had a record number of drops. The air was thick with humidity, it just sapped all your energy. Folks were droppin’ like flies.

But let me tell you: a crap day at a Backyard Burn 10-miler is so many Everests better than a crap day at Bull Run Run. On top of the muggy weather, our whole family’s been sick lately, and Aaron also had a terrible day at the Boston Marathon. But the joy of putting my ultra runner days behind me (I’m making a small exception for Highland Sky in June) is that when I feel like death, 1 hour is so doable compared to 10 hours.

The race began auspiciously when found my first four-leaf clover of 2019 at the start line. I handed it to another Reston pal Frank, and wished him a good race. And I went out hard, really wanting to run with Brady. But I realized quick the legs just didn’t that day, and quickly scaled it back.

The Backyard Burn course loops around Lake Fairfax Park, hitting all the great landmarks: the lake, the water park, the cricket grounds, the soccer fields, the RV park, and, of course, the back of Aaron’s house, which he still owns as a rental property.

At first, I had not been impressed when Aaron told me he lived in Reston. ‘Reston’ had been a dirty word growing up. One of the traumatic events of my childhood was when my grandparents sold their lovely stone house on 10 wooded acres in McLean and bought a cheap townhouse next to a highway in Reston. It was walking distance of the Town Center and thought to be more practical. I sulked every time we visited.

You can learn a lot about someone from their home. Aaron’s house was peppered with surprises. A far cry from the dirtbag trail runner bachelor pad I was expecting. I marveled at the fancy soaps in the bathroom. And glasses that had been bought from a store as a set, not just an sundry collection from different athletic events. The only whiff that a runner lived there was upstairs you had the Grubby Nap Room. An entire master suite with no furniture dedicated solely to collapsing on the carpeted floor when you’re too tired to shower after a long run. Brilliant. And the back door led to a new-growth forest that was sliced in every direction by mountain bike trails.

The whole race was made possible because Aaron still has lots of running friends in Reston. Lindsey, Gary, and their daughter Ava were are the world’s best babysitters and took care of Bjorn all morning. The outer suburbs are kind of weird, and full of some really terrible chains restaurants. But I miss Reston’s forests, and trails (with working water fountains, no less), and friends. And how darn quick you can tick off an entire errand list. Without even paying for parking.

It is a strange thing to grow up the daughter of Bob Nelson. On one hand, being the daughter of a Libertarian is pretty great fun. There are no rules. No limits on junk food, or how much TV you can watch. We believed in no religion, no God, only in one power: the human mind. Whether or not you agreed with my father’s particular views, you cannot deny that his energy for ideas was contagious, as was his core belief that you could reshape the entire world simply by thinking freely.

My father invited unconventional thoughts. So while I know it’s not how most people in this room might feel, I have to admit I’m quite at peace with the timing of my father’s death. My father was afraid of very few things, but losing his mental faculties was one of them. He’d watched both his parents go senile, and he did not want that for himself. As far as we know, he had no inkling that he was dying. He was found still sitting on a chair at his desk. My son Bjorn is less than a year old. There is a part of me that is very sad he won’t get to know his grandfather. Bob won’t see his grandson try out skis, or hit a tennis ball, or make his first steps. But aging is not what my father wanted. And when life began to ask him to slow down, I’m okay with him instead blasting off.

Let me tell you a story about what happened one time Bob was asked to slow down, quite literally. When Claire and I were teenagers, my father took us to Zimbabwe. My father liked a lot of things about Zimbabwe, but the speed bumps were not one of them. They were everywhere. To everyone else, this was a nuisance. To a Libertarian, this was a battle cry. He decided the best way to deal with the bumps was to……floor it. He explained if the car could get enough speed, we’d cruise right over. Pure physics. Claire and I flew so high our heads hit the roof. We squealed as he did it over and over again. He was convinced that if he just went a little faster it would work. We learned two lessons that day. Lesson 1: Always try to beat the Man; Lesson 2: Bob is crazy.

A particularly striking symbol of how little interest Bob had in slowing down is actually this house here in Shepherdstown. Most people my father’s age are very practical, and actively preparing for a time when they won’t want to mow lawns or climb steps. When it came time to decide whether to rebuild Shepherdstown after the fire, every sane person told him it didn’t make sense for someone his age to build a second home on 10 acres. With the world’s most high-maintenance tennis court. Not only did Bob go ahead and rebuild the house, he resurrected the rickety log path that goes down a mud cliff to the river. Perfect for taking gin and tonics on.

A couple years ago Aaron’s parents invited Bob on a club ski trip where they learned firsthand how hard it is to slow Bob down. My father hadn’t been skiing in decades. But he went out there and barreled down the mountain just like he did 20 years ago: no turns. With a lot effort they got him to use goggles so he could at least see objects he needed to not hit. Snow pants or helmet? As if.

My family has had quite a bit of grieving this year, with the deaths of both my father and his mother Irene. One of the ways that I make peace with these losses is to focus on the parts of them that live on. I’m a very different person from my father, but I will always be proud to be a Nelson and from a culture that values intellectual curiosity. In my father’s honor I promise to renew at least a couple of the magazine subscriptions he’s bought me over the years. He would never tell me. One day the London Review of Books would just pop up in the mailbox. Because you know what new working moms need? More political reading material. Speaking of mail, do you know who is really mourning the loss Bob? Amazon. Have you ever shown up at our house without a package on the steps? I will never amass a library like that, but I promise to always question the conventional wisdom. I promise to devour as many lobsters as possible in a single sitting. (Uncle Jeffrey, I’m turning 40 in two years, and I’ll be polishing off that 4 pound lobster in Bob’s memory. We have a date at The Palm.) And, most importantly, if someone ever dares put bumps in my road, Dad, I promise to gas it.

Backyard Burn Spring Series #1

Wakefield Park, VA / March 3, 2019

Results

Aaron and I had been off the scene for a while now (Lyme disease, pregnancy, etc.). We’re Old Timers (Aaron was running the Backyard Burns when they started 16 years ago) and people don’t really know who we are anymore. But we won races three weekends in a row (Squirrelly Tail, Hashawa Hills, Backyard Burn). Sure, they’re dinky races. But it feels like we’re coming back.

Seneca Greenway Marathon/50k was offered the same weekend and I would have opted for that if it hadn’t been so damn long. There’s really a dearth of short trail races in the DC area (Keith, baby, don’t get me started on how bad VHTRC drops the ball here. For some reason VHTRC is fixated on ultras and only dabbles in non-ultras for one day a year. And the Women’s Half Marathon only exists because dear Clapper needed more chicks in the club). I got a 7-month baby and I’m just barely running 40 miles a week, so 10 miles is more my speed these days.

The BYB 5-mile and 10-mile races started together, which is logistically easier but kind of terrible for the 10-milers who get sucked into running too fast. I knew this would be an issue, and went out real conservative. Even still, at mile 2 I passed the leading woman (but let her know I was doing 10 and she was still winning the 5-mile race). At mile 5 I passed a guy who cautioned me to ‘Save something for the second loop.’

I’d saved plenty, thank you, and splashed through the mud puddles chasing down Chris Moore. The Wakefield trails are real ankle-breakers, twisty and muddy. Brady turned an ankle bad, giving me a chance at the end to make some ground on him. I’d never met Brady, but gleaned from what I knew that he had to be the guy in the ass-tight grey man-pri pants on the start line.

I finished 6th overall. I met my definition for ‘crushing’ a race. Sure helped that Sheila had done Catawba the day before.

[1st place man] – [my time} < [my time] – [second place woman]

There are rumors that runners get a bump in performance after having a baby. My verdict? It’s a real mixed bag. Your life is totally upended after having a baby, and some of those changes are an asset for running and some are a hindrance. On the pro side, I think being high-on-life happy new parents gives you some extra lift. As a historically undisciplined person, being a new parent has also forced me to be organized and efficient in a way I never was before (hello, 6am baby alarm!). Suddenly, I accept wearing a watch and tracking miles. After going through the physical demands of pregnancy and labor, you also really appreciate your body and the pure thrill of being able to run again.

There are a lot of cons, though. Suddenly you have very little time for yourself and for basic body maintenance (stretching, exercises, etc.). Long runs require crazy pre-planning. I barely get to pilates anymore. Less sleep and more overall stress also can take the legs out of a runner. My approach is to accept these constraints and be conservative, not ask for too much too soon. Sure, everyone’s going to be going farther than you, and do bigger miles and higher mountains. And that’s fine for now — cut yourself some slack. Adapt, do what you can manage — and have fun!

My friend Dave got me to sign up for the Squirrelly Tail Twail Wun, a half-marathon outside Harrisburg, PA near Dave’s house. Seven months after the arrival of baby Bjorn, I’m finally not pissing myself when I run hard. So it seemed like a good time to venture back into trail racing.

The Squirrelly Tail had the worst trail conditions I’ve ever seen. It was hard to decide what was worse: the thick white ice rinks or the shin-deep mud. In some places thin ice gave way to goopy brown puddles. ‘Ice slop’ Dave termed it.

Originally, the plan had been for our friends Tom and Meira from State College to run the Squirrelly Tail with us. Meira is a trail vet and would have loved the ridiculous conditions. But at least three times I thanked the heavens that Tom’s business commitments had kept him from racing. After we hit the first ice sheet he would have bailed and scurried back to his Porsche. And I never would have heard the end of Martha And Her Stupid Stupid Trail Running.

The Squirrelly Tail was Dave’s first real trail race, and he decided early on to just run with me. Dave has a history of questionable spatial awareness, and I was a little uneasy with him tight on my tail as I skidded to stop for ice sheets and danced laterally to navigate mud slops. But, after a light heel clip at the start, he put on a Gold Star performance for spatial awareness. Not even a bout of his classic halfwheeling.

I got a cute little squirrel figure for winning the women’s race. And the volunteers served up a mean bowl of peanut butter sweet potato chili, and laughed at how I had kicked mud all the way up my back.

After the race, when Aaron and I were perusing the results on UltraSignUp, we realized that this was the first trail race I’d won in like 5 years (not including Fat Asses). Aaron hadn’t won a race in 7+ years. Geez, what had happened to us? Aaron finally broke his streak with a victory the following weekend at Hashawa Hills 50k. Several times during the Squirrelly Tail I thought how happy I was to be only running 13 miles, and not 50k. With a baby I don’t have time to put in long mountain miles, so I’m going to be honing the shorter distances for a while. Which are a heckuva lot more fun anyway.