Half way through the 2013 US Mountain Running Championships I
was strongly considering dropping out. I wasn’t injured, so I didn’t really
have a good reason to let this insidious thought take over my mind, yet I
couldn’t stop thinking about it. Just a week earlier I won the Barr Trail
Mountain race in my home state of Colorado. That half marathon trail race
climbed from about 6,500 feet above sea level to 10,200 and back down again. You
would think that type of race would make a 12k at low altitude a walk in the
park, but it didn’t. I wanted to drop out so badly, simply because I was
hurting--hurting like I rarely have. And that was only the halfway point!
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| photo: Joe Viger |
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| photo: Joe Viger |
Just as I was going to take a nice long walk to the bottom of
the mountain and climb into the darkest hole I could find, I realized
something: I had experienced this before, just a few weeks prior at the Mont Blanc Skymarathon in Chamonix, France. I managed to push through some serious pain
back then to place 7th in a super competitive euro field, so why couldn’t I do
it again? If there is one thing I have learned from the few Skyrunning races I
have run it’s that I can make myself hurt like crazy and keep going. It’s just
a matter of being really, really motivated.
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| Mont Blanc Marathon photo: Nadine Davies |
I found the motivation I needed in my fellow competitors. On
the very first descent of the race I lost what seemed like 30 or 40 spots,
despite running a mile PR. But as things progressed people starting drifting
back to me. I had no idea what place I was in until the start of the final lap
when I found out I was just one spot off making the US Team. I was pretty sure
that was a mistake but I forged on; intent on catching Ryan Hafer’s bouncing 'fro. I was still hurting, and on the final descent I had a severely cramping
right abductor, but knew only 20 more minutes of pain remained. 20 minutes was
way better than knowing I had another 2 hours to go like I did at Mt Blanc. I
caught Ryan at the start of the final climb and wondered if my heart would be
able to beat any harder without exploding. Turns out it could! Ryan and I were
pushing each other hard enough that we caught the 5th place runner, Andy
Wacker, and snuck by him in the final meters of the climb. It was both the most
horrible and most exciting thing I have ever felt.
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| photo: Joe Viger |
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| photo: Joe Viger |
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| photo: Joe Viger |
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| Top 10 male finishers photo: Joe Viger |
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