Note: This short series shares some thoughts & experiences of preparing for and running my 2nd 100-mile ultramarathon.
WHY to WHO
When I registered for the RunRabbitRun race on 12/30/22, I had two primary “WHYs” in my mind for the decision:
1) To experience the training for a 100-mile ultramarathon as a 50+ year-old woman in the perimenopause phase, a time of life when the body is experiencing a whole host of changes.
2) To [hopefully] inspire other masters age women to pursue adventures that seem out of their CZ (Comfort Zone).
My training season leading up to this race was not consistent. Or should I say, it was consistently not consistent. You know… A round of harsh COVID in March that set me back a few weeks. Elbow surgery in April to remove hardware from a fracture several years prior and clean up an infection. Away from home for most of July, crewing for 2 events and a backpacking trip in NH. Severe ongoing stress related to a family member (a whole other story, but just to mention that mental/psychological stress most definitely takes a toll on your physical status). Ahem, life stuff like that.
In June, I had an important chat with my Coach to review training (or lack thereof) and start to hone in on race-specific nuances like getting my mental game together. Coach said “You’re going to need to come back to your WHY when it starts getting hard out there.”
You could hear the cogs in my brain start chunking away when he said that bit about the WHY. And then I felt inner semi-panic… and I was glad he didn’t ask me to share my WHY.
These immediate questions popped into my mind: Did I really know my WHY for this undertaking? Was I resonating with it?
After the chat with Coach and my inner dialogue kicking up, I realized I needed to go back and dig in more about that WHY thing. I mean, there’s always the obvious stuff from most of us endurance athletes:
”I want to challenge myself physically and see what I can endure.”
”It looks like a spectacular course in a beautiful area.”
”I get to enjoy endless snacks for endless hours on the trail.”
yada, yada….
While all of those reasons are valid, none of them felt enough or right for my soul state. And the original whys that I mentioned earlier didn’t feel quite as genuine as I had hoped.
Later, after a weekend of solo training in Steamboat Springs, I was in an emotional mixer. My dear friend, Kim, with whom I had many discussions about the WHYs of numerous life events left me a voice text that was a perfect ignitor. She wondered whether the WHY of it all is to figure out the WHY.
At first, I was like ‘Huh?” and then I figured out what she meant.
In whatever Big Hairy Audacious Goals and Dreams we set forth for ourselves, we can evolve our curiosity about ourselves.
We may think we know why we want a thing, but as we dig in, it is okay to discover there are deeper questions, tangents, spaces. Perhaps it’s not just so much about why we are doing a thing, but who we are (becoming) in the process.
The Why turns into Who.
And all we really want is to learn about ourselves.
Search for ourselves in these life experiences.
Find ourselves.
And continue to become who we are.
Is that enough to pull us through the hard times? Maybe.
But if not, we still can learn and apply it to our unfolding mysteries.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
-Dina