Show Up & Run

A story about community, plus spring training for summer ultras

Welcome back. Tomorrow (April 13), I host a monthly meetup via Zoom for paid subscribers. We’ll have a special guest for a Q&A, longtime ultrarunner and adventurer Olga King, who’ll talk about her comeback from knee surgery and about how she mentors and crews top ultrarunner Annie Hughes. If you’d like to join to receive bonus posts and invitations to the monthly meetup, please consider upgrading your subscription to paid.

Let me tell you about my run last night. I planned to write about something else this week—a 1985 flashback that culminates in a nightmarish run that still haunts me, inspired by watching the excellent Brooke Shields’ documentary Pretty Baby set in the ’80s—but I’ll save that. Yesterday’s run got me thinking about aging and inclusivity. Farther down, I write about spring and training.

Showing up

A relatively new group of runners here in Telluride calls themselves “the Squad.” The guy who organizes the group is quite nice, a mountain athlete transplanted from Australia who, like many around here, is a skinny Renaissance man athletically, able to do everything and make it look easy—climb, backcountry ski, bike, build houses, run ultras, and drop 6-minute miles on a flat stretch. At 38, he’s the oldest in the group. The others are in their 20s and early 30s. They win regional races, and a couple of them are gaining sponsorship and starting to earn podium finishes at high-profile ultras. They sometimes run the dirt road that goes by my house, and if I look out from my second-floor office window and catch them breezing by, I experience surprisingly strong feelings of admiration mixed with envy.

I used to organize running groups, and I used to be among the fastest, and their group has me feeling like a has-been. They don’t know about or care about my Ultrasignup. What’s more, I suspect some of them understandably resent middle-aged homeowners like me, since I’m a “have” on the other side of a class and generational divide that has split our region. Suffice to say, I’m not part of the Squad, although I did drop in on their fat-ass-style timed ultra five months ago and had a surprisingly good time.

Yesterday, I needed a faster, harder tempo run—one that would keep my heart rate in Zone 3 for around a half hour. And I didn’t know when I’d shoehorn a run into my busy day. I toyed with the idea: What if I showed up to their 5 p.m. weekly group run? I could use the challenge of trying to keep up, plus the challenge of running late in the day (not easy for a morning runner).

It takes a lot to intimidate me, and this intimidated me. Why? Running is something that normally brings me confidence, and I feared feeling inadequate. I feared feeling old. But then I realized, if I stayed home and didn’t participate, I’d for sure feel inadequate and old. This, in turn, is a step toward aging—giving up activities you enjoyed when you’re younger. Thinking “I’m too old for that” becomes self-fulfilling.

One token older guy sometimes runs with this group—someone in his 60s who still runs sub-3-hour marathons, who’s a friend of mine—but he’s out of town for the season, so he wouldn’t be there. He inspires me. If I want to run more like him, then maybe I should run with these youngsters, too.

When something stirs anxiety in me and I need to face the fear, I ask myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” In this case, the worst that could happen would be that I’d fall behind the group, because everyone would run faster. I objectively recognized that is not a big deal and not scary. I wouldn’t get lost, because I know the way. Then, digging deeper, I realized my biggest fear was that they’d give me the cold shoulder. But I’m thick-skinned and can deal with that. So basically, I just needed to show up and run. When I broke down the challenge that way, it seemed simple, and my intimidation evaporated.

So the almost-54-year-old me showed up.

As the first shirtless dudes gathered and fist-bumped, all I could think was, they could be friends with my kids. My 25-year-old daughter would think these guys are hot. My brother taught some of them when they were in high school. When I introduced myself to one and recognized his last name, I said, “I’m friends with your mom!” He looked surprised and bemused.

Then a few women showed up, and one was 40ish and has a young kid. This made me feel better. This was all starting to feel manageable, not uncomfortable. I just needed to get the run done.

We took off along the river path. The route was flat for two miles, then climbed and descended a big hill, then finished fast along the bike path. This would give me a chance to push my pace, then power-hike, then run hard again.

I tucked in behind the group of guys and listened to their banter about races, podcasts, and housing. They set a sub-9 pace that for them was a springy jog, the most-chill run of their week. For them, this was a purely social outing and deliberately easy run. For me, it was a chance to emulate their cadence and raise my heart rate to the point where talking in full sentences became a struggle, to get in my tempo-pace run. It worked!

Their easy jog was my tempo pace.

I was pleasantly surprised they all stopped at the base of the big hill to regroup. No one was in a hurry. On the hill climb, I let them run ahead while I practiced fast hiking. I reconnected with a younger woman I used to run with and fell into a conversation with her about parenting and divorce. I no longer felt self-conscious about my running or hiking, I was just there in the moment, belonging.

Silly selfie at the base of the hill, my phone accidentally in portrait mode.

Keeping up on the return.

On the return along the bike path, they picked up the pace a bit, and so did I. I worked harder to keep up, accomplishing the kind of training run I needed. I relearned the axiom that running with faster runners makes you faster.

I’m grateful that this group, which I pegged as cliquish, turned out to be welcoming and inclusive. Back in Berkeley and Oakland where I lived for two decades, where I was involved with numerous running groups and teams, I always made a point of being the one who welcomed and mentored reluctant runners—the rookies, the overweight, the nonwhite minorities. I saw the nervous look in their eyes and noticed how they kept quiet as the rest of us stood around bantering about upcoming races or last weekend’s long runs, so I’d start talking to them. I honestly never thought I’d be on the other side of that dynamic.

The group run reminded me that running builds bridges, and if you show up to run with others, then you belong, no matter your pace.

And, often, it’s best not to act your age.

Spring Cleaning and Training

Even more than New Year’s Day, spring fills me with optimism and motivation. Enough snow still covers our property to reach the top of a picnic table in the meadow, but it’s receding. The dirt roads are dry for running. The meadows down valley at lower elevation are greening. The aspen branches reveal tiny buds that will burst into baby leaves in a few weeks. I’m relishing this spring-cleaning and spring-training mode.

Last week, in addition to celebrating Easter, I handled several seasonal tasks that feel almost ritualistic. I packed away all ski clothing and gear, then rotated shorts and tank-tops down from a top shelf to my dresser. I went to Montrose to buy baby chicks and houseplants.

Six chicks we’re raising in a box in our house, until they’re big enough to integrate with the older flock. I love how four of them have poofy tops. Their peeping sounds create a relaxing ambient noise.

Our cat Loki hovering over some of my new houseplants, trying to eat the grass. I bought the pink jasmine vine because we used to have it in our California yard, and the scent transports me to sunny gardens of my past.

Also, I spent several hours getting the barn and paddock ready for the horses’ return in a couple of weeks (they spend winter boarding at a lower-elevation pasture, because the snow and ice here make exercising them nearly impossible for months).

Cobalt and Maverick in their winter digs savoring some new grass sprouting amongst the old, in a pasture that last week was covered with snow.

I shoveled several feet of snow to uncover the horses’ automatic waterer, relieved to discover it still works. Then I swept the hay barn to remove the season’s collection of bunny and mouse droppings, and reorganized our dusty tack and tools in the tack room. In the bottom of a storage closet, I discovered a packrat’s nest made up of chewed-up rope, sawdust shavings, and countless chicken feathers. This industrious critter had made a Herculean effort to transport all the feathers from the chicken coop to this cozy closet. It was kind of disgusting (I spotted the rat’s desiccated body in the mix—I suppose it had a peaceful passing), but endearing also, not unlike a bird’s nest.

My husband caught me talking to the chickens.

Part of a larger packrat nest from our tool closet.

I also dug into savings to buy airline tickets to pace and crew my friend at the Western States 100 on the third weekend in June. I’m slightly giddy at the prospect of returning to that scene, the way I suppose others feel about making a pilgrimage back to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. This special weekend race, where I earned a silver buckle for a sub-24 time in 2016, feels like a festival to me now.

I’m also settling into a training groove, with consistent speedwork and long runs, to ramp up for summer races. I rebuilt my base following a break in December and succeeded in finishing a 60K in February and a 50-miler in March. I’ll have another mini-break next week through the end of April, when my husband and I travel to Northern Spain to hike part of the Camino de Santiago (a do-over of our disastrous trip last November; thankfully, trip insurance came through and refunded that trip, so we planned this one).

Starting in May, as the high country trails melt out, I’ll de-emphasize speed workouts and shift to higher volume with more vert, along with maintaining strength and mobility conditioning. I’m joining friends for a Grand Canyon adventure run in mid-May, then my first summer race (not counting pacing part of Western States) will be July’s Silverton Alpine Marathon - Kendall Mountain 12M back-to-back challenge by Aravaipa Running, followed the next weekend by volunteering at Hardrock. In August, I’ll again run the Telluride Mountain Run 40M as a final long training run for the main goal of the season: Run Rabbit Run 100 in mid-September.

Having all this on calendar represents planning and commitment. I hope I don’t sound like I’m bragging, because that’s not my intention. I’m sharing it to show a seasonal pattern that anchors my wellness and gives the gift of community and purpose in what can feel like an isolating and depressing world. I’m also making the most of the time I have as a runner, knowing my bum knee (which for now is behaving) or some other injury may cut short my ability to run in later years.

This training and racing is accessible to pretty much anyone; the barriers to entry are low. Although I no longer coach, I’m happy to share advice about how to get involved and jumpstart your training. Just hit me up by email or in the comments below.

I’m curious to hear, what does spring mean to you, and what springtime chores or rituals do you engage in?

An alternative to Twitter

The Substack platform yesterday introduced a new social media feature that I encourage you to check out, called Notes. It’s a place to share links, ideas, quotes, photos, and other blurbs.

I’m honestly not sure how much I’ll use it—I like saving link recommendations for my posts here—but I’m grateful to have a place that feels like a fresh, friendlier, smaller alternative to toxic Twitter. For now, I’m browsing and seeing how it develops. Hopefully it won’t be just a noisy self-promotional space.

To join, go to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app (make sure you have the most updated version of the app). As a subscriber to Colorado Mountain Running & Living, you’ll automatically see any note I post.

As always, thanks for reading and for your support!