Injured because I'm obsessed, or obsessed because I'm injured.

Midafternoon, after my Zion 100k ended, I unzipped my tent, stared at the mesh wall, and listened to all that kinetic energy in my head. Energy from mucus squeezed out of my throat from its cheesecloth lining. And the next day adding more energy by tinkering with good old ΔPV = ΔnRT driving home over the excruciating great divide.

My mind raced over treadmills trails powered by mucus energy and the paranoid feeling my mind was still in the race but my body was not. Within days, I figured out how to fix this. I spent the winter exploring each open space park in Jefferson County (around 10 since I was counting only the sizable ones, and minus Apex since it's mostly closed). So next, I would do a 42 mile solo run around a desert Wilderness in southern Utah.

Can you understand my thought process? I signed up for a bajillion races this year so I could explore my new surroundings, why not do it outside racing too? So many people at races, makes me want to hide! I will go hide in the wilderness.

Man his dog and the city.

Throughout the month after Zion, as my scabbed head finally cleared up, my foot began niggling. This has brought a little realism to my newest obsession. A stiff foot reminds you there is no logic in living to run, running to be outside, therefore running all day everyday outside.

I haven't been injured for close to three years, when I used to be plagued with shin splints for a couple months of every year. In a way, I am grateful for it. Before Zion, I told myself I would give my body a break from running and ride my bike more. I would need some recovery before San Juan Solstice. And now, look what I am wholly having to commit to? Injury is always a learning experience, so much more mind blowing than the most epic of runs.

I talk as if I embrace injury with a sun salutation. There were a couple mornings I spent crying, frustrated, and cooped in my room until 2pm. Luckily, my puppy's pawpaw, my love and my best friend quadruples as my coach. Even if he had no idea what he was talking about, he would still be subjected to hours of discussion about thoughts in my racing head. By definition, "runner" is a synonym for neurotic masochist, so it is important to have a soundboard for irrationality.

Here are some fortune cookie thoughts that help me remember that runners are not defined by the act, but by the desire.

Because being injured can make you feel like soaking sobbing pathetic crazy person.

Listen to your body and embrace your journey, not others'.

Plans do not become stories until they are past.

Stay focused, commit to what you can.

Devote yourself to something new. Experience the learning curve.

Repay loyal companions.

Change what's been wrong and do what's been good more.

Weights, to remind you of your strength.

Physiotherapy, to remind you of your weakness.

I like to roll hair balls out of the carpet between rest intervals.

Savor extra time with your loves.

Savor each step of every run.

Photo credit Myke Herms

What are you waiting for to be afraid of?

Is it running into resident ghosts of the landscape, or is it never running into water? Both sources watch from their ancient dwellings high in the canyon walls, trickling down so you can find each other on the floor, not alone anymore in your anxious solitude. You think the resident beings are eerie too. The Puma concolor pounce off the canyon walls, not trickle, but they are just as spooked by your mousey passing. 

Besides running dry, you fear the storms too. I know, just as the metronomic pitter patter begins to feel like a rhythm you have to find a new one. But remember: storms manifest wind chimes and lull us to rhythmless sleep. Besides, those storm clouds brewed in the mountains are not as ominous as they appear. It would not surprise me if they had fears of leaving their towering roots for the deep abyss of the plains.

So what are you waiting for? What you are afraid of? Make enough plans and there is nothing to fear. You love planning, even though I think you just need the distractions. It’s fine. Making plans is a creative process, where you add structure to the imaginary story we are slated to act out.

Zion 100 recap: about my veins.

I was not watching from my brief requiem, in the soft pink of dim florescent, pulsing orange monitors, and neon green exit signs. I could sense another pair of lenses in the room besides my dad’s thick bifocals. My eyes snapped open as the shutter’s snapped closed. What are you doing?

My dad said he took the picture so I could never forget what I looked like. I’ve never seen the picture, but I haven’t forgotten. The feeling, at least, of liquefying after trying to overdose on something as stupid as Aleve and alcohol. How tight they wrapped my forearms that I never bothered bandaging before.

I’m writing this because it amazes me how we are the same changing person throughout our lives. I was 15 and determined to destroy myself as slowly and inefficiently as possible. I never slept well because at night gravity would overtake my meticulous calculations and weigh on my flesh. Thin flesh so I could not lie on my back or my bones would grind and puncture.

Eight years later I still think that irrational voice is in my head.  The voice used to command me to sit staunch and unfeeling in front of a room full of my tear-streaked family and a plate of food. Voicing opinions about making cryptic cuts like how the Indians used to gird trees through the phloem. The difference now is I learned to work with this voice, and I do not deny it is the same voice that commands me to run all day. Where before I would run three miles and shake my way through a futile family dinner, my body and mind in direct opposition, I’ve learned to make my body and mind work in conjunction.

Hanorexic (n.): nickname middle schooler's daub Hannah's hovering around 100 lbs.

I didn’t realize how well that voice and I started working together until I started working at the coffee shop in Golden, CO. As someone who’s adopted new methods of movement to hide my scarred arms, the comments I get from customers surprise me. No one sees my scars. They ask if I climb or what I do to get these veins. The same veins once traced with razors, that I worried showed my weakness, tell a story of strength. 

Little guy just resting.

I don’t regret dropping out of the Zion 100k. I maybe regret starting. My mind tried to coach my body along, but I know when a body is useless. My throat was so swollen that my breathing turned into a wheeze, I couldn’t cough, and I wouldn’t talk. I’ve gotten a lot better at listening to my body, eating intuitively and not running through injuries, but toeing the start line sick was a new one for me.

I was terrified of finding a clown on course because I was afraid he would do this to my esophagus.

I wrote this because I guess it is not that amazing we are the same person throughout our lives. I hear of family and friends battling their own irrational voices and I hope they learn to listen. What sounds like self-destruction might just need to be spun around on a baseball bat and sent in a different direction.

Scumbaggin' (verb): If running ultras doesn't make you feel scummy enough, camping sans showers and plumbing might do it for you. 

Virgin River, around mile 16. 

Gooseberry Mesa, around mile 30.

Both a bunch of dropped pants, trying to make John smile about it.

We both got sick two weeks before Zion, thinking how lucky we were. So many siestas in my near future again.

Virgin River below River Rock Roasting coffeehouse, the best for caffeine and calories.

In between dreams.

She is a high energy thing, although quite small and shapeless. Her body is undefined by conventional anatomy, and her hair defies movement despite constant pacing. More importantly, she lives in a stark black world. The black horizon and zenith equally as black as the horizontal and vertical. This phenomenon makes it appear she perpetually paces over a point fixed in midair. She paces impatiently, faster and faster until she collides into the next dream.

      With the approach of a dim and blurry nightdream, her body takes shape and dons vague clothes or still no clothes at all depending on that nightdream’s atmosphere. These nightdreams lapse her physical and mental control, yet maintain her cognitive sense of wakefulness. Most of these nightdreams evoke anxiety, like the sinking feeling she missed differential equations for the third time. Sometimes she snaps quickly out of a nightdream, back to her lumpy floating world, awoken by her laughter or screams. Other times she gradually awakes from the exhausting success of using windmill arms to fly or whirling legs to run on the dream's frictionless surface.

      With fists clenched and body slanted forward like a balanced egg she charges through achromatic eternity. More often than a nightdream she finds daydreams. Her body always embodies the same girl, but with different clothing styles enfolding a body of varying ages. Sizes. The girl in the dark world embodies her during states of desperation and exaltation, wrought with aspirations and adorations. Daydreams in desperation are equally as searing and dark as her stark world. Other daydreams she embodies the girl cresting a pass in some mountains high above a desert. Anticipation of this array of daydreams motivates her through the inky world, even at the risk of running into nightmarish nightdreams.

      After dropping out of a daydream, her simple world increases in monotony. Frustrated again she enables movement in only enough fibers to power forward motion and tenses every muscle.  Rarely she encounters inbetreams in the darkness, and those are the best. During these dreams she achieves a state of immobile waking, watching clouds run across the sky like a blanket sliding or walls flickering like streetlights through boxcar slats. Inbetreams portray themselves as daydreams until the girl questions herself. Like when the sunset reflected off every window, no matter its orientation, with dancing colors like light waves of the same ubiquitous television show. In inbetreams she might pass people relaxing into trees or run for hours from thick grey clouds botching the trail like an eraser. Unlike tense movement in the stark black world, in dreams she can move with weary ease through any intricate landscape. 

There is post race depression, when hours of training per day for months cease, and the world becomes lame and aimless. Getting accepted to graduate school is a similar feeling, except the euphoria more explosive and downfall more bottomless. In my case, I raced a 55k and got accepted to CSU two days later, so I really hit rock bottom. In another month or so I'm sure I will have goals to shoot for, but for the time being I am left feeling haphazard.

For the last five years (...one year, ten years, when this dream started) my goal was to earn a Master's, and all of the sudden I'm in. I moved to Colorado anticipating I would get into graduate school. In the Front Range, of all places. I found a job at a coffee shop, determined it would be in the name of nostalgia and not failing my career goals. I banked on my skills and got where I needed to be, but now what?

There is nothing left to do until I get to work in creeks and call myself an ecologist again,  

except play with Murphy.

except work on making my latte art look less like male parts, more like leafy parts.

except to train for Zion 100k on April 4th, almost a half mary further than my leggiweggs have ever carried me.

except disappear from my reading spot to the Wakonda Auga River.

Dukes up against the conventional race recap.

John got me a new cactus, we named him Kruggel. He reminds me to put my dukes up. 

I find most race reports painful reading material. Many describe the course, or the bodily reactions to the course, in excruciatingly fine detail. Race reports, or "recaps," magnify the relevance of the euphoric or dystrophic moments during a race.  This approach neglects the rapturous or dour moments that occur before and after a race. For the sake of writing, I will admit that a race serves as a useful point to stop and reflect. For me, however, the performance of racing feels less like the climax of a story than the conclusion.

The amount of running done in a 50k, 50 mile, and even 100 mile race is minute compared to the amount of running done leading up to the event. Ignoring these important runs is like saying it takes no icing to layer a cake. For instance, when I think of my build up for the Moab Red Hot 55k, I think of bashing my body on ice, the salvation of Massive Attack and Poliça three hours into four hour runs, and following Muprhy's spotted butt along these new Front Rangian trails. Two weeks before Red Hot, I also found myself back in the weight room, a weekly habit I fell out of after graduation in May. I received compliments on my weight room antics from two meatheads, said "Thank you have a nice day," and cooly proceeded down the stairs to the locker room, feeling less cool when my legs seized up on the second step. Lastly, I found myself dangerously close to the too-many-treats threshold while working at the Windy Saddle. I am proud to say I maintained my weight, but ashamed to say I ate approximately 1.5 treats per shift worked.

Photo by  Myke Hermsmeyer

In the grand scheme of things, a 5.5 hour race is insignificant compared to 1-4 hours, depending on the swing of things, of daily training. Few moments during my race stand out as hardly momentous. I started my race out strong by introducing myself to Jenn Shelton, a runner I idolize the most, by saying I started following her on Instagram. I spent the rest of the race berating my awkward self. My thoughts finally drifted to more relevant topics, such as not falling on my face while still managing to run fast, when the terrain became harder than pavement and the slickrock slanted to the right 40˚.

My good friend Myke let me demo the new Ultimate Direction handheld. I enjoyed the luxury of being able to stuff as much as I needed in one handheld, minus squeegeed gel packets which I have a habit of stuffing my bra with. The crinkled tin flatters my physique, but more importantly I could not get this demoed handheld dirty. As compared to the zipper-covered canvas of my usual handhelds, the silk fabric of UD's handheld appealed to my habit of whipping my sweaty forehead and crusty nose. But again, I was looking out for Myke. Beware, the UD bottles act like a spontaneous high-pressured tit upon the introduction of Hammer Fizz.

After the race, I struck up a less awkward conversation with Jenn and felt better about smoothing that over. I found out about John's race and how he skeeee-ooooed each sponsored runner he passed and beat for a solid 7th place. We ended our trip with a short hike to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park with Myke and Ed, then high-tailed it back to Denver to disentangled Murphy from his new girlfriend Kona. I don't think he will be so excited about my small hiatus from running the next week or so, but luckily John is more resilient than I. Moab Red Hot was the first of seven ultras I signed up for this year, compared to the four ultras I've done in my life. I've got to recover and train smart if I want to make it to the start line for the next six, not to mention cross my fingers hard that chasing career goals doesn't get in the way.

Photo by Myke Hermsmeyer

Frigidity through a house with tall windows.

One winter morning the town woke up to yet another winter morning. It was an odd morning though because no one gently awoke to the sound of a furnace clicking on, or water running through radiators. As doors opened to retrieve newspapers, the townspeople felt funny confronted by their same backyards blanketed in snow. It was warm. Awkwardly warm like the first day of the year wearing shorts, when warmth doesn’t feel right on your legs. The birds loquaciously agreed the same way birds complement a pulsing midsummer morning. But it was the same low angle light as the same time yesterday, so there was no reason the day should not go on.

     At school and work, between acquaintances and among passerby, the townspeople’s conversations gravitated to the day’s strange whether. The world appeared as when felt through a vaporous cup of hot tea millimeters from the face. The conversations never stayed long on the topic though because there were tasks to accomplish and progress to be made.

     By mid-day, the morning sky’s tarnished metallic hue grew to the stark cerulean that always contrasted the dull winter earth. The high sun gave the townspeople a warm sense of security. They stopped talking about the weather and focused on plans to enact. The birds took their daily siesta from singing and the snowpack began its daily attempt at melting.

     When the townspeople emerged from and lightened the steel office buildings, headlights blinked on for the drive home. Fine steel wool clouds filled the sky but the usual sharp chill evaded the air. The warm weather resumed its position as topic of conversation.

           

As sure as weather will change, the townspeople continued to experience the funny-feeling weather through the winter. Regardless of how much snow piled over cars, the apparently cold days always felt warm. When spring began encroaching the landscape, the atmosphere recommenced with the biting cold temperatures so ruminated during the storms before.

     The townspeople’s lives had continued as normal. Papers signed, projects pushed, plans delayed. Of course the weather was investigated. Protocol written, funding procured, data analyzed. Interesting things were learned, but in the end the townspeople found it more rewarding to focus on adapting.

     As change in weather continued, the hindsight was the most difficult to deal with. Reality confused the townspeople’ memories so that a warm remembrance was draped in a vale of dark cold. Luckily, the coldest memories began to brighten and warm. It was like living in a whole new world, even a whole new body. It was hard to believe the body could feel one way when the mind remembered another . Gradually, the townspeople’s minds and behaviors adjusted to the change. Progress continued, deals were made, plans impeded and completed.

I recently entered an essay contest for free entry into the Telluride Mountain Run. Of the three essay prompts, I responded to the question, "What is the next big thing to ultrarunning?" You can read the winner's and my essay here. My name is actually Hannah. 

I like to think I lost to the single other entrant because I disobeyed the rules and did not write my essay in one sitting, tripping on Benzedrine. Instead I put it on my to do list, tackled it in ten sittings of five minute each, edited, and re-edited. It's the same way I tackled 15 letters of introduction to professors and 87 cover letters for job applications over the last year. The same way I to-do-listed my way out of college. The slight edge.

For all the technical writings I polished off to the tune of my Glitch Mob Pandora station in the Mansfield library, this essay was the most challenging task I ever assigned in my planner. I kicked myself for losing touch of the creative 8-year-old I once was. I used to write stories, draw pictures, and subject my parents to make believe games. I am proud of everything I accomplished in college, but I would hate to trade in the ability to create imaginary worlds in exchange for the ability to run power analyses.

As nostalgic as barista life is, I am filled with a manic dread that my plans for becoming the scientist I set out to be will fall through. Inspired by a failed essay contest, an attempt to avoid mental listlessness, a current read by a favorite author Annie Proulx, and my cousin Emily's creative writing, I'm trying to write more. 

Christmas letters are always late.