Hither and thither

I *could* sign my own permission slips

Recently a friend asked how I was doing. I responded that I was trying to sort through what it means to no longer be a professional athlete. She responded, “wait, did I miss a retirement announcement?!?”. The answer is unequivocally no, I am not retiring. I am however no longer a professional runner after being dropped and having no further prospects. It has taken me time to recalibrate. I have felt all over the place, pulled and stretched in many directions, some healthy and liberating, some deeply rooted and problematic.

No longer being professional means everything and means nothing all at once. In many other sports, no longer being professional means you literally cannot do your sport. In ultrarunning, I am free to continue to race whatever and wherever I want. The big BUT there is that, overnight and without warning, my income was cut by half. This materially makes a difference in what and how I can participate in this sport. Especially when you consider the increased professionalization of the sport, my situation puts me at a huge disadvantage. This is a huge shift from just a few years ago when the majority of professional runners were really “professional” runners. Now, more people actually are full time athletes able to focus on just one thing and paid enough to do so. This makes a difference.

When I was dropped, I took the approach of “I’m still going to race what I want” and set my sights on a robust schedule that included Chianti, Comrades and hopefully Western States. But once I dove into the financial realities of what it would take to be competitive in these events, it exceeds my capacity. I have dumped so much money into this sport year over year, happily spending my every dollar to do what I love. But I could also do that because I was in a different financial position. Right now, I am a running coach, an unsponsored runner and working towards opening a bakery in Salida. I am wearing a lot of hats and doing a lot of work, but not making money from two of those three jobs currently. It will change, as I trust in our ability to build an incredible business, but for right now, these are slim times.

And slim times make it harder to compete. This really became clear to me as I dove into the logistics for Chianti. I was all set to go, plane ticket, airbnb, car all booked. And then, I discovered that Chianti is a race that will be extremely difficult to do without crew. The race is 120km and yet only offers one drop bag at 75km. There are ample crew spots but there was no way I could afford to bring anyone with me. My professional and even some “professional” competitors are bringing crew with them and thus mitigating this problem. Watching livestreams of Black Canyon and Tarawera, we all witnessed huge support crews for runners. I had no crew for my Golden Ticket at Grindstone 100k. I have historically done the majority of my races without support, mainly because I cannot afford it. I have a small handful of friends who will say “YES!” when I ask them for support and crewing but I tend to reserve those favors for my biggest efforts. I asked around for support for Chianti from people who were already going to be there, but I found none. Going to Chianti was already going to be a financial burden and then these logistical issues just made me reconsider. I had to ask myself, “what is really, truly important to me?” with racing and then answer was Comrades. And so, I pared down my schedule and set my sights on that. I am willing to accept these limitations. I am not willing to put myself into debt just to be on a startline. I have given myself a budget to get to start lines this year and ultimately, Comrades will take a large portion of that. That is more manageable without Chianti and potentially WS, which would easily combine to cost me over $7,000. I am no longer playing with house money, I am playing with my own savings and retirement. And thus a conservative approach is warranted. This is just reality, and I cannot argue with reality on this one.

The more interesting effect of losing my sponsorship is the subtle mental shift it creates around my priorities. It happened almost immediately and was almost imperceptible to me. While sponsored, I gave myself permission to put running in my #1 slot. That’s where I want it no matter what, let’s be honest. I finally allowed myself to let running be #1, because for the last 2 years, running was the largest part of my income (please don’t mistake that for thinking I was actually being paid well, as part time rural school teachers in poor districts make more than I was). On top of that, I had a travel budget. Thus training and racing were easy to justify. But as soon as I was dropped, I witnessed my brain shuffle my priorities and move running down several slots. I had to be a coach and bakery owner first, then I could run. It is a hobby after all. I have always struggled with this particular mental piece. I have rarely allowed myself to do for the sake of doing. I have always tried to justify how I spend my time and money to some unspoken and internalized judge, jury and executioner. I was raised in a way to be practical, to take the safe secure financially stable path. A path which I shirked almost as soon as I tried to walk it. But the deep sense of self consciousness and obligation around this persists.

Being dropped didn’t change my day to day life or the hours available to me in a day. I did however find that the removal of my “permission slip” to run as a priority, made me subconsciously curate my days differently. I started carving out less time for all the things I want to do to support my running and started sitting at my desk trying to power through endless to do lists that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. I should be working. I should be focusing on things that will support me financially. Even if I had been managing all of that before I was dropped just fine. I am actually quite masterful at managing my time and completing the work that I need to. I am quite organized and on top of things. All that changed was my perception. And that perception is just that I am not allowed to prioritize the things I love, but don’t make money, over the things that pay the bills. I have seen this with writing, I see this with running, I see this with riding my horse. I am allowed to do these things after my duty is done.

But what if I just did it? What if I just let myself have running be my #1? Sign my own damn permission slip and see what happens. This is the beauty of self-growth and self-work is that you can come to an awareness that you are thinking and acting in a way that is out of alignment and then change it. I don’t want to have a twisted up, outdated sense of duty that doesn’t serve me. I don’t want to feel like a prisoner to out of sync priorities. So I am just going to do it. I am going to act as if running is still my job. I am going to keep it in my #1 slot while I can because I know that the end of my competitive career is a near horizon. But I don’t want to have regrets and I don’t want to waste my potential. I want to do everything I can to reach my running and racing goals and the first step is simply allowing myself to.

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