Mistakes were made

I will not hold myself back for fear of being disappointed.

Photo by Courtney Olsen

The first thought was: “this is embarrassing”.

The next thought was anger. Anger at myself, at my circumstances, for the mistakes I made.

Then came the laughter. Deep body shaking laughter. Tears springing from my eyes as I laughed and ran alone in the desert. It was a laughably bad day and all I could do was laugh. And soon thereafter, my day was over and my dreams shattered. Laughter is replaced by disappointment, grief and frustration. That I just have to sit with. That I cannot rid myself of, that I cannot just by-pass.

I came to Javelina Jundred with one objective: take down the course record. After a great confidence boosting run at UltraFest 50 mile in which I ran 6:25 and felt super comfortable the whole time, I felt good about targeting a 13:45 at Javelina. I felt swagger as I crushed some hard workouts. I felt confident as I piled up miles. I felt committed every time I got in the sauna. I felt like everything was coming together.

There was one problem. For the three weeks leading up to Javelina, I was also having to crush myself at the bakery more than I had been all summer. The weeks before the race, I would rise at 3am so I could get in my training at 3:30am. Then I would take care of the animals and be on my way to work by 6:15am. I was on my feet for more than 12 hours a day. I was covering an employee who was out for the month and the week before the race I had another employee call out sick on the weekend. By Sunday dinner time, I was falling asleep in my food. I had pulled a muscle in my shoulder pulling too many espresso shots. I had barely had the energy to pack for Javelina but I got it done. On Monday, I woke at 3am did my routine, then after work, drove halfway to Arizona. I figured I would just recover when I got to Arizona. Easy peasy. I would be fine. Right?

I did everything I could to be fit and ready for Javelina. I have said since I won in 2022 that the only reason I would go back is because I felt ready to send it and go after the record. And I did. I did everything right in training. But as I would come to find out on race day, as soon as the gun went off, was that I had done nothing right in my recovery. I had not recovered. I had not been doing the supportive things to ensure my body could handle what I was doing. Sure I went to bed early and got enough sleep. But my daily nutrition and hydration lacked. I was not able to do the extras. I was almost never sitting down. I pushed myself and pushed myself, doing what was necessary at the bakery, trying to do what was necessary for my training. But I failed.

I noticed on the drive down that I was getting a cold sore which is very much a first sign of being overstressed. I was ravenously hungry and could not get hydrated. As I settled in to my Airbnb in Fountain Hills, I relaxed and melted into the couch. It felt glorious. I told myself I would be nice and recovered by the race. My runs felt fine enough leading up to the race. But race morning I woke up feeling ill, drained, off. I didn’t feel sick, but something just felt wrong. I shook it off as nerves.

The gun goes off and as soon as I start running, my body feels wrong. I don’t panic. I just tell myself I need to warm up, wake up, get into the groove. Instead, by mile 2, cramps were creeping into my legs and diaphragm. I wasn't going out too fast, but I put the brakes on. Nothing. I fought for every step and every mile. Tried to hydrate. Tried to fuel and immediately couldn’t. I just felt exhausted. The runner I was just a month earlier at Ultrafest was no where to be found. My system was just not working. I was cramping and covered in salt despite feeling quite comfortable in the moderate temps. Any slight uphill I felt like my calves were going to explode. I gave it 42 miles, every mile hoping something would change, something would click, but my body just continued to reject fuel and was showing other signs of serious distress. After two loops, I called it a day.

Mistakes were made. Not with my fitness or fueling plan or mindset. But with recovery. I thought I was robust enough to muscle through those overly demanding weeks at the bakery and challenging schedule. I thought I could prioritize the bakery and my race at Javelina. And I couldn’t. My stress bucket was overflowing and I did not heed it. I simply did what I had to do to get through each day and just told myself I would be fine. But I was not fine. I think in those few days that I was in Arizona, resting and recovering, that my body decided to finally feel everything that I had been walling off. Everything I had been holding together. I fucked around and found out that what I had been doing in the weeks before the race was too much and incompatible with racing. I got smacked in the face with the reality of my choices.

I love running and racing and this year has shown me, time and time again that the context of my life, my priorities, my body are something that I need to more carefully consider and examine. I need to not rely on my abundance of grit and resilience but instead try and find a way to not find myself in such a position. If I want to race at my best (and I do), then I need to come up with a way to not try to do everything everywhere all at once. I DO have competing priorities and the bakery IS winning. A man who chases two rabbits catches none. When we first opened MHBB back in 2013, I didn’t race an ultra until 2015 because it was clear to me that I was giving all my energy to that endeavor. After opening Silver Whisker on Memorial Day, I have tried to do it all, keep racing, work every day, ploughing forward. I feel like my time is running out to be my best at running, I don’t feel like I have two years to take off and then come back for yet another act of my running career. This experience, coupled with how this year has gone in general, has shown me that I need to be much more considerate and thoughtful with the arc and seasons of my competing priorities. I need to map out my plan and chart a course. I need to figure out when to be all in on running and when I need to be all in on the bakery. My commitment to getting better and doing this better is greater than my fear of getting it wrong again. I will continue to get things wrong, to make mistakes and suffer failures, but I will not hold myself back for fear of being disappointed.