The sound of silence

Listen to myself in the age of noise.

Earning my coin to Leadville 100 at the Leadville Marathon.

I have spent the majority of the last few months separating myself from social media and media in general. After being dropped by lululemon, I felt lost. Not because I was without a sponsor, but because I realized how much I had strayed from being self-directed to being driven by what I thought others wanted and expected from me. Whether that was the brand, the sport and its media, or simply demanded by keeping up with the internet. I needed to quiet the noise. I needed space to focus on what is actually important to me from my bakery to my actual relationships in the real world to my changing relationship with the sport. I needed to figure out what it is I want, I think, I feel. Over the past few years, I have felt ever more disenchanted with the state of ultrarunning and my instinct continuously was to quit. Last summer when working with Dr. Moos to get healthy, we worked on how my disdain for the sport was keeping me in a constant state of stress. Slowly but surely, I was able to see and feel that my problem is not running, but aspects of the ecosystem that has emerged around the sport. I realized that continuously engaging and championing change was burning me out. I also realized that after 19 years of being on the front lines of trying to better the sport, actively working towards improving things, that I do not have to fight every battle. In fact, if I want to protect my running, I needed to find a way to not feel so much negativity about the state of things. To do this work, I needed space from the constant barrage that is social media. I needed to make things quieter and quieter, so that I might hear. I love running, but how do I continue to participate in a sport where the things that brought me to it are being waylaid? How do I find my way back? Do I want to? I’ve raced over 140 races in the last 20 years, what do I have to prove? Do I want to race because of ego alone or is the genuine love still there? What the fuck am I actually doing?

Simply leaving social media for a while is an anecdote to absolutely nothing. Clarity does not emerge without work. And work I have. Deeply challenging and uncomfortable work. Tears, frustration and more questions than answers are what follow when you start pulling on these threads. I have spent my life doing self-work, therapy, searching to know myself. But these last few months have felt the most intense because the imperative to change felt overwhelming.

“You probably already have the answer to your question, you just hate the answer.” - Carmen Spagnola

I hate the answer that the sport has changed in ways that has made it not align with my values. The sport HAS changed and that’s a neutral fact that doesn’t care about my feelings or wants. I hate the answer that it is on me to get the F over it and let go of my frustrations. I hate the answer that I must forge a new way through if I want to continue to participate. I hate the answer that it is for me and on me to figure this out for myself. I hate the answer that I have spent years hustling for my worth through accomplishments.

I wish that I could enjoy the shallows that have emerged. That I could engage unencumbered with the hype and be invigorated in a space that no longer feels like a community and instead a scene. I wish that every time I toed a start-line that I didn’t prickle with the expectation that the only acceptable outcome for me is to win.

And for a long time, I wished and hated and wished and hated with the expectation that this would somehow change how I feel. But as I sank into the silence that is removing socials and media from my life, I saw what a futile path this is. How much I was simply more thoroughly tying myself up in knots. How much more complicated I was making it for myself through my own resistance. Waiting for the circumstances to change in order to feel better is a sure fire way to never feel better. It is in fact a great cop out. You can be the change and you can make the change those are your only real options. Especially when it comes to how you are living your own freaking life. Personal responsibility is the answer even if you hate that answer too.

I have had to mine the darkest parts of myself and go to the places where I had no interest in going. I have had to do the things that I thought were impossible to do and face what I thought I could not. I had to understand that success is a bottomless pit. I had to feel in my bones that you cannot accomplish your way to happiness or self-worth. I am never going to arrive, there is no happy or otherwise ending (other than death), no neat and tidy comeback story. I had been trying for so long to finish the work and have everything be neat and tidy so I could finally get on with living my happy life. That’s what comes when they cue the music and roll the credits right? That’s the promise of every single thing on the internet these days, if you just hack, hustle and buy, you can smooth the path through life.

Accepting that life will always be a wild stormy frolicking ocean is hard. Our human instinct is to want smooth seas. But really we just need to build ourselves better boats. We need better self-awareness. We need to heal trauma. We need to unravel our unhealthy or neurotic personality habits. We need to hold lightly both the high and low moments.

I am at a crossroads. I can no longer theorize or puzzle or think my way to an answer. I cannot know how I feel about myself in this sport now, with this work, in theory, it must be in practice. This year has been confounding when it comes to getting on start lines but tomorrow I will get my chance. I am running the Leadville 100 and my hope is that it will be an opportunity to practice some new hard earn skills. I hope it will be a chance to examine the question of whether or not this sport is still for me, right now. I hope it can be a practice ground for me for self-acceptance and care. The entire future of my career does not hinge on this race, for all I know, it could illuminate nothing. But it is an opportunity to ask good questions and show up as the person I want to be.

People keep asking me if I am excited. But that is not the word that resonates. I am calm. I am ready. I am leaning into courage and confidence. I am also clear-eyed that tomorrow is just a day. A day that is an opportunity to do what I love in a place that I love. And whatever that day holds for me, it is enough. And so am I.