Scared But Still Moving

It's okay to be scared. It's what you do with that feeling that matters most.

Sunday I'll be running the inaugural South Park Trail Marathon by Human Potential Running Series in Fairplay, Colorado. It's also the first long distance race my family will be around for. They'll stay at the resort an hour and a half away and hopefully the 4 year old and 7 year old will be entertained at the pool and in the restaurants because I'll be gone all day.

The family wanted to get out of town for a long weekend. I wanted a trail race since everything here in Dallas has been wet or fully underwater some of the last 3 months. Affordable airfare hunt led us to Denver, and my friend John Lacroix is producing South Park Trail Marathon the same weekend! Perfect!

Photo taken by John Lacroix

What Scares Me About This Race

But I'm blogging today just to say that I'm scared of this race. I've never run above 10,000 feet (this race starts just under 10,000 ft and goes UP). And I didn't really get to use my altitude tent for this event as I chose the race with just two weeks notice.

Then there's the climbs and conditions, all at above 10,000 feet...

From the Race Director in our latest informational email:

"You WILL get wet! You will get muddy. You will be going through rotting snowdrifts. You will be marching through short areas of flowing frigid water. Right now we have you maxing out at 12,030’ elevation on the course. You will experience 3,400’ of gain and 3,400’ of loss over the course."

Here's the profile:

Yes, so that's over 3,000 ft of gain in 13 straight miles. I try to find something to compare it to and the closest I have is Deadwood Mickelson Marathon which was about 1300' gain in 13 miles but was only at about 5,000 ft elevation. Which I remember led to feeling like I had baby deer legs for the next few miles of serious downhill.

I probably wouldn't be as worried about the climbing if I hadn't had some soft tissue damage to rehab a week ago in my knee, and then managed to completely throw out my sacrum in my low back a few days ago giving me awful muscle spasms (sports chiro fixed that up but the back muscles are still a little angry). So I basically feel like I'm falling apart. Note that the chiropractor has cleared me for this race. My body is angry but not broken.

Thankfully, Race Director John is being kind on his incremental and final cutoffs...

"We are more interested in your ability to push yourselves, have an adventure, and finish, than we are your ability to make a cut-off. Therefore, some of our cutoffs do indeed come with some leeway. At the end of the day, please listen to ALL Race Staff if they tell you it’s time to call it a day. We’re here to help you succeed, not end your day!"

So the snowdrifts, the flowing frigid water, the climbing, and the altitude SCARE me. But here's the thing: I still signed up. I'm still going.

While I may not have a lot of confidence right now, and shouldn't given all the things I just listed along with my inconsistent training, I always have confidence that I know how to keep moving. I can always put one more foot in front of the other. I am confident that I'm a pretty good racer from the viewpoint that I'm strategic, a good planner, and can work through issues as they come up. I am confident I can hang out alone comfortably for 8 hours - counting that in my skill set because some ultrarunners can't. Look at their race history and how they latch on to others during a race.

Race Plan

So my plan is to hike however slowly I have to for the first full 13 miles. If my heart is pounding in my head, I should slow down even more. Don't worry about timing or pace (which I know will look terribly slow and make me want to panic that I should go faster). That elevation profile is not built for running the first 13 miles. But it will be the downfall of some mid to back of the packers who try. Because it takes a lot of work keeping pride in check for runners to HIKE for essentially 4 hours.

Photo taken by John Lacroix

But my goal is to feel good about running back to lower altitude and use my traditionally strong quads to run the last 13. I want to save my energy for the last 13 miles.

Besides only running up to 10,000 feet, I've only ever driven up to 12,000 feet BRIEFLY and that was on my last trip to Colorado with this race's race director. Since I don't handle altitude terribly well, let's go push my limits and see how it goes! It will be beautiful and a fantastic experience even if it's a painful one too!

You gotta ask yourself: What's the worst that can happen?!