50k

At the halfway point when I realized I was still feeling good and actually going to be able to finish!

Last Saturday, November 5th, I ran in the Screaming Monkey 100 50k. It went well! Way better than anticipated. I approached the race expecting to walk almost the entire 31 miles. I knew I was under-trained, and knew that pushing myself too hard would awaken all my worst symptoms. As luck would have it, early on, I found myself in a pace that I could maintain for almost the entire first half. I took my time at the aide stations, and sipped down plenty of Gatorade. The second half I walked quite a bit more, but was still able to run a fair amount. All together, I think I ran well over 20 of the miles. Additionally, I was only an hour slower during the 2nd half compared for the first. Yay!

​I’m really glad I did it, although I was a little surprised at how lonely I felt after it was done. Everyone there was quite friendly, but most attendees and participants were local. They had their group. If I was less tired and introverted, I’m sure I could have joined in with some of the people at the finish line. As it was, after showering, I just quietly ate my dinner while watching the 100 milers change up gear for their night leg.

Adding to my loneliness was my lack of phone signal. I was unable to send or receive any updates. When I drove out the next morning, I only had one message from my brother waiting for me. I was also disappointed that I didn’t hear from any friends. I’d sent a couple texts about heading to Shreveport, but nothing…

While driving through northern LA/southern AR, I gave myself a talking to. Because of my desire to avoid advice and keep myself from overthinking, I’d barely told anyone I was doing the 50k. Even the texts about Shreveport were vague and barely alluded to the race. One friend in particular doesn’t do well with subtle hints and needs directness. In short, while keeping things close was an important part of maintaining my nerves, it also made it harder for my people to support me. They had no idea I was wanting encouragement because I hadn’t let anyone know.

A harder pill to swallow was not hearing from my parents. In my last post, I talked about my conflict with them. As of the race, we still hadn’t talked. It hurt that they didn’t send me anything, and only reinforced the frustrating feeling that they were waiting for me to step up and resolve things. Talking to my brother, I learned my dad had regularly asked him if he’d heard from me. Dad never reached out to me, though. I was in my room when they got home from church. They didn’t knock on my door or even call out. That’s how it’d been for the previous week and a half.

After another day of silence (I took off that Monday), I finally talked to my mom Tuesday morning before work. It helped. She maintains that I’d been hard to talk to with my walking out of room (which is true), but took me seriously when I told her I was tired of trying to get them to hear me. I haven’t spoken with my dad yet, but I don’t overwhelmed with feelings about the whole thing any more. I also don’t particularly want to initiate a conversation, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m glad I did the race. I feel lighter. Also, with it going so well, I feel more confident about hanging in with the other hard and confusing things happening right now. The experience is helping me learn to trust myself again.

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At the end, crusty with salt, and in disbelief about being the age-group winner. (Note: there was only one other woman in my age group).