Barkley Fall Classic, 2019: Epilogue

Sunday, September 21. I’ve been sore after many ultras, being more sore usually after I complete the first of that distance- 50k, 50 miles,100k, like breaking in my body. I’ve hobbled back to cars, slowly climbed and descended stairs, and sat down in random places just to catch my breath or ease my fatigue. I’ve rarely been so immediately exhausted and sore as after this race. The boys were hanging out in the RV, waiting for us, when I opened the door to get in. I lifted a foot, placed it on the step, acted as though I was going to step up and then I didn’t. I couldn’t muster any strength or momentum to get in. Luke scrambled down to give me a hand. The walk to the shower and back was merely a shuffle. My physical recovery would take a couple of weeks.

Mentally, I was problem solving and looking for answers. Melinda spent the drive back to Iowa smiling, celebrating and scrolling through Facebook, enjoying all the moments other shared. I spent it breaking down the race. Many afterwards told me it was a tough course but how was I to know? It’s not like I had been here before and I didn’t know any of the other years’ routes so I didn’t know how to place it all. I posed these thoughts as questions to a few friends and they gave me their honest assessments, both for the course and how to gauge my effort and finish in regards to this year.

I continued to hash out the race, running it over and over in my mind. One might think that by stopping at the bathrooms at the beginning was the crucial point where I could have gained those precious seconds back which is true. I wouldn’t have been at the back of the line going up Bird Mountain. What I didn’t write were all the other times I coulda, shoulda done things that woulda set me up for a different outcome. Those things alone would have given me a much bigger buffer of time to work with. However this is also a game of choices and what seemed to break my race could have been the thing that actually saved me from something else. What I concluded was the ultimate factor was that I did not pay attention to the time while on Rat Jaw. My cue card was tucked away in my back pocket and I didn’t pull it out once to see where I was at in relation to the cutoff. The enormity of the thought of Rat Jaw overrode what I needed to do which was to pay attention to the time.

Perhaps I was playing it safe, playing it scared. I found my fight a little too late, a little too slow. That’s not how I worded it to my coach afterwards but it’s a better fit as time goes on. As I said previously, Laz has taken all the elements of a tough race and cinched them tighter and my aversion to risk taking and self-confidence surfaced and this just isn’t the race that allows for that kind of play. 

Except that that isn’t entirely true. I’m not a risk avoider. I willingly signed up for this race- no one forced me, no one gave me a race entry that I was obligated to fulfill in anyway. I chose to go for what I felt was beyond me. Yes, it overcame me many times along the way. I doubted so many times but I never quit. I failed, but I didn’t lose. That is daring.

Daring doesn’t come in a package or cloaked with a cape. No, daring is a choice. There isn’t a set up for it. No one scripted that sweaty Iowa morning when Laz suggested I take a look at the Barkley Fall Classic that I would go ahead and choose to follow through with it all the way to a trail point in Tennessee. What played over and over in my mind was wondering what might be possible for me after reaching for this. I wanted that Croix, the full finisher’s medal, and missing it still stings slightly to this day but I also wanted the see what was beyond that. Beyond climbing the prison wall. 

A friend shared with me this excerpt from a speech of Theodore Roosevelt.

The Man in the Arena
"...The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust
and sweat
and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs,
who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly..."
Theodore Roosevelt, Paris 1910