Lake Sonoma 50 April 2019
“I win or I learn, but I never lose. “ – from Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo
Every moment has a story. Every race has many moments and many stories. The story I want to tell right now is in this picture. A moment of a long day. A moment that continued my year of expansion that started before I left for Ethiopia in January.
This picture was taken by my coach Bj (Yogitriathlete). This cutie pie Golden is Clark. You can’t see but I am talking to him. Trying not to cry. Trying to be positive. Trying to be happy for the people finishing the race. Me feeling tired and sore and feeling like I shouldn’t feel that way because I didn’t finish the race. Me wanting to get the hell out of there. The reality of my first ever DNF at the Lake Sonoma 50 sinking in. How far did I make it? 38 miles and around 7,200 feet of climbing. Out there for over 10 hours. Memories of me running hard into the aid station at mile 38 to be told I had missed the cut-off. That moment of shock, then hot tears running down my cheeks. Looking around and seeing I wan’t alone. Realizing in the next moment that I had run farther and climbed higher than I ever had.
Like any up-level process combined with meditation I didn’t sit in these tears and the sadness. I allowed it to come and move through me. I invited it in for coffee and then kindly asked it to leave. My ego wanted me to sit with it, go on vacation with it, be the victim. Oh poor me. I didn’t finish. That’s low vibe and I knew it. My high vibe side had a chat with it, through Clark and then sent it on its way. Plus I had recovery to tend to with the Mendocino 50K the next week. Trust me, the ego kept trying. But the more I kept bringing myself back to the present moment the more it lost its hold on me. Another important factor was being surrounded by people who wouldn’t let me sit in the low vibe. Thank you Jess and Bj!
That’s not the end of the story though. The work continued over the summer. When I couldn’t hide in all the miles of running. Hide on the trails. Hide by doing another ultra. More meditation. More present moment focus. This was on continuous repeat. In between my life and coaching. Reminding myself that in life and all things I am enough. And that is what I was meant to learn in all this. I AM ENOUGH. Nothing needed to change for that statement to be true. This experience has allowed me to be a better coach. A better human. So thank you Lake Sonoma 50. You are relentless. But so am I. And I’ll be back.
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