Firetrails 50 -- exorcising the misanthrope

Saturday I ran the Firetrails 50 in the East Bay Regional Trails in California.  First the basics: I finished in 11:41, thought it was a very well organized and lovely race and had a wonderful weekend with my girlfriends Cheryl and Jenn, including the huge treat of getting to see Meghan Hicks.  I should also mention I finally got to meet her boyfriend Bryon who is a really cool dude.

photo courtesy of Jean Pommier

This race was a good lesson in head space.  I was in San Francisco hanging out and having a good time and started the race with the sense that I really couldn't be bothered to spend a whole day in the Bay area running.  I looked around thinking about how if I wanted to spend the day outside, why was I running in Oakland, CA?  It seemed insane.  Ridiculous.  I started thinking about when I should drop.  Except what would I do all day?  My friend Beat was incredibly nice enough to drive us to the race, so I'd have to wait for him.  I knew there was a keg so I figured a day draining a keg was better than a day running in Oakland.  (It wasn't really Oakland exactly but nearby so I'm calling it Oakland).  It was hot.  My skin was surely melting right off.  Why is California so hot?  Why do I keep coming here?  Why do I run long distances?  It's sorta dumb. 

My iPod started fizzling out.  That was it.  If my iPod died I was for sure dropping.  That was the last straw.  By mile 17 or so I'd had it.  But then my iPod worked and I finally hit some shady single track.  And I saw Cheryl, who provided me with my super cute plaid running shorts which were acquired on a particularly bad day last week.  She flew in from Chicago to run the marathon and hang out.  It's hard to be cranky around Cheryl.  She just won't really let you be cranky.  That's one of the reasons I love her so.

The ultimate cheerer-upper was seeing Beat sitting on the side of the trail with his laptop open trying to work.  He was on-call and had been paged.  Seeing such an absurd sight was enough to make me smile and move on.  And when I told him about how much I hated everything he made me feel really guilty and bad -- misanthropes don't feel guilty and bad.  The exorcism had begun.

Sigh.  I actually though it was all really pretty.  Even here in beautiful NW Montana you don't see the ocean and the Golden Gate bridge.  Beat started talking about how wonderful life is.  I felt all warm and happy inside.  I felt the goodness of life.  The power of sunshine and endorphins compels you.

I realized I was almost half way done.   It wasn't so bad.  I was enjoying myself.  I hadn't fallen too far behind. My friend Jenn was running her first 50 and flew all the way from Georgia to be there.  I could be bothered to finish afterall.  I finished with Jenn and our friend Chris who was pacing Jenn.   The misanthrope was gone and I was downright cheery.


Jenn and Danni



Cheryl, Danni and Jenn

So, I finished.  It was good mental practice to see how much head-space matters in ultrarunning.