The Hangover - A Mind & Body Affair

It's been a week since I crossed the finish line of my first 50k trail race. I intentionally waited a week to write about it. I needed that time to allow my mind and body to recover. I needed that time to allow myself to reflect on the experience and draw some thoughtful conclusions on the day.

So here I am. For the most part fully recovered and anxious to get back to the training grind and ready to put some thoughts to paper. My mind doesn't remember the pain it was in a week ago. My legs do, but I like that. I call it the race hangover, a true mind and body experience...pain that lasts just long enough to evoke nightmares, but short enough to make you forget and go back for more.

As for the 50k, I was trained to run the distance, I had friends, family and my coach along side of me at the start, and I knew the terrain quite well. The weather definitely could have been worse. So walking into this thing I felt comfortable and the nerves were at an all time pre-race low. I think the general mood and atmosphere of an ultra trail event also spoke to my uncharacteristic race morning zen. A true tri geek that I am not would just about flip at the carefree, unstructured set up of these trail events. Personally, I like it, it's a bit of fresh air from the uptight, calculated, obsessive type A multisport environment that I am accustomed to. But that's neither here nor there.

The day started status quo. Running ridiculously slow and steady through the first several miles, it felt like any other trail run I had ever done. As the morning wore on general running pains settled in but so did I into a groove that felt sustainable. We were running together my coach and I, shoulder to shoulder we ran at the same pace through the half way point and beyond. It was an experience I had never had before but I liked it. We strategized together about pace and the trail conditions, we negotiated aid stations as a team and kept each other accountable for just about everything. As the miles wore on the teamwork became a bit one sided. I was doing much of the receiving and probably offering little aid, but it was all I had in me and I am sure he understood. His ultra experience far surpasses mine.

Other teammates came and went on the trails to run sections of the course with us. That help was huge, physically it was a perfect distraction from the pain. Not to mention the bond among teammates that were formed.

From somewhere around mile 23 to the finish, I was feeling it. I was feeling every uneven step forward. My body literally hurt from head to toe. It hurt when I ran and it hurt if I walked. My legs were in pain beyond pain, they were so numb they hurt and nothing relived them, not even stopping. Nutritionally I was on thin ice because of some non dramatic stomach issues a few hours earlier that lead me to ditch my traditional fueling strategy for flat Coke and fig cookies. It was makeshift but it was working. The Coke was giving me just enough sugar and caffeine to put my delirious mind into focus and kept me running. Coach kept me running too. We walked steep hills and all stairs but other than that we ran. We continued to run together into the late miles, step by step my body denied the pain. But the late miles are where it all began to make sense to me, where I learned about pain and just exactly what it was.

The pain was there full on. It was pain that didn't let go, give in, or fade. This pain transcended my body and seeped into my mind. Everything hurt. My blood hurt. I was pain. Pain was smeared all over the trail. Pain was realizing that this particular 50k course would be longer than 32 miles. (do the math) Pain were the steps I went up 3 earlier times that day but somehow were steeper and longer the last time. It was the trails that got hillier. The mud thicker and ice slicker. Pain is when I lost all balance. Pain was the final 13 minute mile and sitting at the finish thinking about what I just did. Pain was six hours, twenty nine minutes and fifty nine seconds of non stop running. Last Sunday I survived pain, kept running through the heart of pain and finally, a week later, it all makes sense.

It really was a simple lesson that I learned last Sunday. I learned about the mind and body dynamic. I learned that they talk to each other but are not always willing to listen to each other, and thats a good thing. Sunday I physically ran my body to it's breaking point. A point its been to before and knows well. I ran to the point that causes internal systems to shut down. Honestly, not much good comes from beyond this point and frankly it's not a good place to be. At this point the mind takes over for the body. It sends intense signals of pain to every cell of the body insisting that it aborts mission. Insisting the body stops. The mind, in all of its valor saves the body from total self destruction. What I learned was that pain is the minds friend. The mind likes pain. It uses pain to stop the body.

I am not sure how, when or why but on Sunday my body denied my mind. It ignored the pain signals, it became numb to the the mind's demands. My body proved my mind wrong and turned a deaf ear. So when everything hurt, and my mind was screaming to stop, my body just kept moving without any regard for itself. I simply just kept moving forward. Dangerous? Probably. A breakthrough in my ability to overcome my mind, pain and my limits? Absolutely.

What I learned Sunday is that your mind puts limits on the things that you can physically do. I think many of us convince ourselves that certain goals are unattainable. We tell ourselves that we have limits and that we are only capable of certain things to a certain limit. Our minds cage our dreams and shackle our aspirations. We limit ourselves out of fear of pain. Far too often we let our own minds completely dictate our limits. I learned Sunday that that is unacceptable for my body. I learned that if I leave my mind out of it, I can overcome anything. My body can achieve things its own mind doubted and never thought possible. I learned how much smarter my body is than pain. I can operate in the midst of thick, unrelenting pain. I learned that sometimes my mind is my worse enemy and that pain is an excuse.

Personally this dynamic of mind and body is complex and I can honestly say it has taken me 27 years and 32 some miles of January trails to figure it all out. But I can also say I am better off because of it. I am better off as an athlete and as a person with a professional career and life. I am better off because I know I can achieve things in life I never thought were possible. I know no limits of my own possibilities.

So as I sit here tonight, rested, pain free and eager to start my next journey I am happy because I am sitting here without any limits on myself. I know now that I don't know what I can't do. And thats a good feeling. I am happy to have found a healthy dose of the racing daze this January and even better to have learned a lesson about myself that I will take with me to many a race course in the future. Truthfully there are definitely things I probably can't do, but at least now I know, I have no idea what they are.

What do you think you can't do?