It was a balmy Saturday in September. The early morning sun had yet to creep up over the mountains as crowds of ambitious runners waited to load onto the school buses that lined the edge of a parking lot, anxious to be shuttled up the canyon. One such runner climbed onto the bus and took her seat. She had put in all the hard work over the summer, ran all the miles. She thought she was ready. And yet, a pit of anxiety turned her stomach. The months leading up to this day had taken its toll on her. In addition to the grueling training cycle, she had dealt with some heavy personal stresses and she was mentally and physically exhausted. But she had committed to running this marathon and she had verbalized her big scary goal to the universe, so she had to show up and do it. 

That runner was me. The race was Big Cottonwood Marathon 2017. I had spent the summer, not only training at 5am daily, but also working endlessly, trying to prepare my house to be listed to sell. I would get up and run, go to work, come home and paint, or scrub, or declutter, or take loads to be donated, or yard work. I also had five children to feed and entertain (because it was summer, after all). The stress of trying to sell our house and the burden of finding a new place took its toll. The gym where I worked as a trainer asked me to run the race and represent them. I was excited at the prospect and said yes without even considering the idea that I could have done so by running the half. So I signed up for the full. I set and trained for a big, scary goal to PR by 4 minutes faster than the PR I had set previously at Mt. Charleston just a few months earlier. I felt I had a lot riding on this race.

As I loaded the bus on race morning with all of my friends who had been training with me, I was filled with self doubt and fear. In retrospect, I think I had given up because of fear even before I started. As I waited at the start line, I tried to tell myself some positive thoughts. But the pressure I had placed on myself weighed on my mind. The first three miles start down the peak of Guardsman pass and are probably the steepest of the entire race. Fueled by excitement, the energy of the runners around me and the massive decline, I ran those beginning miles too fast. By the first uphill at mile 4, I was already feeling some fatigue. I went from running in the 7 minute pace range, to a 9 minute mile in mile 4. By mile 6 I was feeling pressure to make up lost time and bank time for the harder miles after the bottom of the canyon, so I surged forward. I was able to hold a steady pace about 30 seconds faster than my goal time until I got to about the turn around point in the out and back. At mile 18, the course shifts and runners take a mostly uphill, rolling course out 2 miles, only to turn around and follow the same rolling course back. It is literally uphill both ways. As I passed the turn around point, I began to feel the fatigue consume me. I chugged along, slowing a little at a time until I reached the next downhill section at mile 22. This is where I allowed the accumulation of stress, fear, worry, pain and misery get the best of me. Thanks to stress related weight gain, the chafing between my thighs was raw, bleeding and unbearable. I had to change my stride to adjust to it. At mile 23 I was ready to quit. I pretty much walked the entire mile, texting my friends that I couldn’t go on. At mile 24 my friend, Joe, who had already finished running the half, showed up and started running alongside me. He ran with me, encouraging me to mile 26. I was able to finish about 17 minutes behind my planned goal time. 

I felt devastated, embarrassed- humiliated, really- and exhausted. I felt I had let my gym down, that I had failed so completely while wearing their logo. I had let my racing team down, my training group, my family, my friends, and myself down. I wandered around the finish line area under a black cloud of disappointment. The truth is, I had written more checks than I could cash during that summer and it showed.

Later, after a lot of over analyzing and thinking about what I could have done differently, I decided to rewrite my story about this race. At 39 years old, I was in the bracket to qualify for Boston as a 40 year old. I finished this race with a qualifying window of over 13 minutes. A very wise friend pointed out that it’s pretty awesome that I could have such an epic bonk in a race and still qualify for Boston by 13 minutes. She was right! I decided to celebrate that fact, and the fact that I am a bad ass mama of five who works and still managed to find the energy to train for this race and fix up my house to sell at the same time. Ironically, we ended up taking our house off the market just a few weeks after the race. 

I learned so many lessons from this race about managing my thoughts before, during and after the race. I learned what my body is capable of under pressure. I learned how to better pace myself during a race and to not use up all I had at the beginning. I took this experience with me to future races. My last marathon I ran for the joy of running, with no pressure about time, and I finished with a 2 minute PR, and an amazing, fun experience! 

It’s not always about winning or achieving the goal. Failures happen even in the best of circumstances. We cannot control the circumstances, but we certainly can control our reactions. We can let the disappointment consume us or we can take the experience and choose to learn from it and allow that to fuel us for our next endeavor. Thoughts are powerful. The brain is the strongest muscle in the body and can be friend or foe, depending on how we choose to use it. Choose your friends wisely.