It’s only been in the last few days I feel I’ve inched my way out of the thick, all consuming brain fog I was living and breathing in for a month.
I’m marveling at time right now. I began this journal series after working since the top of the year to bring myself into a grounded, present mental place.
Just as quickly as I felt lucid and present in May and June and full of inspiration to run and write about it, I felt it slip me by in July. I began struggling to keep writing. I kept getting distracted by the other things in my life calling my name for attention.
In the midst of grappling with this sudden departure from all that inspiration that came so easily in the weeks prior, in a single step my physical connection to my body was shredded
A single normal step set in motion a cascade of events that all started on July 17th, exactly a month to the day out from my would be 100 mile race day in Leadville.
In the days immediately before the step, I was on a solo running mission on the Crested Butte side of West Maroon pass. I ended my day feeling fulfilled that I had had the confidence to do something big outside by myself like that. I felt that me a year ago would have balked at what I had done that day, and so much peace had washed over me. I remember telling myself on trail, This is why you’re running. You’re coming home to yourself with every one of these steps this summer. I had been slowly and deliberately building my training load and my body was responding to my mileage with more and more energy. My heart was connected to each and every step I had been taking. I felt fully in it.
Earlier in the summer out running near Aspen, a friend, Katie, was joking with me that I was dating Leadville.
We laughed in complete agreement. I was dating the race. I was fully committed to the task of running that race with both my mind and body. Going into my solo running mission to up from West Maroon to Geneva lake and back up and over frigid air pass, I had been thinking so much about my mind body connection and had been feeling so filled with love and appreciation for the life I had created for myself, especially in the span of time from January to July.
I finished the long day tired having run 30 miles with close to 8K of vertical feet, smiling to myself with an ice cream sandwich in hand in Gothic waiting to be picked up by my two friends, who would be my ride back home around to Carbondale and who’s presence in my life was contributing to the deep feeling of physical peace.
Returning home and tuning into my body I felt tired but strong. I remained that way until I was on a slow run and as I turned to head back home and on the downhill descent, a sudden tightness in my left hip brought me immediately to a walk.
My body gave me a shout. I heard it. I slowed to a complete stop.
Shit.
Only one word echoing in my mind. Shit.
I looked down at my watch and saw the date. July 17th. Immediately, I was hit with this wall of disbelief. Leadville. This thing you’ve poured yourself into for months, the light at the end of that long, heartbroken winter tunnel is exactly a month away. You’ve been so good! You want to do something big. You’ve been doing so good! You’ve been all in. You want to feel proud of something big.
And now you’re hurting. All of a sudden, now you’re hurting. Shit.
Almost as soon as the tightness and slight pain in that step registered, I started to detach from my body.
It’s nothing. You’re fine. It’s your IT band, you’re tight.
I could hear that voice in my body and recognized it as my own telling my to stop. Somethings wrong.
But a louder voice, another voice from another part of me, wanting desperately to rationalize and smooth everything down kept chanting.
It’s nothing. You’re fine.
You’re fine. Keep going.
I expressed to a few people in my life that I had been hurting but that I was feeling mostly alright. I was going to stick to my original plan and run my last long run, a 50K traversing all four Aspen mountains. I added that I’d be sure to listen to my body and pull out if I needed to.
Keep going.
Hindsight is always 20/20. In the moment, I did truthfully believe I was doing the best I could trying to push myself and also listen to my body.
I’ve been asking myself if I regret it. If I could go back and do it again, would I? If I knew what would unfold, would I pull out halfway like I had said I might? Would I push myself hard enough to break?
What I’ve landed on is a hard truth I’ve been learning over the course of this year. There’s no point in thinking that way. Searching relentlessly for the meaning when there is no meaning only eats up your energy.
When I was out there running, I would visualize the energy flowing from my body and it would hitch on that spot in my hip that had been knocking at me hard, screaming at me to listen. But I couldn’t quite face it.
I visualized the spot in my hip as a breathing dragon and with each step I was pleading with it through closed eyes to stay with me for the next step.
Everything in my body was holding on so tight. I was holding on so tight to the Leadville dream, to the person I had been feeling and becoming on those summer trails, to the hope of what doing something big in my life might mean and feel like.
Another hard truth I am learning is the harder we hold onto something, a person, a dream, or a vision of how we want something to be, and if we are unwilling to let the thing flex and flow and grow as it needs, the easier it is for that thing to be lost completely. Obliterated on impact by capital C, Change.
It’s a lesson in letting go when everything in your body is screaming to hold tighter.
What was waiting in my femur was already written when I toed the line of that 50K. The relentless descent just brought the injury to the surface, in all its dramatic glory.
After a brutal final descent having lost full range of motion in my left leg around mile 25, my gait resembling a step, half step skip to keep momentum, I got to the end and was met by the concerned faces of people in my community.
“It’s nothing! I’m gonna be totally fine!” on my lips on repeat. My smile wanting to hide any self doubt, immediately on an auto pilot mission to smooth over any sign of struggle.
I spent the next two weeks regaining some motion but still struggling to walk without a limp.
I stopped running but was certainly not being gentle on my body or my mind. All the meditation I had been doing leading into July went out the window. I didn’t want to slow down. I didn’t want to check in with my body. I didn’t want to look closer and ask myself the questions. I was afraid. I was terrified it would tell me exactly what I already knew.
It’s nothing! You’re fine!
Denial is a powerful drug. I never once let go of the Leadville dream until that doctor walked into the room, having looked at my MRI moments before, the look on his face sealing away all hope and throwing away the key.
What do you do then? When the last shred of the dream is obliterated before your eyes? What’s there to hold onto?
If I let go who will I become? If I let go, I’ll loose it all.
How do you survive a total free fall?
I’m three weeks out from having three large screws ( you could build a house with these things) placed in the stress fracture that was hiding in the neck of my left femur in order to keep my hip from dislocating.
If the fracture had fully broken, I would be three weeks out from a total hip replacement at 26.
It’s bizarre to write those words and look down at the small line scar on the side of my upper thigh that now is the only evidence. It’s maybe two inches long in total, yet it feels to me 100 miles deep and 100 miles wide.
I’ve been learning what happens in total free fall.
The visceral duality of each moment has been shocking to my system. In the one instance, I feel deeply frustrated and utterly decimated. I feel overwhelmed by a stretch of time full of stillness. Who are you without movement? Who are you when you are still? I feel afraid to meet that person.
In the same instance, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the family and friends in my life that have come to quite literally hold me up. I feel completely overwhelmed with love at their presence in my life and how proud I am to have invited love like that into my life. I feel hopeful that I may get to meet other parts of myself that I haven’t yet. I feel a deep sense of knowing, that I was protected out there and narrowly avoided a much larger injury. I feel curious to wake up each day and find the thing I’m going to appreciate. I feel excited to make a choice to enjoy the day I’m in for what is.
The most teeth gritting reality is that both experiences are true and real and happening simultaneously. To have the high, you have to have first had the low.
You have to first think why wasn’t I protected from this before you can have who says you weren’t?
I’m learning each day that total free fall is terrifying, some things in life are random, not all bad thoughts have to have a silver lining tacked to it, and having big, beautiful goals can break your heart and your bones.
I’m learning each day how to focus on my two feet planted firmly on the earth, my head on my shoulders, and the love in my heart. I’m learning how to loosen my death grip on the outcome I’ve painted in my mind. I’m learning to invite the here and the now to sit down with me, and slow down. I’m learning how to trust the person that I am in the stillness. I’m learning how to let go.
Recently, I read a newsletter from author, Katie Arnold. She writes, “Hold gently to your dreams, and maybe someday they’ll come back to you”.
I can’t tell you what happens tomorrow if it’s good or if it’s bad. I can’t tell you if it’s for sure I’ll get to stand on the Leadville start line a year from now much less complete my big, beautiful goal. But I can tell you, I don’t need to know any of those things
All I need to know is that the voice leading me forward to take one step at a time, is mine.
How do you survive a total free fall? You save the only life you can.
Your own.
So here I am at the beginning. I’m the same and I’m also completely new (not to mention my cool new hardware).
I have always found beauty in beginnings and being a beginner. When you don’t know what’s going to happen, anything can happen.
I’ll keep asking of myself and life for more of all the good and beautiful things. I’ll be attempting to teach myself how to hold gently to my big, beautiful goals. I’ll honor the moments that don’t feel good. I’ll be reveling in those that do.
On this road, I’m going easy, to go hard. I’m being soft, to be strong.
It’s a lesson in letting life come in.
So proud of the manner you are managing this event! What a growth mindset you have!!!
Once again and always you are my hero.