Turning the Corner

Often, the hardest part of an ultra-endurance race is the part we don’t talk about, the part that comes after the finish.

I still consider myself a rookie at this ultra-racing thing. I hope I always do. Lessons learned feed my drive to do better. I’ve just emerged from a very difficult one.

My recovery from the Arizona Trail Race started well enough. As usual, I blew up like a balloon donkey immediately after the race. Most of the fluid retention flushed out of my system within 36 hours; less time than usual; good news.

I was not terribly sleep deprived at the finish. In fact, I’d slept quite well apart from one very cold night near Flagstaff. My post-race sleep began erratic and restless but there was nothing unusual about that. I was able to get a lot of rest during the first 48 hours after my finish.

On day three of recovery, I did a short bike ride. I could tell my body was tired, but nothing physically hurt. Day four involved a hike with my wife Susan who had joined me in Page the evening earlier. It felt great. We made the long trip home to reunite our family on day five. All good things. My body seemed to be healing ahead of schedule.

It was a full six days after crossing the finish line that my wheels began to come off.

My sleep, which was happening in unpredictable three-hour blocks, now had to accommodate family and work obligations. My fingers and toes, which had felt fine post-race, began showing symptoms of nerve damage; and a bone chip, which had cracked off the tip of my right elbow during an early race crash, was suddenly rubbing me raw. All were unwelcome reminders that the Arizona Trail wasn’t quite finished with me yet.

Things continued like this for several days - unchanging and annoyingly inconvenient, but tolerable. “I’ll turn the corner tomorrow.”

Then came the corner. I was speaking to Susan in our living room. Our kids had been busy with toys which, along with several pieces of displaced furniture, were strewn all over the floor. I took a blind step backwards – just enough for a small orange Ottoman to cut me down at the knees. It happened in slow motion; like a falling tree tangling with others, then taking the whole woeful bunch to the ground. My right elbow led the impact into the hardwood; well… the bone chip, then the rest of my elbow, then the rest of me.

The pain shot up my arm and out my toes. The frustration was worse. I wanted to break everything in the house. I didn’t. I swallowed and went upstairs to sweat through another nap.

I awoke an hour later feeling a loneliness unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my life; nonspecific; bottomless; as if I were from some other planet where they didn’t know the words, ‘home,’ ‘family,’ or ‘love.’

This unassailable loneliness lasted for several days. I beat myself up for it. “Why had my heart felt so full during the three weeks I was alone, and now that I was surrounded by love, I couldn’t feel it?”

I was away from home in the Arizona wild for nearly three weeks.

Out there on the trail, my body didn’t let my mind go to its poles. Any powerful emotion was almost instantly redirected towards doing; moving; surviving.

Denying myself feelings for so long had consequences. I built a fortress around my mind but forgot to include a door. Such was the nature of my loneliness.

Perhaps I’d still be there – deep down in that void – if I’d truly been alone.

But I was never alone. My family were always there. Friends reached out. Every hug and every ‘hello’ built a handhold of hope.

I discovered I was not the only alien exploring the place beyond the finish line. There were other racers; friends; struggling in their own way. Our energies run in parallel along the trail. I always feel that during a race, but did not expect to afterward – down in that… some called it ‘blue’; others said ‘down’; for me it was ‘dark’; depression haunting this ultra’s aftermath. It didn’t matter if we’d scratched on the first day, set a course record, or something in between. It was indiscriminate, yet different for each of us.

Some of us found one another.

We ate pizza.

We compared cake.

We shared stories.

I’m so grateful for these feral friends.

They widened my perspective.

They showed me how to climb.

And one - most trusted - came back to lead me out of the deepest part of that dark place.

I’m topside again, thanks to many.

The waves of loneliness still wash over me, but my feet are back on solid ground.

I feel all that I should feel again. I’m back on my bike. My sleep is evening out, and the numbness in my hands and feet is gone.

My pain has become my power - a gift from someone stronger than I - to see that tiny piece of broken bone as a badge of strength rather than a point of failure.

It will fade; as will the darkness.

From what is left, I will build again.