Snow Ball

Lungs a-fire. 10K topping out at 9019ft, 3.3 miles of climbing. Heart beating like a jackhammer in the temples. Average 11 percent grade. The chilling cold of snow kicked up behind you and falling down your back. Fluffy snow that mimics quicksand that makes your body scream for Mommy...

Yesterday, Karen, John, Erin and I ran the first of the four Beaver Creek Snowshoe Adventure Series races. It was fun, but man did it hurt!

I was very happy with the hard fought 7th place finish in this first-of-four largest-in-the-world snowshoe race series, but there's a long way for me to go to be competitive in this sport. With the likes of mutants Seth Wealing (a former ITU Triathlete like myself who has began spanking people on the XTerra Circuit) and Bernie Boettcher (an older guy that makes me hope that runners do, in fact, like wine, get better with age), I was ten minutes behind the winner. Ouch.

Karen also picked up 7th in the female division, and like me, was quick to state that she was happy with the result, but so far from being acclimated to this type of effort at this altitude.

On the way home I read my brother's blog post on 'The Distance' (http://steel-cut.blogspot.com/2007/12/distance.html). It got me thinking quite a bit on what my distance was... and I have to note a couple of times in my life that I've broken through walls in my beliefs in what is possible.

First: The first run over 5K in the parent's neighborhood the summer that I decided to get back into shape (1998). All 210 lbs of me had started running about a month earlier and at the time was just able to make it down the block before having to stop to catch my breath. A month later I finished three 1.3 mile loops in my parent's neighborhood and thought I'd become a true distance runner. I bragged to my friends who said "What!?! Shut up, Murph! You didn't just run a 5K!"

Second: Chicago Marathon, 2000. I still don't know how I did it, but I ran a 2:59 and change in my first attempt at the 26.2 mile distance ... I still have never come close to it (one DNF, a 3:53 in an Ironman in 2005, and a 3:59 this year). My running training that summer consisted of nothing over 30 minutes of running per session (I'd suffered from knee pain in 1999 when training for the Chicago Marathon and decided that running anything over 30 minutes was terrible for your body). I had also been racing mainly Olympic Distance triathlons, and did (I think) a single 15-miler a couple of weeks before the actual Marathon since Triathlon season was over.

Third and most distinguished running memory: Amakusa International Triathlon, Amakusa, Japan. I was about four minutes down from the lead pack of cyclists (yes, ITU is draft-legal) coming off the bike on a mid-90 degree day with an obscene amount of humidity. I was relaxed, though, having seen the good omen of a butterfly right before the race, and decided that I was going to run down the lead pack. I'd been reading "The Power of One", and while there are plenty of great quotes in the book, the one that stuck out in my head that day was the following:

The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, often well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The mind is the athlete; the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better ... [it means] thinking well beyond the powers of normal concentration and then daring your courage to follow your thoughts.

I turned completely mind at 4 miles. I had already run down a number of runners by then and saw four more a half mile or so ahead. I let it completely out and ran past that point of any previously demonstrated ability. It didn't matter how I felt, it didn't matter how hot it was ... nothing mattered. I just ran, and ran fast.

I ran down the four and finished fifth. It was something that I will never forget.

Fourth: Four runs strung together when I trotted across Ireland, where I put in 70 miles in the span of four days. That more hurt than anything else (and truthfully was a source of an injury), and really wasn't the source of a "Gee, I didn't think I could run that distance...." I was crazy then (but I'd do it again!!!).

Next up: Resolution Run 5K, New Year's Eve.