Ultrarunning - My Introduction
In the wake of the release of the 2018 Western States Endurance Run lottery numbers, ultras are on my mind. With that said, I am a yogi. I have been practicing yoga in a physical or spiritual form since the late '90s. Really!! I started in 1999 and yoga has been some part of my life since then, often a small part, sometimes everything. So what does that have to do with ultrarunning? Some context....
A year or so after I completed my yoga teacher training and became a certified instructor, I was approached by the Endurance House in Delafield to provide yoga instruction for their running teams and clubs. As I introduced myself at the beginning of their first class, I introduced myself as an avid non-runner, though by this time ultras were already decidedly a part of my life. At a lululemon event I attended, I was asked "how I like to sweat," and I laughed and said, "I don't! That's why I do yoga!!" I didn't run.
So, how did I go from that girl to a girl you can find on Instagram as @littlerunneryogi? It was a long road, or trail as the case may be. A couple of 100 mile(rs) to be exact. After having two littles in the course of fourteen months, my husband took up serious running. It started as a few miles at a time. At some point, those miles started to seem like a lot to me. He'd go for an hour or two. As time went on, he started to run trails instead of the streets near our house and sometimes those runs would last 3-4 hours! At the time, I didn't have a frame of reference for how much running this really was, but it seemed like a lot. (I now know that he was probably putting in 20 miles in that amount of time back then and that's a lot.).
So, when he came home one day and told me he met a guy running who was doing something called an ultra, a 100 mile race, I probably reacted the way most people do when I talk about it. I thought that guy must be insane. (He is, by the way, in the very best ways!) He'd recruited Kevin to pace and crew (don't worry, I will define this later) his race, the Superior 100. I spent that weekend picking up our new rescue dog, Lando with my then 3 and 4 year olds, and didn't give what the boys were doing much thought. Less than a year later, Kevin ran his own first ultra, a 50 miler. He finished solidly in the top ten finishers, and he was hooked. A year later, he ran his first 100 miler at the Superior 100. He's gone on to finish five 100 milers since 2014 and I too have been hooked.
You don't really get what ultras are like until you've been to one. I didn't really get it until I'd been to two. The first ultra I ever came to was a 50 miler. It's a long run. Kevin finished his first ultra in just under 9 hours and came in as the 6th male racer. As you do, we drove on winding roads from side of the road aid station to aid station. It wasn't very exciting for me, to be honest. I didn't see the start or the finish because I had kids to let sleep, then take to work, then get home and put down for naps. After that success, he took a huge leap from his first 50 to his first 100 and the next Fall, we drove up to the Superior Trail in Minnesota. I had my pup and an awesomely adventurous friend join me for what seemed kinda bullshit to me...
See, when this was just my husband's thing, the biggest inconvenience to me was him being gone. A lot. When I was crewing, suddenly there was a lot more involved. As a crew member, it's my responsibility to be at each aid station before my runner. That means I spent the duration of his running time (almost always some measure greater than 24 hours) driving from aid to aid. It's usually really cold or freaking hot. It's my job to bring him extra shoes, a chair to rest on, food, changes of clothes, and anything else he may need over the course of that 24+ hours and a hundred miles. It's my job to make sure he's eating and drinking like he should. Most importantly, sometimes, I need to find the just right balance between encouragement and a level head when he wants to quit or should. I joke, often, that crewing for 100 milers is way harder than it must be to run them. I think my husband would disagree, but most people who crew acknowledge that it is stressful, intense and exhausting!
But it's also just amazing. These runners are incredible and to experience this race along side of them in some form is such a gift I couldn't have expected. The stereotypical ultrarunner is long and lean, wears a giant watch and probably doesn't take him or herself too seriously. For the feats these bodies deliver, it's amazing what great, humble people they are. Even the top runners are approachable and acknowledge that sometimes you have your day and sometimes you don't in a 100 miler. I've cried at every finish I've watched, including some I've seen over and over onscreen. The people, the places these races take place, and the atmosphere are, simply put, unbeatable.
On the other hand, I may have summed it up best at the end of Kevin's 2016 finish at Run Rabbit Run after a FREEZING night in the Colorado mountains:
A year or so after I completed my yoga teacher training and became a certified instructor, I was approached by the Endurance House in Delafield to provide yoga instruction for their running teams and clubs. As I introduced myself at the beginning of their first class, I introduced myself as an avid non-runner, though by this time ultras were already decidedly a part of my life. At a lululemon event I attended, I was asked "how I like to sweat," and I laughed and said, "I don't! That's why I do yoga!!" I didn't run.
So, how did I go from that girl to a girl you can find on Instagram as @littlerunneryogi? It was a long road, or trail as the case may be. A couple of 100 mile(rs) to be exact. After having two littles in the course of fourteen months, my husband took up serious running. It started as a few miles at a time. At some point, those miles started to seem like a lot to me. He'd go for an hour or two. As time went on, he started to run trails instead of the streets near our house and sometimes those runs would last 3-4 hours! At the time, I didn't have a frame of reference for how much running this really was, but it seemed like a lot. (I now know that he was probably putting in 20 miles in that amount of time back then and that's a lot.).
So, when he came home one day and told me he met a guy running who was doing something called an ultra, a 100 mile race, I probably reacted the way most people do when I talk about it. I thought that guy must be insane. (He is, by the way, in the very best ways!) He'd recruited Kevin to pace and crew (don't worry, I will define this later) his race, the Superior 100. I spent that weekend picking up our new rescue dog, Lando with my then 3 and 4 year olds, and didn't give what the boys were doing much thought. Less than a year later, Kevin ran his own first ultra, a 50 miler. He finished solidly in the top ten finishers, and he was hooked. A year later, he ran his first 100 miler at the Superior 100. He's gone on to finish five 100 milers since 2014 and I too have been hooked.
You don't really get what ultras are like until you've been to one. I didn't really get it until I'd been to two. The first ultra I ever came to was a 50 miler. It's a long run. Kevin finished his first ultra in just under 9 hours and came in as the 6th male racer. As you do, we drove on winding roads from side of the road aid station to aid station. It wasn't very exciting for me, to be honest. I didn't see the start or the finish because I had kids to let sleep, then take to work, then get home and put down for naps. After that success, he took a huge leap from his first 50 to his first 100 and the next Fall, we drove up to the Superior Trail in Minnesota. I had my pup and an awesomely adventurous friend join me for what seemed kinda bullshit to me...
See, when this was just my husband's thing, the biggest inconvenience to me was him being gone. A lot. When I was crewing, suddenly there was a lot more involved. As a crew member, it's my responsibility to be at each aid station before my runner. That means I spent the duration of his running time (almost always some measure greater than 24 hours) driving from aid to aid. It's usually really cold or freaking hot. It's my job to bring him extra shoes, a chair to rest on, food, changes of clothes, and anything else he may need over the course of that 24+ hours and a hundred miles. It's my job to make sure he's eating and drinking like he should. Most importantly, sometimes, I need to find the just right balance between encouragement and a level head when he wants to quit or should. I joke, often, that crewing for 100 milers is way harder than it must be to run them. I think my husband would disagree, but most people who crew acknowledge that it is stressful, intense and exhausting!
But it's also just amazing. These runners are incredible and to experience this race along side of them in some form is such a gift I couldn't have expected. The stereotypical ultrarunner is long and lean, wears a giant watch and probably doesn't take him or herself too seriously. For the feats these bodies deliver, it's amazing what great, humble people they are. Even the top runners are approachable and acknowledge that sometimes you have your day and sometimes you don't in a 100 miler. I've cried at every finish I've watched, including some I've seen over and over onscreen. The people, the places these races take place, and the atmosphere are, simply put, unbeatable.
On the other hand, I may have summed it up best at the end of Kevin's 2016 finish at Run Rabbit Run after a FREEZING night in the Colorado mountains:
For anyone who hasn't crewed for an Ultrarunner, it goes like this:
Get super excited to go outside at the crack of dawn (usually in the cold) and hang out while super skinny dudes (and badass chicks) mill around and then shuffle half-heartedly over the start line. Run up a hill to take pictures and cheer, all the while noting that you're winded and supporting someone who's about to run 30-100+ miles. Then you carry a bunch of stuff that your runner will look at and largely ignore while he (or badass she) stops for all of three minutes. Pack up stuff, carry stuff to new aid station, repeat. All. Night. Long. And then there's the anxiety and second guessing. "Did I miss him at Dry Lake?" "Is that him? Is that him? Is that him," as every runner in black tights (which is every runner) goes by. Or, "It's been a long time. I wonder if something happened? Maybe he dropped. Maybe he twisted an ankle. Maybe he's lost. Did I miss him?"
And the waiting. The brutal, soul-sucking waiting.
But then you see your runner come around a bend or up into an aid station and you're crazy proud to be attached to a person even trying to accomplish this amazing feat! You get out into the woods and have time to just absorb the awesomeness of nature. You meet the spouses and parents and children (and dogs!) of runners sharing this adventure and they're all different and unique, but united in supporting someone they love. Just like you. And it is AMAZING.
But really, the volunteer at the finish summed it up best when she handed me Kevin's sub-30 finisher medal and said, "Are you his... Is he.... Do you hold his stuff?"
Yes, that's it exactly. 
😁 And also waiting.
😁 And also waiting.
Once I was introduced, it was impossible not to be all in, but that's a story for another time.
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