“Let’s do a race in Macedonia.”
Sure! Why not?
People who know I run ultras and trail races with significant elevation often wonder why I do this to myself. I know in my gut why, but it’s a feeling I can’t quite articulate beyond something basic. Sure, it’s the sense of accomplishment you feel at the end of finishing a hard thing, but it’s more than that.
Maybe it’s something about facing the unknown. For example, had I seen the course I was signing up for in advance, I’m not so sure I would’ve planned a week away for the pleasure of torturing myself. Instead, all I knew was that it’d be in a national park with some significant climbing. There was no way to truly sense how steep the climbing would be or how deep the cuts from waist-high brush would be without doing the damn thing.
I lost track of how many times I fell towards the end, unable to see the trail beneath me through the brush. Sometimes the trail would be lopsided, so I’d slip and find myself the next moment hanging onto the edge of the trail with the smell of wild oregano sliding up my nostrils.
In the end, it took much longer than even my realistic expectations of finishing. But reader, I did the damn thing. And I’m glad I did. Because even though there’s not a chance in hell I would’ve signed up for this thing if I truly knew what I was in for, now I have an even better idea of what I can put my body through without reaching my limit. This race, if you’re keeping score at home, took me more than twice as long to finish than my first ultra last October.
I guess that means I need to find an even more ridiculous way to punish my body. Because for whatever reason, this is what I do.
(Send help.)
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