A day after having a not-so-great trail run I had tears for another reason – I reached 90% of my fundraising goal for the American Cancer Society which meant I get to wear my new running singlet! And then on Wednesday morning, I reached 100% of my goal and unlike Monday’s tears, Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s tears were indeed happy tears!
Training for both the Chicago Marathon and Javelina Jundred which occur 3 weeks apart from each other, has been a mixed bag of emotions. Both races mean a lot to me for different reasons. Chicago will not only be my 25th marathon, but I’m getting to run for a cause I’m passionate about, and Javelina will be my first 100 mile race. Big milestones, not only in my running career, but in my life!
When I first ran Chicago in 2000, I never imagined I’d be reaching 25 marathons, and never would I have imagined I’d be training to endure 100 miles. I’m not some super fit, super strong, super fast athlete. I’m quite average and slow and maybe I give hope to someone who is like me. While I’d love to be a super fit, strong, and fast athlete, I accept where I am now and work with what I’ve got.
And what I’ve got is a mind and body trying hard to get through training in one piece, or I should say, two separate pieces (but together).
For the most part, I’ve been feeling pretty focused on what I need to do in September. Getting through the Bulldog 50K certainly helped build my confidence, but I know I still have a lot of work ahead of me in the next 7 weeks for Javelina.
I was hoping I’d have another long run on Tuesday, after Monday’s 25.6 miles on the trails, but that run left me feeling pretty emotionally drained and feeling hurt, and it had nothing to do with actual running. I decided to take Tuesday off completely to regroup and heal and it was what I needed, even though physically I felt fine to run.
Monday’s trail run broke me down a couple of times. It’s not the first time I cried on the trail. I cried once before. On this day, I can say I cried twice and I’ll be honest, nearly hyperventilated because I kept replaying words said to me and not knowing how to react to remedy anything. Actually I cried twice on the trail and once in the car driving home.
Nothing I said seemed to make it better. The energy was just off. I tried sparking up conversations and topics only to be met with resistance and no other topics of conversation were offered up. At least that’s how I felt. Honestly, at times I don’t feel appreciated, nor valued as a friend, or even taken seriously. So what am I to do? How am I supposed to feel about that?
Anyways, I finished that training session running pretty hard and non-stop for the last 6 miles. It seems I had some adrenaline kicking up and it put my running into high gear. I wanted to be done, and gone, and I’ve never felt that way before during any run. Maybe it was a good thing…or not.
I honestly couldn’t believe how fast I was running. I was so focused on finishing, that I zoned out enough to nearly make this run take a disastrous turn.
Whenever I run on a trail, unless it’s single track, I tend to run in the middle, but on this particular stretch of trail, it can be a mix of rocks and grass in the middle, so I found myself running on the left side.
Heading down the path I was engaged in my own thoughts and with my head down, I looked up ahead a few feet and noticed something in my path. It was a dark grey stick with squiggly lines on it. I immediately surveyed down the length of the “stick” and realized it was not a stick, but a rattlesnake! I’ve never been stopped dead in my tracks so fast in my life!
My heart started to pound hard and I could feel prickly needles on my skin, I came to an abrupt halt that was enough to kick up dirt and dust onto the snake. Imagine hockey players or ice skaters, as they’re gliding down the ice suddenly turn their bodies to stop and ice flies up. That was me on the trail. The snake didn’t move.
Was it dead?
My quick reflexes backed me up and moved me to my right to give the snake room. I’m in it’s territory. That darn snake still didn’t move. It may have been zoning out too.
Not knowing if it was dead or alive, I circled around to pass it. And then I saw it’s slithering tongue dart out. Yeah, it was alive alright. I stood a good distance away from it and took a photo of it as it started to move into the brush and off the trail without any intention of coiling up. My heart was still pounding out of my chest.
I turned to begin walking down and had a couple of bikers coming up directly into the snake’s path which was still sticking out onto the trail a bit.
“Just so you know, there’s a rattlesnake on the right side so you may want to move to the middle or stay to the left,” I said to them.
The guy rode his bike slowly to the left, but the girl got off her bike and started to walk. I could tell she has a fear of snakes and I got the feeling she wasn’t sure about proceeding up the trail or turning around. I kept going because I was ready to be done with this run. But I still had about another 1.5 to 2 miles left to go.
After my snake encounter, my pace slowed down. I took more time to look up ahead and pay attention. This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a snake on a trail. This was actually my fourth time, but it was by far the closest call I’ve ever had with one. I should’ve known better to always be aware. Let that be a lesson to learn. I’m thankful it wasn’t a harder lesson.
As I was running, I kept replaying what had just happened and all I could think about was, one more step.
One more step and this run would have turned out even worse.
One more step and anything I felt prior to this moment wouldn’t have mattered.
One more step and I would have pounced on that snake.
One more step and most likely I would’ve said goodbye to Chicago and Javelina.
One more step and for sure that snake would have bit me.
Even now, as I relive the moment I twitch and tense up just thinking about it as if I’m trying to move out of the way again. That was a little too close for my comfort. I honestly don’t want to have that experience ever again! And that could be said for most of the run as well. It was just a bad day and people are allowed to have bad days. But it really wasn’t a great feeling. However, I’m thankful for it.
It’s like that quote which I just said to someone recently, “Life is ten percent what happens to you, and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
It’s a great quote.
I guess you could say after this run I discovered something a little more about myself and that is, I may be like that snake. If someone steps on me, I just may bite.
Thank you for reading!