Two years ago, on December 31st, 2018, at 11:00pm, Ingrid and I went out for a run. We were watching New Year's Eve stuff, and we decided to get out and run to ring in the new year, returning in time to see the celebration in Chicago, the largest city in our time zone (only being a 12 hour drive away). We were living in White Shield, a small blip on the radar on the Fort Berthold Reservation in northwestern North Dakota. Outside, the temperature stood at a balmy -20F with no wind and a host of starry sky. We threw on layers of pants, shirts, hats, gloves, and even a reflective vest for the brutal darkness of the prairie. We jogged down the quiet, empty streets, pausing at times to listen to the sounds of silence. After bracing the cold, we came back to the house and watched the New Year's celebration by ourselves, with a kiss, a drink, and a bedtime.
Two years later, I find myself in a house bordering the Chesapeake Bay with Ingrid, my brother and his wife, my other brother, and my parents all tucked warmly into a rental house. As the clock ticked past 10:30pm on New Year's Eve, I told my partially-sleeping wife that I was headed out the door for a run. This time, I swapped the winter clothes for shorts and a long sleeve, with temperatures in the 40s, a breeze off the water and light drizzle in the air. As I stepped outside, the sounds of occasional traffic passing by, I started down the sidewalk that runs parallel to the beaches. As the minutes clicked by, I gave myself a chance to reflect on how radically different my life was compared to two years ago.
When I finished college, I really only had two overarching goals- to teach in a small school, and to continue to train and race in college meets. I accomplished both. After student teaching in the small community of Garrison, ND, I got my first teaching job in the smaller community of White Shield, with its 150 students total K-12. My commute every day took me down a gravel road for five and a half miles, before turning onto a sleepy state highway for a 20 minute stroll through the prairie transition zone between the Midwest and the West. I taught Native students, met with Native educators, and learned more about reservation life and the MHA Nation than all the previous years of my life combined. I fell in love with high school sports, middle school students, and really found something worth fighting for.
I continued to train. Every morning I'd head out and grind an hour on the gravel roads, filling my schedule with fartleks, tempos, long runs, and the occasional interval workout. When we moved into teacher housing in White Shield, my runs were done on the highway. I'd put on a headlamp and reflective gear and go off into the country. When I'd see a car 4 or 5 miles down the road, in front or behind me, I'd run to the other shoulder to make sure I'd be safe. In the rare event of a vehicle coming from each direction at the same time, I'd quick hop into the ditch. My minimalist shoes got holes in them, which caused my feet to start bleeding where bare skin met asphalt. With the closest running store more than four hours away, I had to order shoes online by myself for the first time.
I experienced mild success. After college running, I struggled to get miles in while student teaching, but when I started training again, I surprised myself. I ran a 24:40 8k in cross country in the fall (narrowly missing my PR) at the UND home meet, and came back to finish the winter with a 15:04 indoor 5k (also a UND home meet, not close to my PR) while wearing a "Warriors" jersey from the school I was teaching at, as a way of supporting the community that was teaching me so much. I held on to dreams of being one of the fastest North Dakotans, continuing to go to college meets and impress, and keeping up with the blog. I wanted to race at UND meets and hold my status, I wanted to go to meets at the University of Mary and break stadium records, and I would go online and make sure my school records were still there. It was a continuation of college- always playing the comparison game and wanting to impress. Running was to run fast and win.
Then, two things happened that affected a seismic shift in the way I view running.
The first was attempting the Maah Daah Hey trail marathon on little training. I had been coaching high school track, and found myself only with enough time to squeak out a few 30 minute runs every week. I came in with unreasonable cockiness, assuming I could just sign up, run, and finish. After all, even when I wasn't in great shape I could still hop into local 5ks and 10ks and win or take second. That race defeated me and caused me to dig deep within myself in a way I didn't know existed- just to finish. I lost to first place by more than 20 minutes, and was more than a half hour off the course record, which I thought was going to be easy. My hamstring continually seized up during the last few miles, and for the next year, every time I tried to run fast or far, my hamstring would start to get sore or tight, reducing my ability to train. I tried foam rolling and massage therapy, but it took years to go away.
Then we moved to Virginia. Moving to Virginia was something I never expected to do. In fact, my steadfast determination to never leave North Dakota and be the voice for ND Runners was partially responsible for a breakup before Ingrid and I started dating. I had built up this reputation as THE North Dakota Runner, who relished running in blizzards and dreaming away miles on drowsy gravel roads in the sweeping countryside. Virginia took all of that away- no more gravel roads, no more quiet places to run, and very few places to run safely at all. The joy of running started to fade, gently. I listened to music on my iPod to drown out the sounds of cars, I tired of running the same sidewalks in town every day, and even the local road races I went to felt hollow and unfulfilling. With nothing exciting to train for, I feel back into a pattern of just running for 30 minutes a few times per week. Injuries started to pile up, and the times I was trying to hit in workouts faded. My low point was running a turkey trot 5k in November 2019, where I ran my slowest time since my junior year of high school, and lost to a 15 year old. Something needed to change.
I signed up for the Maah Daah Hey Trail marathon again and gave myself something to train for. I got new shoes. I increased my mileage. I started doing workouts again. I dragged my sorry butt out of bed at 5:30 am to get in a hilly 40 minute run before school each day. I ran intervals in the police parking lot. I did long trail runs at the local park and went with a friend to a couple of long runs on the Appalachian trail. My times were dropping, my fitness was coming back, and before my race I even did a couple trail runs in the mountains and on the Maah Daah Hey trail itself. This time, I was ready.
I didn't finish. I dropped out at mile 20, defeated but not embarrassed; I physically couldn't do it. I returned back to Virginia, fired up and ready to crush more training and do it again next year. I almost immediately got injured.
I decided to heavy cross train through the injury to not lose fitness, but that only worsened the injury. It took me almost three months to return to a place where I could run for 30 minutes pain free, and even then I needed a day off the next day. It was frustrating and humiliating. All these runners I knew were training and getting better, and everything I did made myself worse. I stepped out of my comfort zone and went to the local running club's Monday group run, and I couldn't even run with them because I felt intense pain after only 10 minutes of running. Ingrid had to talk me out of quitting running with stern, but fair, language.
I'm running again now, and I've realized some important lessons. I'm not a college runner anymore. In fact, most of the athletes currently running track at my college don't know who I am. Many of the best runners I raced in college, who then went pro, have already retired when success didn't pay the bills. Many current athletes don't know their names. Times are just a number that we use to compare ourselves to others, and for most adults, road races are for the social aspect just as much as the race itself.
I have come love training. I love going for a run, and I love doing different workouts. I love going to trails and running. I love waking up and running in the morning, but I've also developed a deep appreciation for late-night runs before bed. I love getting out of the house during Coronavirus times, and I love biking alongside Ingrid when she's running. Every piece I get to add to training right now- a couple more strides, 5 more minutes, a faster finish- brings me joy and memories. I don't feel pressure right now to beat anyone, or to eclipse any of my previous times. In fact, I've toyed with the idea of developing "post-college pr's", because that's when my life really started to change.
I'm still that guy from two years ago, who loved running gravel roads and badlands trails. I'm still that guy from two years ago that loved researching about North Dakota running. I'm still that guy that laid down on the middle of a highway, in the middle of the night, and observed the Milky Way in below-zero temperatures. But on this New Year's Eve, I was also the guy that loved running along the closed public beaches of Norfolk, Virginia, reading sign posts about local history while cars zoomed past on the damp roads. For the last minute of my run, I ran hard, which I haven't been able to do in months. I finished, bent over for a moment, and looked up at the sky. It was overcast, with the heavy lights of the metro bouncing yellow and orange off the clouds. The nearby interstate gushed the sound of traffic through the air. A raw, wet breeze flowed off the Chesapeake Bay.
And yet, I smiled.
