Not a Walk in the Woods

Lessons I learned at Tuscobia Winter Ultra 2019

The ice storm started a few hours into the 80 miles of TWU, the Tuscobia Winter Ultra, usually a snowy, frigid romp though the Northern Woods of Wisconsin, with only one checkpoint and the requirement of carrying or pulling a boat load of mandatory gear in a sled. I went with a pack this time, perhaps the only runner to do so - an experiment I’m not sure I regret or not. I was too busy with the elements and keeping my head and body in the game.

When the wind started whipping the snow around after sunset, I reminded myself that, no matter what, I had to practice what I’ve preached to athletes I’ve coached over the years- your racing self MUST respect to your training self. You were one out there at the butt crack of dawn before, logging the miles, looking forward to accomplishing your goal. That cat CANNOT and WILL NOT let her foot off the gas or give up, absent some medical or mechanical breakdown. You were the one sacrificing sleep to train before work, when the family is asleep on weekends, when your friends go out late to dance the night away but you stay home to get up early and train – again, they grumble!

When night set in about 4pm (and lasted until 8am), so began my personal dark night of the soul. At the time, it sucked, the pain, the monotony, but I learned a few things about myself, even after almost 6 decades on the planet.

Lesson 1. Do Nothing Fatal is what ‘DNF’ really stands for (not, the usual, did not finish).

There were plenty of excuses to quit out there this year at TWU. My problem was not one of them was sufficient. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve quit for a whole lot less twice, and both times still haunt me as catastrophic failures of will, much more terrifying than broken bones or shredded soft tissue.

Sure, I was quite uncomfortable - what with my freezing, wet feet, maybe one overly frosty toe, sodden shoes and socks and gloves and all layers, but I wasn’t shaking, was I? No. Okay, focus on that – I’m warm, just in a coldish kind of way.

Lesson 2. My ultra peeps and race directors and volunteers are the people I want on the island when all hell breaks loose.

Ultra people make you realize – hey you’re actually okay, even though you look like the dead squirrel the cat dragged in and smell even worse. Need socks? Here you go, take mine – “I’m a boy scout I brought extra,” one good Samaritan told me as he handed over a dry pair. Need me to turn away while you pee in the woods, all good. Fireball? Yes please, but I maybe better not til after. Shout out to Helen and Chris Scotch, race directors with the biggest hearts and even bigger ba...ls to let us keep playing in those conditions - every race needs Fireball by the way! Old friends and new, we were a team in the most individual endeavor in endurance sports – running mile after mile in the woods in the dark in an ice storm for no money, no glory, just for the love of the journey. And each other.

Lesson 3. Reasons to drop are like hallucinations, a dime a dozen.

There was the family huddled around the TV - snow creatures on the couch. Then the polar bear. Not really, just a snow bear. I could go on. But I won’t. How about the red one-armed acrobats. Stop! Then there was a man, another runner, who, as it turned out, was not a hallucination. But real, a Dad, husband, and, yes, an ultra nutter. We became a fast friends at our mutual lowest moment - just before dawn. Together, we made 9 miles slip by with shared stories of racing, family, and life. Bolted together on the trail by the faith that we were getting there, to the finish. Onward!

Lesson 4. The North Woods keep calling me back.

The North Woods of Minnesota and Wisconsin are barren, bleak, and unrelenting on your mind. But they are a place you can find yourself, even like your frozen self better when you come out of the darkness. Up there, in the land of cheese curds and picket fences and traditional clapboard houses hipsters would pay a fortune for (if only they were in Brooklyn). Where epic, family style ultras of the highest order still abide in a world of new races in search of the bucket listers who wanna ‘say’ they did an ultra, and for whom the doing needs to be painless. The one certainty is that if you were there this year, at TWU 2019 as a newbie, and you ever line up at another winter ultra, you’re made for the game. Stay with it, you’ll learn a lot.

Lesson 5. Bad weather ain’t no reason to quit.

As I post-holed 80 miles, up to the knees from time to time in underground standing water - the ice had permeated the snow and created standing lakes on the trail - I thought about the legendary Oregon coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman. Coach B said “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.” While, I like that idea, I don’t think he had Icemageddon in mind. His waffle racers would have wilted like old spinach out there, swallowed up by the primordial ooze of the Tuscobia Trail.

Lesson 7. The Finish Line is Only the Beginning.

Well, maybe you wanna know how it went? I ended up sixth female in the 80 miler, but so what? What means so much more is that I did manage to heed my own advice. I respected myself and the hundreds of miles of training I put in to get to the start. And, in the process, I hope, I respected others, their efforts, their fears, identical to mine. Many were out there hours longer than me, so who am to even contemplate dropping? Respect! It takes courage to toe the line. To hang in. But less to finish. Finishing is easy. With it comes a moment of congrats! And then we move on, knowing we did our best. THAT is what matters.

Lesson 6. I am a bad omen.

I raced Marathon des Sables 2009, a 7-day stage race in the Sahara desert, which turned into a biblical food. I raced Arrowhead 135 2019, another snowy romp in the North Woods, during the polar vortex. I went to Badwater 135 2018, the hottest year ever. If I am signed up, think about staying home! But I won’t. If the outcome’s certain, why bother? If you know things are going to go entirely as expected – how boring! One of my two favorite quotes is from T. S. Eliot. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”

As for the other fave quote, stay tuned.

Cheers for adventures beyond your wildest dreams in 2020. It’s gonna be a great year, no matter the weather.