I was six weeks out from IMTX20 when it got canceled. There were approximately zero people who didn’t see this coming, given that the race got canceled on March 13, 2020, which my household officially considers to be Day 1 of the Global Pandemic. The only part of the cancellation that made me cranky was the timing - the email came in 15 minutes after I finished a 5-1/2 hour indoor bike and a 50 minute run off the bike. I mean, honestly, FML.
Then everything started falling into place. I volunteered at a vaccine clinic and got my first shot just in time to be fully vaccinated before race day. Combo that with Governor Abbott fully opening Texas and - my opinions on that decision aside - it pretty much looked like (a) the race would happen and (b) I would be willing to get on a plane and walk around Texas and participate in the race. We made it past “cancellation day” from 2020 and I really thought the race was going to happen.
Maybe two days later they canceled IMTX21. The email notification popped up on my screen and I dropped a “mother FUCKER” that was so loud my son came running in from the next room, convinced that we’d lost all our money or something like that. I was angry for days. I mean ANGRY. After that I gave myself a few days to mope, during which I decided that my IMTX-buddy and I would bike 100 miles and run 20 on race day as our consolation prize.
This seemed like a great idea: not the full distance, which is really hard to motivate to do solo. But not just a training day. It had to be bigger than anything we’d normally do in training. Big enough that it was a little crazy and more than a little scary. Big enough that it would hurt. Possibly a lot.
During the weeks that followed, I started to question my thinking. Mostly because it meant that I was continuing to train big hours on the bike and run, and that is pretty tiring. And I felt really weird telling people that I was busy or didn’t have time for something because I had to bike X miles and/or run Y miles in training for some random day that I’d invented but didn’t actually have to do. (Which in reality isn’t any different from a random day that someone else invents and you pay for but still don’t actually have to do. It just somehow feels radically different that way.)
At the point that I’d actually logged all the big training days, I started to really, sincerely question my thinking. 20 miles is a fucking long way to run. Especially after biking 100. This was definitely going to hurt. A lot. There was a chance - and not a small chance - that I would blow up. As in, massively implode and completely melt down and maybe just bail and call an Uber. What the actual fuck had I been thinking.
And then, by way of our NYX Mob Zoom Happy Hour book club-type conversation about Matt Fitzgerald’s How Bad Do You Want It (which you should absolutely read if you haven’t already), I remembered. I remembered why I’d thought this was such a great idea to begin with. I wanted the suffering. I missed the suffering. And yeah that’s pretty fucked up, but there is something really incredible about going to a crazy dark place and then finding your way back out of it. That’s what racing is. That’s why I keep coming back to rather extreme endurance events. And that’s what I’ve missed in the past year of not having races. It was time to get that back. It was time to embrace the fucking darkness.
Interestingly, the concept of this random day that I’d invented kinda worked better for me than the normal random day that someone else invents. It was simultaneously a big enough event that I wanted the race-week easy training schedule and extra free time, but not pressure-filled enough that I was having any freak outs (or taper tantrums as my husband calls them). I was worried about that fucking 20 mile run, but not about time or pace or any goals other than just getting it done. I had some thoughts on the watts I’d shoot for on the bike, but if those came in low it didn’t matter because all that did matter was running the fucking run at whatever pace I could manage.
The funny thing too about this random day is that we’d picked a date (a Saturday) and a start time, which became very official and locked in for basically no reason. So despite the fact that the weather would definitely have been better on Sunday, the date was the date. And even though we woke up to 33 degrees and dense fog, the start time was the start time. And indoors wasn’t an option. If that’d been a training day there was no fucking way I’d have ridden outdoors.
So we put on all the clothing, and headed off on our bikes, and all my fears about being a frozen popsicle for hours melted away and the bike was totally fine. Honestly, I was never super worried about the bike. My bike training had been strong, and for whatever reason I wasn’t worried about riding 100 miles at my target watts. I was a little worried that I wasn’t worried, and that if my expectation was wrong it would throw me off, but mostly I wasn’t worried at all about the bike. And it turns out I was right - the first 43-mile loop flew by and I felt great the entire time. The second loop, which was right around 37 miles, was mentally more challenging but my legs didn’t complain at all. And the final 20 was as smooth as the first.
All I could think about those final 20 miles on the bike was that finishing the bike ride was actually when my day really started. That swapping out my bike for my running shoes was when I would find out what the next 20 miles would be like, and how far into the darkness I was going to have to go. The runs during my last two Ironman-distance races had been train wrecks, derailing fairly quickly, and I started my run not knowing what was going to happen.The first few miles were actually ok. But I also knew that the first few miles aren’t any prediction of what the rest of them might be like. In those first few miles, though, I’d trudged up a long false flat mile that I hate, and rounded a corner to another false flat that’s often my demise, and neither had broken me. Sure, I was already semi-counting down each mile to my walk break, but I was getting there. By the time I got to mile six I had found some rhythm - I wasn’t getting to my every-mile walk breaks without looking at my watch, but I was getting there. And my legs weren’t feeling awesome, but I had realized I was in that I-can-run-even-though-my-legs-feel-shitty mode and stopped thinking about the fact that my legs felt shitty and just kept running. Mile to mile I was getting there, and it felt good even when it felt shitty.
I was just focused on getting to mile 12. Mile 12 was the first aid station. Because even though this was a made-up event, I wanted/needed aid stations. Aid stations where you walk up to a range of food options and your body pulls you by some magical gravitational force toward exactly what you need to survive. So the week before the random day that I’d invented I had reached out to my local NYX Mob-sters to see if they could help out, and because they are awesome they came out in force. So when I rounded the corner and saw them all standing there and waiting and cheering I almost started crying. It was amazing. Also amazing were the PB&J and flat Coke that I downed. Fuck that was exactly what I needed.
She told me stories and I focused on making it to the 1/2-mile marker before my next walk break. It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t pretty, but I was getting it done and my Sherpa Squad escort was positive and encouraging and supportive and man do I totally understand why it’s illegal to have one at an actual race.
Aid station #4 - water and my final hit of flat Coke and ONLY 1.5 MILES TO GO. I started with just that 1/2-mile to the next walk break. I’d been counting down within the 1/2-miles for a while, and even those had gotten long, but I decided that I could run the final mile to the finish. I count down everything, it’s my one true go-to mental skill, and I know how to count down the final mile and get it done.
We rounded the corner towards where Garmin had said would be 20 miles, and there were two NYX Mob-sters holding a finish line for me. I was soooooo excited to see them but I had 0.15 miles to go before my Garmin hit 20 and fuck if I was going to stop short of that. So I made them run ahead on the trail to the new finish line and I ran through my very first and likely only finish line tape, which I will be keeping forever, thank you very much.
And then I ate a donut and potato chips, which actually go quite well together, because my NYX Mob-sters are awesome and had my favorite foods ready and waiting for me. I ate and smiled and marveled at the fact that I had this crazy stupid idea to do this crazy stupid brick and I ACTUALLY DID IT. And maybe expecting the darkness and walking into it eyes wide open helped it to not be as big and scary as it becomes when you don’t see it coming.