Why 100 miler and why now?

How does one decide to run 100 miles?

These are excellent questions as I find myself, somehow, inexplicably, registered for my first 100 miler.

How did this happen?

It happened as I was thinking about something I could do this year that would challenge me in a real and significant, let’s say ‘meaningful’ way.  It was a spur of the moment thing in a way but it was also the natural progression of a career of experience.

I had been looking at what I had accomplished over the last decade or so – taking stock.  I was quite pleased with the review, truth be told.  After all these years I am starting to feel like a real athlete and not just a pretender.

I have run over 60 marathons of one sort or another since turning 34 20 years ago.  I have weathered some significant challenges.  I will be running my 20^th Boston this year and I am back in qualification.  I’ve been consistent in my approach, effort and attitude and I think I’m a better person for it.

I’ve learned a lot of things.  I’ve learned about my machine and the limits of human endurance. I’ve learned bout my edges and how my self-awareness ticks.  Somewhere along the way this journey moved from being goal-based to adventure-based to discovery-based.

Along the way I have done a smattering of triathlons, mountain bike ultras and obstacle races.  All challenging in their own way.  All successful in teaching me something.  All meaningful.  I like the process of incrementally reshuffling the deck and playing that new hand.

I have gone longer.  Ironically my first 50 miler was the topic of the first season of the RunRunLive podcast some 10 years ago.  I have run 13 marathons in 13 months.  I have run them on the coldest days in the darkest of times and lived to tell about it.  I have run long relay races as part of ultra-teams.  It’s all part of pushing the envelope, not so much that it tears but enough to find the plasticity of it.

I’ve had many adventures.  I feel like an old sea captain telling tales of mermaids and dragons from the rocking chair on the front porch with the salt of the sea tinging the air.  Did I ever tell you about the time…?

This 100-mile epiphany occurred to me in two ways.  I never desired to run a hundred.  I actively eschewed the idea.  But, the convergence of forces in the universe outsmarted me.  When something manifests more than once it is the universe talking to you and you should listen.

Those who were paying attention during my latest debrief with my coach may have heard the first.  I asked him if he thought I could run a 100 miler.  He immediately, no hesitation, said “You could run a hundred-miler easy.”  And I laughed.  I deep, fun laugh.  The thing is, subconsciously I had just been given permission, maybe even endorsement and that morsel, that kernel of an off-hand remark was lodged in the permafrost of my subconscious.

The second manifestation was when I was doing some meditation. I was riding the subway to work in the morning.  The meditation was to put yourself at the end of your life and think about all the things you had wished you’d done.  Somehow, while under that hypnotic spell that kernel of thought about the 100-miler dislodged itself and my subconscious said “This, this!”

The universe talks.  I listen.

Why had I resisted the 100-mile distance?  I knew I could do it physically.  At least I knew I could make a show of it.  That part didn’t scare me.  Although, I still remember how shattered I was physically and mentally after running the Vermont 50.  I was walking around like a car-crash victim for a couple days.

The logistics of it seemed a bit of a hassle.  Having to run through the night?  That didn’t scare me but didn’t appeal to me either.  I like my sleep.  Having to provision and crew the effort seemed a bit of overhead as well.  My engineer brain added up the accounting and totaled it up to ‘a lot of work for a lot of suffering’.

I’m in a different place now.  I think the right place for this effort.

I think I have the mental maturity to train and run the 100-miler now. I think I have the physical maturity as well as the capacity to train and run it now.  I know how deep I’ll have to go mentally and I’m not sure I have the mental strength to do it.  That interests me.  We will be plumbing new depths of that mental well that we endurance athletes draw from.

There is no guarantee I can do this.  I don’t like hard things.  I’d like everything to be easy.  That’s ironically why I train so hard and so consistently – to make the racing easy.  There is always that point in a marathon where it could go either way.  That point where I’ll either dig down and get it done or say F-it and give up.

That’s the test. It takes some mental strength to even show up for the test.  Once you’re in it you just execute the day that is given to you.  I can do that.  I’m ready for that.  I’m ready to train and to show up and to take the test.

I want you on this journey with me.  Because like all journeys it will contain some interesting points.  Some forks in the road.  Some undiscovered country.  Some lessons learned.  This is the stuff of life.

Bring it on.

Let’s go!

Indestructible.