It was Saturday morning, about 10a. I’d been watching for Whitney the last 20 minutes or so, expecting to see her come bounding down the trail at any moment. I was at aid station #4 – mile 19, the first time I’d see her in the race. As her crew, my job was to tend to her needs as quickly as possible (food, drink, salt caps, medication, clothing, etc) and get her back on her way. It’s easy to burn a lot of time in aid stations in a ultra if you aren’t careful, and Whitney has hers down to a science. She had an aggressive time goal and the training to back it up. We both expected a good day.
I finally spotted Whitney and walked up to meet her. I knew she was off her pace sheet by 15 minutes or so, but with 80+ miles remaining in the race, I wasn’t at all concerned. She had plenty of time to make up a slow start and still get her PR. I asked her how it was going and she responded by saying she needed to lie down and that her asthma was really bad. We talked a bit and at her request I grabbed the nurse who happened to be working the aid station. Whitney was able to discuss her symptoms and he checked her out as best he could. She felt better after lying down for a bit, talking with her husband on the phone and using her inhaler. The rainy weather of the preceding few days seemed to stir up a lot of mold, with the fall harvest likely not helping at all. I could tell she was discouraged and frustrated, but with the nurse’s assurances that she was ok, I didn’t want her to quit without giving her body a chance to come out of the hole it was in, as weird things can happen in long races. The Hennepin Hundred has frequent aid stations by ultra running standards, so I knew she wouldn’t be on her own for long, and I was to see her again at mile 32 (aid station #7).
By the time she came into #7, it was raining and she’d lost more time on her goal. She quickly sat down again and wasn’t feeling any better. I was hesitant to push her too much, as my own asthma was giving me fits so I knew there was more to what she was experiencing than just an isolated incident (a fact I didn’t share with her until she was done), but I wanted her to be more confident in dropping. I wasn’t going to talk her into continuing, but I wasn’t going to talk her out of dropping either. After conversation with some very persistent aid station volunteers she went back out one more time. I would see her at the next aid station (providing an easy out if needed), so there wasn’t much to lose by going out one more time.
Coming into aid station #8, nothing had changed. She was still miserable, it was still raining (meaning no magical mold solutions), and 60+ miles remained in the race. By now our friends Lisa and Joe had joined us, as Lisa planned to pace Whitney a bit later in the race, and some of her running friends from Chicago were working the aid station. Whitney still wasn’t 100% certain she wanted to drop (she shared that she’d only be 100% sure if someone had to drag her off the course), but she seemed a lot less interested in continuing. With multiple 100-mile finishes and several wins under her belt, she had nothing to prove. She would risk real damage to her body to continue, only to “just finish” a race she had originally hoped to win.
We runners tend to idolize those who persevere at all costs…the runners who crawl across finish lines, who complete their races battered and bruised. I personally find more to admire in the runners who’ve learned when to go to the well and when to back off. Those who can say today isn’t my day and live to fight again. Whitney digging really deep, deep enough to know for certain that her day wasn’t going to turn around, and only to then decide to walk away, struck me as courageous and brave.
One of the things I love most about running is all of the little life lessons tucked into the training and racing. Ultra running especially has so many parallels to real life, the microcosm of our experience at Hennepin included. My own health situation might be entirely different right now if I had valued quitting in my own life much sooner. If I had more quickly quit the stressful job that started all of this in 2014, not taken the even more stressful job in 2015 (a case of my being stubborn and not wanting to “pause” my career), and just held still in 2016. Quitting is a dirty word in our society. We don’t value those who can look at a situation (or a race) and say “this isn’t for me” and walk away. Why not? Why don’t we value the ability to take care of ourselves, mentally and physically, even when that care involves quitting? I greatly admire my friend’s running accomplishments and what she’s been able to achieve the last few years. But I have even more respect for what I witnessed on Saturday.
As we continue to have conversations about mental health in this country, I hope the collective we start to make space for saying “no”, for walking away from the things that don’t serve us, whether that’s the job, the relationship, the city, the race, etc. I hope we can recognize that realizing what isn’t working is just as powerful as knowing what does. Sometimes the answer is to lean in and fight hard, but sometimes it’s to walk away. For my friend, the answer on Saturday was to walk. May we someday learn that when we honor our bodies and our hearts, it is impossible to let down our “crew” – the people who support us in life. Rather it is in those moments that we honor them the most.
When quitting is done correctly, it isn’t giving up – it’s making room for something better. ~Adam Kirk Smith
