As any runner knows, it’s hard to get back to racing after a long layoff, especially if the time away was due to illness or injury. Even as you rebuild fitness, it can be hard to know when is the right time to jump back in and put a bib on it. Do you wait until you’ve regained some speed? Or do you use racing as a tool in the rebuild? Racing has never been the focus for me, for as  for as much as I enjoy running a good marathon, the process of training for one – or training for any distance for that matter – provides far more joy and satisfaction than could be provided by any one race. But I still like racing and chasing PRs, and knew that would be a goal if I could get my health back on the right track.

Sometime in the end of February, I started noticing some changes in my health..positive ones for once. My energy was up, brain sharper, desire to run increased. I’ve had blips like this numerous times over the past three years, so didn’t think much of it at first. But as March turned to April and the upswing continued, it was hard to deny that a change was taking place. I cautiously increased my training and paid close attention to how my body responded.

Last summer, some of my Wilder sisters planned a reunion in Seattle to coincide with Oiselle’s Tenacious Ten. I decided early on to go on the trip, but didn’t decide until late 2017 to register for the race. I still felt like shit, but was optimistic that things would improve by April (optimistic for no other reason than at some point it had to start getting better). The race had two distances, a 10k and 10-mile, and out of habit I registered for the longer race. When I was sick for three weeks in January, I wondered if I’d even make it to the start line. I’d done nothing but lose fitness since 2015 and I began to wonder if this was the new normal. Maybe it’d been unreasonable to think things would get better. It occurred to me that I might need to find a new hobby.

But then the miraculous turnaround began and I went through April feeling healthy and more fit than I have in a few years. The last race I ran on my own was in 2016. I raced once in 2017, in a relay with friends in September but we DNFd due to injury. I haven’t raced healthy since 2014. Even though I still have a long way to go, I thought that the Tenacious Ten might be a good first race back. I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to wait until I achieved some magical level of fitness to race, as I don’t have any idea how much speed I’ll be able to get back. I feared spending oodles of time trying to reach some unattainable level fitness, while missing opportunities to run with friends and to enjoy the process of training for a race. I thought that the longer I waited, the harder it was going to be to get to get back in the game. So I committed to myself to race in Seattle. I would be in the company of supportive, compassionate humans and was mostly just looking forward to catching up with them. It seemed like the ideal environment.

Travel to Seattle was uneventful by my standards. I have horrible luck traveling, but the drive to Chicago and flight to Seattle were easy-peasy. I met up with Elizabeth at the airport in Seattle, and we shared a cab to the Airbnb. We caught up while waiting for the other women to arrive, and quickly enough the house was full of chatter. Sarah made us a lovely dinner while we picked up our packets, and we stayed up late talking. I’d slept well all week, so wasn’t too concerned about a short night’s sleep. Especially since my only goals for Saturday’s race were to pace myself well and to get an idea of my fitness.

I’m usually not very nervous before races, but I found myself a bit anxious when I woke up on Saturday. With the two-hour time difference, I was up before 5a without my alarm. Even though I’ve run hundreds of races, this was the longest I’d gone without toeing a start line since I began running as a kid. On occasion, I still have to talk myself out of being embarrassed or ashamed of how much fitness I’ve lost, which was rattling around as I got ready that morning. I knew I’d be confronting that head on in the race, as no matter how well I ran, I’m still a long way from my old paces. But the race would be one more step in sorting through those thoughts and I was eager to continue wrestling them to the ground. I’ve worked hard to reframe my perspective and to have pride in coming back from such a big setback.

I was grateful for the company that morning, as the girls were a wonderful distraction as we got ready to go. A few were chasing PRs, and two others not racing. The atmosphere at the start was casual and cheery. The sun was shining and the park looked so green after the endless Midwestern winter. Most of the runners were female, which created a notable change in the energy at the start. (More of this please!) Much of the nervousness was gone by the time I checked my gear and I was just really looking forward to seeing what I could do. A few visits to the restroom and it was time to line up (the time away did not cure my nervous bladder, unfortunately). I bumped into Elizabeth on my way to the start. We lined up together even though I knew she’d get ahead of me pretty quickly. I was very focused on not getting out too fast, something I’m very aware of even when I’m fit and healthy.

With that we were off. I settled in pretty quickly and was happy to be running in the upper 9s. I kept an eye on the Garmin to ensure I wasn’t getting out too fast, but was running mostly by feel. The first five miles went by quickly. I chatted with some of the other runners, took in the sights. Mile six came and somewhere around 6.5, I started to feel lightheaded and nauseous. At that point, I was still running quite conservatively, so I had no idea what was going on. I ate breakfast before the race, and while I wasn’t taking any gels, I typically run 10+ miles without calorie replacement with no trouble. I took two cups of Nuun at the next water stop and hoped the electrolytes would turn things around.

Rather than improving, it quickly got worse. The dizziness and nausea was overwhelming by 7.5, and I became obsessed with the idea of laying down in the middle of the bike path. I just wanted it to be over. I was devastated that my first race back was turning into a disaster and frustrated that I felt so terrible. I forced myself to stay present, to stay in my body. I focused on moving forward, one step at a time. I stopped telling myself stories and concentrated on getting to the finish line. No matter what it took, I was going to finish. My first race back was not going to be a DNF. Even if I had to crawl the last two miles. I walked when I needed to and ran as much as I could. By 8.5 I started to feel a bit better and by 9 no longer needed walk breaks. I managed to get myself to the finish line. I saw Amy out for her cool down and Lauren as I came into the finish. As bad as my race had been, I was very eager to hear how it went for my friends.

And just like that it was over. Time (by my watch) – 1:41:17, average pace 10:08. Not at all what I hoped for, which had nothing to do with the time on my watch. I didn’t feel strong, I didn’t feel like I’d made progress over the last few months. Fortunately, my friends were there to keep me from thinking too much and we could celebrate Lauren and Amy’s PRs and Elizabeth’s good race. I drank more Nuun, drank more water. I tried to eat a donut, but couldn’t stomach it until we were on our way home. My mind was running, trying to sort out what had gone wrong. I never ran hard enough to feel fatigue in my legs, and I was pretty certain that the issues had nothing to do with running. After we got back to the house, I started to feel worse again, and was having flashbacks to my first marathon, when I was hyponatremic post-race. It wasn’t nearly as bad this go-around and at least I knew how to fix it. Regular soda and potato chips to the rescue! I felt better as the afternoon went on and kept coming back to what might have caused the issues during the race.

My best guess is dehydration and fatigue related to travel on Friday. I had a good run Sunday morning, the day after the race, further confirming that Saturday was a one-off. Thankfully, I have two months of workouts that demonstrate the progress I’ve made, and I don’t need one race to verify that. I think the danger that comes with the health issues I’ve experienced is that a run-of-the-mill bad day becomes an “oh-my-god-it-is-happening-again” mental loop. It will be a while before I can trust the recovery and that I’m not sliding back into the hole I was in before. I think that’s just part of the process. It’s reasonable that I would carry baggage from the last few years, the trick will be to give myself a bit of grace when I feel my mind starting to spin. Being able to talk through it with my girlfriends helped considerably, as did looking back through Strava where I could see the undeniable progress I’ve made.

I’ve already signed up for my next race, a 12k this Saturday here at home. Without travel on Friday, I’m hopeful that if nothing else I’ll at least feel good during this one. My goals are the same – to pace myself well and get a sense of my fitness. Not having been able to race in quite a while, I’m out of practice leaning into the discomfort that is typical late in the race. If all goes well, I’ll get to practice that a bit too.

All-in-all, I’m really happy I raced last weekend, even though the result wasn’t what I hoped. Spending the weekend with my Wilder sisters refilled my cup and inspired me to plugging away. Seeing Lauren, Amy and Elizabeth run so well, witnessing Casey and Sarah navigate their own challenges with grace and compassion, catching up with Jules, Ali and Lauren F., and simply spending time in the company of strong, supportive women was like taking a deep breath of the freshest mountain air. I’ll trade all of that for one sketchy race any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Comebacks are hard. They’re gritty, messy, imperfect and full of fits-and-starts. My experience is that the longer the layoff, the messier the return. I’ve been unable to train and race with any regularly since 2014, making for three years of decline. Between time off for a broken foot late last year, and very inconsistent training this spring because of health issues, I’m climbing out of the biggest hole in which I’ve ever been. After seriously thinking I might be done competing, both because my body was waving the white flag and my head was tired of fighting, I realized at WILDER in late May that I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. Being in that sacred space with other women who were so passionate about the sport made me realize how much I still wanted this, with the full understanding it might look much different than before. After getting my health into a slightly better place, I started training again in July with no definitive goal in mind. I just wanted to regain some fitness and go from there.

As one would expect, most runs flat out sucked. July in the midwest means serious heat and humidity, weather I don’t tolerate well in the best of circumstances. Couple that with a complete lack of fitness and it’s a recipe for copious amounts of suckage. In an effort reacclimate myself to effort and pacing, I stuck with progression runs for quality. Most of them were terrible. Pacing was all over the place and I’d regularly run out of gas a few miles before meeting my goal for a run. I knew this was just part of the process and worked hard to not beat myself up or get too frustrated.  But it wasn’t fun. Not in the least.

As mid-August rolled around, I started to get into a groove. Paces were still terribly slow, but progression runs were becoming actual progressions and I usually completed the full distance as intended. On one particular run, I was a bit more aggressive in the middle, pushing myself more than I had in previous runs making the last two miles rather uncomfortable. The narrative in my head those last few miles was total crap. I was thinking of how miserable I felt and how it didn’t used to be this hard. After the run, I spent some time thinking about “before”…when I was healthy, training and racing at my best. And I had to laugh at myself. It’s always been hard. In fact, it’s been much, much harder.

We runners talk about increasing our aerobic capacity, lactate threshold, capillary density, etc. Things we can measure, and for which there is scientific evidence to guide our training. The deficit I uncovered in myself was a disconnect with effort. I forgot how it felt to suffer. What it felt like to sit in the hurt-box, the pain-cave. I thought back to my PR marathon (3:31 in Oct. 2012), a race that was well-executed with a negative split. I distinctly remember talking to myself for the last four miles. Continuously. Forcing myself to keep my foot on the gas, to keep pushing, when every cell in my being wanted to back off. I had a hamstring that threatened to go, especially the last two miles. I was just willing my body to hang on, which thankfully it did. The last 30 minutes of that race was total agony, as racing often is when done right. The confidence to stay on the gas in a race is cultivated in training, through workouts that force an athlete to work through discomfort, and that help find and explore the edges. Exploring these edges used to be my favorite part of training/racing. I enjoyed a hard effort and standing a bit too close to the fire.

Over the past few years of running, which included very little racing, I became completely disconnected with effort and the hurt-box. I developed a rose-colored glasses for the past, easily forgetting the miles and miles of training and discomfort that accompanied the highlights I replay in my mind. Now that I’ve cracked the lid and peered inside, I see a whole new aspect of training that needs attention. Not only do I need to rebuild my physical self, I need to get comfortable being uncomfortable again.

Not surprisingly, after realizing that I needed to regain an ability to lean into discomfort, the past two weeks have marked a step forward in rebuilding fitness. Last Friday I ran my longest run of the year, with last week being the highest weekly mileage (so far). Times are dropping slowly, and I’m less likely to back off when a run gets uncomfortable. Things still suck much of the time, but I’m ok with that. I feel as though I have a better perspective on the work that needs to be done, and the effort it will take to get back in the neighborhood of my previous level of fitness (if that’s even possible). I hope that by not having a firm end-goal in mind, I can stay present and not look too far down the road. It’s been such a joy to put in some miles again, to work hard, to make myself tired. Running can break your heart, crush your soul, but for me it’s always been like breathing. And for the first time in several years, I can take a deep breath again.

“it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.” ~ Mary Oliver