From 0 to 100k - Part 1: The Why
When non-runners hear that I spend much of my leisure time running for hours and hours on end, the responses typically fall into one of two general categories: "That's really amazing!", or "Why in the world would you do that?"
In this post, I'm going to examine that question in two different ways. The first angle pertains to the internal factors that provide my drive and motivation towards running in general. As I move through that idea, the focus will eventually shift to the specifics that contributed to me choosing this particular challenge.
The answer to the question, "Why do I run?", is one I have spent a lot of time thinking about, and even after many hours of contemplation, I'm still not 100% sure of the answer.
At the most basic level, I can certainly give some obvious answers. It keeps me in shape and boosts my energy levels, which in turn makes me feel better about myself. It forces me to get outside and enjoy the fresh air, something that I'm not always good at doing without having something to push me.
Those answers, and other similar ones, are likely fairly common as a starting point when any runner is asked this question. As the conversation moves deeper, the responses likely get more varied and personal, even if they do continue to share certain similarities.
I actually wrote a blog post attempting to answer this question a few years back and re-reading it this morning, I realize that what I wrote then still holds true:
https://engineeredtorun.blogspot.com/2018/01/why-do-i-run.html
I think that post still stands as a solid description of why I run in the most general sense, but it doesn't get to the more direct question of why I'd do something like run 100 kilometres in a single attempt. Thankfully, the answer turns out to be a pretty simple one: I wanted to see if I could.
Obviously, that simple answer does not tell the whole story. There are definitely aspects of the journey that attract me to a challenge like this. I am a person who benefits from structure, so setting a goal and following a training plan is appealing to me. And since I know I'll give up if I consider the challenge too easy, I've got to make sure that it's sufficiently hard to hold my attention.
But at the end of the day, it really boils down to pushing my limits. In running, you can always push yourself to go farther or faster than you have before, and there is something about that simple premise that draws me in.
That covers the gist of my psyche and motivation when it comes to running, and also provides an appropriate pivot point to discuss why I chose this particular challenge.
To go farther or to go faster? Those are the two basic options when you want to push yourself in running. And while they can certainly be combined in chasing new goals, you typically have to offer some sacrifice in one area to chase after the other.
In 2019, I spent 6 solid months of training to get faster. I ran my 7th Tely 10 in July and set a personal best (PB) by over 3 minutes. I travelled to Chicago in October to run my 3rd marathon and set a PB by over 23 minutes. And then a week later I ran my 7th Cape to Cabot and set a PB by (a relatively small) 41 seconds. It had been an extremely successful year, and Chicago had the added benefit of being my 1st step towards hopefully receiving the 6-Star medal for running the 6 World Major Marathons.
At that point, the smart thing most likely would have been to take a short break, and then continue to work on the gains I had made to get even faster in 2020. However, a seed that had been born in my brain in the spring of 2016 had started to grow in early 2019, and the urging of a close friend and the announcement of a new race took me in a totally different direction.
That seed started innocently enough when I heard of a Mount Pearl native now living in BC, Gary Robbins, who was running something called The Barkley Marathons. As I read about this crazy race, I became fascinated by it, and soon discovered there was a documentary on Netflix (alas, it no longer resides there). I still remember watching it with my partner at the time, and while her response was, "Why would anyone put themselves through this?", mine was, "I'd love to see how far I could make it!". At the time, back in 2016, it didn't amount to much more than that. I was a road runner, not at all an outdoorsman, and this race was only for the most extreme runners in the world.
Over the next couple of years, I continued to follow Gary's exploits each year at Barkley, including his famous (infamous?) near finish in 2017. I also got to know some of his fellow runners, names such as John Kelly, Jared Campbell, and Jamil Coury, and read some blog posts of theirs. Still, my interest remained focused on Barkley, an event I could never even dream of attempting.
Then, in early 2019, I somehow stumbled down a YouTube rabbit-hole of trail running. I started watching videos made by Jamil Coury, Billy Yang, and Ethan Newberry, and I began to realize that, just like road running, there were lots of "normal" people who competed in the sport of trail running and even attempted races with distances ranging up to (and over) 100 miles. I quickly became enamoured with the idea, and a new entry was added to the list of goals inside my head.
Coincidentally, one of my best friends, Ginny Hobbs, began trail running in earnest around this same time. She worked hard to get me out on the trails throughout the spring and summer of 2019, but a combination of my intense stubbornness and fear of injuring myself and derailing my training for Chicago kept me away. But as the summer moved on, and more and more trail races sprung up around Newfoundland, the idea of me giving trail running an honest effort became more and more of an inevitability.
I don't remember the exact date that Steep Ultra was announced, but my memory puts it somewhere around the time I ran Chicago, on Thanksgiving weekend. It was the first 100k trail race in Newfoundland, and with my biggest driving force being the idea of pushing as far as I could, that made it instantly attractive. When I found out that Ginny and her trail running friends were all going, the pull got even stronger.
There was still a part of me that felt I should keep my focus on the 6-Star marathons (ah, pre-pandemic times!), and so I held off on registering. But as the end of October neared, and I had passed through a couple of weeks with no new goal on the calendar, I started to feel a bit of emptiness. As I mentioned earlier, having a goal and a training plan really helps keeps me focused. And since a big part of the 6-Star medal is playing a waiting game with lotteries, I was left in a little bit of purgatory.
In early November, the NYC Marathon announced that they were opening up just 50 spots to early registrants, in honour of their 50th-anniversary race. I decided that my days of waiting for a new goal race were done, and constructed a "choice" that pretty much guaranteed I'd be heading to the trails in 2020: either I get one of the 50 spots in NYC (out of what was sure to be 10,000+ applicants), or I register for the Steep 100k.
It goes without saying at this point, but I didn't get into NYC, which in hindsight was a blessing in disguise. As soon as I received the email confirming my loss, I opened the Ultra Sign-up website and set my course for the next year!
So, that is the story of how someone who had previously stepped foot on the East Coast Trail exactly once in my life and had never completed a trail run, decided to sign-up to run a 100k trail race. In the next chapter, I'll delve into how one goes about training to get from 0 to 100k!
Thanks to anyone who is taking the time to read along, and until next time, take care.
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