Why I Raced in 2020

Ever since my last ultra in mid-November, I’ve intended to write a year-end recap that reflects on the unusual mix of virtual and real races I was fortunate to experience in this infamous year of 2020, and why I’m heading to Arizona in January for a 100-miler.

But I couldn’t get motivated to write. My running seemed not totally irrelevant, and not entirely selfish, but occupying a smaller and more private part in my life. The specter of the pandemic held me back. The reality of some 2000 to 3000 people dying every day, the threat of our town being shut down again, my husband’s struggle to generate business to keep his employees on payroll—all of it put me in a somber mood.

Then my mother-in-law was hospitalized right before Christmas with COVID. It brought back all the fear from the realization you can die from this that we experienced last March when Morgan was hospitalized. But she got lucky and got better. My kids came home for the holidays. We got a puppy. All the while, I shoehorned a minimum level of training for a 100-miler into my life, in snowy winter conditions.

If I’m honest with myself, I also have felt reluctant to blog about participating in races because of the guilt-tripping and shaming that has been communicated through social media by many runners I respect and admire, who have been criticizing in-person racing during the pandemic. I had to second-guess and reconsider my choices. Did I put others at risk and increase the chances of COVID-19 spread in communities by taking part in these non-essential events?

I certainly would not want to do anything that makes the situation worse, so I repeatedly struggled with that question.

It’s a no-brainer that traditional big-city road races should be canceled until we’re past the pandemic. They feature thousands—sometimes tens of thousands—of runners crammed together at the start, spectators lining the streets, and crowds visiting race expos indoors. The question is, do those risks of gathering and traveling translate to smaller, lower-profile mountain/ultra/trail races that have new protocols to minimize contact between runners?

That question came to a head and provoked a tsunami of condemnation around the November 21 JFK 50-miler, when the Washington Post published this article, headlined, “As the coronavirus tears through rural Maryland, an ultramarathon plans to race on.” One of the oldest and biggest ultras around, the JFK50 was expected to draw up to 1200 runners (this year, 636 finished; I’m not sure how many started it). In the region where it’s held, COVID cases had spiked five times higher in just a month. Participants were coming from all over the country. The “small-wave starts” designed to spread runners out would number 250 runners, which isn’t small at all (though runners had to wear masks and were asked to keep 6 feet apart at the start).

The reaction in the ultrarunning community was swift and strong. Ethan Newberry aka The Ginger Runner tweeted, “I get that we LOVE racing, but how has it become so difficult to zoom out & take the bigger picture here? Just because we CAN do something doesn’t mean we should.” Devon Yanko posted in Instagram, “There are few people that love to race as much as I do, but now is not the time. We need to not just think about ourselves and instead think about how this effects others. You can pretend like traveling and racing in large mass participation events doesn’t effect other people, but it does….”

And here’s one more example, from writer/coach Mario Fraioli, who wrote on his Morning Shakeout newsletter, “I’ve seen a lot of justifications for these recent events going off as planned—and some that are upcoming—from them being held outside, to that they’re not violating local rules, to the myriad safety precautions put in place by race organizers, to personal responsibility accepted by participants, to people pointing toward a 97-99% COVID survival rate (as if that’s the only metric that matters), and more. There’s a reason we’re still deep in this mess and it has nothing to do with any one event in particular or treatments that aren’t yet readily available or anything like that. We’re here because too many people are thinking ‘me’ instead of ‘we’ and these recent events further exemplify that widespread attitude.”

In spite of being cognizant of those points of view, and respecting them, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. on the same morning as the JFK50, drove a few hours to Moab, and participated in the Dead Horse 50K. Then I drove home.

Racing the Dead Horse 50K in Moab on Nov. 21.

Two weeks earlier, I had done something similar—I drove all the way to central Arizona, spent the night in a hotel by myself, ran the 57-mile Whiskey Basin ultra, then drove home.

On January 15, I plan to drive to central Arizona again by myself, check into a hotel for the night, and then do my best to run and finish the January 16 Coldwater 100-miler, because it kills me it’s been two years since I finished a 100-miler.

So I have to confront whether I’m doing something wrong, and why I feel compelled to enter an ultra event rather than simply run solo.

Did I Increase the Spread?

After carefully considering the risks and the science, I honestly don’t believe my behavior contributed to COVID-19 transmission. (And I’m assuming for the sake of argument I don’t have antibodies, even though the likelihood that I have antibodies and won’t get COVID again is high since I had a mild case in March, but I haven’t been tested for them; however, both my husband and daughter tested positive for antibodies after our household had COVID in spring.)

Because of the new protocols in place (including rolling starts, masks at start/finish areas and aid stations, no post-race gathering or awards ceremonies), the trail races that I participated in had extremely low chances of transmission, as explained by science writer Tracy Beth Hoeg in the current issue of Ultrarunning. In her thoroughly researched article, she details how the highest risk of transmission during trail racing—which is still a very low risk, because it’s outside—occurs when people congregate within six feet of each other for more than a few minutes. I kept my distance from others. When I’d meet friends to chat, we did it at a distance through masks. When I volunteered masked and gloved at an aid station over summer, at Aravaipa’s Silverton Alpine Marathon, I saw firsthand how runners kept distance from one another, and all the aid station exchanges did not involve touching.

Me refilling a runner’s bottle—no touching—at the Silverton Alpine Marathon/50K.

I can recall one instance when I did the wrong thing: At an aid station in the middle of the Dead Horse Ultra in Moab, I encountered a person volunteering whom I like and was excited to see. I paused to talk to her from a distance. Then I suggested a selfie together, so I stood close to her with my buff up. “Take your mask off for the photo,” I said, so she pulled her mask down for about 20 seconds and smiled as we stood side by side, and I shot our picture—and then I ran off. Soon it hit me, That was pretty stupid and unnecessary, and would set a bad example if I shared that photo.

Tracy concludes, and I agree, that the activities around the race are much riskier than the actual running part of the race—travel, hotel stays, or dining indoors before or afterwards. It’s the socializing, not the running, that’s the problem. Personally, I was a germaphobe when I drove across state lines, stopped at gas stations and stayed in hotels to participate in races, minimizing contact all along the way. I didn’t socialize, except to share a hotel room and meal with one friend with whom I traveled to the Speedgoat 50K in late July, but I was confident she was COVID-free.

I asked the race directors at Aravaipa and Mad Moose Events if they are aware of any COVID outbreaks related to their events, among runners or volunteers, and both said no, no coronavirus spread had been linked to anyone traveling to or participating in their events. “I’ve been really pleased and thankful to those volunteers and runners who, even the night before a race, would contact me via text or email to let me know they were not going to attend because they thought they were symptomatic or because a family member or co-worker was exposed and they chose to quarantine,” said Jubilee Paige of Aravaipa.  “Overall I think our community has been really responsible to take care of each other as well as themselves.”

Why Race, Why Not Just Run?

I’m left grappling with the desire to race. Why do it and why does it matter under the circumstances?

First, I feel a sting and get defensive hearing the accusation that I’m putting “me before we,” because my desire to participate in these events is not entirely personal and selfish. I genuinely care about the people behind Aravaipa and Mad Moose Events—people like Jamil Coury and Denise Ricks—and all of their employees struggling to keep a business afloat when the number of events and participants have declined by more than half. I also care about and feel a kinship with the runners who desire a tangible goal of finishing a race and the support along the race route to motivate their training.

On a bigger but analogous scale, I care deeply about the ski resorts staying open—not so much so that I can ski and my snowboard-crazy son can snowboard, but so the whole town’s economy doesn’t tank and so more people don’t face food and housing insecurity. (This quote from an article about how resorts like Telluride are struggling to stay open as COVID cases snowball also shows the similarities with the risk of trail racing: “‘Skiing itself poses relatively little risk,’ said Kate Langwig, an epidemiologist at Virginia Tech. ‘You’re outside with a lot of airflow.’ … Gathering in the lodge or bar is by far the biggest COVID risk associated with skiing. ‘It’s this social aspect of skiing that’s too risky right now,’ she said.)

Setting aside the community and economy associated with the business of trail running, I admittedly feel a deep, personal desire to race in an organized event, not just run solo. Having a race on calendar to prepare for, and then to experience, provides a source of motivation, structure, normalcy, confidence and social connection that I’ve been lacking in other areas of life. Given my declining performance, I don’t much care about competing with others, but I want to compete with myself to do the best I can on that given day.

When I think back on the races I was fortunate to run in 2020 (which are listed chronologically in the Race Calendar sidebar on this blog, if you want to see the rundown), they rank among the happiest and most fulfilling days in an otherwise bleak year. It’s not just the pandemic and political turmoil affecting daily life and my outlook. I’m feeling adrift and lacking confidence because I’m not sure how to structure my days and where to put my energy, since I don’t have a real job outside of the house. During 2018 – ’19, I threw myself into the project of building this house and then settling into it; now settled, I wonder, now what?  My time is mainly divided between part-time coaching, sporadic freelancing, volunteering as a leader for a local nonprofit, and a whole lot of house and animal care. With no set schedule and few colleagues, I’m often questioning, “Is this what I should be doing now? What did I really get done today? Should I get a real job?”

Developing race-specific training plans for myself, and gaining the sense of accomplishment from completing those distances, provided a mental boost and a schedule that I appreciated more than ever. Given the travel bans, I also relished the occasional chance to run in a different geographic locale and make the journey of the ultra course in camaraderie with others. In each case, I was able to do something different, and accomplish more physically, than I would have on a typical training run.

My Big New Year’s Resolution: 100 for the 100th

Sometime in late summer, I began to feel driven to do a 100M sooner rather than waiting until next summer. I need to, to prove to myself I still can in spite of age and a sense that my body is starting to break down. It’s been two years since I finished one (the New Year’s Eve 24-hour in San Francisco, when I went 115 miles; before that, the last mountain 100 I finished was 2017 Run Rabbit Run). I DNF’ed the 2018 Ouray 100, got seriously injured right before the 2019 Bighorn 100, and had my goal 100 of 2020—the High Lonesome—cancelled. The ultrarunner I was when I trained for Western States in 2016 is a distant memory, replaced by someone who thinks a 20-mile training run feels overly challenging and who can barely keep her eyes open past 10 p.m.

If I’m going to do the 2021 High Lonesome 100 as intended, then I really want the practice and confidence of running through the night in a less demanding 100-miler before I line up for that big-mountain 100 in late July. So, I looked at Aravaipa’s event calendar and settled on the Coldwater Rumble 100 on January 16. I ran the Whiskey Basin 57-mile and Dead Horse 50K ultras in November largely as training runs for that 100.

To those who say I could’ve trained on my own without traveling to and participating in those November ultras in the midst of the pandemic’s third wave, I say, I really could not have done a comparable 57-mile training run solo, or the 50K two weeks later. For one thing, I live in a snowy high-altitude area where it’s challenging to find that many miles of runnable single-track trail terrain this time of year. Beyond that, I know I would not have run as far or as well if I had been on my own. Those two ultras brought out the best in me performance-wise. I always can do more than I think I can on race day.

Coldwater 100 will be the 100th “official” marathon or ultra I’ve run since the first in 1995 (I don’t count solo training runs 26 miles or longer in the total; here’s my list). 100 for 100. I’m excited to start the new year this way. I’m heading into it undertrained and wondering if I can go the distance without my achy back, tight hamstring or wonky right knee giving out, and wondering if I can keep moving through the night without a nap. That uncertainty makes it an adventure.

Mostly I’m grateful to have the health and opportunity to do this upcoming event. 2020 gave us a whole new level of appreciation for joining others at a start line, receiving support along the way, and traversing miles spaced apart yet together.

Happy new year, everyone, and thanks for reading this dusty, erratic blog that got its start a decade ago.  I hope I’ll have a 100-mile race report to share in three weeks!

The excitement of getting race-ready (I took this on the morning of the Whiskey Basin ultra).