Embracing the Suck

59 DAYS TO WESTERN STATES

For the past few weeks, I have been hashing and rehashing a number of possible scenarios for the 4 races of the Slam. I've been going over nutrition options, hydration options, rest, recovery, pacers, crew - you name it, I've thought of it. I've been trying to figure out how I can make this process as "painless" as possible.

Yesterday, while on a semi-long recovery run while on a business trip in Rochester, the thought came to me out on the trail that I am trying to avoid the inevitable. I am trying to make this experience "pleasant". I am hoping it will be "fun". But the bottom line is that, no matter how much I want this to NOT suck, here is the inescapable, unavoidable fact:

This is going to suck.

Sure there will be moments of ecstasy but I expect them to be interspersed between quite a bit of agony. In the words of the Angry Jogger himself, at some point (and probably at several points) along the way, things are going to go "tits up". The question I have to be able to answer is, what am I going to do then? Am I going to fight the good fight? Keep plugging along? Or allow that voice in the back of my head to talk me into dropping out, hoping that by some miracle I get another crack at this thing?

I have run several ultras now, and at some point in nearly every single one of them, things have gone terribly awry. I have powered through and finished most of them, dropped out of a few, but in every case I have looked back on the race wondering what I could have done differently to avoid the pain and the struggle. I've made a few changes here and there that have helped, but the bottom line is that the struggle is going to happen. It always has and it always will. It's coming, regardless of the level of preparation and training I put into this. So now, realizing this, what do I do?

Embrace the suck.

That's really all there is to it. The chances that I will get through one race, let alone four of them, without a mental and/or physical crash are beyond minuscule. When the darkness comes, I have to be prepared to go through it. There's a lot I could say about the redemptive power of suffering here, but I will save that for another post. Suffice it to say I should be quite redeemed by the end of this thing. Can I find joy in the difficulty? Gratefulness in the midst of darkness? Hope that I can go on when despair and doubt creep into my psyche?

There is no doubt that the physical challenges of these races will be immense, but I am beginning to realize that the real battles will be in my mind and soul. Would that I can at maintain my peace and joy while those battles rage on.

"The purest suffering bears and carries in it's train the purest understanding." 

-St. John of the Cross