The Virtual Race to Recovery

Originally published on A Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost

TW: This story addresses eating disorders and negative body image. If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered or restricted eating or is otherwise endangered by negative body image, use this resource page from the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) to seek help and support.    

This trail has always felt like home. 

I’ve spent countless hours on this dirt path in this small Colorado town. I know every inch of it and yet, there are always new memories to make. It offers both familiar safety and new adventures to be found. 

I’m 22 years old, completely lost in life, hoping to find solace in the comfort this trail has always given me. But today, as spring slowly makes its way into the crisp air and the last of the winter snow has melted, the trail feels like a giant mountain standing uninhibited before me, taunting me with a refusal to be conquered. I’m three hours into my first ultra-marathon, miles and miles accumulated on my body, and everything hurts.

2020 was a challenge I had no capability of handling. I had just completed my bachelor’s degree and was facing a dead job economy while struggling to figure out what my passion was. This nine-mile loop trail had always been a comfort to me, and that’s where I found myself on this particular day in April, running a virtual six-hour ultra-marathon after a meager four weeks of training. 

What have I gotten myself into?

STOMPING GROUNDS

I found myself drawn to the outdoors growing up, spending days on end running through the woods, collecting scars and stories. My sisters and I learned how to set up a tent before most of our friends had ever been camping. Most in my life would call me a tomboy, with my unbrushed hair and my burning need to beat any boy I could find in a foot race. 

Not much has changed. 

The long, winding trail cuts through my childhood neighborhood, providing a secret gateway to many hidden forests and secluded lakes. I spent countless hours exploring these grounds, becoming intimately familiar with every tree and creature, learning where to find each secluded hideout. Eventually, it felt like my feet knew where to run before my mind did.

Now, horseshoe prints are permanently etched in the ground, and the perfect climbing trees still frame the sunned path, even though the trail has widened over time. A peek through the trees reveals massive reservoirs and hidden lakes where we spent long, hot summer days swimming lazily, laying out in the cool nights to count whatever stars the light pollution from Denver couldn’t erase. My love for capturing and remembering these adventures eventually turned into a passion for photography and filmmaking.

RESTRICTED

Although I can never quite identify the moment or trigger, I developed a severe eating disorder when I was about seven years old. Being an overly active kid, I thought movement and restriction went hand in hand. I ran to eat. I played soccer in high school, so it mattered how fast and agile I was. I equated such speed and agility with thinness.

One day, I planted my left foot hard in the wrong direction, spun to kick a ball solidly into the goal, and felt tendons and cartilage tear. That was the end of my competitive soccer career. I spent hours in and out of physical therapy every week just to be able to walk properly, but without the proper nutrition, my body wouldn’t heal. My mind was constantly occupied with food, calories, and the awareness of every inch of space I was taking up in the world. 

I can’t remember any moment in high school that wasn’t impacted in some way by my obsession with thinness and constant dissociation from a body I couldn’t accept.

I watched as my eating disorder was romanticized by the media and encouraged by those around me. Restriction took various forms: hiding under the guise of “clean eating” for the sake of performance, or going on a liquid diet for prom. But somehow, this restriction was always seen as a sign of incredible mental strength. Sure, I fit into my prom dress. But I also wore my date’s coat because I couldn’t create enough body heat to stop shaking. Dancing felt impossible with my tired legs. Extreme exhaustion, coldness, and the array of less-than-glamorous effects of organ failure had completely consumed my life.

CRAVING THE OUTDOORS 

After I graduated, I attended college in the city, which created an intense cabin-fever I tried to cure through weekend trips and long hikes after class. But I always itched for more. I craved the incredible high after an intense run, after conquering a looming peak in the distance, complete and total physical exhaustion overtaken by immense emotional satisfaction.

My roommate and I would hurry after class to Green Mountain in Lakewood, Colorado, and spend hours under the beating sun, soaking in the rolling hills and making friends with the deer. I packed up every weekend to find new trails, even camping in freezing winters in Rocky Mountain National Park just to see Emerald Lake before the rest of the world stirred awake. My eating disorder encouraged isolation, so I summited Mount Bierstadt alone with my two dogs because I simply had to be outside – even if that meant scraping my legs as I scrambled up boulder fields and ran uneasily down loose gravel.  

My teenaged passion developed into a career aspiration as I began searching for ways to make a living in the outdoor photography industry. One day, I stumbled across a short film about the Western States 100-mile race. I was immediately thrown into a weird, gross, epic race where runners choke down peanut butter sandwiches, handfuls of salty chips, and electrolytes while trekking along a centuries-old path in California blazed by gold miners. 

I loved extremes, especially in the outdoors, and I was obsessed with the intensity these grueling races demanded. But I was recovering from an intense knee surgery, which involved realigning my knee cap by breaking my tibia, cutting my IT band, and repairing a meniscus tear. I was still heavily restricting my calories and my body struggled to heal, so I wrote off ever entering the wild world of ultra-marathons.

I would never be strong enough or brave enough.

ON THE TRAIL AGAIN

After finishing up four long, hard years at college, I returned home to a worldwide shutdown. Completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology demanded more mental energy than I had, and I refused to admit that I still fought the eating disorder I had grown up with. “I’m still eating and I look fine,” I responded to every concerned family member and friend. But the stress of trying to discover my passion in a world that had completely shut down triggered a brutal relapse. Without the choice to escape to the mountains and find my path in life, I felt completely lost. 

I had to do something. Most opportunities for running in public were inhibited by COVID. But running near home was still allowed. My knees had been through years of soccer and my cardiovascular fitness left a lot to be desired, but I headed back to the trail behind my mom’s house and started running again.

Little by little, I found my place again on this beloved trail in the wooded mountains, where my outdoors addiction first started. 

The trail isn’t difficult. It’s pretty wide and flat, but it turns into a nice rolling single-track in places. I love it. I ran without music, listening to the gentle tap-tap of my feet and the wind rustling the green trees. I took these moments of solitude to reflect. The outdoors were my home. Growing up in the backcountry had shaped who I was. It cemented my perseverance, fearlessness, and courage. I realized quickly that I hadn’t just missed the adventures I found outside, but the character they brought out in me.

AN ULTRA UNDERTAKING 

Human Potential Running Series advertised a virtual ultra-marathon to provide runners with a goal during the Covid shutdown. Although it was only March, it was clear that races were postponed indefinitely. With the tighter and tighter restrictions on public gatherings, many race directors opted for virtual races where runners could sign up to race on the same day from anywhere around the globe. Participants still received medals and bibs, but races lacked the community support and wackiness of shared pain an in-person race provides.

In a moment of pure, unadulterated courage, I signed up to race 6 hours.

My longest run up until this point had been seven miles. And that felt hard. But I wanted to try it, see what I was capable of. I trained hard for those three weeks, pushing myself harder and harder. I was jobless, so I would wake up early, run a couple easy miles on my home trail. In the afternoons, I would either hit the trail again for a faster run or do old physical therapy exercises to help stabilize my still-aching knee. 

The week before my race, I ran 10 miles over two runs and immediately knew this race was going to be harder than I thought.  Although I was blown away by how quickly I had adapted, I hit a wall. My mind was forcing my body to perform beyond what it could handle, and I was eating less and less. But I was on a wild high and couldn’t be stopped.

RACE DAY REVELATIONS 

The day of the race came on a chilly April morning. I carefully pulled on my running gear, did my warm-up, drank a cup of coffee, and hit the same trail that had started it all.

Cruising at a comfortable pace, I felt invincible for the first 18 miles. As I headed back out for another 9-mile loop, I noticed my body growing more and more fatigued. My hip flexors were so tight, I could barely extend my legs, but at that point it didn’t matter because my hamstrings were trashed and I couldn’t bend my knees. Later I would learn that because of my knee injury, my left hamstring was overcompensating. With the new stress of endurance running, it would seize up, completely overworked, and cause me to lose all ability to extend my legs. 

What the hell had I gotten myself into?

If I stopped moving, I couldn’t start running again, so I just kept on trudging through the pain. Each step felt like a battle I had won. Tears began streaming down my cold cheeks as I processed what had gotten me here. Then I started processing where else I could go. 

I already had the courage I needed to pursue my dreams of being a professional photographer. That courage is what got me laced up and out the door day after day to face pain head on. The bravery I thought I had yet to discover, I already possessed. I was so much stronger than the 30 miles I would cover that day. 

I struggled with confidence my entire life. I always worried that I would fail. The voice in my head that said I was failing at being thin had tricked me into believing I would fail at anything else I tried, too. But I could carry that reckless courage that signed me up for this ultra marathon into every aspect of my life. I could chase after a career in photography. I could step into a battle against my eating disorder. I already trusted my body enough to carry me through this crazy number of miles. This was the first time I had ever seen my body in a positive light, seeing it for what it could do rather than what it looked like. 

There was nothing to gain through another minute of starvation or self-hatred.

READY TO RECOVER 

The six hours ended four miles from my front door. My watch buzzed against my dirt-caked wrist and I glanced down, not wanting to stop running. With an exhausted smile, I plodded my way home. There was no crowd to cheer me on, no volunteers ready to uplift my spirits at aid stations, just a few friendly faces to say hello to on the trail and my family with arms ready to catch me as I dropped into the dirt, Eye of the Tiger blasting on a portable speaker in solidarity.

Finding ultra-running helped me find what was already inside of me. Courage, bravery, resiliency, empathy for myself. I sought professional help for my eating disorder and began a long process of healing. Opening up to my counselor about the internal battle I was waging was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Because I couldn’t be trusted to care for my own body, my independence was challenged when someone else told me how to eat. 

But even with setbacks and challenges, that race taught me that my body is strong and capable. I wake up every morning and know that by healing my relationship with food, I’m also creating a stronger version of myself that can continue to find solace in long hours in the wilderness. Days come when I struggle to find empathy for myself. But I am reminded of how brave I was to trust my body to carry me over 30 miles of trail. Today, that bravery looks like nourishing my body when it needs fuel – fuel to rebuild, fuel to race through the mountains, or fuel to just breathe. 

30 painful miles taught me to keep fighting through what can sometimes feel like an endless stream of negativity. Someday, the time will come when I can set my feet up and say, “I overcame.”