My Ultra-running Summer or: How I learned to balance family, running and racing


by Chris Chigbrow


Groveling at Mercury’s feet: a dream, chaotic pre-waking thoughts. Before I wake I have that feeling of being pursued in a race: someone catching up to you as you approach the finish line. Not a nightmare but . . .


I wake and look at my phone 3:57am. Once again I wake before my alarm goes off. I slide off my bed and into a sitting position on the floor. The plantar fasciitis stretch my podiatrist instructed me to do doesn’t seem to help much but I do it anyway – it is part of the ritual now. A ritual gesture too, I lay my head on the bed, smell the warm soporific smells, listen to the breath and sleep-stirrings of my wife. There is the soreness in my feet as I stand. A few ginger steps as I adjust my balance and try and make my feet happy.


Running is like a religion: it has taken over a decade to get to my current level of devotion. I turn the coffee maker on and soon enjoy, once again, that sweet tasting rocket fuel; dare I say coffee is a sacrament. And then out the door for a morning 10.


***


The appeals of running are many. You may enjoy the fitness gains, the weight loss/management, or the increase in overall health. I love to eat so running helps justify whatever intake of pasta and beer I find myself craving although those cravings have been moderated through running. The social aspect too: all of a sudden an avowed introvert like myself having a social circle, going on group-runs now a thing. And there is the aesthetic, the things you see, trails and city scenes, odd moments like startling a coyote in the hills or the spontaneous creation of an Eadweard Muybridge motion picture produced by your running-shadow cast by auto headlights against fence slats.


I’ve described it as a compulsion, my desire to run, which is convenient shorthand for a web of needs and desires happening on conscious and subconscious levels. From a pure physical level there are the endorphins: Oh. Man. The endorphins. Speed is fun and so is that connection to your environment that running lets you attain. For millennia – via running – man has been able to approximate the whirling, mind bending landscape-in-motion which Modernist painters sought to capture after the introduction of trains. This is why cruising through a forest, every footstrike in tune with the terrain, trees whizzing by, is so viscerally satisfying. A heady combination, those sensations together with those stimulated parts of the brain.


But these feels are available at 5 or 10 miles a week, through being adequately, minimally conditioned to run. Why run 30, 40, 50 miles – or more – a week? The longer distances – in training, races, or projects – is where conflict with my loved ones was created. I’m 41 years old. I’m married. I have two kids. I’ve got a full time job and – gasp! – I have a few other interests besides running. Balance? Yes, a balance was required. And reaching that balance wasn’t easy. Wait. Let me rephrase that: reaching that balance is a constant task, something I’ve learned is perhaps even more difficult than getting those desired miles.


***


I was caught unawares when my wife confronted me about my running. But it only took a few seconds to completely understand. It was one of those things that simultaneously had to be brought up but which is so awkward a good time really never comes up. I was conciliatory – honestly conciliatory – our track records were littered with passive aggressive interludes, casual trespasses registered and abided until later coming to a head. I recognized the confrontation for how necessary and timely it was. I had finished a race a few days before and now was expressing my desire to run a local ultra, the Resort to Rock. The phrase “not spending time with the kids” was spoken and I understood and agreed. A metaphysical mirror was held up in front of me and I mustered enough humility to take a glimpse. I would learn that there are different kinds of being and that just because I was home with fam didn’t necessarily make that time quality time. I would have to look at running – which has become a key part of my identity – and make a change. 41 years old and still learning.


And of course I said I still wanted to run the ultra.


***


Full disclosure: during my ultra-running summer I ran only one ultra. Yes, just one, but also a trail marathon. But that previous spring I adequately pre-funked, running 3 ultras in three days, the last day covering some 40 miles.


Owyhee County – the southwest corner of Idaho – encompasses some of the most remote, inaccessible land in the US. It is the second largest chunk of wilderness that is not in a National Park. The utilitarian, wedge-shape of the county belies the rugged, varying terrain, high desert cut with canyons. The idea to run across this amazing yet forbidding land was conceived by friend/running partner Micah Lauer who is a science educator. He painstakingly devised a route that would see us cross the remote and rugged county from south to north, 116 miles all told. The start date was early May 2018.


Describing this plan to most people – to non-runners – garnered the usual comments one receives when you express the desire to a) run and b) to run distances longer than a 5k. “You’re going to do what?”, “Why?”, “You’re crazy”. However, with the Owyhee Crossing, I did hear the unusual addition of “Don’t die”, an awkward but validating indicator of worth coming from my boss.


There is something different and special about having your wife give you the “You’re crazy” line. Of course there are all the endearing, loving sentiments at play. These are the sentiments that make her giving you the “Don’t die” line all the more poignant. Training would take me away from my family for hours each week, dying in the high desert would take me away forever. Training for the Crossing therefore carried with it a weighted imperative. My wife knows that me doing such – crazy as they are – adventures are a bedrock of my sanity. So agreeing that I could attempt the crossing was also an implicit acceptance of the time needed to prepare.


***


My training proved adequate, the Crossing successful, a success in many ways. For one, Micah and I delved into those difficult mental states that adventure often necessitates. And we emerged emboldened and unscathed. We saw ranch ruins and rattlesnakes, a bobcat and a set of monster bull elk antlers. Through bushwhacking and following faint and growing-fainter jeep tracks – tracks being reclaimed by wilderness-designated sagebrush – we followed an historic path.


My wife was impressed, perhaps dutifully so. After the Crossing my weekly mileage dropped but after three weeks I was back, averaging 65 mi/week for a period spanning late May and into early June. I picked a race to run, the Dirty Dog Marathon, figuring that my fitness was high enough to have fun. But, truth be told, I didn’t want to just have fun . . . I wanted to be a top 10 finisher. I wanted to have my name show up on the best results section of UltraSignup. I didn’t want to just finish it, I wanted to crush it.


***


I mean, like I said, we all run for unique, personal reasons. I didn’t get into running to create conflict and by and large I would say running has invited positives into my life. But running does take time and the boundaries between amateur/semi-pro/expert/pro are all-too fluid. Like anything you get out of running what you put in. And also, like anything, you must engage/indulge in the activity in a manner that balances with your life.


Balance might come easy to some folks. It may come naturally or with only a modicum of conscious will. But for me balance has proven to be subconscious alchemy, the domain of dark rationality and the un-scientific. 50 miles a week seemed healthy: a challenge, sure, but still possible to assimilate into my life. You won’t be going pro with that mileage but, if you include a healthy dose of elevation gain in those miles, you will be able to compete in various longer race environments.


I finished 5th in the Dirty Dog, had fun and hobnobbed with some of the local running royalty. It was an awesome time and before I left the parking lot I was wondering what I was going to do next. I kept the 50 mile average up and eyed running once again the Foothills XC12k in early August. Summer was winding down and the need to run was still with me. It was after the 12k (PB and 10th overall) that the discussion with my wife was had. Two weeks after the 12k was the Resort to Rock 50k. In my sweaty, beer-soothed, post-race state after the 12k I decided to run the Resort to Rock. I knew I had the fitness to finish, but – in my heart of hearts – I knew I could do good. My only prior 50k was an over 6 hour affair. I would go on to snag 4th place overall in this one and, like at the Dirty Dog, have the winner hook my up with a beer. The little things. So cool.


But the discussion with my wife had happened. Moving forward, how much would I run? How much should I run? How could running fit harmoniously into my life?


***


In the two weeks between the 12k and the ultra I tapered – and reflected. Looking back at the summer I could see the struggle being played out. We kept up on hikes, camping trips and family outings. But I saw that I pushed the accommodations that my family granted me too far. I melded family and running, my wife and kids coming to the finish line of a couple of races. They had fun and I think it is important for the kids to experience that kind of positive environment. I feel like I was close to my family during the summer but quantity doesn’t equal quality. When my wife said that running was taking away time spent with the kids she was not only referring to actual time spent away but also to me being present while at home. I would cajole my fam into early bed times. I would be tired and inattentive in the evening. Planning on an early run the next morning I would fixate on the clock: my schedule had become the schedule for us all.


After the Resort to Rock 50k I settled down. Now I make the effort to be attentive when I help on 2nd grade homework problems. I don’t sweat it if we get to bed late, even if I have a run planned for the next morning. And if 50 miles is not going to happen any given week then that is fine. Family, running and life: a balance is possible, it just takes work.





Things go in cycles and perhaps next year will see me escalating my mileage and preparing for new projects and picking new race targets. Whatever project or race I move forward with I will be forearmed with what I’ve learned this summer. But this lesson learned was not spontaneous. It was a product of talking with my wife and soul searching on my own. Family life and running life, running life and family life. Like some master-control graphic equalizer for my reality, the balances are constantly being adjusted.