Running 100 Miles of Dirt!

When running you can be truly free – uninhibited – there is no need for an engine to rumble along as your feet just go and the rest of your body follows along. Truly, stomping out the rhythmic cadence of running is freeing and empowering. As a finisher of two marathons, I have seen whole cities step-by-step. Truly, the best city tour ever. My friend Stefanie has moved off the streets to run in the woods. She is a trail runner. Her recent accident and journey to recovery is inspiring. Here is her story:

Stefanie was training for the Bear 100 miler. Yes, 100 miles in the woods on the dirt! The Bear is a late September race through the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Utah, the Bear River Range of Idaho, and runners finish at Bear Lake. 

Unfortunately, in the midst of her training, Stefanie fell on the trail coming down from one of her favorite peaks. She never falls, yet, pain ripped through her arm and knee as she hit the ground. She knew she had to get down the mountain and get medical help. This resulted in a severe elbow dislocation and a torn up knee.

She could barely walk or bend her knee for two weeks and spent six weeks in a hard plastic splint so her elbow would stabilize. Stefanie remembers sitting around home and crying a lot. It was rough – especially in those first few weeks. This was a huge blow to her backpacking and ultra racing plans: It seemed that her dreams had slipped away.

Her Doctor and Physical Therapist knew she had a goal to achieve only nine weeks after that nasty fall. Fighting through PTSD, Stefanie worked really hard in arm therapy to get her range of motion back and made quick progress, but she still ended up in an arm straightening splint (the "torture splint") that she forced herself to wear up until just a few hours before the Bear 100. She missed out on so much training and because of that she nearly backed out of the race, but in the end “dug deep” and went for it. 

Stefanie says, “I knew my arm would hurt, that my asthma would flare up in the cold night air, and my under-trained leg would develop a bad shin splint. I needed to battle through that race.”

It was painful but Stefanie fought her way through the Pines, golden Aspens, and red Maples step-by-step to miles one, two, 10, 60, 78, 99 and finally to the Finish Line. As she looks back, seeing so clearly her unanticipated pain and struggle, she realized that it was about more about the journey to overcoming injury than finishing her first 100 mile race. It was about these four things: 

Deepening relationships, 

Learning to lean on community, 

Building inner strength, and 

Dreaming up new goals.

These lessons, gleaned from her fall, help her to push forward and anticipate the future. Now she knows she has enough grit and heart to face the challenges of the race ahead: wherever that takes! 

I bet we have that grit and heart in us, too (even if we have serious doubts). If Stefanie can pull it off in such daunting circumstances so can we. Let's keep dreaming, build inner strength, take risks, and love people and be loved deeply. Maybe we will fall on our faces but that doesn't mean that the prize isn't ours in the end.