Miscommunication
“Do you want to run the Ragnar race with us?” my girlfriend at the time asked me. She was organizing a group of some of our former Peace Corps friends to get together and run a relay race called a “Ragnar.” She’d recently run one herself with some of her coworkers catching a bit of a running bug I’d presumed. I was likely smoking a hookah, laying on the couch at the time she’d asked, because I remember thinking something to the effect of, “Bitch please!” I know for certain that I never said “Yes.” From what I could recall, I’d run 1 mile in my life and that had been in the 8th grade. I also remember going to the office after running that mile, because of how sick I felt afterwards. I didn’t say any of those things out loud to her, I likely said nothing at all. I wanted to get the crew together and figured they’d go do their running thing and I’d lounge around the campsite, smoking, drinking beer, hanging out with them during their downtime and all would be well. I thought that sounded awesome. This is not however, the message that my partner received. To my horror, she later announced, she’d signed us all up for the race. I was a part of the “all” of the “us” and that wasn’t a good feeling. I mentioned that I’d never said yes to this endeavor, to which she accurately told me, “I’d never said no.” So that was that… The team must’ve been in dire straights if they needed me, but need me they did. All of us were going to run 3 segments in the race, 15.6 miles each in total, through parts of Zion, UT. in early May 2018. It was early 2017 and I was just shy of 200lbs, had never run more than one mile, was in the worst shape of my life and considered “Overweight” on the BMI scale and just a couple points shy from being considered “Obese.” Suddenly, my plans for, “just chilling at the campsite, drinking beer” had been replaced with me having to participate in this hellish sounding race.
The race was in May 2018 and I started training in autumn 2017. I started by “running” a 1.5 mile trail in a park down the street that could be paved or unpaved to add some variety. Fortunately, the sport aligned with my minimalist desires, requiring little to no equipment and my “commute” was a 2 block run to the park with no monthly or annual fees. Unfortunately, as a 29 year old who was overweight, a heavy smoker and drinker, running was not a fun or easy sport to break into. To be fair, no sport was going to be easy given my condition, so I cut myself a break and tried to celebrate the fact that I was trying in the first place. I don’t know how long it took me to run my first mile straight through, but I know it took a while. I’d run short bursts and then walk when I couldn’t run any further. I seldom ran for more than a minute or two when I first started. My sides hurt, lungs burned, legs burned, my entire body was in revolt. I felt so bad I decided I needed to smoke less, my lungs likely trashed from a decade plus of smoking cigarettes, weed, hookah and cigars. I’d loved smoking and had met most of my best friends through sharing stories over tobacco. Cigarettes allowed me an easy out from conversations I might not want to continue, gave me a quieter place to converse with a crowd that was usually a bit calmer and gave me a nice little nicotine buzz. Either way, I could tell that if I were serious about making progress in running, it was going to be at the expense of some of my tobacco usage. Ironically, the way I felt when I’d be running and gasping for air, reminded me a bit of the burn and feeling I’d get from cigarettes sometimes. I still wonder if I might have been able to appreciate and grow within the sport a bit quicker due to the fact that I was used to lighting my lungs on fire, it was a pain I respected, somewhat enjoyed and was familiar with.
I’d nicknamed the 1.5 mile run, “The Salmon Run” because it ran along the water with a slight incline finishing at a small bridge crossing the creek connecting a paved road to a dirt trail. I still struggled with this run and by no means did it quickly, but it didn’t take too long at 1.5 miles even at an abysmal pace. My girlfriend at the time also liked to cook and we often ate salmon, which doesn’t take long to cook, so I’d go for a run while she was cooking and be home in time for hot salmon. Hence the name, The Salmon Run. I liked this route, but it was busy at the start and sometimes throughout the entire run. It’s a popular park at all times of the year, with lots of people, dogs, children, cyclists, hikers, photo shoots, tourists and I felt self conscious as I passed them. I felt like a poster boy of what running did not look like, barely running, wheezing, walking, drinking too much water, feeling it slosh around in my stomach. The physical and mental combat felt overwhelming. A friend who’d been overweight when he was younger once told me a story about how he’d seen an overweight kid starting to run on his street, but only at night. I missed the significance of that detail “Only at night” until he pointed out that nobody, or at least less people, would see him at night. He could run by himself and not feel like he were being made fun of, judged, or picked on, even if it was all in his head. Neither my friend, nor myself, know if this were truly why this kid was running at night, maybe the kid had boundless confidence and a schedule that only allowed him time to run in the evenings, but that thought process had resonated with my friend, could’ve been true for this kid and certainly rang true for me now.
After moving to a larger apartment 2 blocks closer to the park, the Salmon Run was now on the same block as me, but if I were going to run 15 miles in this race I’d need to up the miles. I didn’t want to keep circling around the creek among all the people, dogs, and others, so I figured it was time for a new route to be established. I’d been tinkering with the idea for a while and was pretty sure I knew how I wanted to go about it. It began at the end of my block, heading away from the park initially, ascending a historical landmark called the Fourth Avenue Staircase. I’d start by “running” the stairs, then heading up past another park that overlooked the State Capital and lower areas I’d been running in my previous route. Beyond this I continued up an aggressive incline through the Avenues District in Salt Lake City. Once at the summit the path travelled down a two lane road looping to the Capital, one lane reserved for traffic and the other designated for pedestrians only.
Once arriving at the pedestrian road the run switched to downhill or flat stretches. The majority of this new route was downhill, but at a gradual descent and one where add ons could be weaved in here and there if desiring a longer run. The elevation gain in total for this particular loop was only around 300 feet, but a brutal 300 feet that hit immediately upon departure. This route was hard, but it was less busy than the previous route, had a better variety of scenery, vistas of mountains and of the city and birds could often be seen soaring through the air currents where the canyon opened up into the valley. I knew I’d chosen a hard route, but wanted it to be that way so that when I inevitably had to quit running and walk, I’d cut myself a break knowing that I wasn’t throwing in the towel and that I’d taken on a real monster in the first place. The one way road section looked similar to that of a giant upside down “U” and for this reason I called this run “The Horseshoe.” I figured I could use the luck and being from Kentucky I should give a shout out to my people and equestrian comrades.
The Horseshoe became the primary route, with variations and tweaks added on as it got easier. I still remember the first time I ran the entire route without stopping, it was a little over 3 miles with an additional semi circle around the Capital. Adding the Capital gave a House of Cards vibe, passing by two lion statues one that read “Honor” and the other “Patience.” The Capital sits on top of a steep hill at the end of a road called State Street. This street cuts straight through the heart of Salt Lake and from the top you can see down it for miles. Descending State Street is like a grand finale, lined with Victorian style houses and elaborately crafted windows, stained glass decorations, perched on ledges at different angles with lengthy stairwells at their base that weave and split off in different directions leading up to beautiful front entrances. The descending sidewalk is consistently steep, uneven, with roots that sprawl underneath the giant trees that line the road. The roots had pushed up, rearranged, cracked and shattered the concrete slabs, denying any attempt at an orderly, neat sidewalk, it could not be passively pursued in either direction. It required foresight as to where each foot would be placed at the next move, monitoring intersections and various forms of traffic: auto, cycling, scooters, people, etc. All of this paired with an aggressive speed you’re forced into reluctantly or joyfully from a fierce grade, an exhilarating finish.
I kept running my new route as the year progressed, eventually weaving in the Horseshoe with the Salmon Run and other trails that all linked together at the base of City Creek Canyon. May finally arrived and I’d lost around 20lbs, getting down to around 180lbs, still technically considered “Overweight” according the BMI, but now instead of being a few points shy of being considered obese, I was a few points from being considered “Normal weight” a drastic improvement from where I’d begun just a few months before. The weekly running, change in diet, cutting back on booze and cigarettes had gotten me into decent shape and I was excited to see what would happen when we got to the race.
Ragnar 2018-Zion, UT. Elevation base 6,500’
Our team name was “M29’s” this had been our abbreviated group name in the Peace Corps which stood for Moldova, 29th group of volunteers. One of our people bailed last minute, but we had a backup runner available who ironically wound up running not only the first leg of the race, but also took either the best or second best times out of all of us. Some members arrived late after working and driving nonstop, getting little to no sleep. I don’t know how they managed to run under those conditions. We ran the race and it was a lot of fun and we were all pretty slow, my team placed 315th out of 356 teams. I came to find that I could’ve walked the whole thing as some of my teammates had done and I definitely had on some of the more intense hills of the routes. I averaged 12-14 minute miles, not impressive or groundbreaking by any means, but I was proud of myself and ran the 3rd or 4th best times in our group. My final route ran directly in front of our campsite and I stopped during my run to chug beer from a 2 liter plastic bottle, just like our times together in the Peace Corps minus the running. That was the last time all of us were together as a group, but you never know these things when they’re happening, only in retrospect.
The race had ended, but I’d grown to enjoy running and decided that I was going to continue on with the sport. I’ve only run the one race, but ran thousands of miles since then. I didn’t start tracking my miles until September 2019 and didn’t run with music or audio of any sort until roundabout that time as well. There have been times when I knew that because of how difficult something were going to be, I wanted to remain somewhat ignorant of some aspects of things to come. How many miles had I really been running in my typical training? How quickly? What was the elevation gain or loss? Would knowing all of these things have helped or hurt me had I known them sooner? Maybe, but I think I might have seen them as signs of a lack of progress, rather than simply being in the moment and noticing what I already did about the experiences themselves. I think that had I had more data, I’d likely gotten lost or discouraged by obscure information that wasn’t going to help me, so I’m glad that I did things the way that I did. I didn’t need to run faster than yesterday or the day before, I just needed to show up yesterday and the day before and I knew I’d get better. How I got running and what has kept me running are somewhat separate entities, although they’re certainly linked. We’re going on 7 years later now and I’m still running and continuously grateful I never technically said “No” to the race.