Ultrarunning

Ultrarunning:

largely, and at this point in my life, I feel that I’m retired from ultrarunning, a sport I’ve loved and trained for passionately for well over a decade. It’s time has past for me, although I never rule out the possibility of its pursuit again, but for now, the fire needed to train for distance, the desire to race with and against others, just isn’t there. I’m okay with it, my life has always been in cycles of interest, each pursued with an intense, singular passion. My love of fitness, roaming through nature, and even distance, remains the same, and this is why I don’t discount the possibility that I’ll tow the starting line once more — yet it’s not a thought I really entertain right now, the idea isn’t foremost in my mind at all. Really, it simply feels that a chapter has closed, for many reasons, some I’m not sure I will ever understand — it seems I’m moving on to something other.

for me, my love for ultrarunning was born from sorrow, the loss my mother through stages of Alzheimer’s and then a sudden, unexpected death, my marriage ending as a lingering wound, such a constant point of suffering with no sure avenue of escape, and so much more too, it was the literal dark night of both mind and soul. And distance running saved me, first the long hours spent on the trails, simply being deep in the woods of my own pain and joined by the welcoming presence of trees and streams…