*shrug*

“What are you up to for the weekend?” a coworker asks on a Friday afternoon. Whatever the fuck I want, I reaffirm to myself in my head, though I translate that thought into a more socially acceptable response in the realm of “Who knows!”. It’s true, these days, I don’t usually know, and I am growing to embrace, maybe even enjoy the unknown.

I am adjusting to a new mindset of being just me, and all of the opportunities, freedom, challenges, alternating feelings of peace and anxiety, and ultimately the many choices at my disposal. I am 30, financially stable and independent, no partner, no children, no obligations except for a desk I commit to show up to 40ish hours a week and a burning desire to move my body outside as much as my legs and brain will allow me. I have become less invested in what I “have to” or should do with the hours that are mine to spend, but I realize I’m having trouble stepping back, thinking bigger and really dreaming up what I want. I’ve cut myself loose, and I am floating. It’s okay to float.

I’m signed up for a few races, but I’m starting to wonder how much I care, how much I’m invested in committing to run a route that someone else dreamed up on a date that may or may not even be convenient for me, or for mother nature. I do love racing, I love having a goal to chase, a commitment to throw down and push yourself physically and mentally. I thrive in the competitive environment that provokes you to engage a new gear that maybe you didn’t realize was there, had you been solo. I love living mid-race war stories (especially those shared with friends) and earning the right to recount them over beers for years to come, post-race celebrations and the trips to get there and back. I do not love following a structured training plan, forgoing precious summer weekends to taper and recover properly, or stressing out over the work trip that always seems to appear right before race day. I’m starting to ask myself: is this really what excites me the most right now? I don’t think I’m burnt out, but I think my values are changing.

My desire to run and move has never been more intense, as is my obsession to push myself and come away with some sort of quantifiable evidence that I have attained some level of growth. My mind buzzes when I drift off to sleep every night, thrashing between the many different possibilities with which I could fill my weekends this summer, and beyond. I have never experienced a shortage of ideas or ambitions, but I have proven to myself over and over again that my follow through and actual execution is, quite frankly, shit. I don’t really have any excuses anymore.

Recently, I’ve had to be a little more honest with myself about who I’ve become, what I really want to be doing, how I want to be living. What started four years ago as a slight expansion to my compulsion to sign up for road races has blown up into a total overhaul of the limits I perceive for myself and an almost all-encompassing passion for how I want to spend all of my free time, my life, I suppose. The lifestyle I want for myself is very different than the one I had envisioned only a few years ago. In many ways I feel as though I’ve grown into a driven, strong, powerful young woman. In other ways I feel like I care a lot less about the things I should care about “at this age”. Maybe I have Benjamin-buttoned in maturity? I am, at least, far less certain or ready than I thought I was to adult.

I actually had the thought cross my mind recently, that I wish I didn’t have this love, passion, addiction (whatever you want to call it) to push myself mentally and physically in such extreme ways. It takes up so much of my time, I think it makes me a more selfish person and I feel like it has changed what I need in a partner, if I choose to have a partner. Then I realized how fucking stupid that sounded, the part where I had just essentially wished that I were a different person for the sole purpose of things being easier, or less complicated. Wish rescinded. Right now, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve channeled this need to push myself through running; whether its long and flat or, as of late, steep and high. I don’t know that running is the love of my life, surely I’ll get tired of it at some point. Maybe I’ll want to cycle really far or through-hike for weeks on end. After all, my ability to run is not guaranteed forever, but the sense of curiosity and need to challenge and grow in a physical way almost certainly is. I’m learning that I can’t help but be drawn to other people that feel the same way.

In November of 2015 I found myself solo and with 10 days off work that I needed to fill. I was rather new to trail running and decided to try and visit as many of the places pictured in the various issues of Trail Runner Magazine I had been sifting through. I found two races book-ending the period I was traveling – the first a road marathon (with 900m of vert, mind you) in Fruita, Colorado, the second the Antelope Island 50km just outside Salt Lake City, Utah. I arranged to fly down to Denver and back home from Salt Lake City, connecting the two with a rather ridiculous and, in hindsight, inefficient driving itinerary. As soon as I got in the rental car and veered towards the mountains: I realized how scared shitless I was. I was not accustomed to this sort of blank slate adventure where I needed to figure out where I was going and what I actually wanted to do with myself every day, by myself.

The fear subsided pretty quickly  (though not before I drove through the worst blizzard I have EVER driven in during the first night, passing through Loveland Pass at 11,990 ft), to the realization that I could do whatever I wanted. I ran as much or as little as I wanted (I covered 140km and 3000m vert in 9 days which was actually ridiculous, given the fact that I was a trail running n00b at the time). I visited places that still tug at my heart; the Colorado National Monument in Fruita, the Flatirons in Boulder, and Zion, Bryce Canyon and Arches National Parks. I ate only what/when I wanted or needed and I slept a fuck tonne. I was presented with opportunities to test myself, most notably when I locked the keys to my rental car in the trunk, causing me to arrive late in the evening to Antelope Island state park, where I was met with a closed gate barring any after hours access to the island and my campsite. Another trying moment, was sleeping in the back seat of my rental car in a random National Forest somewhere in Utah, emerging to pee and setting the car alarm off in the dead of night sending my heart rate through the roof.  I could write a whole  post about that trip. I returned feeling so grateful that I had taken the time to go on a solo mission “while I still had the chance” and promptly returned to every day life. I’ve thought back to that trip so many times, dreaming of recreating that feeling again, but resolving myself to the fact that maybe I never would. I know if I repeated that trip now, it would feel almost introductory, like child’s play. I’ve come a long way. I’ll have to come up with something more hardcore now.

A year later, I traveled to Iceland with three others. We planned to drive around the country in 10 days; another ambitious driving schedule but one that still allowed for daily adventures. I battled tension and some anxiety in my chest all week as each of our travel styles emerged and conflicted in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. We spent a lot of time driving, getting out to take pictures of waterfalls and other scenic locations, and onto the next. I became quickly disinterested with the waterfalls but couldn’t stop peeking up at the peaks and trails within view of the car, feeling like a small child that could not go into the candy shop, only window shopping allowed. We did incorporate the odd hike but it was just not enough for me and I felt disconnected from the environment around me, like I was there, but not really there. We drove up some amazing jeep roads and saw some of the most awe-inspiring landscapes I’ve seen to-date, but I continuously found myself wishing to be earning these same views with only my own two legs. I needed my scenic viewpoints accompanied with a side order of adrenaline.

During that trip, I would sneak out for runs on whatever trails I could access early in the morning so as to minimize any disruption to the group’s schedule; as compromise is a huge piece of the puzzle when you commit to traveling with others. Once day towards the end, my friends/boyfriend were kind enough to drop me off at one end of a 17km “trail” along the west coast of the Snaefellsnes peninsula and pick me up at the other end. Running a trail I didn’t know, in a foreign place, close to the edge of a cliff and through epic ankle-breaking lava field terrain scared me and satiated me in a way I had been craving the whole vacation. I know I annoyed the others with my subtle and hyperactive suggestions to hike a little further, or my bored demeanor whenever we stopped for extended periods, the other three eagerly snapping amazing photos on their fancy cameras, and me taking the odd snap with my shitty phone camera. It was an amazing trip with friends and everyone travels and values experiences in different ways, but I felt guilty that I was wishing it had been so different, that it felt like a dialed back version of how I would do Iceland. Maybe that’s the first time I wished that it had been enough, or realized that I would need to be willing to compromise. I guess I’ve changed my mind about the willing to compromise part.

I’ve realized I felt this pressure, though I’m not sure where it actually came from, to get this ridiculous mountain and ultra running out of my system before growing up and returning/starting “real life”, whatever that is. I think I’ve decided I’m not particularly interested in the getting-it-out-of-my-system part. Whatever “it” is, I want it to stay in my system. I feel like I’ve only just settled into my groove, and I want to take my time to see where it takes me and what I can accomplish. I don’t want to spend my vacation time on a beach or experiencing places from the seat of a car. It fucking bores me, there, I said it. If I didn’t drink the coffee, run/bike/climb up, through or around something, and sample the beer after – did I even go there? To me, it doesn’t feel like it.

And so, I guess it’s time to start thinking outside the box again. Dreaming up some goals with a wider set of parameters. That goes for tonight, this weekend, as long as I decide, really. The risk is that I get so set in my ways, so used to being alone that I can never go back, but would that really be the worst thing? The reward is that I do some really cool shit I never imagined to be possible. Seems worth it to me. Right now, I have no idea what that is, I think it will take some time to get the creative juices flowing and to fully grasp in which direction I want to float. Maybe I’ll stumble across someone that has the same disease, erm, passion. Perhaps I won’t. Maybe I will suck at this and simply continue running up and down Tunnel, Sulphur and Lady Mac for the eleventy-bajillionth time, TBC.

I can’t tell if this is the most honest or ambiguous thing I’ve ever written, maybe its both.