I Run
My thoughts on the question every runner asks themselves
Western States 100 Mile Run 2024
10 miles into the 20 miles I had agreed to run as pacer for my friend Caleb at the Western States 100 last week (aka the most prestigious American ultramarathon), Caleb told me he had only one thing looping in his mind for the last 90 miles. It wasn’t how much further he had to go. It wasn’t Eminem’s Cinderella Man (that would come later). It was the phrase “I run” repeating over and over. Not “I like running” or “I hate running,” simply “I run.” I was confused, what does “I run” even mean? Are you trying to say you identify as a runner? That this is all you are in this moment and nothing else matters, eliminating any self doubt in the process? Is it really not that deep and I’m actually an overthinking idiot? It seemed perhaps not the best time to ask for clarification in the midst of competing for a top 5 spot in the countries biggest ultramarathon, so I let it go. But it got me thinking a bit, asking the question that I think most if not all runners eventually ask themselves: Why do I run?
I Run Because I’m Fast
This answer has evolved a lot for me over the 12 years I’ve been running. At first, I ran because I didn’t make my high school basketball team and cross country was the only sport that didn’t require any actual talent.
After realizing I was a little bit good at this whole running thing, I started to identify why I ran with being fast. Plus I liked people thinking I was good at something, a true crutch for my ego. Anytime I would do poorly on a test, I’d always tell myself “Well, at least I’m good at running” (I’d also do this vice versa, by the way, so I’d never lose). I was ranked as a top ten county freshman cross country runner and distinctly remember laying out my all future running goals on a Notepad late one night. Maybe the small, white, 120lbs Jewish kid who didn’t make it past the first basketball cut was going to make it in athletics after all?
As high school running continued, I further entrenched myself in the “I run because I’m fast” camp. My high school friends, all in the fast click as well, and I took it more and more seriously as we transitioned to upperclassmen. ‘We were going to win counties, regionals, then states and all go under 16 minutes in the 5k!’ was essentially the mantra during my senior year. Never in my life (and probably never since) have I been so focused on a goal as I was that summer. It’s truly incredible the drive a teenage boy can possess when all his friends are working towards the same goal. We followed our self made training plan to a T, even in the hot and sticky Maryland summer, never missing a long run or a workout. I read every article about the competition from the local running website “Mocorunning,” memorized the times my competitors had run at all the races and refused to eat a lick of ice cream or fried food “because every bite is a second off my 5k time.” I seriously believed that. At cross country camp that year, where all the runners from across the county show up to prove how fit they are before the season starts, we were going to make a statement. We went on every long run, collectively ran the furthest of anyone, stuck together the whole time, and never DARED showed we were tired. This was serious stuff for a bunch of 17 year olds.
Cross country came and went. We didn’t achieve our goals and personally, I fell apart. Probably a combination of overtraining and being mentally burnt out from a long summer; I felt like I had let my team and friends down. For the first time in my life, I had to grapple with the fact that maybe I wasn’t all that great at running? And if I wasn’t great, then what does “I run because I’m fast” even mean to me anymore? While I bounced back for a good outdoor track season, I hadn’t met any of the goals I had so confidently prescribed during my freshman year and I wasn’t recruited to run at any colleges. Now what? A core piece of my self identity, a fast, serious, competitive runner, was falling apart.
I Run Because…Well I Want to Be Fast Again
When confronted with serious questions about one’s own identity, one should probably sit down and confront those tough questions. What feels right deep down? Why am I in the spot I’m in? Well, I didn’t do any of that when I joined the club running team at the University of Maryland (UMD) and was confronted with a group of people in a very similar situation: fast but not quite fast enough. At first, my mindset was “If you run well enough to prove yourself to the UMD coach, you’ll get on the team and everyone will think you’re fast again.” My ego wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I trained hard that year and realized I wasn’t the only one who thought this way. Many of my teammates had been similarly confronted and had the same goal to rise to the top. Oddly enough, there were also a lot of people that just did club running for fun, to get fit or to meet people. In all honesty, I regarded those people as not worth my time. If you didn’t take running seriously and want to be “fast,” why should I associate myself with you? What sort of inspiration is that? Everyone I was around still took training seriously because they had “real” goals and that was the “right” was to do it.
Fortunately, for my closed minded 18 year old self, club running forces you to engage with more people on the team than high school did. From sharing long drives out to remote meets or hanging out after practice or during the long down times at meets. As I realized my dream of making the team was vanishing, I started to realize that maybe I could just do this thing to hang out with my friends and competition wasn’t really all that important?
I finished my mediocre college career not having improved very much from since high school and, with the prospect of moving to Utah hanging over me, was questioning if I even should continue running at all? I had been doing this for 8 years now, continually frustrated with my poor performances and sick of running being so serious. I was going through the motions of training day after day, still getting nervous for races and even my back was hurting at this point! Maybe there were other activities out there I had been neglecting that could take runnings place? To put it simply, I was tired of it.
I Run to Explore
When I moved from Maryland to Utah, I didn’t know anyone. The girl I was dating at the time was in graduate school across the country and other than FaceTiming her every night, I didn’t really meet other people for the first 6 months. But what I lacked in conversation, I made up in exploration. I could not get over the sudden access I had to beautiful trails that existed right outside my apartment in Salt Lake City and running on them felt like I was rediscovering running all over again. Fitness suddenly felt like a means to (somewhat) effortlessly transport myself around these beautiful trails after sitting inside a windowless office all day, freeing myself to mindlessly follow their flow wherever they would take me. Until now, all fitness had meant to me was the ability to run faster. But now it had taken up a whole new meaning and my legs would translate fitness into views.
Enter trail racing: a distant, estranged cousin to cross country racing where you might not see anyone else for hours, have to eat while running and for some odd reason receive encouragement from your fellow racers. This all felt new and exciting, bringing back to life my natural competitive spirit. I even slowly began to meet other likeminded people in the local running community as I leaned into the whole trail racing niche: still focusing on fitness, but in the context of exploration. I doubled down when, along with my friends, I signed up for the Canyons 100km race in April 2022. My relationship with running seemed to finally be rounding into form.
A Turning Point
Up until now, I had maintained a relatively healthy balance between serious training and adventuring. I had started a Youtube Channel dedicated to filming my explorations but I was also consciously building my running volume and doing workouts to make sure I was ready. In my mind, the only way I could possibly be happy with a race is to say I put all my effort into preparation. To this point, I had had some good results and was considered a promising trail racer, putting me back in a similar position I had been during cross country my freshman year. The friends I had made were also serious about running fast in the trail ultramarathon scene, often talking about sponsorships, and I felt like I needed to run fast if I want to be included. In some ways, I could feel a hint of pressure mounting, something I thought I had left in Maryland just a few years ago. Memories of letting down my high school teammates began to resurface from 6 years prior. Doubt crept into my mind and fear of the impending pain of running 62 miles put to shame the nerves I had once felt before running a 5k. I thought I had gotten rid of this feeling, but here it was again in a different state with different friends. I really hoped this time would be different.
The first 30 miles went by in an instant and I was actually having fun. We were singing songs, chatting with the other runners, and slurping down aid station Gu’s. I was inside the top 10 at a major ultramarathon with perhaps the most competitive field ever assembled…maybe this time was different? As the Michigan Bluff aid station at mile 40 came into view, I knew something wasn’t quite right and the wheels on my race began to fall off. Not only did I begin gagging on my food and walking the downhills, but I realized that apparently burping is a huge part of ultra-running…and I could not burp (long story about an abnormality in my throat). Those last 20 miles were both grueling and fateful as it would turn out. When I finished in 32nd after 11 brutal hours, I was scarred. It wasn’t one of those inspirational “he did everything in his power to finish against all odds” sort of story. It was a pity party, woe is me, this sucks beyond all kind of suck kind of day. The type of day that I could not find any silver lining in. In my mind, I had blown whatever chance I had of being a “fast” ultrarunner and was now just another one of the hoards who did ultrarunning as “their little crazy hobby.” My competitive spirit had been crushed and thrown into the gaping hole of self doubt.
Forming a New Spirit
After Canyons, I knew something was different and I had some real soul searching to do. I knew I had to confront the question I had been avoiding for a long time: if I didn’t race, would I still run? All my life I had had a goal race to work towards. Without one would I lose my motivation to get out every evening after 9 brutal hours at work or sacrifice precious hours on the weekend or trudge through the snow in the winter? To be honest, I was scared. Scared to find out that something that had seemingly been a foundation in my life was actually just held up by a single pillar. For so long I had linked my self worth to my race results, be it good or bad. But if I got rid of that, I was afraid of drifting into the world of indifference, which arguably is worse.
As it turned out, my fatalism was quite a bit overblown (as it often is). I did not quit running altogether like I feared. But I did mostly quit organized training in favor of a more “do whatever feels right” sort of attitude. Want to go out and scramble some rocks instead of run? Go ahead. Want to ski and not run after? Sure. Don’t want to run more than 2 hours. Sounds good. This sort of relationship with running, non structured and free flowing, felt like a much better match to the spirit of mountain travel that I was attracted to in the first place. While my miles may have gone down, my time in the mountains actually went up as suddenly my body could handle much longer days with the benefit of less running pounding. Not being constrained to trails anymore meant I could explore more of the area that was off limits before because it wasn’t “runnable.” My friends were still my friends, even as they continued to pursue sponsorships and race results. But instead of seeing them at least partially as competition, I could now fully appreciate their accomplishments because I felt separated from that world.
A cost of all this happened to be my competitive spirit. Where once I could be counted on to push to the top of a hill or at the end of a hard effort, I now just got there when I did. It’s a weird feeling sometimes, having the ghost of my competitive spirit occasionally lingering over me, when I’d think “the old me would have never accepted getting beat.” But now I can push that aside and remember that the reason I love running is not because I love being first, but because I love being outside in nature with my friends.
Back to Western States
As I crossed the line with Caleb at mile 100 that day, I could finally say that truly all of me was happy for my friend and happy that I was able to be a small part of his experience. No more thoughts of envy that had haunted me for so many years, just gratefulness.
As I drove back to Salt Lake City the next day, between the Radiohead albums and Hardcore History podcasts, that two word mantra came back in my mind: I Run. Here’s what those words mean to me.
Running is a part of my life in almost the same way that eating or sleeping is too. It’s more than a routine that I’ve become accustomed to, it’s closer akin to a basic life necessity. When I’m asked why I do these things, why do I run for 15 hours a week or bushwhack through overgrown trails, I usually don’t give a great answer because it’s almost like asking someone why they drink water; the question doesn’t really make sense. When I don’t run, something feels off within me almost like the feeling when you’ve lost something. It’s uncomfortable and you want it to end. Sure, I don’t always love running and I’ve had a complicated relationship with it in the past. But what I am sure of is that it’s more than just something I do because I’m ‘fast’, or I’m used to it, or endorphins. I run because it’s something, at this point in my life, I have to do. It’s something that has given me the ability to seamlessly move through beautiful terrain, been there for me when I’m not doing my best, and allowed me to connect with some of the most important people in my life. I guess I could say all of this to answer. Or more concisely…I Run.
