Kyrie Eleison (2023 Badwater 135 Training)

Never in a million years could I have guessed that this would be the story. Two weeks ago, after the Buckeye Trail 50K, I told Darris that what I would be doing on July 31 was a mystery to me. I could be running it, running the entire thing with my friend Darrin, or pacing Darrin from mile 65 to the finish. Darris told another friend of mine about the webcast, which I promptly told him not to watch. The thing is, I said, the webcast doesn't necessarily tell the story. It doesn't say if I fell apart, or if he fell apart, or if something's gone really wrong or really right. But in spite of it all, not a crystal ball, not a Shakespearean-era soothsayer, not a message directly from one of my loved ones above could have prepared me for this one. No, never in a million years would I have guessed where this year's story would start. Or stop. Or end. Or begin all over again. Because at 10:30 Saturday night, I found myself sitting on a park bench at Wetmore Road. *** If you read...

Last year, it was about breezes and watermelon. This year it was about mud, perseverance, Galileo, and the Velveteen Rabbit. Don't try to figure it out. Just gear up for one of Star's long emails and trust that it's makes sense at the end. So yeah, I had some goals going in. Some of those goals were quite reasonable. Some of those goals were partly for the wrong reasons. Luckily, by race day, I had been talked out of the goals for the wrong reasons by some very good friends and had my head on straight.I wanted to break 22 hours. Badly. It meant shaving 1:15 off last year's time. I knew that I lost over 30 minutes last year to "excessive time spent at aid stations." I was hoping that experience, and a strong spring and summer on the trails, would account for the other 45 minutes. After all, Burning River 2008 was only the sixth time I had ever run on trails. I planned. I warned Robin that I loved her but that I was going to move through most of the ...

Burning River was about breezes and watermelon. I've been accused of "not suffering enough" several times in the past few weeks (jokingly of course - except for Kevin O'Grady) - and the truth is, this isn't a blow by blow or fall by fall or aid station by aid station account. I thought it would be at first. But for all the running - and that was a lot of running - Burning River was about breezes and watermelon. My life has been moving fast for the past two years, and I have been so blessed with so much. But maybe that was a part of it - the so much and the so fast. I've been blessed (much of this shared with) with more pace team races, more pacers, more training, more travel, faster marathon times. More responsibilities at work, more responsibilities at my church, more adventures at home, more things to look forward to. And my life was moving fast, and I was always going and doing. And there was that indefinable, unforeseen moment somewhere in those two years ...

Since I'm newer to this blogging world, I haven't posted my first three Burning River reports. What more perfect time, I thought, than now. So as we taper down and gear up for our various roles at Burning River, I share my food for thought, Burning River-style. This one, 2007, may still be my favorite. Written two days after I unexpectedly paced my husband and before I realized how deeply the trails had gotten under my skin, it's almost comical to read some of my observations. Little did I know what God and life had in store for me. 2007 Darris and George were so amazing out there this weekend. I remain overwhelmed by both of them. Following are the tales of the inaugural Burning River 100 from a crew member and eleventh hour pacer. Darris and George had completely opposite experiences. Darris had actually injured his back quite badly on the downhills in San Francisco just one week before the race. Sunday night, flying home from the race, he was having severe back spasms; M...

Very few events have the power to refine our souls. I use the word "soul" because it wasn't my heart, it wasn't my mind, it was literally my entire being. It went beyond the cobwebs in the head and the things we take up in life for no other reason than to complicate it. It went beyond those things that we can't explain but we can't ignore, and how we learn to live within them. This is the story of an event that refined my soul. It started when I landed in Minneapolis, and I knew something was wrong. I had a text from the girls at Mohican, and Dave had slowed considerably. He was still approaching mile 65. He and Steve had reached mile 40 at 1:45 pm, or just shy of nine hours in. Past 8 pm, six hours later, he wasn't yet at Mohican Adventures. I learned that it had hit 90+ degrees in the area and that the field was slowly being decimated. Just as we were about to leave Minneapolis, I got word that he was at mile 65 and "hurting a bit." I told Kati...