As 2018 gets under way, I've begun to reflect on my 2017 race and event schedule. The first event of the year was the Virginia Beach Ultra 100k run, which was a glorious failure. I didn't reach the 100K, but I did stay on the course the entire time and ran farther than I ever had before (92K in 12 and a half hours). I also had my best 50 mile time during that race (9 hours and 40 minutes). So, while I didn't hit my goal of 100K, I still feel good about my experience. In fact, if I had hit the cutoff time with only one lap left to hit the 100K, I would have kept going outside of the race window just to finish. But, with 2 full laps left, no headlamp, and pitch dark outside, I figured I would take the 57+ miles and call it a win.
This has got me thinking about what I'm most proud of from what I accomplished in 2017. As I've already stated, I ran 92K in my first event, but additionally, I completed 15 laps at 14 regular Tough Mudder events, and I ran in the overnight America's Toughest Mudder (completing 20 miles in 8 hours) at the Atlanta course. All of those are fun and I feel tremendous pride in them, but they aren't what I'm proudest of from this past year. That would be my run of Hadrian's Wall in June.
A little bit of background first. For those of you who may not be familiar, Hadrian's Wall was built between 122 AD and 128 AD under the orders of the Roman Emperor Hadrian to act as the Northern boundary of the Roman Empire in Britain (In other words, it was built to keep the "barbarians" living in modern day Scotland from invading). It ran from Bowness-on-Solway in the West to Wallsend in the East, and effectively put a wall across the entirety of the country. It is a very popular hiking destination for people who live in or visit England, and it has a very well marked path for hiking anywhere along its 84 mile length. For most of its length, the path follows the historic positioning of the wall, crosses through cities and countryside, goes through public and private property, involves crossing a large number of sheep and cow pastures, and at its most majestic will follow along craggy hills overlooking England and Scotland. Much of the wall itself is gone now, with only about 30 miles remaining in the middle section of the country. What remains is rarely more than two or three feet high, but it can be an impressive sight to see.
As for me, I lived in England from 2003 to 2005, and spent a good amount of time traveling around with my wife and son. We visited Hadrian's Wall a couple times, and I even hiked about 10 miles of the wall in the summer of 2005 before I came back to the US. It had always been a desire to hike the entire length, but once I moved back to the US I figured that wasn't likely to happen. I wasn't going to make a trip to the UK just to do it, and no opportunities had presented themselves to get back there for any length of time. So, I had pretty much resigned myself to having it on my bucket list, and perhaps doing something about it when I retire. However, an opportunity arose in June that would allow me to be in England for 3 days on my way to Portugal for a conference, so I decided to take the jump.
There are several companies that will organize a tour of the wall for you (including the logistics of making hotel arrangements and moving luggage to and from various locations), so I found one that offered two day running options. For a fee, they made hotel reservations for all three nights I would need, they sent me maps and information about the path, and they prepared me for the two days of running that it would take to go from East to West. I started early in the morning on June 22nd from Wallsend, and spent much of the morning running through the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I didn't actually reach any actual wall ruins until early in the afternoon, and stopped to take a picture when I first saw the wall itself. It wasn't until later, when I was looking at maps of the journey, that I realized that the picture I took was approximately 26.2 miles from the beginning of the trail. That's right, I ran a marathon along Hadrian's Wall path before I saw any of the actual wall. Not only that, I had another 16 miles to run before I was done for the day.
I reached my hotel in the tiny village of Twice Brewed sometime around 7 pm after nearly 11 hours of running, and promptly ate a huge quantity of food (actually, I shouldn't say "promptly" here because I did take a nice long, hot epsom-salt bath first). The food and drink were particularly welcome after having run nearly 44 miles through some relatively rugged terrain. The Twice Brewed Inn is legitimately in the middle of nowhere, but it was a nice stopping point for my first day.
The second day, I started my run in a drizzly rain at about 6 am, and had to make my way through the city of Carlisle. I had visited this city before, while I had been living in England, but it was an entirely different experience passing through. There was a bit of construction along the path, which shunted me off into main streets, and I had a pretty difficult time finding my way back to the path until I was about 6 miles to the West outside of town. From there, it was a pretty straight run through some fantastic bogs to the end point in Bowness-on-Solway. Having run several ultra marathons previously, I was pretty well prepared nutritionally and fitness-wise for the endeavor, but the last four miles were tough. Even though the terrain was flat, and the path was clear, it was difficult nonetheless. I had heard of people who run marathons talking about how they had to negotiate with themselves as they get along the race, and make deals with themselves to ensure they kept going, but I hadn't really felt that need in any of my previous events. That changed for the last four miles, though. I can unabashedly say that I negotiated nearly every step of those four miles. And, while difficult, I found my way to the end point of the trail.
Exhausted and elated, I immediately picked up my bags at the hostel I had already paid for, got a cab, and drove to the train station in Carlisle that I had actually run past a few hours earlier. I did this to catch a train to Lancaster, where I would be staying with friends from when I lived there 15 years ago. An hour and a half later, after a shower, I was sitting at dinner with friends I hadn't seen in nearly a decade, and all of the difficulty of the run was gone. I had successfully run 84 miles over pretty grueling terrain over the course of two days, and come out the other side stronger than before. Back-to-back ultra marathons were never in my plans, but I wouldn't change the experience for the world. Which brings me to the lesson that I took from this event and my reflections on what I accomplished last year.
Specifically, the lesson of PRIDE. I was raised as a Catholic, and had always been told that pride was a sin (in fact, it's one of the 7 deadly sins). As such, it was always frowned upon to be proud or to demonstrate too much pride. I never really understood that when I was a kid. Gluttony, Sloth, Envy...the other deadly sins, I could "get". I understood why those would be bad, but why would pride be discouraged? Now that I'm older, and have things to be proud about, I'm able to put the world into less black and white terms. Yes, pride can be a negative, but it isn't necessarily. Pride in our accomplishments is usually what keeps bringing us back for more. In educational settings, we say that we want to celebrate our accomplishments and demonstrate our joy in our achievements. As such, it implies that we should be proud of those accomplishments and achievements. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we keep moving forward.
This has got me thinking about what I'm most proud of from what I accomplished in 2017. As I've already stated, I ran 92K in my first event, but additionally, I completed 15 laps at 14 regular Tough Mudder events, and I ran in the overnight America's Toughest Mudder (completing 20 miles in 8 hours) at the Atlanta course. All of those are fun and I feel tremendous pride in them, but they aren't what I'm proudest of from this past year. That would be my run of Hadrian's Wall in June.
I reached my hotel in the tiny village of Twice Brewed sometime around 7 pm after nearly 11 hours of running, and promptly ate a huge quantity of food (actually, I shouldn't say "promptly" here because I did take a nice long, hot epsom-salt bath first). The food and drink were particularly welcome after having run nearly 44 miles through some relatively rugged terrain. The Twice Brewed Inn is legitimately in the middle of nowhere, but it was a nice stopping point for my first day.The second day, I started my run in a drizzly rain at about 6 am, and had to make my way through the city of Carlisle. I had visited this city before, while I had been living in England, but it was an entirely different experience passing through. There was a bit of construction along the path, which shunted me off into main streets, and I had a pretty difficult time finding my way back to the path until I was about 6 miles to the West outside of town. From there, it was a pretty straight run through some fantastic bogs to the end point in Bowness-on-Solway. Having run several ultra marathons previously, I was pretty well prepared nutritionally and fitness-wise for the endeavor, but the last four miles were tough. Even though the terrain was flat, and the path was clear, it was difficult nonetheless. I had heard of people who run marathons talking about how they had to negotiate with themselves as they get along the race, and make deals with themselves to ensure they kept going, but I hadn't really felt that need in any of my previous events. That changed for the last four miles, though. I can unabashedly say that I negotiated nearly every step of those four miles. And, while difficult, I found my way to the end point of the trail.
Specifically, the lesson of PRIDE. I was raised as a Catholic, and had always been told that pride was a sin (in fact, it's one of the 7 deadly sins). As such, it was always frowned upon to be proud or to demonstrate too much pride. I never really understood that when I was a kid. Gluttony, Sloth, Envy...the other deadly sins, I could "get". I understood why those would be bad, but why would pride be discouraged? Now that I'm older, and have things to be proud about, I'm able to put the world into less black and white terms. Yes, pride can be a negative, but it isn't necessarily. Pride in our accomplishments is usually what keeps bringing us back for more. In educational settings, we say that we want to celebrate our accomplishments and demonstrate our joy in our achievements. As such, it implies that we should be proud of those accomplishments and achievements. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we keep moving forward.
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