When We Finish

run towards adversity, then run toward home

This photo of me, running to the finish line of a race with my toddler, Jay, was about 45 seconds away from not happening at all:

Hilary had woken Jay up from his nap, driven an hour and a half from Lake Hawea to the finish line parking area, scooped Jay out of the car, hustled him and his strider bike to the finishing corral, and gotten there just in time to see me about 150 feet away, jogging toward the finish alongside a guy named Kyle, scanning the fence line for her and Jay. I saw them, slowed and stopped, engaged my core, and grabbed our 30-pound, bike-helmeted kid from Hilary as she lifted him over the fence, set him down and we ran across the finish line together.

In an alternate scenario, I might have ignored my wife and son in narrowed vision tunneling to the finish, downshifted, gritted my teeth, and sprinted next to Kyle, racing him the final couple hundred feet through the red arch, in a battle for 85th place. That might have come as a surprise to Kyle, as we’d run together off and on for the final six or so miles, chatting and jogging fairly casually.

Of course, that didn’t happen—Kyle ran to the timing mat, jumped in the air to click his heels for the camera, and crossed the mat 16 seconds ahead of Jay and me, finishing 85th.

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Years ago, I was listening to a podcast with a runner who was also a race director. I don’t remember anything about the interview with this person, except the part where they made fun of people who held hands with someone while crossing the finish line—a spouse, pacer, a fellow runner. At the time, I remember thinking, Huh, weird hill to die on, especially if you’re a race director.

I had recently finished a race while holding hands with my wife, who had patiently paced me the final 30 miles of an extremely painful 100-mile race. As we approached the finish arch, I remember feeling that there was no way I would have made it to the end of the race without her.

Maybe I also remembered that Kilian Jornet, arguably the greatest ultrarunner of a generation (if not all time), had finished the 2016 Hardrock Endurance Run while holding hands with Jason Schlarb. And that was a race he could have won. But, he said, “It’s logical…not to make a sprint to finish one minute ahead.”

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I have, like everyone else, put the hammer down (as much as I could, anyway) to run hard in the final mile of a long race, taking long strides to sprint (OK, kind of sprint) across the finish, even if I’ve been barely jogging, not-so-powerfully power-hiking, or hobbling for the previous five or 10 miles. That is also not logical, and yet I have done it. It was how I felt like showing up, at the time.

If you have also done this, a pace chart of your race might look something like this:

I don’t know what other people think about in their low moments when they’re pushing themselves out on on a race course or in the backcountry, but I would guess I’m not alone in a) wondering why I make myself do hard things in the middle of nowhere b) thinking about my home, which is to say my family, and sometimes my bed at home. It’s a privilege to go out and voluntarily seek adversity in nature, and when I find that adversity, it reminds me to be grateful for what I have.

Running is who I am for most of the day on race day. And in a typical week, it’s who I am for about 6-8 hours. But I’m a lot of other things all the time.

I have told people that the UTMB finish line in Chamonix is probably the best finish line in sports. This is not because it has some 100-plus-year tradition (like the Boston Marathon), or because the greatest elite runners in the sport routinely battle it out in the final 100 meters to determine who will be that year’s champion. It is because you get to watch people from all over the world feeling whatever emotions they feel at the end of a 103-mile odyssey around Mont Blanc. Plus, they can run through the finish corral with their pacer, spouse, kids, dog, whoever they want. Some sprint, some walk, but they all cross the timing mat, and complete one of the biggest efforts of their lives.

But a finish line, whether it’s the UTMB, or the terminus of the Appalachian Trail, or a local 5K race, can represent one of the biggest efforts of somebody’s life. And no matter how we show up there, in a sprint that threatens to explode our quads, or hobbling next to a friend cajoling us to go a few more steps, or carrying a kid who maybe doesn’t understand what Mom or Dad just did to get to this point, aren’t we really just trying to say,

I’m

So

Happy

I

Could

Be Here

Right Now?

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