Friday, I volunteered at the Wasatch Front 100 mile endurance run. For eight hours I checked-in runners at the 1/2 way point. Some were flying, and others were a wreck. Some were very friendly, others thought they were God's gift to the World. One of the spectators asked how much $ the winner gets...he about passed out when we informed him the winnings included a belt buckle and bragging rights. Out of the 321 runners who started the race, 240 finished in anywhere from 20 to 36 hours. Participants climb a total of 28,000 feet. It's a race where last place is still an amazing feat. It certainly led to a dangerous train of thought- if training for a 100k kept me out of residency-hating for 18 weeks, imagine what a 100-miler would do! If Dr. Hottie can work 100 hours in a week, surely he could run/walk/crawl 100 miles- or at least pace me for 60?
Today, I did my first solo run up high. I plodded along for 3 hours & hit some of my favorite trails. It was surprisingly warm, & it will be a couple weeks before we really see some fall colors- but awesome nonetheless. It felt great being able to head out alone. When I first moved to UT, the mountains scared the sh** out of me. While I still sung, clapped, and whistled my way through every blind turn (don't surprise a bear or moose...do not surprise..) - the mountains are really starting to feel like home. Running on the trails is the only time I can really just be. There's no pretense about who I should be, how crappy residency can be, or how much I miss my crazy Wisconsinites. There's a saying in sanskrit I learned in yoga- So Hum. It was one of my mantras, and roughly translates to, I am that. I'm no more special than any other person; we are all inter-connected in ways I don't care to understand; and there is an all-powerful God that oversees all of these lives. I am just that. All I can do is take each moment as it comes, & not judge myself too harshly for the fact that I'd prefer escaping to the trails over accepting residency-reality any day.