Self-Awareness And The Colorado Bend 60k

I wrote this entry July 19, 2021, revisiting it multiple times over the years, feeling it wasn’t clearly communicating what happened out there that night, and how I felt about it. Five years later, I finally feel I can articulate what happened. I’ve never had another experience like it.

Running is my daily ritual, and the trail is my church—a place I control. When race day comes, I strive to leave all my worries at the start line, running with a clear, undistracted mind. But that night, during the Colorado Bend 60k, 2021 something slipped through the gates. A ghost of an unwanted thought I didn’t invite, crept in. As the beam of my headlamp flickered over the trail, I caught glimpses of it lurking in the darkness, waiting to pull me away from the present. And with each step, I let it. I fell many times through the night not from exhaustion, but from something far more dangerous: distraction on a rocky, technical trail.

We all have a strained relationship with our egos. Sometimes we can manage the voice in our head and other times it takes control. If we’re not careful it can cause serious damage internally and externally. This is a story about how one ghostly thought nearly destroyed my sacred space.