Rebekah Speaks

 Ultramarathons are not new to me. I've crossed both the start and finish lines of many of these long races since 1994. As I have aged, however, the challenge level of making required cutoffs has grown exponentially. It's been frustrating to face the reality of not being able to perform as in yesteryear. Hence, enter the 24-hour race, a different kind of hurt. These races that start one day and end 24 hours later have no cutoffs. If one decides to take a 3-hour nap at 2 AM, that's not a problem. There is no event-generated mileage expectations. Some enter to accomplish a personal goal without a time crunch. For example, complete a 50K or 50 mile with a generous time buffer. It's a beautiful thing. This last weekend, I set off with me, myself, and I for Lillington, NC for the Cape Fear 24-Hour event. The course is a black-topped and lighted 0.6 mile pathway, relatively flat, encircling a couple of recreational fields. The sole aid station is well stocked, a few runners d

  "Lean on me," said the little tree to the big tree. Sorry if I just made a song start playing on repeat in your brain. That said, it's a cool song made popular by Bill Withers in 1972. "Lean on me when you're not strong and I'll be your friend I'll help you carry on For it won;t be long Till I'm gonna need somebody to carry on..." We all love this notion of leaning on each other; on creating a community where it's all for one and one for all. But do we? Sure, it takes humility to be the one who leans. The one who is feeling weak and incapable. The one who is fearful of hitting the ground with a resounding thud. The one who needs help. But I think it may take just as much humility and a sense of courage to be the lean-to. For some reason, we think we will not be strong enough to support another's heavy burden. We won't know what to say and when to say it. We doubt our ability to empathize and understand. Plus, it takes t

It might look like mayhem but this little challenge was not without purpose. I call it the Barnyard Boogey. Each athlete was assigned one of 4 animals. They were permitted to make only the sounds of the dog, cat, cow, or duck to which they were assigned. The task? Find all your fellow species and link arms. While this process is highly entertaining for those who watch, it is fairly difficult for all the animal wanna-bes. So how do they accomplish the task? Success depended of making the choice to filter out and ignore all the unnecessary noise that confuses and distracts. Instead, they had to be selective in what and who they responded to. The barkers had to be drawn to those who barked. The ducks had to be quacking the same tune. And the cats and cows had to discern a meow from a moo. Are we not bombarded with a lot of worthless noise on a daily basis? Just like the college athletes in this little game, if we want to be effective we must learn to be extremely careful i

  Don't be scared to try. I am a rural-kind of girl. There has always been a ton of farm equipment on our property but until yesterday, I had not climbed aboard to wrangle the beast into obedience. But since necessity is the mother of invention, yesterday was the day to add a new skill. I needed mulch moved from the mulch pile to my flower beds. My husband was kind enough to teach me to operate the tractor, offering very valuable pointers about using all the controls. With his guidance and the bush hog following behind, it was mission accomplished. Though intimidating at first, I think I have the basics down. I am looking forward to becoming more capable and skilled in the future. Go ahead. Try something new.

Grow where you are planted. Sometimes we find ourselves in a very unfortunate situation. Take the tree in the picture. Broken. Dead and decaying. Falling apart, Becoming a whopping big pile of mulch. But then something miraculous happens. Growth in all the unexpected places. Turns out, the difficult circumstance actually created the perfect, nutrition-rich environment for new development. Look closely. Perhaps that little sliver of green with its few first leaves is spurred on by the hope shown in the two young trees rising up from the stump. "If they could do it, maybe I can too." It's never hopeless. Reach deep. Grow where you are planted.

"If you don't find something you can fix, I will be greatly disappointed," I stated matter-of-factly to my cardiologist. And I was serious. Dead serious. I was laying in my hospital bed waiting to be wheeled into the cath lab to get a clear picture of what was happening--or not happening--inside those skinny little coronary arteries. If he did not find something to stent, like he did five years ago, my symptoms would have no chance of being validated. I will spare you all the details, but my running has really taken a dive over the last few months. The group of women I run with can be chatting it up having a great time, only to unintentionally pull away and leave me eating their dust. I try to keep up but it's like my engine is throttled back by a governor, heart rate zooming upwards to no avail. I simply can't go. I feel my chest tighten and throat close. I have to walk. I hate being the anchor. Lately, I make excuses to why I can not join them on those long Satu

On a whim, I signed up for a race that was a mere seven days away. A 6-hour timed race, it sounded so, well, short--at least compared to a 24-hour race. And why not? On race day I would be a month out from a 24-hour event and two weeks shy of a 25-mile mountain race. Even though my weekly mileage could hardly be called "training," a pavement run through a park seemed like a swell idea for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Not wanting to make the 1:45 drive in the wee hours, an inexpensive hotel room the night before was the perfect way to relax with the Hallmark channel broadcasting predictable yet soul-soothing Christmas movies. I felt wonderfully relaxed and at ease, sleeping better than expected. Lest you think this a typical race report, that is not my intent. That said, the facts are simple. It was a chilly 27 degrees at the start, never breaking 42 through race's end. The course was a 1.34 blacktopped ramble through an idyllic community park: playgrounds, duck pond,

 In the aftermath of my third 24-hour race, I am recoiling a bit. The phrase, "There is dignity in completion," written by ultrarunning great and philosopher, Sabrina Little , is running a circuitous route through my gray matter. I am bothered by it--and somewhat embarrassed--that I stopped approximately two hours and five minutes short of the 24-hour mark. Why? Why did I decide to bag the effort with time remaining on the clock? It's complicated but at the same time quite simple. Sabrina also put digital pen to paper to say  "Patience is the virtue of remaining in difficulty."  If I understand that concept correctly, there is an embedded implication that not choosing to remain in the difficulty is a sign of impatience, a not-so-virtuous marker of sub-optimal character. So yikes. It's a little disconcerting to contemplate the extent of my failing. Here's the backstory. With no pressure-producing cut-off designations, the timed races (eg. 24 hrs) hold a