Woodlands own Jamie Chick with the sun bringing her home on her first 50-miler at the 2021 Siskiyou Outback (SOB) @jmelizz
"You can't get it wrong because you never get it done."
The first time I heard this Abraham Hicks quote I was in my late '20's, head to the grindstone building a career, and new to running. My first thought was, "well, shit, that can't be right." Imagining never getting this mountain of boxes checked was unfathomable and you best believe that ending a day without being my 'best' self sure as heck felt wrong. Being the type-A optimizer like so many other ambitious youths I was defining 'best' as the pursuit of perfection in a day; meditate for 20 minutes, do yoga well, lift more, run faster, blast that cellulite, eat vegetables, don't drink too much, create stunning PowerPoints, text back everyone within 24 hours, be a loving daughter, a thankless volunteer, use the right cream to battle wrinkles, know WTF a 401k is, don't bring your phone into the bedroom...check, check, check, on a loop to infinity, as if doing it right meant I could finally rest.
Spoiler alert: I no longer carry on this way and I have trail running to thank for that. The movie of this shift would be worlds away from a Rocky Balboa I I'm-getting-better-at-one-arm-pushups-by-the-second montage and more like somebody-check-on-that-crying-dusty-woman-on-the-trail variety. There is nothing to perfect in trail running. It is a sport of constant firsts. I don't care if you've never run more than a 5k or if you've run 2 dozen 100-milers, every run, every race, every training or casual run, is one of firsts. You can’t get to humble without humiliation. You can run the same trail 1000 times and suddenly face a new problem to solve in how your body feels, your mind feels, of nature handing your ass to you, bears (beets, Battlestar Galactica...can't not say that in my mind EVERY time). You and me, as we are with our life circumstances, our changing bodies, factors in and out of our control are meeting the trail differently each day. Always a newbie, always a first.
This past weekend we celebrated these firsts in a BIG way at the Siskiyou Outback Trail Runs (SOB) up on Mt. Ashland. Under the new dope Woodlands tent surrounded by bubbly water and peanut butter pretzels, we cowbelled many of our friends celebrating their first time running a trail race, a 15k, a 50k, a 50-miler, and a 100k distance. We celebrated PR's, age group winners, race winners. We bitched about the heat and smoke, held space for our friends who had their first DNF or their first problem that felt unsolvable, debriefing together on the lessons that disappointment taught us today. Every one of us had a series of firsts and we shared them together. Aww, being together again in all its beauty and ugliness...THAT is perfection.
Pretzels, short shorts, mountains - oh my!