About a month I ran in the Hellcat 50k at Historic Lee Field in Green Cove Springs Florida. The race is put on by the military museum of north Florida and features 5 loops around the airfield, in the grand scheme of trail races its not the hardest but the significance of the venue makes it pretty awesome.
I’m not going to focus much on the actual race in this post but more on a gentlemen that I was lucky enough to spend several hours with and some of the lessons that I will take away from this run in the woods.
The first loop I mostly ran by myself I was between the lead pack and the second group of runners. To be honest I was proud of myself that I stuck to the planned pace and didn’t run with the lead group as I’m sure that would have lead to some disastrous results.
On the start of lap two this guy looks at me and says “lets go” and off we went for about 15 miles. After some small talk about the day, races we had run and wanted to run he tells me that he’s 57 years old and that this is his 120th race of marathon distance or longer. Ultra events are great for putting you back in your place, just as soon as you think your’e pretty cool someone 20 years older then you drops an accomplishment bomb like that and your’r right back to newbie territory. But wait it gets even better the last 100 marathons were after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Exercising for 5+ hours is seriously difficult on your body and trying to stay fueled for optimal performance is difficult to say the least with a fully functioning endocrine system. This mans dedication to running and fitness was truly inspiring.
We discussed life, philosophy, jobs, raising kids and all sorts of other topics along the way until I eventually had to walk for a bit during the fourth lap due to a little bit of over heating. fortunately the next mile or so was shaded and the aid station had plenty of waters and a much needed banana and I was back to running strong for the remaining 7-8 miles leaving me with a finishing time of 6:12 putting me in the top third of finishers.
Now we can get to the moral of the story… life throws a lot of obstacles in our way, some are pretty small and easy to overcome like getting a little to hot on a run others like diabetes are massive boulders that can stop us dead in our tracks. This guy was a runner prior to what the doctors told him 100 marathons ago, he didn’t quit he just figured out how to overcome the extra challenges that were going to be placed in front of him and he made it happen.
We could and often fine the reasons to complain about any number of bad situations that get placed in front of us every single day or to paraphrase Scott Worthington, race Director of the Revenant ultra race. https://www.revenant.co.nz/
” complaining sounds like a lot like failing to find the solution to the problem that you are currently facing.”
Subjects to change 