By HPRS Staff Columnist Jacob Stevens
At 10,200 feet above sea level it is hard to breathe. When a stranger tells you that your race is over, 37.5 miles short of the finish line, at 10,200 feet above sea level, it is even harder to breathe. As my world came crashing down around me at 10:18 PM MST in Leadville, Colorado, 18 minutes passed the 18 hour cutoff, I was having a hard time comprehending what was going on. My 2019 Leadville Trail 100 race was finished but so was my attempt at The Grand Slam of UltrarunningTM . Life, in an instant, changed drastically.
To this point, my entire world was consumed by The Grand Slam of UltrarunningTM which consists of running four of the five oldest trail 100 milers in the country in one summer. This is a feat only 323 people over the course of 33 years have ever accomplished. Granted I have had a big year: married in March, reception in April, and a week long honeymoon planned for June (right in the middle of “the slam”), but I was bound, determined, and downright convinced that I would finish the task I set out before me.
Old Dominion in June and Vermont six weeks later in July, along with a honeymoon nestled in between, went well enough and it was on to the Leadville Trail 100. The stretch of trail between Winfield and Twin Lakes, up and over Hope Pass (12,600 ft.), is aptly called “the grand slam graveyard” and that is where I etched my name into the proverbial tombstone along with countless other “slammers” who have gone before me. With genuine empathy in her voice and a strong embrace, the “cutoff queen”, the woman in charge of strictly enforcing cutoffs, told me my race was finished, my grand slam attempt was over, and there was absolutely nothing I could do…and I could not have been happier.
The happiness didn’t set in at first, that came a couple hours later, but you see I had run myself so ragged and so thin for an arbitrary task that very few people know about, much less care about, that I was on the brink of self-destruction and I had no idea how close I truly was. Financially I was wrecked as each race consisted of airline tickets, hotel rooms, and rental cars, not to mention race entry fees and travel expenses. The intense schedule was putting a strain on my job as well as all of my personal relationships, most importantly my marriage, and I was barely keeping it all together. Something had to give…and it was my grand slam attempt, thankfully.
For so long I had defined who I was by a function: I was a Division I college athlete, I was a triathlete, I am a martial artist, and I am an ultra runner. I have done this most of my life, defined myself by functions, and I would assume that most of us do this, even subconsciously.
To quote Aubrey Marcus:
“The moment you base your confidence on your function, rather than your essence, you are lost in a nightmare of anxiety. Functions can be replaced. No matter what you “do” someone can “do” it better…except be you. So let your confidence rest in your essence, not function.”
I was so caught up in function, and so caught up in what I was defining myself as in the moment, that I not only lost sight of the forest amid the trees, I didn’t realize there was a forest at all. I was so caught up and so focused on a singular part of my being that I was sacrificing every other part of my existence and most disturbingly, I had no idea why I was even running anymore.
We all run for different reasons and I believe that at some point we will inevitably turn from the most basic and fundamental reason that we all run: to be closer and in unity with our essence. Running allows us to freely and without judgment be ourselves, to be who we really are, and to navigate life in a manner that we truly enjoy. Running is an expression and extension of our essence and the moment we stop running for something other than ourselves is the moment that we are playing with fire.