Diversity in Trail Running: If You Build It, They Will Run

When I saw this month's Trail Runner Magazine blog symposium topic, my thought process was initially thus:

1) I don't know how diverse the trail running community currently is.
2) I don't really know how to go about finding that out. Do races even track demographics? I don't think I have ever been asked my ethnicity on a race entry form.
3) Like running in general, there are probably more men than women participating, but not drastically so.
4) I'm not sure I have anything interesting to say about diversity in trail running.

But I realize diversity is about more than just race and gender. It can be related to geography, and it struck me that access to trails is probably the biggest obstacle to a more diverse trail running community. So maybe I can comment on it after all.

I grew up in a running family, but in a small south Texas town where running was not extremely popular and trail running not at all. Why? Because we had no trails.

When I was in fourth grade, my parents became the resident caretakers of a brand-new local outdoor education center. And suddenly, I had trails to run on: several miles through trees, fields, and alongside a creek. It was great. I had a better place to run than anyone else in town, and to this day I'm grateful for that.

But trail running in my community and wider region didn't suddenly explode because we got a few trails. Our high school cross country meets ran through our town's scenic riverside park, but it was not uncommon for us to travel to urban meets at which the course wound through a parking lot or around a soccer field and golf course.

Cross country meets in other places = amazing.

When I ran cross country in college and traveled to meets run on actual trails, I was awed. When I moved to College Station and met runners who spent their Saturdays on the trails at nearby Lick Creek Park, I was inspired, and soon did the same myself.

My first non-cross country trail race was an Oktoberfest 10K at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was a blast, and I was hooked. But almost immediately, I learned trail races were much, much harder to come by than road races. Even here in El Paso, home of the largest urban park in the nation, there is not a wide offering of trail races.

El Paso Puzzler Trail Marathon 2013 at Franklin Mountains State Park

The point: people without access to trails have a very hard time becoming trail runners, and people without access to trail races are missing out on (in my opinion) the best kind of racing. And the trail running community is missing out on them.

Efforts to increase diversity in trail running can be two-fold:
1) To push for the development of trails in all kinds of places--urban areas, suburbs, small towns, rural areas without many recreation options. Trails are a given in scenic areas and in cities with high densities of outdoor enthusiasts. But by developing trails everywhere, people in all cities have the chance to become enthusiasts themselves.

2) To encourage running on those trails. More trail races would help, as well as training groups, educational events at running stores, and placing user-friendly maps and information online and on location.

Increasing the number of trails, trail races, and as a result, increasing diversity, will look different in different places. It can start with each of us. Have trails in your area but no races? At your next road race, compliment the director on a well-executed event and then express your interest in races on your local trails. Or start a race yourself. Have no trails in your area? Get involved in local politics, civic organizations, and conservation groups (or start your own) and share your trail vision with anyone who will listen!

36 Weeks: Looking Ahead

I made it to 36 weeks, still running! (Nothing spectacular, I ran a pretty slow two miles this morning).  Getting this far was my (sort-of secret) goal all along. I wasn't going to be devastated if I had to stop earlier, but I really hoped to still be able to run at this point.

These days I run entirely by feel, beginning each run with the mentality that even one mile will be enough, and there is absolutely no shame in stopping if I need to. This was a hard place for me to get to mentally, and I'll be honest: some days it's still really discouraging to have to call it quits after a mile. But most days I'm okay with where I'm at and so grateful to still be running. Because I look like this:

Admittedly not the largest 36-weeks-pregnant lady ever, but large enough that complete strangers are no longer afraid to comment on my condition. Yesterday at church and lunch afterward, several strangers (and the entire waitstaff of Red Lobster) wished my husband happy Father's Day in advance. It was really sweet.

And it's starting to feel so real: in a few weeks, I'm actually going to have this baby. I'm not going to be pregnant forever!

With that in mind, it has started to feel more acceptable to do the sort of looking ahead I've been doing all along. At the beginning, finding races was solely a way to motivate myself to keep running, even when it was hard, even when the short distances didn't feel worth the effort. Now, these race possibilities are starting to feel like they will actually happen.

We are moving to Georgia in the fall, so my search area has been the Georgia-Alabama-Tennessee area rather than the West Texas-New Mexico area. A change of location is always exciting, but I'll be sad to leave El Paso, especially the wonderful friends we've made. And the dry climate.

The list of races sits on my desk for daily motivation.

These six events are possibilities and options, not anything I'm absolutely determined to run. I hope to manage at least one, maybe two of them. After all, I have yet to see what returning to ultra-training as a first-time (hopefully nursing) mom will be like. But right now, its amazing what kind of motivation I find in hoping and dreaming about running them.

They range from 50ks in late November/early December (Tranquility Lake, Duncan Ridge, Bell Ringer), to races with longer options in late December through March (Lookout Mountain, Pistol Ultra, The Running Dead 100). I have no idea which races will be feasible because I don't know yet what my recovery and return to training and racing timeline will look like, other than that I plan to be cautious to avoid injury, but I can't wait to get started!

Training and Prepping

Preparing to give birth is like training for a race. A race of unknown duration and date. A race that could technically happen any day now but probably won't happen for another few weeks. A race for which the prize is probably going to wake you up at all hours of the night, indefinitely.

Unknowns aside, the preparation really is similar to the lead-up to a race. You read up on the course and plan your strategy and listen, rapt, to other people's experiences and are so, so grateful when those stories are encouraging rather than horrific. Your training plan consists of Kegel exercises, stretching, yoga, practicing breathing, and getting as much light-to-moderate cardio as your compressed lungs and taxed ligaments can handle at this point. You make a playlist of high-energy songs on your iPod.

It's also like prepping, in the sense of the word survivalists mean when they refer to hoarding countless rolls of toilet paper, boxes of ramen, and means of water purification in their reinforced underground bunkers against the zombiepocalypse, or whatever kind of -pocalypse they fear most.

I'm usually firmly on the minimalist side when it comes to stuff: if I don't have it, I can probably do without it until I can get to the store. (My cooking often suffers from sub-par substitutions for this reason). I hate clutter more than I like to feel extremely prepared. Especially because we are moving a couple months after my due date; I don't want to acquire even more stuff to pack up. The husband, on the other hand, subscribes more to the prepper mentality: he would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Which explains the stores of ramen and Backpacker's Pantry in our house. It's okay, we complement each other.

But adding a baby to the mix has brought me around (ever so slightly) to his way of thinking. I have no idea when (if?) I'm going to feel like grocery shopping after the baby. Or cooking. So I would rather have that extra toilet paper taking up my whole bathroom cabinet than wish I didn't have to shower and put on clothes and drag myself out of the air conditioning to get some. I would rather have six homemade meals in the freezer than have to throw something together at the last minute or order a pizza.

So this is what my to-do list looks like right now:

It's all on one page so I won't keep losing them like I have been. We have almost everything we need for baby, but there is a ton of stuff I feel like we need to stock up on so we don't have to rush out and buy it late at night. And I want to put together several healthy meals to freeze so there will always be something to eat.

Am I actually doing any of this right now? Not really. I'm pinning freezer recipes on Pinterest and searching for winter ultras.

I'll get to most of it, I'm sure. But if I don't, that will be okay too. Because just like in a long race, you can be as prepared as possible for every scenario you can imagine...and one will pop up that you didn't imagine. And you'll get through it, with a little bit of flexibility and a whole lot of support from your crew.

A Four-Mile Long Run

The post title makes me laugh, but with joy. Five weeks ago, I ran four miles and spent the rest of the day (and the next) with the worst round ligament pain I've yet experienced. I hobbled around, and even standing for long enough to cook dinner felt uncomfortable. Since then, I had limited my runs to two or three miles, thinking anything longer was off the table until after the baby arrives.

That is, until today.

Despite the fact that current El Paso temps are hitting 104 and higher in the afternoons, this morning was cool (cool becomes a relative term in Texas in the summer), and I felt great heading out for a three-miler. Halfway through, I started to consider going for four, and decided to give it a try. If I felt bad, I could always stop.

But I didn't feel bad, and several hours later, I still don't. I have about the same level of round ligament pain I've been having: some discomfort, but not enough to keep me on the couch. I'm so happy! Even though it takes me a few tries to get up from a sitting position sometimes, and I often get winded walking up stairs, it's nice to know I can still run four miles. I can't wait until my long runs are actually long runs again, but right now, I'll take it!

Today I planned to start washing everything in the nursery: cloth diapers, clothes, blankets, tiny towels and washcloths. I still plan to, but I'm really wishing that nesting urge everyone talks about would hit me so that it sounds fun. Or at least urgent. With six weeks to go, it feels so close, yet still so far away. Tomorrow is our birthing class; maybe that will make it feel more urgent!

Don't Make Decisions Going Uphill

My husband said that to me the other day. He actually said I told him that once. I don't remember saying it, but there's a lot I don't remember lately (thanks, pregnancy brain!). Whether I did or didn't say it, it was a piece of advice I needed to hear.

Last week was a week of painful runs, poor sleep, and general irritation at how uncomfortable I'm getting. I wondered aloud, more than once, why on earth I'm still trying to run, and whether it's worth it, and whether I even want to run anymore after the baby, let alone train for ultras. Dramatic, yes, I know.

And that's when he imparted this bit of wisdom: Don't make long-term decisions while you're going uphill. At the time, I thought whined, "Yeah, yeah. But this is hard. And it's not fun."

But this morning I had a great run. The weather was cloudy and cool, and I got in a good three miles with minimal pain. I remembered his words and smiled. I'm so glad I didn't let last week make me quit yet. I am so glad I had this run.

Almost exactly two years ago, I ran my first ultra, the Jemez Mountain 50k. In the first ten miles, the course climbs to the top of a ski mountain, and in that stretch I did as much walking as running. Painful, oxygen-deprived walking and even more painful running. I knew my mom was waiting for me at the next aid station, and I fully intended to drop out there and let her drive me home.

But the aid station wasn't at the top of the mountain. I had to go back down first, and in that short stretch of blissful descent, I had just enough time to change my mind. I didn't drop, and I am so, so glad.

I recall that race all the time, as motivation on tough runs. You'd think by now I would have learned that lesson applies to life as well as running. Keeping up my fitness during this pregnancy, with round ligament pain and fatigue, has seemed like an uphill race getting steeper with each step. But today reminded me why it's a bad idea to quit just because the going gets tough: you never know when it might get a lot better.

Treading the Depths: Carlsbad Caverns

Last Thursday we took a trip to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico, about two and a half hours from El Paso. (We hit up two national parks that day--bathroom break at Guadalupe Mountains, because there is seriously nothing else between El Paso and Carlsbad).

I looked like this:

My parents took me to Carlsbad as a young child, but since I don't remember much of that trip, this was like experiencing it for the first time.

The self-guided tour enters the cave through the natural entrance (the gaping hole behind me), via an asphalt path which has been blasted into the wall in places. The initial descent is steep at times, and very dark once you leave the light of the entrance behind, but I never felt unsafe. Only slightly creeped out about being so far below ground.

But the creepiness is worth it, for views like this:

It's amazing to think all this was formed by dripping water, and that some of the speleothems (my new favorite word) are still growing! The park website has better pictures; cavern photography is apparently a specialized art form for which the iPhone is not equipped.

The park ranger at the entrance (they give you an orientation before you can go in, to make sure you know not to touch anything) said the 1.25 mile descent to 750 feet underground takes about an hour and the tour of the Big Room at the bottom takes an hour and a half; we did both slightly faster. And while you can leave the same way you came in, we took advantage of the elevator ride direct to the gift shop.

I had intended to wear my support belt since I knew we would be doing so much walking, but my scattered brain forgot to bring it. I was fine though--no round ligament pain. I didn't run that day, so our two-ish hours of hiking counted as my workout.

It was a fun trip, definitely something worth seeing while in El Paso. If you have the time to make a weekend of it, stay until evening to watch the bats fly out of the cave en masse. I wish we had been able to see this, though I'm sure hordes of bats would creep me out as much as going so far underground!

Thirty Week Running Thoughts

At this point, it feels like every blog post I write, or think about writing, could be titled "Still Running...But for How Much Longer?"

Because I look like this right now.

I run three or four days a week, and many of my runs these days are fairly uncomfortable. It's become a balancing game: how much discomfort am I willing to tolerate during the run? How much will tolerating it render me useless for the rest of the day? And always, the nagging fear at the back of my mind: Does tolerating this discomfort pose a threat to the baby?

My doctor is still fine with me running. Her instructions have simply been to not over do it, and that I will know if I do. (Honestly, I'm not sure I'm capable of overdoing it anymore. I can't breathe well enough to even contemplate running fast, and the thought of running more than three miles at a time no longer appeals). And the discomfort I've been experiencing has been round ligament pain, which doesn't hurt the baby.

The support belt helps, and tight running tops provide a little extra support as well. Maintaining good form helps too; slouching, shuffling, and pounding on my heels each step only make it worse. Sometimes the baby is just in a position that makes the round ligament pain particularly sharp. Sometimes walking for a few minutes helps; sometimes I cut the run short and do yoga.

When I do have pain, most of the time it doesn't persist after the run, and if it does, I've found that a warm bath works wonders. Also, it's not the most awful kind of pain: round ligament pain (for me) feels like a combination of really sore abs and a very low side stitch.

Aqua jogging has become my new favorite thing, because I can do it without any pain. On Wednesday, an awesome friend joined me and I was able to go for an entire hour! Alone, it tends to get very boring. I aqua jog twice a week and will probably add a third day next week. If the pool wasn't so far away, I would go every day because being in the water feels that good.

I really, really miss long runs and fast runs and runs that feel smooth and easy, but I'm grateful to still be doing any sort of running right now. I have about two months to go, and I'm getting really excited to meet this baby, and to get back to regular running!