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You’re reading 100 lessons, a newsletter about ultrarunning and a Big Thing a Hard Thing transformative things. I once found my keys in the second to last place I looked.
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I’m in the passenger seat once again, not so much sitting in it as slowly becoming one with it. This time, we’re driving away from the start/finish area. The pre-race excitement is two days in the rearview mirror. Two days that I spent on my feet.
“Can you pull over for a second?” My voice sounds like I’ve thrown it in front of a stampeding herd of angry rhinos. My friend hesitates because the road out of town is narrow and winding, and it’s in the middle of the night. I try again: “Nice clean floor mats you have here, are those new?” He hits the brakes. I open the door before the car fully comes to a stop, stick my head out, and throw up for the third time since my race ended.
I spent the rest of the trip passed out in the back seat, with a Sea to Summit dry bag next to me that I really hoped I wouldn’t have to use. I’d already been awake for 61 hours (before the race, during, and after)—for the life of me, I cannot tell you why I thought I could stay conscious for the five-hour drive home.
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From the moment my friend nudged me awake and I dragged my useless body out of the car, I waited to feel the change that the race had inevitably prompted in me.
And waited.
And waited.
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Surely, such an overwhelming, all-consuming endeavor doesn’t leave one unchanged. I don’t mean an ultramarathon, necessarily; I mean a thing you were long scared to do, yet dreamed of doing, and one day finally did. A Big Thing.