PTSD: Post Trail Stress Disorder!

"If must doubt yourself, be consistent. Doubt everything. Doubt your fear, your perceived inability, your assumptions about what's impossible. Doubt the doubt."
A recent Tweet from RunningDeeper.

Just over a year ago, I lay on the ground, writing in pain. About 1.5 miles from the end of the Bulldog 50k, my body had shut down. My biggest fear, if I am honest, is that I would soil myself. Right there on the trail.

As other runners stopped on their way past, asking if they could help, I was mixed in my response. I was terrified by the intensity of pain and longed for support in getting through it. But if I was going to lose control of my bowels, I'd rather do it on my own. (You can read my race report for that event here.)

Since then, I had definitely been suffering from what I call the trail runner's version of PTSD: Post Trail Stress Disorder. In my work as a therapist, I work regularly with clients who suffer from the clinical diagnosis of PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder). Either recently, or in their past, these individuals have suffered significant trauma—events when they had feared for their own safety, even their lives. Often, these events are blocked out, memories are hazy, as a way of avoiding the physical and psychological pain that went with the experience.

Over time, we revisit the memories of those events. Slowly, patiently, lovingly, we journey together into the cauldron of their emotional memory. It is deep, healing work that requires courage. To return to a place in time, in consciousness, that we have hidden from because of overwhelming experiences takes great trust in oneself, and a willingess to accept support.

My 2008 Bulldog experience was traumatic. No doubt about it. With the help of my running partner that day, some nutritional help from fellow runners, and an amazing event crew to spur me on, I managed to hobble, shuffle, and eventually run across the finish line. And then, for the next year, I avoided the trail like the plague!

When the event came around again this year, in August, I ran one loop about two weeks beforehand, to see how it felt. I was doing OK until I came to the place I had gone down the previous year. To this day, I am not sure if it was physical or psychosomatic, or both. As I got to the same place on the trail, my legs locked up again. I was terrified of the same level of pain as last year. I avoided it. Narrowly. I inched my way up the trail. A few lighter spasms, but nothing that threw me to the ground. The trail got the better of me again. I skipped the event. She had me beat.

Last weekend, after a couple of month's of more intense training, I decided to take another run at the Bulldog trail. I had fine-tuned my fueling strategy. I had completed a 40-mile run two weeks previously. I arrived at dawn and set off into the morning dusk. Alone.

In the morning half-light, I found myself worrying about mountain lions, snakes, about running off the edge of the trail. Then I realized, here was my fear again, being projected onto these other concerns. I stopped and said a prayer.

I let go my goal of beating the trail, of overcoming it. Instead, I invited it into a dance. I thanked her for the constant challenges and the opportunities they contained. I let her be my coach, my inspiration, and my mentor. And dance we did.

I came to that final two-mile stretch (the Backbone section) and felt my heart race a little. Well-fueled with Hammer's Perpeteum and gels, well-hydrated, and well-paced, I felt ready. I moved through the section confidently and still with humility. As I ran, I imagined leaving a trail of Light in my wake, Light that reached all the way back to me as I lay screaming on the trail 16 months ago.

As I passed the spot where I had gone down, I imagined picking myself up, and the two of us, past and present, ran in to the trail end together. With practice, perseverance, patience, and pacing, we had made it.

Now, a trail that had once been a demon to me, is becoming one of my favorite runs—for its beauty, its challenges, its strengthening and humbling qualities, and our shared history. When we risk fully unwrapping any fear, any doubt that plagues us, we stand to receive some amazing gifts.

Happy trails—inside and out!

From 40 oz to 40 miles

"40 oz to freedom is the only chance I have to feel good, even though I feel bad."
Sublime, 40 oz To Freedom

I've crossed a couple of important finish lines in the last several weeks.

This last month, I walked across the stage at Royce Hall and collected a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. 5 years in the making, it has been truly earned. (That's me with my lovely wife and Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick, founding faculty of the University.) Five weeks later, I received my formal registration with the Board of Behavioral Sciences in California as a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern. Next week, I will begin seeing clients in private practice. All of a sudden, my life is transformed and my long-awaited career in counseling has formally begun.

Of course, that's a bit like saying, "all of a sudden I crossed the finish line in a marathon." Sometimes it feels like that for sure. But the truth is there was a lot of training, commitment, and time to get to that finish line. There's an inverse relationship between preparation and how easy something looks. As the quote goes, the will to succeed is the will to prepare.

Over the last 15 years, underneath everything I have accomplished, inside and out, has been supported by two incredible blessings: the love of my wife and family, and the foundation of my running practice. Whatever task I have on my plate, the patience, perseverance, and pacing required to get it done has been born it, amplified by, and maintained by my running.

As I deepen in my work as a psychotherapist, I cast my mind back to the days when 40 oz of alcohol really did seem my only chance of freedom, of feeling good. To be drunk, high, often both, was to feel powerful, free, even at peace. Of course, as any addict knows, when the chemicals wore off, the mirage of those fantasy experiences quickly vanished.

This Sunday, I will run the Long Beach Marathon. When I get to the start line at around 7 a.m., I will already have run 14 miles. When I reach the finish line of the marathon, I will have completed 40 miles. It will have been my longest run yet, and a significant step in my training for my first 50-mile event.

When I get there, sure, I will be tired. I will also certainly feel powerful, free, and at peace. When the glow of the run fades, when the feelings pass, those qualities will still be alive in me. That's the essential difference between my 40 oz and 40 mile experiences.

With the drugs and alcohol, I sought to create the sensation of what I imagined those qualities to be like. With the running, through the running and all it requires to maintain an ongoing running practice, I connect with the place inside of me where those qualities reside. I experience them authentically.

As runners, in the qualities required to commit to, train for, and complete any event, we're connected. I firmly believe that every runner benefits from every other runners' dedication and practice. We are runners. We are a family. We are a tribe. We are one and we are greater than the sum of our individual achievements. We ARE running. Without us, there would be no running. By that, I mean that without runners to give life to running, there would be no running. We are the vessel through which the transformative energy of running becomes apparent.

Thank you for all that YOU do to keep that energy alive.