The Bullshit Backyard Ultra - 2024

(Originally written for Facebook on March 29, 2024)

Alright, enough time has passed that the trauma of my self-identity crisis that occurred mid-race has begun to fade. That being said, this is my official race report for the The Bullsht Backyard Ultra. Buckle up! It’s a doooooozy.

Edited to add: It’s ultra-length, I like to write.

We wanted to win. We did not. But really, we did. I ended up being the last woman standing and crushing my own course record by 12 miles with the added difficulty of rain, mud, snow, and flooding. Oh, the flooding.

Loops 1 and 2 (miles 1-8) were pretty standard with some wet conditions. We knew it would be a rainy day so we had prepared pretty appropriately, but I didn’t realize that I would need to change both my shoes and pants only one loop in, and the following loop after that. These two loops set the course for the day as far as getting shoe changes every loop until after the night loop hit. The conditions were VERY wet. This isn’t usually a problem for me because I personally love a good weather challenge.

Loop 3 is where things began to get messy…and messier and messier. The mud turned into a sloppy mess which had most people slipping and sliding over half the course. One wrong step and you could have slipped right into the creek. With each step, feet had to be carefully placed in such a way that they wouldn’t end up either 10 inches into the soft farm mud, plunked deep into a cold stream, or sliding four inches backwards (or forwards), shifting your gravity drastically and thus bringing you to your knees.

I love a challenge. Erik was able to run a loop with me at noon and I told him to carefully follow behind and step where I step because he has a funky ankle and it was pretty treacherous.

A loop or two after Erik had joined (everything became a muddy blur), I remember Josh Burnside, who I had run many loops with to this point, jogging up next to me and asking how I was doing.

“Alright,” I muttered.

“What did Erik think of the course?”

As I had sank deep inside myself slowly over the last two loops, I could only reply with one word again, “Brutal.”

With that, he fell back. I’m assuming he just knew. I don’t know how he specifically felt, but I know a number of people began to turn around the 30-mile mark. I think it was something about knowing we had been running for what felt like a week but we had almost half of the day loops still left to go, it was still raining, and conditions of the course were continuing to get worse and worse.

There was nowhere we could step that wasn’t a sloshy, muddy mess. The rain was coming down hard, the clouds were dark, and we were only 30 miles in. My self-talk began to take a dreadful turn.

“Have you gotten soft? We barely passed the 30-mile mark. Maybe all that rest you gave yourself was just you becoming a weak version of the strong woman you used to be.”

It stung. Nothing has hurt me more than my self-talk did during this race. I recognized it pretty quickly and simply shut it off. Maybe I was weaker than I used to be, but let’s see how far this weak version of myself can take us. One more loop. I had the names of many woman that I had to run in. Women who, given the chance, would absolutely run in these conditions, given the chance to run one more time. What I was going through was nothing compared to what they went through. So I sucked it up.

I got back to the tent after this loop and began to panic and cry. I had never cried out of sheer panic on a run before. I really thought I couldn’t do it. I told my crew that I thought this was my last lap, to which my husband replied, “This isn’t your last lap.” And that was that.

I had a full outfit change and ate a cupcake and pulled myself out of it. I remember jogging the next few loops and laughing about how depressed I was previously, showing the ups and downs that one can go through during such a wild and unexpected race.

The time at this point was about 4 pm. I only had three more loops to go until I hit the night loop, and I was desperately holding on to that. But I made the deadly mistake.

“What time is it, 4?”

“No, it’s 3,” Erik replied.

…..we had been running for hours and HOURS. There was no way. And the panic set in again. What I had held onto was inaccurate. We had to add another loop to my mental watch, and it was a crushing blow. I didn’t know if my feet could carry me through the quick-sand course three more times.

One loop at a time, it did.

We finally hit the night loop. At this point, it was me and two others. We ran the first loop together and were in much higher spirits than before, presumably because we had come back together after it seemed that we ran sort of broken up in small groups for most of the day.

Once the temperature dipped, the course began to freeze and harden, and the third place runner dropped. It was just me and one other. I had all the energy in the world and felt that on this night loop, I could run forever.

But the day had been so high intensity, so stressful, that around 11:30 pm, over 16 hours into the run, I felt an ache in my heart. It could have been a caffeine mistake, but I’m very aware of my body and its limits. It had given me everything it could. I began to walk more, but briskly. Eventually, this brisk walk turned into a much slower walk as the ache didn’t subside. Realizing it was my final loop, I turned to Erik as I passed him on course and told him to give me the remaining names. It was time to bring everyone in.

I had two miles of the loop to go, and not a lot of time. As the hour began to inch closer, I started to hear Matt and Krysten’s little girl, “Go Mary!” And a few other female voices cheering me on to finish the loop. So I began to hustle just a little bit more, running more, and coming in (I believe) around the 59:00 mark, giving me one minute to catch my breath if I wanted to go out.

I had given everything I could. But there was a pressure to begin the next loop from everyone around. I didn’t ever want to quit at camp. If I was going to quit, it was going to be after the loop has begun. So as the hour neared, I entered the corral again, one more time.

I jogged with the winner, and thinking of my children, slowed to a walk, and told him to enjoy his lap as the winner. I headed back. I had nothing else to give.

My crew, my family, and a few of the race organizers were waiting at the top, seeing if I would return, and as I walked closer, Erik stepped forward and gave me a hug. The post-race crew hug. A hug that I needed so so badly that day. A hug that let me know I had done enough. I secured the assist. I broke my course record. I PR’d my distance. I pushed through the mental aspect of this race…and it was almost entirely mental. I very proudly took my DNF, and went to warm up inside.

It took me days to process how difficult this race had been. I cried a lot actually, which seems weak, but science proves that the more you cry, the more mentally strong you are. I came to the conclusion that this race was absurdly hard physically, and an absolute emotional death-trap. BUT I will always look back on it fondly because as I told the race director, these bullshitters are my family now. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without them running it with me. And I wouldn’t have wanted to, either. As tough as the day was, the company I was around kept me smiling and beyond elated at the entire experience, no matter how difficult my thoughts were deep down.

Another conclusion I came to is that running is my form of art and self-expression. It’s the only real way I can bare my soul, which is a chaotic mix of joy and sadness, anger and elation, pain and comfort. There is no way that I can ever express in words what my soul contains. I’ve been in therapy for most of my life. But if you watch me race, you can see it as plain as day. My soul is chaos, joy, and pain, all in one package, continuing to trudge along a very long path, barreling past whatever obstacle presents itself, because the drums don’t stop beating, and so I wont stop moving.

I want to make very clear that we got all the names of the women who have lost their lives into each loop and back again. I ran with some, other runners took some, and many people flipped through the names and were startled at the sheer number, raising the awareness we were hoping to gather while also remembering their lives. They were the priority on this day, and they propelled me through loops that I wasn’t quite sure I would be able to make it back from.

Thank you for reading my race report! And thank you to everyone for all the support I am always getting. I couldn’t do these races without all the messages I get cheering me on, knowing that I’m running with a little piece of everyone who watches what I do. I have the best community, the best friends, and the best family. Special thanks to crew Christian Lewis, Erik, and Coach Adam Ferdinandson! Couldn’t do it without you guys!