So I’m at mile 20 of a 50K, staring down the daunting eleven miles I still have left to run. This isn’t even my first time doing this distance, which somehow makes it worse because I know exactly what’s coming. My legs hurt. My feet hurt. My stomach feels queasy. I am truly questioning every life choice and why I am here.
Why am I doing this?
Every endurance athlete knows this feeling. If you’re not an endurance athlete, just know this is completely normal. No, we’re not okay. Yes, everything is fine.
It’s usually around this point that I remember I’m not actually here because I love running.
The volunteer at the next aid station has been standing outside for ten hours in twenty-degree weather. Somehow, she’s happier to see me than I am to see her. She fills my water bottles, asks if I need anything to eat, and sends me on my way like I’m the most important person she’s seen all day.
A few miles later, the runner in front of me asks if I have enough snacks to make it to the next aid station. Five minutes later we’re talking about where we’re from. Ten minutes later we’re discussing jobs, family, and unpacking childhood trauma.
Then I remember something.
This person is technically my competition.
Except that’s not really how trail running works.
When most people think of a race, they think of competition. Fast versus slow. Winners and losers. Beat the person next to you.
Trail running is different.
I’ve watched runners stop to help injured strangers. I’ve watched people share food, water, gloves, headlamps, and extra layers with someone they met thirty minutes earlier. I’ve watched volunteers stand outside for hours in miserable weather simply because they wanted to help other people accomplish something difficult. I’ve watched the fastest runners wait at the finish line to cheer for the last finisher as enthusiastically as they cheered for the first.
The funny thing is, I got into trail running because I liked exercise. I stayed because I accidentally found one of the best communities I’ve ever been a part of.
It doesn’t matter where you’re from. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living. It doesn’t matter how fast you are or whether you’re running your first race or your fiftieth. Somewhere along the trail, someone will ask if you’re doing okay. Someone will hand you a snack. Someone will tell you you’ve got this. Someone will cheer for you as if they’ve known you for years.
And they might have met you twenty minutes ago.
People often ask me why anyone would voluntarily run 31 miles through the woods.
The truth is, I don’t think I keep coming back for the running.
I come back for the conversations with strangers that somehow don’t feel like conversations with strangers. I come back for the volunteers who ring cowbells and hand out peanut butter sandwiches like they’re hosting the world’s best backyard barbecue. I come back for the people who genuinely want to see you succeed, even if helping you means they finish a little slower themselves.
Somewhere between mile 20 and the next aid station, I realized I’d stumbled into something much bigger than a hobby.
I’d found a place where people root for one another.
In a world that often feels divided into winners and losers, right and wrong, us and them, I’ve found a community with a surprisingly simple philosophy: we’re all just trying to make it to the finish.
And if you need a snack, a kind word, or someone to walk the next hill with you, we’ve got you.
Honestly, that’s a pretty good way to run a race.
I think it’s an even better way to live.
