Pictures from yesterday’s run, 50k at Point Mugu!
Yesterday I went out to Point Mugu to join the Coyotes for an attempt at a 31 mile run. I haven’t run further than 9 miles since Leona Divide at the end of April, but I didn’t really feel like that was going to be an issue. However, I did need to borrow a Camalbak since both of mine need a replacement bladder. My plan was to show up to the run at 8:30, a half an hour early, and transfer all my food, salt, my camera, etc., into this borrowed Camelbak. Instead, I got lost looking for my group in the wrong location, parked the car at 9, and got to the trail head right after they left. I had a handful of GU that couldn’t all fit into the single handheld water bottle that I brought. I was a little bummed that there was no way I could go out and attempt 31 miles now that I didn’t have a way to carry water, but I figured I could squeeze a few GUs into the water bottle and I could probably make the water bottle stretch for a 2 hour run, so not all was lost.
Early in the run, catching up to Kevin.
About 35 minutes into the run, I caught up with my friend Kevin, who also started running late and knew I didn’t have water or food. He told me that he never drank all of his water and he had extra food and salt, so I could run with him if I wanted to. I definitely wanted to. However, about 20 minutes later I really wasn’t feeling good about it. I had a GU and it made me so extremely thirsty that I sucked down most of the rest of my water bottle. I told Kevin that I didn’t want to not drink enough water because I was worried of taking too much and it might be a safer idea if I cut my run short. Right about then, we saw Jimmy up ahead with a handful of other Coyotes.
This made me feel much better about my situation. We also found out that there would be water at 2 places during the run, so we’d be able to fill up Kevin’s pack a few times. Kevin and I both decided to just run until we felt like making a call on the distance. We had a lot of opportunities to cut the run short, but neither of us really wanted to take them.
Photo by Kevin Chan
It was also quite windy. Even some of the flat stuff was quite challenging with wind resistance. Not that there was a lot of flat stuff – this course is no joke. It’s got some big climbs throughout, including one of the steepest right at 25 miles in.
Photo by Kevin Chan - mileage is in the early 20's here.
Beginning the final descent! These views were stupidly pretty.
Near the end of the 31 mile run. Me and my little water bottle. Photo by Kevin Chan
Meet Kevin - my friend and camel for the day.
I’m glad I was able to complete the run yesterday. I’ve been wanting to spend the day on the trails for a long time and with Shmedia and music, it’s really difficult to spend an entire day running as often as I used to. I wouldn’t have been able to attempt the run if it weren’t for Kevin’s generosity. He shared his food, his water, and salt all day long.
I’m so happy I did that run. It was so much fun and I feel surprisingly pretty good today! Not destroyed!! More please!
NAMM 2012 Begins – An inspired backward glance
Today is the first day of the 2012 NAMM trade show. It’s the largest of it’s kind in the world. Musicians and vendors come from everywhere to scope out and present all the newest gadgets and gear in the music world. It’s pretty much the best if you’re a visiting musician. You get to check out endless (and I mean endless) rows of cool stuff – instruments, microphones, pedals, interfaces, software, accessories, and you can touch and sample almost anything! The show lasts for 4 days, and you need 4 days to cover everything. It’s that big.
4 years ago I had just graduated from Berklee, was working for PreSonus Audio and was attending NAMM for the first time. I loved my time with PreSonus, although from day one on the job, I knew I couldn’t last in a situation where I wasn’t actively involved in pursuing my own music career. The jobs that have followed taught me that I don’t like having a boss in general – and not in the “well, duh, no one wants a boss” kind of way. I am just not nearly as efficient, productive or creative when I’m in a situation with a boss. I’m too worried about making mistakes when someone is “accountable” for me and it prevents me from taking risks.
21-year-old me (right) during NAMM, working for PreSonus.
I moved to Los Angeles 10 months after taking the PreSonus job. I spent the next few years not having a place to live, being on food stamps, working several jobs, but being completely dedicated to nurturing my own ideas and letting myself have adventures. I upgraded my living situation to the dining room of a 1 bedroom apartment that I shared with 4 other people, started running ultra-marathons, and started working on my new record with Scott Nickoley.
Today I’ve been holding down the fort in an apartment of my own for the past 8 months, 4 of which were paid for by my brand new company. I still have no idea how I’m going to pay rent most months up until the days before it’s due, but that’s a lot of people.
This year at NAMM I’ll be performing in the PreSonus booth and the Sennheiser booth. Me from 2008 is high-fiving the present me SO HARD right now.
Have you ever quit your job(s) to work for yourself? Any insight to offer?
Good Morning Coyotes!
It’s my first day back on the trails in LA. As always, I got my butt kicked by the SoCal Coyotes.
What is wrong with my stomach?
I just got in from a frustrating run. About a month ago out on a trail run I had really bad stomach pain during the downhill. It wasn’t a side stitch or a cramp exactly. It feels like a cut, but on the inside of my body and it hurt in my mid-abdominals on both sides. It was near the end of a run and I’m used to random things hurting or being uncomfortable occasionally so I didn’t really think anything of it. It is weird though, because the run was only about an hour long and the hard part of the run was long over.
It happened again 3 days later during a road run. I was running 4 miles at warm-up pace and then 4 miles at marathon race pace. It should have been a pretty easy workout, but a mile in to the warm up, the same pain happened. When it happens I can’t run through it for very long. I couldn’t just walk either, I had to come to a complete standstill for it to stop, and it would. Immediately.
This past week I’ve been in Colorado. On Friday I ran for about an hour and a half without this pain at ALL. Yesterday, I ran for 10 minutes and it started up again. This time, I couldn’t make it go away by stopping. It would go away when I stopped, but it would immediately start up as soon as I started running. I was only able to run about a mile and it was with walk breaks.
Today it was bothering me from the first step. I ran for 40 minutes and only ran about 2.5 miles. I stopped to stand and rest or walk constantly. I don’t think I was even able to run for 3 minutes straight.
Katelyn = most frustrated.
More about the pain: it’s not a sharp stabbing. It hurts like I have an open wound in my abs. It stings. The pain doesn’t move, it’s always in the same place. I keep looking at my stomach as though I’ll see something visibly wrong. Food doesn’t make it better or worse, although my appetite has been almost zero for about a month now, but I don’t think it is related. It stops as soon as I stop running.
Where I work it out
Temescal
I’m at Mile 90 in a 100 Mile Race
I’m going to be straight forward here. This has not been my week. A combination of being tired from travel and tired from crewing, my defenses have been down lately which have left me vulnerable to getting stuck in a pretty negative place. I’ve learned this week that Scott and I are going to need to do some serious fund raising if there’s any hope of this record getting done. Fund raising to the tune of $10,000+, which is overwhelming enough to keep me hiding in bed with the covers pulled over my head. Logically I know that I will find a way to see this record through and I’ll find people who really want to help me, but because of my state of mind going into this week, I really took the entire event as a personal blow from the universe to me.
How vain of me to even think that, really. That the universe specifically wants me to have love and passion for something but then at the same time seems to throw hurdle after hurdle at me. I know that the music business is tough, but it’s hardly a choice I have rather than the one thing that I feel like I’m on the planet to do. It chose me. Many days I wish I could be satisfied being something more attainable, because it seems I break my own heart just as often as I feel fulfilled. But really, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing because…. well, I don’t actually have a choice.
I spent most of yesterday brainstorming (in between my fits of anger aimed at whatever higher power was obviously out to get me 
I have a lot of good ideas of ways to go about raising money over the next 6 weeks. I know the next steps I will be taking. I know I am a hard worker, I won’t let this completely flatten my momentum even though that’s how I feel right now. I do have things I can do. This is an “action” moment – a moment where the ball is in my court and I can make a difference when it comes to what comes next. The thing is, is that I’m just too tired. I feel like I generally attempt to see the positive light in most things. I try to be a compassionate person, I try and stay optimistic because I really do believe that it comes back to you, but right now I just feel like a well that has been completely tapped of it’s resources.
In the ultra-running world, I would say that it feels like I just finished climbing a mountain. I spent all day climbing this mountain and I’m at the top only to find another mountain (thanks for the reference, Toby). It feels like the low points of a hundred miler. It feels like I’m at mile 90, I know the things I have to do to finish and I know I CAN do those things, I’m just feeling the fatigue of the miles I’ve already covered and every step forward takes 100% of my concentration and energy.
This morning I managed to get my pouting self out of bed and out to the weekly Coyote trail run. I walked up the Westridge fire road with Jimmy, Adam and Malcolm. Malcolm is Adam’s English Setter, and is what we consider the closest thing we have to a hazing ritual in the Coyotes. Malcolm is by far, the fastest Coyote. We have what we call the “Malcolm Challenge” where one brave soul runs Malcolm all the way up Westridge fire road, and even more challenging, all the way down on the single track. Once, we even strapped cameras to the runner and the dog to document the journey.
Watch out Usain Bolt!
The four of us hiked along as I shared some personal details of my current disposition on my life and career. When we had hiked and talked our way up the fire road a ways before we crossed over onto the single track where Jimmy handed me Malcolm and told me it was time to run.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I still felt like questioning the universe and it was much easier to hike and vent than it was to run Malcolm down the mountain, even if it was only halfway down. I struggled to keep up with him, even though he was still practically walking some of the bits. Nervous about my recently sprained ankle, I had to focus all my energy on not landing funny on my left foot as I was jerked awkwardly down the mountain.
The entire time, I heard the message loud and clear, when I hit a bump in the road, I amazingly DO have what I need to move forward. Ultra marathons are a series of highs and lows. The key is figuring out how to quickly rebound from the lows (paraphrase – Jimmy this morning). This is why I run. I’m not an impressive athlete by any means. I just happen to be able to run for a long time, and I’m attracted to that because I feel understood by trail running in a way that I feel understood by music. I’m definitely at a low point, but that means that this is the part before it gets better.
Crewing for a Hundred Mile Ultra, and the Two Questions to Never Ask Your Runner
This past weekend was the Angeles Crest hundred miler. Several of my friends were running this year, including my coach, Jimmy Dean Freeman, and good friend Dominic Grossman, who I crewed last year at Badwater. I was crew chief for my friend Adam Bowman. It was his first hundred miler attempt. I liked the idea of crewing for Adam, because he seems like a similar runner to me in the sense of how much fun he has on the trails and how easy going he is. I’ve crewed several races in the past where I have been the only person crewing and I only have 30 seconds at the most with my runner who usually knows exactly what he needs and has calculated every calorie of the race. Crewing for someone who doesn’t require this sort of specialized attention (yet) is a little more laid back, but it did show me how much I know about this sport. This weekend I learned something about myself. I know more than I thought I did. The experience made me text my friend/great ultra-runner, Brian Krogmann to let him know that thanks to him, I know a lot about crewing. The first time I crewed for him I was just about brought to tears, and then the races I crewed for him after, we had sort of gotten used to each other and ended up learning to work a little better with each other.
Brian and I at our first race together, my first hundred miler where he stepped in with all his experience to help my chief-less crew support me.
You don't even have to be an ultra-runner to be a great crew chief! This is my best friend Nicole Latorre. She knows me better than most people and is without a doubt completely capable of being in charge of my well being during a hundred miler.
I crewed with 4 other trail runners without a huge history of ultras. There may have been a couple of ultras between the 4 of them, but it was one of the first times I definitely felt like I had the knowledge to share. I ran into some trouble with communicating with my runner at points. The great part about having a whole crew is that the crew chief can delegate tasks to everyone and work out a smooth transition from aid station to aid station in order to help their runner get back on the trails as quickly as possible. The challenge of having a crew is that everyone has ideas and emotions and it is sometimes hard to take the lead of a group. I don’t believe it is helpful for 5 people to approach a runner when he comes through, asking what he needs, especially when he looks like shit. It’s overwhelming, and asking too many questions isn’t helpful for a runner. If there is a situation when a runner is in distress, the crew chief needs to be able to have a one on one conversation with him so they can tell him what to do next. It was really hard for me to have to get my runner to concentrate on my voice and not the other people around me. Especially the voices that were asking how he was feeling, or what he wanted to do, two questions I don’t believe are appropriate for ultra-marathons. I think I could have done a better job of establishing control from the beginning.
Team Magpie Mustache - Adam in the middle, I'm on the far right.
Adam started very strong. He’s a strong runner in general. When we crossed paths at the Leona Divide 50 miler, he gave me a high five that practically burned my hand off. He looked very strong and happy and he finished impressively. This is the runner I saw for the first 20 or so miles of Angeles Crest. However, it got hot pretty fast and I told the crew that at Cloudburst Summit (37.5 miles in), I expected us to see Adam in the midst of his first physical and possibly mental low point of the race. Sure enough, Adam looked a little wiped coming out of that particular section. He was complaining of feeling light headed, bloated, and not being able to pee. He had been doubling up on Salt Stick and I was beginning to wonder if maybe he was over doing it on the salt. The same thing happened to me at Leona. My fists looked like boxing gloves I was so swollen, and once I cut back on my salt, I immediately started feeling better. This was our plan for the next section – to cut back on salt a little.
He arrived at the next aid station (Three Points, 42.7 miles), looking much stronger. He was running again, his spirits were up, he wasn’t feeling light headed anymore. We saw this as a promising sign of a real turn around. We got him back on the trails and headed to grab a bite to eat before meeting up with him at Chilao (52.8 miles in). I wanted to be at Chilao for 5:00pm, predicting he would arrive between 5:15-5:30. He didn’t come through until around 7:00pm. When he arrived he was suffering from some pretty bad cramping in his legs (by this point, he had resumed his salt stick intake to about 1 per hour – 1 per hour and a half). Coming down the hill to the aid station, his legs cramped so badly that they came out from underneath him completely. The medic helped me rub out his legs with bio freeze, which Adam couldn’t even feel. I also managed to grab a coconut water from another runner’s crew. We sat him down and had him finish the coconut water and also drink soup mixed with rehydration salts. We invested a lot of time at that aid station trying to do everything we could to help him regulate his system. The medic said he should pee within about 20 minutes of taking the rehydration salts. We sent him off with a pacer, Paul, and drove up to Shortcut Saddle (59 miles in), where I expected to see him somewhere between 9:15-9:30pm. I didn’t see him until well after 10pm, and by that time I knew it wasn’t going to be wise to go on. I knew what kind of runner Adam was, and he hadn’t been running like himself since the 50k point. When he came through with news that he still hadn’t peed, it solidified my gut feeling that we shouldn’t go on. Adam knew this too. He knew that for some reason beyond our control, this was not the right day for him to run 100 miles. We did everything we could at every point during the race. I really was impressed by how unemotional Adam stayed. He was completely collected and didn’t let irrational fears or emotions get in the way of doing everything he physically could to continue on, and then, eventually pull himself from the race.
Adam and I the night before the race start
I’m excited for his next attempt, which I probably won’t be able to be his crew chief for because I think I’ll be running the same hundred miler (Javelina Jundred! So much fun!). As for the rest of the coyotes who ran, it was quite a day. Dominic ended up winning the race, Jimmy came in sub 24 hours, our friend George finished his first hundred, and Katie DeSplinter (as seen in previous Music and LSD episodes) finished like a freaking champion. What an amazing adventure.
Coyotes! AC100 runners and their crew resting after a long weekend of running.
I wouldn’t say that crewing inspires me to race. I love running ultras, but when I’m crewing I always wonder, “why in the world does anybody do this?”
It’s completely retarded.
Relaxing with champions at Adam's post-race bbq
Related Videos
Crewing Badwater
San Diego Hundred Miler
Be back Monday!
I’ll be up crewing at the Angeles Crest 100 miler this weekend. Look for an update on Monday!
What a Weekend!!
First of all, for those of you who didn’t see my post earlier today, I booked a show in Los Angeles for the end of the month with my band! If you’re in town, come out to The Mint and say hello!
This weekend has been quite extraordinary. For starters, I had a photo shoot with Me in my Place, a photo blog that features women in their homes. It’s actually quite sexy and I never imagined I would have the balls to do something like this, but it turns out that I do, because I did. Check out their blog, just do so in the comfort of your own home because some of the site is not safe for work.
The entire experience was incredibly positive. Just because I run 100 miles at a time does not mean that I am immune to body image hangups. I consider myself to be a confident young woman, but truly, I’m actually quite conservative. Conservative. That’s a word I wouldn’t normally tag myself as, but during my conversation with Scott yesterday about the image I project as an artist, the word “conservative” came up a few times. I guess I like being classy and respected, but truly, my own lack of a healthy body image has prevented me from putting myself out there on stage in a lot of ways and this is translated as being conservative. This wasn’t something I was conscious of until after I finished the photo shoot on Saturday. I spent a good 20 minutes laying on the floor of my living room feeling so invigorated! I had spent 3 hours that morning being told how beautiful I was and encouraged to let my sex appeal show its shy little face. During the shoot I got to see some of the photos and I was in disbelief that the girl in display was ME! It was so sexy, but without being gross or perverted. I felt rejuvenated. By the end of the shoot I was feeling so empowered. I felt like I could take over the world. And really, the feeling has been lasting ever since. I had no idea what I have been keeping to myself.
I started yesterday morning off at the beach before I had a recording session with Scott. We’re working on a ton of background vocal parts for “Pretend” right now. Scott has been working extremely hard on the production of this tune, and believe me, it is worth it. This song is really starting to merge with the rest of the songs we have produced. It seems that Scott and I have been able to bring more energy into the studio lately. We both have had a lot of activity in our lives lately that has caused us both to treat our time together as something we know we should be doing, but in reality neither of us had much of the emotional or physical energy to be working. Now we’re acting more as co-creators again, having fun and getting a lot done. I’m really excited for all of YOU to hear these new tunes!!
Best way to warm up for a day in a dark recording studio - spend an hour playing on the beach!
Scott listening back to the background tracks we worked on yesterday
Last night I played at Hotel Cafe with Nina Storey. We’ve played there a million times, but it’s always nice. Because it’s sort of our “go to” venue, it feels like home and I never feel like I have to think about the gig too much. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t think I played very well last night. I’m not sure what played into that exactly, but I’ll tell you one thing, it didn’t matter one bit. Nina was amazing. The crowd loved her and I think she had a great show. Besides, with her on stage, I don’t think anyone is noticing the handful of times I wasn’t quite playing 100%.
After the show, Toby and Nabeel from White Lights came over for dinner. Nabeel did a Tarot card reading for me. I asked what was holding me back in moving forward with my career. The cards gave me a vocabulary of some interesting things that I found very relevant to me right now, especially after the shoot with Me in my Place the day before. It’s kind of cool to use Tarot as a tool in helping yourself translate what control your emotions and environment have over you and how the way you perceive those two things impacts your actions. The good news is that the Tarot cards suggest that I am in a good head space to be moving forward and taking action now and I am surrounded with people who are going to lift me up. Sounds pretty good to me!
Nabeel gave me a Tarot card reading last night
Toby in my kitchen!
Tomorrow I’m off to Louisiana! I’m so excited to come and play at The Haven Gallery/Listening Room!
Keep and eye out for more updates/videos/pictures throughout the week!
I’ve done SO MANY PULL-UPs!
Y’all. I am officially able to do a pull-up. I do one every time I walk by the pull-up bar! It took about 10 days of trying, starting with me not even able to get off the ground. Now I can really do one! I do 4-10 every day (but not in a row). I’ve done so many lately that I actually hurt myself this past weekend from doing too many. Now I have to take a few days off from pull-ups to let my muscles recover. You hear that? I’ve done so many pull-ups that my muscles exploded.
I’ve spent the last 2 days giving my resume a serious facelift and attempting to look for actual paying work as a musician. It seems so silly to be as qualified as I am and to be struggling so much to find work as a singer in Los Angeles. I know that the hard part is getting in the door, but for crying out loud, it’s time. I’m psyched to have the opportunity that I do to be working with Scott and putting out this record, but I also need to pursue other avenues of income and I really don’t like straying from music. As you all know, I’ve had my share of crappy jobs. I’ve paid my dues with the best of them, but I will not justify my hard work and talent being unseen because I’m not doing everything I possibly can, and if I’m not doing everything, I’m not doing enough.
Remember this job? FML
Anyway – I noticed on the Berklee alumni page that Cirque du Soleil will be auditioning singers in LA later this year. I have no idea what they’re looking for but I’ll definitely audition, because, why not?
This Friday is my first show with my new band. We’re headlining at Molly Malone’s, which makes me very happy. I love Molly’s and I love playing last. Molly’s doesn’t have the most ideal green room. When you’re playing, often times you can hear the band playing after you arriving and loading in gear right behind you. It’s kind of lame, but I won’t have to worry about that this time.
Summer running has been interesting for me. I find I have very little desire to run when it’s sunny out. It’s not even that it’s all that hot yet in West LA. I just prefer to run in the shade of the marine layer first thing in the morning, and when I don’t get out first thing in the morning, I find I probably won’t go run at all. So – this morning I made sure to get a run to the beach and back before breakfast. Success – I feel great and beat the sun! I’m beginning to toy with the idea of another ultramarathon later this year…. which one, which one….
Off to go promote the heck out of my show at Molly Malone’s this Friday. Are you in LA? You should come? If you mention my blog I’ll give you a discount on your CD!
I will defeat you, pull-up bar…
I find it embarrassing that I have never, not even when I was a little kid, ever, done a pull-up. When we took the Presidential Fitness Test in elementary school, the pull-up part of the test would undoubtably reduce me to tears.
…I can run 100 miles but I couldn’t do a pull-up if my life depended on it, which is why we have placed this beauty right in the middle of the apartment. Hopefully I will see it and stop several times a day in the hopes that by the end of the summer I”ll be able to do a pull-up. Hopefully I won’t stop seeing it after I get used to it being there and go on the rest of my life never being able to do a pull-up. I WILL defeat you, pull-up bar. I will.
The Month of May – Adventures of Being a Party Princess
Tomorrow is the last day of May, which means June is practically here which means in my book, it is Summer.
This morning Max and I got up early to go play Smash Ball at the beach, something we’ve been doing pretty regularly since we moved into our totally awesome apartment. That’s right, I’m no longer living in someone’s dining room. It’s been a year since I’ve put my official race training on the back burner for the sake of my new record, so finding ways to play outside as much as possible has been a crucial element of my sanity. Lucky for me, I live at the beach, so there is unlimited access to butt-toning sand playtime.
Playing smash ball, especially if you suck and have to run everywhere to get the ball, is a GREAT workout.
May was a big month for me. I kicked off May with running the Leona Divide 50 miler, which is my only race this year due to recording. Truly, I thought I had no business being out there, but apparently my body just remembers how to run ultra’s and I REALLY enjoyed that run. I ran my 2nd fastest 50 miler that day with a time of 11:57, my fastest being 9:02 at American River. The day after Leona Divide I was up at 5am. It was MOVING DAY and it felt like Christmas for me! For a year I have been existing in a dining room of a 1 bedroom apartment with at least 2-3 other people. When I first moved in, it was an upgrade from the sofa I had been sleeping on for 7 months, but by the time I moved out, I was sharing a twin bed with someone else and I was losing my sanity. I didn’t enjoy being home anymore. I wanted s p a c e to rest my eyes, a sofa to stretch out on, a big open floor not covered with things that didn’t belong to me, a kitchen filled with my pots and pans, a bedroom with four real walls and a door that shut, and that’s exactly what I got. This new apartment is a serious life upgrade and I couldn’t be happier about it.
My throne. The kitchen is my new official work space. I love it.
My kitchen is bigger than my entire living space at my old place!! This is AMAZING.
Chalk board paint is pretty much the best.
At the end of the first week in the new apartment, I had my first show of the Summer at Genghis Cohen. I love this venue. It is quirky and small and intimate and charming and they are always so friendly to me here. The show had a great turn out. I thought my performance was decent. I felt tired I think from all of the activity of the preceding week, but lucky for me, no one seemed to notice that I was a little off my game. I drew in enough people to get paid decently, though Genghis Cohen isn’t the best at collecting from the door. Every show I’ve ever played there I’ve had people tell me that they didn’t pay to get in or that the folks collecting money didn’t ask them who they were there to see, thus, I don’t get paid for those patrons. Most shows, the head count I take from stage and the one they give me when they pay me are different numbers. I’m going to assume it’s because I’m so furiously popular that the rush at the door is too much for them to handle everyone I also played for over an hour and got to hang out with my friends and fans after the show. It was a great night – if you came out, thanks!!
Picture that friend Dominic Grossman took during the Genghis Cohen show on 5/13
Since music doesn’t exactly pay me enough to pay my rent (yet), I’ve had to get creative with making more money now that I have… like… a real place with responsibilities and electricity I want to keep on. I have been working on t.v. shows, but since almost everything is on hiatus until July, work has been really hard to find. My good friend and fellow ultra-runner, Summer, has been casting me to work on Hawthorne just about every week, which has been tremendously helpful, though still isn’t quite enough to get by on. This past month I haven’t turned down a single opportunity to work and the result has been a full wallet and an exhausted Katelyn. One way I tried to earn extra money this month is being a character at children’s birthday parties. Summer hooked me up with this job as well. She used to do it when she first moved out here and said it was good money and a lot of fun. Both of these things are true – it was pretty good money and it was a lot of fun!
I made a GREAT Rapunzel
Balloon animals! So much fun!
However, the driving got to me pretty quickly. I would be driving from Pasadena to Long Beach to the valley all in one day, sucking my gas tank dry and leaving me sweating in a my princess costume while rushing from place to place. Also, they don’t prepare you for the fact that you probably won’t get a chance to pee for 5 hours. This alone was not enough to get me to quit, but when I realized that the costumes weren’t being washed (omg, the smell was horrendous), and that the toys and magic tricks weren’t being replinshed, like, ever, I started to feel like a fool. I would arrive in a torn, stained, smelly costume with a balloon pump that didn’t work (actually had to run and get my own when I realized my boss packed one for me that didn’t work at all), not enough balloons to survive a day of parties, and 3 magic tricks, one of which didn’t work anymore. I felt like even though the company made over half of the money from each party, none of that was going towards cleaning costumes, replacing tools and toys and thus, kind of made me look unprofessional. Also, for some reason, after my 10 minute lesson on face painting (practicing with a pencil on paper) I some how wasn’t as prepared as I thought to draw artful sketches onto a squirming 3 year-old’s face with paint. When I tried to draw a horse it ended up looking like a glittery spider. I am NOT a visual artist. It was embarrassing actually. Max made a joke that I took way to personally when I was goofing around in one of the costumes and he said “You went to college!!” It destoyed me. I shut myself into the bedroom for an hour trying to sort out what the hell I was feeling.
FML
The breaking point for me was when I showed up at a party in a park for a little girl named Jade. The directions were to look for a party by the sandbox. There were 6 parties in the park. None of the ones by the sandbox had ordered a pink-haired clown. I did eventually find the party on the other side of the park, but it wasn’t for Jade, it was for Jada, and they were insulted that I got the name wrong. Jada was 3 and had absolutely no interest in a clown that only spoke English, couldn’t blow up a balloon, and smelled like dirty socks. The following party was in a part of town that a 24-year-old girl in a costume as NO business being in. It made me feel like the company didn’t research where the parties were and thus didn’t have any interest in my well-being. I spent about 20 minutes just pulling myself together so I wouldn’t be this poor, pathetic, crying clown the rest of the day. I ended that weekend on an up note with parties that LOVED me, but in general, the job wasn’t for me. I could deal with the driving I think, but definitely not with the lack of care with the costumes and supplies. The job should be fun, not degrading.
Nothing says "I have self-respect and a reliable business" like this fine getup. You're all lucky I can't take a picture of the smell.
Held together with safety pins.....
We'll just call this "ventilation"
May finished up with pacing Summer (three mentions in one blog entry!) at the Nanny Goat 24 Hour Run. For those of you unfamiliar with this sort of thing, it is a run that goes for 24 hours. You run a mile loop over and over and basically run as far as you can in 1 day. Summer wanted to run the 100 mile option, which meant she needed to get to 86 miles by 24 hours in. My job was to get her through the night and into the next day, which is typically the hardest part of any hundred miler. You feel like a crazy person at about 4am during a hundred miler. Summer did amazingly well. We ran miles 63-86 together, getting her to 86 miles by about 6am, 2 hours to spare before the cutoff. She then continued on to finish her 100 miles with a PR of about 3 hours. Totally badass. She’s a rock star. I, on the other hand, was sore and exhausted after my measly 23 miles and had to smack myself the entire drive home to stay awake. For a rock star I am terrible at staying up late/all night. However, I am really good at sleeping all day, which is what yesterday was when I got home from the race.
Me (background) while pacing Summer (foreground) at Nanny Goat's this weekend.
Here’s what you have to look forward to reading about this coming month in my blog – more regular entries, SO MUCH RECORDING, a road trip to Colorado, lots more job searching so I can pay July’s rent, beach trips, trail runs, and videos!!
Leona Divide Video Blog!
Here it is! Leona Divide 50 Miler Video Blog!
Enjoy~
And in case you missed it, here’s my personal race report -
The past 2 weeks have helped me to explore where it is that I have come from and what I am made of. There is nothing I can’t do, which is empowering and terrifying. All things to come or the things that won’t, all rely on my will to succeed.
Oh, and I definitely have the will, by the way.
I flew to Colorado for an unexpected trip 2 weeks ago which I won’t go into detail about. I will say that it was a trip full of love and challenge. My Mom is the most amazing woman I know and I find a lot of comfort knowing that I’m cut from the same cloth.
I got back from Colorado 7 pounds lighter (literally) than before I left. Not that I have anything to loose, especially right before a 50 mile ultramarathon. I called Coach Jimmy the day after I got back in town, and just 3 days before the race, looking for an out. I wanted someone to tell me that it was okay if I didn’t show up to the starting line, that I could sit this one out and no one would think any less of me. Of course he didn’t tell me this, why would he? He just advised that I sleep and eat and, once again, show up.
And so, similarly to arriving at San Diego 100 feeling unsure about my will to run, I showed up at Leona knowing that getting there was half the battle. Well… maybe it was 1/4 of the battle because running 50 miles, no matter how you slice it, is a long way to run. All I kept thinking was how I’ve done longer and harder races than this so OF COURSE I possess the ability to do this, but still, 50 miles will always feel like at least 50 miles.
However, I forgot this temporarily. I was out and running blissfully in the mountains, getting peace of mind, and overall having a lot of time to think and de-frag, but since 50 miles is a long distance to run, I found myself completely drained and ready to be finished at 30 miles in. I came to peace with this quickly. I told myself how proud of myself I was that I had showed up and ran 30 miles like it was no big deal, in spite of not properly training in the midst of recording this record. I told myself that I was okay with my first DNF. I didn’t even have an emotional response to this the way I did when I thought I wouldn’t finish San Diego 100, which is how I knew I was ready to drop. I didn’t want to drop when I was emotional and irrational. I was okay with the decision to pull myself from the race and I would be proud of my effort.
However, by the time I made it to the next aid station I had completely turned around. The moment I took any pressure I had off of myself to perform, the miles seemed to melt away into an effortless (but not reaaalllly effortless) glide to the finish. I have never been so proud of myself than I was when I finished Leona Divide. I didn’t think I would show up, then I didn’t expect to finish, then I didn’t expect to finish with much time before the cutoff, but I managed to squeeze in sub 12 hours which completely blew my expectations of myself that day out of the water. Good for me, Katelyn. Good for me.
The race felt like a purge. I haven’t had the time to train the way I did last year and I’m okay with that. I signed up for Leona just wanting a day on the trails, because I really do LOVE this sport, and that’s exactly what I got. It felt good to run through the emotions of the week leading up to the race. This was a significant race also because it was the last day I would be living in my friend Daniel’s living room. The next morning I moved into an apartment of my own. I have been waking up naturally at 6:30am since then, I think because I didn’t realize what poor quality of sleep I had been getting for the last year. I’ve loved living with Daniel and Garrett and Ciaran and Berns, etc., but I don’t think I realized what I needed until I got it.
This weekend I have a show at Genghis Cohen here in LA. I’m excited to get up and perform for all of my friends, especially my running friends, and show them what I’ve been up to while I’ve been off the trails. I’m a little frustrated with how long things have been really hard, but I’m confident that I will come out on top. Besides, it’s the mile 30 when you feel-like-quitting-but-you-don’t that makes you who you are. What happens when you hit your wall? I think it’s interesting that I remember mile 30 more vividly than the finish.
Max and I were together the other day eating Subway breakfast sandwiches. He was rushing through his and I tried to slow him down by saying “Slow down! Do you really want to finish life first?”
Leona Divide 50 Miler
The past 2 weeks have helped me to explore where it is that I have come from and what I am made of. There is nothing I can’t do, which is empowering and terrifying. All things to come or the things that won’t, all rely on my will to succeed.
Oh, and I definitely have the will, by the way.
I flew to Colorado for an unexpected trip 2 weeks ago which I won’t go into detail about. I will say that it was a trip full of love and challenge. My Mom is the most amazing woman I know and I find a lot of comfort knowing that I’m cut from the same cloth.
I got back from Colorado 7 pounds lighter (literally) than before I left. Not that I have anything to loose, especially right before a 50 mile ultramarathon. I called Coach Jimmy the day after I got back in town, and just 3 days before the race, looking for an out. I wanted someone to tell me that it was okay if I didn’t show up to the starting line, that I could sit this one out and no one would think any less of me. Of course he didn’t tell me this, why would he? He just advised that I sleep and eat and, once again, show up.
And so, similarly to arriving at San Diego 100 feeling unsure about my will to run, I showed up at Leona knowing that getting there was half the battle. Well… maybe it was 1/4 of the battle because running 50 miles, no matter how you slice it, is a long way to run. All I kept thinking was how I’ve done longer and harder races than this so OF COURSE I possess the ability to do this, but still, 50 miles will always feel like at least 50 miles.
However, I forgot this temporarily. I was out and running blissfully in the mountains, getting peace of mind, and overall having a lot of time to think and de-frag, but since 50 miles is a long distance to run, I found myself completely drained and ready to be finished at 30 miles in. I came to peace with this quickly. I told myself how proud of myself I was that I had showed up and ran 30 miles like it was no big deal, in spite of not properly training in the midst of recording this record. I told myself that I was okay with my first DNF. I didn’t even have an emotional response to this the way I did when I thought I wouldn’t finish San Diego 100, which is how I knew I was ready to drop. I didn’t want to drop when I was emotional and irrational. I was okay with the decision to pull myself from the race and I would be proud of my effort.
However, by the time I made it to the next aid station I had completely turned around. The moment I took any pressure I had off of myself to perform, the miles seemed to melt away into an effortless (but not reaaalllly effortless) glide to the finish. I have never been so proud of myself than I was when I finished Leona Divide. I didn’t think I would show up, then I didn’t expect to finish, then I didn’t expect to finish with much time before the cutoff, but I managed to squeeze in sub 12 hours which completely blew my expectations of myself that day out of the water. Good for me, Katelyn. Good for me.
The race felt like a purge. I haven’t had the time to train the way I did last year and I’m okay with that. I signed up for Leona just wanting a day on the trails, because I really do LOVE this sport, and that’s exactly what I got. It felt good to run through the emotions of the week leading up to the race. This was a significant race also because it was the last day I would be living in my friend Daniel’s living room. The next morning I moved into an apartment of my own. I have been waking up naturally at 6:30am since then, I think because I didn’t realize what poor quality of sleep I had been getting for the last year. I’ve loved living with Daniel and Garrett and Ciaran and Berns, etc., but I don’t think I realized what I needed until I got it.
This weekend I have a show at Genghis Cohen here in LA. I’m excited to get up and perform for all of my friends, especially my running friends, and show them what I’ve been up to while I’ve been off the trails. I’m a little frustrated with how long things have been really hard, but I’m confident that I will come out on top. Besides, it’s the mile 30 when you feel-like-quitting-but-you-don’t that makes you who you are. What happens when you hit your wall? I think it’s interesting that I remember mile 30 more vividly than the finish.
Max and I were together the other day eating Subway breakfast sandwiches. He was rushing through his and I tried to slow him down by saying “Slow down! Do you really want to finish life first?”
Video blog to come!
I Hope My Will is Stronger Than My Legs
…because THAT is what is going to get me through the Leona Divide 50 Miler in 12 days.
My last ultramarathon was San Diego 100. 48 hours after I crossed the finish line I started recording my next record and I told myself that I could not possibly expect myself to be recording this CD while training for ultramarathons. Both being a rockstar and an athlete require a lot of time and very different sleep/eating schedules. Staying up until 4 in the morning while fueling yourself with gummy worms may not gracefully support 20-30 mile training runs. SO – I took a break from training. Well, the CD has taken longer than I thought to finish and I MISS THE TRAILS dammit, so I’m going to run a race and no one can stop me.
Except for maybe myself. I decided I desperately missed ultrarunning several months back and I signed up for the Rouge Orleans (126 miles), only to then be sick for about 3 months solid, including a couple of rounds of antibiotics (one of the reasons this CD is taking so long to finish). I thought it was a good call to drop from Rouge Orleans and I offered myself Leona as a consolation. I have definitely been running more since getting healthy in February, but it’s nothing compared to the level I was at this time last year. The good news is that I am healthy and without injury. However, I will definitely be showing up to this race completely undertrained.
BUT
I also showed up to my first 50 miler and my first 100 miler completely undertrained. One thing I have yet to lack at a race is will and attitude. Once I get running, I’m happy as a clam (most of the time) and find that this sort of fulfillment can usually push me through the times during the race where my body is completely protesting.
I went on a confidence boosting long run on Saturday which left my legs feeling slow and tight and uh…. completely not full of confidence. So, during my “taper” period, I will instead think of other things that I have done that I have successfully willed myself through.
Today's post-run snack, carrot juice!
“The most dangerous weapon is your will” – Bruce Lee
No work!
It’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve had any work. Ugh. I guess this is the trade off!
In the mean time, running is free, so I did that twice yesterday.
Next Race on Calendar = Rouge Orleans
I didn’t realize how sick I’ve been the past few months until this week, which is when I started feeling like myself again!
I’ve been able to run effortlessly again! I ran a quick and easy 5 miler on Monday, which has been the longest I’ve been able to go the entire time I’ve been sick, and I was very aware of how much more energy I had, how much healthier I felt, and how short 5 miles felt again. The next day I did a 9 miler and had the same response. This has started to rev up the training side of me. I told myself that I was not going to train during the recording of this album, but I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately and the idea of doing some long runs makes me really excited. Training definitely can’t be my first priority right now. The record comes first no matter what else is going on, but that doesn’t mean I can’t benefit from having a race to train for.
So…..
I think I’ll run the Rouge Orleans the first week of March. 126 miles of insanity. This should be fun.
My Christmas Tree!!
Tonight my roommate bought us a Christmas tree.
Then he left our apartment and I decorated it 
Our Christmas Tree
Our Christmas Tree
Our Christmas Tree
Badwater Video Blog
Rookie crew leads Rookie runner, Dominic Grossman to 11th place finish at Badwater Ultra-Marathon 2010.
Rouge-Orleans Race Preview and Forge Running Weekend – VIDEO!
Here’s the video blog of Jimmy Dean Freeman, Brian Krogmann and my trip to Louisiana to test run some of the Rouge-Orleans and check out other Forge trails. Highlights – Brian gets chased by a bull and attacked by a spider.
Shake it up baby, get yourself some uncomfortable
I have been terribly uncomfortable and absolutely terrified of some of the things I’ve been feeling and doing lately. I must say, I’m either a masochist in ways I didn’t know, or my life is in such a transitional period that I recognize the need for risk and change and am allowing myself to feel a certain degree of shitty for a while in the hopes that this is all part of the long-run journey toward something new, brighter, and closer to where my heart wants to be. Either way, I’ve not only been accepting this uncomfortable period, I’ve actively been pushing myself into it.
First of all – some excellent news: I broke ground on my new album last week and it’s looking like it will be a late summer/early autumn release. I am extremely excited about this. Friend of mine Scott Nickoley is producing the record with me and so far, I’m having a great time. I also played my first full band Los Angeles show last week.
Katelyn Benton, Russell Peppers, Scott Nickoley at Molly Malones, Los Angeles 6/24/10
With the production of this record, I have quickly decided to put my training on hiatus (at least back off significantly) until its completion. Friends, there are reasons why people don’t pursue both ultra-marathoning AND being a rockstar. The lifestyles are quite different.
For a while here, I have pursued music at somewhat of a slower pace. I didn’t realize I was slowing so much until a series of horrible funks, total meltdowns, and some pretty clear-messaged dreams that all began about 2 months ago. It was as though the insides of me knew what it wanted and needed before my brain got the message – “Katelyn, THIS is what you truly love. If you don’t open your eyes while it’s in front of you, you will be extremely regretful.”
But loving music hurts. I wrote a song called “Hey You Rockstars” that basically says “Damn. Having a dream is hard. I wish I could be happy with something that didn’t constantly hurt me and that is a little easier to achieve.”
But what is that worth? Would you rather pursue something that is less sticky, less trouble, but wouldn’t fill you up the way you know you can be filled? If the universe has ever opened your eyes to something beautiful that is just for you, how can you settle with anything less?
This may seem hard and impossible, but if I don’t try this I will absolutely regret it for the rest of my life. Besides, if it’s still in front of me, hurting me because I don’t know exactly what to do with it, that’s a good sign. It means I still have a chance. When the dream stops talking to you, when it has given up on you listening, then you’re in trouble (theme from The Alchemist).
So I have actively been making myself very uncomfortable lately. The payoff has been incredible though. The more I take risks, the more I do and say things that I’m afraid of doing and saying, the more present I feel and at the end of the day I can tell myself, “I did it right today.” It doesn’t always feel good, but that’s okay. Is a life really considered balanced without giving yourself the opportunity to learn how to manage your own heartache? I think not. I have been depriving myself of this learning opportunity for some time now.
At the San Diego 100 Mile Endurance Run 2 weeks ago, for the first time I admitted to myself that I could see no way out of the race and I was going to have to drop at 80 miles in (see previous entry). Incredibly though, there was another side to this feeling and it lead me all the way to the finish line. No finish line has been sweeter. Learning that when I am emotionally and physically feeling completely spent, but then discovering that there is another side to that wall has been incredibly empowering. Now going forward I have that physical proof to any “wall” situation that I encounter. This is probably why I have been okay with jumping into a lot of scary situations over the past 2 weeks.
So while I’m honestly quite terrified of some of the positions I’ve put myself in recently, I have made terrified my new productive emotion. I know there’s another side to it. It’s either going to push me in a direction that is closer to where I want to be, or it’s going to eventually throw me off balance and I’ll abandon that particular situation. Either way, I’m learning and I’m not afraid to be afraid. It’s certainly not my favorite emotion to try and sleep with, but I’m willing to have sleepless nights in order to experience a growth spurt.
Besides, like I said, I’m on a hiatus from training so I don’t really need all that sleep I’m not getting anyway.
This is your brain on 100 miles…
Just to forewarn you, this is not your average race recap.
This past weekend I ran in the San Diego 100 Mile Endurance Run. This is my second 100 mile attempt, the first being at Javelina Jundred where I completed the 101.4 mile distance but did not make the time cutoff.
I knew going into San Diego that I am by far a more fit and trained runner than I was 7 months ago. Since Javelina I have raced in Ridgecrest 50k, Twin Peaks 50 Miler, American River 50 Miler, Miwok 100k, New Orleans Marathon, Los Angeles Marathon, and a handful of other 25ks or Xterra trail races. The time I have invested in racing and training has paid off in the confidence that I can physically handle these types of distances.
I went into Javelina back in October undertrained, but mentally I was tough. There was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to finish that distance.
San Diego was different. I went in knowing that I was physically able to take on this challenge, but my head and heart have not been in a clear place for many weeks now. I have been debating whether or not I am in fact self-medicating with running rather than living this pure and free lifestyle in which running is simply a forum of my own self-exploration. Running makes me happy. Running gets me high. Sometimes, instead of doing things that I need to do, or thinking about things I need to think about, or writing a song that’s in my heart, I hit the trails. I reflect, I relax, I reset, and I continue on.
Most times I think that running serves as a balance, but about 5 weeks ago I called myself out for the first time. I admitted to myself that running had become the only thing I wanted to do not only because of the way it opened me up, but the way it closed me off to everything else, and this was something I needed to address in order to save the artistic side of me.
I think that the result of all of this self-reflection will be a new balance of my life, my music, my friends, and my running. Running is a passion of mine, but I can’t let it be at the expense of all other passions. That position is reserved for music.
This past month has been a whirlwind. I sent out a letter to some of my most trusted music friends asking for help. I told them that I needed to be talked off of the figurative edge. My heart was broken because my need to create music and move forward had come to a halt and I was paralyzed with fear that I might actually give up, and this broke my heart. My dreams were endangered.
Immediately following my call for help, my life became immediately more interesting. Exactly 1 week later I was rehearsing with pop star Ke$ha as a background vocalist for her summer tour. I would find out a few days later that she would replace the spot I was auditioning for with a friend of hers, but it was a huge boost in my confidence as a musician and my hope that the universe is on my side. I just have to ask for what I want and not be shy when it’s presented to me.
Another area of my life that running has cleverly shielded me from is my love life. It has been a year of learning for me. Every time I am racing or training I am left alone with my thoughts, which some days are not very nice. But because it’s just me, for the very first time in my life I’ve been able to make complete space for who I am. I’m okay when I’m happy, I’m okay when I’m pissed off. There’s always another side to whatever I am feeling and the idea that I get to WATCH my own brain figure itself out is fascinating.
But running is time consuming. It’s hard to fall in love when you’re running 70-90 miles a week, unless of course, you run with hot guys (which I do… but none of then are candidates). So in the past month I took some time to re-explore what falling in love feels like, and also, what having your heart broken is like. One week ago tonight I cried myself to sleep, then woke up the next morning able to say, “hey, that was worth it.” Then I re-learned how to forgive and self-sooth. I’ve spent so much time by myself and high off of endorphins, I have been depriving myself of very real human emotions and interactions that are essential to my growth. Especially if I ever plan to come back down to planet earth off of the trails.
SAN DIEGO 100 MILER
“Show up. You don’t have to finish, but show up” is what what my coach, Jimmy Dean Freeman, said to me while I hiccuped giant sobs because my heart was broken and my world was over and I couldn’t possibly spend 100 miles alone with my own thoughts during a 100 mile race in just 3 days! But I did show up. Two of my three pacers had to back out at the last minute and my crew chief went MIA, but I pulled together a team of incredible people willing to do whatever it took to get me to the finish line of this 100 mile run and I showed up.
Nicole Latorre took the reins as crew chief. This was a very hard and not very rewarding job. I have to give Nicole a ton of credit here. She drove the car to and from the race while everyone else slept, she drove to all the aid station, dropped off and picked up pacers, kept everything organized, knew me well enough to know what I might need when I came through, but she didn’t get the same credit or taking care of that my pacers got. She is a complete rockstar.
Crew Chief, Nicole Latorre
But I digress – My friends Gabi and Daniel would end up pacing me through the night. I ran through the day and early evening comfortably and relatively happily. When night fell, so did my thoughts and my ability to comprehend most things. I had a couple of very minor hallucinations including a hiker that was actually not there and an aid station/cabin that was not real. Gabi and I were getting through a stretch during the night that would lead us up to mile 72. It was technical and neither of us were able to run it very well without stumbling and tripping. When we finally got to the mile 72 aid station, the first thing the volunteer said to me was “You have 9 minutes.” Meaning – I was only 9 minutes off the cutoff time for that aid station and I now had to hustle to get to the next aid station which was another 8 miles away. Going the distance in the time allowed should not have been a problem, but because the volunteer felt I was pressed for time, I believed it, and this is what triggered my completely coming apart.
Gabi led me out of the aid station and picked our pace up. I followed. All the while my thoughts went to, “How could I have worked so hard all day and all night only to be minutes from the cutoff?” and “This pace is barely comfortable now, how am I going to keep it up for hours?” and “Once I get to the next aid station I’m going to have to hurry again to the one after that! I can’t handle this anxiety for the rest of the run!” and then finally “I. Am. Done.”
I was done because I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I was doing. My head couldn’t get it together. This may have been due to me not consuming anything besides coke for the 6 hours prior, or because I absolutely HATE numbers while running, or because I was sleep deprived. Whatever the reasons were, I was unable to accept the rest of the race as a possibility. I was having a hard time balancing, I was crying, gagging, all still while running. When the sun came up and we still had not reached the aid station, I was reduced to a hike, broken hearted, knowing that I was about to pull myself from the race if the volunteers didn’t do it for me.
This broke my heart. I started thinking how I didn’t want to run races anymore, I didn’t want to compete in ultra marathons ever again, I even planned on staying under my covers for at least a week as soon as I got home from this disaster. When you’re alone with your thoughts for a long time, you learn about yourself. I was very disappointed to discover that I was just going to…. quit.
Whenever I hit a wall in a workout I actually get excited. A lot of people never explore what’s on the other side of that wall. My college boyfriend came out of the closet to me right when I graduated. I was so devastated that I was convinced I would cry myself to death. The next year I spent learning how to grieve, and then how to open my heart to someone else. When I heard that Ke$ha had decided to bring her friend on the road in stead, I was so frustrated that I had bothered to get a degree in music when it seemed all I had to do was rub elbows with famous people to get an in, but on the other side of that was an incredible learning experience and contacts with some new people who will eventually make a difference in my life. When I reached out to someone I loved a couple of weeks ago, I did it in spite of a heart full of fear and I did in deed get completely squashed, but I was able to prove to myself that yes, I do still care, yes, I am still me, I am complete with or without my love being returned and I rebounded quickly. Up to this low moment at the SD100, where there have been walls in my life, I have found a way to ignore them or blow them up.
I am the QUEEN of bouncing back. And fast.
So here I am, finally approaching the mile 80ish aid station, fully expecting to be pulled from the race, but in stead, I start running. I come through the aid station, my crew helps me out of my night clothes and into a fresh t-shirt and shorts, and I’m on my way with a new pacer, a cup of coffee and some cold fruit. Before I know it, my attitude has completely shifted. I’m laughing (I think) I’m having fun again, and I am worried slightly less about the time cutoff. I was going to finish this distance, whether I did it in the time cutoff or not.
And I did! I went from being only 9 minutes ahead of the time cutoff to finishing 1 hour and 48 minutes ahead of that time cutoff.
Sometimes things suck. Sometimes I wonder why I’m a musician, if I’ll ever feel complete, if I’ll ever reach a level of success that will comfort me in some way. Sometimes relationships hit a solid wall with nowhere up, down or through. But never have I ever said “this is what I want” and then later said “It’s not possible. You have to quit.” until this weekend. That was a heartbreak I’d never felt before and it was one I still managed to find the other side of.
And so there it is. Not your average race recap, but who really cares about elevation changes and course descriptions anyway? I mean, that’s what the race website is for
Enjoy the video blog!
Miwok 100k and the weirdness leading up to it.
The 10 days leading up to Miwok 100k were ugly. It was as though I had set into a deep funk that was determined to change my life in some way. I’m a generally happy person, especially for an artsy type. I do notice that about 2 to 3 days after a big race, my mood dips and I suffer a pretty intense post-race depression for about 48 hours before my body balances out and I’m back to myself. Whatever funk I was in was not my friendly regular rain shower, but rather some wiser and very desperate part of my mind that was set out to teach me something about myself.
I’m a musician. I’m an artist. This is how I communicate with the world. I understand my world through this and in very few other ways. Music as a career can be life threatening at times though. To label yourself a “musician” – “I’m a musician. This is what defines me” is risky business, especially in L.A., and especially when you believe it so much that you go to a $100,000 college to learn about it. It’s just a lot of pressure to “succeed”, whatever that may mean.
Ultra-Running is incredible. I can be a complete maniac and people call me an athlete because of it. It stabilizes a lot of the imbalances that I fight constantly. When I am down and dark, running makes me high, or at the very least, sane enough to sleep. When I’m feeling alone in my little Katelyn world, running invites the entire universe in. When I do my workouts and long runs and race hard, I see positive results quickly. When I write songs and play shows and record music, sometimes I see nothing, and to identify yourself as something and sometimes see nothing, you see, that can be dangerous.
I’ve been spending a lot of time running this year. Trail running brings me this light and clarity that I can’t find from anywhere else. Some of my non-running friends will ask how I can go out for so many hours at a time when I really feel pretty grateful to be able to do what I do. It’s therapy to me.
2 weeks ago I hit a wall though. I found myself so exhausted and so overwhelmed that I came home and sat on the living room floor starring at the wall for 2 hours. I was too tired to think, eat, even go to bed. All I wanted was for everything to pause while I sat and de-fragged.
This lasted 10 days. 10 days of feeling completely lost and exhausted. I was actually okay with the funk. I hated the way I felt, but I found it so interesting to be able to watch myself from the inside out. I got to sit and observe my brain and my emotions and try to decipher what it was that brought this on and what could I do about it?
The Alchemist is one of my favorite books. I feel like parts of that book were written straight from my soul. One of the parts that stands out to me is when the boy is in the desert with the alchemist and he’s complaining of this heartache and pain that his longing to find treasure is bringing him and the alchemist responds by telling the boy that it’s okay. That pain is a good pain. That means that your heart is still awake and on fire. It won’t let you feel content until you get what you’re after, or if you ignore it for too long, because you’re heart will start to feel bad about nagging you and eventually it will shut up. I think my funk was my heart nagging me.
It’s come to mind that my running has been serving as a bit of self-medication for the darkness that comes with pursuing art. When you make art your identity, feeling content is alien. I guess that’s the way it is with anything that you’re passionate about. If you’re comfortable, then there is no need to feel driven to make progress. I think I was getting overwhelmed by my uncomfortableness and using my running to lift me away from it all. Well, time to get my head back in the game. I don’t want my heart to stop talking to me.
Last week I sent out a call for help to a few of my music friends asking them to talk me off of the figurative edge. I felt like throwing in the towel because I have a lot more to give than what I’m putting out. That evening my friend Scott asked me to play on a session the next day. Nothing brought me more joy than clearing my schedule to come and play piano for him for 45 minutes. This is what I need to be doing.
That being said, I also need to run.
MIWOK 100k
I knew it was going to be a struggle to pull myself together for this. The morning before I was scheduled to leave I considered instead getting on a plane to Colorado and escaping the whole thing. I changed my mind when I went to the Coyote run and Peet’s that morning. I visited openly with my friends about the struggles that I’ve been facing and what walls I was afraid I was hitting and found that the more I talked to more people, the more clear things became. Then I felt like I was ready to run. Nothing clears your mind like 62 miles of unforgiving trail.
The night before driving up to Marin I played a show with Nina Storey at the Hotel Cafe. Brig Van Osten came to style us again, which I really needed. She makes me feel like a super star.
Late night followed by early morning – Dominic and Katie picked me up a little after 6 and we picked Jimmy up after that. The road trip was… awesome. I usually drive straight North stopping only for gas, but we went a longer route, got out of the car and went on a couple of mini runs, went to Casa de Fruta (AMAZING!!!) stopped by ZombieRunner, and generally just had an amazing day. I loved this road trip.
Riding in the car with Jimmy (this is not the video blog, that’s at the bottom of this post)
some of our goodies from Casa De Fruta
ZombieRunner is awesome. Trail running, hiking and a COFFEE BAR!
Check in was nice. We ran into several of our friends including Andy Kumeda and Catra Corbett. Dominic got to visit for a while with Anton (Tony) Krupicka and Hal Koerner which I think really made his day. Post check-in was a delicious meal at Plant in San Fran with Brett Rivers and Larissa Polischuk followed by sorting through drop bags and getting to sleep.
RACE DAY
Could not have brought us better weather. Everything left up to nature was stacked in our favor to have a great race. However, it was not my day, and I paid for it.
Off the bat I felt regret that I didn’t go ahead and replace my New Balance Trail 100′s. I love that shoe. I’ve been racing and training in the same pair since January and it was on Saturday that I discovered I’ve worn through the tread and the protectant plate in the forefoot that keeps rocks from hurting too badly. My gait felt very unnatural and in the first 10 miles I had rolled both ankles. At least I rolled both of them. That makes it even.
Starting line of Miwok 100k 2010
I was happy that I had my Brooks Cascadias in my drop bag at mile 21, but by the time I got there my feet and ankles were pretty bad off and I had a hard time running naturally the rest of the day. From here, this paragraph is going to sound like reasons why the race went poorly for me, but that is not at all where I’m going with this. My appetite was off, I didn’t drink enough in the first 3 hours and I didn’t eat enough in the last 4. At mile 29 I got a twig lodged underneath my big toenail and at mile 47 my head started playing games with me. I had random thoughts of cartoon people, my eyeballs falling out and even fabricated Brian Krogmann as my imaginary pacer to help pull me through the rest of the race. When Kate Martini Freeman ran up to me while I was on the home stretch to the finish, I was seriously surprised that I was able to make words. My body fell apart early on me during this race and my mind was doing all sorts of interesting tricks to distract me.
It was awesome.
I’ve never run an ultra feeling so out of it. I never reached the euphoric high that usually makes me run faster and stronger. I didn’t enjoy much of the race at all. My head was down a lot. After 20 miles I was ready to hurry up and get the rest of it over with, but my body wouldn’t respond that way. It was really great though, because while my body and left brain gave me reasons to throw in the towel, my right brain said “you’re here. right foot. left foot” and I knew that unless I was facedown in the dirt, I wasn’t going to stop running. That was pretty cool. Then my mind went wacko and that was even cooler.
Totally awesome experience. Excellent training run for me for the San Diego 100 next month. I’m happy I made it up to the race and I’m happy to discover I can still complete the distance when I’m not high off of the endorphins.
And when you’re not feeling good – Get some Philz Coffee!! Man I wish we had that stuff in L.A.
I love Philz Coffee.
And Finally – VIDEO BLOG!!
American River 50 Mile Endurance Run VIDEO BLOG!
Enjoy!! Written report to come…
