In Search of Flow: The Journey of My Second 50-mile UltraMarathon

By Susie Crossland-Dwyer  

"Pushing your body past what you thought it was capable of is easy; the hard part is pushing yourself even further ... past what your mind wants to let you. That's what ultrarunning is all about; introducing you to a self you've never known." -Rex Pace

Ride the wave. Breathe, Susie. Keeping riding. Just breathe. Let it take you up, let it take you down. Breathe. The wave will carry you. 

This exact sequence of words I must have repeated to myself hundreds of times over the course of running 50 consecutive miles on Saturday June 7th, 2014. It wasn't a mantra I had practiced over my eight months and 600 hours of training prior to the race. But, four days before the North Face Endurance Challenge Washington, D.C., in the midst of the most pre-race nerves I've ever experienced, when I asked for a dream, a feeling, or a sign that all would be okay on race day, it was the image of a giant tidal wave that washed across my brain.

In the months leading up to TNFEC I had begun immersing myself in the study of "flow." The investigation was part professional research and part personal intrigue, based on my previous experiences with endurance sport.

I wanted to know the answer to questions about what helps us endure any type of suffering in life, including chosen suffering. I wanted to know what was actually happening inside of our bodies--chemicals, brain waves, neuro-muscular connections--and inside our spirits to make this possible. I wanted to know what it was about this "flow state" that made me look forward to, instead of dread, taking myself to my physical and mental limit.

Previously called "peak experiences" in a happiness experiment conducted by Abraham Maslow, the new term flow states was coined by psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. "Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does." 

In 2009, on the marathon course in the Louisville IRONMAN, for the first time I encountered what I now know to be flow. It snuck up on me, and in a literal instant, it permanently changed my life. In the first blog I ever wrote, not knowing much about this state, I nicknamed it "the truth zone." The feeling was that of time slowing down, heightened awareness of everything around/within me and full use my personal potential. It would be out of this experience that would firmly press play on my life and within weeks I had pushed the plans forward for creating studio s.

As Csikszentmihalyi observes, "Flow is more than an optimal state of consciousness--one where we feel and perform our best--it also appears to be the only practical answer to the question: What is the meaning of life? Flow is what makes life worth living."

In almost every endurance race after IRONMAN it has visited me again. Some encounters are short and sloppy--like trying to grasp one of those ever-moving water wiggle worm toys and feeling it plop to the ground. Others times I'm able to inhabit it with more precision--as if writing a poem even though it feels like someone else is moving my hand to scribe the words. But no matter how rocky or smooth, each dip into the river of flow has only left me with more questions and the desire to be able to access it again.

Two weeks before I toed the start line in Washington, D.C., my husband Chris asked me if I could explain what it was about racing an ultra marathon that made it so deeply satisfying to me. I only needed one word to answer the question-- curiosity. The curiosity of whether or not I would find flow again and the curiosity of seeing what is possible for an everyday athlete like me, given a perfect, injury-free training season, an amazingly supportive community, and the desire to go all out.

The big day approached and time moved like a slow cruel joke. A week felt like a month, a day like a week and the day before the race like a never-ending, slow, deafening gong the Big Ben inside of my head.

When the enjoyable, predictable routine of running six days a week for eight consecutive months, sometime hours and hours on end, comes to a screeching halt during taper mode two weeks before the race, it's like stopping a hundred ton freight train in milliseconds. I had stopped, but my body's momentum wanted to keep going. No matter how I tried to distract myself, my steam engine's wheels where sparking and screeching against the rails. It was painful but necessary to slow the force of momentum. I knew I needed rest to be ready for the big day and past precedent told me the taper would work. 

My incredible crew planning their route for the big day. They were such a gift! 

"Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use a of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger." 

 -William James 

As I stepped up to the start line in the pitch black of the 5AM morning with only a few boom lights projected out onto a dormant meadow, I could feel my heart beating in my chest. I felt sick to my stomach and, at the same time, like a strong caged animal rearing for the lock to be unlatched. I stood in the dark, nervous silence of 350 or so other runners clutching their flashlights, tying and re-tying their shoelaces; each looking like the first moment a headlight catches a deer's eyes.

It is in the presence of intense risk that flow most often presents itself. As discussed in The Rise of Superman, athletes in "extreme" sport are known for their ability to quickly tap into flow states. In these moments, there are two response options for the body/ brain 1) go into the high stress state of "flight, fight or freeze" or 2) to flow. Researchers have found that if one's fight or flight reaction is accessed then flow is impossible. I stood just one step shy of entering fear and therefore possibly negating flow. I knew I couldn't over-think it but that I needed to stay ahead of this deeply ingrained human mechanism. I had many, many hours ahead of me and I needed to flow not to fight. 

The announcer called the second wave of runners up to the start line and as the others sheepishly hesitated, I hopped right in front. Fifty-miler #2 here we go! And with that, the countdown three ... two ... one of the start and our first footsteps were behind us. 

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In the first miles of the race, even though the mind is fresh, not getting too far ahead of oneself is crucial. Thoughts like, “Forty-nine miles to go,” cannot be allowed to enter the brain, it must be highly controlled and kept locked tightly like a vault. Focusing on one breath, the feet in front of you, the subtle shift of light in the headlamp or some other repetitive detail is the only way to survive. 

As the anxious, overly-ambitious pace off the start line wore off and our headlamps lit the dewy grass underneath our feet, we began to shuffle into order. After working our way across a few muddy boardwalks, down a gravel path and double-backing a figure-eight section of trail with the elites whizzing by us, a silent, rhythmic cohesion began. Unlike my first 50-miler, where the lonely darkness of the early morning set my race off to a bad start, this time I felt like part of a powerful tribe. We merged from individuals into an unstoppable and unified pace line. Like a giant serpent weaving its way through single track trail, outlined by waist-high wildflowers, prairie grasses and poison ivy, we grew in cohesive momentum. What would normally be a deserted mud path outside of the suburbs of D.C. came alive with the sound of breath and foot strike. Occasionally in the distance I could hear faint words of runners swapping stories or telling jokes, but for the most part we ran in silence. It was a meaningful silence though, and one that spoke way more than any sound potentially muttered.

Our pace didn’t budge, there was no room for a mis-step, a pee break, or even wanting to scratch my nose. I couldn't get out of line or the momentum of the group would be ruined. “Stay put and begin the ride,” I began repeating to myself. 

Like any experienced distance runner, I had studied the course repeatedly and formed a plan. My strategy was to gain as much pace as possible in the first 11 miles of relative flat trail and make up for any time I would certainly need later on during three laps of vertical intensity. Moving in time with this powerful human pace line gave me just what I needed to accomplish that goal. Occasionally, I would glance left to take in the majestic Potomac River, still steaming from the morning fog and getting wider as we began to approach the Great Falls. But, by the time I looked at my watch, we had hit the 10-mile mark and I began climbing.  

 "Success is never so interesting as struggle." -Willa Cather

Over the course of the day, never did I doubt that I would finish the 50 miles. But, around mile 13, I began to wonder how I would make it to my next target. I had successfully completed my first section of the trail ahead of schedule, but in doing so had failed to eat according to plan. I had watched the minutes tick by knowing I was entering the danger zone of low carbohydrate stores, a move I would inevitably pay for later. Instead of eating and therefore loosing momentum, I kept running---my first and, probably, my only mistake of the day.

I needed to make it to mile 15 where I knew my crew would be waiting for me. I needed to make it through a tough section of climbing and out of the woods that were beginning to feel like The Never Ending Story. 
I needed flow but I knew this elusive state wouldn't simply appear when I wanted it to.

Ride the wave. Breathe, Susie. Keeping riding. Just breathe. Let it take you up, let it take you down. Breathe. The wave will carry you. 

The day before the race, Chris and I checked out a section of the course that I knew I'd soon be approaching. Knowing what to look for in those moments made all the difference in the world. My eyes scanned the trail for anything that looked familiar. Just around the corner ... anytime time now ... it has to be soon. I rounded the bend of a tall grass field and, suddenly, I saw the dirt path from the day before. I had made it and I knew my crew had to be close. That's when I heard it--the hooting and hollering of my team cheering on runners ahead of me! I was only a small portion of the way through my day but something inside of me knew I was coming out of what would be my most difficult moments.

As I approached my crew, I wanted to cry. I wanted to wrap my arms around them and stay safe for the rest of the day. But all I could muster was a half smile as I passed through their love. I had work to do and I needed my energy. As I exited their tunnel of joy, I yelled, "When do I get to see you again?" I needed my next goal and upon hearing Chris enthusiastically squeal, "Two miles," I knew I was going to be okay.

"Fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it all passes away; and we are fresher than before. We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue-obstacle usually obeyed. There may be layer after layer of this experience. A third and fourth "wind" may supervene. Mental activity shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue, distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points." -William James

Two miles down the road, I began a three-loop section of the course. Three times through and I'd only have one section left-- a ten mile segment back to the start/ finish line. The farther away I stepped from my support system, the more nervous I became. And then, somewhere around mile 19, on a downhill in the middle of the dense woods, I found flow. I have no idea where it came from and I didn't know how long it would last. But as soon as I felt it click into place, I mentally re-engaged the image of my tidal wave. I was going to surf right on the edge of that wave and see if I could get this powerful state to stick, even if only minutes instead of seconds. 

Ride the wave. Breathe, Susie. Keeping riding. Just breathe. Let it take you up, let it take you down. Breathe. The wave will carry you. 

There are moments and feelings in life that change us forever--ones, like my Louisville IRONMAN experience, that are so powerful that we will never forget them. Through miles 19 to 21 I felt like nothing in this universe could stop me from anything I wanted ... ever. I remembered that this is why I run. I remembered that I am more powerful then I allow myself to be. And I made a promise to come here often, to have a tactile sense of what it means to live freely and fiercely, without reservation of who I am and what I want in this life. 

Flow states are often compared to drug-induced states because they are thought to shut down the same filtering mechanisms in the brain. As a result of minimizing one section of the brain, another portion is able to magnify with greater details, taking in the surroundings at a much higher rate. This explains the often found "one-with-the-universe" feeling that accompanies flow states. Due to the lack of filters, your brain is not able to determine where self stops and other begins. 

And so, it felt as if everything around me was cheering me on--the trees, the rocks, the air moving through my lungs-- all, powerful helpers aiding me in the difficult journey. I was riding my wave, I was flowing and I was on such a roll that I feared loosing it to stop for water and fuel. I needed this energy and I didn't want it to go away. But the tighter I gripped, the more it dissipated, and by the time I hit the end of loop two at mile 29, the wave had slowly crashed and washed ashore.

I rounded the final bend of loop two to find Chris suited up as my pacer. Though in my power state of flow, I doubted whether I would even need a pacer to finish the day, his new energy gave me another lift as I escorted him along the course that had begun to feel like home over the last half marathon. 

He entertained me with his normal mix of philosophical ponderings and joker-esque banter. Most of the time I unenthusiastically grunted in response, even though I was filled with gratitude for what he had agreed to that day (I often joke that it's easier to run an ultra then to crew/pace one). Finishing the third loop once more along the Great Falls, he shared some history about the geological wonder we were passing and I apparently retorted with, "Fuck the Great Falls!" I don't remember saying these words, but I do remember feeling raw with very little care about anything else but finishing the task at hand.
 
In my experience, mile 40 is where the reality of an ultra-marathon truly sets in. Nothing is appetizing, nothing is funny, everything hurts and your body is urging you to be done. And yet, it is also in this space that the rhythm of your body moving in the same pattern for over nine hours straight, becomes amazingly automatic and almost melodic. Rationality and sensitivity have long since disappeared and you are running on grit and momentum. 

I didn't want to stop, I wanted to be done--at mile 50 (what actually ended up being a solid 52). Stopping, slowing, eating, peeing, all meant delays of a finish line that I knew was close. I had accomplished almost everything that I had come for--another powerful encounter with flow along with the realization that success is often achieved with equal parts willpower and letting go. All I was missing was the last step across the finish line.

At the final check point of the day, mile 49, I got another gift. My best friends Shelly and Katie were waiting for me, as they had been at every pit stop along the way, and side-by-side down the gravel path we made our way toward the finish. They smiled and trotted alongside of me, observing my need for very little talking, as I squeezed out every ounce of focus left within me. Though I couldn't express it, I felt as if life couldn't get any better than it was in those last moments of this long day. I had triumph, but more importantly, I had people in my life who understood my need for this crazy journey and loved me nonetheless.  

"Perhaps the genius of ultra-running is its supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world of space ships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense. The ultra runner knows this instinctively. And they know something else that is lost on the sedentary. They understand, perhaps better than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing open with physical effort. In running such long and taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest realms of their being--a call that asks who they are ..." -David Blaikie

Though the red balloon-like arch of the finish line sat in the exact spot where I started my 50-mile adventure many hours earlier--everything looked different. Not only had the light of day changed, the contours of the trail come to life, but I had become more of myself. 

A GIANT thanks to all of my crew & pacers of the day! I couldn't have done it without you.

Alive in Leadville: The Story of My First DNF

By Susie Crossland-Dwyer

For nine months I thought about a single sign. Almost every time I ran or trained from November until June 29^th, I visualized it. But the more I pictured it, the more questions arose. What would it be made of? What direction would it face? Would it be covered in snow? What would the path be like that would lead me to it?  What would I learn making my way to it? After so many races apart, what would it be like to have Chris by my side the whole journey? It was a sign that read simply, "Mosquito Pass, Elevation 13, 185 ft." 

I knew it was an odd desire to crave seeing a random sign on the top of a mountain in central Colorado. But, I wanted it ... badly. I've come to highly value the power and unseen knowledge of our deep desires. Our heart knows the path even though our mind doesn't yet understand it. On race day, this desire was deep enough for me to fight through five hours of altitude sickness and associated dizziness, continual vomiting and racing heartbeat starting at mile 1.5.

The Leadville Marathon is the very first race I did not finish. In fact, it is probably the first anything I haven’t finished. It is an unfamiliar sensation and one that feels like a relief to finally experience. 

Despite my DNF (did not finish), I could write the story of my overcoming, of my ability to keep going when everything in my body told me to stop at the first aid station three miles into the course. I could recount that I threw up close to 20 times and pushed up the second mountain of the day-- 2,000 ft. of elevation gain over the course of three miles--through intense self-doubt and even fear of death. I know it sounds dramatic, but I wanted to take myself there. I wanted to give everything I possibly could to a mountain and an internal process that I don’t fully understand, nor do I ever expect to.  I could tell how I had to focus literally on one step at a time, the phrase that became my mantra for the day. Or, how I had to halt in my tracks many times in the thin, oxygen-void air of the extraterrestrial-like landscape of 13k+ ft. to simply be able to breathe and put the next foot forward. I could describe how I struggled to stay upright as my feet skidded on fine gravel, hurdled over boulders and crunched through snow high above where trees think it makes sense to grow. 

I could tell it that way, but this time that's not the whole story. It is a lesson of letting go, a story of serendipity and ultimately an account of being okay with who I am. I would never use the word “failure” to describe my latest adventure in the wilderness of Colorado. Instead, it is a new definition of success, one that might mean more to me than many of my journeys over the finish line. 

I must go back in time to start to explain why letting go of a finish in Leadville means so much to me. I must divulge that most of my life I have been swallowed by trying to fulfill others' desires instead of my own--a pattern I've semi-successfully discarded in the last five years. It is not that people in my life have forced their opinions on me or that they've tried to persuade me to be someone other than myself. It is that I have always yielded to what I think other people might want instead of what I absolutely need. It was easier to see their needs instead of searching for my true desires.

To date, my training, my races, and even my finishes have existed outside of this realm. They have been a sacred space where I can run, ride or swim within myself and use it as a time to go deeper without the outside world bleeding in. But, as the day unfolded in Leadville and thoughts crept in about not finishing the race, the alarm of, what will other people think? sounded in my brain. It was an old familiar ringing, a feeling that fed on my weakness of the day and asked me to push even harder. But my deeper self said firmly, "NO." I had found my limit and even my ego couldn't change that.  For the first time I realized that the DNF, not the finish, would be for me. Had I attempted a finish, I would have risked not only my health, but also my self-respect.

At mile seventeen, after telling the officials that I was done for the day, I plopped down in the single metal folding chair under the aid station tent. The earlier raucous and cheering of the aid station, the one and only place on the course accessible by back mountain roads, had quieted as most athletes had already passed through for the second time and moved on toward the finish. In the silence of the mountain air, Chris, my mom, dad, and step-father huddled around me and hand-fed me Gatorade, pretzels and M&Ms. My body needed something, anything, to replace all of the calories and nutrients I had lost over the last five hours. I sat for twenty minutes as relief rippled through my interior and my body began to awaken from the land of the half-dead. As I came to my feet again and we loaded into the rental car and started down the bumpy service road back into Leadville's sleepy ghost town center, I began thinking about the power of visualization. I realized that in all my months of mental preparation and sheer focus, I had not once visualized the finish shoot. It had always been about Mosquito Mountain. It had been about making it to the sign and celebrating that victory. What I had put my attention on is precisely what I accomplished.

At the same time, there are many things in life beyond our control.  For me on this race day it was that my sea-level body did not like the altitude. In fact, it HATED the altitude. After almost a week in Colorado and two days in the higher elevation of 10,120 ft of Leadville, Chris and I were still huffing and wheezing just lying on our backs in bed the night before the race. It is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before and precisely why I wanted to try this race. I imagined the change in oxygen feeling as if I couldn’t take a full breath, as if my lungs were in a vice. But that wasn’t the sensation at all. I could breathe fully but my body could do very little with each breath. So, I could’ve trained harder but it wouldn’t have made a difference to how my body responded. Black Swan theory states that there are hard-to-predict, rare events beyond the realm of normal expectation. My Leadville marathon was a black swan and there is nothing I can do about it except to recognize the alternative opportunities for growth that it presented me.

I refuse to believe that my black swan only describes the unfortunate side of my experience in the mountains of Leadville. There were many positive things that took place that just can't be explained by the rational, seen world. There were many moments, even amidst my severe sickness, where I felt oddly at home on a terrain I had never seen or experienced before. I found slivers of time in which it felt like I was reuniting with a piece of myself instead of experiencing it anew. And there were signs. There were signs you could argue were purely coincidences, purely emotional. But I would argue otherwise. It is the unseen, unexplainable events in my life that have possessed the most power and have encouraged me to further explore my potential.

 

The start line was my first (internal) sign.  As the announcers counted down the start of the race and hundreds of nervous bodies decked out in trail running shoes and Camelback packs bounced all around me, time stood completely still. In a single mental flash, I saw the last nine months from making the decision to come to Leadville, through all of my training as if it were a seamless timeline. As K’naan’s, Wavin’ Flag anthem echoed from building to building just before the gun went off, I felt all the way to my cells what it was to be fully alive. It was as if nothing else in the universe existed.

 

 

After leaving town and trotting up our first ascent past the crumbling mining shafts of what was once a hay day industry, the surreal moments of the start line quickly vanished. All of my energy shifted to continuing to move despite the ever-increasing aching in my gut. I have run many marathons and I know what it takes to successfully get to the finish line on a flat road without sickness. I know that it is no joke. As the reality of my condition began to sink in, the “a NORMAL marathon is no joke” thought is what began rolling around in my head. How was I going to tolerate 20+ more miles of this? And then I remembered the purpose of mental training. I remembered the reason I had spent so many hours in my head editing, editing, editing my thoughts through winter snows, early morning alarms, smothering Cincinnati humidity and heat, long days teaching Spinning classes and building spreadsheets, a three-week-long illness, and two-a-day workouts. It was for now-- right NOW. 

 "I will follow my instincts, and be myself for good or ill." -John Muir

But there was no hiding that I was emotionally raw. Almost immediately, I knew having Chris alongside of me would be the saving grace of the day. He contends that we are lucky we are still married after our hours on the mountain. I don’t remember it that way at all. I remember he was a saint and a moving target of hope, always two steps ahead of me. He listened as I called the mountain a bastard, a crazy cruel god and a M-F-er. He encouraged as we picked up pace and he gently reminded if we paused too long. He took his job seriously and I will never forget the unwavering love he showed me that day.

In one of my many bottomed-out moments, Chris revealed what I saw as sign number two. He opened his palm like a magician revealing his next trick and in it I saw magic. Let it first be said that we stomped over millions, heck trillions, of rocks that day. Combine that fact with another, that Chris has horrible eye site and minimal awareness (sorry babe it’s true!). In his sweaty palm he revealed a rock in the shape of Ohio. My eyes welled. It was the perfect symbol. It felt as if somebody, something, somewhere was saying, “Susie, remember your home. Remember all of the people there sending you love right now. Remember that you are not alone in this task."

 

 The third positive sign of the day made me chuckle. It was so perfect that I had to laugh. We had just come off of a curvy descent, through the aid station at mile 9.8 on our way to climb to Mosquito Pass when a woman, for no particular reason, caught my eye. I hadn’t really been paying much attention to anything but what was right in front of me when I looked to my right and there she was. As I looked closer I noticed she was wearing a Matisyahu t-shirt. It is no secret that Matisyahu has been a huge inspiration to me this year and is the source of some of my favorite lyrics; lyrics I have listened to over and over and over again in training. Immediately, the words from his song Crossroads entered my head. 

"I'm done stalling, I’m free falling.

I'm done crawling up this mountain top
I won't stop till I manifest my crop
The top is close
I'm sky scraping
They stay chasing
I'm like a raisin in the sun
I'm running from death's invasion
They're done, I'm going gray
I'm still young having mystic visions
Of the one, I hear the hum, the melody comes
Rushing in like some wind
Cuts close like a knife
All I got is my life"

In that moment, I knew no matter what it took, I would soon be “done crawling up this mountain top” because the mountain was mine. Little did I know that the hardest section of terrain was yet to come.

I have run the distance of three miles probably hundreds--if not thousands--of times in my life. I had three miles to go to make it to the highest elevation on the course and to the Mosquito Pass sign I had envisioned so many times. I could do that. C’mon it’s only three miles.

“If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.” –Robert Pirsig

As we started up the switchbacks, the energy on the course was high as many runners were already making their final descent, their legs screaming down the steep incline. I could tell I was already beginning to look like death as many of the athletes paused in their concentration to offer a “good job,” “keep it up” or “you can do it” as I passed. In moments like this, one person’s encouragement can make a difference and each positive word provided me with more strength; strength I badly needed.

Chris was still playing faithful cheerleader as well as time-keeper and I cannot imagine the patience it must have taken for him to continually usher me up the mountain. I believe he quickly realized how behind pace we were falling and he devised a simple but genius plan. The path to the top was a predictable pattern of switchbacks. I could see them ascending for miles with no idea where the true top sat. He encouraged me to take one switchback at a time. Instead of stopping to catch my breath and throw-up whenever I felt like it, I had to make it the length of a whole switchback before doing so. I quickly added one switchback at a time on to my one step at a time mantra and we were in business.

As the air got thinner and I placed one slow foot in front of the other I was also paced by tremendous fear. Chris jogged to the top of each switchback and even the short distance between us was enough to set me into panic mode. I was so faint, so close to sitting down and never getting back up that I feared passing out, cracking my head open on one of the giant boulders and having it take hours to get someone up the mountain to rescue me. I was tired. I was scared. I was ready to have my reward and end the day.

It was in the most intense moments of the day that I decided I had to LET GO. Let go of disappointing everyone. Let go of the fear of death. Let go of being anyone but who I am. Just LET GO. Moments later, in what would be our final surge to the top of Mosquito Pass, I finally felt calm. I could only do my best and the rest would be okay.

As we made our final approach along one of the steepest straight-aways of the day, the winds began to pick up. The temperature had dropped close to 30 degrees from the base and we knew we couldn’t stay in these conditions very long. Since our three miles had taken a lot longer than planned, we were both out of water and badly needing the aid station at the top. The whole way up I had fantasized about plopping down on the ground, someone putting a pillow under my head and resting for a few minutes before we made the journey back down. Chris ran ahead to restock our water and by the time I had caught up, it was apparent that there was no way I was getting that catnap. Two amazing race volunteers were huddled in the bed of their truck with their winter jackets on, the wind whipping their hoods on and off. As I approached the station, Chris yelled, “We have to get the hell out of here! There is a lightning storm coming over the mountain and we have to get back down!!” But, I wasn’t leaving without a meeting with my sign.

There it was--a simple wooden sign propped up with rocks and worn by the ever-changing weather. It’s Southern orientation and bare simplicity was not at all what I had pictured but it felt monumental. I was at the top of my mountain and I knew the day was complete.

“Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”  -Ed Viesturs

The only issue was I was at the top and still needed to get back down. In what was my biggest “episode” of the day, I let loose and finally got out the last contents in my stomach. Wow. I felt worlds better and knew I would have just enough energy to get back to my parents at the bottom.

I obviously don't know what it feels like to die and be completely at peace but I imagine it to feel something like I did as my legs were free-falling as I came down off of the mountain. Against all odds, among a path that was covered in rocks and pebbles, large and small, my feet landed perfectly one foot strike after the next. I remembered recently reading in The Longest Race by Ed Ayres, that our feet have a sort of “autonomic guidance [system]…that bypasses conscious decision-making.” I knew firsthand that it was true. My feet had eyes that I had to trust. The more I thought about it the less control I had. Again, time to LET GO. And let go I did. Like an eagle soaring freely on waves of air, I let my body be carried easily over top of the footsteps that just hours earlier had been so arduous to take. 

We were back on pace and Chris was still making sure he did his job. He wanted us to have the option to continue and not be cut off by the officials. But my body was empty and my spirit was settled. I knew my finish was at the base of Mosquito Mountain.

As we ran the last section into the arms of my parents, I felt immensely proud. No one around me knew the internal transformation that had taken place. No one knew that I had overcome the demons of my past to allow myself to be okay with not finishing. No one knew that once and for all I was doing this for ME and no one else.

I can’t help but wonder what Edmund Hillary experienced as he conquered Everest for the very first time ever and wrote the words, "It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves." I would make one amendment to his quote because on June 29^th I conquered BOTH the mountain and myself.

 

Pathways to Positive: Reinventing the Future

By Susie Crossland-Dwyer

Almost exactly two years ago I had a cycling accident. Thursday evenings had become a routine to ride with a local group out of Element Cycles. I was helping lead a couple of new riders down one of Cincinnati’s biggest hills, Miami Road, when a car ran a stop sign and pulled out in front of me. I had actually prefaced our descent with the commentary to the group, “Be very careful on this hill. Take it slow. Last year Chris crashed going too fast and had a third degree separation in his shoulder as a result.” But, lighting struck twice as I slammed on my brakes to avoid being t-boned by the car and went over my handlebars landing on my head at 35 mph. We took an ambulance straight to Tri-Health hospital. After hours of waiting for CAT scan and x-ray results, I was sent home with negative tests (apart from a severe concussion), anti-nausea medication, and a prescription to “take it easy.” After what felt like a brush with death, I knew I would have to do more than that. Despite having opened studio s two months earlier and FREAKING OUT about the amount of work to be done, I would need to go above and beyond doctor’s orders for rest.

I'm smiling but the helmet tells the real story of the damage done.

For days afterwards, I couldn’t lift my head on my own to sit up. For weeks afterward, I would need Chris’s help driving me to and from work as well as with performing routine tasks. Two years later, I’m still working hard to stay on top of the residual issues with my head and neck.

This week I had an “ah-ha!” moment after my semi-weekly physical therapy treatment with Eric Oliver. In short, we figured out that I was under-using some muscles of my neck and over-using others as a result of the patterns I’d created to function and protect myself post-crash. The simple solution that I had failed to execute these two years was to create new neuromuscular (brain to muscle) pathways for my body to function in its most optimal, efficient manner.

Wow, was it really that simple? I had been doing stretching, Pilates, massage, cranial-sacral work, trigger point therapy, physical therapy (all which helped tremendously) but the thing I had failed to do was create new neuro-pathways. I mean, c’mon, recognizing the body's patterns is my job and I pride myself on quickly seeing others’ good and bad habits! How did I miss seeing this? It is with my realization that I begin to question how automatic and static my daily patterns are. How many other neural pathways have I failed to create simply out of habit and, dare I say, laziness? And, if this pattern is pervasive, how do I go about breaking through those barriers to new thinking and doing? Time will tell how effectively I’m re-training my muscles through conscious and manual activation but, yes-- it may just be that simple.

central and peripheral nervous system

For many years, even up until the last decade, science concluded that the brain wasn’t changeable and that the creation of new neurons was impossible. It was only recently that “a few iconoclastic neuroscientists challenged the paradigm that the adult brain cannot change and made discovery after discovery that, to the contrary, it retains stunning powers of neuroplasticity. The brain can indeed be rewired. It can expand the area that is wired to move fingers, forging new connections that underpin the dexterity of an accomplished violinist. It can activate long-dormant wires and run new cables like an electrician bringing an old house up to code, so that regions that once saw can instead feel or hear. The adult brain, in short, retains much of the plasticity of the developing brain, including the power to repair damaged regions, to grow new neurons, to rezone regions that performed one task and have them assume a new task, to change the circuitry that weaves neurons into the networks that allow us to remember, feel, suffer think, imagine and dream. ”

Enrique & J.Lo Chicago's United Center, 2012

It is in the same week that Chris and I ventured to Chicago to see one of our shared favorite artists, Enrique Iglesias, in concert. Dorky, I know, but his music has followed us through the 17 years of our relationship and now when we listen to it, it tells us the history of our past together. Dorky, but really romantic. 

Hours of driving to the Windy City led us to read aloud some of Chicago’s founding history. It's history tells the story of how it went from unsalvagable swamp land to an architectural and historical wonder of the Midwest. “Make no little plans”, was stated by one of the city’s founders, Daniel Burnham. It stuck out at me and AGAIN begged the question: how many of our 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections in the brain are we actually using? Do we continue to have a founder-like view of the world or have we stopped trying at innovation because the world looks/seems complete and we've let our brain take rest?

With my clients I often use the analogy of a path in a field that you've traveled many times. The route is visible, the grass is flattened and worn down by repeated use. It's comfortable, it's familiar, you know where it leads and what to expect along the way. A new path feels weird under the feet the first few times; you might step on something you don't like or discover something neat that you didn't know was there. You just have to travel down the new path a few times before you know how it will work for you and if you like it. Give it a chance.


The wildly amazing thing about the brain is that the more new paths in the grass you create, the more it encourages you to keep treading new territory and, before you know it, the field is covered in a web of new possibilities. So, perhaps, it's just sustaining the few uncomfortable first tries and then letting the wheel turn almost unassisted.

It's been several weeks now and I've been experimenting on myself. As is most always the case, step #1 was recognizing the issue.

Step #2 then became a mental pep-talk to the muscles on my neck. "Okay, guys you've been slacking for good a reason but it's time to go back to doing what you are meant to do."

Step #3 was encouraging new patterns in a tactile way. Each week before my long runs, Eric (or husband Chris) was taping my neck as shown below to a) encourage correct usage of my shoulder, neck, and back muscles; b) serve as a reminder when my posture or head position breaks down mid-run (the tape literally pulls and I can feel I'm off center as my head tends to float to the right);  
c) increase blood flow to the areas where the tape sits.

You've seen it in the Olympics b/c kinesio tape works wonders.

Real Ease neck cradle feels like heaven.

Step #4 has become re-enforcing the new patterns by setting my alarm to do posture checks throughout the day. Or, if pain starts to show up, immediately treating it with stretching or trigger point massage. On my short runs I've also started to rhythmically, and somewhat forcefully, tap on places of my neck that I am re-training to work a bit harder to restore balance.

And step #5 is another method of staying ahead of the curve. Chris and I have made it part of our bed-time routine to pro-actively treat our "bad" spots. He has foot issues and massages it while I put my head in my "neck cradle" which essentially takes the pressure of off my spine and into my occiputs.

The wheel is turning and I've begun to notice an improvement. Will the changes last? Who knows. Will every new pattern or way of thinking in life be this easily created? Doubtful. But, if nothing else, it becomes a fun experiment in potential. This method of creation shows me what's possible of the conscious mind. My next experiment in new behavior and changing the BIG PROBLEMS in life becomes addressing the subconscious--the thing that controls 96% of how we make decisions and whether or not new behavior sticks. But that's a beast for another blog.