I ran a trail marathon with my eight-year-old. Well, kind of. Here’s how it happened, unplanned, and what I learned from it.
My First Trail Marathon
Every year, I run a marathon, and this past summer, I discovered trail running and wanted to conquer my first trail marathon. I started looking late in the season and had missed all the local runs, so I was set to travel to Death Valley for an early December trail marathon, but days before the event, I got an email informing me that the marathon had been cancelled due to flooding. So, I rerouted to the Four Corners Monument area with my supportive wife and four kids to do, on the same day, one of the four marathons held in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona as part of the Four Corners Quad Keyah.
Trail marathons are a totally different beast.
Five Hours of Brutal Trails
I didn’t earn the right to run hard, but I went out like I almost always do—a little too fast. This trail run was, according to the people in charge, the hardest of the four-day event. It featured a 5-mile loop through a dried-out river beds and up single-tracked hills. Have you ever run in sand? It’s like swimming while holding a child. Or like trying to sleep with your three-year-old kicking you in the side all night long. What is normally easy (running, swimming, or sleeping) becomes twice as hard. I did about two laps with decent strength, felt like I’d been through the meat grinder by the third loop, and considered throwing in the towel by the time the fifth loop was about to start.
I hadn’t planned on it, but I felt like it was a good idea, so I asked my eight-year-old to join me, enlisting his motivational support. He naively said “OK!” I was shot, so I was certain he’d outrun me on the last five miles of what had become a five-hour marathon.
A Supportive Son and a Helpful Burden
I gasped for strength for the first two miles, telling my son to make sure I didn’t pass out, hallucinate, or—worse—give up. (No, it wasn’t that bad, but I truly did want his help). He started physically pushing my sorry body forward, but I told him this wasn’t the help I needed. So, he bounced ahead of me like a gazelle, wandering back and forth across the river bed trail, talking and enjoying the scenery.
I felt like a piece of concrete, my limbs crunching as I trudged along. After the two miles of sandy river bed, we started summiting the single-track hills, and my boy’s excitement turned to concentration, and I started paying attention to his pain and struggle—not only my own. A mile or so later, he started wheezing, tears about to bust down his red cheeks. And pretty soon, I was holding his coat, encouraging and yelling him onward, doing everything I could to make sure he didn’t give up.
I laughed at what I’d gotten myself into. Maybe the hardest physical task I’ve ever performed, aside from changing my first diaper, is running through (or bleeding through) the last three miles of a marathon, especially when I have not trained properly or have run too fast in the beginning. I can only perhaps remember one or two of my previous 14 marathons that didn’t make me abhor my existence, and this is probably because I don’t remember exactly how I felt on these two marathons. And as I finished the last two miles or so of this very hard fifteenth marathon (my first trail marathon), I not only had to carry my broken body but also my little son’s waning spirits—and some of his belongings. Not an ideal plan for success.
But something a little surprising happened. I had only enough energy to worry about myself or my son. With my battery on empty, I could not dedicate energy to both. As I started focusing on my son, my legs forgot that they were tired. I felt a renewed strength. (And maybe the slower pace helped rejuvenate me as well.) I finished the marathon strong—in pain, but with more speed than I thought possible. (My eight-year-old didn’t quite finish with me. Before taking the final summit, the course passed near the finish line, and I sent him off to avoid a little more pain.)
Helping my son was a cute reminder of a truth Gordon B. Hinckley has taught: “Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others.” This idea applies to marathons more than I realized. When my son started the final lap with me, acting as my support, asking me how I was doing, focusing me more on me, I only felt my misery more. But as miserable as I was, once I became almost entirely focused on his comfort (or discomfort) and helping him get to the finish line successfully, I had more strength and positive energy for both of us.
I need to focus on others more, even—and perhaps especially—during the figurative marathons of my life.
What hard physical activities have you and your kids done together, and what have you learned from it?