Back to School, Back on Track
I’m putting a tease here at the top about someone who’s actually newsworthy: Ann Trason. The other day I had the chance to sit down and talk with the ultrarunning legend, the woman who has broken 20 world records. So read on if you want to hear a bit about her. But first, I have some catching up to do.
I started this blog in August and promptly back-burnered it, like so many half-baked projects that clutter my office countertop. Who has time? I had to get my kids adjusted to the second and fifth grades, schedule their afterschool activities, report and write a freelance article, start a Cub Scout den, repaint my daughter’s room, develop a personal website (to be launched soon), etc. etc. — all the while obsessively following news of the unfolding political and economic drama, and — oh yeah, I can’t let this drop off — continuing physical therapy for injury rehab. Phew. Throughout it all, I made steady improvements in my running. I’m about 75 – 80 percent back to normal, in terms of speed, weekly mileage, and the strain I can put on my right foot before it starts “talking back to me.” I rejoined my old track group on Wednesday mornings and for the first time this week managed to bump up from a safe and steady tempo pace to some faster intervals (a few 400s at approx 1:25 and a couple of 800s at 3:00 flat). I felt so satisfied and centered afterward, as though I had rediscovered the feeling of “flow.” Mostly, I was flush with gratitude. Gratitude, and perspective. Here’s where my conversation with Ann Trason comes in.
I tentatively have an assignment from Trail Runner magazine to cover the Firetrails 50 event in October and do a Q&A with Ann Trason, who’s the race director for it. Firetrails 50, an out-and-back through the greenbelt in the East Bay hills from Hayward to Berkeley, is held in conjunction with the Golden Hills Trail Marathon (the marathoners run point-to-point, roughly half the Firetrails 50 course). I won the GH marathon the past two years and planned to graduate to the 50M this fall, and to write about it for the magazine. It would’ve been my first 50M. Then, of course, my broken foot broke apart my race plans. (Can’t run 50 miles when running just 5 post-injury feels like a big deal!) So now I’m going to write about the event while wearing my reporter’s hat, not my real runner’s visor and hydration pack. So be it.
I asked Ann Trason — the 14-time winner of the Western States 100M, who also ran Olympic qualifying times in the marathon – to sit down to talk about the event and about herself. I won’t share the details of what she said until the article is published, but personally speaking, it was profoundly meaningful, in no small part because Ann is more to me than a legendary elder in the sport. She also has been a mentor of sorts because of the serendipitous fact I lived a block away from her in the 1990s. When I was a newbie jogger, we bought our first house in Kensington, where Ann still lives. (She told me back then that she chose her house because it met her number-one criteria: that it be less than a mile from a trailhead.) I used to see her running all the time or walking her dog around the neighborhood, and we always exchanged pleasantries. Then in 1996 I profiled her for a local publication. She was at the peak of her career, having come back from a ruptured hamstring to win Western States 100 (again) and the Comrades ultramarathon in South Africa (again) just two weeks apart. Not only did she open up for an interview back then, but invited me — me, who was struggling to run a mere 20 miles a week and break a 9-minute pace — out for a run. She led me on a run in nearby Tilden Park for about an hour, and she slowed down to my pace and encouraged me the whole way. She probably had no idea what an impression it made in terms of inspiring me to run (and in later years, after I had improved, to run slowly with beginners and encourage them to stick with it). Fast forward a decade, and I’m crossing the finish line at her event, the Golden Hills marathon, and she’s encouraging me to graduate to the Firetrails 50M. And just last spring, when I was wilting in the heat of my toughest run ever, the Ohlone 50K, she was volunteering at an aid station midway, promising me that I’m ”just gonna love that next hill.” So, say what you will about Ann Trason — and others have said less-than-flattering things about her intense personality — but I have always found her to be incredibly generous, supportive, and humble.
Ann is now 48, not racing competitively and not running pain-free. We met at a picnic table at the trailhead in Tilden that marks the start of the Golden Hills Marathon and the turnaround point for the Firetrails 50, at the bottom of Wildcat Canyon. The bay, bridges, cities, and unversity are just over the hill but could be a hundred miles away. I felt like we were sitting in the bottom of a massive bowl filled with eucalyptus, oak, and pine and topped by blue sky. We both expressed nostalgia — she, for when she was running strong; me, for when I lived by this trailhead and used to start my runs here, way-back-when before I had kids. A sense of transition gripped us both. It wasn’t just the changing of the season and the edginess that typically accompanies it, and which is even more pronounced this year due to the political and economic turmoil. (This is the time of year, remember, when the Bay Area suffers fires, earthquakes, stock market crashes and who-knows-what.) She is transitioning to another phase of life — she is coming to terms with being virtually retired as a runner; this may be her last year as RD for the event; she may have to move due to her husband’s job loss — and I am transitioning back to running, back to writing, and getting ready to turn 40.
Two things from our wide-ranging conversation hit me the most: (1) when I asked if she has any regrets, she said she regrets that she took it for granted, “it” being the years during which she was at her peak and ran injury-free; and (2) if she has any advice for runners like me, and she said to come back slowly. Take the time to heal, and take the time to come back gradually in order to make steady progress rather than relapsing.
I heard her loud and clear. I encountered the past, present, and future while sitting at that picnic table talking to her, and I left with a clearer focus, broader perspective, and much deeper gratitude. I will do all I can to not lose that focus, perspective, and gratitude, which is why I paused today and took the time to write this.
Tags: Ann Trason, Running, trail running, ultra running