Linda Barton-Robbins pt. 1

My Heart Belongs on the Trails

By InnerVoice

August 25^th, 2016

He loved that I started running.

My dad died after a very brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed in September 2005 and passed in January 2006. My dad was an alcoholic. My three brothers and I were lucky, if you can call it luck. Dad wasn’t an abusive drunk, or mean, he was just irritating and sometimes obnoxious. As a teenager I remember feeling like he was a nuisance I had to deal with in order to protect my mom, who deserved better. It’s something that probably made me more grown up than I needed to be at that age. His alcoholism is what I believe made him sick.

He was wonderful, with a big heart. He worshiped my mom and did his best with us kids. He had a million stories that we’d all heard more than a million times. He loved Elvis and playing the guitar. He taught me how to cook and would take me grocery shopping to buy all the ingredients for new recipes. He loved that I started running. He would drive me to races and wait proudly at the finish line. He especially loved the free post-race bagels.

Thankfully though, Dad went through long periods of being sober. He had a cycle of making healthy choices, but then he’d start to slip and we all knew to prepare for him to start drinking again. That cycle took longer to complete as he got older and his final years were spent sober and happy.

When he was sick, I kept running. I ran the day he died. I got a few blocks from my parents’ house where his dying body was fading away, and I stopped on a corner and curled up in a ball to cry. A minute later I got up and kept going. It gave me strength. Later that day, surrounded by family, my hand was on his heart when it stopped beating.

I felt strong; like I could conquer anything.

I used to fake menstrual cramps in PE class so that I could get out of running. I was a gymnast and a dancer as a kid. I‘d run towards the vault or across a stage if it was choreographed, but that was as far as I’d go. I was at state level in high school, but I wasn’t good enough to pursue it in college. After high school, I stayed somewhat fit by going to the gym and doing the StairMaster or elliptical machine. There was not a lot of satisfaction in it.

Around 2002, I was reading a women‘s fitness magazine and I saw a ‘Run Your First 10k’ article. Running, of all things! One day I thought I’d run 8 minutes on a treadmill; I thought I might die. But then I started to follow a program, repeating weeks when I wanted to. I took my time. It gave me direction again. I remember bragging at work that I‘d run 5k the day before. 5k. It sounded so real. So far!

During this time I went to a party and started chatting with a couple of people I didn‘t know. One guy considered himself a runner and couldn‘t believe I‘d only ever run on a treadmill. He agreed to take a couple of us out the next day. We ran a route around Lake Union in Seattle, about 14k, well above my 10k goal. Again, I thought I might die, but I didn‘t. I felt amazing! We ran by people eating on restaurant patios and I wondered what they must of thought of us running so early in the morning instead of tucking into a heavy breakfast with a Bloody Mary. I felt strong; like I could conquer anything.

I signed up for Victoria Half marathon and began training. A few weeks before, a good friend, Jason Hunter, asked me to join him and his brother John down at the Portland Marathon. Jason, a football and baseball player in high school, was now in a wheelchair after being shot by an intruder at his parents’ house. The bullet took away his ability to walk, but Jason stayed determined to be active and started racing marathons with hand bikes. I said I would go and that maybe I‘d try running it. Jason kind of laughed, but John, a triathlete, encouraged me. I walked into the pre-race expo, filled out the form and wrote a check.

My heart belonged on the trails and ultra-runners were my people.

The next day I ran from start to finish. I knew nothing about what I was doing. I ate nothing but one large tootsie roll I‘d found (still wrapped) on the ground. I loved every step.

When I finished I had to borrow a cell phone to call Jason and John to pick me up. They couldn‘t believe I’d already finished. I ran Victoria Half the very next weekend and hurt so badly. I promised myself that I would never run two races that close together again. I signed up for Seattle Marathon two months later. I didn‘t know that wasn’t what people did; that people usually run one marathon per year. I started running them every season, then monthly, then weekly, and sometimes two in a weekend. I joined a marathon club that encouraged frequent racing. I raced incredibly frequently!

After I’d run about 10 marathons I felt that it was time to run an ultra. I ran a 63k race in Invermere, BC in 2006. I was one of seven runners. Slowly, I transitioned from roads to trails and from marathons to ultras. I loved the adventurous spirit of ultras. Being covered in dirt and mud, and sometimes blood, it just felt right. People laughed a lot and would run miles and miles together, helping eachother out. The food in the aid stations was impressive and delicious. I remember a friend saying to me “what better way to spend your day?”

I ran my last road marathon in 2009 and ended up sharing several miles with a woman who was desperately trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She was stressed out and not having any fun. Her watch kept beeping and she fell off pace before the halfway point. She started to cry and panic and she took off. I passed her a few miles later and she was still stressed and wouldn’t take any of my encouragement. I wished her luck and knew my soul had left road races behind. My heart belonged on the trails and ultra-runners were my people.

Running that far seems to take a lifetime.

Human beings are capable of doing so much more than they realize. Our minds place limits on us and ultra-running takes away many of those limits. The idea of running 30, 50, 100 miles or more seems absolutely impossible. But it’s not and you won’t know that until you do it. You also won’t know you can do it even while in the midst of doing it.

Running that far seems to take a lifetime. You start off fresh and happy and then things get tough. You have to work through it. Maybe you‘ll feel better, maybe you won’t. But you can often keep going regardless. You can completely fall apart and put yourself back together again, sometimes more than a few times. Then you get to that finish line and it is so damn satisfying because you worked so hard. You trained for weeks or months and then you showed up on race day and kept going until you finished. That’s ultra-running and that’s life.

As I head into Fat Dog 120, I am doing a lot of self-talk. It‘s an emotional time. Reed, my baby boy is turning one. He‘s growing up and turning into less of a baby and more of a little kid. I‘m about to end my yearlong maternity leave and go back to work. I love my job as a librarian, so I‘m excited. And I know little Reed will love daycare. Still, I‘m going to miss being with him all day. He‘ll be learning new things and I won‘t always be the first one to see it any more. At the same time, this race is a celebration of being a new person as a mother. I‘m showing Reed, and myself, that I am stronger now than I‘ve ever been. I will probably cry and maybe for miles and miles, but my love for him, and for my family, will be what keeps me moving.