Burn it All Down

“Burn it all down,” I said, running into the last kilometre. “Blow it all up.”

In my head, I played through this made up catalogue of elite runners who pushed to the edge of the line. I could picture them laying it all open on the ground, eking out those last few seconds, knowing that money, big prizes, titles and lifestyles were at stake.

None of that is true for me. I am not going after money or to get a big name. I have no notoriety or title, and certainly won’t be taking home any prizes or cash. But I am going after the best of myself. I am putting everything out there because I want to get the most back that I can. I want to break barriers for myself and set times. I want to eke out those last few seconds and see what’s possible when I go as deep as I can, just the same as we see play out near the finishing tape as the elites are breaking through.

I don’t know that in training you can get as deep as you can at a race. I also don’t know that you want to. There is something unique about the set up and atmosphere of a race, something that lets all the pieces come together just right so that you can line them up and then press the first domino square and watch them fall. Sometimes, after months and weeks of training and hours of commitment and deliverance of your soul, the pieces fall just right. The weather is good, your body feels good, your mind is cohesive with the work that is about to happen, and the running just falls out of you. Like you were meant to be doing it here like this on this day.

But that’s a rarity. Really we train for the opposite. The days where most of the time things don’t all line up and go as planned, or one of the dominoes is askew. The days where your body feels fine, but your mind is objecting, or your mind is dialled in and your body is tired, overfilled, heavy and burdened. The funny thing is, in training, I don’t usually have images of those perfect days flash through my mind – I have images of the other days. Those ones where I want to quit and it hurts so much, but I keep going anyways. Those ones where it is much harder than it is supposed to be, but the only option is forward.

“Who are you to say I can’t do this?” I say aloud to that trash talk voice in my head. “I don’t have time to wait around until you are ready and are going to let me be. I’m going anyway.” 

And so I go out and burn it all down. Ride that redline edge of it potentially being too much, but knowing it still needs to be more. Ride that border of it hurting, but not hurting so much that I need to quit or that I think it is enough, and instead asking, “can you hurt more?”

I derive a sadistic pleasure from going to this place. I get this little tingle of excitement on speed days and workout days as I know what is coming and what I get to do. But I also am constantly reminding myself that running fast, and running far is a privilege. You get to that point because you have sorted everything else out in your mind and body and laid the foundation down solid enough that now this is the next natural step. Push too hard, too soon and the rocky foundation underneath gives way. We’ve all been there.

 Less than a month out from the race, and I’m just standing back, holding on for the last two weeks of work. It’s been harder this time than usual to navigate the training cycle, my body under this cyclic state of fatigue. But in some ways, I wouldn’t expect anything different. It’s almost like a comforting sigh of relief as I remember what it feels like to train this hard, push these boundaries.

 “Yes,” I remind myself, “this is what it feels like if you want to burn it down and blow it all up in the end.”