The Cost of the Empty Tank & Grace at The Finish Line

It is late May as I write this. I know I am behind on this month’s update. It wasn’t because I forgot, or because I was too busy to type. Honestly, it just took a few weeks to fully digest the psychological and physical bill that came due when I finally pinned a race bib back on.

In my April post, I wrote about the excitement of the comeback. I talked about navigating life shifts, menopausal body changes, upgrading my gear, and committing to an "un-glamorous" strength routine. I was standing on the edge of the Wildflower 20k trail run, preaching a message about the power of just showing up.

But there is a massive difference between the anticipation of the starting line and the reality of what happens when life, work, and your own mental critics collide in the dirt.

The Four-Week Fade and the Coach’s Paradox

Let’s look at the data first, because as a coach, the data doesn't lie. The four weeks leading up to Wildflower were, from a training standpoint, a total wash. I logged three decent runs in week three, absolutely nothing in week four, and exactly one lonely run in week five.

I let my work schedule explode. I let client needs expand. And once again, I stepped right into the old habit of not prioritizing my own health and fitness.

As a lifetime endurance athlete, I allowed myself to make this compromise because I knew I had massive "savings" in my physiological bank account. I knew I could survive the distance. I wasn't there to stand on a podium; I was just there to finish, and I told myself I could walk if I had to. But the training had slipped too far.

If one of my own athletes brought me this exact training log a week before a rugged, hot 20k trail race, my professional advice would be crystal clear: Pull the plug. If I didn't think they could handle it safely, I’d tell them to drop out to avoid injury. If I knew they had the lifetime mileage to handle it, and I trusted them to truly treat it as a low-intensity, ego-free "C" race, I'd let them toe the line—but with a strict mandate to keep their pace down and their ego completely in check.

But looking at my own empty calendar, I wasn't being the objective coach. I was kicking myself.

And if I'm being completely transparent, the lack of training wasn't just a scheduling issue—it was psychological. My body has changed significantly over the last six months. There were days leading up to the event where I simply did not feel comfortable in my own clothes. Instead of facing that discomfort on a run, I chose to bury myself in work and just let the training clock run out. It was a massive psychological "fuck you" to myself.

As a coach and a therapist, I passionately advocate to my clients that all bodies are amazing, resilient, and worthy of celebration exactly as they are. Yet, there I was, trapped in a quiet cycle of body-shaming and feeling deeply ashamed.

It turns out, giving empathy to an athlete is a whole lot easier than giving it to the reflection in the mirror.

The RV Rookie, the Campfire, and the 11:45 AM Waiting Game

The physical transition to Wildflower weekend started out beautifully. I arrived at the campgrounds on Thursday night just at dusk. It was my very first time renting and staying in an RV, and to be completely honest, I was a total rookie. Thank goodness for incredible camp neighbors who knew exactly what they were doing and helped me get the whole rig set up for the evening. With the RV secure, I enjoyed a simple, quiet athlete's dinner of chicken, broccoli, and rice, sat by the fire, and mapped out my Friday.

When Friday morning came around, my first priority was a short shakeout run—just 2 to 3 miles to get the legs warmed up and primed for the next day. I ate breakfast, took a short walk around the campgrounds to let things settle, and laced up my shoes around 9:00 AM.

The heat hit me instantly. Even that early in the morning, the thermometer was already kissing 80 degrees. I headed out toward the mile 4 and 5 segment of the course to scout the terrain. I knew Wildflower was a hilly course on paper, but stepping out onto those exposed trails in the baking morning sun was an immediate reality check. Still, I looked at the official event details, which promised a relatively manageable 794 feet of total climbing over the 12.4 miles. I can handle that, I thought.

The rest of Friday was all about shifting back into my comfort zone: Coach Mode. I grabbed my race packet, checked out the festival area, and headed back to camp to welcome my athletes as they started rolling into the campgrounds.

Friday night, the atmosphere was perfect. Everyone enjoyed their own dinners and then gathered around my campfire. We chatted about random life stuff, laughed, and kept the conversation entirely light and stress-free. I love those moments. Protecting my athletes' headspaces before a big effort is one of my favorite parts of the job. But after everyone went to bed and I put out the fire, I stepped inside the RV to lay out my own race clothes for Saturday morning, and the mental wall started to crumble.

My race on Saturday wasn't scheduled for a crisp, early-morning departure. The whistle blew at 11:45 AM, right in the middle of the 70.3 event. It was going to be blazing hot, but more importantly, I do not do well with late-day races. I have always struggled with the hours of pre-race buildup—the creeping stress, the inability to choke down food on a normal schedule, and finally arriving at the start line feeling like I’ve already been awake for three days.

This time was no different. I kept trying to use my own coaching tools on myself. It’s not a race today, I repeated in my head. There are no performance metrics you need to maintain. You are just here to finish.

Briefly, the mental tricks weren't working. Deep down, the bill was coming due, and I knew I hadn't given myself enough training to back up my stubbornness.

The Struggle Bus: When the Bill Comes Due

When I finally toed the line at 11:45 AM on Saturday, I knew something was wrong before I even took a step. My legs felt like they had 50-pound cinder blocks chained to them just walking to the starting grid. My heart rate was already elevated from the heavy heat and the spiking mental anxiety.

I consciously seeded myself right in the middle of the pack. The former podium finisher in me had to swallow a bit of pride, knowing I would just be in the way if I started at the front line. The whistle blew, the lead group vanished, and the rest of us settled into a moderate pace.

The first mile was okay. I felt tight and slow, but that is a normal transition state for my body. But then, the relief never came. The hills arrived, and they were relentless. My pace dropped significantly, and while my stubborn ego didn't completely stop me from walking the steepest sections, it did force me into a fast, aggressive power-walk with a stride that was simply too long. Looking back, I should have shortened it up and eased off. My mechanics were breaking down, my form was completely off, and I was so deep in the pain cave I didn't even realize the toll that over-striding was taking.

The one saving grace under my feet was my shoes. The Brooks trail runners were fantastic—lightweight for a trail shoe, with incredible grip on trails that were mostly loose sand on top of hard pack. But good shoes can't fix bad biomechanics.

Because of the steepness of the climbs and my compromised form, I was severely overusing my right glute and hamstring. By mile 4, the inevitable happened: a catastrophic, locking cramp.

The pain was so intense that my entire focus shifted to surviving the leg spasm. I completely forgot to eat or drink at my scheduled intervals. That missed fueling snowballed instantly into a wall of profound exhaustion. I was pushing through absolute vapor. There were several times I had to stop entirely, bend over with my hands on my knees, and just try to breathe. Not that I advocate for that stance, but in my grossly out-of-mind state, that's where I went. I was breaking to a slow walk, grabbing my hamstring, and literally smacking my own glute trying to get the muscle fibers to release. It was not pretty. It was not fun. I wanted to cry, and I wanted nothing more than to lay down in the dirt and wait for the medical staff to come cart me away. 

But I trudged on.

When I finally hit the final mile, I saw the downhill and thought, Thank goodness, I'll just let gravity do the work. That was a massive mistake. The eccentric load on my already decimated muscles was the breaking point. The moment the trail flattened out for the final 500 meters to the finish line, a double-whammy struck: my right calf and my left arch cramped violently at the exact same time.

I was on the ultimate struggle bus. It took every single ounce of human energy I had left to force my feet to move across that final stretch. I crossed the timing mat and nearly collapsed.

The Humble Pie of the Medical Tent

Luckily, someone at the finish line noticed I wasn’t answering questions and that my eyes were completely glazed over. They immediately escorted me straight to the medical tent.

To say I did not want to be in the med tent is a massive understatement. As a movement specialist and health professional, being the patient is the ultimate ego check. I sat there shaking uncontrollably at first, but as they pumped me full of fluids and electrolytes, the tremors subsided, leaving behind a heavy wave of dizziness and fatigue.

About an hour passed before they finally released me. I walked straight to my RV, showered, tried to eat some whole foods, and crawled into bed. A severe headache and intense nausea took over, and I laid there for another hour just trying not to vomit.

Once the room finally stopped spinning and the nausea faded, I stepped back outside. My personal race had been a disaster, but I had a campground full of athletes to check in on.

And that is where the magic happened.

My Saturday athletes had done incredibly well, with several of them landing right on the podium. I was so incredibly proud of them. Because Wildflower is a weekend-long festival, I stayed through Sunday to support the rest of the crew racing the Sprint and Olympic distances.

Sunday morning was an absolute dream. My athletes completely crushed it, racking up even more podium finishes. But as they caught their breath and celebrated, every single one of them came to me with the exact same complaint: "The run course was WAY harder and steeper than the website described!"

When I finally checked the actual GPS data later, the truth came out. The race director's website had promised 794 feet of climbing. The dirt reality? Over 1,200 feet of vertical climbing packed into those 12.4 miles. I felt a quiet wave of validation. It wasn't just in my head; the course layout was genuinely brutal.

The Ultimate Lesson: Unequivocal Grace

Looking back on it now, I have a very clear view of what actually went wrong. It wasn't just the surprise 1,200 feet of climbing, the 80-degree heat, or the late-morning start.

The real breakdown happened four weeks before the event. I let myself get into my own head in the most negative way possible, and I chose to stay there.

Have I had poor race performances in the past? Yes, of course. Every long-term athlete has. But have they ever been caused by a toxic mental attitude weeks before the gun went off? No. That was a new threshold of self-sabotage for me.

I was entirely too hard on myself. I let changes in my body dictate my consistency, and then I used my empty training calendar as a weapon to shame myself on the trail.

But as I sit here typing this, reflecting on the dirt, the cramps, the med tent, and the flashing smiles of my athletes holding podium trophies, I realize something vital: This was a lesson I needed to experience as a coach.

When I work with my athletes, I don't lead with a hammer. I am not hard on them. My entire coaching philosophy is built on finding the one thing they did well, focusing on it, and using it as a foundation to build on, while treating the less-than-perfect moments as objective data to learn from.

It is time for me to turn that exact same camera around on myself.

Do I need to give myself some grace looking back on Wildflower? Yes. Unequivocally, YES. The massive "savings" in my lifetime fitness bank account got me across the finish line of a brutal course completely undertrained. That is a testament to what the human body can endure. But the real victory isn't the finish line medal—it's learning to be just as kind, empathetic, and forgiving to the reflection in the mirror as I am to the incredible athletes I am lucky enough to coach.

See you out on the trails. (Next time, with a full training block).