The other morning I was slated for a hilly three-hour run. I’d started my period the night before, and I felt like garbage. I considered climbing back into bed, and giving it another go in a few hours. The problem is that sometimes the Crimson Tide doesn’t abate, but the day always heats up. Hot and menstrual? That’s a recipe for a true trail disaster, so I decided to suck it up and get my butt on the trail earlier than later. Day One of Shark Week also tends to have… uh… high production. There isn’t a tampon on the planet absorbent enough to handle an hour of sitting at a desk on Day One, let alone three hours of trail running. A bit of a conundrum. Recently, I’d reached out to my new trail running community to see how other women handled their own trail-time tidal flow. Jenn, a veteran 100-miler, replied with an unequivocal: get a menstrual cup, endure the learning curve and you’ll never look back. Another friend, a biologist who dry-suit dives in Antarctica, said the same thing. Fine. If that’s how the big girls handle it, that’s what I’d do. Here’s the thing: they’re not kidding about that learning curve. It took me a full fifteen minutes to get the darn thing in correctly the first time. The idea is that once it’s in right, it takes all the Force of the Vacuum of Space to get it out again. No leaking, no falling out. Done and done. I should only have to mess with it twice a day, and, best of all, I shouldn’t have to figure out how to resolve a menstrual issue somewhere around trail mile 15. I should be totally fine for three hours of running! So I popped it in (and by “pop it in” I mean that I filled that car full of clowns, made sure they all had their seat belts on, and even got 'em all to sign non-liability waivers). I took a fist-full of ibuprofen, put on my shoes, and walked out the door. An hour later I was at the trail head, feeling a little less like a pair of mile-500 shoes. In fact, I felt border-line good! (I will always have a tender spot in my heart for ibuprofen.) I double-checked my pack, wished myself luck, and started to run. Exactly 2.5 miles into my run, the promise of 12 mess-free hours conspicuously unraveled. In barely more than an hour since leaving home, I’d filled that blasted cup to overflowing. I remembered Jenn’s instructions: “You just pull over, dump that shit out, rinse it with your water bottle, and get right back on that trail.” Right. Piece of cake (I’d love some cake right now) I can totally do that. Remember that bit about naught but the Force of the Vacuum of Space could remove it once it’d been placed? Well… that part at least was accurate. I’ll spare you the gore; suffice it to say that the incident left all the appearance of Shark Week claiming its first victim (*head lowered, sign of the cross* RIP). But I managed. Naively I thought, “Well, got that out of the way early! I should be solid until I get home! Let’s do this!” Um. Nope. About five miles later (and only two tiny miles away from an actual maintained state parks bathroom with running water and toilet paper and everything) the cup ranneth over for the second time. Ugh. Repeat Episode One, increase grace, decrease swearing.
Three hours later, I finally finished my hilly run. I’d only gotten lost once (the trail crossed the highway, I didn’t) and eaten trail twice. The first fall was courtesy of a grass-covered gopher hole. The second was less mundane. It was near the end of my run and I was knackered. So I tripped. Over nothing. No rocks, no roots. Just a gently downward-sloping hill. I fell, hands and right shoulder first, side-summersaulted onto my feet, and finished with my arms in the air. Arms still in the air, I turned towards imaginary judges to acknowledge the dismount. Two runners coming the opposite direction complemented my technique; I paused for a curtsy. My shoulder and knee were skinned and bleeding, but nothing sketchy; I kept running. After finishing the run, I cataloged the morning and felt really pleased. Type 2 Fun, I said to myself. We just had hours of Type 2 Fun.
Along with all the Strava data he gets, my coach also has me log every run on a shared online datasheet. Usually the reports are pretty banal: comments about which running gels I used on my long run, how much sleep I got, what the trail was like, that kind of thing. Each week, though, I also try to tell a story. One time I told him about the “race” I had with an elderly woman. She was wearing a bedazzled Disneyland sweatshirt, a fanny pack, and a visor color-coordinated with her sneakers. It took everything I had to close the gap and take her, but I pulled it off in the end. Another time I told him about asking the man watering his lawn to spray me down with his hose. He’s been openly appreciative of the short narratives. Hours of reading about mile times and gels can get old, even for a running coach. Maybe especially for a running coach. Anyway, this time he got quite the story. His concise response, “You are a baller, and that was a damn good run.”
Most weeks I text my mom a picture from my long run. This week I sent her a typically scenic photo of hills and trees and said, “Today’s run was a bit of a mess, but it was a pretty day anyway.” She asked what’d made it a mess, so I sent her an excerpt from my coach’s report. My conservative and polite mother was both horrified and proud, “You’re a remarkable woman,” she said. Well, if that didn't punch me hard in the feels.
Later that day I was talking with one of my sisters who is several months into a new relationship. She went on vacation with her new boyfriend and after a long, physically taxing day, she indicated her limit. He replied, “Babe. Your vagina is showing.” He was saying, “Quit being such a ‘girl’ about this. Let’s keep going.” She told him off. As she was relating the story to me, I felt the blood rise to my face and my fists clench. “He said what?” I was furious. “Don’t you let him use your femininity as a weapon against you. How dare he imply that womanhood is weak. How dare he imply that asking for what you need is weak! How dare he attempt to shame you into a ‘more desirable behavior’, to get what he wants. How. Dare. He...” I was furious at him for saying such a stupid thing, I was furious with her for doing nothing more than telling him off. Homicide felt like a more appropriate response. Mortal Kombat. Battle to the death. He’s a pretty big guy, but as angry as I was, I was sure I could take him. From the other room my sister’s teenage daughter yelled, “Ya, Becca! You tell him!” As quickly as anger had flushed my face, pride replaced it. Good girl. Atta-friggin-girl.
Mother’s Day is the day after tomorrow. It's not exactly my favorite holiday. I have a rather complex relationship with motherhood and womanhood. And Sundays. This year I’m gonna simplify things by running for four and a half hours. Through the Santa Cruz Mountains. By myself. You know what, though? For a woman who's never even birthed a baby, I’m starting to feel really good about being reborn.
