🌵Javelina Diaries

01 // None of This Makes Any Sense

As a kid, I watched Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve to celebrate the turning of the calendar. At twelve o’clock, my aunt would let me and my cousins drag pots and pans outside and wail on them with wooden spoons.

Now, as card-carrying adults, Lisa and I do the same, though we tease each other about whether we’ll be able to stay awake until the ball drops. It wasn’t a problem this year. I was giddy. My laptop glowed from the other room, standing at the ready.

Getting In

I didn’t jump straight to the computer when registration for the Javelina Jundred opened at midnight on January 1. Being a gentleman, I first kissed my bride, toasted to another year of adventure, and then excused myself.

Spots for the three race distances were limited. The gold rush was on and the website was struggling under the load. I started registering a half-dozen times, only to encounter “spinning wheels of death” and 504 timeout errors.

My laptop became a slot machine. Eyes glazed, feverishly filling forms and thwacking “Next” buttons, I had twinges of doubt. I knew little about this race, save for its setting somewhere in the Arizona desert (might as well be Mars to a Montana boy).

Each time I restarted the process, the number of available spots dropped—300, 200, 100. With hope fading and my mind contemplating Plan Bs, my browser broke through at last to the final screen and one more button: “Complete Registration.”

I was in! Oh, shit. I was in.

None of This Makes Any Sense

Our hobby borders on preposterous. It defies logic. That’s why lately, rather than justifying it to myself or explaining it to others, I try to lean into the mystery of my running. I simply exist alongside it. We are.

Signing up for a 100k in the desert fits into the shoulder-shrugging, “I dunno” category of silly things runners do without forethought or full understanding. To be sure, a long list of stuff would seem to point me in a different direction:

• 2024 was a good year on the roads. I snagged three of the five PRs I was shooting for. Not too shabby for an old guy. Fifteen years of results say road racing is where I should be for PRs and age group wins. Those things rarely happen on trails.

• I don’t do well in the heat. Javelina often tops out in the 100s. At a mountain race three years ago, I wilted in 85-degree temps and tried to get volunteers to call me a ride down. Last fall in Hawaii, the heat nearly pushed me into overtraining.

• I know nothing about Javelina. Books by smart coaches say we should choose races that have meaning. Aside from a fever-dream spiritual visitation in a Sedona campground (a story for another day), I don’t have connections to Arizona.

• I do know it’s a party. Leaving behind the “run hard, drink hard” mindset has been transformative. My sobriety is everything. I worry Javelina might be a beer-swilling, adult Halloween party disguised as a trail run.

• The farthest I’ve run is fifty miles. In the summer of 2012, I was the beer-swilling, adult Halloween party—a different runner and person. But I was pretty fit. That year’s White River 50 remains my greatest single-day test.

• Our transportation is sketchy. Camping is part of the Javelina experience, which means 2,500 miles in the 2002 GMC van nicknamed “Gladys” (as in, Gladys thing didn’t break down). Can we count on her for one more trip, like 2023?

Trail Runner calls Javelina the “Ultimate Jalloween Party” (click to original)

So, Where’s the Why?

All the arguments against driving a mechanically questionable bread box thousands of miles into the godforsaken heat of the American Southwest, then attempting to run sixty-two trail miles alongside hundreds of toga-wearing grownups while not stroking out in the blazing sun… These are precisely the reasons I want to do it.

I want to see what’s on the other side of my fear (and other cringe-but-true clichés). Each time I try something uncomfortable, even if I fail, my resilience grows. Building that kind of inner strength feels so necessary.

“The  secret sauce of confidence is doing something in spite of uncertainty, in spite of anxiety.”
~ Ian Robertson

Training for the Javelina 100k will put me face-to-face with my anxiety and imposter syndrome a thousand times. Race day will take me places I’ve never been. Then, when it’s all said and done and the dusty Hokas are on the shelf, I will understand a little bit more about what my body and mind are capable of.

That sounds like a good time.

The Finish Line

Running Lightly exists to help runners progress. Sometimes, growth happens through mindfulness and deep presence. Other times, it’s about setting an audacious goal and seeing what happens. I’m always straddling the line.

I don’t write much about my training (there’s that pesky imposter syndrome). But if you’re like me, you draw inspiration from peoples’ running journeys. So I figure, let’s put it all out there and learn together.

Watch for “🌵 Javelina Diaries” entries at the bottom of the weekly newsletter (and occasionally in stand-alone journals). Expect tales of heat training, self-doubt, small successes, bumps, and breakdowns.

Please ask questions and offer words of wisdom as we go. And if you have any tips for keeping an old GMC alive, we’ll take those, too.

Run lightly,
-mike

Running Lightly is a reader-supported, weekly publication about running as a pathway to growth. It’s you… you’re the reader. You know what to do💛