Run Rabbit Redemption
Long Lake, mile 24 Preamble (TLDR: skip to “The Race” section) I hate running. I also love it, and sometimes feel like I need it, just to survive. My reasons for doing it have slowly changed over the years. My first attempt to start running regularly was age 30, and I was desperately trying to stay sober. I ran and trained obsessively… and got good at it - then I ran to compete. I loved the feeling of winning races, and getting admiration from other runners. Although I didn’t know, or acknowledge it at the time, running was almost a completely ego-driven pursuit for me. Then I started focusing on bigger races and had bigger goals. For years, it felt like I was close to a big breakthrough, but I couldn’t quite put it all together on race day - my expectations of myself were always very high, and hard to live up to. I started DNF’ing… a lot. Then, in the summer of 2022, about a month after DNF’ing Tahoe 200 (while in 2nd place), I finally caught the covid virus. It was short-liv