Letting Go of Leadville

Leaving Twin Lakes Aid Station Inbound with my pacer during the Leadville 100

The 2025 Leadville 100 Trail Run has now slipped away through the fingertips of time. The time of personal glory and success, the time of basking in the delicate place of mixed emotions -- the one that felt of winning even when I didn't hit my desired goal.

It's two weeks after the (most recent) race of my lifetime and I am eagerly floating on my back on the pool of right-now. It's easy here, breezy, as I'm relaxing in the in-between of what was and what will be. My body is healed. My mind is refreshened. I'm ready to start running again after a reasonable break. I'm ready to let go of anything that has to do with the running this race.

I get it. It can be hard to let such a thing go. It was a huge life event that took all of me to accomplish. I've gripped onto the feelings post-race like a little kid does a birthday balloon, white knuckled and never letting go. But here I am, ready to watch the balloon take to the clouds and drift into memory.

I don't know. Maybe you're the type of person who doesn't usually have a problem with this part of a goal being reached. Perhaps it's easy enough to get to a finish line, dust yourself off no matter how you did, and sidle on up to the next goal path. I envy you, in a small kind of way. For me, I hold onto the bright shiny stuff of life and revel in it for a while. I can perseverate. The images of a moment can loop through my mind over and over again, making it hard to release the feelings and get on to the next thing.

One of the most useful skills I've adopted over the years of being a damn human has been this very one: letting the past go and moving on to what's waiting for me behind the next door.

In writing my book, Finding Leadville, I was able to let go a million different things all at once, like confetti I could throw into the air and watch as the wind swept it in all kinds of directions. I could let go of childhood and teenage grudges. I could let go of the athlete I once was in my early twenties, and I could let go of the hurt caused by irresponsible men. I could let go of some pretty big societal pressures to be married by now (with a baby, damn it!) and I could let go any semblance of needing to be Catholic just because it would make my mom happy.

Letting go is a helluva skillset that challenges me. I can do it best when I give myself time to process and get pen to paper on what I experienced. I have to see the very thing I'm releasing, witness it fully as I can, in order to feel peace with letting go. A lot of the time that means through journaling, writing about it.

Writing is healing. It can give us what we need to blow the dandelion puff of the past into the vast field of the present. And see what sticks, what plants, and what ultimately blooms for our future as a result of it.

Now as I bask in the nowness of two weeks post-race, I get to entertain the question: "What's next?"

I can't wait to get up from all this floating to begin training all over again for something else entirely different from an ultramarathon in the mountains: a 4.167 mile loop in a relatively flat Midwestern town. They call it a Backyard Ultra. And I'm stoked to do it in my very own backyard in Minnesota.

So: Here's to letting go and moving on to what deserves to bloom next.

Love ya,

Barbara