Mountain Time

Barbara Mary
Aug 12
2 min read

There's a power outage throughout the entire mountain town. It's the week of the Leadville 100 and I'm restless as I type this in a coffee shop in the next habitable place down the road. I drove past a handful of aspen trees whose leaves are already turning yellow, signaling to all who pass that time is ever pressing forward.

And time with all her numbers and clock hands and mischievous speeds has a way of playing games with us mortals; especially the closer to the sun we get.

I've been in Colorado for eight weeks, hunkered up at 9500 feet at a fellow ultrarunner's home. I've slept 7-10 hours every night and worked ~40 hours a week, virtual calls and continuing education and presentation prep and delivery. Coaching 45 minutes at a time -- some stretched into an interminable length, while others flew over the still water of time like a flat stone, skipping delightedly toward an unknown completion. I love my work.

Trails welcomed me for miles, minutes that stretched into hours that suddenly fell into a chasm of "that went by so fast." I got lost in my phone screen, the reminders of political unrest and heart wrenching injustices and Taylor Swift's new album and summers unfolding, all swirling into a cacophony of noise.

I drove over mountain passes with no radio, podcasts, or sounds in the car beyond the whooshing wind of an open window. Dogs approached me with wagging tails and a few cats skirted away from my kissing sounds -- my attempt to win them over. Sunsets exploded over an amphitheater spilling of folk music, and hills slowed me down to a walk when all I wanted was to run.

I texted my person half way through the summer: "I'm gonna come back changed. Again."

Time did that to me. Mountain Time.

Slow mornings with hot coffee and journal pages, smudging black ink as I doodled in the margins between thoughts of finish line dreams and planning out my day. Strolls through mountain towns, eyes dancing toward the peaks and legs aching from the hill sprints I just did up toward the sky. Cold creek water on hot days, legs lazily outstretched beneath the slightly-furious ripples as I turned my face upward to the tree branches above.

And now, it's the week leading up to the reason I slowed life to a trickle and left the city throb for alpine breeze and ease. And now, I am both restless and at peace, eager and still, full of curiosity on how it will all unfold and ready to take up the reins on my dreams, kickstart them into action, leave a dust cloud billowing behind me as I go.

It's almost time to run the Leadville 100 Trail Run. Two years after my first go at it. It's time to shave time, strategically approach it, ensure that I can cross the finish line in time for a Big Belt Buckle -- under 25 hours.

I am changed.

Slowly, slowly. Bit by bit.

Time did that to me.

Mountain time, specifically.

Focus on your dreams, integrate your work, live this one lifetime fully.

It matters.