I was a chubby kid. Mom is quick to point out not “fat”, just “big boned and healthy”. Whatever you called it, my nickname was Thunder Thighs, or as my dad lovingly called me, ‘Sugar Plump Fairy”. (Yep, therapy came later in life).

But, I was, big. And I liked to eat. I also was sad, with low self confidence. So I ate more; the high-calorie Catch 22.

I was also a normal, and emotional teenager. Fitting in was priority #1,  so of course I miserable being fat, and dieting, next to its ugly adversary eating, was the constant battle in my life.

Grapefruit diet, banana diet, cookie diet, cabbage diet, I even resorted to the cocaine diet (another blog), but nothing stuck. I had to get skinny! I had to fit in! I had to make all those people (boys, girls, parents, fill in the blank) love me!

But I was dieting for the wrong reasons. I did it to be accepted, to fit in. To like myself. To get them to like me. None of this honored me. And none of it worked.

It wasn’t until I was about 18, and had just moved out, that I finally took a real interest in owning my own life. Evaluating what made me happy and why. Really discovering who I was (not Thunder Thighs Kristin) or make anyone else happy. I moved away, and started over.

I was young. I was eager. I kinda went overboard.

I became a vegan, I drank carrot juice and meditated, I started running. And I lost a bunch of weight.

But I wasn’t too smart, and I got sick. I was terribly anemic, (transfusion-like anemic), and felt like crap. I was skinny, but I was still jacked up. WTF!

So, I studied nutrition, I met with some head doctors, and I sorted it all out. It took a while, but I balanced my relationship with food (and my body) out pretty well, finding and maintaining a pretty average weight. I also learned how to fight those demons in my head (and my eyeballs) that still saw, and challenged the fat girl in me.

Fast forward to happily married.

I married a beautiful man who would never even notice, or care, if I gained or lost any weight at all. He thought I was a goddess, and treated me like one. And for a year or so, we celebrated, a lot. BBQ’s in our new backyard, social parties with our new couple neighbors. Popcorn and pasta marathon movie weekends….we indulged heavily.

The negative body image chit chat part of my brain that had been in the dark (“skinny = loved.  Fat = worthless”) got louder.  Not as strong as it had been in my teens, but uncomfortable enough that I knew I needed to take control.

I worked hard to watch my food and portions; I tried the gym and hated it; I had done running before – I was doing running again.

With my husband as a new, supportive partner, I decided for us, we were going to run a marathon. God bless the naive man – he was game.

This was a long time ago, 20 years-ish. Seems like everyone runs marathons nowadays, but I remember back then, the stats were “1/10th of 1% of the population will run a marathon”. I was going to be a cool statistic! I liked that!

I was that “big” girl that somehow found a way to cheat on the running day during PE. The girl whose softball team manager (ahem dad), would send in a “pinch runner” for her when she was up to bat.

A marathon?

My confidence and cajones were big, and we committed. If my husband had not agreed, I may not have truly pursued, but we jumped in. We joined  a running group, learned how to run slower than syrup in intervals up and down the beach, how to mix power bars and strong coffee for immediate (yet awful) fuel, and how to roll out with tennis balls like the best of them.

We actually finished the whole 26.2 mile race. Dead Last. We even made the local paper for being so slow. I didn’t care. I was overjoyed. We accomplished it, and felt satisfied.

Mission accomplished. On to the next challenge. Parenting.

We continued life, babies came – but so did more weight. Babies, bless their little hearts, have a way of making you a little (lot) saggier here and there, and also jacking up any quiet time for you. Exercise and time, for me was a little less, and weight was a little more.

My fall back? Running. Easy to pick back up, easy enough to do with the kids. We started back slowly. No marathons in mind, simply just to move. We found running together was perfect for us. It kept the babies content, and allowed us an hour or so a couple of times a week to catch up. It was our new routine.

A few years passed and I felt compelled to try the marathon thing again. My miles were solid, and I had a friend who was going strong with marathons and I found myself jealous of her. Her commitment, her lean physique and more so, the time she took, just for her. So I began. Again.

Hubby ran some with me, but his knees were worse for the wear so he as my cheerleader, watched me jump back in.

I did my second marathon precisely 6 years after my first, with much better success.

Then another, then another. I felt this continual nudge to keep challenging myself. At the time, I truly, didn’t even like running all that much, but I liked having a consistent work out routine and there was something cool about racking up the number of marathons I completed. I never was good at anything. I was ‘good enough’ to finish the marathons and that appealed to me. It also helped me keep the weight down (I learned quickly a long run doesn’t mean unlimited pasta for the rest of the week) but hitting a hard challenge, was the most satisfying of all.

Then, funny enough, I actually, really, got in to it. I started working on my time, challenging myself to a goal of cracking 4:00 (I never said I was fast), working on interval training and eating really well. And I ran about 10 more.

I never did crack 4 (best was 4:07), but somewhere in the mix of the marathons I embarked in, I discovered the trails, and soon transferred my runs on to the dirt.

It slowed me down, but that was even better for me -an excuse to not go fast!

And it was FUN! My very first trail run was with a group of 10 or so slow runners like me, winding our way through single track trails, jumping over streams…even climbing rocks! I was at that very critical spot of almost, just almost, burning out on the long boring street runs, and trail running instilled a new sense of adventure in me.

So I did a few more marathons, all trail, and finally, really loved running.

Since time wasn’t really a focus for me, I chose to challenge myself to mileage instead of time.

You see, I soon discovered most trail runners aren’t satisfied with a mere marathon. 26.2 miles Pshaw….no, for some ungodly reason, on hills and elevation and through mud, snow, sand and water, they want to go further, much further.

Hence, the ultra-marathon.

50ks, 50 milers, 100k’s and 100 milers.

Fuck yeah. Bring it.

I run far. I run trails. I am doing this.

First tackle? 50k. 32 miles.

One of the worst runs of my life in retrospect, but I did it. Rain, freezing sleet over the elevation and hills of Marin in December, but I did it, in 8 hours (really really slow….).

“I’ll never do this again”. My husband has it on video.

Yet two days later, I proclaimed “I’m going for a 50 miler!” Running somehow brought out the schizophrenic in me.

I kept up my miles and trained like crazy. I was sidetracked (and nearly bankrupt) with therapy for an Achilles tendonosis, but I was determined to do this race.

I didn’t do the race. I started it, but I didn’t finish it. I DNF’d. And it sucked. It had been a hot, dry, 90+ degree day out in the mountains and at mile 47, (yes mile FUCKING 47) I got heat stroke and taken out on a stretcher.

But, I wouldn’t give up. Now the 50 was my nemesis. I kept my mileage up, kept spending money to treat my Achilles and a month or so later, tried another 50 miler.

Yet, I again, DNF’d.  Another record-breaking day of heat on dry, uncovered hills out in the middle of nowhere. This time, they actually shut down the whole race, but I did get another 50k under my belt, and set out immediately, to find lucky number three.

Another month and another elevation higher, I found it. And I kicked it’s ass.

It took me 12 hours and I had another injury I was nursing, so it was slow. But it was a sweet, sweet victory, with my beautiful husband was there every step of the way cheering me on.

The thing runners (wow, could I really call myself a runner?) figure out about running long distance, is that once you get in that “high mile” zone, you hate to lose it. I trained with 20-30 miles runs for many many months to finish that 50, which was my new cap, so well, why not keep going?

I found a friend crazier than me (she had never even run a marathon) and we both, just agreed, and announced to the world, “We, crazy bad ass ninja motherfucker warriors, are running 100 miles”.

I built a training plan.

We read every single article and thing we could on how to do it.

We spent way too much money on tons of gear and nutrition and fuel and recovery aids, and we buckled on our training belts.

My mom started telling me I was addicted to running, that I was obsessed with it.

I can honestly, promise, cross my heart, I wasn’t.

I mentioned this earlier, but honestly, sometimes, I couldn’t even really admit I even liked running. These runs hurt. They were long. I had blisters. I had no social life. My life revolved around carbs and salt tabs and hydration and long distance runs every single weekend. Cross training on non running days I obsessively checked off. Thousands of dollars on gear and supplements and tape to hold my sore muscles in place. It was beyond challenging.

But it was deeper than just finishing this run. The fat girl? The one who couldn’t run to first base or whose brother and classmates made “boom boom” sounds every time I walked was ready to say “FUCK YOU to Thunder Thighs. FUCK YOU to the demons I thought were really shaming me out there in the world, yet were truly my own words and mind sabotaging me. I was ready to reclaim myself, my body, my self doubt, my bull shit battles with food, and prove to everyone, but more important to me, that I could do anything I set my mind to. Even running 100 miles.

So we totally committed, followed our training, prayed and made it to the starting line in Monument Valley, Utah last April.

With an elevation gain of 15,000 ft., thick, deep sandy trails and temperatures  varying from 45 to 90 degrees, we were in for the run of our lives. Literally.

With an Indian Blessing to start our early morning launch, my husband snapping photos and videos, and all of our drop bags assembled and placed, we were off.

Writing about it still gives me chills. Looking back, I can’t believe we committed to and did this thing. It was extraordinary. Challenging doesn’t even describe it. Fortunately, I had my best friend running with me, who was positive and supportive, and the yin to my yang. We had trained for zillions miles and hours in training, so we knew each other well. And trust me, there are no secrets on the trail….none. Which in itself, is pretty liberating. You’re free, to just run.

So we ran, and ran. And walked, and hiked and climbed. And cried, and dried our tears and cursed and cried a little more. We got angry, we got ecstatic. We got lost, we got found. We prayed, we laughed. We pooped, a lot. We caffeinated and made up games. We sand-dumped and blister popped. And we finished. 33 hours later.

We finished that race.

Mile 80 on was pretty rough. My bestie had bronchial issues and needed an inhaler, I had blisters lifting 8 of my toe nails, it was hot, we were told we may miss the cut off, and we were mad. But we pressed, and we pushed and we crossed that finish line running in like the bad-ass-motherfucking-ninja-warrior rockstars we knew we would.

I wish I could say I was ecstatic. But I was too tired. I knew I was in pain, yet strangely numb. I think we were in shock.

All that training, all those miles, all that time….done, now a part of what now was our story, our history. We crossed that finish line, into our new future, as 100 mile ultra-marathoners.

Sleep was raw that night. Skin was burned, cells were inflamed and swollen. Toenails were rising, and I had a wicked rash wrapping both ankles and feet surrounding the spots where the KT Tape held my feet in place for the past 33 hours. It was rough.

Even worse is we had a drive home the next from Utah to California, driving straight through. About 12 hours. We lived on ibuprofen an steady stretch breaks, but it was dreadful.

We made it home to sweet posters my girls hang up for us ‘You ROCK mom! WOO HOO 100 Miles!”….I still have them hanging in my office.

And the next day, the sun rose, life went on, and our race, was over.

We had a lot of texts and phone calls from good friends and family congratulating us but it was over. We had our injuries (I had 9 toenails come off in all) we nursed, our sunburns we soothed, our pride we stoked, and our muscles we rested. We put that well earned “100miler” sticker on our cars.

But, yes, life went on.

Everyone keeps asking me, “so, what’s next? When are you running your next one?”

I’m not. It’s over.

I’ve run so much. I’ve run so far. I’ve run for the fat girl, I’ve run for the overworked mom. I’ve run for the harried wife and the frenzied daughter. I’ve run for me, I’ve run for ME.

And I am done. As I told my mom, it really, truly was not about the running. It was about the challenge. The accomplishment. The finish. The impossible. Facing the fear, doing the biggest challenge I could give myself. I liked showing my girls how to work for something hard. I liked following through on what I committed to. I like being able to say I ran 100 miles, and I am also, very content, and very happy to know I did it for the right reasons. I am satisfied. I have nothing more to prove.

I’ll continue to seek other challenges. A book, starting a new business. The beauty is, whatever it is, I know I can do it. This race taught me that.  We can, we all can, truly do anything we want to do out there in this big, wide open world. We just have to want it enough, then take that very first step towards it.