I recently did a hard thing - at least, a hard thing for me - by hiking and running fiftyish miles in the Colorado Rockies over three days at the Transrockies ultramarathon event.

I discovered a few things on the trail, but the one that stood out the most was this: simple and easy are not the same. 

Doing this event was an exercise in simple. Put water and food and a jacket on your back, tie your shoes, and move forward on the trail. Simplicity in the way that humans have done for years. 

But it wasn’t easy. We went up and down mountains on trails with unsure footing, at an altitude where oxygen was not in abundance, in a place with air so dry my throat got raspy. The times when the trail was flat and straight, I could look up to see how surrounded I was by spines of mountains stretching to a sky so blue the clarity was almost touchable.

Those easy moments came in waves, but I’ve never been a particularly skilled surfer. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy moments of it (I did) but the focus was on not falling, ensuring food and water intake were sufficient, trying not to fall, gauging how much gas I had in the tank in order to adjust my pace.

The event ended yesterday. A common question even at the finish line was whether I would do it again and I’m not ready to answer that yet, but I do know already that I’ll miss the “simple.”

The utter focus being was to run or to recover and this duality informed all the decisions. Do I want to go to bed early? Doesn’t really matter what I want to do, it’s needed for recovery so: yes. I will get in my sleeping bag at 8:30 and stay there. Do I want the bowls of sugary snacks laid out on the tables at the finish line? Absolutely, always. But will they be what my body needs to fix itself enough for tomorrow’s trail? Nope, so put that hand back in my pocket.

The strictness tightened in the last few months of training, and having a guiding principal is freeing and tiring. The (very small) rebel in me wanted to let go especially in the days leading up to the event. Now that I no longer have anything in front of me, it will be curious to see how much rein I should give that wild mustang. 

Knowing there's one thing to do, and doing it, having it done - there's a freedom there. Because when the work is done it is done. That’s such a rarity for me and so many other mothers and women. Of course there’s more lists to make and to do and to worry over, but those are written in pencil, not the sharpie of each day’s training goal.

I will miss that simplicity. I know I should sit with that feeling and figure out what it has to tell me about how I run my life, not just the trails. If I'm not as good, I'll sign up for another race and see if it has some answers I didn't find this time. 

Simple, but not always easy.

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