Training for 100 Miles While Life Trains You Back

I’m five weeks into training for my 100-miler, and I’ll be blunt. Life has come swinging.

Physically, I’m drained. Mentally, even more so. The fatigue isn't just from back-to-back long runs or tempo repeats. It’s the 24/7 balancing act of being a mom in her 40s, building a business from scratch, navigating family chaos, and trying to hold it all together without collapsing face-first into a bag of chips. (Okay, maybe I did collapse once... or twice… nachos.)

Last week, something significant happened. I won’t go into detail, not yet, because the dust hasn’t fully settled and frankly, I'm still knee-deep in the emotional fallout. But it was heavy. And it cracked something open.

That moment brought my sister and her youngest to stay with me. The circumstances? Absolutely brutal. But the outcome? Beautiful. We don’t get a lot of 1:1 time, and suddenly we had a week of it. We slowed down. We breathed. And we processed more than we probably realized we needed to.

Training fell off. Work fell off. I started to fall off too. And not just physically — mentally I began spiraling. That gross, sticky, soul-sucking victim mindset around my running goals crept in:
“Who do you think you are?”
“You’ve only been running for two years.”
“You’re already maxed out with parenting and business and life. Why add more?”
“You’re not someone who does 100s.”

That voice was loud. And relentless.

But then I remembered who I used to be.
Two years ago, I wasn’t living. I was surviving. Everything was gray. I was starring in a black-and-white silent film of my own life. Movements, sure. Progress, maybe. But nothing was vivid. Nothing was alive.
Running brought color back. It woke me up. It pulled me out of the chrysalis of my mid-life rut and said, you’re not done yet.

This 100-mile goal? It’s not just another thing I’m trying to cram into an already overwhelming schedule.
It’s the thing that reminds me I can do hard things.
That I’m not just here to manage life. I’m here to experience it.

People love to say we make time for what’s important. But let’s be honest, time isn’t something we make. And if you know me, you know I don’t even believe time is real. What we can do is make space. Space to breathe. Space to grow. Space to remember who we are and who we’re becoming.

This past weekend, I got out for my long run. And I felt good. Strong, even. Sure, the mileage was lighter thanks to the chaos-induced break. But still, I climbed some hills that, frankly, I wanted to walk. Every time I started to slow, I reminded myself:

This uphill won’t last forever.

Right on the other side? That sweet, smooth downhill.
The chance to breathe.
To recenter.
To fly.

Training for 100 miles is brutal. But so is life. And that’s the point. If I can hold the line through the climbs — on the trail and in the day-to-day — I know the downhill is coming. And when it does, I’ll be ready to run.