Bear 100 Dreams and DNF's

It is currently late August. Here in Maine the first spots of colored leaves have begun to dot the green hills and suddenly we need headlamps to take the dogs out after dinner. The mornings are chilly and the humidity has vanished like a fever dream. In four weeks, 2000 miles away, hundreds of runners will be towing the line at the Bear 100 ultramarathon. 

Eight years ago I had never heard of the Bear 100. I had completed my first, and second, ultramarathons in the Spring of 2018 and, riding the high of this newfound sport, I registered for the Bear immediately after seeing my social media feeds filled with the promise of 36 hours of fall running in the mountains that raised me. 

Three years prior to that fateful decision, I was still a person who didn’t run. What began as a way to get exercise had quickly morphed into my only form of therapy, or maybe more accurately, literally running from my problems. Running was the only time when I felt free and my mind could be quiet. Three miles turned into 13, and then 26 and then 50 and suddenly covering 100 miles by foot, in a day and half, seemed like a reasonable thing to do. 

I spent the summer before Bear in 2019 running laps around my neighborhood in between demanding hours of clinical work to finish my midwifery education. The evening before I flew to Utah I went off call for the first time in over a year. 

As a novice ultrarunner with big dreams and no experience, the Bear in 2019 quickly showed me that I had a lot to learn. I DNF’d at mile 69, exhausted, soaked to the bone and with a fire lit in me that would become my entire identity for the next five years. 

Fast forward to April of 2021. After a deferral due to a global pandemic, (does anyone remember that?) I was heading into a summer of training, full of hopes and dreams of seeing the finish line and finally being the proud owner of a belt buckle. On a birthday training run with my good friend I had one misstep and found myself on the ground, hardly able to walk, with my ankle the size of a softball. 

This is where, in hindsight, I should have seen that the obsession was getting out of hand. Despite being only four months out from the start line, I refused to give myself the proper time to heal, and instead fought through a never ending cycle of re-injury to complete some semblance of training and show up on the start line. I paid the price for that stubbornness, DNF’ing at mile 64 with a chronic ankle injury that I’m still dealing with to this day. 

The Bear in 2023 was one of the moments in life in which there is a distinct before and after.  Whether due to my newfound sobriety, finally having stability in my life and work, or some other factor, trauma that my body had stored for years took advantage of the emotional fragility to surface. I spent the 81 miles I ran at that year's Bear consumed by physical and emotional pain. 

The intense emotional release I had experienced at Bear in 2023 ripped open every protective wall my mind and body had built. For a week after that race I slept no more than a few hours at night and physically my body took months to rebound. Without my coping/escape mechanisms I slipped into a deep depression, unable to do more than the bare minimum.

Unwilling to give up on my dream of completing the Bear, I was sitting on my computer ready to click submit the moment the registration opened for 2024. In the years I had been vying for a finish, ultrarunning, and the Bear, had grown significantly in popularity, making the entry much more competitive. 

But by the time I stood on the start line 9 months later, something deep in my psyche had shifted. Like a butterfly just emerged from its chrysalis, I was a new version of myself, and while I sensed this changed, my new wings were not quite ready to be put to use. The motions were automatic, the routine perfected and the DNF inevitable. The spark, the drive and the commitment to the finish had vanished. 

For the first time since I had hit the registration button in the fall of 2018, I let myself imagine what it would mean for me if I let go of this piece of my identity. I had always seen my stubborn drive to succeed as a virtue that others admired in me and that I admired in myself. What did it mean to have spent so much time, energy and money on a goal that I did not ultimately succeed in? Where does my running career go from here? Would I ever be able to successfully coach other runners when I couldn’t get myself to the finish line? 

Since my fourth DNF at the Bear 100 in 2024 my running has looked a lot different. I still run almost daily, but rarely exceed 30 miles per week. My long runs begin after a full night of sleep and end in time for afternoon ice cream. I have the emotional energy to work on myself, and I know I am becoming a better person for it. There is time in my day to put the stories in my mind on paper and a drive to build community for female runners. 

The Bear will always hold a place in my heart, and this time of year the pull feels the strongest. That race taught me lessons, broke down walls and forged relationships that have altered the course of my life. While I never saw the finish line or got to hold a buckle, I don’t regret an ounce of the blood, sweat or tears that I sunk into those dreams and DNF’s.