Finding My Joy Again

By: Sally Turner

Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking when I signed up to run the Orange Dirt Trail Series 5K at Lake McMurtry in Stillwater, OK.

Maybe I was thinking that I wanted to support my friends organizing this new event. Maybe I wanted to help raise money for a good cause. Maybe I wanted a new challenge, something to inspire me back into physical activity outside.

I consider myself a cyclist, but that just means I ride bikes and occasionally participate in an organized event. I’m not fast — I often struggle to maintain the minimum speed to finish within the allotted time — and I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll never podium at a race unless there are only three people in my category.

Running isn’t new to me. Actually, “thinking I want to run and then getting frustrated when I’m not as fast as I think l should be and then quitting” isn’t new to me. I don’t know how many times I’ve said, “I’m going to start running again,” and then tried sprinting around the block only to remember how much work it is, feel a little embarrassed at how red-faced and breathless I am at the end, and then casually and conveniently forget the whole notion.

I knew I couldn’t approach it from the same angle this time. I found a Couch to 5K training plan that looked interesting and achievable — it had me running for increments of time, rather than distance. I knew I could run for a minute straight, and building endurance by adding minutes instead of miles felt a lot more digestible. Maybe this is a regular practice in the running community, but it was a completely foreign concept to me! Turns out, I didn’t know much about running at all (who are we kidding — I still don’t).

That first training run was slow. I’ve always identified more with the tortoise than the hare, but finishing 1.56 miles at a 14:58 pace put it in a new perspective. I tried not to get discouraged and instead look at this as a baseline — it can only get better from here!

My second run was even slower, and the discouragement was a little harder to ward off until I had a revelation — I was just hungry. “You dummy,” I told myself, like I had unlocked a secret. “You gotta fuel your body!” It was such a no-brainer that I laughed out loud, rueful at how obtuse I’d been about it for so long, and relieved that it was indeed going to get better. (How many times had I previously given up on running when I was just hangry??)

I started experimenting with eating before running in the morning: apple slices and peanut butter, toast and peanut butter, just a couple of spoons of peanut butter, a cheese stick. What was my stomach happiest with, and what gave me the most energy? Protein, but nothing too heavy, and a bottle of lemon-lime Skratch.

I got into a pretty good groove of running every 2-3 days for about two weeks, and then I had my first setback. In early September, I was out on a gravel ride with my husband and I crashed while trying to dislodge a bug from one of the vents in my helmet. I went wheels-over-head at least once and banged up my back, arm and leg. Needless to say, I took the week off from moving much at all, and most of the month had passed before I was feeling 100 percent again.

Life kept doing its best to interrupt my training routine, and sometimes it succeeded, but I kept at it, partially because I didn’t want to fail on another promise to myself, and partially because somewhere along the way, I’d found something in running that had been missing from my athletic ventures lately — I was enjoying it.

I wasn’t competing against anyone, even myself. I wasn’t trying to be fast, and I didn’t really care about my time at all, even though I was making measurable progress in speed and distance. I was enjoying just running, with none of the expectations and pressures that I’ve been feeling in cycling lately. I was moving, and I felt good.

Three weeks before race day, I joined the Stillwater Trail and Road Runners on their Wednesday evening pub runs. At this point, I was behind on my Couch to 5K training plan (thanks, Life), but I thought running with other people would encourage me to go harder and faster — guess what, it did!

Race weekend was stacking up to be packed — the Orange Dirt Trail Series Saturday morning, Truffle Shuffle costume contest and party at Stonecloud Saturday night, and Truffle Shuffle Sunday afternoon. (For those who haven’t had the unique pleasure of experiencing The Truffle Shuffle, it’s the most irreverent and fun anti-race around.) Lots of friends were coming from out of state to party and ride on Sunday — a gravel family reunion where everyone is just the right amount of weird.

Sally and her husband, Austin, at the Stonecloud Costume Contest (photo credit: we think Clare Pannicia)

I got some disappointing and disorienting personal news that Thursday afternoon, and I briefly considered self-medicating myself into oblivion and hiding in my bedroom for the rest of the weekend, but those friends didn’t let me entertain the thought for long. I was too busy to mope, anyway, and when Saturday morning rolled around, a bunch of those friends showed up to watch me run more than 4 miles in the cold. I don’t think I can ever express in words how much seeing them at the start and finish meant to me. They didn’t really understand why I was doing this, but they were going to support me anyway.

Sally and Clare at the beginning of the Orange Dirt Trail Series 5k (photo credit: Molly Lofton)

I had failed to incorporate trail running into my training plan, so I was a little unsure in the first mile, just focusing on keeping my eyes on the trail ahead and dodging roots and sidestepping rocks. I turned it into a game and pretended that I was running through the woods on some grand adventure in a fantasy world. Between my imagination and the girl power music in my ear buds, the miles ticked by.

I finished to the tune of my friends screaming intelligible encouragement, and I received my first medal for athleticism, ever. Sure, everyone got one, but it felt special because I had worked hard for it and my efforts had finally been rewarded.

Sally celebrating with friends at the end of the Orange Trail Series 5k Finish line (photo credit: Molly Lofton [left photo], Clare Pannicia [right photo])

I’m still not sure what I was thinking when I signed up to run my first 5K, but I know that I’m definitely going to sign up for the next one!

Continuing the party at Truffle Shuffle the next day (photo credit: Molly Lofton)

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About Sally!

Sally Turner (she/her; @stillwater_cycles) is a cornerstone of the gravel cycling community. With over 11 years of gravel cycling experience, Sally is the current Chief of Stuff of the Tulsa Tough and former Event Manager of The Mid South. She is also the woman with the whistle at Truffle Shuffle. Sally has a deep love for building and improving her community. Nowadays, if can’t find her on a bike or with her cats, you can find her crushing the pavement as she has found her joy in running.