Apparently I Don’t Do “Normal”

There seems to be a pattern in my life.

I don’t dip my toes into hobbies. I cannonball into them.

When I decided to get back into furniture refinishing, I didn’t stop at one little project. Suddenly I was sanding bookshelves, painting bathrooms, researching cabinet finishes, and convincing my five-year-old that maybe rainbow wasn’t the right color palette… this time.

Running has been no different.

Most people decide they want to run, sign up for a 5K, buy a pair of shoes, and see where it takes them.

Not me.

Somewhere between my first few races and a handful of increasingly ambitious training runs, I looked at a race calendar and thought, “A six-hour race sounds fun.”

Not six hours to finish.

Six hours… to see how many 5Ks I can run.

It’s called the Outlast 6-Hour, and the course is a 5K loop. You run a lap. Then you get to rest until the top of the next hour…then start again.

So instead of asking myself, “Can I run a 5K?”

I somehow skipped directly to, “How many 5Ks can I fit into a morning?”

This is, admittedly, a ridiculous progression.

I’ve never run a marathon.

I’ve never run an ultramarathon.

It’s been at least 4 years since my last half-marathon; I’ve only recently started calling myself a runner without feeling like an imposter.

And yet here I am planning fueling strategies, reading about salt tablets, obsessing over pacing, and debating whether my vest has enough pockets.

I wish I could tell you there was a carefully crafted training philosophy behind this decision.

There wasn’t.

There was curiosity.

There was a tiny voice that wondered, “I wonder what happens if I just… keep going.”

That’s really what running has become for me.

Not a competition with other people.

Not even a competition with the clock.

Just a series of questions.

Can I run one more mile?

Can I make it up this hill?

Can I trust my body a little more than I did yesterday?

Can I do something that sounds just unreasonable enough to make me smile?

Maybe that’s why I signed up.

Because somewhere along the way, running stopped being about becoming someone else.

It became about discovering what I’m capable of.

So yes… while most beginners are working toward their first 5K…

I’m over here wondering if I can run six of them before the timer runs out.

Honestly, that feels pretty on-brand.