I have managed to FYNDAWAY into a new sport. I am writing this blog today to encourage other athletes…especially senior athletes…that it is never too late to start something new. I am an ultrarunner that has had to overcome burnout, and deal with a few injuries. My running took a backseat as I worked to get back my joy for the sport and to stay fit while recovering from injuries. I turned to swimming.
I live in Colorado, the playground for all things outdoors! Since moving here in 2020 I have enjoyed hikingin my backyard, The Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range. I have climbed numerous 14ers. I have done some mountain biking. I have also learned how to do fly fishing. And, of course, I have been rafting. I have taken full advantage of all the state has to offer! But I really leaned into swimming.
I am lucky enough to have moved to a small town that actually has an indoor pool! It turned out to be an ideal way to keep up my fitness. It has turned into a new obsession, and has led me to compete this summer in The Colorado Mountain Swim Series. Yup! There is open water swimming in Colorado! Who knew? I didn’t until just recently. I’ll tell you all about it, but first some background.
1994 TO 2015… COMPETITIVE RUNNER… MARATHONS/ULTRAMARATHONS
I have been running since 1994. My first race was the New York City Marathon. I have never run anything less. No 5kms, no 10kms, no half-marathons. I don’t know why, I just haven’t. Gradually I started running more marathons, building up how many I did a month, as opposed to how many in a year.
Ultramarathons followed in 2000. My first ultra was the Marathon des Sables…a 150 mile stage race in the Moroccan Sahara. I loved it! I went on to compete in this race 9 consecutive years in a row. Along the way I discovered other ultras that I loved, but all were desert races around the world. Marathons were now my training runs. In total I have competed in 62 marathons and 37 ultramarathons…a total of 99 races of marathon distance or longer. Number 100 is on the horizon.
2015 TO 2023…BURNOUT
But in 2015 I hit the wall. I was just done. I clearly remember the night where I crashed and took years to recover. It was in Miami. I was running on the Key Biscayne Bridge to get some hill training in. It was our only hill in the area! I was out at midnight to escape the daytime heat. The only problem is that you exchange the heat for humidity. Sweat was poring down my body and I reached into my waist pack to grab my sponge. No sponge, I had forgotten it. I just started freaking out. I was over it. I hated being out late at night, I hated the heat and humidity, I hated putting in endless miles. There was just no joy left in pushing myself to train.
I had been training 6 days a week for 20 years. I loved every minute of it. The highs and the lows all fueled me to run faster and longer. I managed to earn some overall podium wins and plenty of age group awards. And as an ultrarunner I even managed to be fast enough to run The Boston Marathon. My last race was The Fort Lauderdale Marathon in the spring of 2015.
From 2015 to 2020 I still kept up with lots of hiking in Florida, and started swimming. I loved hanging out at the outdoor pool and feeling the sun and looking up at the palm trees swaying in the breeze. This was heaven compared to gasping for water while running in the desert! I though about doing some open water swim races in the area. One in particular really interested me…The 12 mile Swim Around Key West event. But in 2020 we moved to Colorado and that was that.
2023 TO 2025…ONE STEP FORWARD TWO STEPS BACK
As I mentioned earlier, I took full advantage of the various sports in Colorado. But I wasn’t running. In the spring of 2023 that changed. One day I got up and had the urge to go outside and put in a run/walk around an 8 mile loop in my neighborhood. I was back! What an awesome day! I enjoyed every minute of my hike. And just like that I started looking at training plans and races. I have always had a running coach. But I decided to hold off getting a coach again until I was certain that I would stick with training again.
After 8 years of not running I had decided to give myself 4 months to train for a hundred miler. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I just wanted to jump right in again and get those adrenaline highs from racing. But I was 8 years older and the body undergoes many changes, not to mention I hadn’t been training.
First I had to decide what my comeback race would be. I live at high altitude, 8,000 feet. I wanted to achieve an advantage by doing a race at low elevation. Next, I love heat. So I looked for a race in the summer that would be nice and hot. I was thinking that I would do a 50km or 50 mile. As it turned out I found a 100 mile race called the Habanero Hundred in Texas. It was long distance, it was hot, it was sandy and run in loops. Perfect!
I made it 12 miles into that race and inexplicably and out of nowhere I developed plantar fasciitis. And to make matters worse, baxters neuroma, a nerve impingement in the heel. ( I have another blog post which described the training for the race, along with how the race played out.)
So after 8 years of no running, then 4 months of training, I was injured and unable to run again. Wow. The pain was excruciating. I did strenuous rehab for months. Mentally, I was afraid to run again because once the injuries healed, I didn’t want them to reoccur.
From the summer of 2023 to the winter of 2024 I would do some running, some hiking and some weight training. It wasn’t until December 2024 that I decided that I was mentally ready, willing and able to start training again. I found a marathon program to follow and was excited! I was heading off on a two week vacation and when I got back I was going to begin training for a summer marathon. It would be my 100th race of marathon distance or longer!
As luck would have it…I broke my foot the night before my vacation. It was just a freak accident in my house that snapped my fifth metatarsal, a bone on the outside of the foot. What a cosmic joke. I could not believe it. I was trying so hard to get back into running and it seemed the universe was conspiring against me. When I got back from my vacation my Doctor told me I would have to stay off my foot and not run for 3 months. Great. Sidelined again.
I had to stay fit. So I turned to swimming. In January I started putting in the miles. I started by swimming half a mile. That turned into 1 mile, then 2 miles and onwards up to 6 miles. There was no particular reason I was building up the mileage. It is just in my nature to keep pushing the envelope and building up my endurance. Swimming 6 miles in a 25 yard pool can get pretty boring. It would be the same as putting in long distance runs on an indoor track. It kind of sucks. So I started looking at outdoor open water swimming.
Lo and behold I stumbled onto the Colorado Mountain Swim Series. It is a 5 event high altitude swim competition. All of the races are at about a mile high in elevation. The competitions are held from June through August this year. The events offer multiple distances from 500 yards to 6 miles. This was for me! My first race is at the end of June. Of the options offered at this event, I have registered for the 1.2 mile swim. It will be my very first Open Water Swim Competition.
I am a Seniors Masters Athlete that has decided to transition from running competions this summer to swimming events. Has it been a little scary? Yes. Am I a little nervous? Yes. But I have been inspired by the stories of other athletes that have overcome so much to persevere through hardship to continue doing what they love. To Fyndaway to keep going no matter what the world throws at you.
In my next blog, I will go into a bit of detail of how I have managed the transition to build myself into a swimmer. It is possible to take on a new passion in your sixties! You just need to FYNDAWAY. Set your goals and don’t let anything stop you!