TEDxOverlake - Krissy Moehl - Life in Motion: Learning through Movement

Some people call me crazy; I think I'm lucky. My passion drives me every day: I'm an ultra-distance trail runner. What's ultra-distance trail running? Ultra-distance: I run distances that are longer than your typical marathon. 50 kilometers, 100 miles, ranges, miles in between those distances, that's what gets me going every morning. And I don't do it on the roads, I choose to be on the trails. This is my playground. This is where I get to go train on a daily basis. It's not a paved path, it's rocky, it's rooty, there's a chance of falling, but there's also this amazing ability to get to places, on your own two feet, but nobody else will ever get to see. Those beautiful high alpine meadows, lakes, vistas that just take my breath away. I finished my twelfth 100 mile race last weekend. Yeah, it was pretty cool. (Applause) What I want to share with you today is two 100-mile race stories that happened the summer of 2009. I had the opportunity to compete in two of the most competitive 100-mile races in the world. In end of June, I traveled to California for the Western States 100-Mile and then the end of August, eight weeks later, I traveled to France, for the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc which is 103 miles around the Mont Blanc massif. So Western States, it starts at the base of Squaw Valley, it's an amazing ski resort, you look up at this 4-mile climb, 3000 feet of gain and that's the start of your race, so you get to the top, you got 96 miles to go. And I got to this race and I'd been racing for ten years at that point. This is the start of my tenth 100 mile race, and I decided to abandon my fundamental strategy. My fundamental strategy is first to smile, I love what I do, I love running, so why would I be out there being grumpy or anything? But, I smile, that's my first thing. My second is to make sure that everybody else around me is enjoying what I'm doing, because this is an opportunity not only to inspire myself but hopefully to inspire others. And the third, and only once the first two are completed, is to be competitive, I can't help it, it's just part of my makeup. I can't help but count the ponytails that go up the hill. (Laughter) Make sure that I'm still up there. So I started the Western States 100, there's this amazing countdown, all this energy standing on the starting line of this 100 mile race, these people,400 people start the Western States 100. And it's just this amazing pulse, can you imagine your heartbeat, like my heartbeat's racing right now, just pulsing with 400 people that have no idea what that first step is going to feel like, or the step at mile 86 or when you finish on the track in Auburn. And that unknown is pretty amazing. The countdown, 10 to 1, and off we went. And I wasn't smiling, cos I was so focused, I wanted to win the Western States 100. And I figured if I had to do it, I had to be competitive, I had to go straight to number 3 right from the get go, and I raced up that mountain and found myself at mile 30 completely depleted. My crew, met me at mile 30. A crew in an ultra-distance race is a group of people that are there to support you and mine is like a NASCAR pit crew. I pull in, arms out, I've got new water bottles in each hand, new gels, energy food in my pockets, slap on the bottom, and out I go. (Laughter) It's really cool, but I left, and all the energy that they gave me I couldn't harness, because I'd been running too hard, I'd been running too competitive, I hadn't been smiling, I missed the beautiful sunrise that morning. It wasn't the right way to go, but I still had to keep moving forward. They were there for me, my mom was waiting to see me later on down the trail, so I kept moving forward. From this mile 30 you have 20 miles down through these amazing hot canyons. It's just like a hairdryer being blown down your throat. And without having the proper nutrition and hydration going through my body, my quads felt like they were being ripped apart on every stride down into these canyons, then I had to get myself back up the other side. Made it into mile 50 and I was having the most amazing pity party in my own head. (Laughter) Walking, frowning, but I saw my crew and they are jumping up and down. They're so excited that here I come in, I'm in third place, and the second woman just left and she looked like crap, as far as they were concerned. (Laughter) I wanted to sit down in a chair, I wanted them to rub my legs and make me feel better and they weren't having it. They shoved 2 popsicles in me, iced-handkerchief round my neck, new shirt and off I was, down the trail. At mile 68, you're able to have a pacer join you. So one of my crew members, a good dear friend of mine, his name is Rock, joined me for the next 20 miles down to the river, and he pieced me back together. Admittedly I took a little bit of Advil, which I don't recommend, but it helps the pain in my quads. He got me eating again, and he got me drinking and by the time I made it down to the American River and cross the river I was actually a little bit hell-out-of-energy, and the water rejuvenated me. It was like washing all of that pain off me and out the other side of the river and up, there's a 3 mile climb to the nex t80 mile aid station, where my friend Devin was waiting to take me home. And we ran really well for the next 10 miles, and then the reality of what I'd done to myself set in. And those last 10 miles, I'd told her before don't listen to me, anything you I tell you, you tell me to run. And she did she, she was awesome. Both of us were yelling at me to keep running, and my body was actually failing. By the time I got to the finish line, it was this pathetic shuffle, and my friends were there running with me for the last mile. And they humored me and kind of ran along with me even though it wasn't really a run, I made my way around the track and basically collapsed onto the race instructor, with, you know, shoulders down, put a medal round my neck and nicely handed me off to my mom. And I actually look like I'm smiling but I think I'm near passed out at this point. The next step from this point was into the medical tent, where I spent the next 6 hours flat on my back on a cot. I received 3 liters of IV fluid. I stood up at one point to try and prove that I was OK and I passed out, blacked out, an ambulance was called. It was a night of drama that I do not wanna repeat. It took weeks. I spent the next couple of weeks sitting on my couch with my legs up on a couple of pillows my laptop staring me in the face, I was supposed to be working but hell I wasn't getting anything done. And I finally took some time to reflect on what I had done to myself. And that night when I was lying there in the cot, there was a moment where I thought I might never run again, like I might I might have just done something completely stupid, that I might not even be able to run again and so what is running to me, how important is it? I need running in my daily life, it is something that I feel even if I just get a run in, I have accomplished something. And then when I build on top of that, I'm able to do that much more. Running is also an opportunity to share. When I show up at the trailhead and meet my buddies, like I stand at the start of a race with 400 other people, we're all in shorts and a t-shirt or in my case in a dress or skirt. And we're all the same, it doesn't matter where we came from, if we're a lawyer, a doctor, a secretary or a nurse, we're all there, we're all the same, we're stripped down to the real, raw, core, pure person of ourselves. 8 weeks later I found myself in France standing at the start of the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc. 2500 runners start this race, people from all over the world, and remember that pulsing I was talking about ... It was incredible standing here and not only from the runners, the streets are lined with people just reaching out, it was like the star tof the Tour de France. They're running out in front of you taking pictures and then disappearing so that you can make your way by. I think my favorite part about this race was that energy from all of the people and then the ability to be in places like this. The solitude, the time on my own and at this race, I was there, I was present, I was listening, when I was moving through the town and in through the people sitting on the streets drinking a beer and giving a high-five as you ran through. I heard them yell, like, "That girl's wearing a skirt." And then I was off in the mountain itself, this race circumnavigates the Mont Blanc massif. There's 30,000 feet of elevation change. To put that into perspective, that's like summiting Mount Everest and then returning to sea level in a day. You need to run through 3 countries, so the language is changing as you're out there. It's pretty cool. So my time to shine. I was smiling. Thus making sure that the girls that were crewing me that day were having a good time. I got into the 110 km point of the race and I was just hungry. And I have to admit it's really embarrassing how much I can eat and how quickly I can eat when I'm doing one of these things. And I'm inhaling a bowl of pasta and they're kinda pulling it out my hands and they're trying to get me, well, "Out of there, aid station." "How are the guys doing? My friend Jenny Uehisa, she's running her first international race, how's she doing?" I knew she was back a little ways. And finally they said, "Krissy would you get going, you're leading the race?" And I don't know if I threw the bowl down or passed it off to my crew I was cranking, I used poles in that race to help with my stability while I was running around the Mont Blanc massif. I had 3 climbs to focus on to get me to the finish, and when I got to the top of the third climb made this long traverse, I looked over my shoulder, but I didn't see anybody but I didn't let that deter me. I was full-on sprint, my patella tendons hurt like you wouldn't believe, but I was able to ignore the pain. And I remember this photographer, he was leapfrogging with me down the trail and he would take my picture and then jump ahead. And when we hit the bottom of the trail and the trail opened up to the road, and I could see the shops of Chamonix ahead of me, he'd had his camera poised, but then he put it down and he raised his hand for the most amazing high-five I've ever had in my life. Tears are streaming down my face because the reality of putting it all together, my failure, all that pain, that I felt at Western States, it wasn't for naught, I learned from that experience, and I applied it, and I ran that last half-mile through the streets of Chamonix six people deep were leaning out over the finish-line chute to give me a high-five. That's probably one of my favorite photos from racing. I had just this overwhelming feeling as I ran into the finisher chute and into the arms of these girls. But you can learn from yourself when you put yourself in a position to do something that you might first think is impossible and then you make it possible. You open yourself up to this pure, raw, real, creative form of yourself. You see yourself there, you see how you react to the world. Back to that Western States example, I was in a cranky spot, but those people that have all that energy and they gave it to me that day, I could have told them, "No, I'm sitting down in this chair." I kept going with them, so I saw how I react in the world. And if you can take that from this place of physical movement and then apply it to your daily life when you're moving through, interacting with your friends, peers. You know even today and you can be that real, rock person of yourself, how beautiful could this world be? I feel really privileged to be here today and share these ideas of learning. I've learned a lotfrom the people in this crowd, I just thank you for your time. (Applause)