Let Your Mind Run by Deena Kastor & Michelle Hamilton

Author:Deena Kastor & Michelle Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2018-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

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Worlds that year were in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We landed in March 1999 when the tension between Catholics and Protestants was intense. I’d expected a bustling and vibrant city, but it was quiet, with very few people on the streets. Even the colors—browns and grays—seemed muted. I took myself out to a pub for fish and chips one night. The bartender and locals discussed football, and as I ate, I listened to their thick accents and the passion in their conversation as if they were music for the meal. Another day, I walked through Queen’s University, the race site, just to enjoy the gardens and culture.

We couldn’t get onto the course early, so the women’s team ran the city streets. Passing Belfast’s grand historic buildings and modern skyscrapers, I thought mostly about the religious conflict and its contrast to sports. How could religion be at war and sports be getting it right? Competitors from all over the world were converging on the city to engage in a tough battle. We’d fight our fight, then get along. I had a peace inside me that rested right alongside a fierce competitiveness. The two could coexist. In fact, they nurtured each other.

I ran with the pack amid familiar faces and new ones. Gete from Ethiopia. Paula from Great Britain, plus a few Kenyans I hadn’t yet met. I was close to Leah for parts of it, the Kenyan whose long back-kick helped tie me to the pack at DN Galan. We pushed each other over the flat, muddy fields of Queen’s University. I’d outkicked her on the track. She beat me this time. I followed her to an eighth-place finish, my highest to date at worlds.

I felt like a stronger version of myself. Previously, I’d competed to figure out what was in me. In Belfast, I’d raced to express the strength I knew was inside. That was how I approached a string of spring races. In April I ran the 10,000 at Mt. SAC and won in a personal best of 32:17 on the track. In May, I ran the Bolder Boulder 10K in Colorado, finishing fourth, first American, while also blowing away the US altitude record for the distance. In the 10,000 at the US outdoor championships that June, I led for most of the twenty-five laps. I felt strong and confident of winning. In the last kilometer, Libbie Hickman and Anne Marie Lauck outkicked me. I held on for third, meeting my secondary goal: making my first world team on the track.

Back home, I felt a stirring, the need to create a more nurturing place for myself. I’d done the best I could with a rental shared with roommates, but now I wanted a place of my own. I wanted to paint walls, redecorate, grow wildflowers, and let my personality spread out. So I started looking at real estate. In the afternoons, Aspen and I ran up and down Alamosa’s streets looking for FOR SALE signs. We slowed to get a longer look at some of the houses.

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