One mantra I live by: I ain’t ducking no smoke.

About three weeks before the race, a friend in Utah mentioned there was a USATF National Championship happening down in Moab. I had half-heartedly told myself after Run Rabbit that my 2025 race season was over—but Moab was less than a four-hour drive, and exceptions, as we know, make the rule.

So I signed up. Cobbling together something that vaguely resembled training, I packed the car with too much gear, questionable nutrition, and a wildly misplaced sense of optimism, and headed south.

What I didn’t plan for was the ambush waiting in my sinuses. Three days before the race, I got hit with a violent head cold—throat on fire, nose a concrete block. It’s funny how illness works. You can do everything right—eat clean, sleep well, sage your apartment—but if the virus wants you, it’s got you. It’s nature’s way of reminding you who’s actually in charge.

Still, I ain’t ducking no smoke.

So I went. I kept my distance from people, spent the night before alone in the van, and told myself that because the race was outdoors, I was being “responsible.” The morning of, I took a cocktail of homeopathic remedies that probably canceled each other out and got ready to suffer.

The dry, cool desert air hit my throat like sandpaper dipped in fire. Breathing felt like snorting broken glass through a straw. An expierence that is known to yours truly. Within the first mile, I knew this would not be a day for heroics. Anytime I tried to push, my heart rate shot into the high 180s, forcing me to keep things conservative. Which—silver lining—meant I actually noticed how beautiful the Moab desert is. The red rock, the endless sky, the quiet. I rarely get that in a race. Usually, I’m too busy pretending I’m fine.

I trudged through the miles. No magic legs, no adrenaline highs. Just stubborn movement and a head full of snot. But somewhere in that, I found rhythm. Acceptance. Even peace. There’s something almost meditative about racing when you’ve already accepted it won’t be your day—you stop chasing the perfect performance and just let the experience unfold. I don’t connect it to quitting more of a willing surrender. A gentle hand on a shoulder and a kind voice – maybe like Morgan Freeman – saying “Don’t even fucking bother.”

By the time I crossed the finish line, I could hardly speak and was breathing in shallow gasps. Apparently, I finished somewhere in the top 20 of my category, which feels like a small miracle. Definitely not my best day, but that’s not really the point.

What mattered was that I showed up. That I stayed true to the part of me that refuses to back down, even when everything feels stacked against it. Ultra and trail running, at its best, is an act of creative expression—an artistic rendering of how much you’re willing to feel.

And on that day, through congestion, coughing, and cracked lungs, I felt everything once again.

Pushing through when no one would blame you for stopping—that’s the smoke.

And I ain’t ducking it.