I Wasn't the Same Person Who Left Here

79 miles into my first hundred-miler, I walked out of the dark and found my crew chief standing at the aid station, wind cutting sideways, rain still coming down. I looked her in the eye and said the only true thing I had left: "I'm not the same person I was when I left here."

I meant it. Something had broken out on that ridge, and something else had taken its place.

Let me back up.

That aid station sits at the base of a brutal climb, a straight-up grind I'd already done once and had to face again in the middle of the night. I made it, barely, and pushed on across an exposed ridge line. That's when the weather turned. Temperature dropped, and the sky just opened up. By the time I reached the next aid station, I was soaked through and done in every sense of the word. I sat in a wet chair for thirty minutes, unable to make myself move, unwilling to face what came next.

What came next was eight more miles back across that same ridge, down a single-track trail, in the dark, alone. I wasn't just tired. I was emotionally wrecked, the kind of low where your body is still moving but the part of you that wants to keep going has quietly checked out.

That's when the texts started coming in.

My crew chief couldn't see me out there. She had no idea, mile to mile, how I was actually doing. All she had was blind faith and a phone. So she used it, sending message after message telling me how well I was doing, how strong I was, how proud she was. Nothing complicated. No tactics, no splits, no strategy. Just someone, somewhere, refusing to let me feel alone in it.

I want to be honest about what that did. It didn't fix my legs. It didn't make the trail shorter or the rain stop. What it did was give me a reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other when my own reasoning had run out. Ultra-running strips you down to something pretty basic eventually, and in that state, a text message can carry more weight than any amount of training ever could.

By the time I walked back into that aid station and saw her standing there, I wasn't the same runner who'd left. I was hollowed out, and also somehow still moving. And she was the reason. Not because she paced me, not because she handed me the right gear, she wasn't even out there with me on the trail. She was present. She showed up, stayed dialed in, and said the right thing at exactly the moment I needed to hear it.

That's the piece people miss when they think about crewing. It's not just gear management and aid station logistics, though that matters too. It's having someone in your corner who's tracking you emotionally as closely as they're tracking your splits, and who knows when to send exactly the right words into the dark.

I finished that race. I don't think I finish it without her.

This is exactly why Beyond the Buckle exists. Most first-time ultra runners don't fail from lack of fitness, they fail from lack of a crew. Somewhere in every hundred-miler, there's a version of that ridge line waiting for you: a stretch where your training doesn't matter nearly as much as who's in your corner. Our job is to be that person for you, showing up, staying present, and getting you through the miles when you've got nothing left to give yourself.

If you're eyeing your first ultra and wondering what it actually takes to get to the finish line, let's talk.