For the past few months, a lot of my life has revolved around training for adventure. More specifically, training for the Banff Half Marathon.
My boyfriend, one of our friends, and I packed up the car and made the drive from Madison, Wisconsin all the way to Banff. Eight more friends flew in to meet us there, so by race weekend there were 11 of us together, ready to run.
After Banff, everyone else flew home while my boyfriend and I kept the road trip going. We made our way through Glacier National Park, visited friends, briefly stopped at Devil’s Tower and Badlands National Park, and eventually made our way back to Wisconsin.
It ended up being one of my favorite trips I’ve ever taken. It also reminded me why I like training in the first place.
The Months Spent Training for Adventure
Training for a half marathon takes time. So much time. As a beginner runner leading into this race, I was incredibly nervous. I joined a training group, spending early weekend mornings taking on long runs surrounded by strangers. I had to take turns scheduling running around life and scheduling life around running, often struggling to decide between a fun evening with friends and getting some extra miles in. I got sick a couple times during training. I had some runs that felt amazing and others that felt absolutely awful. I often questioned why I even signed up for this in the first place, and race day just kept getting closer and closer.
The drive to Banff was an adventure all on its own. I never knew just how empty western Canada is. The nine straight hours of driving through endless flat prairie was a bit mind-numbing. We found ourselves looking up random things about Canada to pass the time. Fun fact: Saskatchewan and Alberta both have more cows than people. Then, in the last hour of the drive, Calgary and the Rockies finally showed up on the horizon.
Banff is one of those places that’s hard to describe until you’ve seen it yourself. The mountains are massive and imposing in a way that didn’t make sense to my brain. Everywhere you look there’s another peak, lake, or giant waterfall.
In the days before the race, we did a few hikes around Banff. We hiked up to the Little Beehive Tea House above Lake Louise and got high enough in elevation that it started snowing while we were up there (a very unique experience for me in June). As we headed back down, the freezing rain soaking our clothes was a good reminder that unexpected mountain weather requires solid preparation.
Training Hard Doesn’t Mean Everything Goes Perfectly
Going into race day, I was nervous. Getting sick during the last few weeks of training had thrown me off, and I knew running at elevation wasn’t going to make things any easier. Right before the race, though, one of my friends said something that stuck with me:
“After all the training, today is just the celebration. Remember to look up and enjoy it.”
I wanted to remember that and keep up that energy throughout the race, but, honestly, it was really difficult. I had a successful first couple miles feeling the race day energy, but as soon as I started taking my first short walk breaks for gels, water, or electrolytes, I lost my groove. The elevation caught up to me, and I felt far more exhausted than I’d ever pictured.
I wasted additional energy feeling disappointed, emotional, and embarrassed that I wasn’t meeting the expectations I’d set for myself. Eventually I realized I had two choices. I could spend the whole race wallowing and wishing it was different, or I could enjoy the fact that I was running a half marathon through Banff National Park.
In the second half, I started taking any walk break I felt I needed. I looked up instead of down at my watch. I soaked in the mountains and searched for wildlife in the distance. I stopped to take pictures and appreciate the world around me.
By the time I crossed the finish line, it felt a lot more like that celebration I wanted. Despite the rollercoaster of emotions during the race, I still got to accomplish something beautiful with my favorite people in one of the coolest places I’ve ever been.
Training for Adventure Doesn’t End at the Finish Line
Most of our group flew home after the race, but for my boyfriend and me, the trip was really just getting started.
We squeezed in one more hike near Banff where we found a huge waterfall with climbers multipitching right beside it. Watching them made me way more excited to try multipitch climbing someday than I ever have been before.
From there we headed into Glacier National Park, where we somehow managed to see five moose (including a mom and her baby), a family of mountain goats, and a bobcat crossing the street. We camped in the rain, ate overpriced sandwiches, and relaxed next to unbelievably blue lakes wondering how places like that can actually exist.
After Glacier we also visited some friends who moved to Great Falls last year. We walked around parks, climbed at their local gym, and enjoyed a fun night out. It was fun getting to see what life looks like in a place that’s completely different from anywhere I’ve lived.
On the drive home, we made a stop at Devil’s Tower before spending the night near Badlands National Park. I’d been to the Badlands before, but I was just as excited to go back. The free boondocking campsite there is still one of my favorite places I’ve ever camped.
Why I Like Training
Somewhere during the drive home, I realized that the half marathon wasn’t really the reason I spent months training. The race was just one hard day. What I was really training for was the hiking, camping, exploring, running through the mountains, walking around new towns, climbing, and making memories with people I love.
I train because I want to have the opportunity to see what the world has to offer.
I want to keep visiting national parks, hiking bigger mountains, climbing outside, running races in cool places, and saying yes when someone asks if I want to go on another adventure.
That’s one of the things I love about Summit. Everyone’s version of adventure is a little different. Maybe yours is climbing outside for the first time. Maybe it’s hiking with your family, running your first race, or just feeling strong enough to do more of the things you enjoy.
Whatever your adventure looks like, training is what makes more of those moments possible. And after spending a week and a half in places like Banff and Glacier, I can’t think of a better reason to keep showing up.