Home of the wind
The Antelope Canyon 70k
Note: The names of the participants have been altered to protect their identities, among other, more interesting reasons.
the question:
Zig-zagging through the first shallow canyon in the early miles of the race, my running companion, Pia NoNonsense, expressed that she had two potential energies available for approaching our adventure. Newly prominent life questions relating to a heightening perception of life’s transience had inspired this set of dualities:
The first was to indulge in every single micro-second, taking our sweet time, soaking in all the contours and detours that the allotted race time had to offer, even possibly beyond it. The second was to rage through the desert, slamming red bulls and embracing the rush of going all in, managing the edge of complete physical destruction until the moment of the finish line.
“Hear me out,” I heard myself saying in response. “I don’t think those two things have to be different.”
the approach:
Even before we arrived in Page, home of the well-known Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and the lesser known but no less enrapturing slot canyons that permeate this Navajo (Diné) territory on the border of Utah and Arizona, the power of the land was already working on us. There are many natural areas that have aroused and transfixed me over the years, but there are some places that have more energetic potency than others. It’s not so simple to come and be in relationship with these places as you are, they seem to have to rearrange you first.
Since I had the opportunity to experience this dynamic with a few of my collaborators (coaching clients) as well as a larger group of friends who were also traveling to these canyon lands, I got to witness the in-depth rearrangement in more than just myself.
In the way that I always lead myself and my collaborators to enter into an endurance ceremony, we begin by gathering up the themes, initiations, and life transits that have been intensifying over the recent weeks and months. Appreciating that the most important questions are meant to be lived, rather than solved, we then offer them up to the ceremonial ground of the race and honor whatever the winds of change have to show us and draw out of us. However the race unfolds becomes the precise medicine needed for the next level of incarnation.
With the added energetic grandiosity of the conspiring elements, the endurance requirements for this particular ceremony exceeded the spatial and temporal constraints of the 70 kilometers, presenting the task of embodying a more dynamic range of ensoulment.
If you were wondering, I’m sure it is also possible to simply run an ultramarathon, but I honestly have no idea about that.
home of the wind:
We pulled up to the starting line about 5 minutes ahead of the 5am start, with just enough time to merge into the streaming current of processional headlamps. After some weaving and sorting ourselves into the appropriate pacing groups, Pia NoNonsense, Sonia Soundbath, and I reached the first aid station around mile 7 as first light began eclipsing the latent starlight.
Because the race commenced over an hour and a half before sunrise, and the featured Antelope Canyon was situated around mile 8, the early necessity for slowness was implicit. Timely bowel movements from one of us required waiting in a 10-15 minute porta-potty line, which afforded adequate breathing room for the sun’s rays to permeate the canyon. Progression through thick sand, an enduring feature of the day, was similarly accommodating.
Weeks prior to departure, I reached out to Mel Spencer (her actual name), one of the owners of the Navajo women-run company called Antelope Valley Tours, with whom the race directors had obtained permission to incorporate their land as part of our race. Mel generously shared some of the stories and wisdom that have been passed down through her lineage.
These canyons are the home of the wind. When she was growing up, the elders in Mel’s family warned against entering the canyons without an offering. Ignoring this directive could result in wind related issues such as asthma, loss of clarity or focus, or other mental or breathing impairments. Mel explained that the Navajo guardians of this land make offerings every year to protect the visitors and guests that come through. Although grateful for this gesture, I generally find that a sufficient offering, especially one that I have not extended from my own resources, is a standard that results in a reciprocally impoverished life.
the rearrangement:
As we drew nearer to the narrow slit in the towering rock wall, I had the feeling of entering into a vortex, a quantum space in which the many directions of time scattered and converged into a mind-bending experience of what cannot be described in words, but may only be summarized in retrospect as real beauty.
Antelope Canyon is a space defined by impermanence, constantly being altered by the relentless forces of nature. The striped, swirling chasms and protrusions are carved and re-carved by violent monsoon flash floods. The canyon that we encountered that day will not be the same canyon that we might return to in the future.
Real beauty isn’t a lovely scene or a visually pleasurable surface-level adornment. Real beauty is a force, equally as destructive as it is all-pervasive and unconquerable. It takes both guts and humility to be able to withstand it. It’s nature is change, and it requires enough spiritual resilience to embrace your own impermanence in order to meet it.
But of course, in the same way that it is possible to simply run an ultramarathon, it may also be possible to simply recognize and appreciate the surface level appeal of a pretty landscape, continuing on to the next thing as if nothing happened. Again, I cannot speak to that experience.
It was quite an affair to collide with Antelope canyon so early in the day, not fully grasping what had shattered and rearranged inside me. The remainder of this story proceeds through the chords of a newly tuned wind instrument, and not, as you might assume, through the accumulation of kilometers in chronological succession. I have no other way to tell it other than the way it occurred.
range:
After a few more stanzas of parading through sand, punctuated by interludes of ascending and descending ladders and cliffs, it seemed a befitting amount of time had passed for the next aid station to materialize. One of us spotted it near enough in horizontal proximity, however staggeringly distant in verticality. This would not be the first nor the last time that the trail would give way to a dark vertical tunnel.
Whether or not the race directors accurately reported the predominance of non-running related obstacles is up to the discretion of those who actually read all of the pre-race information, but I was not the only one who was surprised by the volume of ladder systems, cable rock face rappels, and the scrambling and squeezing requirements of a course that marketed itself as an ultramarathon.
I don’t know if there is a method for locating these hidden gem obstacle-course-ultras in the future, but I would very much like to find more of them.
accompaniment:
The next section included long stretches of uninterrupted runnable terrain, and we began to settle into a rhythm. By this point, Didge McGeridoo, who had arrived to the race start approximately 5 minutes before go-time with the rest of us, before realizing that he forgot his headlamp, turning back to retrieve it, and eventually beginning the race 30 minutes behind the main cohort, had caught up to the group of Pia, Sonia, and I.
A week earlier, Didge had injured his back to the extent that he could barely walk and had trouble breathing. When we had our coaching call two days before departure, he could walk but not run. I reflected that the situation sounded like it could be just as much an initiation as an injury, and that was all he needed to hear to move forward with his plans.
Didge has cultivated mastery in receiving the resonance of truth and navigating his life through it’s tonality. Now, here he was, moving swiftly through an obstacle course ultramarathon, still experiencing some back pain, but not in a way where it had any effect on his movement.
The wind was whirling across the desert tundra and the three of us were catching Didge up on our friendship history by recounting our most inspiring tales of endurance. The topics included the importance of wearing clothing underneath wetsuits, the delights and inconveniences of oral and bowel-related purging, and the consideration of getting matching butt cheek tattoos on our butt cheeks. Didge heroically endured the back pain generated from laughing with us.
Due to his instrument’s elongated lung capacity and affinity for continuous sonic output, he had been moving quickly enough to surpass us, but couldn’t seem to draw himself beyond our accompaniment. Didge has always preferred harmonic amplification over solo performances.
solo performances:
At some point along the long slow miles, Sonia Soundbath dropped into an expression of pain-related low notes and fell behind the group by a little bit so she could run in her own wavelength. Then later, after her body can contorted into a sideward leaning L-shaped posture, began speed-waddling out ahead of us in order to occupy a time-space in which she might proceed through the discomfort in a faster rhythm.
Although the speed-waddle was not significantly faster than our own sand lumbering stroll, Sonia had disappeared completely out of sight at a rate that didn’t seem to track. We had assumed that she - given her proclivity to ride a bewitching vibration off into another world - was the one who was lost. But after one of us eventually bothered to notice our own navigation systems, we realized that we had wondered far enough off the trail that the map was no longer registering on our watch faces. I generally consider the buzzing alerts of my watch an annoyance rather than the more useful association as a prompt to pay attention, but we all agreed to change this tune for the remainder of at least today.
When we eventually retraced our footsteps and arrived at the next aid station, we found Sonia Soundbath enjoying quesadillas and enthusiastically awaiting our arrival.
unique ceremonial requirements:
Two additional friends, DJ and Jazzy Nightclub, also showed up at the aid station as we were about to head out. I’ve been coaching DJ for years now and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him in quite the state of exuberance as I did at every interval that we caught up throughout that day.
What was interesting about DJ’s exceptionally joyful expression is that he had completed far less than the minimum standard of training that one might believe is required to complete an ultramarathon. On paper, he should have been able to survive a 10k, max. Perhaps if what we had been doing in the lead-up was in any way related to training for a specific endurance outcome, this may have been a concerning lack of preparation. But between DJ and I, there was not a trace of concern to be found.
As the Nightclubs continued running closely behind us, past this mile 20-something checkpoint, we received the validation, that neither one of us needed, that through the work that DJ had been showing up for, the lack of physical preparation was precisely what was required for his next breakthrough.
Next time he’ll probably have to train more. Every initiation has its own set of requirements.
the death of preference:
Something that I have yet to mention is that The Antelope Canyon Ultras was a plurality of races, consisting of multiple distance options. All of the people that I have mentioned in this story so far had been signed up for the 50k. Before her IT band began throbbing, Pia NoNonsense, through the perspective of either (or both) of her race energy options, thought that she would absolutely continue running past the 50k split and join me in the 70k. The increased distance fit both the standards of squeeze every ounce of juice out of the day and red bull & rage.
But now as we were closing in on the final miles of the 50k, the sand still refusing to give way to a more tendon-appeasing stable terrain, it was appearing as if I would be heading off on my own. Even though I was pleased at the prospect of having a friend to rage on with, in that moment I had neither positive nor negative inclinations towards any set out outcomes.
I began to realize then, that I had been uncharacteristically unbothered the entire day. I had no low moments to speak of, and an astounding absence of frustration and impatience, even when waiting in line to ascend some of the ladder systems. I had a few body parts that felt as you might imagine body parts would feel after running 30 miles, but I experienced no preference for them to feel any other way than they did. I didn’t even really feel tired.
And most surprisingly of all, I didn’t experience the classic moment where I feel inadequate to the task of receiving and writing a story that would be worthy of representing the ineffable illustriousness of these living landscapes. A well tuned wind instrument, I learned, doesn’t struggle against the notes, it simply plays.
It was at this moment that Didge McGeridoo, undergoing an undoubtedly a similar realization, deduced that he might as well continue on to the 70k with me. And so we did.
punctuation:
At the aid station that preceded the excursion to Horseshoe Bend, through a cacti minefield posing as a trail, we took the time to recline in some camping chairs and empty the small islands of sand that had collected in our shoes.
When we returned to the same aid station after the excursion through the cacti minefield posing as a trail, there seemed to be no reason not to indulge in another round of reclining. I got myself a cup of noodles while Didge did whatever it was that he was doing.
Even though we had entered into our quest with clear intentions, we orchestrated a portal in the closing miles within which to anchor the release of the patterns that we were moving beyond, as we stepped into the next level of stewardship on our respective journeys. I sprinkled a bit of tobacco in each of our palms and we faced the direction that most suited the evolutionary leap we were each preparing to make.
Before I told Didge about what each of the directions symbolized, he already knew that he was meant to face West - the direction of the jaguar (from the perspective of the lineage that I’ve sat in ceremonies with). The jaguar embodies the courage to step into the dark unknown, to face shadows and deep-seeded fears without wavering and without under any circumstances, closing your heart.
I faced the North, the direction guided by the hummingbird, who although small and comprised mostly of air sacks, embarks on a great migration, spanning continents. There is no reason that the hummingbird should be able to complete this migration, but it does not require reason to do it anyway.
We blew the tobacco into the winds and gradually regained our stride.
home of change:
Pia’s question from the opening miles had been my question as well. Fortunately, I didn’t recognize it at first, through the particular way she expressed it, which gave me the opportunity to respond before my brain could jump in and ruin it. My intention was to receive an experience that resolved the duality between those two energies that I cherish equally. And because duality is a mental construct and not a lived experience, I offered up my ignorance to the ceremonial ground.
It took only the impending entrance of Antelope Canyon to remind me, through my own mouth, of the absurdity that one could possibly exist without the other.
We have the gift of a lifetime to sprawl out, to make music, to climb ladders, to fall down, to trudge miles through sand. And it all dissolves at the speed of monsoon flash floods. There is no living, as far as I’m concerned, without rage - the deliberately generated upward-propelling volcanic will to burst through a ceiling of confines, only to find that the ceiling had been an illusion all along.
How else would we free ourselves from the persistent forces of numbness and entrancement in order to endure real beauty and stand steadfast as unshakable witnesses to the relentless tides of impermanence without closing our hearts?
Mel Spencer and the Navajo women owners of Antelope Valley Tours started their company and opened up the canyons to guests because they wanted to tell a different story about their land. There is a much greater depth than the surface level appeal. The tradition, the stories, the language - it all passes down from the female. All the ceremonies, she said, pay homage to the female.
Nature - the female - is gentle, collaborative, and expansive. It is also violent and unpredictable. We understand that by entering into ceremony with deliberate intentions for increased ownership over the directions of our lives, that we are offering ourselves up to all of these forces equally.
The home of the wind is the home of change.
celebration:
We considered continuing on to the 50 miler, but our work was complete and our friends were waiting at the finish line. With only a few miles to go, all that was left to discuss was our finish line celebration. Even though Didge McGeridoo had not completed a cartwheel since childhood, he articulated absolute certainty in his ability to do one, so we went with that. His back was pain free the following day.
💚
Coach Laura
P.S. For an unforgettable experience, check out Antelope Valley Tours and plan your next trip.