2 Minutes With…Bethany Nickless

A lot of this year would not be possible without the UCSB Athletic Department. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for encouraging me and supporting me as I chase my dream. They have given me a job that allows me flexibility to train when I need to and it is rare that a day goes by that someone in the department doesn’t stop by just to ask me how things are going. I feel so blessed to be a part of the Gaucho family! VIVA!

After I got back from Scotland I was asked to share a little bit about my trip and my experience.

Scotland Day 4

I keep forgetting to post this! It’s hard to believe that it has already been over a week since I got back from Scotland. Here’s my last post about the race.

Saturday, January 7

What an exciting and fun day! My first international race is now complete and I have to say that overall I am pretty satisfied with my performance. While I would have liked to have finished a little bit higher, I ran a smart race. I was 4th American out of 8 and I finished 17th out of 26. We won’t even talk about time because it was so slow due to difficult course conditions, but here is a little recap of what went on before, during, and after the race.

It took me forever to fall asleep last night due to pure excitement. I just wanted it to be race day already. I just wanted to put the jersey on already. I tossed and turned until about 3 in the morning and then woke up not feeling that good. I had a sore throat, I was all congested. Luckily after being up and moving around for a while that went away. I went down for breakfast #1. I had some yogurt with fruit and granola. After breakfast, I went out for a little shakeout run in the cold and wind. To be honest, I felt like crap. My hip flexor had been bugging me for a few days now and today was the worst it had felt and my legs just felt stiff and tired. After my run, I took a nice little bath to warm up the legs a little more. I think the combination of the run and bath really helped. I guess that’s why they call it a shakeout run…shaking out all the bad.

Now it was time for breakfast #2. I went with my usual toast with peanut butter, honey, and banana. That is pretty much my staple pre-workout/race meal. Thankfully I had brought peanut butter and honey with me from home, because the hotel didn’t have any. That could have been a disaster! (Ok, not really…I would have found something else…but it was comforting to be able to stick to my regular routine.)

With breakfast done, it was now time to get ready. It was FINALLY time to put the uniform on and do the usual pre-race gear check. Uniform…check. Spikes…check. Bib #’s…check. Sweats…check. Ipod…check. FRS…check.  I had everything and then some. I tend to be an over packer and always have way more than I need. Always better to be safe than sorry. One of the nice things about this trip is that our hotel is about 1/2 mile away from the start line of the race. So, getting to the course was super easy. We all gathered in the hotel lobby and then walked over there. They had set up an elite athlete tent for us that was amazing! It was heated and had plenty of space for all of us to stretch out and just relax before the race. It was very un-nerving to hang out with the girls and talk and laugh while we waited to go warm up. We also got to watch and cheer on the junior boys and girls teams while we waited.

The warm up came and went quickly and before I knew it we were being ushered to the starting area. It was go time. We had to wait for the men’s race to finish so we were all in this little box area trying to stay warm and get our drills and strides in. That part was a little chaotic because there wasn’t much room for all of us but I just stayed focused on myself and did what I needed to do to stay loose. They let us on to the finishing straight for a few strides before the race and then the call came to take off our sweats and head to the start line. This was it. All the excitement that had been brewing over the past 3 weeks came down to this moment. The gun went off and we were out. I had pretty bad positioning on the start line and was in the very back from the beginning.

Based off of yesterday’s preview of the course, we knew it was going to be muddy…but I didn’t fully expect it to be as bad as it was. I can’t even put it into words. You would hit patches where your feet would just completely sink and you felt like you were not making any forward movement. I had spikes in my shoes that were 5/8″ long and I was still slipping around. My legs were tired and I was fatigued at about the 1k mark. It was then that I just had to buckle in and suck it up. I knew I was in for a long race and I was just going to have to take it one section at a time. The course was 3 loops that were 2k each loop. At about the 1k mark, I was in last place hanging on for dear life trying not to get gapped. We went into the log jump and I was able to come out in front of a girl. Throughout the whole race, I just kept my eyes on the person in front of me and was fortunately able to move up and get girls 1 by 1.

You will never find a course like that in the United States. It was a tough race. It was the hardest race I have ever run. At the same time, though, it was probably one of the most fun races I have ever run. I can look back and say that I ran as hard as I could on the day and as bad as it hurt I was able to enjoy the experience and loved every moment of getting to represent the United States of America!

As tired as I was after the race and knowing that the next week would be a week off of running, I still decided that a cool down was in my best interest. Turned out to be one of the most fun runs in Scotland. We had the whole team together and I brought my camera along and snapped some photos. The views were amazing and we had a lot of fun as a team talking about the race and joking around and just taking in everything that had just happened. I may have only known these women for a few days, but we got along really well and I loved getting to know every single one of them.

With the race done and the cool down done the only thing left to do was party! They had an amazing pasta meal waiting for us in the elite athlete tent where we all got to sit around and talk to the other competitors. We then went back to the hotel to wash off all the mud and hang around for a bit. A few of us ended up having a nice long talk with Ian Stewart (the guy that out kicked Steve Prefontaine in the Olympics for Bronze) about anything and everything. We also had quite possibly the longest night of trivia with all the athletes which was quite entertaining and then we went out on the town and got to experience some of the Scottish night life which was a total blast!!

I could not have asked for a better trip and a better experience! This is a time in my life that I will cherish forever…the people that I met… the sights I got to see…putting on the USA jersey for the first time…racing internationally…I will never forget this moment. It all was above and beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for sharing this adventure with me. The outpouring of support and love has been incredible. I cannot put in to words how grateful I am for each one of you! God is good and this experience is a true testament to the fact that what He has in store for our lives is so much bigger and better than anything we can ever imagine!

Jeremiah 29:11-13–¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Scotland Day 3

Friday, January 6

And I thought getting out of bed yesterday was hard…this whole not going to bed until 2am thing is killing me. Despite the lack of sleep, today was a great day! Once I eventually woke up and got my morning dose of Nutella, a few of us went out shopping along the Royal Mile. It was nice and relaxing just being able to walk around and not have to worry about being anywhere.

We finished shopping and walking around just in time for lunch. All of our meals have been served at the hotel. It has been so nice to not have to worry about finding food, and the things they serve are really good. They lack a little in the flavor department…but that’s nothing a little salt doesn’t take care of. While eating lunch, we quickly realized that the 2008 Olympic champions in the 1500, steeplechase, and 5k were sitting at the table right next to us and Kenenisa Bekele (Olympic Champion and World Record Holder) was sitting at the table right behind us.

After lunch we had a little time to kill before heading over to the course for our pre-race course preview. I went up to my room and ended up getting in a nice little nap. It wasn’t a long one, but it was that perfect amount of time where you wake up feeling a lot better. Lately, I have been waking up from naps feeling like I have been hit by a semi-truck, so this was a nice little change.

We jogged over to the course from the hotel and for the first time since I had left the US, the excitement of the race started to outweigh the nerves of the race. It was the first time that we all got to run together as a team and we quickly learned that the race was going to be nothing short of a mudfest. We were slipping and sliding all over the place in our trainers and knew that we needed to find the biggest spikes we possibly could to put in our shoes. It was also our first look at the log jump that we had been hearing about since we got there. I was very excited about this log jump. You will never hear me complaining about having to jump over things in a cross country race. After our run and some trial runs over the log jump, I was feeling good and ready to go. I couldn’t wait to race. The nerves were completely gone and I just wanted to put the jersey on race.

We went back to the hotel after our run for a little more down time before having a team meeting to go over all the details of the race. We had another meeting after that with all the teams and competitors in the race and were given our bib numbers. We also got to watch the footage of last years race while enjoying a delicious dinner. I followed up my dinner with my usual pre-race 1/2 of a Snickers bar. (Have to top off those glycogen stores!) I don’t really know why I only eat 1/2…it’s just tradition…and we can’t mess with that.

Hard to believe that race day is pretty much here! With the nerves getting to me early on in the trip I came up with a little mantra, if you will, that I have been saying over and over again to myself. The original idea was taken from the movie, The Help…but I changed some of the wording. I also wrote it down and have had it next to my bed since we got here. So, for today, I will leave you with that.

thoughts leading up to the race...

 

Scotland Day 2

Thursday, January 5

Glad I set my alarm this morning. I didn’t think I would need it since be didn’t have any plans until 10am, but sure enough, the alarm went off and I was still passed out. Total sleep count for the night was 11 hours which makes my average for the past 2 nights 7 hours…it can work that way, right?

Once I finally made it out of bed it was downstairs to breakfast and to hoard some more nutella. So far, not much is different here in that breakfast is still my favorite meal. I have been pretty conistent with my “brown toast” (whole wheat), over-easy egg, yogurt with fruit and granola, and some grapefruit.

First thing on our schedule for the day was to head up to Edinburgh Castle. It was about a mile walk uphill along the Royal Mile to get to the castle. I am in love with the architecture here. It is definitely a lot different than southern California. I can’t get enough of the cobblestone streets and stone buildings and tiny shops that line the streets.

Back to the castle…it was really cool. It’s one of those places that pictures will never do it justice. I did take a lot of pictures there, but it is not going to be the same as seeing it in person. It was really interesting and kind of surreal hearing about all the history and battles and everything that went on there. Our tour guide had a very thick accent so I was always a sentence or 2 behind trying to understand what he said. By the end, I had the general understanding of what he said but I know I missed a few things too. The only negative about it was the bitter cold. I had on about as many layers as I had brought and was still cold. The winds didn’t help any either, but I survived.

Spent a little time at a local coffee shop doing some stuff on the internet and catching up with life in the States. Lunch followed that with a training session after that. Some of us went over to the stadium to do a little track work. My body felt a little stiff, but just did some light stuff to get the legs turning over. It was weird finishing the workout by moonlight and having it only be 4:30. My sense of time is so messed up right now.

Hung around the hotel a little after that before getting a massage. We are getting taken care of here and it has been so nice. There is a masseus that the race directors have hired just for the athletes. My body hasn’t been feeling as fresh as I would like it to so this massage was much needed. I had dinner afterwards and then went back to my room and finished off my night with a movie.

Overall, this trip has been nothing short of awesome. However, in the back of my mind is still the fact that we have to race and I am not feeling as sharp and relaxed as I want to be. We found out that there are only 26 girls in our race, so there is defintely no hiding anywhere. The nerves have been lingering the whole trip. Playing in to my favor though, is a log jump on the course and 2 streams that we have to jump across…my kind of race!

I really have no other choice at this point but to put my complete faith and trust that God is going to carry me through this. As much as I want to do well for myself and for other people, it is not about that. All I can do is go out there and soak in the experience and run as hard as I can and glorify God. He has provided me with this insane experience and I could not be more grateful. As much as I am nervous about the race, I need to just smile. Be happy. Be joyful. Be thankful. I need to go out there and do what I have been doing all fall…it’s just this time I am wearing USA across my chest. No big deal.

Isaiah 41:10 (Thanks Vic!)- Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand

Scotland Day 1

Wednesday, January 4

I have arrived! Landed at Edinburgh Airport at 6:30 this morning after getting maybe 1 hour of sleep on the plane. We were greeted by Chris and Steve (2 of the race directors) and they took us to the hotel. It’s dark here. It didn’t start to get light out until about 9am and it was dark by 4:30pm. It has been a full day of eating, meeting new people, sightseeing, and running. That combined with the lack of sleep leaves me exhausted, so forgive me if my sentences are incomplete or don’t make sense.

It really hit me that I was in Scotland when an announcement came over the PA and the guy talking had a Scottish accent. Yes, it’s weird that was kind of my “this is real” moment…but it is what it is. One of the first highlights of my trip was the individual packets of Nutella at breakfast! So unbelievably excited about that. Got to walk around and explore the city a little. The weather here is not like California weather at all! I didn’t spend much time walking around because the wind chill is ridiculously cold…and our run was a whole experience in it self. The way we went we basically went up hill on the way out and then got the downhill on the way back…and of course the 40+ mph wind gusts were against us while we were going up. There were parts where we were not making forward progress, we were literally bent over pushing against it as hard as we could and still just running in place. Throw in some pelting rain and it makes for an enjoyable experience. Needless to say there was a lot of laughing throughout the whole thing as to how ridiculous the whole thing was. In essence, we went out in 22 minutes and game back in 18. I don’t know that a hot shower has ever felt better!

We finished off the night with a team meeting and team dinner. It was a lot of fun finally having everyone in the same room together and just getting to know the other girls on the team.

This trip has been nothing short of amazing and I haven’t even been here for a full day! Pictures will be coming when I get back to the states and can upload them…more updates to come as the trip progresses.

It’s Hereeee!

The time has finally come. I leave for Scotland tomorrow morning. I have just finished packing and the excitement is brewing. I threw up today…I guess nerves are brewing too. I’m not really sure if I am going to be able to sleep tonight. So many different thoughts and questions and emotions are running through my head. I hope I’m not forgetting anything. I do have my passport and I do have my uniform, which is all I REALLY need.

Scotland is 8 hours ahead of California time. I race at 1:45 pm on Saturday, January 7 which is 5:45 am at home. Prayers and positive thoughts would be appreciated for all you early risers!

I’m hoping to be able to post updates as the trip unfolds.

Can't wait to put this on!

Does this make me look Scottish? Thank you, Trevor!

I don't think I am going to run out of gear. Thank you, USATF!

Bupa Edinburgh Cross Country International Challenge

Welp, I guess this makes it official. I am going to Scotland. I leave January 3, race on January 7, and fly home on January 8. I have no idea what to expect and I don’t personally know any of the other women on my team. However, I am beyond excited for this experience. So many thoughts and emotions going through my head, but ultimately what it comes down to is that I am going there to compete. No one cares about feelings and emotions once you step foot on the line. I will wear the USA jersey, I will wear it with pride, and I will compete to the best of my ability. 2.5 more weeks to prepare. Body is feeling good, mind is in the right place. Let’s do this thing! 

The Journey.

6 months ago I sat in the waiting room at a radiology office awaiting an MRI on my hip. I had been having tightness in my hip for a while and the tightness had started to turn into a sharp pain in my groin. Having torn my labrum 3 years ago, I knew that what I was feeling were all symptoms of another tear. My doctor had ordered the test to find out and I knew going in to it that if the results did in fact show a tear, that I would be retiring from running at the ripe old age of 25.

So, there I sat. Waiting. I was a wreck. I was pretty convinced that my labrum was torn and I was about to walk away from the thing that my life was centered on. I like to say that running isn’t just a sport, it’s a lifestyle. Just about everything I do revolves around around running and how my running will be affected. I feel that the following video sums it all up pretty well…

What happened next has forever changed my life. As I was lying on the table almost in tears feeling nothing but unrest and anxiety and fear, I began to pray. I began to pray for forgiveness. Running had become my God and God had become somewhat of a lucky rabbit’s foot, if you will. I began to pray for peace. I began to pray that He would guide me on what to do with my life now that I was no longer going to be a runner.

I truly believe God spoke to me that very moment. Not in the big booming, coming down from heaven voice kind of way, but in a way that I knew He was talking to me. I left that MRI filled with complete peace and confident that my running career was not in fact over. I felt that He was telling me that He wanted me to use my running to share His greatness with the world.

In the days after the MRI I decided to run again. I had taken time off because the pain had gotten so bad. Within 3 days, the pain was completely gone. I was back and running pain free. Pain like that doesn’t just go away after 3 days, especially while trying to run on it. So, I started training again and have had no hip pain since.

Here I sit, 6 months later, having just received news that I will be representing Team USA  at a cross country meet in Scotland on January 7, 2012. I look back on this fall season and am in complete awe of what the Lord has done in my life. This fall season was supposed to be strictly a base training period. There were no expectations. I am finishing it off with a new lifetime PR in the 5k, 6k, and 10k. I just have to laugh because this has been God’s plan for me all along. Through all the injuries and hard times, he was teaching me. He was helping me grow. He was preparing me for this moment. My hope in Christ and an eternal life in heaven with Him is what has gotten me through everything.

I don’t mean to sit here and preach at you, but I just can’t help but talk about my running without talking about my faith. The 2 are no longer separate passions in my life. The things I have accomplished this fall are not my own doing. There is no way. Yes, I have trained, and I have trained hard, but my motivation for getting out the door everyday is different than it has ever been before.

I want to talk to people about running, not just because I am a nerd, but because I want to tell them how great God is. I want to tell them that it was through Him and Him alone that I have gone from almost giving up running forever to being a member of Team USA in 6 short months.

I wish I could put in to words all that I am feeling and experiencing right now. Blessed. Thankful. Grateful. Amazed. Giddy…I absolutely love the fact that God’s plan for our lives is so much bigger and better than we can ever plan out for ourselves. Being on a USA team is a dream that I have had since I was 5 years old. This is a time that I will forever cherish.

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.

Club XC Nationals

I’m not even sure where to begin here. Almost a week ago I toed the line along with my Adidas Run Racing teammates in Seattle, Washington at the USATF Club Cross Country Championships. Coming off a new 10k PR at the Dana Point Turkey Trot, I had a new-found confidence in my strength and in my fitness. At the same time, I was a little uncertain because I ended up getting sick the week after Thanksgiving and missed about 5 solid days of training. I tried to look at it as a forced taper and hoped that the time off would provide just the right amount of rest and rejuvenation after a hard 10k.

Adidas Legacy Run Racing (10th Place team, USATF Club XC Nationals 2011)

I went in to the week leading up to the race knowing that the “hay was in the barn” and just took each workout one at a time. I tried not to get too excited about the race and stayed focused on the immediate task at hand. Each workout was one step closer to race day.

I have this theory. I call it the “Hibernation Theory”. Basically, I have found that I do not feel that great at all in the few days leading up to a big effort. I think that my body is secretly storing up energy in the days before to use during the race, but that means that I have less energy to use during workouts making each one feel harder than it should. I’m not a science person by any means, and I’m sure there is some scientific reasoning behind this, but I am just going to stick with simplicity.

With that being said, the “Hibernation Theory” was in full effect in the days before the race. Workouts seemed a little harder than they should have been to hit the splits I was hitting and I felt kind of sluggish on my recovery runs. Thankfully I have had this theory going for a while now, so I wasn’t too worried.

Once we got to Seattle I felt surprisingly mellow. Nerves didn’t really kick in until we did some strides on the course on Friday. Thankfully, I was pretty tired from having to get up early for our flight so going to sleep was no problem. I don’t like sleeping too much the night before a race because it makes me feel sluggish, so I was up at 6:30am and ready for the day to start. The only problem was that the race wasn’t until 1pm, so I had some time to kill.

I went down to the lobby and enjoyed a nice little breakfast while spending some quiet time with the Lord and thinking about the race ahead. I followed this up with a little shakeout run through the famous fish market to get the legs moving. I think the nasty fish smell probably helped to wake me up a little more too! I doddled around as much as I could just trying to pass the time until heading over the course.

We got to the course and hung around for a bit trying to stay warm and out of the light rain that had started. The warm up was a little hectic. We had to go through a little check-in process to make sure we all matched and had our bib numbers, but that was 20 minutes before the race, so then we had 20 minutes to finish warming up after that. Despite all that, we made it to the line and before I knew it the gun was off. I had no goal in mind in terms of time. Looking at the quality of entries, I wanted to place in the top 20. The course was a little bit muddier than I expected and there was a little bit of slipping, but everyone around me was slipping as well so I wasn’t too worried.

I got out in probably about 20-25th place which is right where I wanted to be. I felt pretty comfortable through 3k and even remember thinking to myself that I may have felt too comfortable. I had been passing girls and moving up in the race, though, so I wasn’t settling. The comfortable feeling quickly went away and by 4k (1 loop to go) the hurt had set in. I knew I only had 2k to go and I kept hearing fans cheering that top 10 was “right up there!” Not really knowing how far “up there” was I just committed to passing as many more girls as I could and not letting anyone pass me. I don’t remember too much about the race. It went by pretty quickly and was over before I knew it. I just remember thinking to myself “don’t fall, don’t fall” for the last 400 meters or so as I pushed up the steady incline and over the small rolls in the grass. The wobble had set in a little and I wasn’t quite sure that the legs would hold me.

"Don't fall, Don't fall!"

A friend of mine quickly met me at the finish line and informed me that I had indeed gotten 10th place! The brain still wasn’t fully functioning at that point…but the meaning of that eventually caught up to me. I also ended up running a 13-second PR! It was just one of those races where everything clicked. I didn’t do a whole lot of thinking…I just ran…and when it started to hurt…I just tried to run faster. This race is a huuuuuge confidence booster and a very good sign of things to come in the Spring. I just ran faster than I ever did in college. It has been a looooong time since I have been able to say that.

It is crazy to think that I was on the brink of giving up running forever just 9 months ago. (more on that story coming soon…)The journey that I have been on since then continues to rock my world and continues to remind me that God’s plan for my life is so much better than I can fathom. What He has in store for me over the coming 6 months is a mystery, but I can’t wait to find out!!

Jeremiah 29:11-13 ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Forcing It

I have had many people ask me how my week of rest has been going. While I am excited that people are actually reading my blog (thank you to those who do!), I am sad to report that it hasn’t been going very well. While my body has gotten the physical break from workouts, my mind has not.

Like I mentioned last week, I feel like my life is in a bit of a lull at the moment. I’m just kind of in a funk…and I think I have started to figure out why over the past few days. I owe this little “aha” moment to a small calf injury, a long bus ride, and a surprise visit from Victoria.

There are times when I get in the middle of a race and it seems that the harder I try to push my body to go faster, the more it resists. I try to force myself to run harder and it says no.  I have found that if at this point, I take my finger off the panic button and allow my body to relax and reset, I am able to make the pace change that I wasn’t able to make when I was trying to force it to happen.

I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone, but basically, my point is that I have been trying to force a lot of things in my life lately. Being a Christian, I put my faith, my hope, my trust in God. I believe that God has a plan for my life and I need to relinquish my desire to be in control of my life and trust that his plan is bigger and better than anything I could ever imagine on my own. By trying to control my own life and force how things are going to go, I am not fully trusting that the Lord has my back.

I think the funk in my life has come from trying to force my running and force my faith. While I have been saying the right things about training and letting the Lord do with it what he wants, deep down I have been holding on to the control. I so desperately want God to be in control of my running that I am not giving him the space to do just that. I have been trying to force God into my training instead of relaxing, taking a step back and just letting God do His thing.

I have noticed over the past few weeks that I have become pretty defensive about my training and worrying about whether or not I am doing enough. I feel like I have to defend it and prove to people that I am truly committed to this whole training thing. I look at other people who are training for the Olympics and compare what I am doing to what they are doing. Suddenly, my training has no longer become about my faith, but about making sure that I am good enough for other people’s standards. Major red flag!

So here I go, relaxed and reset…no longer forcing it…or at least trying the best I can to not force it. Knowing that  I can’t do this on my own. Knowing that I need my God, who knows better than I, to use my running for His glory. I will train as hard as I can because anything less than that shows doubt in the Lord’s plan for my life not because I need to prove to other people that I am committed.

We sung this song in church tonight…it may get the point across better than all the stuff I just wrote.