Guest post and photos by Rebecca Perrotto
A little background about me. I’m a wife and mom to two wonderful girls, Olivia is 13 and Abigail is 9. I started running after Abby was born, so my girls have grown up with running in their lives. And have since become the best trail race volunteers! I started out with a 5k, then right to a half marathon. Did a bunch of those and that lead to a few marathons and like all of you other crazy people, ultras! My first ultra was the Finger Lakes 50k in 2019. I’m not a competitive person at all. My one and only goal of every race I sign up for is to finish and hopefully not completely trash my body! 2020 threw us all a curve ball with covid. And it was the year I became the strongest. How thankful were we that we had running to escape to!! I finished the Black Forest Ultra 100k that October. One of hardest things I had ever done. I went to some deep places to get that race finished and seeing my girls at that finish line was one of my proudest accomplishments. March 2021 would end up being the worse month of our lives. Our daughter, Olivia, who was 10 at the time, was diagnosed with a very rare cancer surrounding her carotid artery. Maybe someday I will take the time to write up how training for ultras prepares us mentally to face life’s challenges. Her fight was a very hard year, but I can happily say she is in remission! Obviously, any type of real training for me has never been the same. But mentally, I think we are all so much stronger and capable than we give ourselves credit for. Fast forward to a month ago.
The Long Brown Path 