Breathing

Like most mountain bike trails in Bozeman, Leverich Canyon starts with a big climb. The official Strava record for women is around 37 minutes and, like most of the Strava segments in Bozeman, is held by a woman whose skin matches my own. Admittedly, I may not have noticed this, much less recognized it as problematic, just a week ago. 

Last Thursday after work I joined a few friends for a lap of the trail which starts with a long and winding uphill along a buffed out trail sprinkled with a playful amount of rocks and roots that always seem to appear on the steepest climbs. I followed my sister and two friends up the trail and almost immediately found myself on a solo ride. From the first few pedal strokes my legs whined in protest and, despite my best efforts to keep the pace easy, I spent most of the long uphill gulping for air. 

I’m not a pretty mountain biker. Without the skill to gently navigate my way through rock gardens and bunny hop over roots, I default to full speed ahead and simply hope my wheels keep moving forward when confronted with an obstacle. The result is not fast mountain biking but rather a jerking movement that alternates between focused sprints and complete dismounts when a rock inevitably gets the best of my bike (or my nerve). After one such sprint, a relatively flat stretch of trail unfurled in front of me and granted precious moments to catch my breath. Although strained, I could breathe and gasped for as much fresh mountain air as my lungs could hold.

I’ve spent much of my life chasing this feeling. Ski racing has brought me around the world to test the limits of my muscles, heart and lungs, collapsing on finish lines and soaking in the painful exhilaration that comes with exploring the outer limits of pain before returning to reality. There may be no better feeling than lying on the ground and feeling oxygen rush to depleted muscles while lungs fill with air … and release. Simply breathing. A gift and privilege I’ve been blind to. 

In many ways colorblind has come to mean just this – blind to white privilege. Blind to the ways blacks are treated in this country. Blind to the institutions and systems that continue to favor the status quo, that give white people a hand while quietly and sometimes loudly, pushing black people down to the street while we sit idly by, claiming to be color blind when really, we’ve just been blind.

George Floyd’s last words were “I can’t breathe.” I’ve never once considered that breathing may not be my choice, that someone else might look at me and decide that today, they choose how hard I breathe or if I continue to breathe at all. In racing and training, strained breath is paired with a rush of endorphins, not fear for my life. This is my privilege. 

The last week has forced me to confront an uncomfortable reality, one I may have noticed before but never had the courage to address. Most cross-country ski racers have skin that matches the color of the snow upon which we ski. Most long-distance trail runners look just like me. Whiteness in endurance sports is easy to ignore, to not even notice, when you match the majority. But this must change, not just in skiing and running, but everywhere.

Earlier this year I was named to The North Face running team, a title I’m honored and incredibly humbled to hold. However I keep getting the question, “so, what does that mean exactly?” The short answer is that I’m still figuring it out. I’ve never considered myself a “runner” and while I’ve always run, I’m completely new to this world of trail racing. I don’t know which races or runners are the best. My “training” includes a hodge podge of workouts that draw on the lessons learned from ski racing paired with some made up downhill only intervals that I hope will help me on the steeper mountain descents. I’ve overdone it, underdone it, struggled with what I should look like as a “runner” and questioned when people will see that I’m not in fact a runner but a skier who, with a bit of luck, won a very big race and found themselves representing one of the most well-known brands in the world as a “runner.” The truth is that I’m new to this. I’m figuring it out as I go. I’m doing some things right, but I also mess up…a lot.

That fear of messing up when it comes to talking about race has kept me relatively quiet in the past. I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out what to say, what to do, and what I CAN do to meaningfully affect change in a world where equality is still a dream. The truth is that I’m new at this. Like in running, I still don’t know exactly what to do. What I do know is that sitting on the couch thinking about running won’t get me up a mountain faster nor will it eliminate racism in this country. Yes, listening, thinking, and planning are important pieces of the puzzle but at the end of the day, all those intentions and goal setting must be paired with action, with the daily work that slowly but surely leads to progress. I know I will make mistakes. There may be times when I say the wrong thing, when I overstep, or worse, fail to do enough. But this is also an incredibly exciting time. Because I am new to this, the growth curve is steep. Unlike a seasoned runner, fine-tuning their technique and making micro adjustments to find their edge, I simply need to get off the couch to see change.

To start, I called my dad. My dad serves in the Montana legislature and in the aftermath of Bozeman’s rally for black lives, it struck me that he is in the unique position to create legislation that can actually make a difference at the policy level. I called my dad and asked what bills he plans to sponsor in the next legislative session aimed at erasing racism in this state and in this country. He didn’t know, but he asked for my thoughts. We gave eachother a week to research and are meeting nextweek to draft up some ideas. Its not perfect, but its a start.

I talked to my hairdresser about race. I talked to my husband about race. I talked to my sister, my friends, my clients about race.

I marched with the Bozeman community for black lives. I cried seeing small children in masks but beamed with pride at the 5,000+ people who showed up with me in an effort to do something.

I ordered the book White Fragility.

I listened while BIPOC North Face athletes and staff struggled through tears and cracking voices to share their stories and struggles during a diversity and inclusion community discussion. I heard fear, anger, frustration, and heaviness – heaviness greater than anything I could imagine carrying on a daily basis.

And I went for a run.

Tackling racism is a marathon, not a sprint. It going to take dedicated work day in and day out. It will take work even when no one’s looking, even when black squares don’t cover the Instagram feed and people are no longer in the streets. It will also take rest – time to reset and refill the bucket for another push. The stakes are high – black lives are on the line. Black lives matter not just today, not just tomorrow, but every day.

I finished that loop around Leverich in just over an hour and after a few short words to friends, I headed for the safety of the truck and started sobbing. I have nothing to cry about – but for a brief moment I felt a small piece of the heaviness, of the work that is long overdue and the horrendous injustice we’ve let go unnoticed in this country that dictates who can breathe freely and who can’t based on the color of their skin. The work should have started years ago but, with a deep breath, I start now.