Benefield: Runner finds moments of tranquility — in ultramarathons

Rain-soaked socks. Chafing in nooks and crannies you didn’t know you had. Energy gels for dinner in the chilly dark.

Sounds like a blast, right?

Yet Emily Richards was in heaven.

Richards, 34, was running in one of the premier ultramarathons in the world, traversing peaks in the Alps and running through France, Italy and Switzerland. She’d cover 103 miles in slightly more than 29 hours.

Eventually, she’d finish the Aug. 29 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in ninth place among all female contenders.

“Running has been a way of stress relief,” she said. “Nature is kind of my church. It’s where I get a lot of inspiration.”

Richards, who ran cross country and track at Petaluma High School as a prep athlete and now lives in Reno, said the epic race based in Chamonix, France, has been on her wish list since she finished the Leadville Trail 100 race in Colorado two years ago.

Considered one of the toughest trail-running races in Europe and perhaps the globe, the alpine route has more than 31,000 feet of climbing. That’s six miles. Steep? Runners carry hiking poles. They are also required to run with vests loaded with rain pants, bandages, a whistle, emergency blanket and other supplies runners might need if they decide to stop running while atop a glacier.

“It’s one of the most challenging races,” she said. “Here you feel like you are sort of in the Olympics. There are people lining the streets and ringing cowbells, yelling ‘Go girl!’ in three different languages.”

But it’s the quiet moments on the trail, whether it’s in the French Alps or the Tahoe Rim Trail, that Richards needs to sustain her.

There was a time when running didn’t bring Richards peace. When she was younger, running was a weapon - she used it to damage, rather than heal.

“Running wasn’t always a healthy thing for me,” she said. “I struggled with an eating disorder in high school.”

Richards first battled anorexia at 14 and the condition worsened, leading to multiple hospitalizations and eventually causing her to leave Petaluma High and live in a residential recovery center. She continued to struggle with eating disorders until her mid-20s.

When she began running again - and running to the extreme - Richards said she had to face the issues her reignited love with the sport might raise within her tight-knit family that suffered right along with her when she battled the eating disorder.

“It’s been a real healing thing for my family to see me evolve into the runner I am now,” she said. “I used to abuse running and I didn’t know how to heal myself properly. I was doing it for a completely different reason than I am doing it now.

“Their concern was a conversation that we have had to work through a lot over the years,” she said. “It’s a really big deal to me to have them now coming to my races and coming and cheering me on. It’s incredibly emotional for me. They have had to learn to trust me.”

Offering support and comfort at an aid station at the Mont Blanc race, Colin Chisholm reminded his wife of the energy back home.

“This was the race I had wanted to do for a least a year,” she said. “He said, ‘Emily, you have so much love coming your way.’ It overwhelmed me and I just started crying.”

The resilience it takes to get through an ultramarathon is the same vim you need to navigate other hits life can dole out, Richards said.

“It’s kind of a parallel of life, what you go through in these races,” she said. “These peaks and valleys - it’s your will to live, it’s your positive mindset that get you through.

“Everybody has a story. You never know how it is going to give you strength,” she said.

Deep in the throes of the race, when her body started to balk, Richards willed herself to lift her eyes from her next footfall and take in the peaks, the wildflowers and the mountain skies.

“?‘Relentless forward progress.’ I was repeating that to myself. It didn’t matter how fast I was going or how slow I was going,” she said.

“My goal was to finish. I didn’t have a place goal. I just wanted to finish.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter @benefield.