Finding Leadville Chapter 16: Women Endure

It was a bright summer morning and I'd waken up early. My legs had work to do.

The Colorado Trail snaked off into the trees toward Kenosha Pass. I sat askew in the front set of my Subaru, door open and legs dangling out the side. Pulling on a fresh sock, I tilted my face to the rising sun and lifted my lips into a smile. A self-supported trail marathon lay ahead of me. My hydration pack was filled to the brim with everything I could need in the passenger seat: gels, a baggie with toilet paper, mace spray, salt tabs, headphones and my phone, and bars to hold me over. I reached into the backseat and rummaged for my dusty trail shoes. 

There was a buzz in my chest, the thrill before setting out for big miles. I was easing out of my peak training and had an enduring push for the weekend. The race was edging closer and my body, weary with training, was ready to heal during the upcoming taper. This taper would be about two weeks of low mileage, easy days, stretching, sleep, and as much hydration and carbs I could muster. It hadn’t arrived yet, though – I had this long run ahead of me. 

A particular truth ran through my blood just then: Women endure. 

It’s one of those realities that I have been subtly aware of all my life. The way my mother folded never-ending piles of laundry, again and again each day, so that all the kids could tumble in them, streak the backsides with grass stains, scrape our knees with gravel and mud. The way she rose every morning before sunrise with my father to pray, then prepared the kids for school and balanced babies and toddlers on her small-framed hips, negotiating with teenagers at the coffee pot. The way she washed millions of dishes and had hot meals on the table during the craze of mid-week. The way she would wake in the middle of the night to a crying child and soothe us back to sleep. Endurance.

I saw it in my oldest sister, how as a teen she also tended to us babies, held us as we spit up, watched us as a second pair of motherly hands because we all squirmed and moved about and needed that tending to. How she went on to run the Boston Marathon and many years later faced a breast cancer diagnosis, continuing to work, continuing to mother her own children, continuing as she could, as she can. Endurance.

Women endure. My mother endured. My oldest sister. I learned it first from them. 

Tugging my shoes on one by one, I yanked the laces up and into their knotted bows, twisting them around a second time for good measure. I smeared SPF chapstick on my lips and wiped the sunscreen across my face, shoulders and neck. I’d learned that the mountain sun was unrelenting, no matter what the temp of the day might be. My skin was precious and I preferred not to get a burn along with the already trialing pains of trail running. I stooped and stood up from the car, twisting my pack onto my shoulders and clasping it around my chest. The familiar weight of the pack felt solid, stable – a worthy companion for the trek ahead. I gave my running shorts a tug, pulling the white leopard print fabric from my crotch, creating an inch more comfort. 

Off I went. 

The trail swept magically back and forth up the pass, allowing short bursts of reprieve from the incline now and then. Hikers, dogs, and other runners passed me by on their way down, grins and friendly hellos, as is the way of the trail. Ease rushed through me, loosening a grip of fearfulness that I wasn’t even aware was there in the first place – a body on guard, no matter the circumstances. 

No bears today, I thought with a grin, only humans. 

The further up I went, the fewer hikers I encountered. Soon, I was alone for mile stretches at a time. With one headphone in and one ear plainly out, I stayed alert and relaxed. My body was responding well. A surge of strength passed through me as I crested another incline, and I looked down at my watch: 10,000 feet elevation. I was breathing steady, moving fluidly, and eating when I needed to. This was a perfect long run execution. 

To celebrate, I paused at the turnaround point, 13.1 miles in. A fallen tree was laid out in front of a wild drop, exposing the variety of trees, birds, and open sky beyond it. I propped my phone against a log, set the self-timer camera, and power posed. 

Isn’t this all a miracle? I get to be here, on this trail, feeling this way? I marveled internally as I went to grab my phone and flick through the pictures. 

That marvel soon turned to surprise. What was that on my crotch in every photo? I zoomed in to inspect. There, in a widening patch on my white leopard shorts, was a splay of brown-red blood. Somewhere on the trail, I had gotten my period. 

Period mid-run

Immediately I thought of all the hikers, dog walkers, and runners I had passed. The hellos we exchanged. An embarrassment flushed to my face knowing that they saw me bleeding, bloody, in full-period mode. 

At 26 years old, I was back home in Massachusetts for a holiday with my then-boyfriend, soon-to-be-fiancé, soon-to-be-ex. I had my period and, on the way to the dinner festivities, we stopped at a CVS to pick up tampons and Tylenol. 

My childhood home was warm, filled with flowered wallpaper and pink kitchen walls, long tables my father crafted from old sewing machines and glossed wooden panels. A collection of us sat here, at the glossed table, playing our hand in Uno or Monopoly or some kind of competitive game that was bound to break all our moods by midnight. Mid-game, it was time for me to change out my tampon. Realizing I had left the CVS bag in the car, I said as much to my boyfriend. 

“I’ll go get your tampons,” he offered aloud, lovingly and simply, and left the table to do so immediately. Looking back down at my cards I smiled with gratitude, thinking very little of this simple offer. 

“He’s going to touch those?” another sister's boyfriend stage whispered, his embarrassment blooming. 

I was used to hiding proof of my period blood. Even though my period came at 18, I don't remember learning much beforehand of what to do when it did arrive. I knew that I was going to bleed, once a month, and the boys didn't need to know about it.

It had arrived on a Sunday morning, before Church with the family, and beneath a pair of brand-new white pants that I adored. I had no idea how to use a tampon. I only heard through the female grapevine that wearing a tampon was just like losing one’s virginity. Pads were amply available in our home, but a tampon was a rare sighting. Rebellious, I was ready to use one. Or so I thought.  

That morning, I found one in my older sister’s room and without taking the plastic applicator off, I shoved it inside me. The. Whole. Thing. Usually (if you are a man reading this and do not know), one presses the applicator like a syringe inside onself and then disposes the plastic tubing. Not me at 18. It all went in. White pants and a misapplied tampon, I headed to Church with the family. 

Unsurprising, I was sinfully uncomfortable.

I could feel the hardness with every step I took, the ridges scraping me internally and the tampon threatening to release at any moment. I squeezed muscles I didn't know I had. I held my legs firmly together as we stood, sang, sat, kneeled, and prayed. 

Is this what having my period is like? 

By the First Reading, blood was visibly spotting between my legs. I looked down in horror, realizing that the back of my pants probably had the worst of it. Turning to one of my sisters, I grabbed her jacket, tied it snuggly around my waist, and slowly, carefully, penguin-walked down the stained-glass window aisle with my stained-white pants to the bathroom. I tore out the plastic application in the blue-tiled stall to the murmur of “This is the blood of Christ” from the priest upstairs.

How do women do this? I don't remember talking about it much back then. Even with a mother and 2 older sisters. Most of the information I got was in a class caleld Family Life in 5th grade. Long before I actually got my period. I just remember the topic as a quiet one. Hushed and hidden. But periods come and bodies bleed and life clicks on around us.

Quietly: We endured. 

I looked at the photos again. This time, I noticed my face, my posture. I was triumphant, one leg propped up on the fallen tree, my arms crossed gallantly across my chest as though I conquered something mighty. My smile was just as bright as the sun. 

Why do I feel shame right now for my period? At the knowledge that others know and will know, too? Why must this be such a hidden, secretive thing? Why should I feel so ashamed? These thoughts began to spin in me as I sat for a moment, reflecting. I had just run 13 miles and was about to run 13 more back to my car. There was no other way to the trailhead and nowhere to hide this reality.

And why should I! My chest lifted as an "unlearning" flitted through me. Why should I exhibit shame for something that happens to most women every month? 

Nope. No. I would run. I wouldn’t tie my shirt over my shorts or turn away from hikers as they approached. I would embrace this. I am actively bleeding and running a self-supported trail marathon.

I am okay. I am doing this.

Pressing the start button on my watch, I turned back down the trail and began the 13 miles back toward where I began. 

I am a woman, I thought. I endure. 

This became my mantra. I passed men, women. Kids and their parents. Solo and group hikers. I did not hide, although I did feel a flush of red surge across my cheeks moment to moment. Mostly, I let it go and I ran. Head up, chest out, and Taylor Swift singing in my ear. I exited the trail with streaks of dirt on my legs, dried up salt slathering my face, and a browned splotch between my legs. 

That night, I posted my triumphant photo on my social media. 

I am a woman. And I endure. Blood and all. Why should I be ashamed? Why should I hide proof of my existence, the way that my body has the capability to create life? Who is afraid if seeing this, knowing this?

After a hot shower, I put a tampon in the right way, and I fell asleep that night with a small smile on my face.

Mountain Woman

Today I met

a mountain woman.

She told me

about the sickness

she gets

coming down

the mountain,

not up.

I understood that

as grief

going down.

Love

going up.