Lessons From Ultra Running for Life Challenges

Sometimes life just seems too hard. Like really hard. The kind of hard that makes you want to give up, crawl back in bed and just surrender to the world. Depression and anxiety set in. Do you know that type of hard? Maybe it’s a bad relationship, a rebellious child, financial issues or the loss of a job, a parent that’s ill, a divorce or maybe your own personal health problem.  

It seems that sooner or later as we get older, we face some of these things. Sometimes it’s not just one thing that hits us but several of them crashing down around us all at once. We can’t breathe or even catch our breath. We are drowning and life feels hopeless.

We all go through tough things and if we haven’t, we most likely will at some point. First of all, please know there is real professional help out there. At the moment when things feel too difficult, please reach out to a friend, call 1-800-273-8255 (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) or seek out a good counselor/therapist to talk to. I’m not advocating that we can do it alone or without help sometimes. I had to get professional help from a therapist when I had an emotional breakdown. I never saw it coming and it all came crashing down and hit me hard. So please seek help if you feel too overwhelmed to handle it alone.

What I want to share with you is how I used lessons I learned from ultra running to get me through a very difficult place in my life. I had started therapy after an extreme emotional breakdown and was just beginning to work through some very tough issues in my life when I was hospitalized with an autoimmune disease that was quickly crippling my body. I was sitting in a hospital bed barely able to walk and my hands were quickly becoming non functioning from nerve and muscle damage. So, I dug deep into my ultra running experience to find a few things I could pull from to get me through my crisis.  

1. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon – sometimes we are in a season of waiting for answers or waiting for recovery from an injury. We are in it for the long haul just like running an ultra. You excel at long distances, and this may be a long one, you got this!
2. A positive attitude will carry you through a lot of tough miles – they say running an ultra is 90% positive attitude and the rest is in our head.  I’m sure some training would also be good but without a positive attitude running an ultra-distance, it’s very easy to give up and quit. Stay positive!
3. We are stronger than we think, we can do hard things – whether it’s a 50K, 50-miler or 100 plus miles, to get through it, you have learned that you can do hard things. None of these is easy but somehow, we made it. We can do hard things!
4. A good support team and pacers are some of the most amazing people – having a good crew and pacers can not only be a huge help, but the support you need just when you need it. Not everyone uses crew and pacers, but when life gets hard, those are some of the best people to have on your team. Surrounding yourself with great friends and family can make a huge difference!
5. Don’t focus on the end, focus on getting to the next aid station – if we focus on 100 miles and we are at mile 5, it’s too overwhelming. Focus on the next step or the next miles, don’t focus on how many miles are left to go. Just focus on getting to the next aid station and stay in the moment!
6. When you go through a rough spot, you know things do and will get better – hang in there, keep pushing and fighting. Things will get better! See #2!
7. 100-mile races are just 100 miles of problem solving – solve problems one by one as you go, don’t let them get out of control. Take care of each little thing as it comes up before it escalates. 
8. You know how to train hard, and you’ve trained for this – you aren’t a stranger to hard things, you’ve done them before, and you have what it takes to beat this. Trust your training and lean into it!
9. Tough climbs up mountains are rewarded with great views – the climb is always tough but once we get to the top there is a great view! The view might just be able to see how far we’ve come or you get to see things from a different perspective. We can always get a better view of things from the mountain top!
10. The harder the struggle the sweeter the finish line – we often don’t appreciate the finish line the same way we did when it was a struggle to get there. Anticipate the celebration you will have at the finish line; it will be a grand one!

Life might not give us lessons for running ultra marathons, but ultra marathons can teach us a thing or two about how we navigate life. We will be stronger mentally and physically from running long distances. I’m still getting help from my therapist and learning how to live with a life changing autoimmune disease but I know I got this. Dig deep, we can do this! Stay strong, I know you are all grit and no quit, you got this!