Thoughts One Week Out From My First 50-Mile Ultramarathon
As I write this, I’m on a plane flying to Kentucky for a graduation.
I always tend to get the motivation to write while I’m flying. Maybe it’s something to do with the altitude, or (more likely) it helps preoccupy my mind—as I’ve never been a fan of flying. No matter how many flights I take, I can’t avoid the slight anxiety and sweaty palms.
Either way, writing these newsletters has become a way I can express my thoughts and unravel some of the racing thoughts I have on a day-to-day basis. Almost like a diary—welcome to the inner workings of my mind.
Understandably so, being one week out from a 50-mile ultra, it’s dominating a good portion of my mind.
How am I going to feel that day?
Have I trained enough?
Am I ready to actually do this distance?
How will I react if something goes wrong?
One of the most intimidating—but also intriguing—parts of an ultra is the unknown. With these distances, it really isn’t a matter of if something is going to go wrong, it’s when. I heard Sally McRae describe an ultra as “a problem-solving race,” and I haven’t stopped thinking about it that way.
As much as I can plan, build out redundancies, and anticipate what might go wrong, I won’t know how I’m going to feel 30+ miles in until I’m actually there. This is both incredibly exciting and scary at the same time.
I know, and have come to terms with, the fact that this is going to be the hardest and largest tests of will I’ve ever gone through in my life. But it’s also voluntary. No one is forcing me to run this race. I am choosing to toe the line on Saturday morning knowing all of this, and there is freedom in that.
One of the many things the last two years of building this business has taught me is that some of the happiest moments of our lives usually follow some of the hardest challenges.
I’m not running this race for the medal or to be able to call myself an ultramarathoner. I’m running this race because of who I’ll be at the finish line—who it forces me to become in order to accomplish it.
I think about voluntary and involuntary suffering often.
Throughout our lives, there will be suffering—suffering we do not choose. Loved ones will die, relationships will end, things will happen to us. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
This is why I think voluntary suffering is so important. As the name would suggest, this is suffering we choose to endure. What I’ve learned is that when we endure voluntary suffering, it makes the suffering we don’t choose easier.
Not because that involuntary suffering is somehow less painful, but because we become a stronger person—better equipped to handle it.
I love the analogy: the voluntary suffering we choose is like a suit of armor we build around ourselves. So when the arrows of life (involuntary suffering) come, they leave only a scratch instead of a gaping wound.
Now, I’m not saying go sign up for a 50-mile ultramarathon in the swamps of South Carolina so that your 6 a.m. wake-up for work doesn’t seem as bad (even though it would work).
But I am saying: do not shy away from all suffering and discomfort. We cannot live a life without suffering, so don’t try. Live a life where you choose your suffering—enduring hardships you take on willingly—and becoming the person they help you grow into.
Daily life can be easier and more comfortable than at any other time in history—but it’s a trap. The trap of comfort.
One day, you’ll wake up and look back on your life. Would you rather remember every time you chose comfort—the easy wrong over the hard right?
Or remember that you squeezed every drop out of life and became the person you always knew you could be?
True hell is when the person you are meets the person you could have become.
Have a great week,
GTY
