My Soul at Night: Ultra-running and Depression
Going deep at the 2019 Run Rabbit Run 100
There were numerous reasons why it made no sense to return to Colorado to attack another 100-mile run three weeks after a fourth unsuccessful attempt to attain a Leadville 100 finisher’s buckle. This latest Leadville DNF was at least partially due to my not being in good enough shape to run 100 miles in the allotted time, and I will not be in significantly better shape three weeks later. I have injuries that won’t be healed in time, I have no pacers or crew or support at all, and this is money I really can’t afford to spend. And yet, I’m going. When I told a friend I was doing this, she said, “Why? You already have that buckle.” I don’t know why.
“You already have that buckle.”
In 2017, I signed up for the Run Rabbit Run 100 a couple of days after my second Leadville DNF, went off to Steamboat Springs with minimal idea of what I was getting into, and managed to blunder through and finish under the cutoff time (barely). This was an amazing, inspiring, vindicating experience; Registering for 2019 felt like a semi-secret, almost whimsical back up plan — an insurance policy — that I wasn’t really going to need or use. But then I didn’t finish Leadville, and I wasn’t sure why. I ran 60+ miles and missed a cutoff time.
Maybe it was injuries; maybe insufficient training; maybe something else. The race occasioned a great deal of tortured agonizing and obsessing about what had happened and why [long story: read it here] and it took a couple of weeks of rumination and squirming and analyzing and resisting, all of it unpleasant, to recognize the exceedingly uncomfortable truth: I had been depressed for months, I had been depressed during the race, I was still depressed, and I had to do something about it.
Unfortunately, this is not the kind of problem that has a clear and obvious solution. The compulsion to show up for Run Rabbit Run in spite of lack of conditioning and possible injuries was maybe an attempt to address the depression, although I had no idea how that would work: circumstances strongly suggest a high probability of another (depressing) DNF. How is this going to help me?
They have changed the course, so my previous experience here won’t help me much. Given the lameness of my training, I focus mostly on my race plan, which consists of little cards on which I’ve written out a list of checkpoints and the times I hope to get to them. I have created spreadsheets and examined the elevation chart and made careful calculations to arrive at these target times. There are two cards: one with my aspirational “A” goal times, and one with just-get-it-done (“B”) times, each aid station listed in a different color for clarity. I spend an enormous amount of time creating these little squares of paper, “laminated” with tape. I consider these my most essential race gear.
But my focus is completely gone by the time I arrive at the starting line. What am I doing here? I’m all over the place, thoughts becoming very disorderly, upsetting and unhelpful: I will die of hypothermia; I will be eaten by a mountain lion; I will get lost; I should not have come; I am such a f**king idiot; I will be mauled by a bear.
Countdown, and off we go. I settle in to an easy jog in the first few switchbacks, until it becomes seriously steep and I start hiking at a brisk pace. I am eager to reach the first checkpoint and find out how I’m doing. At the top of the ski slope there’s a bit of a reprieve as we start in on some switchbacks, and a few spectators are here to cheer us on. I feel good; I might be smiling. It’s a beautiful day and the view is grand and gratifying. The race director is up here, wearing his bunny ears; he gives me a high five as I go by. This is awesome!
By the time I arrive at the first aid station, I’ve already cycled from this is awesome to this sucks repeatedly. Everything seems great again. I head out feeling very on top of things. The next few miles are scenic, rolling single-track. I’m trying to be present, appreciate the scenery and the weather and the fact that I can be here and do this. My brain keeps trying to go off on tangents, but so far I’m doing okay at reeling it back in. Focus. Enjoy. Maybe, after all, this is what I came for: a nice run in a beautiful place. Right now this seems quite plausible.
I arrive at the Long Lake aid station only slightly past the midpoint between my A and B goal. Next is the section down towards Fish Creek Falls. Lovely day, lovely part of the course. A mysterious issue I had in Leadville was an (apparently) impaired ability to go downhill, and this is the first prolonged descent of the race, so I’m a little anxious. This is a potential moment of truth: maybe I still can’t run downhill? Or was that problem all in my mind?
A lot of this part is very rocky and technical, though, so I am picking my way along slowly, focused on staying upright. When I left for the airport, my daughter’s parting remark — after “have fun!” and “run well!” — was “DON’T FALL ON YOUR FACE.” In Leadville I was plagued by the kind of relentlessly negative thinking (a hallmark of depression) that tends to bring about bad results: I kept thinking “don’t fall,” and, naturally, I fell. Determined to honor my daughter’s directive, I’ve come up with a more positive spin: be careful! A little figure she drew on my race plan looks like he’s dancing, and this has inspired another upbeat mantra: dance! Running down rocky hills requires nimble footwork: be careful! Dance!
I make it to the aid station — upright and a little ahead of my B goal — and turn around. This is a course change. The old course did go back up to Long Lake, but first it went about 35 more miles, so my first experience going back up this trail involved being delirious in the dead of night. Now I get to do it in daylight, and the climb turns out to be fine; I get back to Long Lake before my B goal. By the next aid station, though, I’m somewhat past B and have to sit down and take care of some business. Evening is approaching, and it is going to get cold and dark well before I get to my next drop bag, which is 20 miles away.
The next section has changed significantly. I set out with a vague sense of foreboding. The course used to go down the road — a steep and rocky dirt road, but still, relatively easy to jog in the dark. Now we’re going down an unfamiliar single-track all the way to the Dry Lake aid station. I really have no idea what to expect. For some time now I’ve mostly been trundling along feeling purposeful but blank, no particular emotion, but now I’m apprehensive. The light is fading, and in spite of having zero reasons to expect that I would be doing well, I’m disappointed that I’m not farther along. I’ve been maintaining what seemed like a reasonable pace, and I’m not particularly exhausted or sore, and at least some part of me is weirdly excited about the sunset.
The unfamiliar part of the course so far has been quite manageable and pretty. Off to my left, a spectacular full moon appears over the mountain. I’m maybe feeling a little bit happy. As advertised, the new aid station, Billy’s Rabbit Hole, is a funky tent that seems to be a million miles from nowhere. There are strings of lights and music and a fire, and friendly people grilling bacon and drinking beer. It’s a party. I eat a little something and prepare to head out, feeling pretty good, and as I start back to the trail, one of the volunteers helpfully points the way and says it’s only about 10 miles to Dry Lake.
Wait, what?
If this were a movie, there would be sudden, screeching music right now, along with some swirly camera work to indicate the vertigo of a truly oh shit moment. TEN MILES? I had this distance in my head, but since last consulting my race plan I had somehow made it the distance to Dry Lake from Summit — not from here. It seems I have given myself between 25 and 55 minutes to run ten miles of unfamiliar rocky single-track in the dark. WHAT THE F*****K?
Clearly I’ve made a tragic miscalculation, but how could I have done that? I spent hours going over and over the numbers, the distances, the elevations, the terrain, plotting how long it would reasonably take me to do each section of the course, and yet somehow I concluded that staying within the ballpark of each previous goal would realistically allow me to get to Dry Lake by 8:45, which is so far beyond the realm of possibility now that I can’t even do the math.
I am overwhelmed with panic and nausea as I stumble off along the trail, which, appropriately enough, has gone from an easy to see road-like stretch to an increasingly hard-to-follow single-track marked by creepy little (unlit) cairns. I fear I’m off the course. This race has shifted from pretty great to maximum suck in a big hurry. Meanwhile, a few of my better angels are attempting damage control: calm down. It’s not that big of a deal. You messed up this one pair of numbers; that doesn’t mean the whole plan is doomed. It can’t take that long to get to Dry Lake — it’s almost all downhill. You can make up time.
Maybe I’m okay.
A group of headlamps is coming towards me and the panic returns. Am I actually going the wrong direction? But they get closer and call out: “we can’t find the trail!” Yikes. The area has become very rocky. We have a quick consultation and band together to find the way. Big rocks; darkness; no markers. We fan out looking for clues, picking our way along like this for about half a mile. I’m really glad there are other people here, because I would probably not be trusting my own assessment of whether I’m still on the course. Eventually we emerge onto a clear wider path, and everyone else speeds up. I can’t seem to get going any faster, and they disappear ahead of me. And now here I am, alone, in the dark.
I’m still having trouble going downhill, and it’s downhill pretty much all the way to Dry Lake. For a while people were periodically chugging up behind me and passing, but that has stopped. I’m in the woods now, and it has become unbelievably dark; the trail winds around all over the place, sometimes full switchbacks, sometimes just meandering. It’s incredibly disorienting. I have only a picture in my head of a course map that gives me a general idea of where I am. Occasionally I think I see another headlamp up above me — which would be someone behind me, which would mean that I am NOT the absolute last person — but after a few glances I realize that it’s the moon, momentarily peeking through the trees.
What, exactly, is the point of putting myself out here in this exceedingly shitty situation? I didn’t feel bad enough?
I’m attacked by moths. This is a new one. Since my headlamp is the only light for (apparently) miles around, the moths are flocking about me, fluttering right into my face. Great. Unless someone else turns up or I turn off my light, there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about this. So…I am out here in the completely bewildering darkness, the only human left on the planet, now being assaulted by insects. I can’t do this. Impossible. I have put myself in an unwinnable situation.
My faulty, unrealistic race plans have undermined the whole endeavor. And who created these plans? I did. The Dry Lake goals: was this delusional optimism, or a random mistake, or was it sabotage? Self-sabotage. Did I go to the considerable trouble and expense of getting myself to this place — not only this place on the course, but to the starting line, to Colorado in the first place — just to get out here in the dark, alone, probably lost, tired, hurting, assaulted by moths, without a glimmer of confidence or hope? WHY? I mean WTF? I had already concluded that I’ve been depressed and have let a lot of my life fall apart, and that I need to fix all that; I did not need to come here and do this to myself to clarify that. I can’t imagine how exhaustion and another gigantic failure is going to in any way alleviate depression. I’m furious with myself.
What, exactly, is the point of putting myself out here in this exceedingly shitty situation? I didn’t feel bad enough? I thought it would help, somehow, to prove publicly and beyond all doubt that I’m old and slow and weak and pathetic and just an enormous f**king LOSER? Was I secretly hoping to get lost in the dark and eaten by a mountain lion? WHAT THE F**K?
It is weirdly, incomprehensibly dark. Outer space dark. Hours later I am still somewhere in the forest, apparently in some sort of valley where even the moon is not visible, surrounded by moths but with no evidence that other humans exist within a 50-mile radius. I’m very tired, and in spite of my best efforts it seems I have not been eating enough, or enough of the right things, and my head is getting fuzzy — thoughts coming slower and less coherently, vision a little blurred. I’m gonna die now.
In addition to moths I have seen all manner of small creatures — mice, chipmunks, hopping bugs, squirrels, various birds — but I continually think I hear a big one coming up behind me, or catch a glimpse of some phantom beast just off the trail. This should be scary but I don’t feel anything. Resigned, maybe, or annoyed, or angry. When I bother to turn around and look, there’s nothing there. What the actual f**k am I doing out here? Even in my impaired state, I have a glimmer of understanding that I know the answer; that it’s in here somewhere and I’m stepping around it, avoiding it. Be careful. Dance.
It dawns on me that something about this — this exact situation: exhausted, lost, hurting, completely isolated in the dark — is what I came for. I wanted this? Or I believed that I needed this. But why? The suicide-by-lion thing? This strikes me as just ridiculous enough to be plausible, but now that it seems my only options are to keep going or die, I can confirm that I definitely don’t like option 2. I want to live. I don’t recall ever consciously doubting this, though. I can’t say suicidal thoughts have never crossed my mind in extremely depressed moments, but that’s something I long ago learned to observe and let pass. I absolutely do not want to die.
Okay, so, is this some sort of absurdly expensive, humiliating and exhausting exercise in life affirmation?
I’ve been out here in the dark-night-of-the-soul wilderness for eons. The sunny, happy, run along lovely trails with spectacular views and waterfalls — the one with lots of other people and smiles and encouragement and high-fives — seems like a distant memory. Years ago. I have no idea whether I’m even on the course anymore. It seems like I should have arrived at Dry Lake by now (or, you know, hours ago). I’m no longer even trying to jog; I’m just trudging along wondering what the f**k I’m doing here. Wherever here is. I hate this. I really just don’t want to do this anymore.
This seems like a major epiphany: I don’t want to do this! I just don’t! It is too hard, and I am too lame and pathetic and I somehow needed to be reminded of this, but now I remember: I suck, I can’t do this and I want to quit. As soon as I emerge from this accursed netherworld I am calling it: uncle! I give up! I QUIT.
The thing that tormented me about my recent Leadville DNF was the question of whether I had given up. I expect there to be low moments in an ultra (any race, really) and getting through those is a large part of what makes this sport rewarding and, I think, enlightening. You go deep and find your strength, and then the rest of your life is just a little bit easier to face. I had an assortment of physical issues over the past year, exacerbated by depression, that interfered with my training and made running difficult during the race, and I missed a cutoff — disappointing, but seemingly legit. And here, now, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of DNF, I am giving up. I’m quitting.
But even before I was off the Leadville course I was questioning whether I had, on some level, just quit. I did not consciously at any point just say f**k it, I’m done, but I did go from getting almost half way through the race well ahead of any previous attempt to drastically slowing and missing a cutoff. I had reasons — this inability to run downhill, for example — but I was not fully convinced that they were valid.
And here, now, I am quitting. Except I’m not — I can’t quit until I get to Dry Lake, whenever that happens.
Having made this decision, almost immediately I seem to be somewhat energized and moving faster, even jogging a little. Also, I’m feeling expectant, like something’s about to happen. Is this anticipation of quitting, something I have never actually done in a race or, come to think of it, anything else? I’ve failed, sure. I have changed course in the middle of things. I’ve left some projects unfinished, but always with the intention of getting back to them eventually. But I can’t recall a time when I was pursuing something I really wanted and, when it got difficult, just saying fuck it, I quit. But that (when I get to Dry Lake) is what I’m going to do. Because fuck it.
People think depression is just feeling really sad, but that’s not it. It’s feeling nothing.
This sense of anticipation is accompanied by a steady crescendo of emotion — painful emotion. I have begun to feel not just lost and defeated but frightened, abandoned, lonely, frustrated, betrayed, angry and incredibly, deeply, overwhelmingly sad, and all of these feelings hurt. The pain is awful, intense, electric, and I feel it, and I gradually realize that I haven’t felt like this — any of this — for a very long time. I have thought about these feelings, but I have not felt them.
People think depression is just feeling really sad, but that’s not it. It’s feeling nothing. Maybe physical pain, but not really any emotion. It’s numbness. Depression is kind of like being frozen: nothing touches you, nothing moves you, it’s impossible to genuinely interact with the world. So now I’m feeling, and it’s horrible, but also it’s not — I don’t want to feel this pain but I do want to feel. I guess this is the storm I’ve been expecting. It hurts and it’s a relief — an excruciating relief.
I’m starting to hear voices — not crazy, in my head voices, but actual other people out there somewhere, maybe not that far away. My sojourn in the underworld is coming to an end. As is my race, I guess, and my life as I know it: I am emerging from this darkness a quitter…or a soon-to-be quitter, when I get to Dry Lake. I’m almost there. There’s a big rabbit-shaped sign with an arrow: an unequivocal course marker. I am not lost.
I climb up and emerge on the gravel road that I turned off of several lifetimes ago, before the sun went down, before I had feelings, before I was a quitter. The aid station is just up ahead. I’m in all kinds of pain, and yet suddenly a little reluctant to get there. Because when I get there I am dropping out, and…well, I don’t want to. But…I mean…don’t I? I don’t know, now. Emotions are crashing around in me like waves. I’m a mess.
I’m expecting some sort of dramatic reception, but when I arrive the volunteers just check me in and point me towards the food. Where is the authority I am here to kneel before, the representative of this race to whom I can surrender? I croak out something about a chair, and the very kind woman in the food tent hands me an assortment of snacks and directs me to the next tent over. I plunk myself down and look around. There is no Race Overlord here to declare me an Official Quitter. Everyone in the tent is a runner with their crew gathered around them, aiding and encouraging and cheering. Some of these runners are stragglers like me, and some are already on their return journey back up to Summit Lake and to the finish, fully 25 miles ahead of me. I feel invisible.
All of a sudden, I start to cry. Not discreet muffled sniffling, either — I’m doubled over in the chair, face in hands, weeping. Sobbing. Wailing. I can’t remember the last time I cried like this — really cried. Raging storm. I don’t exactly know what I’m crying about, but clearly it isn’t the race. I just have to get this out. It’s like I’ve had a toxic splinter in my foot for months and months, festering, so deep that the skin has healed over it and I don’t even know it’s there, except there is vague unidentified pain and my every movement has been mysteriously impaired. I’ve been rubbing and scratching at it, on and off, but mostly just going about my life hindered by pain, and now finally I have cut open the flesh and dug in there and pulled that thing out. This is hideously painful and also an absolutely enormous f**king relief.
No one is paying any attention to me at all. I don’t know if people are being solicitous or just don’t notice me here, alone, blubbering in the chair. After I don’t know how long I start to get myself together. What now? I am overhearing the group next to me giving a pep talk to their runner. You have plenty of time, they say. It’s only six miles to Olympian Hall, and the cutoff is almost 3 hours from now. This group immediately hustles their guy off to the trail, and I consult my watch. It’s just after 11:30. It has occurred to me that it would be unforgivably lame of me to drop out before I’m even half way through the race, and I’m only a little past Mile 45. I’m also inexplicably kind of into the idea of prolonging this dark-depths-of-my-soul experience. And anyhow, there doesn’t seem to be any opportunity here to drop out, so…
I am DOING THIS! All of a sudden I am totally going to finish. Not quitting. Quitting is not an option. It was never really an option.
I’m back out on the trail before I really arrive at a decision; maybe I decided that I’m going to finish this race, or maybe that I will quit at Olympian Hall, but once I’m moving I’m consulting my watch, calculating and planning. If I can get back to Dry Lake by 7:30…I start calculating backwards from 8:00 PM tomorrow, the final cutoff, which is a full 20 hours from now. TWENTY HOURS — this seems like plenty of time. This is more than half of the 36 hours allowed for the whole race. I am DOING THIS! All of a sudden I am totally going to finish. Not quitting. Quitting is not an option. It was never really an option. WTF was I even thinking?
The fact remains that I can’t seem to run downhill. But after the initial steep descent, the trail is gently sloping downwards and not too rocky or technical — that is, it’s easy, or should be, even in the dark. But I can’t run. For a while I’m managing the occasional jog, but then it’s back to plodding, crying a little, suffering, and, eventually, giving up. As I currently figure it, I have to be in and out of Olympian Hall by 12:30 to make it to the finish by the cutoff, and I am clearly not going to be anywhere near there by then (let alone in and out). I can’t do this; I’m lame; I failed. I will drop out when I get there. It’s almost 12:30 now.
The next thing I know, I have decided that as long as I can get to Olympian by 12:45, I can do it! I am elated! I jog for a while — I’m pumped! But after 15 minutes of this I am still not even in town, and the balloon deflates again. Loser. Can’t do it. You suck. Quit. Recalculate; burst of enthusiasm; difficulty; struggle; sufferfest; give up. This up-and-down, emotional meat grinder — I can do it! No I can’t! — repeats all the way to town.
I arrive on pavement at a low point. I suck and I’m totally giving up the second I get to this god-forsaken aid station. I will have done a respectable 51+ miles, and that’s going to have to be good enough. Given that I’m almost finished, I find myself jogging pretty easily through town, but slow to a walk as I get close to the park. I feel some reluctance to get there; quitting? Really? The volunteer at the check-in table warns me that I have only about 35 minutes before I have to be out of there. I just stand there, blinking at her. “I think…I’m…done?” I stammer; I realize that I’m not definitively dropping out but asking a question. Both she and her companion just wave me on, saying to go inside, warm up a little, get yourself together and get moving. I don’t argue.
Olympian Hall is an actual building: lights, heat, bathrooms — a whole different world. I sit on a bench and just stare at the floor. Now that I’m here the idea of quitting makes me queasy. I don’t want to quit, but…I have to? I am completely out of energy and out of hope. A kind volunteer comes over and asks what she can do for me and I can’t talk — my chin is quivering and when I try to say something it just sounds like a pathetic whimper. “I..think…done?” She ignores this with a brisk “let’s get some calories in you and get you back out there!” She gives me some broth; I drink it. She gives me quesadillas; I eat them. She gets my drop bag, and I start to rummage in it, not sure what I’m even looking for.
An acquaintance is there, volunteering or waiting to pace or done pacing; he tells me to hurry up and get back out there. I start to argue that I can’t run, and he argues back. I’m sure there’s no way I can get back here before the next cutoff, or that if I somehow do that there’d still be no chance of making the cutoff after that, and it suddenly hits me: it doesn’t matter whether I make it in time. That’s not the point at all.
NOT QUITTING. No f**king way. I have to TRY! Suddenly I can’t wait to be out there suffering in the dark. Suddenly — finally — the reality of voluntarily dropping out, when I am still conscious and can still move my legs, seems beyond abhorrent, something I can’t imagine having to live with. Something I am absolutely NOT DOING.
Immediately I am changing my socks and shoes, throwing on warm stuff, asking for help getting fresh batteries in my headlamp. I’m doing this. I’m out the door and hiking up the mountain two minutes later. I’m psyched. I’m motivated. I power through several miles of brutally steep climbing with much less difficulty than expected. This new part of the course meanders all around and goes on forever, with several parts where I again think I’m lost. Daylight has begun to return, and I start to get discouraged, but eventually I get back to the mini aid station at the top of the mountain. I’m relieved — I have a full 90 minutes to get back down to Olympian, and it took me less than an hour to get up here.
I have to go down a different way, though. This trail has a much gentler slope to it and I can kind of jog, on and off. It goes down, switchback after switchback, so many that I think I must be almost at the bottom. But no: more switchbacks — long ones — each one barely seeming to get me any lower. When there’s a glimpse of the view it’s clear that I’m still WAY up on the mountain. I start to jog faster. Every time I go around a corner and the trail goes back the way I came rather than down, I speed up a little. I’m getting angry. Where the f**k is this trail going? I need to get back down there. But nope: back and forth, back and forth. I have 45 minutes to make the cutoff, but I feel like I’m running in place.
I’m actually running, though — not jogging, running. I have become increasingly enraged as the trail wandered every which way but down. A guy behind me calls out that I’m doing great, I look so strong! He’s on a mountain bike. I don’t know if he’s a random cyclist or race personnel, or if I’m imagining him, but he’s very encouraging. I need to get back to Olympian Hall by 7:00, and I have no idea how much farther I have to go. The fact that I’m running now, along with the one-man cheering section behind me, has boosted my confidence immensely. I am going to finish this race! I can do this! But the trail goes ever on and on — back and f**king forth — and the bottom is nowhere to be seen. FINALLY there are sections of trail that go straight down for a little ways before switching back, and FINALLY I catch a glimpse of town. I’m definitely getting close, running hard, bombing down the mountain. It feels good.
It’s almost 7:00. The bike guy yelled helpful things about how great I’m doing — I’m awesome! I’m killin’ it! — but it’s becoming clear that I’m not going to make it. I’m not stopping, though. I’m so glad to be running. And not crying! I follow the course markers and the guy disappears. I’m running as fast as I can, slowed only by a couple of very confusing places where it’s not clear which way to go. It’s 7:00, but maybe if I’m close enough they’ll let me keep going. I finally emerge into the park at the bottom. I still have to go about a quarter mile to reach the check-in, and I sprint the whole way. Maybe they’ll let me go on, but I at least want to get credit for the whole 65+ miles I have run.
The bike guy is there at the check-in table, talking to the aid station captain, apparently speaking on my behalf. I gallop up to the table, probably looking a bit crazed, spluttering about credit. The station captain stands up and speaks soothingly, like I’m a possibly vicious stray animal, saying of course I get credit, and I look great, and she sees I “still have fuel in the tank,” but… I missed the cutoff. She gives me a hug. I’m disappointed, but I’m not upset. Actually, I’m exhilarated. I crushed that last part, and I’m positive that if I were allowed to continue I could go the whole distance.
And now I know why I’m here.
I needed to strip away all my avoidance and my bullshit defenses and hammer through the numbness and feel my feelings — dig that splinter out — and I did. And now I know that I didn’t give up in Leadville. I came closer here, but when it came down to it I did not drop out. I didn’t quit. I wasn’t able to go fast enough and I didn’t make it the whole way, but I didn’t quit. I get it now. I got what I came for.
I manage to remain competent long enough to catch a ride and collect my clothes from the finish area, but as I climb the steps to my second-floor condo, fatigue starts to overwhelm me. I feel like I’ve been injected with a powerful sedative. I wake up sometime in the afternoon with kind of a Rip Van Winkle feeling, like I’ve been asleep for years and the world is a strange new place. The room is a mess. I vaguely remember blundering around trying to wash myself and get in bed sort of like it was a hideously drunken episode, and I’m perplexed by the magnitude — the intensity — of my exhaustion. I had been ready to go another 12 hours, cover another 40+ miles, and yet I was so completely drained I could barely get out of the bathtub. I’m amazed by the sheer voltage of emotion; the energy required to think and feel and function and just get through the day, even without moving at all.
Running 100 miles is easy compared to a lot of the challenges life throws at you. When you do something physically taxing, like running in the mountains, and then rest and sleep, your body recovers. But when your brain is strenuously battling every glimmer of emotional response to anything, it does not get a break until the battle is over. Day or night, awake or asleep, the battle will rage on until you surrender — admit defeat; experience the feelings, all of them. I had a critical case of emotional exhaustion.
But now I feel great — incredibly refreshed, in fact. The poisoned sliver is out; the healing has begun. I get myself up to the finish line to get some food and cheer runners in. Watching people finish makes me a bit wistful but not sad. Of course I’d rather be trotting down the mountain and crossing that line, but I know now that coming here was not about finishing this race. I already have that buckle. I came to reaffirm that I will always keep trying and not give up, even in my lowest moments. I’m glad I did, because stumbling around in the mountains all night has not magically cured my depression. There will be other battles. There will be more low moments, probably lots of them, probably for the rest of my life. There will be more pain, and it will hurt, and it will be hard, and I will get through it and keep going. I know I can do this. Quitting is not an option.
