When It Feels Too Hard
What ultrarunning can show us about life with chronic illness.
Tonight, a group of 100 runners will start the Badwater 135. As the name suggests, they will run 135 miles from Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park — the hottest, driest, and lowest point in North America — to the base of Mt. Whitney at over 8,000 feet. It will take most of them between 30 and 45 hours to reach the finish line.
I’ve been following this race for years, watching live on Instagram each July as participants come through the various checkpoints. Recently, I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of other ultramarathons, including a crazy race called the Dead Cow Gully, where last year’s winner ran 495 miles.
What’s so fascinating to me about watching these races isn’t the physical feats, though the capability of the human body is astounding. It’s how these events condense and amplify our everyday human experiences — and what that shows us about facing anything that feels challenging, including chronic illness.
Watch an honest account of someone running one of these races, and you’ll inevitably see a point where they feel broken and defeated. Where it all seems too hard, and the uncertainty and the unknowns and the time stretching out before them feels unbearable. You’ll hear them say, “I can’t keep doing this,” or “I don’t think I have it in me to keep going.” Sometimes there are tears.
And then something shifts. Maybe the sun comes up, or the wind dies down. A different thought pops into their head, and you can see their demeanor change. The physical, practical challenges suddenly feel a little more doable. Usually they’re still talking about how much everything hurts or how far there is left to go, but for some reason it now looks like something they can handle.
It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago, as I was watching Michelle Khare full-body sob through her sixth of seven marathons during The Great World Race, that I’ve had the same experience she was having — lots of times. I bet you have, too.
Maybe that’s a bold claim. After all, I’ve never run more than a few miles at a time. But the way I see it, it’s not the circumstances that matter, because we don’t experience our circumstances directly. We experience everything through our own thinking in the moment. And when we’re in a low mood, whatever challenge we’re facing feels unbearably hard and overwhelming. That’s true whether you're navigating a new diagnosis, enduring painful symptoms, or running 7 marathons in 7 days.
And when our thoughts shift, that heaviness lifts and things feel easier… even if nothing else has changed. What I love about these race videos is you can see that happen in real time. You can see nothing change and everything change in the course of a few minutes. It’s visual proof that when things feel hopeless or unbearable, it’s not a statement about the future. It’s simply a reflection of our current state of mind — and it’s always changing.
I recently watched an episode of Kara and Nate, in which Nate was running the aforementioned Dead Cow Gully. The race consists of a 4-mile loop through a cow pasture that participants run each hour, until there’s only one person left standing. After about 40 miles, Nate said he was quitting the race… but Kara refused to let him. She knew that he was in a low mood and not thinking clearly. She convinced him to do one more lap, promising he could quit then if he still wanted to. And during that lap, his mood shifted. What looked impossible an hour before suddenly felt at least somewhat doable. He ended up running another 110 miles before finally tapping out.
To be clear, what’s important here isn’t finishing the race. It’s not about “pushing through the pain” or “mind over matter.” If Nate wouldn’t have run another step, who cares, really? The point is that when his mind was certain he could not continue, he actually had another 100+ miles in him. The thought, “I can’t handle this,” is not a reliable measurement of what you can handle.
It’s often really hard to see that for yourself when you’re in it, and I’ve noticed that what makes the majority of these races possible is the runner’s crew. Yes, they do the practical, vital things like provide food and fluids, check for injuries, pace the runner, etc. But it seems to me that one of their most impactful contributions is recognizing the doubt and fear of low moods, and gently speaking truth to them instead of treating them as factual or permanent. Like Kara did for Nate.
Can you imagine if she’d said, “Yeah, you’re right, this is too hard; it’s horrible, in fact, and it’s probably going to get worse. Do you know all of the ways this could go terribly wrong? And, oh, did you hear what happened to that other guy?”
Maybe that sounds silly, but if we’re comparing this to chronic illness, that’s what is happening all the time in Facebook groups and Reddit threads and places people go for support when they’re feeling defeated or overwhelmed by a diagnosis. (So be mindful of who’s crewing you!)
Now what Kara also didn’t say was, “Everything happens for a reason, you know! Just think positive! Look on the bright side, at least it’s not worse!”
Both of those extremes miss the truth of the present moment: right now, you’re in a low mood, and you have a busy mind, and this feels unbearable. At some point, that mood will shift, and your mind will clear, and it will feel different. When there’s a decision to be made, you’ll make it. When there’s an action to be taken, you’ll take it. For now, there’s nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other and have whatever experience you’re having.
Having spent the last 22 years navigating gastroparesis and even longer than that dealing with anxiety and panic, nothing has been more helpful than deeply knowing “this, too, shall pass.” Not because the circumstances will change (who knows about that?), but because I’ve seen that thought is constantly in motion and a different experience is always one thought — or sometimes one mile — away. 💖
I needed to read this today. Thanks for sharing. It really helps to reframe, regroup and realize we are stronger than we think.