Resilience

When the going gets tough, just keep going.

Have you ever been deep into a difficult run and thought to yourself, what the hell am I doing out here? Your legs hurt, your hands are cold, there’s something rubbing the back of your foot like sandpaper, irritating your heel with every step. 

For a lot of people, that’s an easy question to answer. They wouldn’t be out there at all. Running is too hard, too much work, too cold, too hot, too uncomfortable. We’re different. We’re out there because we love it, yes, but we’re also out there specifically because it’s hard. 

“Builds character,” is my default response when people ask me why I run the way I do, and a lot of times I don’t feel the need to explain that any further. You either get it or you don’t, and whether you run or not is immaterial. We’re talking about resilience.  

Brad Stulberg @BStulberg

7 resilience factors: 1. Strong community 2. Ask for help when you need it 3. Rest when you're tired 4. Get going—mood follows action—when you're stuck 5. Patience—can't force turn-arounds 6. Self-compassion (hard to be human) 7. Tragic optimism (this sucks, but here's hope too)

I’ve been thinking a lot about that word lately, mostly because I’ve spent the last few days staring at a blinking cursor on top of an empty page, not entirely sure I want to write anything for the newsletter this week. Those first two factors Stulberg mentions: community and asking for help are why I’m here. 

If you have good thoughts in your heart, please direct them toward an incredibly special person in my life who is undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous mass sometime later today. If all goes well, the chemotherapy starts next week. If you have any more positive energy to spare, kindly direct it toward my son who was thrown off a horse during a riding lesson and broke his arm so severely it required several hours of surgery.

Running doesn’t solve these problems. It doesn’t make disease go away and it doesn’t heal broken bones. What it does is provide an escape, a way to get away from the problems of the world, whether they’re existential or all too real. Even if it’s only for just a little while, it’s something. 

Some people like to think that runners avoid problems by disappearing into the wild for a few hours, but that’s not it at all. What they don’t understand is running offers a way to meet challenges head on and deal with them on their terms. That rocky climb, that screaming quad, that annoying rubbing on the back of your heel … eff it, let’s go. There’s only one way out and that’s straight ahead, one step at a time. 

An ultrarunner friend of mine who has been through some harrowing stuff, likes to say that nothing lasts in an endurance race. No matter how you’re feeling -- be it pleasure or pain -- it’s all going to change, so don’t get attached to either emotion. The true measure of resilience is how you deal with those swings. Quite honestly, I’ve been all over the map the last few days, but I’m maintaining and that’s enough for now. 

I put together three of my toughest runs this week, each one grueling and unforgiving in their own specific way. That was part of my training plan before all this happened, and as the week went on it became important to knock out each and every one of them exactly as I had planned. I needed to do that, just as I needed to write these words. 

You want to know real resilience? It’s the person in the hospital finding moments of joy and optimism amid the most frightening diagnosis. It’s the kid with the broken arm, breathing deeply when it hurts, and saying, “It’s OK, dad. I can handle it.” 

That’s all I got for you this week. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.