There is a point where you transcend pain. Your body and your mind is amazingly capable of this. You just don’t know until you get to that point. And then it happens.
When you have been running for 8 hours and you are confronted by a 6 inch deep mud pit, and there is no way around, and the only path is through, your mind transcends. Your body transcends. Your being transcends.
It is not an insult. You don’t feel offended and wonder why someone would put a stinking mud pit in the middle of the trail at mile 45. You look at it and without breaking stride you push on through. You transcend.
That is what life is about. In the low patches, in the hard bits that is really where you learn about yourself and what you’re made of. Sometimes just to keep moving forward is a Herculean task in itself. But you must. Because to stop if leave a life unfulfilled.
Is it crazy to run a marathon? Maybe if you have never done it, but the biggest barrier is your mind. If your body won’t let you finish it is really your mind speaking to you through your body. You can do so much more and once you have done it you will wonder why you thought it was hard.
Is it crazy to run 50 miles? To complete an ironman? Yeah it’s all crazy but it is completely do-able the only thing in your way is the decision to try. And you may fail but in failing you will have learned where the edge is and you will have learned how to beat it. You will have moved the edge.
That’s not to say it doesn’t hurt. It’s supposed to hurt. Somehow in our culture we have been conditioned to see all pain as bad. I’m no masochist and I don’t seek out pain. I do however understand that the path through to success, even greatness is surrounded on all sides by some form of discomfort.
If you have never been uncomfortable have you really lived? If you haven’t pushed into the discomfort zone how do you know where the edge is? How can you say you have lived a life fulfilled?
I sit here and wonder about how my first ultra marathon was so easy. Why did I let it become a non—event? Where was the pyrrhic victory. The stuff of Gods? When I look at the pictures there is nothing heroic. There is a tired only man clutching a bottle and moving. That is my victory then, to be tired ans still moving.
You my friends are only bounded by your desire. You my friends are only bounded by your enthusiasm. You are only bounded by what you believe you can and cannot do. Make peace with the pain. Keep moving. Don’t listen to the naysayers who are afraid to try, who are so afraid of pain they don’t want you to try.
Do it for yourself, find your edge. And then run beyond it. Run over the edge. Because there you will transcend and find a strength that was always in you; You will become the shaman of your own inner hero. You will become God-like. Live my friends.