The Strong Self Vs. The Weak Self

Last Saturday, I ran a 100-kilometer trail race in Malibu, CA called Sean O’Brian. For those of you who are metrically-challenged, 100 kilometers is about 62 miles. This was the farthest ultra I’ve attempted to-date, and I was nervous as I stood at the starting line, surrounded by about 200 equally insane trail runners.

Somewhere around halfway (31 miles), I had a small epiphany, a realization that may have been buried in my subconscious but that I’d never been able to put to words, because words are often lacking. Sanskrit speakers have the luxury of choosing from 96 different words for “love,” while us English speakers have…one. The desire to diminish our human experience and boil it down to something as simple as language is innate. We want to be able to express ourselves, but language is often not enough. This is why body language is important, why salespeople prefer in-person meetings to chatting over the phone or emailing. The human experience is nuanced, diverse, and constantly evolving.

Individuals too, are nuanced, diverse, and constantly evolving. The epiphany I had in the middle of the race was that running ultra marathons; being pretty much alone on trails for the better part of 12 hours, brings me a bit closer to myself, simply because I cannot hide. There are no distractions, there’s just me, my breath, and the natural world, humming away as if I…