When you’re out there for five or 6 hours, giving your best effort for that long, and there’s no cell service or people around you, there’s a point where your brain tries to bargain with you. Every five seconds, your brain tells you to quit. It screams at you for doing this, saying that you’d be better off in bed eating ice cream. You have to listen to these thoughts and at least consider them, because your body is in pain, you have dust in every crevice, and you just want to lay in bed. Non-runners see us do these really long distances and cannot fathom how we do this willingly and joyfully. They see the pain and the distance, but they don’t look further into the reason we do it.
Ultrarunners are trained to hear things differently. When we’re excited, we hear the cheering crowds, and we feel euphoria, while other people do drugs to feel the same way. When we’re tired, and it’s the middle of the night, we hear a stick break or a bunny in the bushes, and we feel as if our life is being threatened, so we move faster. When we’re about to finish a hard effort, and we put on our favorite, most motivating songs, we feel on top of the world. Additionally, we’re in tune with our bodies. We listen to our bodies telling us different things. Heartbeat, stomach growling, knees cracking, it all tells us something important, and we have the ability to listen. That’s something I don’t think non-runners would understand until they experience it.