Doing an Ultramarathon Wei'd my Wussy
What 31 miles on foot taught me about pain and friendship
Sages, I don’t run.
I don’t like it. Frankly it sucks. But sometimes it’s based to do a shitty thing on sheer principle.
So I asked 3 friends to sign up for a 50k (31mi) race with me.
We had 3 months to train.
I’ll spare you the details. As you might expect, I went wuwei on my training and entered the race unprepared. I did train, and chanted plenty of om mani padme hums while walking and running, but just not nearly enough for what the task demanded.
The first 12 miles were child’s play. I then hit a series of progressively higher walls.
Mile 15: “still feeling alright but oh fuck I have to do another 15+ miles??”
Mile 18: “I really really want to walk” *walks* (could still run though in hindsight)
Mile 26.2: *celebrates the marathon mark, feelin alright*
Mile 27:
...
Mile 27: *everything stops functioning*
I got delirious. Nausea set in. I thought I couldn’t run before, this time I couldn’t *walk*. I had to hobble a few steps, squat down to rest, get up and hobble more. I tried to run, my knee threatened to explode itself. I looked to the sky and trees and they wobbled the exact way they do when on shrooms. Walk sit walk sit walk sit.
Mile 28: *eats 3 Totino’s pizza rolls at the aid station, nausea cured*
Mile 28-30.5: *in the tank*
This was the part that people talk about. The part where I literally couldn’t walk, and yet I walked. The mile 27 wall was 10 times higher than any wall I’d hit during training. I was in fully uncharted territory. Past the limits I thought I had, and past the new limits I thought I had after passing those limits.
My body and mind howled. With each step I fantasized about taking an Uber 1 mile down the road, and wondered if anyone would catch me in the act.
Every ounce of social decorum left my body. I simply stared at the ground and stayed upright. People passed. At some point I started chanting om mani padme hum out loud. The vibration permeated my being. It was one of the most comforting sounds I’ve ever heard. I was returned to the womb. The near-freezing wind sliced my bones to the marrow.
Mile 30.5: *finish line in sight, can somehow run again, friends and fam all waiting*
Sages, even the highest wall eventually came down. It lasted for about an hour. With hindsight I can now see that I probably still could’ve run. The final wall was composed mostly of 1 pain/fear: “my knee is going to blow up”.
But my knee didn’t blow up. It didn’t even hurt the next day. Of course this is a blessing, but even if it HAD blown up, that’s another wall. It would have healed eventually. The wall felt so real, yet still it was negotiable.
~
Sages, that dang ol’ Booder realized something: life has a lot of painful things. Pain is coming. It is always coming. Everyone will die.
One Way through this condition is to voluntarily expose ourselves to pain for the sake of a lofty goal. The Zen vros figured this out. Zazen sucks ass. It’s painful. But they do it for the sake of experiencing reality and liberating all sentient beings.
By choosing when and how we experience pain, we can build a relationship with it. We can watch and learn how it arises and how it falls. That way, when pain is thrust upon us from the outside world, we already know its contours and patterns. Pain will always be pain; whether we push it away or run from it or accept it fully is within our control. It can be microdosed. It can be exposure-therapy’d.
This endeavor wasn’t very wuwei of me (though in a way it actually was). But I learned many things. I chanted 50x more om mani padme hums than I otherwise would have. Still, whenever I walk, it plays in my head almost without effort. This alone is worthwhile. I got to see my friends do something they were afraid to try.
Lastly, I’d like to say that I wouldn’t have been able to do this without my friends. Two immediately said yes, which made me think it might actually be possible. I asked the third and could see the wheels turning: “Could I really do something like that?”
He then said “I had wanted to try doing a marathon at some point...” But why not now? Why not more than a marathon? I’m grateful to have been a catalyst for them to express what was always already there. And I’m grateful to have seen them materialize that potential directly. I’m very proud of them for doing something difficult, impressive, and worthwhile.
Without these admirable friends alongside me, nothing would’ve happened. When Buddha said “admirable friends are the whole of the path”, I don’t think he was memeing.
Half of me is proud of this accomplishment, half of me absolutely hated it. I still “don’t run”, still don’t like it. Despite my feelings, it was still fruitful and still worthwhile. Perhaps there will be more in the future.