The same beach

The last time I was here, I ran this beach every morning.

I was a few days away from running my first 50K.

Physically, I was ready.

Or at least as ready as I was ever going to be.

The miles were in the legs. The training was done. There wasn't much more fitness I could build in those last few days.

What I wasn't sure about was my head.

Could I actually do this?

That 50K wasn't just another race on the calendar. At the time, it felt like the biggest test I'd ever voluntarily put in front of myself.

I knew there would come a point on that course where being physically prepared wasn't going to be enough.

The legs would hurt.

The miles would get very long.

My brain would start giving me some very convincing reasons to stop.

And eventually I'd have to reach for something else.

Mental toughness.

I remember running this beach wondering whether I'd built enough of it.

A few days later, I got my answer.

I finished the 50K.

And something changed.

That first 50K wasn't my last.

Finishing it gave me the confidence to go looking for the next one. And then another. Eventually it led me to my first 50-miler—which is a whole other story.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like a guy who had run an ultra and started feeling like an ultrarunner.

I loved being part of that community.

Still do.

It's a strange collection of inspiring lunatics who voluntarily seek out distances that most sensible people would drive.

I wanted to be one of those people.

And that first 50K showed me that I was.

That's part of what makes standing on this beach now hit differently.

Because this was one of the places where I stood on the edge of that chapter without really knowing what was coming.

Now, years later, I'm back on the same beach.

And once again I'm thinking about mental toughness.

Except this time, I can't run.

And the battle is completely different.

A Different Kind of Hard

The injury is physical.

Oddly enough, that's almost the easy part to understand.

I've seen the doctors. I've seen the surgeon.

They can show me what's wrong. They can explain what needs to be fixed. There's a plan.

I like plans.

Fix this. Recover. Rehab. Rebuild.

Give me the plan and I'll do the work.

But they can't fix what's happening between my ears.

That's my job.

And I'm starting to realize that the mental toughness I needed to finish that first 50K isn't necessarily the mental toughness I need now.

Back then, toughness meant keep going.

Today, sometimes toughness means stop.

That's a hell of an adjustment.

The Mental Toughness I Understand

I've always been pretty comfortable with one version of mental toughness.

Push.

When you're tired, keep going.

When it gets uncomfortable, don't quit.

One more mile.

One more rep.

Get to the finish line.

I understand that guy.

I've spent years deliberately building him.

He's gotten me through ultras, Spartans, rides, workouts and plenty of other stupid things I've voluntarily signed myself up for.

I like that guy.

Which is probably why this version is so much harder.

Because mental toughness isn't always the ability to keep going.

Sometimes it's having the discipline to wait.

And I'm fucking terrible at waiting.

The Comparison Trap

Standing on this beach makes all of that difficult to ignore.

Last time I was here, I could wake up, throw my shoes on and run.

I didn't think twice about it.

Now I'd give a lot to run a pain-free mile.

Not 31 miles.

One.

Funny how quickly the goalposts move.

And I'm not comparing myself to the guy jogging past me on the beach.

I'm comparing myself to me.

The guy who was here last time.

The guy who ran this beach every morning and then went home and finished his first 50K.

The guy who took the confidence from that finish line and kept going.

It's very easy to look at him and think:

What the hell happened?

And if I'm being truthful, buried underneath some of the frustration is fear.

What if I don't get all the way back?

I don't spend much time entertaining that thought. That's not particularly useful.

But pretending it never crosses my mind wouldn't be honest either.

The difference is that I don't have to answer that question today.

I can't control that outcome today.

I can control what I do today.

Progress Is a Privilege

Injury has a funny way of changing your definition of progress.

When everything is working, progress means more.

Run farther.

Ride faster.

Lift heavier.

Finish the race.

Beat the time.

Find the next ridiculous thing to sign up for.

We almost expect progress.

Put in the work and move forward.

But I've started looking at that differently.

Progress is a privilege.

And it can look completely different from one day to the next.

Some days progress might be a 20-mile ride.

Another day it might be a rehab exercise that feels almost embarrassingly insignificant compared with what you used to be capable of.

And some days progress might simply be having enough discipline not to do the thing you desperately want to do.

That's still progress.

A pain-free mile used to mean nothing to me.

Today it would mean everything.

There's probably a lesson in that.

A New Kind of Training

So that's my challenge now.

The doctors can fix the physical problem.

Then I'll rehab.

I'll rebuild.

And, hopefully, I'll run again.

But nobody is going to hand me the mindset I need to navigate everything between here and there.

I have to train that myself.

And maybe that's what this chapter is really about.

Not trying to rediscover the mental toughness I had before.

Building a different kind.

Patience instead of urgency.

Acceptance without surrender.

Knowing the difference between discomfort that should be pushed through and damage that needs to be respected.

Finding the things I can do instead of constantly mourning the things I can't.

Learning to recognize small progress as actual progress.

That's the work now.

And the work hasn't stopped.

The work has changed.

There's a difference.

The Same Beach

Yesterday my wife took a photo of me standing at the edge of this beach looking out at the ocean.

There's nothing particularly remarkable happening in it.

I'm just standing there.

But I know exactly what was going through my head.

I was thinking about the last time I was here.

About those morning runs.

About wondering whether I had the mental toughness for what was waiting for me when I got home.

About that first finish line.

And everything it led to.

And about how different everything feels standing in exactly the same place years later.

Back then, the question was:

Can I keep going when everything in me wants to stop?

Now the question is:

Can I keep moving forward when moving forward doesn't look anything like I want it to?

I don't have the complete answer yet.

I'm still in this one.

The 50K taught me that I could suffer and keep moving.

More importantly, it gave me the confidence to find out what else I might be capable of.

This chapter is asking something different of me.

The beach is the same.

The challenge isn't.

Neither am I.

Years ago, I stood here wondering whether I had the mental toughness to keep moving when the miles got hard.

Now I'm learning whether I have the mental toughness to be patient when progress gets slow.

Different battle.

Different version of me.

Same responsibility.

Do the work that's in front of me.

Progress is a privilege.

And right now, I'm learning not to take a single bit of it for granted.

WE LEARN. WE ADAPT. WE EVOLVE.