There comes a point in the journey where you no longer question what is possible and what you’re capable of… you realize that endurance is not something you build… it is something you uncover from the deepest ‘you’. Discomfort loses its meaning, and repetition becomes rhythm. You see how far you’ve come, and how much further the path stretches… yet no new strength is required. Only alignment… the quiet adjustment of mind to will and will to execution to proceed.
Most never reach this state. They are imprisoned, not by weakness of the body… but weakness of the mind. They lack the patience to meet themselves in repetition… the same humble ritual… day after day… year upon year. But once you pass beyond that undiscovered Conscious-Zone what we always refer to as the C-Zone, the body follows the mind as faithfully as a shadow. It never gives up… unless ‘you’ do.
And then at a certain point in life the question arises… what does it bring, this endless pursuit? At what point does striving become clinging? Perhaps it’s time to loosen the grip… to breathe… to rediscover the texture of life beyond the ultratrails we’ve ran so much. The knowledge remains… that deep ancestral pulse hidden beneath our modern comfort. During all this ultrarunning, that instinct awakened again. It is a form of sacred madness… a return to the primal animal survival instinct deeply rooted in our DNA which was deactivated by our ‘comfort society’ where survival is no longer a topic, food is displayed in the shelves of supermarkets where you can pick what you want, clean water comes from the tap in our houses and fire is instantly created by lighters or matches… after many… many generations it is the part in us that remembers how to survive that awakens… it keeps us moving forward when reason shatters.
But at this level of primal instinct, glory dissolves… recognition means nothing. You begin to witness yourself from a still point… as if consciousness had stepped aside to watch the body dance through fatigue when you keep on moving. Yiannis Kouros may have spoken of this… the strange clarity beyond exhaustion where he watches himself from above and guides his body forward.
So now the question changes. Continuing this ‘ultralife’ is not about distance, medals, recognition or proof. It’s about keeping that raw burning centre alive… without mistaking it for who you are. The danger is to believe that suffering and pain from running ultras gives you meaning… perhaps the next challenge isn’t another ultra or another few nights awake in the near hypothermic cold muddy rainy endlessness… maybe it’s learning to carry that same primal wild ‘you’ into tranquility to channel that relentless drive into living fully when there’s nothing left to fight for.
So now the question is… What if the true meaning of our existence begins not in the struggle or the conquest, but in what remains after… when the fight is over, when there’s no finish line left to cross, and we must face who we are in the quiet that follows?
You start to see that every stride was never towards a finish… but towards awareness. The ultra was never the test… it was the teacher that woke you up from The Matrix. Enjoy life and enjoy the time when you take a break at ‘the tree at the lake’.
As Alfred Tennyson ones said… “To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield”.
(A text once printed on a finishers shirt from the first edition of the 350 km Race Across Scotland).
Maarten
