At the starting line, I am whole. All of my energy is intact, and more than ever, I want to start running. I still control all dimensions of myself: my competitor – the side that controls my power and ability – along with my realist – the side that taunts me to quit at each aid station. But then there is me – the character who keeps my legs pumping and my heart beating. She is the person who remains when I am stripped down to my core; she is ultimately the one who gets me to the finish line. My legs are electric, buzzing with stored energy, my stomach in knots and my mind is deafeningly busy, yet utterly vacant at the same time. The tension in my muscles amplifies the voices in my head to compete for attention. I hear whispers of encouragement and advice, mixed with tempting hisses that remark how happy I would be if I bailed now. Cold crisp bed sheets would feel heavenly. But the part of me that is purely me and has absolute control over my limbs knows what to do. And she doesn’t listen to the other two. All she has to remember to do is to run – and keep running – for a long, long time.


The first few miles are wonderful. The only thought I even allow myself to consider is how blissful everything is – how comfortable my shoes are, how powerful my legs feel, how perfectly my spine is aligning with my hips, down to my toes. I have completely surrendered all control to my legs, allowing my mind to enjoy this temporary sedation. I simply smile at the people I pass, and those who pass me, letting the beat of the music erupting from my earphones dictate my speed. After a mere ten miles, my muscles tighten a little, but I mute any thought of complaint, eager to feel fresh again. I muffle any talk of slowing down by turning up my iPod so loud that music fills me, pushing away my two alter egos and leaving the work to just me and my limbs. But when the rhythms starts to repeat, the melodies are no longer motivating, but rather stifling, and I reach up and free my ears of the earphones. I breathe in the crisp air and take a few miles to listen to myself – my footsteps, my thoughts and, of course, my battling selves.


My competitor and my realist are very talkative. It is difficult to mute them, as they tend to argue, and the volume escalates often – especially on hills. My competitor sees the runners ahead of me and tells my arms to pump harder and my legs faster. Meanwhile, my realist attempts to slow my heart and restrain my legs until they are dragging up the hill. However, my third persona, me, somehow trumps the gaggle of chattering girls who can never find peace, keeps my foot turnovers consecutive, even and often, and focuses my mind on nothing but my next step forward. Freeing my thoughts from my restricting, overpowering alter egos is a constant battle. But eventually, as my feet continue to consume mile after mile, listening to me becomes a little easier.


By mile twenty, my realist has worn herself out, and she allows me to sink into a steady pace. My limbs are tight, but my competitor still has enough energy to push me up the hills and ensure that I take advantage of the occasional plateau. There is no way to stop between aid stations, as that would leave me stranded, so my realist’s only hope of victory happens in a brief window, every five miles. Once I get to the long awaited aid station, my fatigued realist mutters defeated persuasions to stop, but I push past the stations quickly enough to keep her far behind me, struggling to keep up. The hot sun and the vicious inclines try to wring me of every last drop of energy, but I squeeze electrolyte fluid into my mouth and will it to rejuvenate me, as my legs resume their cadence. The racers have spread themselves across the course, no one speeding up for the purpose of beating another (the course is much too long for that kind of motivation), but rather because their bodies tell them they should, and likewise for slowing down. By mile thirty, the element of competition is completely eliminated, leaving each individual on the course running with one sole purpose: to reach the finish line. I have the footprints in the dirt in front of me to assure me that I am not alone, but that’s it – I have no other way to know.


When mile forty-one rolls around, I am beaten. I no longer hear the hissing of my realist, but my competitor is gone too. Occasionally, I hear their weak whispers when I struggle on a flight of stairs or a hill, but my mind is now truly empty. I begin to hunger for my alter egos, as I feel cold without them. I can feel little pieces of my hair stick limply to my damp face, and more than ever, my shoelaces seem suffocating. I run those last nine miles as hard as I can (which at this point is not very hard), embodying the simplest form of myself. Shedding my layers, I can see exactly what lies beneath the sides of me that so often cloud who I am. All that remains at that moment is a body. A body with powerful legs and arms, and indomitable will. That is what ultra running does for its disciples. In a world in which a person’s alter egos are so mentally dominant, seeing oneself in his/her simplest form provokes a clarity of mind unattainable to most. When all of the voices in my head quiet and all of the people around me have vanished, all I really have are my limbs and the footsteps on the ground in front of me. And my peace. I am a machine, calmly swallowing the space that separates me from the finish line. The engine within me makes each step almost identical to the last, and transforms an exhausted body into an unstoppable machine. It is at that moment, well that next hour, as I hammer out those last few miles, that I become truly happy. All facades and pretense are gone: it is just me and the sheer physical ability to run fifty miles.