After almost 5 weeks off from running due to a left ankle injury, I’m finally back to it without any pain or issues so far. While 5 weeks doesn’t sound like very long, time slows down when you’re injured and trying not to hyperfocus on the things that you can’t do, even if only temporarily.

Dealing with an injury that halts you in your tracks and stops you from being able to do things that bring you joy is a lot like dealing with the loss of a relationship or loved one. It forces you into a grieving process, and in my case, the lows felt even lower initially, because the reality of the injury was combined with the natural lows experienced after completing a 100-mile endurance challenge.

Most fears in life are like that. We build things up to be far more difficult or scarier than they really are, and sometimes we let the fear cripple us and stop us from taking action. When we do this, we rob ourselves of experience and limit our lives in the process.

What I do know is that great things in my life keep getting better the longer I abstain from drinking, and the embarrassing missteps in my life are far less frequent. And I know that it's not worth the potential of messing up this progress just because I want to have a drink.

Ultrarunning brought us all together and created an environment for us to cut through the barriers of social awkwardness, opposition, and disconnect. Topics of politics, race, religion, or any other areas where we like to choose sides were nonexistent. 

I chose to press on despite the pain.

And I’m glad I did.

A few hours later, I was running down the mountain again, pushing way beyond what I thought was possible. I ran all the way through to the finish. 30 miles after I thought I was done.

FOMO. The fear of missing out.

This can be a real mental struggle for those who struggle or have struggled with addictions.

I’m coming up on 4 years of sobriety from alcohol, and recently I’ve found myself in a few scenarios where the urge to have a drink has become a real consideration.

It’s easy to get stuck in your head when dealing with grief, pain, and trauma. It’s so easy to feel alone. 

But I can guarantee that you’re not.

You need to find the strength to open up and talk about it. Even if it’s uncomfortable.

There comes a point in many ultramarathons where things get hard, expectations might change, and we feel like quitting. A lot of times this revelation occurs when we’re traveling uphill.

The same could be said about life.

It got me thinking about other areas where I’ve been unintentionally wasteful due to poor habits or by default. The leftovers in the fridge we toss a couple of days later because they got pushed to the back, where they are just out of sight. The time spent scrolling on social media when I should be doing things that are important to me.

So, anytime I’m feeling selfish or hesitant to give some of me to someone or something, it’s always a good reminder to take a good long look at the situation and possibly reconsider my approach. Maybe giving is the right thing to do, even when I don’t want to.

But, it’s also a good idea for us to audit our current opened tasks to see if there are some things we can scrap altogether to clear up some mental space. Not everything we start needs to be finished. But, until we take the time to discover what those things are, they’ll continue running in the background, draining us of our energy little by little.

Everything was going great, and our plans were shaping out just as I had expected.

Then we got to Carolina Beach State Park.

We parked down by the marina and found a trailhead nearby. The sign read, “Sugarloaf Trail - 1 mi”.

As I read these, I got goosebumps as an overwhelming sense of accomplishment ran through me. 

I’ve since run 100 miles in under 24 hours. We’ve traveled to many different places with our camper, and always seem to have a new adventure on the calendar to look forward to. And I was promoted at my company a few months back.

Let’s start with the good. I’ve been sober from alcohol for two years and seven months now, my work-life balance is better than it’s ever been, and I’m more involved in my daughter’s life than I could have ever imagined. I can’t express enough gratitude for these gifts—I’m very lucky.

Pretend that you are floating around on your boat, and the boat represents the journey of life you are currently on. And on this boat, you have a finite amount of fish bait that both whales and minnows love. You don’t know how much bait you have, but you do know that you’re going to run out eventually if you keep feeding all these fish.