I understand the appeal. I spent years competing in some of the world’s most difficult endurance races, finding satisfaction and eventually a professional career in seeing how far I could push myself. But as more runners test their limits, I hope they’ll also ask themselves what they need those achievements to prove. For me, winning became a way to feel worthy of love. Every finish line offered reassurance that lasted only until I started worrying about the next race.
Divorce and my parents’ own troubled upbringings made my childhood difficult. As an adult, I can now see that my parents were unable to provide the safe, nurturing, and stable environment a kid deserves.
As a teenager, I was desperate for the attention I rarely received at home. My grades were good, but not scholarship level; I was on the cross-country team and acted in school plays, but was never the standout star in either.
At 15 years old, I watched my mother train and complete her first marathon. I was mesmerized. Maybe I could win her affection by doing what I’d seen her do.
The ensuing media coverage was much more than I expected. To be honest, I loved the attention. Suddenly I felt seen by my mom. Again, I wanted more.
Soon I was flying across the world, competing in 200-mile races, and living the life of a professional trail runner. It was everything I could have hoped for: the attention, the praise, the pre-race interviews, and the post-race adulation. And yet a part of me knew that if I didn’t win every race I entered, the worthlessness that I’d kept at bay for so long would drown me.
Just like that, my professional running career was over, and with it went my path to validation. I had lived my whole life up to that point working for my worth; it was never inherent. If I couldn’t achieve results, who was I? Did I even exist? How could I be loved without having earned anything?
Through intensive dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), medication, and an inpatient program, I curbed the more life-threatening aspects. DBT taught me awareness and the skills of emotional regulation. Later, lifespan integration and internal family systems therapy helped bring the roots of my childhood trauma to light and ultimately helped me place the hurt and shame back to their origin with my parents.
This lesson was never screamed at me. I was never explicitly told that I wasn’t enough. Instead, this anxiety whispered, quietly and convincingly, within me. It was the shaking hands of my 15-year-old self racing his heart out for the love of an absent parent. It was my 19-year-old self, slapping himself to keep going and push harder up the climb because some nebulous time or position would merit the love I never felt.
I could hear my internal voices more clearly than ever and separate myself from it all a bit more. Eventually, I hired a running coach who, in addition to my wife, helped support me entering into shorter distance events that I’d eschewed early in my career. Not being a short-distance specialist, I’d been afraid to enter races I probably couldn’t win. Now I tried them anyway, and I had fun.
Looking back on my career and with the perspective of both age and a tremendous amount of work, I’ve asked myself if I could have reached the same heights without that feeling that I need to win to be worthy of love.
What I’d like to do is go back to my younger self and be there for every track meet, every race, no matter how well I performed. I’d tell myself, “I love you no matter what happens here today. There is nothing to prove. This is just a race.”
If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental-health crisis or contemplating suicide, call or text 988.
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