"The Last Mile": Navigating the emotional toll of ultras
Ultras don't end at the finish line. They end when we've fully recovered—physically and emotionally.
We get handed a beautiful belt buckle and collapse in satisfaction when we cross the finish line of a long, grueling ultra… But the journey isn’t quite over.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and perhaps ironically, I’ve found myself navigating some tough emotions in the post-Canyons 100 weeks after the adrenaline wore off. As a sensitive, passionate person, it’s normal for me to have a “comedown” following something as major as a 100 mile race. I don’t think I’m alone in that!
Whether it’s post-race blues, adrenal fatigue, seasonal depression, injury, or any of the other challenges a lot of us face related to and beyond our running, it can be really hard to accept and address the low spots.
A recent conversation with my amazing therapist helped me reframe my struggle not as a necessary evil after an amazing race, but as part of the race journey itself—in the same way every single thing we do before toeing the start line is part of the experience.
In that moment, it clicked for me, and the concept of “The Last Mile” showed up. This final push, the post-race pain-cave, the fumbling return to normal—is another challenge we face, with the same compassion, curiosity, and grit we bring to all the miles before it.
Last week, I hiked along one of my favorite local trails as I talked to my therapist over the phone, telling her about all the weight I’d been feeling.
Work-this. Relationship-that. Friends-this. Life decisions-that. I’m exhausted, irritable, and sad.
I was out of breath by the time I finished listing my grievances, and I could already feel the shame creeping in. My life is so good, but for some reason I just felt completely gutted.
Her words of wisdom came through my AirPods as I stared out over Missoula, and I knew she was right:
“Morgan, I remember you telling me before Canyons that you knew to expect a big emotional blowback, and it sounds like you’re in that now. I think you “know” that’s what’s happening, but you don’t really know it.”
She helped me remember what I’ve learned since I started running ultras. These incredible, ridiculous, purpose-giving adventures—especially the really, really long ones—give me so much.
And, they come with a cost: My mental health suffers afterwards.
The “post-race blues”
I was pretty depressed for a couple months last year after the Bighorn 100—even with the Rut Trifecta and R2R2R to look forward to that fall. Mental and emotional suffering are not logical (if they were, I’d probably be out of a job 😉).
Of course my mental health always has ups and downs just like everyone’s, and I don’t attribute that long of a struggle to the race alone, but I know it was a contributing factor.
Sort of the inverse of “taper tantrums,” the “post-race blues” hit us when we’ve achieved a milestone goal, the adrenaline of victory and celebration has run out, and we’re left to return to normal—often without much sense of what that means in the post-race, post-training world.
David Roche describes the post-race blues in a 2021 article in Trail Runner Magazine:
It could be a combination of psychological principles, a type of post-achievement let-down where reaching a goal moment leads to a loss of purpose that manifests similar to other depressive episodes. ESPN described it as Post-Race Let Down, or PRLD. Google “post-achievement depression” and you’ll see 94,000 hits of people with similar experiences in wildly different parts of life.
Perhaps there is an evolutionary reason. You don’t want to get complacent after killing the antelope, because the lion could be coming any moment.
Maybe it’s biological. Hard events release the stress hormone cortisol, affecting homeostasis in the endocrine system.
It could be genetic, involving a family history of clinical depression. It could be hormonal, stemming from a lack of endorphins in the days following an event. Or it may just be a byproduct of trying to get by in a complicated world. If someone says they have all the answers, you probably shouldn’t trust them with your credit-card number.
It’s been just over three weeks since I crossed the finish line of the Canyons 100.
I knew recovery would take some time, but when I got sick a few days after traveling home—then tested positive for covid (for the first time ever!) exactly one week after the race—my sense of where my body was at and what it needed got derailed. I was bummed to have covid when I wanted to see and celebrate with my friends, but it was good timing for rest.
I spent that first week home doing next to nothing. When I felt better the next week, I hit the trails, elated to be running and biking through the fresh new wildflowers with some of my best friends.
And I felt surprisingly good. Tired—certainly coming back from 100 miles and covid—but good. And soooo happy.
Then last week, apparently out of the blue, I crashed—physically, mentally, and emotionally. My body, heart, and mind said “Nope” to everything, and I could feel my resiliency, patience, energy, and outlook deflate.
Running and moving still felt nice, if slow, but everything else was impossible.
Setbacks at work sent me into a tailspin, stress in my relationship felt catastrophic, mapping out the very busy next six months made me want to crawl into bed and hide, I found myself in tears left and right, and other normal life hurdles I’d usually take in stride felt like mountains to climb.
What I’d perhaps naively forgotten was that no matter how elated, strong, victorious, or invincible we may feel after completing 100 miles, these races take a toll that we can’t ignore.
And for me, that toll seems to be emotional even more than it is physical.
I think the hardest part is that it’s often by surprise we find ourselves in this place, too. Without notice, the last of the endorphins that had sustained us before, during, and after the race wear off and we wake up one morning thinking, “When did everything fall apart?”
Sounds kind of similar to the highs and lows in an ultra, doesn’t it? One moment we’re flying along the perfect downhill singletrack, belting Taylor Swift; and the next, we’re hobbling into an aid station wondering if we’ll make it to the next one in six miles.
Of course it’s easy to want to come back too soon after a big effort.
I definitely had a few friends give me the side-eye when I joined them for a run two weeks post-race😉😆, but I was confident with where I was at. What I lack in speed, I typically make up for in resiliency. But I’m still learning what my ideal recovery process looks like, both physically and emotionally (and adding covid to the mix didn’t help!).
Needless to say, it was really comforting to have my therapist remind me that this is an expected part of the race experience, and that I’ve been through it before.
She reminded me of the gaping purpose-hole that’s left when we finally catch the thing we’ve been chasing for months, whether it’s the antelope on the savanna, or the finish line. My mission was over, and my dopamine-depleted brain craved another.
And in that moment, on the phone, something clicked for me. My mission isn’t over.
This is part of the ultra experience… It’s the last mile.
I swear it was like trail angels sung the phrase straight in my sad, tired brain.
Taking the emotional fatigue and melancholy I was feeling and contextualizing it within the race experience that I love so much helped me bring strength, energy, and a sense of grit to my suffering.
It immediately covered the weight and sadness in love, compassion, and courage. It didn’t take the pain away, but it gave me a spark—a mission.
This is just another challenge wrapped up in the ultra-journey that I love.
Reenergized, I smiled and thought to myself, “I know how to make it through the low spots during a race. I can make it through this one, too.”
How do we navigate “the last mile”?
Just like we navigate any challenging mile of any ultra: With curiosity, patience, and compassion.
We’ve all been there: It’s mile 27, or mile 42, or mile 83, and we’re in the pain cave.
What do we do when our thoughts are turned dark, or our feet are covered in oozing blisters, or we haven’t kept down food in hours?
We stop, take stock of what we’re experiencing, evaluate it, and problem-solve.
Sometimes we need more salt. Or we need less salt. Maybe a short nap will turn things around, or it’s worth the wait at the medic tent to have our feet taped up. Perhaps we need some real food, or we’ve puked it all but but maybe we can stomach enough liquid calories to get to the finish.
We sift through tools and tricks that have gotten us through tough times in the past, asking ourselves, “What do I need in this moment?”
Sometimes, none of the tricks work and we don’t get the miraculous turnaround we hope for. So we adjust our expectations, and we take one small step forward at a time until something changes.
And the kinder we can be to ourselves, the better we are for it. Those are the moments we most need to lean in with love and compassion, and attune to the self within.
I think it’s similar in the post-race period.
We’ve been cruising on adrenaline and achievement, reveling in the experience of the race, when things shift. Maybe it’s sudden, maybe it’s more gradual. But sometime between the finish line and now, the spark faded and we went from elated to empty.
So… We stop, take stock of what we’re experiencing, evaluate it, and problem-solve.
Maybe we need more time with our friends, or maybe we need more food. Maybe we need to call our therapist, or make time for some naps until we’re caught up on sleep. What about starting the morning with a self-compassion meditation, or asking our partner or best friend to give us a little extra love the next few days?
And maybe, just like in races, there’s no “fix.”
So we control what we can, then we soften our expectations, hunker down, and move forward one step at a time, knowing that eventually things will change.
It might take one mile or one day, and it might take 20, but things turn around. And love, gentleness, and compassion will get us there faster than railing against the pain.
David Roche may not be a trained mental health professional, but he hit the nail on the head describing the infinite reasons many of us get sad after an ultra.
Is it that we depleted all our happy chemicals and fried the neurotransmitters that carry them? Is it the purposelessness that creeps in after achieving a life-dominating goal? Is it hormonal, genetic, evolutionary?
At the end of the day, we are complicated animals, with complicated inner experiences.
I called my parents last summer after Bighorn when I was really struggling. My dad, who’s gotten to know the ultrarunning world vicariously through me, said something that surprised me but I knew to be true:
“Morgan, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that running 100 miles must be kind of traumatic. I don’t mean that in a bad way, only to say I’m not surprised that you’re feeling this way. Your mind might need some time to recover just like your body.”
I do think that what we put ourselves through out there on the trail is traumatic in a cellular, literal sense. Of course it’s brutally fun, rewarding, and, yes, addicting. But it’s also deeply taxing on every level, especially when we’re newer to it.
We push to our limits and keep pushing more. We ask our bodies and hearts to give us more than is reasonable. And most of us do it not just once but over and over again.
We go into debt for the sake of experience, and we have to allow the space to rebuild before we make such a big withdrawal again. We must nurture ourselves back to fullness on all fronts, and for me, the mental and emotional rebuild takes longer than the physical.
Luckily, I do believe it gets easier every time—not only have our bodies learned how to repair from harder things, but our minds and hearts have been here before, too, and they know that it’s just part of the journey. It’s a stretch on the trail.
It’s the last mile.
And moving through this last mile, just as we’ve moved through so many tough miles before, makes us stronger, more resilient, and more grateful for the miles that come so easy and free.
I love this sport—and not because it’s straightforward and easy. I love it because it invites me to lean in, see myself in all my gnarled and complex humanity, and learn to love each part of the journey for better or worse.
To love myself enough to respond with compassion and curiosity, whether I’m celebrating or suffering. Because the only truth about ultras is that they’ll throw it all at us, and we get to decide what we do next.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, where we speak out, break the stigma, and advocate for a better collective understanding around the diversity of mental health experiences. If you’re experiencing something that feels heavy, overwhelming, or even scary, know you’re not alone.
Reach out to a trained mental health professional, or respond to this email and I’d be happy to help you find the right support.
We speak to so many runners on our podcast who sat exactly this. The post race/challenge blues are definitely real.
Love the framing of them as the last part of the race/run. Thanks for the post.