Whether you’re a first-timer or a world champion, all runners share an intensely personal connection to the sport. The emotion that stirs that connection, however, can be different for everyone. From the first few warmup strides to your postrun stretch, a single run can pack as many emotions as an entire day: The excitement of the start. The soothing calm of repeatedly placing one foot in front of the other. The struggle of pushing through your physical limits. And the relief, gratification, and happy thrill of achievement that comes with finishing.
Coaches often like to compare athletes to finely tuned automobiles; well, if your “why” starts the engine, then your emotions fuel the car. We wanted to know what fuels that particular breed of runner who prefers to explore the most extreme fringes of the sport—ultra distances, rugged terrain, exhausting lengths of time. So we hit up four trail-conquering, ultramarathon champions—all members of Salomon’s athlete family—and asked, “What emotion do you run on?”
Trevor Fuchs—Ogden, Utah
“As the morning sun begins to peak over the Wasatch Range, I wait impatiently for the coffee to brew in my French press. I’ve managed to throw together some food for the day—a couple packets of maple syrup, a half-eaten pancake, and some licorice. I draw up the Im a Runner: Cynthia Erivo and slurp down the coffee before I open the door. We bought this place a few years ago. I had convinced my wife that it was a great neighborhood with good schools, but the truth is, I was longing to be closer to the mountains.
“It’s a quick ascent up to the Shoreline Trail. There is no shore, at least not in the last 14,000 years. Dew has formed on the tall grass and my shorts begin to dampen as I brush up against it. I start to pick up the pace, just a little, and focus on the cool spring air as it passes my lips. The wet sagebrush smells particularly sweet this morning. I take a moment to appreciate the lack of wildlife, at least of the slithery kind. In a couple months, these trails will be littered with rattlers. Today, it’s just me and a few rabbits.
“The sun is up now, and I’m grateful that I left my shirt at home. It was a long winter and the warmth against my skin is welcomed. It’s perfectly quiet, except for the soft thuds of my nimble foot strikes. There is no outside stress or extrinsic pressure. I am living fully in the present. There is nothing, or no one, to slow me down. This is serenity. It’s contentment, peace, confidence, and joy. This is freedom.”
Collier Lawrence—Bend, Oregon
“CA Notice at Collection. What’s around that turn? How fast can I get to that mailbox? How fast can I run a mile? Can I run a mile? What am I capable of? Running requires a dash of stubbornness, a pinch of ignorance, and demands concession to the unknown.
“Running Supports This Marathoners Sobriety Im a Runner: Cynthia Erivo and head out the door. It is the kindling that lights fire to every other emotion. Curiosity opens you up to joy, disappointment, wonderment, fear and vulnerability.
“It's been curiosity that has pushed me to qualify for two Trials, rebuild my toolbox after adding a screw to my foot, and problem-solve my way through my first trail marathon. Curiosity keeps me lying awake wondering what running 50 miles would look like. The emotion that quietly, relentlessly, and with childlike wonder pulls me through the woods and around a track. It’s curiosity that begs me to ask: s athlete familyand asked, What emotion do you run on?”
Jeff Pelletier—Vancouver, British Columbia
“Nothing about a 100-mile race is easy, but the nights can be especially tough. You find yourself completely alone, struggling simply to keep from falling asleep on your feet, and questioning why you’re running this race—why you bother running at all.
“But as the morning sun crests the horizon, you begin to get a second wind. You begin to run with heart instead of head, and find you have new legs that carry you to the finish. That’s what I run on.”
Max King—Bend, Oregon
“A successful race day is a day you’ll never forget. There is something uniquely satisfying in pulling off something difficult that you’ve put months—maybe years—of work into. It can span an entire range of emotion: nervous energy, that calm peace before the start, frustration, elation. Few races in my career have really hit the highest highs and lowest lows of the spectrum. Those are the races that stick with me forever.
“The ones that forced me to rethink everything I know about training—like my first ultramarathon where I clearly didn’t know what I was doing—or the ones that were my beacon of hope in a sea of injuries, like the Ring of Steall this past September, when I thought my running career might be over. Running is like that. It takes you on a roller coaster from one high to the next low. Sometimes you know it’s coming, but more often than not the universe has its own plan.
“Back in 2014, I was running around a 5K loop in the middle of Doha, Qatar—20 times. This is not something many people can say or should be able to say for that matter. It’s boring. Really. Boring. The key to having a successful race in that environment is lack of emotion, keeping it all in check, level-headed loop after loop.
“I was running in the World 100K Championships for Team USA and had gone in with no expectations. But late in the race, lap after lap, I maintained the lead. I never allowed myself to get too excited, knowing a mile just a few seconds too fast could cause an epic meltdown. It was only after I crossed the finish line in first that I allowed myself to feel that overwhelming sense of joy, the surprise of finishing first, the relief of finishing at all.
“Running is my outlet—a time to express my emotions through a medium that is both healthy and constructive. Racing just heightens those emotions so I can really feel what’s inside myself. It allows me to push myself into more extreme emotional latitudes to see what kind of person I become under stressful situations. When you can master the peaks and valleys of a 100-mile ultramarathon, you feel like you can handle most of what life can throw at you.”
