When Structure Feels Like Salvation

Ultramarathons, triathlons, and long-distance cycling often draw people during periods of loss or transition. We crave clarity and control when our lives are unwieldy. These activities offer forward motion when everything feels stuck.

It’s not just metaphorical. Endurance sports physically mimic emotional suffering: discomfort, struggle, depletion, repair. But unlike emotional pain, we choose this suffering. That matters. Voluntary pain can feel like power, especially if your past includes helplessness. Unlike loneliness, there’s a beginning, middle, and end. A way to measure progress. A sense of triumph.

You get to take what you need: replace unhealthy habits, substitute group training for isolation, get outdoors away from an inward loop of toxic rumination, attune to your body and listen for inner guidance, or learn to follow the direction of a routine. You get to feel better, feel something, or feel less. Physical sensations crowd out mental noise. And physical persistence can increase hope and perseverance in other areas of life. But beware false idols. This is not your salvation.

Reimagining Balance

A healthy relationship with endurance sports looks like:

•       Taking rest days and allowing yourself to tune into emotions and sensations
•       Listening to body over metrics to guide training; checking in not out
•       Using movement as one tool among many for emotional process and regulation
•       Staying available to other people and commitments, celebrating life’s diversity
•       Holding training goals loosely, with room for daily body shifts & life’s unpredictability 
•      Working with coaches/therapists who understand the psychology of sport
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The Neurochemistry of Motion

Extended exertion floods your system with dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins. Euphoria. These chemicals are depleted in grief, depression, or early recovery from addiction. This chemical cocktail offers immediate and profound relief. For some, it’s the first time they’ve felt okay in their bodies.

But when movement becomes the only way to regulate mood or cope with life, it stops being healing. It gets a bit bossy.

When Coping Becomes Compulsion

Addictive patterns include:

•       Doing more than intended; unsuccessful efforts to moderate (loss of control)
•       Craving or needing it to feel normal (dependence)
•       Continuing despite harm (denial)
•       Neglecting obligations or relationships, overtaking bandwidth (salience/dominance)
•       Tolerance and withdrawal (pharmacological)
•       Engaging to escape other hard things (avoidance)
•       Inordinate time spent planning for/pursuing/engaging in/recovering (preoccupation)

If recreational movement is no longer a choice but a demand, sound the alarm.

Be on alert if you are a perfectionist, bounce between extremes, or are highly competitive. As you continue in your journey, ask if you enjoy or simply feel compelled. Ask yourself why the intensity of endurance sports interests you. Ask the why behind that. There are good reasons to commit to movement. And bad ones.

Embodiment or Denial?

Exercise facilitates embodiment. Feel your feet greet the earth. Cultivate gratitude for these fleshy bits. They do cool things. But training can mask body image issues, disordered eating, or exercise bulimia (needing to counter calories consumed by expending equal or greater calories through movement). If you’re constantly checking the numbers, the mirror, your body composition, or judging yourself for missed/imperfect workouts, the pursuit of health may be hiding a deeper problem. You may need gentle care more than pushing and striving.

The Demagogy of Discipline

Cultural narratives glamorize “no excuses” as grit. Nike told us to. But overtraining stalls progress, compromises immunity, increases injury, and depletes resilience. It diverts attention from diverse and important life experiences. Pain isn’t virtue. Self-punishment in this form is just a culturally condoned masochism. 

When the goalpost keeps moving, if no PR feels like enough, you might not be chasing health; you might be chasing worth. And “doing” will never amount to enough for you to have peace with your “being.”

Purpose and People

Endurance sports become part of who we are and enhance belonging. We work hard because we value meaningful effort. We integrate our goals into our self-concepts: We are marathoners. And we accomplish it together. It’s beautiful irony that training for competition is often collaborative. But if performance becomes our only source of self-esteem and social contact, then how do we survive injury, plateau or aging?

While training together can be a form of connection, it can also isolate us from other networks. An obsessive mind will stack on solitary training. If it’s the priority, you become self-absorbed. If it’s a priority, you can be a better friend and partner because it enhances wellbeing. Just make sure you’re still in charge of the relationship, and the sport isn’t running you. Because once you start going it alone, this practice is a prison.

Consistent Adjustment

Change it up to maintain flexibility, spontaneity and freedom. Listen to your body and shift from external goals to internal cues. You don’t have to quit or go all in. Read your rhythm: grit and grace must alternate. 

Not all pain can or should be processed through motion. Some of it needs stillness. Healing often happens by feeling what we’re avoiding, not by outrunning it.

Meditative and Meaningful

When pursued with mindfulness, endurance sports can be sacred. They can be a spiritual practice, a way to process deep feeling, connect, and reclaim power. They can build resilience, self-reliance, and even nervous system regulation.

Bilateral movement (like walking or cycling) can support emotional processing. But the alchemy only works when you’re present. 

Final Thoughts

Would you rather learn to be with or master yourself? Intention counts. Your why matters.

Your neighbors may be dedicated and joyful in their sport. Or they may be trapped in an unrelenting achievement loop. You can’t know from the outside. But you can experiment and play at your own pace.

Endurance sports are liberating when pursued in partnership with your body, not in opposition to it. Healing begins when effort is balanced by rest, striving by presence. And sometimes, your mental health hits its stride when your breath stops racing and starts leading.