The first time I tried to run 50 miles, it became a survival scare.
It was a casual group run (as casual as running 50 miles can be), not a race. The group, mostly western Montana residents who live in or near Missoula, gather annually to run a different 50-mile route across the Bob Marshall Wilderness. “The Bob,” as locals call it, is about a two-our drive northwest of Missoula.
It’s a truly wild place with no roads, and people are only allowed on foot or horseback. I’s got more grizzly bears per square mile than anywhere outside of Alaska. The upshot is, it’s home to wild things, not people.
But even though it wasn’t a race, I trained seriously for it, had done plenty of mileage, and I felt as though I was in pretty good shape. Good enough, I felt to run a marathon in around three hours, which is considered pretty good in marathon circles. And I thought that was good enough to run twice as far at half the pace.
I met the group at a trailhead the night before, where we exchanged introductions and pitched tents. I was so excited I barely slept.
The morning dawned bright and warm, and we knew it would be a hot one. Late July in Montana is regularly in the 90s, and this was going to be one of those days. Still, I was well-prepared with plenty of fluids and a filter for taking advantage of backcountry streams and springs. I was so thrilled to be with the group and in the wilderness that in the early miles I don’t recall thinking about much at all; I just enjoyed the experience.
But about half-way into our run, I encountered breathing problems while going up a mountain trail. I noticed that I began to lose contact with the other runners. And I was in a remote wilderness, not a well-developed state park or urban trail. I’ll be honest, I got scared. At one point, I wondered how I might survive if I had to find my way out by myself.
I wrote about this ordeal for a major newspaper, recounting how two of the runners I started out with helped me to the top of that mountain and stuck with me until I was able to breathe again. And they ran with me until we were able to catch up with the main group.
I don’t know what would have happened had they not helped me.
I think it’s important to note that they barely knew me. They could have left me to my own devices. After all, they needed to take care of themselves. And I’ve been a member of running groups that have pretty tough rules about each runner being fully self-supported, so I had no expectation I would receive help.
Here’s one thing I noticed: I never asked for help, and I assumed that nobody would be helping me. Yet, they materialized.
I think a lot of men, especially those in rural places like where I grew up (Montana), get a lot of exposure to this notion of rugged individualism, self-reliance and freedom. Or worse, that talking about one’s emotions means they’re weak or not a real man. This is the experience I had when I was a child. It’s only now in my middle age that I’ve done enough reflection and therapy to throw off that sort of thinking. And that day in The Bob was a stark example that the ideals I had absorbed growing up weren’t just wrong, they were dangerous.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be responsible for yourself, and I’m not talking about the politics of freedom from government intervention. I am saying that just because you see in society that “real men” are a certain way doesn’t make it so. There’s an empirical cost to this mentality.
It feeds into isolation, loneliness, a false sense of self-sufficiency, and an increase in the risks associated with those: depression, a lack of a support community. In my case, had I shrugged off the help, I might’ve wound up having a worse asthma attack or been confronted by dangerous wildlife without anyone to help.
I wrote about the various, empirical costs of their own approaches in my first post. Today, I want to encourage men to do two things: First, slow down and think about whether your current ways of thinking about yourself and your place in the world are helping you. Try to notice when someone needs a little help and if you feel resistance inside yourself if you offer or receive any help. Second, consider being the kind of person who goes back and helps someone. Even if your first step is to simply stop perpetuating the false virtue in rugged individualism.
That’s one definition of connection. It’s the wisdom to know that you’ll do better when you don’t insist on going it alone.
This is a lot easier said than done, and I’m a work in progress myself. But I submit that it’s better to be alive and connected than totally self-reliant and dead. I’m glad those two runners came back to me, and that I accepted their help.
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