Your path won't look like theirs...and that is awesome!

I have a bit of a love–hate relationship with social media. Mostly hate… but sometimes it offers inspiration and community...especially if your passion lives in a niche corner of the world, like ultrarunning.

Honestly, it’s probably thanks (in part) to social media that running hundreds of miles over brutal elevation (or through deserts) has become so popular. Instagram, in particular, exposes us to the sport and lets us find reassurance from people who have navigated the terrain before us. This can be a beautiful entry point into what I believe is a beautiful and extraordinary sport.

But sometimes I wonder if we’re becoming a little too reliant on these well-edited, perfectly scored clips to show us the way. They can provide so much joy and even valuable information, but they shouldn't be our only beacon into these races.

Many of the runners I work with in my mental performance practice often reference well-known athletes…not necessarily as competitors, but as lighthouses for their own journeys. Jim Walmsley comes up a lot: someone who DNF’d major races before becoming one of the greatest in the sport. Or Hans Troyer, "the kid" who recently rebounded from rhabdo and returned to dominate multiple distances. These are powerful stories, and we should draw inspiration from them. The balance, though, is making sure we still find our own path rather than trying to replicate someone else’s.

Recently, many of my athletes (across all abilities) who’ve experienced a series of setbacks or disappointing races- injuries, crippling anxiety, divorce, grief, and other difficult life circumstances, have described feeling lost. They’ll reference those glossy Instagram clips and say they no longer qualify for stories like that. Their own past now feels too complex, too disappointing, to sit comfortably alongside curated inspiration. Instead, those posts stir up harder questions: What now? What was this all for? How will this story end?

The best guidance I try to provide in these situations is one that is not new but can also be the hardest to achieve: If you continue to love the process and it adds to your life purpose, keep going!

When we’re afraid, we tend to think of the classic responses: fight, flight, or freeze. But there is another: submit. I first heard this concept from sports psychologist Michael Gervais. Submission, in this context, isn’t collapsing mid-effort..it’s deciding not to begin (or restart) at all. In modern life, when we are not facing an existential threat to our existence…this response is maladaptive. Fighting against submission means setting aside doubt and the imagined judgments of others. It means leaning into, or actively building, self-efficacy. The decision to start again is powerful.

True growth in this sport often means wading into deep, uncertain water. It’s uncomfortable. There are no YouTube montages or perfectly produced podcast clips to guide you. You’re on new ground…and that doesn’t mean it’s wrong or impossible. Maybe no one has ever dropped from the same race five times and then won on the sixth. But maybe someone will.

Maybe that someone is you?

Be the future Instagram reel. Let other stories inspire you…but don’t let them define the limits of your own.