The Joy of Movement

by Kelly McGonigal

  This hymn may seem an odd reference for running, but for Torres, it expresses one of the main reasons she runs. “When I’m tired or a mile hurts, the beautiful thing running has taught me is it won’t always hurt. In some way, it gets better. Joy cometh in the morning.” When Torres runs, each step forward through discomfort and doubt is a practice of faith, a way of saying, It is well with my soul. “If God brings you to it, he will bring you through it. Running opened this up for me. It will be hard, it will hurt, but the struggle ends. Running made that visceral. The hill will finish.” I heard similar sentiments from other athletes, who found in physical suffering a knowledge that landed deep in their bones. It is one thing to believe in something—in your capacity to survive, in the grace of God, or simply that this, too, shall pass. It is another thing to feel it in your body.

  In 2016, Torres ran the Kauai Marathon. She describes the course as “a series of brutal, soul-crushing hills in some of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen.” At several points during the two-thousand-foot climb of the race course, Torres felt discouraged by her slower-than-expected pace and by seeing other runners pass her. But at mile eighteen, she reached the peak of a set of hills and the course opened up to a beautiful vista. As she looked out and took in the view, something inside her shifted, and she was overcome with a sense of gratitude. What a gift it is to be able to run, she thought. How blessed am I. She heard her grandfather’s voice saying, “Appreciate this, mija.” Torres started to cry, overwhelmed by joy. And as she ran downhill, she said over and over, “Thank you. Thank you.”

  Later, when I thought about this story, it occurred to me that almost all long-distance races take place outdoors. Other than the occasional fundraiser, people don’t run ultramarathons on a treadmill. They roam wild terrain, follow the path of rivers, climb mountains, and descend through canyons. What separates even the most punishing ultra-endurance events from masochism is context. The events are not about suffering for suffering’s sake, but suffering in a natural environment that invites, almost guarantees, moments of self-transcendence. If endurance training is in part about learning how to suffer well, it helps to put yourself in surroundings that inspire awe or gratitude. Outdoors, you can be stunned by a sudden change in landscape or enthralled by the appearance of wildlife. You can find yourself entranced by the stars at night or heartened by the first light of dawn. These transcendent emotions put personal pain and fatigue in a different context. It is impossible to understand what ultra-endurance athletes are doing without taking this into account. Experiencing a state of elevation during a moment of deep exhaustion provides a reminder that flashes of pure happiness can take you by surprise even when things seem the most bleak. Knowing this is possible is how we survive our worst pain. Finding a way for suffering and joy to coexist—that is how humans endure the seemingly unendurable.

  * * *

  •••

  At the annual Yukon Arctic Ultra, competitors from around the world attempt to follow the Yukon Quest trail across the Canadian Yukon Territory, covering three hundred miles on foot, cross-country ski, or mountain bike. The waiver that entrants sign forces them to acknowledge the possibility of dehydration, hypothermia, frostbite, avalanche, falling through thin ice, wild animal attacks, mental trauma, and serious physical injury, including death. During the 2018 race, temperatures fell to 49 below zero, and all but one competitor dropped out due to illness, exhaustion, or equipment failure. The organizers ended the event early, and South African runner Jethro De Decker was declared the winner when he reached a checkpoint at 3:45 A.M., thirty-two miles from the finish line.

  One of the last athletes to exit the race, sixty-one-year-old Roberto Zanda, was taken away by helicopter with frostbite so severe, he faced the amputation of both hands and both feet. Soon after, he gave an interview to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from his hospital bed in Whitehorse, Canada. His frostbitten hands and lower legs were wrapped in thick bandages, and he did not yet know if circulation would return. The sixty-one-year-old athlete—whose nickname, Massiccione, means “The Tough One”—told the CBC that “being alive is more important than hands and feet,” and that he was looking forward to continuing to race, “even if it is with prosthetics.” Six weeks later, unable to save his limbs, doctors amputated Zanda’s right hand and both legs below the knee. He has since been fitted with carbon-fiber legs and a state-of-the-art bionic hand. He resumed training in his hometown of Cagliari, Sardinia. By summer, he had signed up to run his first race on new legs, a 155-mile ultramarathon across the deserts of Namibia.

  When philosophy graduate student Kirsty-Ann Burroughs interviewed endurance runners about their race experiences, one theme that stood out was the importance of hope. “Each runner was responsible for allowing hope to get the better of despair,” Burroughs writes. “Hope is what makes active endurance possible.” The ability of ultra-endurance athletes to keep moving forward can be at once inspiring and bewildering. Watching a video of one of Roberto Zanda’s first uphill hikes on carbon fiber legs—in which he comments, “I chose to live” and vows to run the same hill within two months—made me wonder: Are ultra-endurance athletes drawn to the sport because they possess an innate capacity to keep going? Or does the training itself produce their remarkable hardiness? The answer is surely a mixture of both. However, new research gives reason to believe that resilience is an outcome, not just a necessary precursor, of endurance.

  In 2015, scientists from the Center for Space Medicine and Extreme Environments in Berlin followed athletes competing in the Yukon Arctic Ultra. They wanted to know: How does the human body cope in such a brutal context? When the researchers analyzed the hormones in the bloodstreams of the athletes, one hormone, irisin, was wildly elevated. Irisin is best known for its role in metabolism—it helps the body burn fat as fuel. But irisin also has powerful effects on the brain. Irisin stimulates the brain’s reward system, and the hormone may be a natural antidepressant. Lower levels are associated with an increased risk of depression, and elevated levels can boost motivation and enhance learning. Injecting the protein directly into the brains of mice—not something scientists are ready to try with humans—reduces behaviors associated with depression, including learned helplessness and immobility in the face of threats. Higher blood levels of irisin are also associated with superior cognitive functioning, and may even prevent neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

  The Yukon Arctic Ultra athletes entered the event with extraordinarily high blood levels of this hormone, far beyond levels seen in most humans. Over the course of the event, their irisin levels climbed higher. Even as their bodies fell victim to hypothermia and exhaustion, the athletes were bathing their brains in a chemical that preserves brain health and prevents depression. Why were their blood levels of irisin so elevated? The answer lies in both the nature of the event and what the athletes had to do to get there. Irisin has been dubbed the “exercise hormone,” and it is the best-known example of a myokine, a protein that is manufactured in your muscles and released into your bloodstream during physical activity. (Myo means muscle, and kine means “set into motion by.”) One of the greatest recent scientific breakthroughs in human biology is the realization that skeletal muscles act as an endocrine organ. Your muscles, like your adrenal and pituitary glands, secrete proteins that affect every system of your body. One of these proteins is irisin. Following a single treadmill workout, blood levels of irisin increase by 35 percent. The Yukon Arctic Ultra required up to fifteen hours a day of exercise. Muscle shivering—a form of muscle contraction—also triggers the release of irisin into the bloodstream. For the Yukon Arctic Ultra competitors, the combination of extreme environment and extreme exertion led to exceptionally high levels of this myokine.

  Irisin is not the only beneficial myokine your muscles dispatch into your bloodstream when you exercise. A 2018 scientific paper identified thirty-five proteins released by your quadriceps during a single hour of bicyclin
g. Some of these myokines help your muscles grow stronger, while others regulate blood sugar, reduce inflammation, or even kill cancer cells. Scientists now believe that many of the long-term health benefits of exercise are due to the beneficial myokines released during muscle contraction.

  While much of the research on myokines has focused on how these chemicals prevent disease, some of their most potent effects are on mental health. For example, vascular endothelial growth factor and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (originally named this because scientists thought it was produced only in the brain), protect the health of brain cells, and even help the brain generate new neurons. Every known effective biological treatment for depression, including medications and electroshock therapy, also increases levels of these neurotrophins.

  Another myokine, glial-derived neurotrophic factor, protects dopamine neurons in the midbrain. The destruction of dopamine neurons contributes to a wide range of disorders, including depression and Parkinson’s disease, and is one of the most insidious side effects of drug addiction. By releasing a neurotrophic factor that preserves dopamine neurons, exercise may prevent, slow, or even reverse these conditions. Still other myokines decrease inflammation in the brain, which can also prevent neurological disorders and reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. Some myokines even metabolize a neurotoxic chemical caused by chronic stress, turning it into a harmless substance in your bloodstream before it can reach the brain. You can’t see or feel this alchemy as it occurs, but it takes place every time you exercise.

  One of the first scientific papers to write about exercise-induced myokines labeled them “hope molecules.” Ultra-endurance athletes talk about the metaphor of putting one foot in front of the other—how learning that you can take one more step, even when it feels like you can’t possibly keep going, builds confidence and courage. The existence of hope molecules reveals that this is not merely a metaphor. Hope can begin in your muscles. Every time you take a single step, you contract over two hundred myokine-releasing muscles. The very same muscles that propel your body forward also send proteins to your brain that stimulate the neurochemistry of resilience. Importantly, you don’t need to run an ultramarathon across the Arctic to infuse your bloodstream with these chemicals. Any movement that involves muscular contraction—which is to say, all movement—releases beneficial myokines.

  It seems likely that some ultra-endurance athletes are drawn to the sport precisely because they have a natural capacity to endure. The extreme circumstances of these events allow them to both challenge and enjoy that part of their personality. Yet it’s also possible that the intense physical training contributes to the mental toughness that ultra-endurance athletes demonstrate. Endurance activities like walking, hiking, jogging, running, cycling, and swimming, as well as high-intensity exercise such as interval training, are especially likely to produce a myokinome that supports mental health. Among those who are already active, increasing training intensity or volume—going harder, faster, further, or longer—can jolt muscles to stimulate an even greater myokine release. In one study, running to exhaustion increased irisin levels for the duration of the run and well into a recovery period—an effect that could be viewed as an intravenous dose of hope. Many of the world’s top ultra-endurance athletes have a history of depression, anxiety, trauma, or addiction. Some, like ultrarunner Shawn Bearden, credit the sport with helping to save their lives. This, too, is part of what draws people to the ultra-endurance world. You can start off with seemingly superhuman abilities to endure, or you can build your capacity for resilience one step at a time.

  Months after I spoke with Bearden, an image from his Instagram account appeared in my feed. It was taken from the middle of a paved road that stretches toward a mountain range, with grassy fields on either side. The sky is blue, except for a huge dark cloud that appears to be hovering directly over the person taking the photo. I remembered how Bearden had described his depression as a black thundercloud rolling in. Under the Instagram photo, Bearden had written, “Tons of wind today, making an easy run far more challenging. So happy to be able to do this. Every day above ground is a good day.” Below, a single comment cheered him on, like a fellow runner on the trail: “Amen to this! Keep striving.”

  * * *

  •••

  At age fifty-seven, adventure athlete Terri Schneider has summited the highest peaks of Africa, South America, and Europe. She has run the Sahara Desert, biked the mountains of Bhutan during monsoon season, and trekked with the Achuar in the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador. The highlights reel of Schneider’s career could easily be mistaken for a surrealist nightmare. While running the Gobi Desert’s salt flats in China, she found herself plunged thigh-deep in mud, her shoes sucked off her feet as if by some hungry subterranean creature. (She ran the rest of the race in socks.) Mountain biking down a 10,000-foot volcano in Costa Rica, she crashed on the rocks, and, while splayed on the ground trying to recover, was attacked by a stray dog. She has been thrown out of a paddleboat into shark- and sea-snake-infested waters. She has gotten stuck in quicksand on horseback. During one jungle trek, leeches attracted by her body heat flung themselves at her from the darkness and crawled into her gloves, up her pant legs, and into any opening they could find; she recalls watching her own blood seep out of the eyelets of her shoes and the stitches of her clothing.

  These are not the stories Schneider tells when you ask her, “What are the worst things you’ve experienced during an event?” These are the stories she tells when trying to explain what makes being an ultra-endurance athlete worthwhile. Her adventures play out in some of the most stunning locations in the world, places most people will never get to experience. “To be a human in those environments, you’re required to physically suffer in a lot of ways,” Schneider told me. The juxtaposition between the beauty around her and what she had to endure to get there is deeply satisfying. “I can pause for a moment within the suffering and look around, and go, because I’m suffering, I’m here right now, and that’s amazing. I’m here because I toiled to arrive. It’s a testament to what’s possible for the human mind and body.”

  When I asked Schneider how she ended up a professional adventure athlete, she explained, “I was never abused. I never had an eating disorder, no major trauma other than average-Joe getting my heart broken. My story is just becoming a strong woman.” She remembers the first time she felt the sheer pleasure of pushing her body’s limits. She was ten years old and running in a cross-country meet. She came in second to last but didn’t care. “Pushing my body, this whole new world opened up to me. It felt joyful. It was interesting and unique and exciting. Even after all these years, I feel gratitude that I can still go out and push my body and have that sort of feeling.” When Schneider was young, her mother warned her that if she ran too much, her uterus would fall out—something she claimed to have learned from Reader’s Digest. During her adventures, Schneider feels liberated from expectations about how a woman should think or behave. “Doing something physically difficult in nature, as a woman, it’s not like anything else you do in life,” she told me. “There are no social reference points, no cultural messaging, no visuals requiring me to be or think of myself in a certain way. Nature wipes that clean.” She likes who she becomes in the unpredictable wilderness, away from the pressure of social norms. “It’s the same Terri I always am, but it’s decisive Terri, strong Terri, confident Terri, content Terri, and grateful Terri.”

  When choosing adventures, Schneider seeks out what she calls the “big stretches”—events that require her to go beyond what she has done before and beyond what she is certain she can do. Hers is not just a curiosity about whether she can accomplish something, but also about how the experience will unfold and how she will respond in a new and challenging environment. She wants to test the limits of what is possible to see what it brings out in her. This is a common motivation among adventure athletes. As Jethro De Decker said after surviving the catastrophic 2018 Yukon Arcti
c Ultra, “Can there be a better way to work out who you are?”

  One of Schneider’s most memorable big stretches took place almost twenty-five years ago, in the very first Eco-Challenge, a ten-day nonstop team adventure race in Utah. The five-member teams would attempt to cover 376 miles on horseback, foot, and mountain bikes, while also scaling rocks, rappelling into canyons, and navigating the wild rivers in rafts and canoes. Fifty teams of experienced athletes entered the challenge, but only twenty-one completed it. (A medical journal later described the race as a case study in “unprecedented and significant” physical risks, even by the standard of ultra-endurance competitions.) When Schneider signed up for the event, she had less experience rock-climbing than in the other skills, and she still had a tendency to panic when she looked down. In practice climbs that required her to rappel only thirty feet, she found herself frozen with fear—a feeling she describes as being immobilized by an evil spirit. Part of what drew her to the Eco-Challenge was knowing that she would have to work through this fear.