Outrun the obstacles andprove you’re one of the best
The language of overcoming adversity is full of cliches. Keep calm and carry on, anyone? And there are just as many conventional ways for people to overcome obstacles that block their way.
But I reckon American running sensation Camille Herron has come up with a unique response.
Left with back pain and a confronting sense of your own mortality after a hideous car crash?
How about flying across the world and running a 100-mile trail race? (In fact, Herron didn’t just run – she dominated the Tarawera Ultra race, coming second overall and smashing the women’s course record).
Herron has a knack of rewriting the rules about a bunch of things. For starters, she’s proving that in ultrarunning gender, divides are often just fragile constructs waiting to be knocked down.
And she’s showing that you can be friendly and happy – without being afraid of whitehot, intense competition, stepping up to face your opponents with a smile on your face and a cold-hearted determination to win.
Trail runners came across as a bunch of kumbuya-singing, tree-hugging types, but Herron is evidence that our numbers include many who are out there to drive themselves just as much as any fist-pumping, whooping and hollering sports person.
A bit of background: Herron holds five world records and has won some of the biggest races on the planet (most notably Comrades, in South Africa, in 2017). She also famously loves beer and tacos, and is an outspoken advocate for women and against drugs in sport.
She’s mentally tough in ways that other runners cannot figure out. It was first evident in her childhood when she used to practice basketball at the hoop in her driveway until she blacked out from exhaustion.
In 1999, she and her family were left homeless when tornadoes destroyed their house.
So, yeah, she’s been through some stuff.
Last month she was driving to work as a scientist at the University of Oklahoma (she’s a research assistant in osteoimmunology) when she was struck by another car.
‘‘It was just a typical sunny day and a car came out from
nowhere from a side-street and hit me broadside,’’ she told me and co-host Matt Rayment on the Dirt Church Radio podcast this week.
‘‘The force of it made my car flip over.’’
Suffering from back and neck pain, but grateful that she’d escaped with her life and no broken bones, Herron nonetheless was traumatised by the thought of what might have been.
‘‘Just to think that your life could potentially end at any moment even just driving your usual safe route to work.’’
At the time, Herron was about to fly out to New Zealand for the Tarawera Ultra in Rotorua. She could easily have cancelled her trip, or opted for a lesser distance.
But that’s not Herron.
‘‘I just kinda felt I just needed to keep on living, doing what my legs are meant to do.’’
And, boy, she sure did. She and her husband, Conor, came to New Zealand, had a ball, and along the way she bossed that 100 mile race, leading it outright until the last 30km, and beating the second-placed woman by six hours.
In the end, Herron felt like her whole trip was therapeutic, a salve to help her get over the trauma.
OK, so most of us are not going to be able to go out and run a 100-mile race to help us confront the demons in our life, or recover from something ghastly.
But there’s definitely a life lesson in Herron’s approach. And running can definitely help overcome things.
Sometimes going for a run is the last thing you feel like doing. But, more often than not, once you get out the door, you’re glad you did and the pain you’re feeling can be overwhelmed by the flood of endorphins.
Trail runners came across as a bunch of kumbuya-singing, treehugging types.
Eugene Bingham and Matt Rayment are hosts of a trail running podcast Dirt Church Radio. Learn more at dirtchurch radio.com or get in touch via email dirtchurchradio@gmail.com