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False Summits

False Summits

Published by Patrick Durante on March 23, 2026

I met a man training to summit Everest this past weekend.  I thought that surely if you can conquer that mountain for the average cost of 50,000 dollars, then there’s no other mountains to climb, right?  I started thinking about how many previous mountains I have climbed, and once I got to the summit, it didn’t provide any different view than some of the previous ones. Ultras can have that same effect, you think crossing the finish line will change everything, or once I get that PR I’ll be content. Life is filled with false summits, what you think is the peak, even your limit, but its not. There’s more left, and its critical you keep going. I’ll tell you why.

Life is filled with these things.  As I look back at my brief 44 years, I’ve chased after a lot of things. At the time it felt like an important achievement, house, cars, job titles, or PRs.  Each I ran down, like a persistence hunt, knowing it was only a matter of time and it was mine.  Once there, be it the new status, or title, its shimmer and glory was brief until they dulled over time and became the new baseline.  

There’s been a shift in my recent years as I had talked about my 100 – 100s post, that the more races I conquer at the 100 mile distance don’t provide any more sense of enjoyment as the first,  except ES100 the entire DFL thing that happened. That was just nuts, but even after that, like clockwork, I am back on ultrasignup, looking for my next fix.  Anthony De Mello covered it best in his book Stop Fixing Yourself. I am trying to shed awareness on why I am doing these events and boiled it down to these few items.

  1. Struggle – that 50/50 shot of success is magical.
  2. Novelty – I need new experiences.
  3. Reason to train – why I put in the work.
  4. Evolution of self – I learned so much when races go off the rails, not as much when they go perfect
  5. Experience for Coaching
What’s at the top?

How I help others achieve a massive goal if I am not on the same path?  It’s only through the shared experience, and getting humbled that I realize where others might make mistakes.  I can’t do it for just the finish line, or age group award, or bragging rights. Those are just a bunch of false summits, where you think you’ve reached the apex of your performance, your career, but no, there’s still more to go.  The journey over the past year of training is where all the magic happens, those early runs with friends, seeing new places, and trying new things you never dreamed you would do (see sleeping in my car).  The goal is to be content with my work at the end of the year.  To keep stacking those blocks, year after year, so I know that if I couldn’t do this tomorrow, I would be grateful for what I achieved.  Did I put myself out there in a new and interesting ways?  Did I meet others in the same fight?  Is the man in the mirror inspiring, or is he self absorbed?  

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

In the past few weeks I have been creating tools for myself, and athletes to be better at ultras. UltraRunTools 1.0 released for athletes I coach. To give them more insight to get to the finish line, because I have to keep evolving and learning.  The second I stop, and say, “that’ll do pig”, I stop learning, I will stop being who I am destined to be.  What’s at the top of the mountains?  More mountains!  There are endless mountains to climb.  Thank god, because if there was one ultra to rule them all, like Everest, and you finished it.  Would you then put down the sword and stop the fight?  Would you say, I can rest because there’s nothing more to conquer?

The journey of self improvement can be another endless trap, but we grow when under pressure, when someone depends on us.  You need something out there that demands you show up, be it your kids, be it that title of manager, its the thing that demands responsibility in all your actions.  Those are the main reasons to chase any “False Summit”.  They require your standard is high on all fronts, even down to what you put in your mouth on a daily basis.  They will command you to show up, say what your going to do, and and actually do it. Don’t talk about it, be about it! (I love saying that line to my kids)

“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent, no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”

So it’s important to chase the summit, the top, not to say that you did it, but to say I have a goal that’s big. I don’t know if I am strong enough, but I wake up, every day, and work toward that goal until I achieve it.  I love the stories adventure creates, I love close calls with danger, I love that view from the summit, even if its false or brief.  I love the problems solved, and places explored.  I create a list at the end of every year for what I want next year to look like, because it’s the guiding light for connection, and my reason to get up.  Without that, we are nothing. Never content to sit idle. I will always want more.

PA Triple Crown… Let’s dance!

Ultra Brain

Ultra Brain

Published by Patrick Durante on February 13, 2026

Science has backed up what I have known about ultras:


Anterior midcingulate cortex (AMCC). Often referred to as the “willpower muscle,” its size and activity are driven by neurobiology rather than just a personality trait. The AMCC grows ONLY when you engage in tasks that are challenging. For instance, if someone loves cold water, an ice bath won’t change their AMCC, but if they hate the cold and force themselves to do it anyway, the area grows. This brain region is significantly larger in “super agers,” individuals who maintain high cognitive capacity and physical health well into their 80s and 90s. The AMCC shrinks or atrophies in individuals who live sedentary lives or consistently avoid challenges. The AMCC is the “seat of the will to live,” as its size and activity level are strong predictors of how well a person survives a major health setback or surgery. Doing “hard things,” such as pushing through difficult physical workouts or neural-activating drills, tells the brain it can overcome any obstacle, building a reserve for when life gets hard.

Failing to do hard things can lead to a breakdown of connectors and receptors in the brain, creating a cycle where the AMCC doesn’t grow, making it increasingly difficult to meet goals or resist sedentary behaviors. This discovery is critical because it moves the concept of willpower away from a moral failing and into the realm of trainable hardware in the brain.

This is something I have known for a while, but I love seeing that science now backs it up. After I completed my first difficult race I signed up for, it gave me a new perspective, the things I didn’t sign up for got easier. I used it as my measuring stick by which I determined if something was difficult. 5Ks became easy, similar to the 5lb weight that becomes easy to lift. That muscle became strong and able to lift greater and greater challenges. So I had to reach for the bigger goal, the bigger hurdle to overcome; the 5K became the 10K, the half marathon, and the rest is history. I used to think it was an addiction to running, but it’s more an addiction to growing these connections stronger to take on greater challenges. Seeking out these challenges year after year was a necessary part of growth.

Your hard looks different from mine, and that’s the beauty of this discovery. We all start off with a small, underdeveloped AMCC. With my kids, I can see how hard it is for them to take on new challenges, but we sign them up for sports. Sports force a hard on you that you don’t choose. You learn to win, lose, or play the game and be better than your previous version of you. There is a sense of danger. You may get hurt if you put yourself in the game, a real game, not a video game (as we are doing a lot now in the winter months). There has to be something that is on the line. You need to have the ability to get hurt, accountability to teammates, going off course in a race, just some type of failure. There needs to be that 50/50 chance of success, because you can’t trick your brain. It knows if nothing is at stake: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

This is the best understanding of the “WHY” for ultras. People think you’re insane when you tell them you can’t wait to run 100 miles in the woods, trying to find your limit. That limit is where the AMCC grows, as someone who has been doing this a long time. I can go back in my mind and remember those past events and feel the pain of the big races. I can look back at them, see the medal or buckle on the shelf, and actually feel how much I grew from a single event, YEARS after it has passed. I remember how tired I was, how hard it was to gain those wins. I know the exact points in races where I had to dig deep and where those synapses in my brain fired to get me a finish. It wasn’t for the buckle, medal, or right to say I completed it. It was for the urge to drive the growth, to be better than my previous best, and that’s it. That’s what drives me year after year, and why I’m excited to plan my adventures every year. Where will they take me? How hard will I push? Will I get in all the training needed to complete the challenges? What type of person will I become when the year is done and I look back?

Find what you’re afraid of most and GO LIVE THERE. That quote is so true because that’s the part of your brain that is scared and needs the inoculation to fear. If you do, you grow, you get stronger, and that fear fades, leaving less places for fear to hide. If you need to convince your significant other to let you sign up for a 50K or 100K, you can forward them this post as to WHY. You become stronger IF you complete it, and even if you don’t, you still grow because you put yourself out there. You can promise them that IF you succeed, you will be stronger mentally AND physically, able to take more of the burden of any problem that gets thrown your way.