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.
Patrick is an ultrarunner and coach from Philadelphia who loves documenting his running career. His mission is to provide useful tips and tricks to assist others along their ultra journey. You can find his coaching services at https://ultraruncoach.com.
