Not meant to do this alone

How I found my limits not through running an ultramarathon a day for 200 days, but through injury & isolation

My Guinness World Record certificate finally arrived this week over a year after finishing it. My record was verified last March, but the certificate got lost in the mail that April and I finally got around to asking Guinness about it this summer and they sent another one that just arrived. It feels good to have the verification and hard copy of my effort after what was a very long and intense record. Back in 2023 after I finished the world record I wrote:

“On November 5, before the leaves had fallen from the Cottonwood that line my favorite trail in Boulder, Colorado, before they had turned orange and yellow, before snow covered the landscape day after day I set out on an open-ended challenge to do as many consecutive 50ks as possible. Little did I know at that time that I did not have a limit, that my body would not break, but that it would breakthrough.”

You can read more about the attempt at https://www.candiceburt.com/2023/05/setting-world-record-200-days-200.html but this post is more about hitting other kinds of limits than the high of limitless athleticism.

What’s harder than doing something you’re outrageously passionate about like I am with running? Recovering from multiple accidents and surgery of course. This summer was way harder than setting a world record. It’s been devastating, exhausting and painful. I fractured 4 bones in bike accidents and finally had much needed foot surgery that left me on crutches for 3 weeks and a boot for another 3 weeks. I’ll slowly begin reintroducing running 2.5 months after surgery and 3.5 months after my first bike accident. This summer has tested me and taught me things I didn’t want to learn and didn’t realize I needed to learn and grow from. Life has a way of doing that doesn’t it?

It all began before my Arizona Trail Fastest Known Time (supported) attempt. I’ve been working with videographers to document my last Arizona Trail attempt, and we will share a documentary about it soon. The run was a whirlwind of many fast miles, long days, sleepless nights and eventually many slow miles working my way toward mental and physical exhaustion and destruction. The documentary is nearly done and it’s super emotional for me to watch. What I thought would be a successful run of the trail — I was SO prepared and this was my 2nd supported attempt, became a true hero’s journey of ascent and descent— not of wild success but of what happens when you go full send and don’t make it. There are many deep lessons that can only be learned from failure and hardship.

After the devastating but paradigm shifting 456 miles on the Arizona Trail, I got home and less than 2 weeks later crashed my bike going nearly 40mph around a corner when I was swept into the air by a huge gust of wind. The crash fractured my pelvis and wrist and gave me a concussion. I was unable to walk for weeks and had to learn to use crutches. I got back on the bike 10 days later desperate to move and to feel the air and sunshine. Sure, it was a bad idea on the one hand, but when you spend most the day training and outside, resting indoors isn’t easy nor does it feel right.

I began biking again slowly and carefully and by 4 weeks post accident I thought I was ready to do a big ride around Lake Tahoe the day before race check in for the Tahoe 200, the first race in my series of 200 milers. 13 miles in I did a full bike-style Superman aka endo’d when I hit a hole in the road with my light and fast road bike. When I hit the hole, I responded with a quick tap on my brakes —hitting the brakes was not even a conscious thought but rather it was an impulsive reaction to hitting the hole and resulted in flying 35mph chest and arm first into the asphalt. Horrifying. Devastating. Painful

In hindsight, I still had too much fear from the first crash— I was having flashbacks of hitting the ground and fracturing my hip in May and yet, I kept pushing myself. My brain was not ready to be riding fast downhill even if my body was. It was the fear that caused me hit my brakes too hard and fast. It was the fear that caused the 2nd crash. Miraculously, I walked away relatively minor injuries considering I went face-first into the asphalt: a lot of road rash and only re-fractured my wrist and broke my hand (metacarpal).

From the outside, I know it’s easy to say how stupid it was that I didn’t rest more. To judge me. To say I deserved it. To tell me that the universe wants me to rest. I knew it and I took what I thought was a calculated risk. I don’t regret it, but I wouldn’t do it again. I’d take more time to get back to long rides and I would stick to mountain and gravel biking. But, remember — you can’t see as clearly when you’re close to something and I couldn’t see my situation clearly at that time. I have learned from many years of pushing my body that turning off my signals for rest and turning off my emotions — or better stated, feeling emotions but not listening to them has been my ultra running superpower. I can let my feelings come in and let them go out and just keep going. My ability to control my mindset and run no matter how I feel is a powerful skill in my sport. It has more often than not served me well.

This powerful skill is also quite detrimental when applied to all areas of one’s life. Perhaps this is why so many of us athletes suffer quietly with our mental and physical health when not running. As great as it is to separate our bodies and minds from our emotions and physical sensations, we can take it too far outside of ultramarathons and push ourselves to a real mental or physical breakdown.

Which is exactly what happened to me this summer. After my second bike accident I acquiesced to resting and foot surgery that was scheduled for the next week. Yes, foot surgery was just 9 days after my second bike accident.

Surgery went well but afterward the pain meds didn’t even touch the pain and I had a weekend of hell as I laid in bed in some of the worst pain of my life. For whatever reason, the pain meds seemed to have only a tiny effect on my level of pain and when I emerged from 2 days of excruciating pain, I still had nearly 3 weeks on crutches. At first I was able to appreciate a bit of time off, but as the weeks stacked up it became harder and harder. I couldn’t relate to what my friends were doing in the summertime as they explored mountain peaks and did workout classes nor could I join them on runs or outings. I became anxious of going out with my crutches and boot and didn’t want people staring at me.

There wasn’t much I could do other than sit in a chair and get a little bit of sun and then spend long days in my house. It was lonely. My kids had left right after I had surgery to spend the summer at their dad’s and before I realized it, I had spiraled into a major depression. My ability to suffer through any run for any length of time was suddenly my achilles heel— a skill that earned me a 200-day-long world record had a dark side. I was so out of touch with my mental health outside of running full time that when I was unable to find balance through running and the socialization I got with my running friends, I did not have any coping skills or the ability to see what was happening before it was too late.

Anyone who has spiraled into a severe depression knows there’s a point at which you cannot help yourself, a point at which you cannot get out or tell anyone. In this dark place it took other people telling me how bad it was for me to realize it. Over the course of a few days and then a couple weeks I slowly recovered with the help of friends and a therapist who took a unique approach to my unique situation — he talked earnestly and openly and nothing was off limits. I faced some deep fears and realized I could get through them. My therapist showed me how to feel my hard emotions (let the feelings come without defining or judging or thinking about them) and I learned to manage my challenging emotions outside of running. I slowly forced myself to get out and schedule time with friends until I started looking forward to it again.

My fears weren’t mountain lions or exposure in the mountains, they were far scarier. They were about trust, abandonment and intimacy. They were what drove me toward fierce independence and long days alone on the trails, an ultra running superpower—but also a coping mechanism for some unhealthy patterns.

By the time I started therapy, I was finally able to get out of the surgery boot, walking normally (well, kind of) and began biking again all of which helped me recover mentally as well. There’s a lot more to my story, but we’ll save it for another time. Suffice to say that it was an incredibly hard and lonely time.

After surgery, I struggled with my loss of mobility and also with insomnia. It was 6 weeks of poor sleep— often laying awake until 4 or 5am not feeling tired. Once I began biking again, my sleep began to improve and though I am still struggling with sleep a couple times a week, it’s much better than it was when I was immobile.

As I hang my framed Guinness World Record certificate in my new home this week —I finally bought a home in Colorado after renting here for 2 years, the depth of what I achieved, the amount that I learned about myself and the sacrifices that I made are all too real. I deeply cherish the time that I spent running a 50k a day from November 5, 2022 to May 23, 2023. Now more than ever I value my body’s resilience and durability while understanding that we all have our limits and though I didn’t find mine running a 50k a day for 200 days, I did find it through injury, surgery and isolation.

I learned that we aren’t meant to do this life alone. We need each other just as much as we need movement ❤️