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Hilary Matheson

My Ongoing Journey

By InnerVoice

September 22^nd, 2017

Fear isn't always rational

I have always had anxiety. To this day, I’ve never been able to stop biting or chewing on my fingernails. I’ve tried – so hard. I loathe the fact that it shows a crack, demonstrates weakness. An outward manifestation of something I’d rather not show the world. As a kid, I used to wake up screaming and crying, convinced that the house was on fire. I don’t know why - I never experienced a house fire - but the fears were there. I would run around the house checking to make sure everything was safe. That fear hasn’t stopped as I’ve gotten older, either. I deal with it every day, every time I leave the house. I am paranoid about making sure everything is turned off and unplugged. When was the last time I used the stove? Did I turn the element off?

I better go back and check. I’ll just check one more time before I lock the door. As I’m driving down the street I’ll continue worrying about it. Until finally I can let it go. Sometimes.

My best friend suggested I take pictures of the stove or the electrical sockets before I leave the house so that if I second guess myself I can ease my fears. I do. And then I delete them when I get home because everything is fine, everything is safe.

Fear isn’t always rational.

The FLIP Side Of The Runner's High

I had just won my first race – Fat Dog 70 mile. I didn’t know I’d won until after the race was over, so I was as surprised as anyone. I’d trained my ass off for the race, pouring everything I had into it. Coming down the last ten kilometres of the course, I experienced the most powerful runner’s high I’d ever felt. I was giddy, I was high on life, I was invincible. I couldn’t sleep after the race. I sat in the truck eating potato chips at 4am, trying to figure out why I felt this strange sense of emptiness. I had just accomplished my biggest goal to date, and knocked it out of the park. Isn’t that success?

It took me months to work through the range of emotions I was experiencing, to realize that the reason I felt so sad was because I’d put my entire focus into this race, and after it ended I had nothing to look forward to. I kept asking myself 'now what?' I didn’t want to run, so I didn’t. When I finally did, I felt like I was going through the motions. I knew I didn’t want to just sign up for another big race to get my mojo back, but it felt like that was the only thing that would make me fall in love with running again.

It was around this time that the depression set in. My personal life held some very painful struggles and challenges, and I found myself unable to be quite as good at coping with shitty times as I had always been. My family continued to have health challenges and I found myself overwhelmed trying to be an emotional rock when I felt such emptiness. The sparkle was gone. Where had it gone? And why?

I wrestled with it for most of the following year. And the year after that. People around me who knew me well saw the change and commented on it. I felt it too, but I felt powerless to change the tide. On the outside I was smiling, laughing, and squeezing every drop out of life. On the inside, it felt frustratingly empty.

I thought maybe having a big goal to focus on again would be a good thing. I threw myself into training for Fat Dog 120 in 2016. Ran most of my training miles solo, stuck in my head and running away from me as much as anything else. I completed the race, finishing third, with another exhilarating runner’s high that carried me through the last 20km of the course. But then the same thing happened. It didn’t fix my sad. All those hours on the trails, all that time to think didn’t help me work through it either. I hit a new low soon after that. The tsunami that had been building beneath the surface came out and crashed over me. I remember lying on the floor in the fetal position in my kitchen, crying for hours, unable to stop. I was desperate for someone, something to take away the darkness I felt. But it was still there, and for the first time in my life I hadn’t been able to fix it on my own.

Mental illness is a strange beast. On one hand, everything seemed to be going well in my life. My new photography hobby had transitioned into tangible work. I was getting paid by brands to travel the world, telling stories and inspiring people to get outside. And I truly loved what I was doing. It’s just I could never shake that demon on my back, that little Sad that was never there until it was. I quit my job two months after that and decided that I was going to make some big changes. I went back to school, pursuing the creative life that I was so drawn to. I finally started to open up to close friends, slowly, telling them about my struggles. I admitted weakness. It helped, but it didn’t totally take it away.

I saw my doctor, and walked out with a prescription for antidepressants. I still stare at that bottle of antidepressants. It’s in my bathroom. I haven’t touched it. Why? I don’t know why. I don’t feel any stigma around them. I just don’t feel that I should have to need them. That was never me, I’ve always been good at overcoming. I’m a fighter.

This story doesn’t have an ending. It’s my ongoing journey. I’ve got good days and bad days, and sometimes I don’t know what determines which one it will be. I wish I did. I like having answers. One thing I’ve realized is that in this age of the internet and all things glossy and filtered, it’s easy to forget that behind each perfect story or photo lies a real human being, one who may have struggles they don’t want to admit to. None of our lives are perfect. There isn’t one person out there that isn’t battling some sort of challenge. And I feel that maybe if we show our cracks a little more, we will realize that. And be a bit kinder to ourselves and to others.

So this is me, showing my cracks.

The Pent-Up Fire Inside

I’m a classic late bloomer, both in running and life. I was very outdoorsy as a kid, mostly because I grew up on a farm and preferred climbing trees to playing with barbies. Homeschooled for most of my school years, I never did the team sports or structured sport activities that most kids my age did – although looking back at the endless fun we had creating elaborate movies or creating epic snowboard jumps off the roof of our barn, I don’t think I missed much. I ended up graduating high school early, and started university when I was only 16.

My life seemed perfectly on track, and my straight-A loving, Type-A personality was in full gear as I headed down the path towards law school that I thought I wanted to be on…until suddenly it all came tumbling down. In my late teens I ended up getting very sick, and over the course of six months and amidst a frustrating lack of answers from the medical community, I dropped almost 40lb and ended up hospitalized, weighing a mere 86lb from the healthy 125lb I started at. I was in the hospital for several months, fed completely through a tube, and had to withdraw from school (and ruin my perfect grades, the horror!). It was the first time in my life that I wasn’t in control, and I didn’t like it at all.

I was finally diagnosed with celiac disease (long before “gluten-free” was trendy or even something people knew about), and as I finally had answers and a way forward, I began to slowly rebuild my life in a new direction. I knew that I wanted more, even though I didn’t know what that was, and I had this pent-up fire inside of me urging me on. Not surprisingly, I experienced enormous muscle atrophy while trapped in that hospital bed, and so I started hiking up the grouse grind a few times a week to rebuild my fitness. I even tried road running out, but just managed to give myself shin splints within about twenty minutes, so that didn’t last long. Hiking became my lifesaver, and that was my first taste of the wonderful therapy that mountains provide. I began to crave the freedom and peace I felt moving through silent forests, and as my fitness increased, so did my desire to go further. I couldn’t explain it, but I had this insatiable desire to push myself to “feel” as much as I could. Pain, elation, exhaustion – it didn’t matter. I just wanted to feel the most alive.

I spent those months in the hospital without internet or television, and with nothing but time to think. While at the time it seemed like the very lowest moment of my young life, looking back in hindsight it absolutely changed me for the better. I learned through that experience about the value of friends that stick with you through the good and bad times, and the importance of valuing family above all else.

"I didn’t really realize that you were supposed to eat during long races, and I mastered the art of the bonk long before anything else about ultra running. Especially as a celiac, I’ve had some interesting challenges with nutrition and bodily functions along the way, and it’s taken a few years to dial in what I can eat or tolerate during a race."

inspired by my little sister

That fire that got lit inside of me as a teenager in the hospital is still there, pushing me to go farther and discover how far I can really go. When I hit dark places in my races, I start to think about how I felt when I was sick, and how that version of me would have never believed that I could be here now, running these ridiculous distances with a body that is strong enough to let me. I still feel like I got a second lease on life, and that feeling is what keeps me going.

My little sister has also had her own very difficult journey in life, and has spent more than half of her life battling a debilitating disease with no cure, too sick to even leave the house. We are very close, probably because we’ve shared a similar life journey at times, and I find myself thinking of her when I’m grappling with fatigue and pain. The mere fact that I’m able to do this crazy sport is a blessing and not something to ever take for granted. When I run, I run because I can, and I never forget that not everyone has that privilege.

Life is so incredibly unfair sometimes, and yet she possesses the most incredible resilience in the face of adversity. She is always excited for what I am doing, even if she is too sick to even leave her room, let alone do what she wants to do. And yet she keeps dreaming and fighting, and finding new ways to overcome the obstacles that keep coming up. I am in awe of her strength.

i run to explore my own limits

I’ve thought about what I'd do if I couldn't run anymore. Perhaps because I’ve already faced down that possibility, I’m keenly aware that the ability to do what I love in the mountains is a gift and not something to be taken for granted. A few years ago, I think I was so wrapped up in running and racing that losing it would have been utterly devastating, but in the last couple of years I’ve backed off from racing, focusing on building a range of skills to allow me to move through the mountains safely and competently. A couple of injuries, including a broken big toe in the middle of my hundred-miler training block this summer, have forced me to totally take racing off the calendar for now, focusing on just being out in the mountains – even if that’s at a slower pace. It’s helped me realize that racing isn’t why I run – I run to explore my own limits, and to surround myself with the beauty of the mountains that feeds my soul. I think even if I couldn’t walk, I’d still find a way to get into the mountains, just to sit there and be surrounded by them. Now, I am much more inspired by that idea of exploration than I am by feeling that I must compete or perform to certain expectations. That isn’t why I run.

Hilary. My name means cheerful, bright, and joyous. Most people who know me would agree that I fit the description, although perhaps it’s served up with a healthy side of sarcasm and potty humour.

"Why couldn't you just run 10k's, hilary?"

I think I’ve had bad training MONTHS, ha ha. While running is often my escape and coping mechanism in life, sometimes it’s also been my curse. I struggle when trying to adhere to a structured training plan, although I was lucky have ultra running superstar Gary Robbins as both coach and mentor for the past 3.5 years. He’s always provided me with valuable perspective and advice when I’ve been quick to beat myself up over the day-to-day failures, reminding me of the big picture “miles in the bank” that I’ve logged. I’m still working on getting better at stepping back and looking at my training as a whole, rather than just examining what I’ve botched, but it’s certainly a work in progress.

It hasn’t been easy, certainly. My family has always been supportive,although slightly concerned and perplexed about why I would choose to take up such a time-consuming and exhausting sport (as my mother putsit, “Why couldn’t you just run 10k’s, Hilary? Surely those are better for you?”). At my last big race though, my parents drove for hours in the middle of the night just to make me scrambled eggs at the side of a forest service road, and then met me at the finish line 12 hours later with hugs and a bucket to puke into. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that they did that for me. And honestly, I can’t really blame them for thinking the sport is slightly insane – from a certain perspective, you can’t argue with them.

On the relationship front, it’s always hard to balance having one whilebeing an ultra runner, whether both people are runners or not. Either you have no life at all together because you are both out running all the time, or you never see each other because one person is always running. Oops. I’m lucky that my partner has always been very supportive of my crazy endeavours, and that he has his own crazy hobbies that keep him busy in the mountains. I think if both people have things that they are equally passionate about in life, whether that’s knitting or staggering through the dark after running for 24 hours, that’s key.

a one-way plane ticket

I think this next phase of my running adventures will involve simply moving through the mountains as efficiently as possible, trying to see as much of the world as I can. My school program wraps up in a couple of weeks, and then I’m heading off to Nepal on a one-way plane ticket for a few months to explore some of the Himalayas (I’ll be posting about my adventures as I go, if you want to follow along). From there, I’m not sure where my camera and feet will take me. It feels very open-ended, which is also something that type-A Hilary would have hated. But right now, it feels pretty much perfect.

Let the adventures continue.

Footnotes

Photos by Chris Thorn, Hilary Matheson, Natalie Taylor, Jon Kuehler, James Carnegie, Adam Ciuk, Chris Brinlee, Brian McCurdy, Aran Seaman and Stephanie McGregor, Edited by Cody Royle.

Follow Hilary

FootNotes

Photos by Chris Thorn, Hilary Matheson, Natalie Taylor, Jon Kuehler, James Carnegie, Adam Ciuk, Chris Brinlee, Brian McCurdy, Aran Seaman and Stephanie McGregor, Edited by Cody Royle.

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Season 3