It was like a Hollywood movie script, a true hero’s journey.
A race of epic proportions, I had dreamed about it, trained and sacrificed; travelled the breadth of the Earth to stand at the start line. Only to quit, DNF at 250km mark, broken, frozen, hallucinating, fractured and busted.
But the hero’s journey continued. I limped home to discover the wisdom hidden within the failure (insert Rocky-style training montage and an eventual return to the start line in a foreign land). Not only did I conquer the race that second time, finally reaching the finish line on the shores of a frozen Arctic Ocean, but I stood on top of the podium, conquering all and sundry, demons within and competitors without.
It literally, literally could not have gone better.
So why can’t I sleep? Why am I snapping at those I love? Why am I lost at sea, so to speak?
I dedicated three years of my athletic life to a singular goal and reached the very pinnacle but the post credit scenes were not the fireworks, adulation or clarity I had imagined.
It was a
