19. Why Ultra Running Isn’t Selfish
For years, I felt like my ultra running was selfish. I tried to keep it small, unassuming, and hidden, never wanting to inconvenience anyone or want too much. I raced sparingly, downplayed my goals, and constantly questioned whether it was okay for me to want what I wanted. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. That fear of being “selfish” affects so many runners, quietly holding us back from running - and living - fully.
In this episode, I share my own journey of letting go of that invisible brake and giving myself permission to run as much as I wanted. I talk about the ways this fear of being selfish shows up and why it often costs us energy, results, and joy. Most importantly, I’ll help you rethink what it really means to be selfish and show you why your ultra running is not only okay; it’s a vital part of your life.
Through practical examples, questions for reflection, and personal stories, I’ll guide you to examine the beliefs you’ve absorbed about selfishness, understand what it’s truly costing you, and discover how to embrace your running - and your dreams - without guilt. Learn how you can feel empowered to go all in, find balance, and chase your ultra goals with confidence and freedom.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why fearing that ultra running is selfish holds you back more than any physical barrier.
The two common strategies runners use to avoid appearing selfish and how they limit potential.
Why you don’t have to justify your running or wait for others’ approval to chase your goals.
Why letting go of the "selfish" label allows you to find balance and freedom in your training and racing.
How shifting your perspective on selfishness allows you to go all in on your goals and run with freedom.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Unstoppable Ultra Runner, the podcast for ultra runners who refuse to let anything hold them back. I’m your host, Susan Donnelly, veteran of over 150 100-mile races, and a coach who helps runners like you break through mental roadblocks, push past doubt, and run with confidence. Let’s go.
Ever fear that your ultra running is selfish? It's a thought that shows up more than we'd like to admit. And if so, you're not alone.
Hi and welcome to episode 19. Today, we're talking about the way that belief, ultra running is selfish, affects you and how to rethink it.
I've had deep personal experience with this belief. So much so that for years, I didn't even realize how much I was letting it shape my running. It was kind of like living in a cage I didn't even know I was in. I mean, I could breathe, so everything was fine, right?
For a long time, I tried to keep my running small and unassuming. I wanted to prove I wasn't selfish, to do only what was acceptably unique. I tried not to inconvenience others. I tried not to want too much. I tried not to race too often, and I really tried to keep it hidden and out of the way.
Until one day, someone came into my life and said, "That's not selfish. You can run as much as you want and that's okay."
That one invitation to see it differently changed me forever. They gave me permission I didn't even know I was waiting for, to run and race as much as I wanted to my heart's content, to chase dreams without justifying them. And not just one dream, but many, and big ones, as big as I wanted.
That permission changed everything. It changed my perspective in a way I couldn't even imagine was possible. And I've been grateful for it ever since. And today, I'd like to pass that same permission on to you. Because I see this thought, this fear of being selfish, affect so many ultra runners, especially women. It's like an invisible hand constantly on the brake that we don't even know is there.
So if you've ever tried to hold yourself back just enough to not look selfish, this episode is for you.
Let me show you just some examples of how this shows up. I've listened to women spend at least twice as much time explaining to me why it's only okay for them to race one big race a year than to actually tell me what they want to race.
I've seen more than one mom quit a 100-miler at night in tears, not because they were injured or out of time, but because they felt like they shouldn't be at the race. Like they should be home with their family, even when their flight or their ride home wasn't available until the next evening, and there was no way to actually get or be home in that moment that they dropped.
I've talked to a lot of runners who dropped late in a race, not because they were behind or even close to cutoff, but because they felt guilty about being slow or last. Guilty for keeping volunteers or their crew or their pacers out there just for them. Guilty that they were still on course and not done already. The weight of that guilt became heavier than the miles. So they dropped.
And while this pressure shows up differently for men, you all aren't immune to it either. I've talked with plenty of men who feel the pressure to be present with their family enough, to not leave a fellow runner behind, or that silent message that you should only run the race if you can finish and achieve something. So if you all are listening, this is for you too.
To ground this conversation, I looked up the word "selfish," and here are two definitions that I think really capture it. The first is, "concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself, seeking or concentrating on one's advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others." And the second definition is, "arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard for others."
Did you catch the key theme there? The problem isn't wanting something; that's not it. The problem is disregard for others. That's the moral line in the sand. But most ultra runners I know aren't out there running with disregard for others. It's typically the exact opposite. They care deeply about others. That's why they feel so guilty.
So let's talk about what's really happening here. We've been taught, especially women, that valuing your own time and energy over what someone else might want or need is rude and inconsiderate and wrong. You've probably absorbed beliefs like, "You have to take care of everyone else before you can do what you want." Or, "Your value is determined by how much you do for other people." Or, "People need to approve of your choices for them to be valid."
So even when your heart wants to run, your brain sounds the alarm and asks, "Wait a minute. Is this too much? Am I allowed to want this? What will people think?" That's when guilt kicks in. Guilt when you make your training a priority. Guilt when you tell your family you signed up for a race and guilt when you say, "I want this."
And so to avoid being seen as selfish, what we do is we overcorrect in the safe direction. And to do that, most runners take two strategies to manage that fear of seeming selfish, and chances are you've done one or both of these at some point.
The first is trying to earn approval from others. You take care of everything and everyone else first. Your training happens only after all the other boxes are checked, if there's time left. You say no to races you really want to do because you've already run one this year, and that's probably enough.
Or you minimize it. You call ultra running "just a hobby." You downplay it in conversations. You resist posting too much on social media because you don't want to look obsessive. You wait for everyone else to be okay with your goal before you let yourself go all in. And if they're not okay, you hold back.
The second strategy we try to use to be safe and not seem selfish is avoid disapproval. You don't admit to people how much you really care about this. You keep your ambitions quiet. You explain them away. You don't train the way you want because it might look like too much. You buy shoes only when yours are really past worn out. You shrink your goals enough that they don't make waves or make other people feel bad or feel challenged.
But as a result of these strategies, you also never find out what you're really capable of because you don't dare go all in. You don't dare race big, and you don't dare to dream fully because you're afraid of how it will look. That fear might seem small on the surface, but it's costing you. It's costing you energy. It's costing you results.
And maybe most painfully, it's costing you the freedom to do what you actually want to do in your own life. The freedom to go all in on something that matters to you. The joy of saying, "This is what I want. It's big and important to me, and I'm going for it."
It can cost you finishes. I've coached plenty of runners who drop from races that they easily could have finished because guilt won. They felt too bad about, quote, "taking too long" or "inconveniencing" people. They didn't want to be the last one in, holding other people up. They didn't want to be a burden, even though the course was still open and runners could still be on the course.
But what I want you to get today is that the real problem isn't how long you take or how many races you run or what others think. The real problem is accepting this invisible message in the first place. The belief that you're being selfish? You don't have to keep it. You don't have to carry it with you another mile.
The truth is, selfish is a label someone, society, taught you to use when your desires didn't match their preferences, but you're allowed to want what you want. This is your life. You don't owe the world a minimized, approved version of yourself.
So here are some questions to help you unpack this. And I'm going to read these slowly so you can think about them or write them down, and I'm also going to include them in the show notes.
The first one is: Where did the idea that ultra running is selfish even come from? Can you trace it back?
Second question: When did you decide to believe this thought that ultra running is selfish?
Third question: What is it costing you to keep that belief, to keep believing in that?
Fourth question: How is ultra running not selfish?
Fifth question: What would change if you stopped seeing it that way, if you stopped seeing it as selfish? What would change?
And the sixth and last question: At the end of your life, what would you be proud of? Holding back to please others or chasing something that changed you for the better?
Be honest with yourself. Nobody else has to see your answers to these questions. And really think about them and really get in touch with how you want to honestly answer those questions and decide if you want to see this differently. Because this is your running and your life.
And in case you're thinking that if you let go of the idea that ultra running is selfish that you'd overcorrect in the complete other direction and run too much, that wasn't my experience. The permission to run and race as much as I wanted let me find my balance. It let me find the sweet spot between too much and too little.
And it can do the same for you. When I gave myself permission to run and race as much as I wanted, I didn't overdo it. I found that balance. I found that sweet spot between too much and too little, and you can do the same thing too.
Look, I'm not here today to tell you how often to race or how much to train or what to do. That's yours to decide. But what I am here to do is to help you let go of the guilt and limitations that you never chose.
Guilt is not the price that you have to pay for loving the sport. You don't have to earn the right to dream. You don't have to apologize for what lights you up. You don't have to keep calling them dreams and never chase them. Your dreams are not optional extras. They're part of your life's work. They draw you for a reason. They're part of who you're meant to become.
Running ultras isn't just about covering distance. It's about expanding your understanding of yourself, of deepening your relationship with yourself, and discovering who you become when you allow yourself to go all in on something.
So take a deep breath. Check in with what you really want, not what you think others want you to want. Because you're allowed to care deeply. You're allowed to want more, and you're allowed to go big. That isn't selfish. That's you living the life you were meant for, becoming who you were always capable of being.
All right, you all. That's this week's episode. Thanks for listening. Share this episode with a friend who will appreciate it, and I will see you here next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
Ever fear that your ultra running is selfish? It's a thought that shows up more than we'd like to admit. And if so, you're not alone.
Hi and welcome to episode 19. Today, we're talking about the way that belief, ultra running is selfish, affects you and how to rethink it.
I've had deep personal experience with this belief. So much so that for years, I didn't even realize how much I was letting it shape my running. It was kind of like living in a cage I didn't even know I was in. I mean, I could breathe, so everything was fine, right?
For a long time, I tried to keep my running small and unassuming. I wanted to prove I wasn't selfish, to do only what was acceptably unique. I tried not to inconvenience others. I tried not to want too much. I tried not to race too often, and I really tried to keep it hidden and out of the way.
Until one day, someone came into my life and said, "That's not selfish. You can run as much as you want and that's okay."
That one invitation to see it differently changed me forever. They gave me permission I didn't even know I was waiting for, to run and race as much as I wanted to my heart's content, to chase dreams without justifying them. And not just one dream, but many, and big ones, as big as I wanted.
That permission changed everything. It changed my perspective in a way I couldn't even imagine was possible. And I've been grateful for it ever since. And today, I'd like to pass that same permission on to you. Because I see this thought, this fear of being selfish, affect so many ultra runners, especially women. It's like an invisible hand constantly on the brake that we don't even know is there.
So if you've ever tried to hold yourself back just enough to not look selfish, this episode is for you.
Let me show you just some examples of how this shows up. I've listened to women spend at least twice as much time explaining to me why it's only okay for them to race one big race a year than to actually tell me what they want to race.
I've seen more than one mom quit a 100-miler at night in tears, not because they were injured or out of time, but because they felt like they shouldn't be at the race. Like they should be home with their family, even when their flight or their ride home wasn't available until the next evening, and there was no way to actually get or be home in that moment that they dropped.
I've talked to a lot of runners who dropped late in a race, not because they were behind or even close to cutoff, but because they felt guilty about being slow or last. Guilty for keeping volunteers or their crew or their pacers out there just for them. Guilty that they were still on course and not done already. The weight of that guilt became heavier than the miles. So they dropped.
And while this pressure shows up differently for men, you all aren't immune to it either. I've talked with plenty of men who feel the pressure to be present with their family enough, to not leave a fellow runner behind, or that silent message that you should only run the race if you can finish and achieve something. So if you all are listening, this is for you too.
To ground this conversation, I looked up the word "selfish," and here are two definitions that I think really capture it. The first is, "concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself, seeking or concentrating on one's advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others." And the second definition is, "arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard for others."
Did you catch the key theme there? The problem isn't wanting something; that's not it. The problem is disregard for others. That's the moral line in the sand. But most ultra runners I know aren't out there running with disregard for others. It's typically the exact opposite. They care deeply about others. That's why they feel so guilty.
So let's talk about what's really happening here. We've been taught, especially women, that valuing your own time and energy over what someone else might want or need is rude and inconsiderate and wrong. You've probably absorbed beliefs like, "You have to take care of everyone else before you can do what you want." Or, "Your value is determined by how much you do for other people." Or, "People need to approve of your choices for them to be valid."
So even when your heart wants to run, your brain sounds the alarm and asks, "Wait a minute. Is this too much? Am I allowed to want this? What will people think?" That's when guilt kicks in. Guilt when you make your training a priority. Guilt when you tell your family you signed up for a race and guilt when you say, "I want this."
And so to avoid being seen as selfish, what we do is we overcorrect in the safe direction. And to do that, most runners take two strategies to manage that fear of seeming selfish, and chances are you've done one or both of these at some point.
The first is trying to earn approval from others. You take care of everything and everyone else first. Your training happens only after all the other boxes are checked, if there's time left. You say no to races you really want to do because you've already run one this year, and that's probably enough.
Or you minimize it. You call ultra running "just a hobby." You downplay it in conversations. You resist posting too much on social media because you don't want to look obsessive. You wait for everyone else to be okay with your goal before you let yourself go all in. And if they're not okay, you hold back.
The second strategy we try to use to be safe and not seem selfish is avoid disapproval. You don't admit to people how much you really care about this. You keep your ambitions quiet. You explain them away. You don't train the way you want because it might look like too much. You buy shoes only when yours are really past worn out. You shrink your goals enough that they don't make waves or make other people feel bad or feel challenged.
But as a result of these strategies, you also never find out what you're really capable of because you don't dare go all in. You don't dare race big, and you don't dare to dream fully because you're afraid of how it will look. That fear might seem small on the surface, but it's costing you. It's costing you energy. It's costing you results.
And maybe most painfully, it's costing you the freedom to do what you actually want to do in your own life. The freedom to go all in on something that matters to you. The joy of saying, "This is what I want. It's big and important to me, and I'm going for it."
It can cost you finishes. I've coached plenty of runners who drop from races that they easily could have finished because guilt won. They felt too bad about, quote, "taking too long" or "inconveniencing" people. They didn't want to be the last one in, holding other people up. They didn't want to be a burden, even though the course was still open and runners could still be on the course.
But what I want you to get today is that the real problem isn't how long you take or how many races you run or what others think. The real problem is accepting this invisible message in the first place. The belief that you're being selfish? You don't have to keep it. You don't have to carry it with you another mile.
The truth is, selfish is a label someone, society, taught you to use when your desires didn't match their preferences, but you're allowed to want what you want. This is your life. You don't owe the world a minimized, approved version of yourself.
So here are some questions to help you unpack this. And I'm going to read these slowly so you can think about them or write them down, and I'm also going to include them in the show notes.
The first one is: Where did the idea that ultra running is selfish even come from? Can you trace it back?
Second question: When did you decide to believe this thought that ultra running is selfish?
Third question: What is it costing you to keep that belief, to keep believing in that?
Fourth question: How is ultra running not selfish?
Fifth question: What would change if you stopped seeing it that way, if you stopped seeing it as selfish? What would change?
And the sixth and last question: At the end of your life, what would you be proud of? Holding back to please others or chasing something that changed you for the better?
Be honest with yourself. Nobody else has to see your answers to these questions. And really think about them and really get in touch with how you want to honestly answer those questions and decide if you want to see this differently. Because this is your running and your life.
And in case you're thinking that if you let go of the idea that ultra running is selfish that you'd overcorrect in the complete other direction and run too much, that wasn't my experience. The permission to run and race as much as I wanted let me find my balance. It let me find the sweet spot between too much and too little.
And it can do the same for you. When I gave myself permission to run and race as much as I wanted, I didn't overdo it. I found that balance. I found that sweet spot between too much and too little, and you can do the same thing too.
Look, I'm not here today to tell you how often to race or how much to train or what to do. That's yours to decide. But what I am here to do is to help you let go of the guilt and limitations that you never chose.
Guilt is not the price that you have to pay for loving the sport. You don't have to earn the right to dream. You don't have to apologize for what lights you up. You don't have to keep calling them dreams and never chase them. Your dreams are not optional extras. They're part of your life's work. They draw you for a reason. They're part of who you're meant to become.
Running ultras isn't just about covering distance. It's about expanding your understanding of yourself, of deepening your relationship with yourself, and discovering who you become when you allow yourself to go all in on something.
So take a deep breath. Check in with what you really want, not what you think others want you to want. Because you're allowed to care deeply. You're allowed to want more, and you're allowed to go big. That isn't selfish. That's you living the life you were meant for, becoming who you were always capable of being.
All right, you all. That's this week's episode. Thanks for listening. Share this episode with a friend who will appreciate it, and I will see you here next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
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