I set out to write that list and it ended up looking like this:
1. Both an ultramarathon and labor/childbirth are physically demanding and last a long time (9-36 hours, YMMV).
The list that wrote itself along the way is this one: the ways they are NOT alike. I mean to cast no aspersions on ultramarathons; I simply wish to expand on the unsuitability of a metaphor that I at first thought was a good fit.
1. An ultramarathon may loom large and you spend months anticipating it but honestly, you could pull out the night before if you wanted to.
2. Heck, you could pull out halfway through if you wanted to. Too tired, got injured, don't have it in you, would prefer to sleep, NO PROBLEM. Just stop.
3. Those months of anticipation and preparation for an ultramarathon are spent getting into the best shape of your life.
4. There are breaks and checkpoints during ultramarathons where you can just sit your dang self down for a few minutes should you feel so inclined.
5. You know ahead of time the where and when of an ultramarathon, including expected terrain. Nobody just wakes you up in the middle of the night and says "hey, the ultramarathon begins NOW."
6. An ultramarathon has a finish line where people clap and cheer for you (actually sorta glad this is not on the similarity list). And you literally get a medal (you know the saying "nobody is giving out medals for natural childbirth." WELL).
7. When you finish an ultramarathon and your body is tired and sore, you can go ahead and sleep for a couple of days. No need to wake up every couple of hours at the whim of someone else.
Anyway, all this to say: Jeremy is attempting his longest-ever ultramarathon later this week: 160km! I sometimes wonder how he does it and what it feels like to run something like that, and labor/childbirth is the closest I can get to understanding. So I'll be cheering for him from that place of my heart - the place that knows he is doing something beyond difficult, that will use up all his emotional and physical reserves. I haven't been in his exact shoes, but maybe that one-item list of similarities between ultramarathons and labor/childbirth is enough for me to understand at least a little of what he'll be going through.
