The quiet power of a challenge
Insights from people who pursue pain
Why embrace optional suffering—climb a mountain, run a marathon, commit to an arduous trek, paddle a canoe or swim across the ocean—when daily life presents so many unavoidable difficulties?
We all have our reasons, and I learn something new from each person’s answer to “why?” It’s often a personal crusade—an emotional reckoning manifested in what appears to be a purely physical arena. The perseverance that emerges from that battleground is both lesson and reward.
I started competing in triathlons when I was nine—to spend time with my father. Later I tapped into something more primal and powerful related to survival, and how these voluntary struggles changed me as a person and parent.
“What’s your why?” kept coming up. In 2004, an airline magazine editor asked me to write a story entitled “Why I Compete,” and it still feels relevant. Confronting pain without turning away—instead, stepping even deeper into agony—teaches me everything I need to know about myself. It changes my perspective and redefines success, because the only real failure is not trying.
This gives me courage in every aspect of life. Each step to the starting line represents fresh possibilities, and the event itself is only one of them.
We have more to explore on this topic, so please join the incredible people quoted below and share your thoughts about what you’re seeking, how you’re doing it, and why.
Candes Gentry - proving to myself
The truth is, I have a fire that burns inside me when I set my sights on a goal, it’s all-consuming—so bright, so intense—that I can barely breathe until I extinguish it by achieving what I set out to do.
I am fueled by fear. By uncertainty. By the whisper of “that’s not for you” or “that’s impossible.”
I use those doubts to propel me—to climb the mountain, to cross the ocean, to step onto the stage—not for applause, not for validation, but for me.
Because deep down, my greatest desire is to prove to myself that I can be more. More than my thoughts have told me. More than society ever expected of me.
-Candes Gentry, author, athlete, artist, and philanthropist
Billy Pratt - discipline is rehearsal for resilience
In the discipline of sports, I find the truth of life. How you train is how you compete. And how you train and compete is often how you navigate life.
Discipline in sports isn’t just about reps or routines—it’s rehearsal for resilience. It’s your personal blueprint for how to show up each and every day (especially when all of the variables aren’t in your control).
Success and championships are where the “fun” is, but also represent the validation that discipline and effort sometimes pay off, while also reminding us that we aren’t entirely crazy for all of that extra work after all!
In summary, it is a humble reminder that talent is often what gets one noticed, but discipline and consistency are why we are remembered.
Whatever your pursuit—get up, get out, and send it!
Billy Pratt, multi-time canoe racing world champion
Allison Kvikstad - surviving cancer
Because I can. Having had cancer and intense treatment over many years, I’m so grateful for all that my body CAN do.
My runs are no longer fast, but I can, in fact, run. My long distance hiking trips are shorter in distance and require more stops, but I can still get outside to hike.
The challenge is no longer improving my speed or distance, but getting to do the activity. I’m competing against time over someone else, or even versus my younger self.
-Allison Kvikstad, wealth advisor and long time advocate of financial literacy
Lee Ziff - achievement, thrill, and belonging
Putting myself in pain is what I do. There’s the fear that if I don’t push myself as hard as I can, I won’t do well. Along with that quest for achievement, I think I’ve always wanted to be with the cool kids (guys at the front), to feel that sense of belonging.
Criterium bike racing is a fast-paced sport that can’t be replicated in training: shoulder to shoulder, wheel to wheel, one breath from disaster. That’s when the world slows down and gets really small. I’m locked and loaded—totally present and focused.
I may not have been the fastest, but I’ve always been willing to hurt more to stay in the action.
-Lee Ziff, real estate professional and cyclist
Mike Gordon - many levels of strength
I compete, at age 67, because I can’t imagine the alternative. Even when my body fails me in unexpected ways, the connection to strength remains. Perhaps it’s a drug, as addictive as any.
-Mike Gordon, journalist and outrigger canoe paddler
Rachel Ross Bradley - fun, friends, and stories
To beat my twin.
The last quote is, of course, a joke from Rachel Ross Bradley, a sub-three-hour marathoner and two-time age group winner at the Ironman Triathlon World Championship (among many other accomplishments). In competitions too numerous to count over the past twenty years, we’ve encouraged each other on and off the course. “They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even…run alike?” said a news article about our one-two finish and subsequent debate: "She's stronger/No, she's stronger.”
What matters most to us? Sharing the experience, giving our best effort, and celebrating the other’s accomplishments more than our own. If you can do that when you’re really hurting, you have something real that deepens friendship and endures.
Just like those race stories.
P.S. Encouragement from Dad
When I was about nine, my father gave me this quote from Teddy Roosevelt. It’s guided me ever since. Hope it inspires you, too.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. -Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
Katherine, how I love your writing and storytelling. I feel stronger and braver as I listen and read your words. Mahalo, my dear friend...
https://substack.com/@egretlane/note/p-166593988?r=5ezmlv&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action