Trudging up a brier-covered mountain in freezing temperatures with a dying headlamp, Nickademus de la Rosa knew his attempt to finish the Barkley Marathons, a 100-plus-mile race in Tennessee, was coming to an end, as it eventually would for most other entrants. The race has no trail markers, an elevation gain comparable to climbing Everest twice from sea level and a finish rate that hovers around 1 percent.
Earlier in de la Rosa’s career as an ultramarathon runner, he most likely would have been stricken with an overwhelming sense of worthlessness and shame for not completing a race. But in the Tennessee woods in March, he saw the upside.
“Instead of hitting myself and telling myself how worthless I am, I congratulated myself on what I was able to accomplish,” he said. “I realized I did not have anything to prove at Barkley. I had no more demons to slay and I was happy to finish early and spend time with my wife.”
It was a significant moment for de la Rosa, who has been grappling with a serious mental illness that has imperiled both his running career and his life.
In a sport dominated by people in their late 20s, 30s and even 40s, de la Rosa was a prodigy. At 19, he finished Badwater, an infamous 135-mile race across Death Valley in California in the brutal heat of…
