Pre-Launch EP: Bill Robertson | IAT 50 Recap

I ran 50 miles in jorts and ascended. JK fam, I am an indeed an eternal & humble student to navigating the trials of life with grace the best I can.

In this video I delve into some of my process in running the IAT 50, my first ever 50 mile trail ultra. As someone who has struggled significantly with mental health the majority of his life, distance running has been a truly needle moving medicine for finding my way back to solid ground.

It has allowed me to find, maintain and cultivate internal peace at levels that I never even came close to anticipating when originally starting.

The transcendent, rhythmic and meditative, and cathartic qualities of this practice have been a potent outlet for me in reconnecting back to self love as well as a clearer, more accurate, compassionate self image. 

Soft launch of the Space For Beeing Podcast as well. So much more magic to come, enjoy and please comment & follow on IG @TheSpaceForBeeing to show love and continued support. 

With LOVE.

Transcript

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Here we are, sitting down to finally delve into the many layers and nitty-gritty details of my experience running the Ice Age Trail 50. There are so many things in which I could get into in relation to this event. We could talk about what does it look like to train your body in preparation for something like this? What does it look like to fuel? What does it look like to hold the right mindset in lieu of the results I'm looking to get? And we'll get into that a little bit, but really what I'm here to talk about, guys, is that I ran this event in jorts! And I'm wearing the jorts right now because we had to get into the vibration of you know my jorts escapades. And this really speaks to a core part of my personality and a strategical element that people may overlook as far as how one could approach an endurance event. It's called having fun, it's called moving into the experience with levity because when you can do that, audio stress, adios attachment to outcomes, I'm just here to have fun. Um but overall, my intentions today are to speak to the medicine and therapeutic benefits of running, at least my experience of that. Are the physical adaptations great? Yes, VO2 Max, how that pertains to longevity, um I guess just development of physicality as a whole, cardiovascular health. The list goes on. We should all be moving our bodies in a cardiovascular fashion, but that's not a driving variable for me to get out and run. What a drive the driving variable for me is um having undivided attention and space, connection time with myself. Because on any given day, I am highly stimulated doing creative work, going from one thing to the next, maintaining relationships, making a meal. There's presence involved with this. I'm connecting with myself in the process, but when I get to have the opportunity to go out onto a trail in the natural world for nine and a half hours to be with myself, you best believe things are gonna shift within. At least that's my experience, not to project it onto you. I imagine that's the case for most people, though, that get into ultra event running and participation. Ritual said it best. Ultra marathons are a spiritual odyssey draped as a physical feat. This has been my exact experience. This is what keeps me coming back to distance running, is that I reach this place of emptiness where there's no obstructions with connecting to like the truest, most divine aspects of myself. I don't typically use the word divine, but in general, these things are hard to put into words. Um but I'm gonna backpedal a little bit. Came into the race, generally unprepared from a physical standpoint, prepared enough to perform at the level of placing, I think it was 46 out of 240 runners in the field, but my training block in general was quite wishy-washy. Um, but that didn't matter because I was not concerned about where I stood up in the field. I was out there to go deep within, to be present, to be open for wonderful things to happen. And that's exactly what occurred. And there's so many facets of the journey which we can get into. Um, but let's just say we came out ablazin from that start line. I came out a lot quicker than I expected, and I was feeling really good physically, mentally, emotionally. Um and as people that participate in ultra events know there's a point in the race where the unsavory sensations ramp up exponentially, and that just there's like a steady arc of that. There's a linear progression of like, oh shit, here we go. We're hitting a wall physically, and and for me, that's where the magic starts to occur. There's this level of physical exhaustion that happens where um stories of insecurity, stories of disempowerment, illusory ideas of who I am completely fizzle out, and I have a very clear sense of who I am and connection. And the most profound thing that occurred while on the trail, which happened at about mile 40, was this it was a full embodied feeling experience in my heart of the type of person that I truly am. Um, typically I've been someone who has been incredibly hard on themselves as I've navigated my life path. Uh, very active mind, very chaotic at times. I've just been an extreme and very intense person, and I care about performing well and doing well, uh, just uh executing on the things I choose to do. Um at high capacity, I guess you could say. And with that, it can be challenging just to be with myself because at certain points there's a lot of self-deprecation. There's like there's been deep senses of inadequacy. Um, these are things I've worked on. My other cat, these are things I've worked on throughout the years, uh, through therapy and through exercise, through my connection to nature, with friends, with meditation, with plant medicines, things like this. And, you know, I still struggle with from time to time. Because again, I'm someone who cares, and there's just very strong habit, energy, and momentum. Like when you have this sort of relationship like this with yourself for decade plus, there's a lot of unwinding to do. And at mile 40, I just had this incredibly moving moment where I saw myself exactly as I was. The mirror was polished and completely clear, and I just felt an immense sense of love for myself, and it was truly felt. And for the most part, I can intellectualize that I love myself, and I can feel that too on some level, and I practice feeling that, I practice cultivating that, but in this moment, I felt it so strongly that I began to weep. Luca, stop. She's hitting the tripod. Um, I began to weep. And part of me was like, I don't want to weep in front of other runners passing me. So I would weep and then I would stop weeping, and the endorphin releases that I would experience upon cathartically emotionally releasing on this level, it was like a full-body orgasm. Like things were happening, guys, and I've had a handful of experiences where I've had this level of catharsis: 5 MeO DMT, which is a plant, an incredibly potent plant medicine. It's sourced from the Sonoran Desert Toad. It's a secretion from this toad that you vaporize, and people have very deep experiences with it. So I my first experience with that went into that level of catharsis where it was like things were coming out from like deep pits within me. The like shit that's been in there was coming out. My body knew exactly what to do. And it was similar in this moment, too, where it's like I had this realization, connection, immense level of self-love, and it was so beautiful that I cried, and it was also so tragic, too, because it's something that I have a hard time maintaining connection to overall. Um I don't expect myself to feel that level of overwhelming love towards myself at all times because I have a mind, I have an ego, I have trauma, all these things. So to like keep my finger on the pulse of that is just I feel like it's an unrealistic expect expectation. So this occurred at mile 40, and I kept having these just beautiful openings for the last 10 miles, but also like I was trepid into going into it, and I couldn't go fully into it, guys, because when you're weeping, I was like hyperventilating. I was hyperventilating. Um, so I had to maintain composure on some level so I could keep running because the breath is critically important when you're running in any regard to maintain nasal breathing, so for uh proficient and efficient oxygen delivery to the tissues and just maintaining function of my body. Um, but I kept going into these openings when I could for brief moments, and uh the last three miles or so, I like really went in. Um, and I had the last three miles were a grind. My legs were absolutely cooked. My legs were cooked at 26 miles. So think about where my legs were at 47 miles, just to provide some perspective here. And I didn't want to run, I really just wanted to walk the rest of the event. But I was like, yo, what like what am I here to do? Am I here to go be half-ass about this or go all in and really push my personal envelope as it relates to the entirety of my being and what's possible for me as far as being in this event and what I can do and the culmination of my work as a person and in the craft of running more specifically, I was like, fuck it, we're gonna run. And I had this another major opening emotionally and spiritually when I thought about my father. And for context, my father was a police officer who was killed in the line of duty just two months before I was born, and my mother was pregnant with twins. Really tragic story, conversation for another day. Anyways, I realized that my father didn't get to live a full life, and I'm sure he lived a full life through one lens. If you break down the experience that he had and the things he got to do and stuff like that, but he died at age 30 or 31, I forget the exact age. I'm 31 now, and I had this another profound realization that it is the most colossal of blessings for me to be able to feel everything as a person, to be alive, and boy, was I feeling it at mile 47, considering I've never run that far perpetually. Um, I've run another event where there was 50 miles cumulative, but it was a last man standing event, so there's lots of breaks in between each loop that we did, and um so I have never felt so much pain, so much discomfort, and felt so grateful to be feeling it all at once, and it was so beautiful, and it was this really important reflection of an insight of what is possible if I carry this forward into my everyday life. So things get hard, as we know. We lose people, uh, relationships end, things don't go the way we want. We have a health scare, we get in a car accident, catastrophe occurs inevitably, life's always throwing curveballs. Can I remain grateful and curious amidst the pain? Not that I'm gonna force myself to do that, but the fact that I get to experience pain at all. I am alive. There's people that are six feet deep that don't get to have this experience. Um so just the perspective I gained in that moment was really meaningful for me. Um, and I've been able to implement that wisdom since as I go through hard times and I regularly reflect on death as well as a means of keeping things in their right place. When I find my mind getting hung up on a conversation I had, right? Maybe felt insecure or said something dumb, I instantly am able to let that go. Because nobody gives a shit. Nobody gives a shit about that. And that is essentially a delusion that I'm fueling in my head. The fact that it's become this ordeal in the landscape of my own mind is really where the problem is rooted in. Um and understand the fact that I'm gonna die, everything I do is gonna be forgotten. Oh, I can just sidestep the shit out of that little hiccup there. Um, anyways, a little side tangent. So this happens. I I have this connection to my father and like the blessing of existence and my experience in the moment, feeling so much pain, feeling everything, truly being open to feeling everything, resisting nothing. Um and the last half mile, I let it rip. I had just the deepest belly wails, just crying so hard, sobbing, sobbing for the last quarter mile, and remember me mentioning how I was a little intimidated of crying in front of runners passing by me. Well, guess how many people were at the finish line watching me sob? 300 plus, and people were cheering me on, saying funny things about my jorts, and I was just crying, and I let it happen. I cried like a man, guys. And it was a revolutionary experience for me. There was like a timeline shift that occurred overall with this event and my perspective on life and running and what running can do for me as like a meditative development practice and like connecting to who I truly am past my ego and my story and everything else, and recognizing I am my spirit, and my spirit's unmoving, my spirit's always there, it's infinite, it's eternal. Um so maybe I can get a little into that afterwards, but I've never cried that hard in front of so many people, and as we know in our society, we have stigmatized authentic, genuine human connection and emotions more specifically, especially with men. So here's your boy, shirtless, wearing jorts, crying, not and not just crying, sobbing, and my the results of the race exceeded my expectations by a landslide. Um, and there's so many reasons for that. A few of them being my mentality, my sense of humor. When I realized my legs were cooked at mile 26, you know what I was doing about that? Laughing about it. Um anytime I would truly be in the depths, I would find some way to show up as like the most sturdy of corner men. Like I was behind myself the whole time. I never let myself down in these moments of deep pain, and like the mind just at a certain point hyperfixates on being done because it doesn't feel good. And I leveraged levity throughout all those moments. I was singing, I was laughing, I was being playful with other people as they passed by. And really, again, I share all of this, this review on the experience, because you get I've done a lot of drugs, guys. Um and I'm not bragging about this. I'm not even proud about it, it's just the reality. Psychedelics take you to places unimaginable. And they allow you to see reality in a way in which you know potentially you wouldn't have access to otherwise, to see yourself in a way to where you potentially wouldn't have access to otherwise. Through running, I've discovered that I can get to these places of like complete peace. I I had a thought during the race that if I died today, I'd be fine with it. You know how often I think that? Rarely. RARE. So just to paint the picture of the magnitude of the impact on me as a person, the internal metamorphosis, the internal love that I had connected with along the journey, um that's what I'm trying to get across here. And I think anything, any process you can commit to that allows you to be absolutely present with yourself for a large amount of times, whether it's hiking a 14er in Colorado or whatever, long hikes, long long times in nature specifically, with oneself undistracted, you're gonna things are gonna occur for you, and you're gonna experience the whole spectrum, and that's what I want people to know about the medicine of running for myself, and I think a lot of people can relate to that. So it's not about crossing the finish line for me, it's about who I have become in the process, and the love that I have fostered in my heart as well for myself, for others, for humanity, for the planet, this beautiful place that we get to live. There's nothing better than that. There's nothing greater, grander, more valuable. And this is yeah, what uh what I'm learning through running is incredibly pertinent as it relates to my own life. And I never thought that I could get to where I am within the landscape of my own mind and heart through running. There's been a lot of other inputs as well or and outlets, such as therapy, such as you know, taking really great care of my body, such as doing what I truly want to do with my life, despite it being incredibly hard. Um, maintaining healthy relationships, it's always a whole picture thing, but I suppose to wrap it up, what I would like to encourage people to do is to find something you can commit to, a process that is solely for you, that involves completely undistracted time with oneself. Maybe it's art, maybe like dreams. Drawing. Maybe you can get some drawing in on a daily basis. Perhaps it's sitting in the bath, sweating balls, contemplating the nature of existence. Maybe it's just walking. Maybe it's walking with a friend. Maybe it's walking your dog. Maybe it's going to shelters and volunteering and being with dogs. I don't know. But here I am. I'm about 185 plus days into doing my daily mile. Which after the event, I literally could not run for two days because my quads were so fried they wouldn't activate. They'd actually seize up anytime there's a legitimate foot strike. So I didn't run for two days, but I do have a clause for myself in my mile-a-day challenge where if I cannot physically run, it is okay and I can continue my streak. Through this process of committing to something every day, and which is totally for me and allows me to be with myself and process and just get present. I've completely changed as a person. And you can find that too. So in completion, more to come. We're getting back into podcasting, guys. We're getting back into sharing the insights. We're getting back into having fun doing it. I've been stalling. I've truly been stalling doing this video today. And it feels really amazing on a personal level just to speak these things out loud, to sort of reel it in, to encompass it and integrate it on a deeper level within myself. And I want others to obtain value from my experiences as well. So stay tuned for that. Follow me on Instagram at Yo Billy Goat. Follow the Hive Wellness and Social Portafavor at HiveMKE on Instagram. And just stay tuned for more, more adventures, more journeys inward and outward and beyond, helping other people, making art, and just being a cosmic gangster. That's it. Alright. Smooches, y'all.