[Editor’s Note: A kind note for our readers that this article and accompanying film deal with themes of depression and suicide. Reader/viewer discretion advised.]
There’s a standard adage within the sport that “operating is cheaper than remedy,” and sometimes, that’s so far as conversations about psychological well being and sports activities go. Skilled skier and less-professional ultrarunner Drew Petersen is out to vary that.
In his new movie, “Really feel it All,” he makes use of his journey of racing the Leadville 100 Mile in Colorado and snowboarding all the peaks the course passes beneath as a platform to speak about his struggles with psychological well being, suicidal ideas, and his relationships with each snowboarding and operating.
He says, “I need to change all the tradition of psychological well being.”
The movie begins with the statistic that through the 34 minutes it’ll take the viewer to observe it, three individuals within the U.S. will die by suicide. Overlaying pictures of Petersen operating in a ravishing panorama is his voice describing his frame of mind three years earlier. “I need to be useless. I don’t need to be alive. I don’t need to maintain going anymore. I simply don’t imagine that any of this can ever get higher.”
It’s rapidly obvious that whereas this movie makes use of the storyline of operating the enduring Leadville 100 Mile and snowboarding the peaks within the Sawatch Vary outdoors of Leadville as a narrative arc, the movie is about excess of that.
Petersen continues along with his reflection on the time interval, “I used to be actually looking for a method to survive right this moment to see tomorrow. And I knew if I might do this, then yeah, I might do something. I might climb any mountain, I might ski any line, and I might run 100 miles.”
Petersen is a lot better identified within the snowboarding world than the ultrarunning world, receiving his first sponsorship at age 16 and making a residing snowboarding powder in entrance of a digicam in places world wide.
He says, “Far more individuals would outline me as a skier than as a runner, however I feel that’s principally as a result of I’m good at snowboarding, and I’m knowledgeable skier, and people issues aren’t true for operating. However it’s an enormous a part of who I’m and an enormous a part of how I expertise my life, and it provides me numerous path and fervour and objective.”
Drew Petersen (left) snowboarding in a scene from “Really feel it All.” All images: Drew Petersen
Working as a Lifeline
Within the depths of a depressive episode, Petersen discovered himself with an entry to the 2023 Leadville 100 Mile, a race he’d identified about since he was a child rising up in Silverthorne, Colorado, only a mountain move north of Leadville. Coaching for the race grew to become his lifeline and incomes the bigger sub-24-hour finisher belt buckle grew to become the aim.
Alongside the way in which, Petersen introduced his personal distinctive life perspective to coaching for the race by snowboarding all the mountains the race passes beneath, together with Mount Elbert, the very best peak in Colorado, and Mount Hope, the height towering over the excessive level of the race because it crosses the mountain’s shoulder on Hope Move.
Petersen says, “I’ve all the time run in the summertime, the identical ridgelines and peaks and locations that I ski within the winter. What stays fixed is the mountains. Attending to know these mountains all through the entire 12 months and all through a number of seasons actually creates this depth of relationship there.”
Whereas the movie is stuffed with stunning surroundings and operating pictures, its depth comes from Petersen bringing the viewer alongside on his psychological well being journey, from his first ideas of suicide at age 9, to a rock-fall accident 5 years earlier on Mount Hood in Oregon, which might have ended a lot worse than it did, and to his prognosis with post-traumatic stress dysfunction and bipolar dysfunction afterward.
Through the race, the movie follows Petersen and his crew alongside his 100-mile journey on the Leadville course and demonstrates the energy that Petersen has gained from addressing and being open along with his psychological well being.
A scene from “Really feel it All” reveals the beginning of the Leadville Path 100 Mile.
Working as a Complement to Remedy
Ultimately, he factors out that whereas operating could also be complement to remedy, it’s no alternative, and he argues that separating the 2 has given him a deeper appreciation of each life and the game.
He says, “Under no circumstances form or type are snowboarding and operating an alternative to actual remedy. My toolkit is every part I do in my absolutely renovated life-style.” He continues, with a smile in his voice, “That opens up snowboarding and operating to be enjoyable.”
Name for Feedback
Do you discover operating or one other sport useful to your psychological well being?
Has there been a race or run that received you thru a tough time on this approach?
