[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 typical 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 wish to change your entire tradition of psychological well being.”
The movie begins with the statistic that throughout the 34 minutes it’ll take the viewer to observe it, three folks within the U.S. will die by suicide. Overlaying pictures of Petersen operating in a wonderful panorama is his voice describing his mind-set three years earlier. “I wish to be useless. I don’t wish to be alive. I don’t wish to preserve going anymore. I simply don’t imagine that any of this may 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 together with his reflection on the time interval, “I used to be actually looking for a solution to survive at this time to see tomorrow. And I knew if I may do this, then yeah, I may do something. I may climb any mountain, I may ski any line, and I may run 100 miles.”
Petersen is significantly 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 digital camera in places world wide.
He says, “Far more folks would outline me as a skier than as a runner, however I feel that’s largely as a result of I’m good at snowboarding, and I’m an expert skier, and people issues aren’t true for operating. But it surely’s a giant a part of who I’m and a giant a part of how I expertise my life, and it offers me a variety of path and keenness and function.”
Drew Petersen (left) snowboarding in a scene from “Really feel it All.” All pictures: 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 go 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 purpose.
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 Cross.
Petersen says, “I’ve at all times 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 lovely 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 may have ended a lot worse than it did, and to his analysis 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 together 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
In the long run, he factors out that whereas operating could also be a superb complement to remedy, it’s no substitute, and he argues that separating the 2 has given him a deeper appreciation of each life and the game.
He says, “By no means form or type are snowboarding and operating an alternative to actual remedy. My toolkit is every part I do in my absolutely renovated way of life.” 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 helpful to your psychological well being?
- Has there been a race or run that received you thru a tough time on this method?
