62. How to Create a Bigger Future After a Setback
What do you do when it feels like everything you worked for has been taken away? Whether it's an injury, a surgery, a string of DNFs, or another setback you never saw coming, most runners fall into one of two traps: settling for a smaller future or becoming obsessed with getting back to who they used to be.
In this episode, I share what I learned in the days after my hip replacement surgery and why I chose neither of those paths. Facing the possibility of losing the future I thought I wanted forced me to rethink everything. What I discovered was that setbacks don't just take things away. Sometimes they reveal possibilities you couldn't see before.
You'll learn why creating a bigger future starts with refusing to let circumstances make your decisions for you, how to uncover opportunities hidden inside major setbacks, and why you're not starting over from nothing, even when it feels that way. If you're facing a challenge that has changed your plans, this episode will help you see what's still possible and create a future that's bigger than the one you thought you lost.
My 1:1 Mental Mastery Coaching for Ultrarunners is a six-month coaching program where we build the mental skills experienced ultrarunners use to handle difficult races well. Schedule a consult call to learn more here.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
The two default ways runners respond to major setbacks and why both are traps.
Why settling for less hands your future over to circumstances.
The problem with trying to get back to a past version of yourself.
How to create a future based on possibility instead of limitation.
Why setbacks can reveal options you never considered before.
How to stop comparing yourself to your former self.
Why you're not starting over from nothing, even after a major setback.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
The Ultrarunner’s Mastery Debrief Template helps you evaluate your races like experienced ultrarunners do - identifying what worked, what didn’t work, and what to do differently next time. Download yours for free here.
If you’re loving the show, please take a moment to follow, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts today!
Episodes Related to Your Identity as an Ultra Runner:
Full Episode Transcript:
When you're starting your running over from nothing, there are two default choices of how to approach it, and both are traps. But there's a third option you're probably missing.
Welcome to Unstoppable Ultra Runner, the podcast for ultra runners who refuse to let anything hold them back. I’m your host, Susan Donnelly, veteran of over 150 100-mile races, and a coach who helps runners like you break through mental roadblocks, push past doubt, and run with confidence. Let’s go.
Welcome to Episode 62. This is the last of the series of three podcast episodes where I'm sharing what I learned about ultras from my hip replacement journey. The first episode was about how to face your biggest fear, which my hip replacement definitely was.
The second episode was answering the question, "Are you still an ultra runner if you're not running?" So, if you haven't listened to those two episodes, go back after this episode and give them a listen.
But today, as I record this, it's now one week and four days after my hip replacement surgery. I am walking with a cane, but it's not like a linear fantasy progression to feeling totally better all of a sudden. I'm still dealing with pain and the physical challenges that come with healing, like sleeping, getting enough sleep. And I haven't even made it one mile around the house with my cane yet in one day. So there's that.
So it is way too early to say exactly what the future looks like, but one thing I know for sure: I'm not done. This has been a six-year-long journey, and in those six years, I have long had plans B, C, D, all the way to H, really to Z, because I had to be ready for anything. And now that the surgery is done, some of those plans, those alternate plans may not even be necessary. But can I run or not? And how much am I going to run? Those are questions that I'm going to be answering as my hip gets stronger and I get to know my body all over again.
But that's a story for another episode. Today's episode is about a question every runner faces when they lose their running, whether it's to injury, to surgery, to circumstances they didn't choose, whatever. And the question is this: what do you do when you feel like everything is gone? Most people let circumstances answer that question for them. I don't.
When runners get injured, what they fear isn't the pain; it's the loss of fitness, of races, of having to start all over again from nothing. They'll bargain and do anything to avoid that. And believe me, I wanted more than anything in this world to do the same. But here I am. I'm walking in incredibly slow, tiny circles around the house with a cane. Running 100 miles now seems almost laughable. Like the first time I attempted, the first time I ran 100 miles at Superior, it seemed possible. Now though, after having done 153 of them, where I am right now, it feels impossible.
So when you're standing here with all that loss, there are two default choices that most people make about how to approach the future. The first is to accept a smaller, more limited future. And the thinking here is that you've done a lot, you've had your fun, and now, with your hip, loss of fitness, your older age, you just need to accept that it's time to scale back and take it easy.
The second default choice is to fight to get back exactly to where you were and to what you had. And believe me, I understand both of those approaches all too well. But here's the problem with them. The first one, settling for less, hands your future over to circumstances. The second, getting back to where you were, chains you, like a prisoner, to a past version of yourself. And either way, circumstances are doing the deciding; you're not. And that is the trap.
This is my life, mine to choose and create. And I'm not about to hand the rest of my life over to a random set of circumstances. That's like finally getting your one and only chance to go to the best amusement park in the entire world, and then letting some random stranger decide how many and which rides you get to ride. It's crazy. This is the quality of the rest of my life, my life. It doesn't get left to circumstances to decide. I decide.
And my decision isn't either one of those two default choices. It's not the smaller future and it's not a race to get back to who I was before. And that's not because I'm in denial about where I am. I know exactly where I am. I'm walking with a cane. I'm a week and a half out of surgery. I know what's real. But accepting that the fun is over and I should just be happy with what I've done or chaining myself to re-achieve a past version of me that I may not be able to reach, and may not even want to reach, neither one of those things is a future that I want.
So, what I did, I chose to create a new future, a better one, on my own terms, totally of my own choosing. When I decided to think about the future this way, here are three things I found.
First, I have more options than I had with my old hip, far more options. And that's really exciting because I was living with an increasingly smaller life within increasingly greater limitations. It is so hard to describe, but every day I would wake up and ask, "What do I give up today? What else won't I be able to do?" Before surgery, every day started with this dismal estimate: what am I going to be able to do? What's actually going to be possible today? It's very much like a race, except instead of pushing to see how far you can go, you're gambling on whether you can even make it to the starting line.
Like, here's my thought: can I even make it through the store? Can I walk through the airport from gate to gate? Can I walk three miles today, or am I only going to be able to manage one today? That's what I was dealing with. I couldn't risk over-committing myself in any one of those simple day-to-day activities and getting into trouble. I couldn't attempt something even as simple as a trip to the grocery store and end up stranded. In other words, I was losing ability. But now, now I have options again.
I get to ask a question I almost forgot how to ask: what can I do? I can go to races again. I can travel again. I can park wherever I want in the parking lot without having to wonder if I can get what I need from the store. I'm gaining ability, and best of all, I'm gaining freedom. Instead of looking with longing at the high ridge of the Smoky Mountains I used to run and the races that everybody else is running, now I get to ask, "What can I do?" Getting back there now to those things is a possibility.
And here's the second thing I found: not only do I have options I didn't have before the surgery, I see new options that I might not have considered before. Having to let go of the future that I expected to have and to rethink it from the ground up seems horrible, awful. You don't want to do it. But it gave me a priceless gift I couldn't have gotten any other way. I could look around at all the things I wanted to do in the world while I'm able to do them.
Coming up with plans A through H showed me how many possibilities I was actually passing up running what I used to run in ultra running. Things like indulging in fixed-time races, or I could focus on 50ks. Heck, I could walk 50ks if I had to. And maybe on the other end of the spectrum, maybe 200s would be easier and fine on my hip. I could bike, I could hike, I could finally try pickleball.
It really freed me up to consider anything and everything. I started to think about all the different ways I could still live an active life. If I couldn't get back to ultra running, which seemed highly likely before the surgery, what then?
And here's an example: I now have a really strong itch to do some long trails, maybe a combination of running and hiking. The list of them that I'd love to do, like running, hiking, both, is longer than I realized and getting longer every day. Instead of looking at buckles and races I used to do and thinking, "It won't be the same ever again," and "I can't do that anymore," I started asking, "What do I want to do?" which is a way more fun question.
The third thing I found when I decided to look at the future, design the future my own way, is that before surgery, the future in my head looked blank. It was like trying to see, you know, when you're in a race overnight and it's foggy and you've got a headlamp on and all you can see is this blank, white, undefined fog in front of you? That's exactly what the future looked like in my head. And that was scary. I mean, I knew intellectually a future out of pain would be better, but I had to summon a lot of trust in that idea to move forward into that foggy, undefined unknown.
And now that I'm on the other side, when I compare before surgery to after, what I find is that the future I have now will actually be better than the one I thought I lost. Because by clearing away the future I thought I had, I can now intentionally make something that's even more fulfilling than I would have automatically just on default created before. So it's actually not a loss. It's a new beginning. And that is exciting.
I decided that my measure of success is where I go from where I was just before surgery, not comparing myself to where I was at the peak of my ultra running or when I was younger or anything like that. When I went through surgery, I just set down any need to compare my after that I'm in now with what I used to do. I'm not competing against my old self. There's just simply no need.
And here's why. Let's go back to that original fear: not wanting to start all over again from nothing. It could certainly look like that's where I'm standing right now. But I'm actually not starting over again from nothing. I didn't lose me in the process. All the internal strength and mental mastery I built over my lifetime and decades of ultra running, I've still got it all. And now I've actually got 10 times that. I'm stronger now that I have faced the worst of my fears head on and fought my way through it.
So I'm the same, but better. I'm stronger for the experience. I'm sharper for braving it. I know I will take care of myself through anything and everything. So anytime I face a challenge now, I can think, "Well, at least it's not everything I went through to fix my hip pain." I tackled all that pain and that worst fear. So no challenge from here on will ever hit me the same way again.
So I'm not competing against my old self. I'm not even trying to close a gap between who I am now and who I used to be. There's just simply no need. I'm still that self, but stronger for what I did to get through this to the other side.
So the decision I made about where to go from here wasn't either one of those two obvious choices: settle for less because I've had my fun, or try and get back to where I was. I'm going for something new, something that looks a lot like what I had before, but with a richer mix of options that I might not have even considered without this hip replacement. Right now, a week and a couple days after surgery, recovery is obviously the priority, and that'll take months, and I am totally fine with that.
But I can now see a future that was hidden in that fog. Life before surgery was closing in too much to see it. I just had to trust it was there and keep moving forward. And now, where I am, ironically feels the same way it did when I finished my first 100 at Superior 100. When I finished that race, the entire world of ultra running suddenly opened up for me.
I've come full circle. The world is opening up for me again. I've stopped in the race of life and taken this pesky pebble out of my shoe. And now life and the running are new again and exciting again. I'm only just beginning.
All right, you all. That's this week's episode. Thanks for listening. If you know someone who could use this, share it with them. It might be exactly what they need to hear. See you next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
Welcome to Unstoppable Ultra Runner, the podcast for ultra runners who refuse to let anything hold them back. I’m your host, Susan Donnelly, veteran of over 150 100-mile races, and a coach who helps runners like you break through mental roadblocks, push past doubt, and run with confidence. Let’s go.
Welcome to Episode 62. This is the last of the series of three podcast episodes where I'm sharing what I learned about ultras from my hip replacement journey. The first episode was about how to face your biggest fear, which my hip replacement definitely was.
The second episode was answering the question, "Are you still an ultra runner if you're not running?" So, if you haven't listened to those two episodes, go back after this episode and give them a listen.
But today, as I record this, it's now one week and four days after my hip replacement surgery. I am walking with a cane, but it's not like a linear fantasy progression to feeling totally better all of a sudden. I'm still dealing with pain and the physical challenges that come with healing, like sleeping, getting enough sleep. And I haven't even made it one mile around the house with my cane yet in one day. So there's that.
So it is way too early to say exactly what the future looks like, but one thing I know for sure: I'm not done. This has been a six-year-long journey, and in those six years, I have long had plans B, C, D, all the way to H, really to Z, because I had to be ready for anything. And now that the surgery is done, some of those plans, those alternate plans may not even be necessary. But can I run or not? And how much am I going to run? Those are questions that I'm going to be answering as my hip gets stronger and I get to know my body all over again.
But that's a story for another episode. Today's episode is about a question every runner faces when they lose their running, whether it's to injury, to surgery, to circumstances they didn't choose, whatever. And the question is this: what do you do when you feel like everything is gone? Most people let circumstances answer that question for them. I don't.
When runners get injured, what they fear isn't the pain; it's the loss of fitness, of races, of having to start all over again from nothing. They'll bargain and do anything to avoid that. And believe me, I wanted more than anything in this world to do the same. But here I am. I'm walking in incredibly slow, tiny circles around the house with a cane. Running 100 miles now seems almost laughable. Like the first time I attempted, the first time I ran 100 miles at Superior, it seemed possible. Now though, after having done 153 of them, where I am right now, it feels impossible.
So when you're standing here with all that loss, there are two default choices that most people make about how to approach the future. The first is to accept a smaller, more limited future. And the thinking here is that you've done a lot, you've had your fun, and now, with your hip, loss of fitness, your older age, you just need to accept that it's time to scale back and take it easy.
The second default choice is to fight to get back exactly to where you were and to what you had. And believe me, I understand both of those approaches all too well. But here's the problem with them. The first one, settling for less, hands your future over to circumstances. The second, getting back to where you were, chains you, like a prisoner, to a past version of yourself. And either way, circumstances are doing the deciding; you're not. And that is the trap.
This is my life, mine to choose and create. And I'm not about to hand the rest of my life over to a random set of circumstances. That's like finally getting your one and only chance to go to the best amusement park in the entire world, and then letting some random stranger decide how many and which rides you get to ride. It's crazy. This is the quality of the rest of my life, my life. It doesn't get left to circumstances to decide. I decide.
And my decision isn't either one of those two default choices. It's not the smaller future and it's not a race to get back to who I was before. And that's not because I'm in denial about where I am. I know exactly where I am. I'm walking with a cane. I'm a week and a half out of surgery. I know what's real. But accepting that the fun is over and I should just be happy with what I've done or chaining myself to re-achieve a past version of me that I may not be able to reach, and may not even want to reach, neither one of those things is a future that I want.
So, what I did, I chose to create a new future, a better one, on my own terms, totally of my own choosing. When I decided to think about the future this way, here are three things I found.
First, I have more options than I had with my old hip, far more options. And that's really exciting because I was living with an increasingly smaller life within increasingly greater limitations. It is so hard to describe, but every day I would wake up and ask, "What do I give up today? What else won't I be able to do?" Before surgery, every day started with this dismal estimate: what am I going to be able to do? What's actually going to be possible today? It's very much like a race, except instead of pushing to see how far you can go, you're gambling on whether you can even make it to the starting line.
Like, here's my thought: can I even make it through the store? Can I walk through the airport from gate to gate? Can I walk three miles today, or am I only going to be able to manage one today? That's what I was dealing with. I couldn't risk over-committing myself in any one of those simple day-to-day activities and getting into trouble. I couldn't attempt something even as simple as a trip to the grocery store and end up stranded. In other words, I was losing ability. But now, now I have options again.
I get to ask a question I almost forgot how to ask: what can I do? I can go to races again. I can travel again. I can park wherever I want in the parking lot without having to wonder if I can get what I need from the store. I'm gaining ability, and best of all, I'm gaining freedom. Instead of looking with longing at the high ridge of the Smoky Mountains I used to run and the races that everybody else is running, now I get to ask, "What can I do?" Getting back there now to those things is a possibility.
And here's the second thing I found: not only do I have options I didn't have before the surgery, I see new options that I might not have considered before. Having to let go of the future that I expected to have and to rethink it from the ground up seems horrible, awful. You don't want to do it. But it gave me a priceless gift I couldn't have gotten any other way. I could look around at all the things I wanted to do in the world while I'm able to do them.
Coming up with plans A through H showed me how many possibilities I was actually passing up running what I used to run in ultra running. Things like indulging in fixed-time races, or I could focus on 50ks. Heck, I could walk 50ks if I had to. And maybe on the other end of the spectrum, maybe 200s would be easier and fine on my hip. I could bike, I could hike, I could finally try pickleball.
It really freed me up to consider anything and everything. I started to think about all the different ways I could still live an active life. If I couldn't get back to ultra running, which seemed highly likely before the surgery, what then?
And here's an example: I now have a really strong itch to do some long trails, maybe a combination of running and hiking. The list of them that I'd love to do, like running, hiking, both, is longer than I realized and getting longer every day. Instead of looking at buckles and races I used to do and thinking, "It won't be the same ever again," and "I can't do that anymore," I started asking, "What do I want to do?" which is a way more fun question.
The third thing I found when I decided to look at the future, design the future my own way, is that before surgery, the future in my head looked blank. It was like trying to see, you know, when you're in a race overnight and it's foggy and you've got a headlamp on and all you can see is this blank, white, undefined fog in front of you? That's exactly what the future looked like in my head. And that was scary. I mean, I knew intellectually a future out of pain would be better, but I had to summon a lot of trust in that idea to move forward into that foggy, undefined unknown.
And now that I'm on the other side, when I compare before surgery to after, what I find is that the future I have now will actually be better than the one I thought I lost. Because by clearing away the future I thought I had, I can now intentionally make something that's even more fulfilling than I would have automatically just on default created before. So it's actually not a loss. It's a new beginning. And that is exciting.
I decided that my measure of success is where I go from where I was just before surgery, not comparing myself to where I was at the peak of my ultra running or when I was younger or anything like that. When I went through surgery, I just set down any need to compare my after that I'm in now with what I used to do. I'm not competing against my old self. There's just simply no need.
And here's why. Let's go back to that original fear: not wanting to start all over again from nothing. It could certainly look like that's where I'm standing right now. But I'm actually not starting over again from nothing. I didn't lose me in the process. All the internal strength and mental mastery I built over my lifetime and decades of ultra running, I've still got it all. And now I've actually got 10 times that. I'm stronger now that I have faced the worst of my fears head on and fought my way through it.
So I'm the same, but better. I'm stronger for the experience. I'm sharper for braving it. I know I will take care of myself through anything and everything. So anytime I face a challenge now, I can think, "Well, at least it's not everything I went through to fix my hip pain." I tackled all that pain and that worst fear. So no challenge from here on will ever hit me the same way again.
So I'm not competing against my old self. I'm not even trying to close a gap between who I am now and who I used to be. There's just simply no need. I'm still that self, but stronger for what I did to get through this to the other side.
So the decision I made about where to go from here wasn't either one of those two obvious choices: settle for less because I've had my fun, or try and get back to where I was. I'm going for something new, something that looks a lot like what I had before, but with a richer mix of options that I might not have even considered without this hip replacement. Right now, a week and a couple days after surgery, recovery is obviously the priority, and that'll take months, and I am totally fine with that.
But I can now see a future that was hidden in that fog. Life before surgery was closing in too much to see it. I just had to trust it was there and keep moving forward. And now, where I am, ironically feels the same way it did when I finished my first 100 at Superior 100. When I finished that race, the entire world of ultra running suddenly opened up for me.
I've come full circle. The world is opening up for me again. I've stopped in the race of life and taken this pesky pebble out of my shoe. And now life and the running are new again and exciting again. I'm only just beginning.
All right, you all. That's this week's episode. Thanks for listening. If you know someone who could use this, share it with them. It might be exactly what they need to hear. See you next week. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Unstoppable Ultra Runner. If you want more ultra talk, mindset tools, and strategies for running with confidence, visit www.susanidonnelly.com. This podcast receives production support from the team at Digital Freedom Productions. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS, or wherever you listen to podcasts!