'CHOOSE STRONG: The Choice That Changes Everything' by Sally McRae

Spoiler Alert: This review reveals both themes from the book, and from Greta Gerwig's film, Barbie. (Hooked you with that, didn't I?)

I was driving home from the local theatre after watching Barbie when I found myself passing the right turn home, turning onto the interstate and sobbing my way down the freeway for an hour. It wasn't until the tears settled that I realized the true moral Sally's beautifully written autobiography had sunk in (and that I needed to call my mom, ASAP).

The GOATs of the ultra world seem to scramble into from no single, predictable path. Rich Roll landed in it after leaving the world of law and addiction. Courtney Dauwalter happened upon it following the trail of curiosity about her own limits. Scott Jurek continued a disciplined path excavated early on through struggles hoisted upon him and his family. In her book, both an honest narrative exposing her path to ambition and a memoir for her remarkable mother's, Sally McRae crystalizes the common thread; no matter who we are, or where we come from, our greatness is achieved when we choose to live in our strength.

There exists a common belief in trail running that "we're all out there battling our own demons." But is a molotov cocktail of anger, sadness, resentment, or regret the recipe for stoking an inner fire? Or is the endorphin-induced runner's high or rush of an accomplishment enough to pull you through darker moments? Sally McCrae's journey, traversing unimaginable hidden hardships while presenting a joyous and accomplished life, might lead us to believe that it's neither.

Sally weaves the threads between her challenging upbringing and the complicated relationship it sewed with her athleticism. You feel her deep, unfettered admiration and loyalty to her mother as fiercely as you adopt her unavenged resentment towards their household. You empathize with her eagerness to please, even if only to temper hostility. When tragedy shows up at her doorstep, between the words on the every page you're living in teenage Sally's desperation to deny death, even as it stands in the room. And when she recounts a childhood memory in which, in a moment born of a deep marriage between love and resentment, she steps in harms way and choses pain as an expression of love and will, you realize inner strength with her. That single act of desperate protectiveness shifts her outlook on pain, as you realize alongside her that power lies in one's ability to exercise their inner strength and resilience.

There's more to this than a lesson about fortitude; her creed comes backed with an abundance of scientific research. In Training for the Uphill Athlete, House et. al. refer to the "central governor" as the primary source of all limitations to endurance. For endurance athletes, training can be summarized as a consistent build to the brain's threshold to endure pain and struggle, and as a result increases your brain's limit to what it can withstand before the governor hands the body a cease and desist. From this perspective, what Sally refers to as "choosing strong", or Courtney visualizes when she's "digging in the pain cave", or David Goggins means when he commands you to "stay hard", is all simply pushing that limit.

"The husbandmen deals with land; physicians and trainers with the body; the wise man with his own Mind." -Epictetus

The stoics, the OGs of mastering the mind in this way, observed the same phenomena. Seneca mused that only men who abused the time they were given avoid death. Those of us who spend our time deliberately, he claims, "will not hesitate to go to meet death with a steady step." This logic resonates similarly to Sally's story. It offers us prose through which we can understand why embracing pain as a means to an end is altogether extraordinary and necessary. Continuing to explore the boundary of what our body, mind, and spirit can handle means that we greet the finish line knowing that we've laid it all on the course. We can leave in peace.

During the later miles of my 100k I lost myself in a conversation about moms; loving them, losing them, remembering them. This conversation haunted me the most during recovery. Driving home and replaying the final scene of Barbie in my head, the reason hit me; choosing to be human, to not passively accept, but deeply acknowledge and be present with the pain our human experiences come with, to lean into the pain that comes with loving and losing a mother, is to be fully in your life. It's to be fully in the life that she gave you.

Sally offers so much through her story and her development as a runner. If you're looking to deepen your relationship with challenge, or find your way to that shift in mindset that opens you up to peaks and valleys, I 12/10 recommend Choose Strong. Adopt Sally's poignant philosophy, direct that strength towards your purpose, and you'll be amazed by what you're capable of.