[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 “working 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 alter 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 below as a platform to speak about his struggles with psychological well being, suicidal ideas, and his relationships with each snowboarding and working.
He says, “I wish to change your entire 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 folks within the U.S. will die by suicide. Overlaying pictures of Petersen working in a fantastic 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 maintain going anymore. I simply don’t imagine that any of this may ever get higher.”
It’s shortly obvious that whereas this movie makes use of the storyline of working the long-lasting Leadville 100 Mile and snowboarding the peaks within the Sawatch Vary exterior 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 option to survive as we speak 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 recognized within the snowboarding world than the ultrarunning world, receiving his first sponsorship at age 16 and making a dwelling snowboarding powder in entrance of a digital camera in areas world wide.
He says, “Far more folks would outline me as a skier than as a runner, however I believe that’s largely as a result of I’m good at snowboarding, and I’m knowledgeable skier, and people issues aren’t true for working. Nevertheless 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 a number of route and keenness and goal.”
Drew Petersen (left) snowboarding in a scene from “Really feel it All.” All images: Drew Petersen
Operating 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 recognized about since he was a child rising up in Silverthorne, Colorado, only a mountain move north of Leadville. Coaching for the race turned his lifeline and incomes the bigger sub-24-hour finisher belt buckle turned 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 below, 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 crammed with lovely surroundings and working 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.
In the course of 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.
Operating as a Complement to Remedy
Ultimately, he factors out that whereas working could also be a great 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, “By no means form or type are snowboarding and working 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 working to be enjoyable.”
Name for Feedback
- Do you discover working or one other sport useful to your psychological well being?
- Has there been a race or run that bought you thru a troublesome time on this means?
