May 9, 2025
Run #5: 1 mile
Total runs in 2025: 5
Total miles: 5
Left to go: 3,467 miles
#Run5555km #StrongerEveryStride
Depression can feel heavy. Exhausting. Like you’re underwater, stuck in what Tara Brach calls the trance of unworthiness—but layered with quicksand.
In those cycles, it’s not just the sadness. It’s the helplessness. The feeling of being trapped inside your own thoughts and emotions.
But my recent conversation with ultrarunner, teacher, and mental health advocate, Casey Stillwagon, inspired me to give running another try.
Casey is the human and heart behind the Instagram account @Run5555km. Through his messages, he raises awareness about mental health struggles and suicide prevention, while gently urging us to extend compassion not just to others—but also to ourselves.
As a P.E. teacher and endurance runner based in Japan, Casey understands how easily we can slide from pursuing growth with self-love to chasing goals from a place of not-enoughness. That’s why the mantra behind his movement—Stronger Every Stride—feels both grounded and believable coming from him.
When you’re in the thick of depression, especially if you tend to self-isolate indoors, it’s easy to feel like you’re shrinking. Getting weaker. More fragile.
But lacing up my shoes for a one-mile run—especially on days when my thoughts are loud and heavy—reminds me that I can shift.
That every single stride is an act of strength.
That this small act pulls me out of helplessness and back into a sense of agency.
There’s relief in remembering:
Suffering often comes when we try to solve emotional pain with the same thoughts that created it.
Something new must be inserted to interrupt the loop.
And for me—sometimes—it’s movement.
As someone who coaches others to see their thinking, Casey’s message reminded me:
My body wants to help, too.
The second insight I took from our conversation came from a line Casey quoted from Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running:
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
Casey said this line helped him through the hardest miles of his last ultramarathon. But it’s also wisdom he wishes he had access to during the harder moments of his adolescence.
Because when we realize that suffering is optional, we begin to see chosen pain—the kind that helps us grow—as a gift.
Reflecting on this, Casey said:
“When I’m thinking about pain—whether it’s anxiety or the pain that comes from running—and I choose to go for a run anyway, and choose to experience that kind of pain to maybe reach a higher level of fitness… that’s a good thing.
I get to do that.”
That shift? “I get to.” 🔥
I’m choosing to get stronger.
I’m choosing to go for a run.
And if there’s pain, I’m choosing to experience that kind of pain—because it helps me grow.
It’s a good thing.
I get to do that.
That mindset applies to everything.
Running a business is hard.
Navigating self-doubt is hard.
Staying with your vision when the results feel distant? Also hard.
But so often, the discomfort we feel is the skill gap between our taste—as Ira Glass says—and our current ability.
And when we pause to remember: I chose this path,
we reclaim the power to choose it again—on purpose.
Because any path that calls you to grow will ask you to evolve.
And evolution always costs something.
The discomfort? It’s the price of admission.
So here’s what I’m reminding myself today:
I get to walk this path.
I get to face discomfort in service of growth.
I get to become the person who figures this out.
Your turn:
What is your version of this?
Where can you shift from “I have to” to “I get to”?
What pain are you willing to choose—because something within you knows it’s the path to your next level?
What is your “I’m choosing / I get to” statement?
Pain is part of the human experience.
Suffering, though, is often a sign we’ve forgotten our power to choose.
And the moment we remember we have a say in the story—we grow stronger.
Every step.
Every mile.
Every stride.
To join the Stronger Every Stride movement, connect with Casey Stillwagon on Instagram: @Run5555km.
Set your own 5,555 km goal—on your terms, in your time.
Tag your walks or runs using #Run5555km and #StrongerEveryStride to raise awareness for mental health and suicide prevention.
And if you missed it, catch my conversation with Casey on the podcast.
Resources:
Book | What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Article | Ira Glass, And What Every Successful Person Knows, But Never Says by James Clear
