Ultrarunning and the Recovery of Our Humanity
Running is an art…like painting a picture or composing a piece of music.
And to create a work of art, you have to be clear about four basic concepts:
technique, effort, talent, and inspiration. And all this must be combined in dynamic equilibrium.
- Kilian JORNET
And to create a work of art, you have to be clear about four basic concepts:
technique, effort, talent, and inspiration. And all this must be combined in dynamic equilibrium.
- Kilian JORNET
We are living in an era marked by fragmentation, acceleration, and loss. Not just loss in the material sense, but a deeper kind of erosion. There’s a quiet dismembering of what it means to be human. In both our language and our systems, we increasingly see evidence of a subtle but corrosive force: dehumanisation. Furthermore, there are entire nations that have been reduced to accepting this dehumanisation as normal, creating a culture in which challenging that norm is considered heresy.
To be dehumanised is to be seen and treated as less than fully human. It is to be rendered into an object, a number, a role, a stereotype. It means being stripped of one’s complexity, dignity, agency, and voice. This isn’t just a rhetorical concern. It plays out in our institutions, in politics, in our technologies, and even in the ways we relate to ourselves.
In a world that flattens and extracts- a world that values speed over presence, spectacle over substance, and data over depth - the embodied experience of long-distance endurance ultrarunning emerges as a radical counter-cultural practice. It is, I believe, one of the most powerfully humanising disciplines available to us.
Obviously this might sound like an exaggeration. But I have come to believe it with conviction, not through abstract theory, but through experience, both personal and professional. My background in so-called elite music performance taught me to listen for truth. My work in breath training - in freediving techniques, for example - taught me to meet discomfort with calm. And now, as an ultrarunning coach, I see the body in motion as one of the last honest mirrors we have left. I still love music deeply - but only where it is truly musical.
The Logic of Dehumanisation
To understand how ultrarunning restores our humanity, we first need to be clear about what dehumanisation removes.
Dehumanisation is not only what happens in war zones or propaganda. It happens every time a person is reduced to a function, a problem, or a label. It happens when refugees are described as “swarms.” When workers are managed as “resources.” When metrics replace meaning in education, medicine, or coaching. It happens when algorithms optimise away human nuance and when our worth is defined by productivity alone.
What dehumanisation removes are precisely those qualities that make us human:
These values are subtle. They’re not flashy. They’re slow, patient, and deeply relational. That’s why they’re so easy to overlook and why they matter more than ever.
Ultrarunning as Rehumanisation
Against this backdrop, ultrarunning is not merely sport. It is a practice of rehumanisation. It offers a way of reclaiming the very capacities that the modern world tends to deny.
What happens to a person who runs 50, 80, 100 or many more kilometers on foot? Not just in physiology, but in psyche, in soul? They become, paradoxically, more human through the demands of the task. Not in spite of the suffering, but through it.
1. Return to the Body
Dehumanisation often begins with disembodiment. We live so much of life in abstraction—screens, language, identity performance. Ultrarunning returns us to the raw material of being: the body. Bones, tendons, breath, sweat. Nothing fake survives the long miles. You are brought back to what is elemental.
2. Recovery of Human Time
Our lives are saturated with speed. Ultrarunning is a rebellion against that tempo. It unfolds across hours and days, not minutes. It teaches patience, rhythm, and the forgotten art of endurance. It reminds us of human time—slow, relational, lived.
3. Shared Suffering and Solidarity
In the ultra community, something beautiful happens: hierarchy falls away. You see a CEO helping a stranger vomit into a bush. You see someone sobbing at an aid station and a complete stranger sitting beside them just to listen. Pain dissolves ego. Suffering creates solidarity. We remember: we are not machines. We are humans. And we belong to one another.
4. Vulnerability as Strength
Most sports are about domination. Ultrarunning is about surrender. You surrender to the terrain, to the weather, to the unknown within yourself. You encounter doubt, fear, fatigue—and keep moving. This is not weakness. It is a form of resilient vulnerability. And it’s deeply human.
5. Nature as Mirror
Especially on trail or mountain courses, ultrarunning reintroduces the runner to the earth. We don’t run over nature—we run with it. The terrain becomes teacher, the weather a dialogue partner. You realise: your humanity is not separate from ecology. It is nested within it.
Performance as Human Presence
In this framework, performance is no longer about domination, speed, or spectacle. It becomes a form of presence. A way of being fully alive, fully connected, fully accountable to what is real. Performance is how we meet the world honestly—with body, mind, and heart aligned.
As a coach, I am not interested in merely creating faster athletes. I want to guide people back to themselves. Back to their capacity to feel, to choose, to endure, to connect, to listen. Ultrarunning becomes the medium. The real outcome is not time on the clock—it’s depth of presence.
ー jd hixson
To be dehumanised is to be seen and treated as less than fully human. It is to be rendered into an object, a number, a role, a stereotype. It means being stripped of one’s complexity, dignity, agency, and voice. This isn’t just a rhetorical concern. It plays out in our institutions, in politics, in our technologies, and even in the ways we relate to ourselves.
In a world that flattens and extracts- a world that values speed over presence, spectacle over substance, and data over depth - the embodied experience of long-distance endurance ultrarunning emerges as a radical counter-cultural practice. It is, I believe, one of the most powerfully humanising disciplines available to us.
Obviously this might sound like an exaggeration. But I have come to believe it with conviction, not through abstract theory, but through experience, both personal and professional. My background in so-called elite music performance taught me to listen for truth. My work in breath training - in freediving techniques, for example - taught me to meet discomfort with calm. And now, as an ultrarunning coach, I see the body in motion as one of the last honest mirrors we have left. I still love music deeply - but only where it is truly musical.
The Logic of Dehumanisation
To understand how ultrarunning restores our humanity, we first need to be clear about what dehumanisation removes.
Dehumanisation is not only what happens in war zones or propaganda. It happens every time a person is reduced to a function, a problem, or a label. It happens when refugees are described as “swarms.” When workers are managed as “resources.” When metrics replace meaning in education, medicine, or coaching. It happens when algorithms optimise away human nuance and when our worth is defined by productivity alone.
What dehumanisation removes are precisely those qualities that make us human:
- Dignity: the sense that each person has intrinsic worth
- Empathy: the ability to feel with others
- Agency: the capacity to act, choose, and shape a path
- Vulnerability: the openness to being affected by others and by the world
- Presence: the ability to be fully here, in body and mind, without distraction or distortion
These values are subtle. They’re not flashy. They’re slow, patient, and deeply relational. That’s why they’re so easy to overlook and why they matter more than ever.
Ultrarunning as Rehumanisation
Against this backdrop, ultrarunning is not merely sport. It is a practice of rehumanisation. It offers a way of reclaiming the very capacities that the modern world tends to deny.
What happens to a person who runs 50, 80, 100 or many more kilometers on foot? Not just in physiology, but in psyche, in soul? They become, paradoxically, more human through the demands of the task. Not in spite of the suffering, but through it.
1. Return to the Body
Dehumanisation often begins with disembodiment. We live so much of life in abstraction—screens, language, identity performance. Ultrarunning returns us to the raw material of being: the body. Bones, tendons, breath, sweat. Nothing fake survives the long miles. You are brought back to what is elemental.
2. Recovery of Human Time
Our lives are saturated with speed. Ultrarunning is a rebellion against that tempo. It unfolds across hours and days, not minutes. It teaches patience, rhythm, and the forgotten art of endurance. It reminds us of human time—slow, relational, lived.
3. Shared Suffering and Solidarity
In the ultra community, something beautiful happens: hierarchy falls away. You see a CEO helping a stranger vomit into a bush. You see someone sobbing at an aid station and a complete stranger sitting beside them just to listen. Pain dissolves ego. Suffering creates solidarity. We remember: we are not machines. We are humans. And we belong to one another.
4. Vulnerability as Strength
Most sports are about domination. Ultrarunning is about surrender. You surrender to the terrain, to the weather, to the unknown within yourself. You encounter doubt, fear, fatigue—and keep moving. This is not weakness. It is a form of resilient vulnerability. And it’s deeply human.
5. Nature as Mirror
Especially on trail or mountain courses, ultrarunning reintroduces the runner to the earth. We don’t run over nature—we run with it. The terrain becomes teacher, the weather a dialogue partner. You realise: your humanity is not separate from ecology. It is nested within it.
Performance as Human Presence
In this framework, performance is no longer about domination, speed, or spectacle. It becomes a form of presence. A way of being fully alive, fully connected, fully accountable to what is real. Performance is how we meet the world honestly—with body, mind, and heart aligned.
As a coach, I am not interested in merely creating faster athletes. I want to guide people back to themselves. Back to their capacity to feel, to choose, to endure, to connect, to listen. Ultrarunning becomes the medium. The real outcome is not time on the clock—it’s depth of presence.
ー jd hixson