Darby Maguire is not your average ultramarathon runner. He doesn’t sport the latest high-tech gear, meticulously track his every move, or boast a lengthy running resume. In fact, at just 21 years old, with a mere year of running under his belt, he embarked on a seemingly impossible feat: a gruelling 900km effort, running 60 km a day for 15 days in aid of charity during the scorching Australian summer heat.
“My mind was pretty terrible at that point,” Darby confesses, recalling a particularly dark moment during the run. “I was in a very negative space… I pretty much just wanted to stop. That was when I met Dr. Simpson for the first time. We only had a few minutes together, and I told him I was finding the run tough and was not sure I could continue. He said I’d need something more than willpower and asked me if I was creative. This simple question hit me like a thunderbolt, with the instant realisation that I was trying to push through this like an athlete. It made me realise that I wasn’t an athlete and I won’t be able to get through this like an athlete. So I may as well start getting through it creatively, not trying to win the race or be the fastest, and to get through it my way. The result was that I ended up getting into this state where these terrible moments were happening, but there was almost this embracement of wanting to go to that part of my mind because that part of my mind was still me.”
