A ‘marathon’ guest blog today from endurance athlete, inspirational leader with Fouad Es-Said’s elite global distribution company Transmed (KRC: February 6 2026, April 27 2025, March 22 2024, March 21 2023, July 12 2022) and good mate – Hani Kiwan.

A longer read than KRC normally runs, but since it’s all about Endurance and True Grit, this time the message really is the medium!!!

So keep reading one sentence after the other, don’t give up, keep going.  No quitting.  Victory will be yours.  It will be worth it.  Just hang on in, put the urgent stuff aside, read this – it’ll help you win.

From Euphoria to Desperation: The Highs and Lows of Endurance Running – and their lessons on how to Win in this Crazy World.

It’s not unusual that endurance races are the epiphany of emotional and physical roller coaster. It’s somehow inexplicable how the runner’s experience can vary immensely between one kilometer to the next. In some, the runner is in complete flow. The conditions are simply perfect: the body feels strong, kind tail wind giving you that soft push from the back, the fueling is optimal, the breathing is light and the heart rate has settled nicely in the zone. You are cruising effortlessly past other seemingly slower runners, and you greet the cheering crowds with a confident smile. In the world of running, this state is often coined as a “Runner’s High”. The runner is in their best mental and physical state. It feels so good, boarder line intoxication. You feel you want to, and can, do this non-stop. You want to stay there indefinitely. Euphoric.

Then it suddenly hits. Ouch!! Literally out of nowhere, and completely unexpected, that just-moments-ago-strong body starts to crumble and weaken. The breathing is heavy. The heart rate is shooting through the roof. The Legs are screaming-level pain. Muscle cramps start striking like electric shocks. The body literally shuts down. The nerves are dead. The legs beg to stop. The mind becomes an accomplice and is shouting persistently: “STOP, STOP, this is enough, you can’t take it anymore.” In a marathon (42.2km), this happens roughly anywhere around the 28km-32km mark. With 12km to go, what do you do? In an Ultra (races above 42.2km), it maybe even 20 or 30km to go! The struggle starts. Mentally, it is a runner’s war with one’s confidence and self esteem. Doubts start building up. Am I built for this? Why am I here in the first place? Did I train well enough? Self worth is being questioned. Goals that felt so much achievable become way far fetched. Dreams of crossing that finish line victorious are shattered. A flash back to all the mistakes that you have done in your life become live again. You blame others who put you in this situation. Aaahhh. You are in dark place. Everyone is an enemy. Life sucks. Is God even there to save you? It’s just such an incredible decline of one’s dignity, faith and physical ability. From a “Runner’s High” to “Hitting the Wall!” All in a matter of moments.

With many kms to go, runners are now struggling with decisions to make. Simply stop and quit seems like the end of all pain. But it comes with the heavy pyscological burden of failure and DNFing (Did Not Finish) the race, a label you will carry on your forehead forever. That’s a very painful post race feeling. It will remain a scar in the runner’s mind. Holding on, sucking it all in, and continuing the race is also struggle, through hell!

These are now the decisive moments that separate the pros from the amateurs.

Marathon runners say that that race starts only at the 30kms mark. Everything before that, those happy kilometers, is simply a warm up. They train for that moment and they wait for it to come so that they experience it and put into the test what they are really made up of. So, those who go on, how do they do it? How do they overcome the physical pain and the mental torture, with so many km still to go? They just do.

I read a 70 year old life long triathlete’s advice to younger ones: “when you hit that dark place, the reality is that you still have at least 50% more to give!” So you dig deep, very deep, and you find it. It’s not a fantasy. Tried and tested fact.

When the wall hits, runners realize it immediately and know that what is yet to come is even more daunting. They admit it. No room for denial. Let’s be honest, it’s just gonna get worse from here. So they back off a bit and take a deep breath. It’s time for a moment of self reflection. Let’s see where we stand. They do a quick run through some vital signs. Check the heart rate. Too high, back off a bit, control that breathing, let it go a bit deeper. How is hydration? A few sips of water will help get the blood flowing. More sodium maybe? Reach out to more electrolites. Check the pace. Too fast? Slow down. Body scan, every bit of it. relax those shoulders. Look for tension points and release them. Shake those arms and let them loose. Relax the jaws. Gultes. Calves. Shorter steps, higher cadence. Breathe, breathe breathe all the way out, slowly. How about posture? If hunching, straighten up, open up that chest, and chin up. Yes, CHIN UP. Proud. And smile too. Force that smile. Make it all visible. It is proven with studies and science: a confident posture, shoulders wide open, chest forward, with the chin up and a confident smile actually empower you, in multiples. It works. And, it is time to reset the goals. The old plan does not work any more. A new plan is devised.

Determined-despite-pain runners lean on other fellow runners. They look around and they reach out to them. A mere eye contact, a wink, a nod, a gesture with the eyebrow. Maybe also a fist bump with the runner next to them, they reciprocate. A sigh of relief. I am not alone. Maybe a small chat starts, albeit breathlessly. “How’s it going buddy? Hurts like hell, man. Yeah, me too. I think i lost my legs. Wanna borrow mine for a while? LOL. Keep it up champ. Not much left. yeah I know, but it feels like a life time. Come on, let’s do this together.” A high five seals the comraderie. A community of “brothers and sisters in arms” starts forming up. You know you are not alone and you let others know they are not alone either. A group of sufferers going through the same struggle, they lean on each other. I learned the other day that it’s called the Collective Effervescence. The combined effort of many people going after the same goal, together, in solidarity, physically next to each other. The amount of energy it produces is exponential. It’s just incredible how suddenly energy fills the air. You fuel on it.

Determined-to-finish runners look for more energy from the crowd along the route. That magical force that comes from cheerers on the sidelines. You make eye contact with them. You gesture for them with your hands asking for those screams to get louder. And they give it you. You high five some of them. And you notice that hand written sign on a back of a carton box by the awkward handwriting of a 6 year old “keep going, you’ve got this”. You smile at it. That crowd is just amazing. They didn’t have to show up but they do, just for you. The best is when someone from the crowd spots your name on the race bib and they actually scream your name! Oh man, that goes straight into your legs and  it fires up the turbo engine in you. You suddenly take off like a rocket.

With all that is going on, you start silencing those inner voices that filled you with doubt. The ones telling you to stop. The ones telling you you’re done, enough. Those voices, you just shut them off, and you forcefully ignore them. “Shut Up Legs” says a wrist band I usually carry on me. Just shut up. And you replace that rhetoric with the positive energy that you are now endlessly producing, all from within. That is the mental strength that propels runners in these dark moments. It is self generated. Determination, belief, commitment. I am doing this. I am going all the way to the finish line. I trained hard for this, for months and months. This is my moment to prove my worth. I made a promise to myself. I made a promise to others. I will not let me down. I am not stopping. “We haven’t come this far to only come this far,” a friend wrote to me the other day.

With all that physical, mental and physiological struggle, you keep going. All it takes is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. You just keep moving forward. Ticking one kilometer after the other. Enduring the pain. No backing off. No quitting. You are winning that battle. Before you realize it, the finish line is now within eye sight. You see that arch.. and you hear the cheering and the drum beats getting louder. Confidence builds up again. And miraculously, you somehow get a surge of power, out of nowhere. You start sprinting. Where did that come from? Those last couple hundred meters sum up everything you have worked hard for. The heroic you.

And you cross that finish line, victorious, proud and in awe. I did this. We did this. A medal goes around your neck. A sigh of relief. Hugs. Congratulations. You stand there not believing. You are now a different human being. A hero. Nothing can stand in your way anymore. You are never afraid again. You are stronger than ever.

To all those finding themselves in a dark place nowadays. Whether you are in the middle of the war zone wondering where you will spend the night, and whether your home still stands or not, or mourning a dear one, or risking your life everyday to get to work. Or you are sitting there in the shock of how fate has changed and wondering what your next move is; will things ever go back to where they were? Or you’re looking at the sky and wondering where and who will that striking light hit. What damage will it make. Who will get hurt. Or you are a bit farther away but still wondering if your country will get entagled in all that mess. What should we brace for? Or even farther maybe in Germany, the UK or France and feeling the pinch of the cost of heating up that house or communting to work. Will we afford it? What measures should we take? Oh my God, we too are actually in it! Or somewhere really far off and you want to help and join the solidarity but it hurts you that you don’t know how.

Recalibrate, check the vital signs, reflect internally, set new goals, strategize again, play by new rules, devise new tactics, no denial (it does hurt, don’t argue that) lean on others, ask for help, form that collective bond, take but also give, look after others around you, cheer up and cheer others up, chin up, straighten up, walk proud, put on that smile, believe that you can, believe, believe, believe, trust all those years of experience, quitting is not an option, keep one foot in front of the other, keep moving forward. I assure you, the crowd is cheering loud, crazy loud, calling you by name. The finish line will be in sight soon. There is no doubt about that. There is a finish line. It is a fact. Just hang on there until you cross it.

@hanikiwan