“The Ultra-Marathoner Racing Against the Course, and Himself: Nickademus De La Rosa, an Ultrarunning Prodigy Who Has Run across Death Valley and the Alps, Is Taking a Pause from the Sport As He Copes With Borderline Personality Disorder”, 2023-07-03 (; backlinks):
[cf. Alex Honnold, Diane Van Deren, Jure Robič] …In a sport dominated by people in their late 20s, 30s and even 40s, de la Rosa was a prodigy. At 19, he finished Badwater, an infamous 135-mile race across Death Valley in California in the brutal heat of July. When he was 21, he completed 135 miles in Minnesota with temperatures of −35F°. The next year, he became only the 13th person to finish Barkley since it began in 1986. And at 24 he placed second at Tor des Géants, a 205-mile race through the Alps. During that 76-hour race, he slept less than two hours and hallucinated that his running partner’s intestines were hanging out of his body…One of their funniest memories is when de la Rosa paced Belzberg in one of her first 100-mile races and the couple hallucinated that they were seeing an aid station serving pancakes.
…De la Rosa said he always ran races to win them, but he now realizes that his motivations were more complex. He spent much of his youth and young adulthood in emotional turmoil, and instead of seeking treatment, he essentially self-medicated by keeping a brutal training schedule and participating in some of the world’s most grueling races. In 2019, at 29, he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which can cause sudden shifts from intense sadness to deep fear to shame or joy. Those with the condition often have an unstable sense of self and struggle to keep jobs or maintain relationships, and many, including de la Rosa, attempt suicide.
…De la Rosa is tall and broad-shouldered, with unkempt hair and freckles that bring a boyishness to his face. He said his mental illness was both a strength and a crutch. “It was a superpower in races like Barkley that required gritting it out and going into the storm where any idiot would stop because the conditions were terrible”, de la Rosa said. “But this special idiot, because he has B.P.D., would need validation because this win means so much to me, I will push harder than anyone else.”
Like many people who have borderline personality disorder, de la Rosa finds it hard to regulate his emotions. He explained the intensity of his feelings on a scale of one going up to 10. When he tips over a 7, he said, his fight-or-flight response is triggered, and he spirals into suicidal ideations, rage or intense self-loathing. Fears of abandonment and of rejection are two of his strongest triggers. As de la Rosa’s career has stalled, Belzberg, who had not run in a race longer than 10 kilometers when the couple met a decade ago, has taken off. When she passed him on a recent run, he responded by hitting himself in the head. He said all of this in a matter-of-fact way that would be easy to overlook if he were not talking about self-harm.
Dr. Peter Attia, a physician and author of Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity, said he suspects that dopamine, endorphins, a need for distractions, an urge to self-punish and a longing for self-esteem are among the reasons some people with mental illness, addiction and trauma are attracted to endurance sports.
De la Rosa, who moved to San Diego with his mother after his parents’ divorce and said he could trace his unhealthy relationship with running to his teenage years, agreed. “I wasn’t that good at cross-country in high school and was not going to stand out. And then I did a marathon and everyone was like, ‘Holy crap, you did a marathon!’” he said. As someone who felt worthless and struggled to find his identity, he found all of his self-worth in ultrarunning.
In late 2017, de la Rosa was diagnosed with a heart condition that could have been fatal if unaddressed. He had successful open-heart surgery but later developed pericarditis, a condition that inflames the tissue around the heart. Unable to train or race at the level he was accustomed to and with his running career in limbo, de la Rosa spiraled out of control. During a run in British Columbia a few months after his surgery, Belzberg was concerned about the worsening weather and wanted to turn back. De la Rosa said he got extremely angry, shoved his wife in the snow and threatened to push her off the mountain. Immediately overcome with shame and horror, he looked for a cliff to jump off. On the way down the mountain, Belzberg said, her husband alternated between “crying, screaming and laughing maniacally.”…When he could not run because of a knee injury, he tried to drown himself.