Hi Reader,
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Let’s say you’re halfway through a hard training session when it hits. Your legs start burning 🔥. Your lungs tighten. And your brain? (ha!) Your brain starts bargaining. “Just back off a little. You can’t do this.”
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Welcome to the pain cave, my friends. 😬
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Every endurance athlete knows this moment, when physical discomfort collides with mental resistance and suddenly you’re fighting your brain as much as the workout.
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Here’s what I wish I had known earlier: the pain cave never actually stops hurting. You just get better at dealing with it.
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​I know. You were hoping that one day those hard efforts would feel easy, right? That eventually your body would just… adapt?
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Yeah, no.
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Research shows that elite athletes don’t experience less pain than recreational athletes. They’ve just gotten really, really good at staying present with it. Your capacity increases, sure. But the sensation of discomfort at your edge? That sticks around.
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The real skill is about letting the pain in instead of fighting it, and then figuring out how long you’re willing to sit with it.
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​And surprisingly enough, this is trainable. Like, seriously trainable.
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​Start here: Map your pain cave​
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​Before you can manage discomfort, you need to understand how your pain cave shows up. Because it looks different for everyone.
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During your next hard workout, pay attention to these four things:
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​👉Physical sensations: Where does discomfort show up first? Burning in your quads? Tightness in your chest? Heaviness in your legs?
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​👉Thoughts: What’s your brain saying when things get hard? “I can’t do this”? “Everyone else is stronger”? “Why did I sign up for this?!”
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​👉Emotions: What are you feeling? Anxious? Frustrated? Panicked? Weirdly excited?
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​👉Reactions: What do you do with all of that? Back off immediately? Push through no matter what? Somewhere in between?
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That’s it. Just notice the above instead of trying to ignore it, fight it, or push it away. Once you know your patterns, you can start building strategies that will actually work for you.
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Want to go deeper on this? I wrote a full breakdown on navigating the pain cave, including how to tell the difference between “hard” and “harmful,” plus specific mental strategies athletes use when things get tough. 👉Read it here!​

This is exactly what we’re working on in the Skadi Community’s August Challenge: a 4-week journey to map your pain cave, build your mental toolbox, apply it in training, and refine what works.
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We’re kicking things off with an interactive workshop where you’ll create your personalized Pain Cave Map, plus a conversation with ultra-endurance athlete Aum Gandhi (he/him) fresh off a 200km, self-sufficient stage race through the mountains of Kyrgyzstan (because if anyone knows the pain cave, it’s someone who just spent five days racing at altitude with a 20lb pack).
​➡️Join us here⬅️​

🎙️ This week on the Feisty Women’s Performance Podcast...​

Dr. Erin Haugen and I unpack how deliberate “mental rest” can be your best performance tool, turning burnout into sustainable growth. This conversation arguably served as a therapy session for both of us, so give it a listen 😉
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🎧Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.​
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Til next time,
Dr. A

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