It sounds like a kickboxing gym, or maybe a death metal band, but this Pain Cave is neither of those things. And I’m about to head there.

I recently watched an interview with Courtney Dauwalter, one of the best ultramarathoners ever. She has won (and set new records in) a lot of the biggest races in that world: Hardrock 100, Western States, and the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc among others. These are 100+ mile races with more total elevation gain than Everest. She’s down to earth, wears baggy shorts, doesn’t take herself too seriously, seems to genuinely enjoy her life and her sport. And so it’s no surprise when she smiles as she talks about the inevitable moment when a race gets hard. She calls it “the pain cave.” She knows, by now, that she’ll visit the pain cave in every race, and instead of fearing it, she chooses to look forward to it. “This is where the work happens,” she says. “These moments, when we’re really struggling with it, are where we get better.” In this video, which brought me to tears (truly inspiring, definitely worth 15 minutes of your time), she adds a visual to the pain cave metaphor: “I put on my hard hat, grab my chisel, and I imagine going into the very back corners of that cave and just digging into the work.”

Here’s what I love about Dauwalter’s pain cave. She doesn’t ignore the pain; she doesn’t pretend it’s not there. Instead, she says, okay, pain, I knew you’d arrive, I see you, and I don’t have many opportunities to hang out with you, and now that you’re here, I’m going to embrace you. Let’s knock out the rest of this race together.

We all have pain caves that we have to visit. I think of giving birth. Pushing, and especially the moment when the baby is crowning (aka the “ring of fire”), were moments when I had entered a pain cave. There was no way around the pain— you could only endure it. Another pain cave was the nights of early motherhood, when my daughter (and later my son, and then my other son) was waking up three or four times a night to nurse. I’d go to bed fully knowing that I’d only get a 1-2 hours of sleep at most before being awakened, and that this cycle would continue for weeks or months. The sleepless cycle felt like an endless pain cave.

In that case, I pulled a Dauwalter reframe without even realizing it. I turned the inevitable negative thing that I dreaded into a positive. I found a long, engrossing book1 that I loaded onto my Kindle, and then I only allowed myself to read it when I was nursing. That way, I began to look forward to the late-night nursing sessions. There is something secretly joyful about being the only one awake in the house in the dead of night, cradling your infant, and reading a really good book. This is not to say I’d like to return to those days, but at least I can look back with some small fondness and not total aversion. By embracing, instead of fighting, the pain cave, I uncovered a reward, a glimmer of happiness.

As I write this, I am three days away from running the Chicago marathon (my first “major”). Every marathon holds at least one pain cave, so I’m mentally gearing up for it. Think of me on Sunday morning, and send me a shout-out or a virtual chisel.

Book Nook

In my last newsletter, I mentioned that someone I know (okay, an ex-boyfriend) had written a novel that was nominated for a major prize. And you may recall that I had mixed feelings about his success. Well guess what? His novel is now a finalist for that same prize, alongside major writers like Kiran Desai and Katie Kitamura. Even more mixed feelings, check!

But Jill, you ask, what did you think of his novel?

First, to situate you: it’s a mid-life-crisis novel, in which the main character (a smart, literary, basketball-loving guy… aka my ex) drops his younger child off at college and decides not to go home to his wife, but instead to continue on a road trip. He drops by friends’ and siblings’ places, while sporadically mulling some of his choices and his discontents: his job from which he’s been encouraged to take a sabbatical, his wife who cheated on him years ago, his deteriorating health.

Picture me, enjoying this book, reading along and underlining certain lines and passages, when all of a sudden, the main character begins to talk about his college ex-girlfriend Jill.

Reader, I did not see this coming. I literally laughed out loud when I saw his ex-girlfriend’s name. I looked around at my empty bedroom, as though to ask the walls, did you read that too? And then I told myself, well, there are plenty of Jills in the world, get over yourself. Main character proceeds to visit Jill during the course of the book, but no, she is not me, she is a single mom living in Vegas. Still, I decided that all of her positive attributes were absolutely inspired by me, which is my right, I think.

Want to read The Rest of Our Lives? It’s not yet published in the U.S., but you can pre-order it here. Be advised, it’s kind of a meditative read, meaning it’s not a great fit for people who like their books action-packed. As Ann Patchett says in her blurb (!), “Feels less like reading a novel and more like sitting in a car beside a dear friend as he navigates the road up ahead.”

Make Me Laugh

In these terrible times, aka our giant national Pain Cave, finding something to laugh about is so important. I try to avoid overt politics in this newsletter, but the below made me laugh, so here you go.

Restore My Faith in Humanity

Ani Difranco has been reading some of her fan letters on her Instagram. I promise, this is 100% more interesting than it sounds. I dare you not to get teary. Here’s one example:

My Writing Life

I am one month and twelve days away from my MFA thesis deadline. This is another kind of pain cave: revising my stories to be as good as I can make them in a limited amount of time. There is no “right” answer in revision, and this is one of the ways in which I wish writing were more like algebra.

After I turn in my thesis, I’ll focus on submitting my stories to literary magazines in hopes of getting some of them published. More on that in future newsletters. And maybe I’ll revise my novel, or maybe I’ll shelve it and start a new one. Who’s to say what 2026 will hold? Probably more joy and more pain caves.

Your turn: what pain cave are you currently looking forward to (or chiseling away at)?

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