Goggins and his team arrive at their rented cabin after the Leadville race. He makes it as far as his bedroom before collapsing to the floor, where Kish tries to make him comfortable. They both know what the post-ultra “breakdown” entails, but Kish has never witnessed it until now. Goggins is worried how she will feel seeing him so vulnerable that he cannot control his bowels or clean himself. His shivering and erratic breathing scare her, but she works to undress him, clean up his excrement, and find a bowl in which he can urinate because he cannot move to the bathroom.

As he lies cocooned in a comforter on the floor, he relishes the intense pain, foul smells, and uncontrollable body movements. He considers the suffering proof that he gave the race his all, and he feels he can learn a lot from the experience. He compares physical scars with past emotional trauma and argues that both create weak spots unless they are dealt with constructively: “Your history and mindset become a weathered old map ridged with your scars, and if you read them like an archeologist on a dig, you might uncover the code you need to rise again and become better and stronger” (125).