At mile three of my 100-mile attempt, the ground came alive.
Something sharp dug into the back of my arm, then into my calf. A flash of pain — sudden, mean, unwelcome. Thorns? Gravel? I didn’t know. I kept moving, more focused on the strange burn still working its way under my skin than whatever I’d just run through.
Less than a mile later, I heard a woman on her phone: “You wouldn’t believe it—dozens of runners just got stung by bees.”
At first, I felt shock, then sympathy. Holy shit. A bunch of people just got stung by bees. That sucks. Relief followed close behind — thank God I wasn’t one of them.
And then the dots started to connect. Wait a second. I WAS one of them.
Shit. I got stung by bees. And I’m allergic.
I looked down. My hand was already swelling. Within minutes my arm, from shoulder to fingertips, felt like someone else’s body part grafted onto mine — hot, unfamiliar, puffy. It stayed like that for the next fifteen miles. I took a shot of Fireball at mile ten to blunt the edges. I kept going. Stopping didn’t occur to me.
Maybe that was reckless. Maybe it was stubborn. Maybe it was practice.
Whatever it was, the swelling didn’t make me panic. It did something stranger. It opened a door in my memory. At first to the boy in My Girl who dies from several bee stings in the woods — a scene scary enough on its own because anyone could stumble on a nest. But that wasn’t the part that gripped me. That wasn’t the part that made me linger.
What really kept me there, what froze my body even as my legs kept running, was the memory of fear I had as a kid when I saw the other scene. The girl locked in the basement with a dead body. Just her and that unbearable stillness. That was one of my primal fears as a child. Not just death, but being trapped with the unknown wearing death’s mask.
As a kid, I refused to give death air in the room. I didn’t want to say the word. I didn’t want to admit it existed. And yet here I was, stung and swollen, still running, and I caught myself sitting in that memory, tracing it like a bruise. The boy in the woods had led me down the path to land back here again, but the thing that owned me — the reason the memory lingered the way it did in that moment — was always the basement. That unbearable stillness.
Months later, I rewatched My Girl out of that same curiosity. And it was nothing. No knot in my chest. No panic. Just another scene in a movie.
Fear had lost its fangs. Or maybe, I was the one who grew teeth.
Fear doesn’t wear just one face. Sometimes it keeps you awake at night, staring at the empty glass you’re too afraid to refill because the monster under the bed might get you if your feet hit the floor. So you go to sleep thirsty. Sometimes it makes you more alive, every sense lit, like the hospital paddles they use to start a heart that has stopped beating — but instead of pressing them to your chest, they’re pressed to your feelings, shocking them back to life. And sometimes it shrinks until you realize the monster was only ever a shadow of yourself.
Years ago, I was watching a movie called It Follows. Halfway through, I thought: this is either the worst movie I’ve ever seen — or the best. I couldn’t decide. It kept me wondering what came next while lulling me into boredom at the same time. It planted its seed so quietly that as soon as the credits began to roll, I’d already forgotten about it. I got up, brushed my teeth, turned out the light — and froze.
Fuck no. I’m sleeping with the light on.
That’s when I knew it was brilliant. Because fear doesn’t have to jump out to catch you. Sometimes it lingers, waiting until you’re alone in the dark.
Fear wears different hats. But no matter which one it shows up in, you carry it the same way: on your feet. You walk into the room wearing fear as shoes.
Hills, Mountains, and Miles
Years ago I used to run a switchback trail pretty regularly that I still like to visit from time to time. It was always the same trail, always the same switchback. But some days were harder than others. I’d post about it on Facebook and tell people I’d either run up a hill or run up a mountain, depending on how it felt. If it felt easier, I’d say I just ran up a really big hill. If it felt brutal, I’d say I ran up a really small mountain. Who even decides where the cutoff is anyway? At some point, the line between hill and mountain gets blurry.
It’s the same with miles. A 5K feels impossible when you’re training for a 5K. But once you start reaching beyond your base goal — once you begin training for a 10K, a half, a marathon — that 5K becomes just a training run. Been there, run that. On to the next.
I remember thinking I’d never be that person. I never even felt qualified to call myself a runner. I looked at people who knew the whole shtick, who belonged, who seemed fluent in the unspoken language of running — and I thought, I could never be that. Not a real runner. And then, suddenly, I began to find myself at starting lines with them. It was intimidating. It was exciting. And before I realized it, I’d slipped:
“Only 14.”
The same number that once crowned me now dismissed like pocket change. But fourteen miles is still fourteen miles. Just like twenty dollars is still twenty dollars. The measurement doesn’t change. We do.
The Value of a Dollar
When I was studying for the Series 65, they drilled into us the value of a dollar. Technically, a dollar is always a dollar. But its worth changes with its environment. Inflation raises the cost of everything around it, and suddenly what once bought you a sandwich and a drink now buys you just the sandwich. The dollar didn’t shrink. Its environment changed.
And yet, we talk about it like the dollar betrayed us. Like it’s the dollar’s fault it can’t stretch as far as it once did. But the dollar doesn’t set the environment. We do. We’re the ones building systems that ask too much of it, or spending without alignment, or ignoring the ripple effects of our own behaviors. Blaming the dollar is easier than facing the mirror.
It’s like being mad at a mile for feeling long. The distance never changes. You do. Or being mad at fear for existing, when fear is just a signal — a door waiting to be opened.
Perspective is the pivot point. If you can shift lenses — see the same fact through different angles — then anger loses its bite. Most of the time, anger is just a feeling trying to catch up with reality. Our emotions flare when we’re stuck in one lens, one expectation. Widen the view, and suddenly the dollar, the mile, the fear — they all look different. They all make sense.
That’s what happens to mountains, to miles, to fears. They don’t shrink on their own. We grow around them. We change the environment of our own perception.
That’s what passing the Series 65 felt like for me. It was an impossible mountain, a test I thought I couldn’t pass. And when I did, the world shifted. I signed up for my first 100-miler within days because I wanted that high again — that shock of proving myself wrong.
Wearing Fear Like Shoes
Proving yourself wrong is the best formula for growth. It’s the first drop on the roller coaster — the one you think might kill you — that turns into the ride you can’t stop talking about.
But here’s the truth: you don’t grow by ding-dong-ditching fear. By knocking on its door and running away before it answers. You grow by staying put. By letting it open. By walking into the room and finally seeing what was on the other side.
That’s why fear should be worn like shoes. Something you lace up daily — not to weigh you down but to carry you forward. Every mile, every risk, every chance worth taking — you walk into it afraid. But you walk into it anyway, despite that fear.
Because there hasn’t been one thing worth doing in my life that didn’t scare the shit out of me first. Not one race. Not one leap. Not one risk I’ve taken that wasn’t threaded with one of fear’s many flavors.
And yet, those are the very things that shaped me. They’re the memories I carry with pride. The teeth I’ve grown.
Braiding My Own Hair
When I was younger, a friend I had in class used to braid my hair for me. Then our schedules changed, and if I wanted a braid, I had to do it myself.
So, naturally, I sat in front of a mirror for hours and taught myself how to French braid my own hair.
Years later, at a race, I stood behind a girl who was flipping her braid inside out. Instead of pulling each strand over the top the way I’d taught myself to do, she pulled them underneath. One tiny change, and the whole thing inverted — the braid popped outward instead of lying flat.
That stuck with me. How something can look completely different just because you shift the angle of how it’s held. Fear, miles, dollars, hornets, movies — they’re the same way. On their own they seem frayed, disconnected. But weave them together, change one motion, and a pattern shows up.
The Thread
Hornets in a tunnel.
A dead body in a basement.
A horror movie that left me sleeping with the lights on.
A hill, a mountain — who decides which is which?
Fourteen miles, stripped of its glory.
A dollar that never changed, but was somehow still different than before.
The Series 65. The first 5k. The first Marathon. The first 100. The door I didn’t run away from.
They’re all the same story: the things that once felt enormous eventually shrink — not because they were ever small, but because my experience grew around them.
Fear is still fear. Love is still love. A mile is still a mile. A dollar is still a dollar.
But once you’ve carried more, you’ll never see them the same again.
Copyright © 2025 Kimberly Beth Thomas. All rights reserved.
Every one of us has carried something that once felt unbearable — a mile, a memory, a test, a fear — only to discover it shrinks as our experience grows. I’ve shared mine here. Now I want to hear from you: What have you done afraid — and how did it change you?
Enjoyed this piece? Want to read others like it?
Here are a few more essays where childhood, fear, and growth collide:
👉 Fear of Fear Itself: Roller Coasters, Airplanes, and Parachutes
👉 Second Bowls & Sandcastles: Honesty Served on an Empty Plate
👉 Standing on Quicksand: The Fear that Transformed Me