Digging Deeper: Lessons Learned from Inside the Pain Cave

“I put on my hard hat, I grab a chisel and I imagine going into the very back corners of that cave and just digging into the work. Each time I go in the cave, it’s getting bigger for the next visit.”— Courtney Dauwalter

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Many traditions speak of the body and mind as limitations—boundaries to be transcended. They teach that only through direct experience can we touch something deeper, something more than thought. A self that isn’t just an idea.

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I woke up before my alarm, long before the day began. Outside, the sun had only just started stretching its arms into the darkness. There were still three hours before the start of my race—my first off-road triathlon—and I found myself wandering the grounds at Golden Bay, surrounded by silence and the faint smell of sea air. There’s something mystical about firsts. You prepare the best you can, but you walk toward them with your arms stretched in fog, not entirely sure what you’ll feel, only what you’ve been told to expect.

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You can study freestyle stroke mechanics, read trail lines, memorise pacing tips. But it’s only when you’re in the water, in the dirt, on the climb, that all of it starts to become real. Only then do you begin to understand—not with your mind, but through your body.

I was one of the last out of the water, clumsy and tangled in my wetsuit, laughing as I staggered over the sand. I heard my family yelling, caught their smiles, and of course, tripped directly in front of the crowd—perfect footage for the highlight reel. Through transition and onto the bike, I pedalled out onto a course known for snake bites and punctures, still unsure if my legs were ready to respond. But the landscape kept me going. Malta’s cliffs and colours seemed to quietly cheer us forward.

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And then came the climb. The one that hurt. The one that makes you ask the question: Why?

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It’s a fair question. To many, this kind of sport looks like self-inflicted torture—a waste of energy, or even a form of destruction. But I think it just shows how differently we all live, even while sharing the same world. It’s as if each of us operates on our own tiny planet. And on mine, the why has always been this: to learn. To see what’s there when the body and the mind start to say no. To experience that moment of otherness when discomfort strips everything away.

On my second lap, I hit a narrow stretch of cobbles. The mood was good. My energy was back. I was focused on hitting a sub-2-hour goal for the three laps. I leaned into the next turn—and then I felt it. That quiet, almost imperceptible drag of the tyre. A puncture.

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Two, actually. I later found out I was the only one out of over a hundred participants to get double flats. In that moment, I felt a thousand thoughts collide. I knew what to do, in theory. But theory means very little when you’re standing on course, mid-race, fumbling for tools, trying to hold yourself together. For a second, I thought: This is how it ends. This is how my first triathlon will finish—not with a line, but a flat.

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But then I thought about the hours I’d trained. About my coach, Lara Buttigieg. About my family who’d come to see me finish. And the more I thought, the more I realised: I was going to finish. Even if it meant pushing the bike, or carrying it for the final 12 kilometres.

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I looked at the tyre and said out loud: “You like it or not, we are going.” And we did.

There’s a moment in every race where you want to stop. It’s not always the steepest climb or the worst cramp—it’s just that point when everything feels too much. But I’ve come to believe that it’s the mind, more than the muscles, that decides where we break. What once seemed impossible slowly starts to feel doable, just by showing up again and again. As Bruce Lee said, “There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.”

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That doesn’t mean the pain disappears. But you learn to exist with it. You stop fighting it. You let it be part of you. And somehow, that makes you stronger.

I made it back to T2 with a flat rear tyre, rolling in slowly while most bikes had already been returned and racked, resting. I changed, left transition, and began the final leg. The run started with soft sand and ended with two long climbs that made your heart beg for mercy. But near the end, something shifted. My legs, heavy for most of the race, suddenly felt light. They recognised the end was near.

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One turn, then another. A glimpse of the tower. A drop down the cliffs. The beach returned, and so did the sound of my family’s voices.

I crossed the finish line and knew I had found something—not just in the race, but in myself. That voice, the one that said “keep going” when the tyre flattened, that presence when everything else felt too hard—that was real. That was me.

Racing here gave me more than a medal. It gave me a glimpse of what it means to be present. To trust the body, calm the mind, and listen to whatever else is in there, waiting to be heard. Maybe you call it spirit. Maybe something else. But it felt real.

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And so I’ll end with the words of Thich Nhat Hanh:

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“The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.”