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Hard Things
In Hard Things, Marc Hopkins takes readers on a journey through the grueling Bigfoot 200-mile ultramarathon and, more importantly, through the uncharted terrain of his inner landscape. What begins as a personal challenge to prove his worth becomes a profound odyssey of self-discovery as he navigates the punishing trails of the Cascade Mountains and the deeply ingrained patterns that have shaped his life. From scorching desert to freezing river crossings, from hallucinations to moments of startling clarity, Marc's physical journey mirrors his emotional one.
As he pushes his body beyond what seems humanly possible, Marc confronts the truth about why he runs—not merely to demonstrate endurance, but to escape the anxiety that has chased him since childhood. With each punishing mile, he unravels the complex relationship dynamics, family patterns, and personal struggles he's spent a lifetime avoiding, revealing the strength he's always projected as both his greatest asset and his heaviest burden.
Hard Things is a powerful memoir about what it means to be authentically strong, vulnerable, and worthy of love. For anyone who has ever doubted themselves, it offers a gripping, inspiring testament to perseverance, self-discovery, and the truth that the hardest trails aren’t always measured in miles.
As he pushes his body beyond what seems humanly possible, Marc confronts the truth about why he runs—not merely to demonstrate endurance, but to escape the anxiety that has chased him since childhood. With each punishing mile, he unravels the complex relationship dynamics, family patterns, and personal struggles he's spent a lifetime avoiding, revealing the strength he's always projected as both his greatest asset and his heaviest burden.
Hard Things is a powerful memoir about what it means to be authentically strong, vulnerable, and worthy of love. For anyone who has ever doubted themselves, it offers a gripping, inspiring testament to perseverance, self-discovery, and the truth that the hardest trails aren’t always measured in miles.
210 pages, Paperback
Published June 19, 2026
About the author
Marc Hopkins
2 books1 followerMarc Hopkins has completed numerous endurance events, including the Bigfoot 200, eight Ironman-distance triathlons, and more than 200 other races—from 5Ks to triathlons to marathons to ultras. He holds a BA in Philosophy from San José State University and an Executive MBA from Washington State University, and brings extensive experience in sales and leadership. Marc has coached hundreds of athletes across their own finish lines, from first-time 5Ks to triathlons, ultramarathons, and the mental barriers that often prove hardest to overcome.
Beyond the miles, Marc is drawn to the deeper questions endurance exposes—why we push, what we carry, and who we become when there is nowhere left to hide. In this book, he pairs the physical and mental demands of a 200-mile ultramarathon with a candid exploration of the relationships that have shaped him, vulnerably examining his bonds with his mother, siblings, children, and partner.
Marc lives in the Portland, Oregon area, where he enjoys the best the Pacific Northwest has to offer. When he isn’t on the trails, he can be found reading, woodworking, and pursuing other creative endeavors.
Beyond the miles, Marc is drawn to the deeper questions endurance exposes—why we push, what we carry, and who we become when there is nowhere left to hide. In this book, he pairs the physical and mental demands of a 200-mile ultramarathon with a candid exploration of the relationships that have shaped him, vulnerably examining his bonds with his mother, siblings, children, and partner.
Marc lives in the Portland, Oregon area, where he enjoys the best the Pacific Northwest has to offer. When he isn’t on the trails, he can be found reading, woodworking, and pursuing other creative endeavors.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 20, 2026
Hard Things is Marc Hopkins’s memoir of training for and running the Bigfoot 200, a brutal 206.5-mile endurance race through the Cascade Mountains, but the race itself is really only the outer trail. The deeper journey is inward, through old grief, heart trouble, divorce, fatherhood, family silence, anxiety, love, and the aching need to prove oneself worthy. Hopkins moves from a sweltering training run where he’s reduced to counting steps, through snow-blocked roads, river crossings, a folded shoe insert he refuses to fix, and finally into the long, delirious miles of the race, where aid stations, pacers, his son, his mother, and Jenni become part of a hard-won lesson: strength isn’t the same as pretending not to need anyone.
What I admired most is how honestly the book lets discomfort stay uncomfortable. Hopkins doesn’t polish himself into some heroic endurance-machine version of a person. He gives us the man who drives himself to the hospital with heart symptoms, jokes through a 99 percent blockage, signs up for a 200-mile race partly as a defiant gesture against death, and then slowly realizes that his compulsive toughness has a shadow side. The “rock in the shoe” moment stayed with me because it’s so simple and so revealing. He’s literally hurting because his insole is folded under his foot, yet he keeps going because that’s what he’s trained himself to do emotionally, too. That’s the book at its best: physical pain becoming a quiet little door into something larger.
The writing has a loose, conversational immediacy that fits the subject well. Hopkins is funny in a self-deprecating way, especially when he lets the absurdity of ultrarunning breathe, like searching for a hidden trail that seems to have vanished into a river, or mistaking a stump for Bigfoot when sleep deprivation starts playing tricks on him. At times, the book circles familiar emotional territory, especially around worthiness and the need to appear strong, but I found that repetition mostly honest rather than tedious. Long races don’t reveal things neatly. They return the same fears again and again, under different weather, with worse feet. The best passages have a rugged sensory clarity: the blast zones, the old-growth forest, the stale exhaustion of aid stations, the strange anticlimax after the finish.
By the end, what moved me wasn’t simply that Hopkins finishes Bigfoot 200, though that achievement is staggering. It’s that he finishes with a softer understanding of himself, and that softness feels more courageous than the miles. Hard Things is a thoughtful, bruised, humane book about endurance, not as conquest, but as a way of listening to the life you’ve been trying to outrun. I’d recommend it to runners and endurance athletes, certainly, but also to anyone who has confused self-reliance with healing, or who needs a reminder that doing hard things doesn’t require becoming unbreakable.
What I admired most is how honestly the book lets discomfort stay uncomfortable. Hopkins doesn’t polish himself into some heroic endurance-machine version of a person. He gives us the man who drives himself to the hospital with heart symptoms, jokes through a 99 percent blockage, signs up for a 200-mile race partly as a defiant gesture against death, and then slowly realizes that his compulsive toughness has a shadow side. The “rock in the shoe” moment stayed with me because it’s so simple and so revealing. He’s literally hurting because his insole is folded under his foot, yet he keeps going because that’s what he’s trained himself to do emotionally, too. That’s the book at its best: physical pain becoming a quiet little door into something larger.
The writing has a loose, conversational immediacy that fits the subject well. Hopkins is funny in a self-deprecating way, especially when he lets the absurdity of ultrarunning breathe, like searching for a hidden trail that seems to have vanished into a river, or mistaking a stump for Bigfoot when sleep deprivation starts playing tricks on him. At times, the book circles familiar emotional territory, especially around worthiness and the need to appear strong, but I found that repetition mostly honest rather than tedious. Long races don’t reveal things neatly. They return the same fears again and again, under different weather, with worse feet. The best passages have a rugged sensory clarity: the blast zones, the old-growth forest, the stale exhaustion of aid stations, the strange anticlimax after the finish.
By the end, what moved me wasn’t simply that Hopkins finishes Bigfoot 200, though that achievement is staggering. It’s that he finishes with a softer understanding of himself, and that softness feels more courageous than the miles. Hard Things is a thoughtful, bruised, humane book about endurance, not as conquest, but as a way of listening to the life you’ve been trying to outrun. I’d recommend it to runners and endurance athletes, certainly, but also to anyone who has confused self-reliance with healing, or who needs a reminder that doing hard things doesn’t require becoming unbreakable.
July 9, 2026
My friend Marc does something that is, objectively, completely bananas: extreme long distance running. I once asked him how does this, and his answer was, "you know how when you're tired at the end of a long run? You just keep going." It turns out it's actually a bit more complicated than that, and his book gets into it. It's really a great read, like a psychological thriller except for someone who isn't an axe murder or psychopath, just a solid dude facing his demons, trying to deepen his relationships, and working through some things... while running for four straight days while wolfing down gigantic burritos and sleeping for less than an hour at time. If you have a "comfort doesn't make you happy" bookshelf, Hard Things belongs on it. (and if you don't, you really should, it's both a delightful genre and an enjoyable way of life)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews