My Path to Ultra

For most people, the pinnacle of running is a marathon. A simple 26.2 mile or 42.195 kilometers if you don’t live in America. And for me, that was the dream for a while. I always thought to myself as a kid, “One day I’m going to run a marathon and it’s going to be glorious!”. This was my high school fantasy.

My first 5k race

Fast forward a few years and it’s the summer of 2018. At that time I had just finished my sophomore year of college at Clemson University and was working an internship in Greenville, South Carolina. Since this was my first office job I needed a way to pass the time and around this time was the rise of podcasts. And as a young male, I obliviously began listening to The Joe Rogan Experience.

As I continued to drill through episode after episode day after day until I came across a very interesting conversation. The guest was a man by the name of David Goggins, lesser known then than he is today. For you who don’t know, David Goggins is a retired Navy Seal and an elite ultra-endurance athlete. Little did I know at the time that JRE Episode #1080 would have such a monumental impact on my life.

In the episode, David begins to explain how he got into ultra-endurance and how he finished the famous Badwater 135 ultramarathon. As he spoke I remembered being mesmerized. I just sat at my desk listening to the passion that flowed through my headphones. Up until that day, the marathon was the peak of my mountain. I had no idea people even attempted to go further. But they did. A lot further.

That single day changed my life. A spark was lit inside me. I began researching these ultramarathon races. I read books, listened to more podcasts, and watched endless hours of YouTube videos on different races and athletes. But still, I did nothing. I was in college, still only lifting weights, drinking beer, and studying. I never ran. My cardio was the bike and a stair climber every so often.

Fast forward two more years and COVID hit. By that point, I was a senior in college with less than a semester left. With nothing to do and the gyms closed, I was going crazy. For reference, I began lifting weights regularly when I was 16 years old. And up until then, I had not gone more than 3 or 4 days without some type of exercise. I needed an outlet. So, I laced up my shoes and went on a run. For the last two months I was in Clemson I ran every day. I loved it. I told myself as I ran, “I’m going to train and go run a 100-mile race”. The marathon was not the pinnacle anymore. But again I wasn’t serious.

After a few months of this, I graduated from school and moved to Macon, Georgia to start my first job. I doubt many people have been to Macon, but I wouldn’t consider it a very runner-friendly town. There were no side walks and everyone flew down the roads. I had nowhere to run but my tiny apartment complex. I quit, again. Time passed as I half-assed it in the gym.

After a few months in Macon, my job transferred me back to Greenville, South Carolina. There I moved in with some friends in a nice neighborhood with sidewalks. I could run but the motivation was gone. I didn’t think about running ultras anymore. I didn’t even think about running a marathon. I got a gym membership, but I barely went. My job consumed me and I continued to make the excuse that I didn’t have time. These thoughts poisoned my brain until May 30th, 2021. Then something shifted.

I was sitting in my house with my friends after we had just taken a healthy dose of psilocybin mushrooms. I remember looking down and seeing a puggy stomach that once had a six-pack set of abs on it. I was embarrassed and mad at myself. I told myself right then and there that I was going to run a minimum of one mile every day for the next 30 days.

The next day I laced up my shoes and went on a run. It was so much harder than I remembered when I was in college. My lungs burned. My legs felt as if they were cast in steel. I finished my mile in just under 10 minutes and my heart felt as if it was going to pump out of my chest. I was embarrassed. For years, I had prided myself on my endurance and physical fitness. I was always known as the friend who worked out and stayed in shape. And here I was barely able to run a mile.

But I stuck with it and day after day I ran my mile. By the end of the 30 days, I was even able to run two miles! A huge win in my book. At the end of 30 days, I thought to myself, “At most this only takes ten or eleven minutes out of my day. Why stop? Let’s go to 100 days.” So that’s what I did. I kept running day after day. And it did get easier. At 100 days, I had the same thought. Might as well keep going, so I did. As I write this that was 995 days ago. I’ve kept that streak alive much longer than I attended to.

Even though I was running day after day the dream of an ultra was still far away. Even the dream of a marathon took another tragic push to get there. After a little over a year of running my girlfriend of four years broke up with me. I was heartbroken. I needed an outlet and one of my best friends gave me that outlet with a fat loss competition. After three hard months of training, I was in the best shape of my life.

That’s when it happened. I decided it was time to chase the dreams I had pushed away for so long. So, I signed up for the Greenville marathon. I built a training plan and I got to work. For 16 weeks I trained. And at the end of those 16 weeks, I completed my first marathon in under my 4-hour goal. The emotions were amazing but the feeling in my legs was scary. They hurt. How was I supposed to run an ultramarathon if I felt like this after just a simple marathon?

That question lingered for some time. A few months after my first marathon I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. I continued to run but had nothing scheduled so my training was all over the place. Eventually, the bug bit me again. I needed another race and a marathon wouldn’t fill my urge this time. But I was still scared of the ultras. So I compromised and signed up for a Last Man Standing Event.

Last Man Standing Events are racing events with set loops that must be finished within a set time limit. If you can’t finish the loop in the given time you are dropped from the race. These loops continue until there is one person left running, hence the last man standing.

I signed up for this style of race because it put my mind at ease not to have a set distance. It was nice knowing I could go out and just run as much or as little as I wanted. That was my mindset in training but the night before the race I was a wreck. I paced my living room telling my roommate that I didn’t train enough. I was convinced I wasn’t going to reach my goal of 30 miles. I was terrified.

Even though I was terrified, I woke up the next morning and went to my race. At 8 am I started running. The trail was nice and I felt strong. I kept running loops feeling fantastic. At the marathon mark, I was shocked. I felt perfectly fine. I asked myself “When is this going to get hard?”. The answer was a few laps away. The wheels fell off at mile 31. But that didn’t stop me. I kept running. I ended up getting dropped from the race at mile 42 after just under 9 hours of running.

A few laps into Psychoactive Last Man Standing

I had finally done it. After six years of dreaming, I had finally reached my goal and ran an ultramarathon. This race changed my world. I was hooked and I still am hooked. I’ve continued to run races and delve further into the crazy world of ultrarunning. For anyone who is dreaming of trying it, just go for it. You don’t need a reason to run or any kind of motivation. All you need is a dream, a goal, and the mindset to push yourself. You just have to Go Challenge Everything.