Pushing My Limits
I started running in 2007 because I was 28 years old
and starting to feel the negative health effects of a sedentary lifestyle. I was over 30% body fat, I had no energy and
I consumed large amounts of alcohol and junk foods on a regular basis. I needed a change.
I took up jogging and started training for a marathon
which I was lucky enough to complete later that year. It was very slow and painful but I was
hooked. I noticed as I continued to push
my physical limits, my health improved and my energy levels became very high
and my body adapted to the new stresses I was putting on it. Soon, the marathon was not enough, I needed a
bigger challenge.
I did my first Ultra Marathon, a 50K in 2008 and then
a 100K in 2009. My long distance journey
was underway. With each new distance, I
gained confidence that one day I’d be able to achieve the 100 mile distance which was always a dream goal. Running 100 miles. That’s a real challenge all right.
But then disaster struck. I suffered a bad knee injury and the rehab
took a lot longer than it should have.
The road to recovery lasted years instead of months! But my dream of completing 100 miles was not
dead and I recommitted myself to rebuilding my body starting from the ground
up. I adopted the minimalist running
philosophy and began to walk barefoot before beginning my actual running rehab.
Within a few months I realized my feet and my whole
core was getting much stronger and I knew the ground up approcah was
working. I had to have patience, the
process took several years to complete but by 2014 I was ready to try the 100
mile distance again. I signed up and
failed, completing only 40 miles. I
wasn’t ready yet. I tried another one
and only made 45 miles, another DNF.
Maybe 100 milers were not for me.
I tried to focus on short distance racing over the
next few years but the long distance bug never really went away so I began
researching timed races and realized this was my ticket to the fabled
“hundo.” I signed up for my first multi
day race in 2016, a 72 hour contest on a 1 mile loop. I knew I’d have plenty of time to get the 100
miles and if I was really lucky, maybe 150 or more.
But something funny happened during that race. I hit 200 miles! And it wasn’t because of my great running
skills. I walked the majority of the
race. I realized that over very long
distances, walking is more efficient than running and a lot easier on the body
as well. I knew I was on to something so
I developed my walking skill over the next year with the hope of topping my new
distance PR of 200 miles.
In 2017, I took the next step of my journey by
completing 310 miles in 6 days at Across the Years and then another 278 miles
at 3 Days at the Fair, but these were only a warm up for the next one. The Last Annual Vol State 500K is one of the
most difficult races out there and to compound the difficulty, I chose the
self-supported option, meaning I was on my own for everything.
It was a crazy adventure but I eventually finished the
race, walking nearly 100% of it! If I
had to run, I would not have completed it but luckily, the walking skills I’d
developed were what got me through. That
was just a few months ago and I’m looking forward to pushing the limits of my
physical capabilities even further in the future.
-Sean-
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