Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

by Scott Jurek

Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction.

It’s the tale of everyone who has ever felt stuck, of anyone who has dreamed of doing more, of being more.

The best way out is always through.

This was supposed to be my time. This was the point in a race where I had made a career of locating hidden reservoirs of sheer will that others didn’t possess, discovering powers that propelled me to distances and speeds that others couldn’t match.

I had started this race intending to shatter its record, never mind worry about winning it. And now I didn’t think I could finish. There was only one answer: Get up and run. Whatever the problem in my life, the solution had always been the same: Keep going!

My lungs might be screaming for oxygen, my muscles might be crying in agony, but I had always known the answer lay in my mind.

Tired tendons had begged for rest in other places, my flesh had demanded relief, but I had been able to keep running because of my mi...

Running is what I do. Running is what I love. Running is—to a large extent—who I am. In the sport I have chosen as avocation, career, obsession, and unerring but merciless ...

among elite ultrarunners, tales of danger and death aren’t uncommon. Ultrarunners liked the stories but didn’t dwell on them. We couldn’t.

lack of preparation was tantamount to self-abuse.

I had guzzled 60 ounces of water (the equivalent of three bicycle bottles) every hour for the first 6 hours of the race. But those precautions were designed to shield my body. No industrial sprayer was going to protect my mind. And an ultrarunner’s mind is what matters more than anything.

Racing ultras requires absolute confidence tempered with intense humility. To be a champion, you have to believe that you can destroy your competition. But you also have to realize that winning requires total commitment, and a wavering of focus, a lack of drive, a single misstep, might lead to defeat or worse.

is human nature to ask why we put ourselves in certain situations and why life places hurdles in our path.

Only the most saintly and delusional among us welcomes all pain as challenge, perceives all loss as harsh blessing.

status is calibrated precisely as a function of one’s ability to endure.

“Not all pain is significant.” Ultrarunners take off at sunrise and continue through sunset, moonrise, and another sunrise, sunset, and moonrise. Sometimes we stumble from exhaustion and double over with pain, while other times we effortlessly float over rocky trails and hammer up a 3,000-foot climb after accessing an unknown source of strength.

Run until you can’t run anymore. Then run some more. Find a new source of energy and will. Then run even faster.

You keep going in situations where most people stop. You keep running while other people rest.

Later, I ran to find peace. I ran, and kept running, because I had learned that once you started something you didn’t quit, because in life, much like in an ultramarathon, you have to keep pressing forward.

loved challenges and because there is no better feeling than arriving at the finish line or completing a difficult training run.

And because, as an accomplished runner, I could tell others how rewarding it was to live healthily, to move my body every day, to get through difficulties, to eat with consciousness, that what mattered wasn’t how much money you made or where you lived, it was how you lived.

ran because overcoming the difficulties of an ultramarathon reminded me that I could overcome the difficulties of life, that overcoming difficulties was life. Could I quit and not be a quitter? “You’ve done it before,” Rick said. “You can do it ...

hadn’t always been the fastest runner, but I had always considered myself one of the toughest.

“Do you wanna be somebody,

teaching me that competition could turn the most mundane task into a thrill, and that successfully completing a job—no matter how onerous—made me feel unaccountably happy.

Jurek, if you got bored, too bad, you were gonna stay and fish. I learned patience while doing the tedious tasks, but more important, I learned

find joy in repetitive and physically demanding work.

But those were the times I kept going.

I don’t think they knew it at the time—and I certainly didn’t—but my parents were training me to be an endurance athlete. By the time I started running, I knew how to suffer.

Running efficiently demands good technique, and running efficiently for 100 miles demands great technique. But the wonderful paradox of running is that getting started requires no technique. None at all. If you want to become a runner, get onto a trail, into the woods, or on a sidewalk or street and run. Go 50 yards if that’s all you can handle. Tomorrow, you can go farther. The activity itself will reconnect you with the joy and instinctual pleasure of moving.

Don’t worry about speed at first or even distance. In fact, go slow. That means 50 to 70 percent of your maximum effort.

Don’t be afraid to walk the uphills. Over time, add distance. Your long, slow runs will strengthen your heart and lungs, improve your circulation, and increase the metabolic efficiency of your muscles.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

Sometimes you just do things!

I realized that while most kids my age slowed down during a race and fell back, I made up ground. I seemed to gain strength.

Concentration had helped me in every activity of my life,

“Pain only hurts.”

sometimes you just do things, well, sometimes things worked out.

plant-based diet meant more fiber, which sped food through the digestive tract, minimizing the impact of toxins. The same diet also meant more vitamins and minerals; more substances like lycopene, lutein, and beta carotene, which helps protect against chronic disease. And it would mean less refined carbohydrates and trans fats, both implicated in heart disease and other ailments.

“First of all, I ask you to be different. “Second, find a way to help others rather than thinking solely of yourself. “Third, everyone is capable of achieving. Never let anyone discourage you when trying to pursue a goal or a dream. “And finally, do things while you’re young. Be sure to pursue your dreams and goals even if they seem impossible.”

I had completed one of the hardest things I had ever attempted, and I told myself “never again.” I lay face down in the grass, panting, happy but feeling sick, totally drained. I didn’t have anything left. Was this what being a runner meant? Putting everything into a single race until you had nothing left to give? I had sensed a long time earlier that I had a talent for gaining speed when others gave ground, and I had wondered how that talent might ever serve me.

I could gut it out.

What we eat is a matter of life and death. Food is who we are.

But I had learned something important. I could run smarter. I could eat smarter. I could live smarter. I knew I could keep going when others stopped. I knew I had good legs and good lungs. I wasn’t just a runner now, I was a racer. And I was a mindful eater. How many races could I win with my newfound secret? I aimed

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

had been reading more about Buddhism and self-actualization. I wanted the peace that these mystics talked about. I wanted the serenity I found in movement, the calm that spread through me the longer I ran and the more fatigued I got. Winning had thrilled me, but what thrilled me more was forgetting my worries, losing myself.

He once held the “Clydesdale division” record for the best marathon time by a runner weighing more than 200 pounds (2:52).

athlete needed “hardness, toughness, and unswerving devotion to an ideal,” but he also needed to embrace “diet, philosophy, cultivation of the intellect, and openness to artistic endeavors.”

“You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone.”

the only way to survive an ultra was piece by piece.