Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

by Scott Jurek

The other runners must have endured privations, too. Every single one of us possesses the strength to attempt something he isn’t sure he can accomplish. It can be running a mile, or a 10K race, or 100 miles. It can be changing a career, losing 5 pounds, or telling someone you love her (or him). I can guarantee that no one at the Western States knew they were going to finish, much less win (including me). A lot of people never do something great with their lives. A lot of people never attempt it. Everyone here had done both. Staying at the finish line and greeting those runners, I could pay tribute to the pain and doubt, fatigue and hopelessness, that I imagined they had pushed through. Staying there allowed me to acknowledge the strength they had needed to summon, to congratulate them on setting their sights on an important goal and achieving it. I didn’t realize it till later, but it allowed me to give back something to the sport that had already given me purpose and a measure of peace, that had granted me some answers—however fleeting and ephemeral—to the question why.