Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet

by Jesse Itzler

I believe the best ideas are the ones you don’t spend too much time thinking through.

Most of my successes in life have come from learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like I said, I just want to get better.

I first saw “SEAL” at a twenty-four-hour relay race in San Diego. After several marathons, this was my first “ultra.” I was on a team of six ultra-marathoners who would each take turns running twenty-minute legs. The objective: Run more miles than every other team in twenty-four hours. There were teams registered from all over the country. You know, friends coming together to test themselves physically and mentally. SEAL, however, didn’t have a team. He didn’t have friends. He was running the entire race… himself.

Before the race, we stretched in a small circle on the grass. I was nervous and excited, but I couldn’t help notice the guy ten feet away. To say he stood out would be an understatement. For starters, he was the only African-American in the race. Secondly, he weighed over 260 pounds whereas most of the other runners weighed between 140 and 165 pounds. Third, whereas everyone else was talkative and friendly, this guy seemed pissed. I mean he looked very angry.

No stretching, no prep, no fancy shoes, and no teammates. No smiling. He just sat quietly with a don’t-fuck-with-me expression on his face. His supplies for twenty-four hours: one box of crackers and water. That’s it. He laid them out next to his chair.

“It’s fourteen degrees outside,” I say. “To you it’s fourteen degrees ’cause you’re telling yourself it’s fourteen degrees!” “No. It really is. It’s fourteen degrees. Like that’s the real actual temperature outside. It says so on my computer.” SEAL pauses for a moment like I may have disappointed him. “On your computer, huh?” He begins to laugh, but it’s a haunting laugh, like the Count on Sesame Street.

“SEAL, I have a problem,” I say to him. “I didn’t bring any extra underwear.” “So what?” “I can’t run without underwear.” “Nah, bro, you can’t run without legs. It’s on.”

Apparently SEAL prefers to run on the street facing traffic and as close to the moving cars as possible. Like why not run on the sidewalk? Why are we on the street? The answer is I’m not really sure why. Maybe he likes the adrenaline rush. I don’t. I prefer to run on a quiet street where there’s no exhaust and cars aren’t coming within an inch of killing me! Whatever the reason, he insists on running that way.

SEAL puts on the same outfit he has had on for the past five runs. I mean the exact same outfit. How did all his shit dry?

I’d told my wife I wanted to run the Badwater race—it’s a grueling 135-mile ultra-marathon through the Mojave Desert’s Death Valley in 130-degree heat (and that’s in the shade). Sara thought that was the dumbest thing she ever heard and insisted I first go watch the race to see what it was all about before I entered it myself.

Any description I could offer here wouldn’t do justice to how hot it was. As we arrived, the thermometer in the car showed the outside temp to be 128 degrees. It was so hot that at first Sara wouldn’t even get out of the car. We parked at the thirty-mile mark and watched the racers pass with the air conditioner inside blasting.

Yesterday he ordered something that was FedExed to the apartment and one of the cleaning ladies accepted the package, he freaked out—not to them, but to me. “It’s a breach of security,” he said. Breach of security? “The integrity of the delivery was compromised.”

According to Fit for Life, fruit is the perfect food because on top of being sweet and delicious, it’s super-easy to digest. In fact, it is the only food that bypasses the stomach and is digested in the small intestines.

“That’s it,” SEAL says, tossing his cloth napkin on the table. “I’m going to take a look.” SEAL has a mission. He finds a clipboard I didn’t even know we owned and grabs a pen.

“Please tell that man I did not Google you and that I would have quoted the same price if you lived in the South Bronx.” “Excuse me?” “I don’t want any trouble. But I do want you to know I’ve contacted my lawyer.” “What?” “I’ll take thirty percent off.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Okay, forty percent, damn it! Do you mind if I make a living? I have a family too!” “Uhhh?” was all I could manage before he hung up. It turns out SEAL had taken exception to the price the plumber quoted for the work and accused the man of going on the Internet, determining our net worth and the location of our primary residence at 15 CPW, and then trying to gouge us based on that information. The way SEAL expressed his displeasure at the plumber was to pound his fist on the tile until it began to crack while yelling: “You Googled them! You Googled them! Well, Google me, motherfucker!” “I don’t want any trouble,” the plumber said on the phone. “Please. I beg you.”

“And… I broke all the metatarsals in both feet.”

“Nah, I’m just gonna sit on the couch and enjoy the pain,” he says. “I earned it. Now I’m going to enjoy it.” He starts to laugh to himself.

“You okay?” I ask. “Twenty-five hundred push-ups, motherfucker. Yes, I am okay.”

Rather than go into detail about my portfolio, I give him a quote that my wife says about money. “Money is fun to make, fun to spend, and fun to give away. That sums it all up.” He loves it! He looks at me like Sara had written the Gettysburg Address and I was reciting it. “Fuck yeah, Sara,” he says.

“That’s some fucking real poetic shit right there,” SEAL says. “Sara doesn’t play.”

The conversation is centered on Yoni and how far he has come with his training. It escalates. SEAL somehow convinces Yoni that he should quit his “bullshit” job running social media for a big hotel chain and join the Navy.

“Nice vest,” Kirk says. “Oh, this old thing.” I laugh. “I just threw it on.” They are so confused.

2. SEAL hears a dog nearby in the woods while we are running. I didn’t hear a thing, but apparently SEAL has extrasensory hearing. SEAL says under his breath to himself and to the invisible dog, “Try me, motherfucker. I mean it, try me.” Let me be perfectly honest; he said it in a way where it sounded like he wanted the dog to attack him. The dog was smart; we never saw him.

SEAL stares back out the window again, at nothing. “Does the van think I’m some kinda fuckwad?” I don’t think I’m supposed to answer the question.

That’s seven hundred so far today including the three hundred we did earlier. SEAL begs me to do three hundred more to get to a thousand push-ups.

I do a 4.5-mile slow jog. When I come home, SEAL is waiting at the door. He is literally sitting outside by my front door in the snow eating a fucking apple.

“Now get your strength up and do a hundred push-ups before you can come in the house. That’s ten every thirty seconds. I’m not fucking around, man, this isn’t sleep-away camp in upstate Fuckville.” Again, what?