Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

by Scott Jurek

The beautiful thing about running barefoot or in minimal footwear is that you are working with your body’s natural proprioception, the ability to sense your own position in space. With nothing between you and the ground, you get immediate sensory feedback with every step, which encourages you to stay light on your feet and run with proper form.

Kouros is a philosopher-athlete in the ancient Greek tradition. His results seem to stem from an overflowing energy of spirit. He paints, writes poetry, records songs, played the role of Pheidippides in the movie A Hero’s Journey, and delivers motivational talks “to get people inspired and alert, so they can discover and utilize the unconditional abilities of human beings, in order to bring (beyond personal improvement) unity, friendship and harmony to the world.”

Other than those considerations, the key is to become immersed in the present moment where nothing else matters.

It was the moment in an ultramarathon that I have learned to live for, to love. It was that time when everything seems hopeless, when to go on seems futile, and when a small act of kindness, another step, a sip of water, can make you realize that nothing is futile, that going on—especially when going on seems so foolish—is the most meaningful thing in the world.

Dr. Andy Morgan at Yale Medical School studied the brain chemistry of soldiers subjected to mock interrogation techniques at Fort Bragg’s Resistance Training Laboratory. As a group, Special Forces soldiers released a greater amount of a chemical called neuropeptide Y (NPY) than did the regular infantrymen. NPY is an amino acid that helps regulate blood pressure, appetite, and memory. It also buffers the effects of adrenaline, preventing high energy from turning into wasted mania.

When I learned how to use the adrenaline I’d get from stress because of the ptsd, I might have also figured out how to stop those really bad manias I used to suffer from when my bipolar disorder was bad.

Not only did the Special Forces soldiers release more NPY during the

interrogation, but, twenty-four hours later, their levels had returned to normal, whereas the regular soldier...

Other research has shown different, less chemical variation between the hardy an...

Kamler concluded that four factors contributed to these men’s almost inhuman ability to survive: their knowledge; their conditioning, which in effect “inoculated” them against the desert; luck; and—the factor he saw as by far the most important—the will to survive.

Pursuing goals with single-mindedness had ultimately bestowed on me the greatest gift of all: the capacity to forget myself, to be absolutely present in the moment, and to appreciate the perfection of every moment.

We stayed in a garden apartment owned by some friends of ours. It had been a mill hundreds of years ago, built above a small river next to multicolored vegetable gardens and a field of rapeseed yellow as egg yolks. The streets were narrow and cobblestoned, and the night sky was brilliant with stars. Jenny spent many of those days climbing in nearby Fontainebleau, and I loped through the outlying fields—of more rapeseed, of wildflowers, of young wheat and rye. Together, we slacklined in an area of Fontainebleau called “the sea of sand.” Except for the tiny travel blender I had packed—and our computers—it was a quiet, simple existence. We would wake and have smoothies every morning with fresh whole-grain bread from the small bakery in town, then run and climb and take walks together, and catch up on e-mail in the evening before we went to bed and talk about food and music and life and death and meaning and love. We fell asleep to the rushing of the stream and the cool spring breeze wafting through the window.

I avoided music for the first 8 hours because I wanted to be open to everything around me

I loved running with nothing but my shoes, my shorts, my shirt, and my drivers license in my pocket.

if they’re approached with mindfulness and care, with attention to the present and humility, they can provide a portal to transcendence. They can illuminate the path leading to something larger than ourselves.

But you can be transformed. Not overnight, but over time. Life is not a race. Neither is an ultramarathon, not really, even though it looks like one. There is no finish line. We strive toward a goal, and whether we achieve it or not is important, but it’s not what’s most important. What matters is how we move toward that goal. What’s crucial is the step we’re taking now, the step you’re taking now. Everyone follows a different path. Eating well and running free helped me find mine.