Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

by Scott Jurek

I know a novelist who says he was never happier than when he was working on his first book, which turned out to be so bad that he never showed the manuscript to anyone. He said his joy came from the way time stopped and from all he learned about himself and his craft during those sessions. Running with Dusty that spring—not racing, running—I understood what the writer had been talking about.

How I feel like running with others.

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.

Hippie Dan had told me that we all had our own path, that the trick was to find it. I think I had found mine.

All the whys in the universe hadn’t granted me peace or given me answers. But the asking—and the doing—had created something in me, something strong.

According to bushido, the best mind for the battlefield—or the race—is that of emptiness, or an empty mind. This doesn’t mean sleepiness or inattention; the bushido concept of emptiness is

more like that rush of surprise and expansiveness you get under an ice-cold waterfall.

Bushido is letting go of the past and the future and focusing on the moment.

I had faced difficulties before. You work through them.

You could carry your burdens lightly or with great effort. You could worry about tomorrow or not. You could imagine horrible fates or garland-filled tomorrows. None of it mattered as long as you moved, as long as you did something.

Every single one of us possesses the strength to attempt something he isn’t sure he can accomplish.

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.

And staying at the finish line, I got to remind myself of our collective struggle, to experience that joy over and over again.

Kicking ass—especially the asses of so many who had said I was doomed—was a sensation that all but the most spiritually evolved or brain-fried would enjoy.

You can spend your life chitchatting with someone—even a good friend—but spend even an hour moving over a rocky path, breathing in pine-scented air, and I guarantee you the chitchat will turn to something else.

And yet ultrarunners—even the fiercest competitors—grow to love each other because we all love the same exercise in self-sacrifice and pursuit of transcendence.

The longer an ultrarunner competes, I believe, the more he grows to love not only the sport, not only his fellow ultrarunners, but people in general.

But whether you get what you want isn’t what defines you. It’s how you go about your business.

Winning at an elite level demands technique and strategy, to be sure, but mostly it’s heart.

First, I let myself worry. Second, I took stock.

Third, I asked myself what I could do to remedy the situation.

The fourth and final step: Separate my negative feelings from the issue at hand. Realizing that my negative feelings had little to do with reality made this step the easiest of all.

No matter what you do, there are going to be haters out there. My Zen self tells me they’re no worse than people who idolize you for the wrong reasons. What people think about you doesn’t really matter. The trick is to be true to yourself.

the toughest ultrarunners. Laura Vaughan, who set a women’s record at the Hardrock in 1997, the only year she ran it, also was the first person to finish the Wasatch Front 100 for ten consecutive years and the first woman to break 24 hours. That makes her fast. What makes her tough, though—what makes her a bona fide Hardrocker—is that in 1996, nine weeks after giving birth to a son, she ran the Wasatch and breastfed her baby at the aid stations. Her ten-year ring from the event is engraved “Lactating Laura.”

Watching the glow of a new day in those mountains was almost a religious experience.

Krissy Moehl, who finished third place overall setting a new women’s course record a mere 25 minutes behind Meltzer. In ultrarunning, the mountains and willpower equalize the genders.

Whatever quantitative measure of success you set out to achieve becomes either unattainable or meaningless. The reward of running—of anything—lies within us. As I sought bigger rewards and more victories in my sport, it was a lesson I learned over and over again. We focus on something external to motivate us, but we need to remember that it’s the process of reaching for that prize—not the prize itself—that can bring us peace and joy.

Pay more attention to me, and I will help you the way I’ve always helped you in the past.

His results seem to stem from an overflowing energy of spirit.

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.”

Ultimately, Kouros teaches us that the ultra is an exercise in transcendence.

Finally, I reminded myself to be grateful for my latest injury. It helped me remember why I ran ultras in the first place.

But the longer and farther I ran, the more I realized that what I was often chasing was a state of mind—a place where worries that seemed monumental melted away, where the beauty and timelessness of the universe, of the present moment, came into sharp focus.

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.

go. I had to remember and forget. We move forward, but we must stay in the present.

Salvation is always within reach. You can’t reach it by thinking or by figuring it out. Sometimes you just do things.

Number one: I was exhausted. I let myself feel that and I acknowledged it. Number two: I took stock. I was slightly pissed off that I had just expended so much energy, all to put distance between myself and someone I needn’t have worried about. And I was still exhausted and upset. But it wasn’t life-threatening. Three: I asked myself what I could do to remedy the situation. I could stop, but that wasn’t an option. The answer: Keep moving. And four: Separate negative thoughts from reality. Don’t dwell on feelings that aren’t going to help. I kept moving.

I discover them unless I tried to go beyond them? The last was a question I asked myself each time I ran an ultra.

Then I would eat. And then, run again. They are simple activities, common as grass. And they’re sacred. Pilgrims seeking bliss carry water and chop wood, and they’re simple things, too, but 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.

What matters is how we move toward that goal.

Everyone follows a different path. Eating well and running free helped me find mine. It can help you find yours. You never know where that path might take you.