Endure: How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering

by Cameron R. Hanes

“I find that the best way to connect with people is to run with them. I have someone that I’m running with at least eight of those nine runs a week, if not nine of nine, so it’s a great time to catch up with friends. My training partners are my friends.”

“Be more than motivated, be more than driven, become literally obsessed to the point where people think you’re fucking nuts,” he wrote in his book Can’t Hurt Me.

“A lot of us surround ourselves with people who speak to our desire for comfort,”

“Who would rather treat the pain of our wounds and prevent further injury than help us callous over them and try again. We need to surround ourselves with people who will tell us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear, but at the same time not make us feel we’re up against the impossible.”

“Sometimes your motivation needs to be because no one else wants to fucking do it. We need doctors, we need lawyers, we need dentists, we need teachers. We also need fucking savages.”

I’ve noticed that true outliers sometimes make those that embrace mediocrity uncomfortable.

“Mediocrity feels so fucking good!”

And if you’re mediocre, you are probably hanging around other mediocre people, so they are happy that you don’t add pressure to their life! One big happy soft-ass family!!!

When I meet people who are more successful than me, I get excited. I’m fired up to find out what makes them tick. Why are they the best at their craft, and how can I harness that to be my best? I don’t waste time being jealous or petty or trying to discredit their spot on the top of the mountain and the effort expended to get there. There’s room for others too.

I know what it’s like to be average and to define myself by my limitations, but over the course of my life, I’ve pulled the curtain back on the people who push boundaries. They are freaks, but they’re human too. We’re the same species.

When you surround yourself with people who are pushing the limits, you will be motivated either by inspiration or competition to push yourself beyond what you thought possible. When people around you have the same goal of self-improvement and the same dedication to that goal, it is easier to challenge yourself.

I love celebrating greatness. I crave being around people who have excelled in their field and who have characteristics that I’m obsessed with emulating.

“The human body and our brains are such an amazing combination. I am always intrigued by our ability to complete these big mileages and that keeps me coming back for more. What else can we do? How fast can we go? How much physical pain can we push past by being strong in our minds?” —Courtney Dauwalter

Now, when it becomes physically painful, which is inevitable, I try to remind myself that by staying tough in my head, by not giving up on myself and by continuing to push forward, I can mentally overpower the physical pain.”

Many have talent, but few are obsessed.

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

—Socrates

‘Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.’

The prerequisite for spending time with any person is that they nourish and inspire you. They feed your flame. Look at your last five text messages. Are those people feeding your flames or dousing your fire? Put your phone down for just a second and look around. Look to the people around you. Are those people throwing logs on your fire or are they pissing on it? The people that you spend time with are going to make or break your dreams. Everybody don’t deserve to be around you. You got to defend your life with your life. So who are the people in your life that are fanning the flames? Shout them out.”

Surround yourself with those who push you to be a better human.

can’t get enough of true greatness.

So in following their lead I find myself doing the one thing that in my mind means discipline … I run. When I run, I feel like I’ve put in work, and working in one aspect makes me want to work in all aspects.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Most people don’t want to compare themselves to greatness; instead, they will compare themselves to average and think they’re great. They are wrong.

I’m the opposite. I want to see greatness, to train, run, and experience greatness firsthand. I want to see if I can steal bits of the formula here and there.

There was some moment, some decision she made where she decided to give it all she had, knowing it was going to hurt very bad. Nobody would know. Nobody would question whether she was giving 85 percent or 90 percent or 99 percent.

I asked her about that decision she made. What was it like? She simply shook her head and told me there was no decision. This was what she was trained to do.

She’s not trained to make decisions, as in deciding she’s not going to give it her all. She’s trained to win.

This is where my mentality to run comes from. I’m going to go running, and I don’t care if I’m tired or if t...

I’ve convinced myself that’s the only advantage I have. The ability to deal with pain.

Pain is part of the deal in extreme endurance racing.

I told the superstar athlete that I like running because being able to run hard for hours through the mountains makes me feel invincible.

All I can do is to outwork everybody. Otherwise, everybody will know the truth and I’ll be back where I’m supposed to be, doing some mediocre thing that I deserve and dreaming mediocre dreams.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! —Excerpt from “If” by Rudyard Kipling

Sleeping in and sick days and satisfaction with life don’t equal success in my eyes.

A lot of those guys who utter, “Oh, I’d love to be able to do that” really and truly wouldn’t love it. If you put them under that pressure, I guarantee you, they wouldn’t love it at all. They wouldn’t even remotely like it.

I’ve referred to it as Beast Mode; Lift, Run, Shoot; and Train Hard, Hunt Easy.

Today, if you told thirty-year-old me my current workout routine, he would say, “No, that’s impossible.” But I’ve just pushed my body more and more and more to try to find the limit of what I can do to give me the ultimate edge over everyone.

“I found a world where I belonged. But every once in a while I think, ‘What am I doing out here running, busting myself up? Life could be so much easier. The other guys are out having fun, doing other things, why not me?’”

There are no rest days. As irrational as it may seem, in my mind, I’m not good enough to take a day off. And I never will be.

Preparation is key to achieving any goal.

You cannot fall back on luck or talent; those will leave you empty-handed every time. When you push your body and find your limit, or think you have, have you really though?

Even pushing too far sometimes helps you become the best you can be. It helps you find your “limit,” real or perceived, so that you can slowly train to push past it and find a new one.

“Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life … When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood. Professionals take action even when the mood isn’t right. They might not enjoy it, but they find a way to put the reps in.”

Do you want my secret? I’ve already shared it 10,000 times. What I’ll tell you is this. If you’re not the hardest-working person you know, you’re not working hard enough. An outlier will never allow someone to outwork them.

Running and pounding out miles by myself is therapeutic and keeps me focused. Smiling is a good thing, and you can’t help doing it when you see the sun rising on those morning runs. I love starting the day working up a sweat, getting mentally right before heading to work.

Sharing quality time with my family is mandatory.

Training for misery is the only way to train, the only way to find my limits.

Pushing through pain allows you to run when your ankles or knees or hips or ...

I love being sore, feeling strong and undeniable in the backcountry;