Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

by Dean Karnazes

If it comes easy, if it doesn’t require extraordinary effort, you’re not pushing hard enough: It’s supposed to hurt like hell.

For me, I knew, running great distances was a release; and, on some level, my boundless energy needed an outlet. The average obsessive-compulsive takes seven years to get help. The average runner covers 10,920 miles in that time. Whether my affliction was clinical is anyone’s guess; I never did submit to testing. Some seek the comfort of their therapist’s office, others head for the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I choose running as my therapy.

Thoreau once said that a man’s riches are based on what he can do without. Perhaps in needing less, you’re actually getting more.

I reminded myself that at this stage of the race, anyone could run strong. But what toll would it take farther down the line? Long-distance running requires a certain discretion and reserve. It’s easy to let your ego get the better of you early on and run beyond your means. It’s a mistake that may haunt you as the miles and the hours add up. One of my biggest challenges in this early stage would be to have the discipline to go slow, even as other runners passed me. And I hated being passed.

Most dreams die a slow death. They’re conceived in a moment of passion, with the prospect of endless possibility, but often languish and are not pursued with the same heartfelt intensity as when first born. Slowly, subtly, a dream becomes elusive and ephemeral. People who’ve let their own dreams die become pessimists and cynics. They feel that the time and devotion spent on chasing their dreams were wasted. The emotional scars last forever. “It can’t be done,” they’ll say, when you describe your dream. “It’ll never happen.”

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.