A Runner's High
A memoir about ultramarathon running and the physical and mental experiences of extreme endurance athletics.
There are two ways to get to the finish of an ultra. The first is to put your head down and grunt your way through it. I don’t know the other way.
Running great distances was a means of purging the modernity from my conscious, of rinsing the outer man from my skin and letting the inner animal reveal itself. It was at times like these when I could see most clearly, when everything within me came together and life felt very true. It
We hugged. We always hugged nowadays. It wasn’t always that way—not when I was younger—but that changed following an unfortunate event. Now we always hugged.
We runners find our sanctuary in retreating to the roadways and trails, our sacred reprieve. The wonder isn’t that we go; it’s that we come back.
Nike taunts us to “Just Do It.” And I had. But what happens after you’ve just done it? They don’t have a catchy slogan for what to do next.
Kids grow up slowly, then all at once.
People sometimes ask what lessons I’ve learned from failure. Failure teaches us many things, mainly that failure really sucks.