THE JOURNEY

To New Beginnings 

Exhausted, beaten, starved, sleep deprived, and forcefully moving on foot. This may seem like a story of a death march to an internment camp, but was my life really put in danger with someone holding a gun to my head or was I putting myself through self inflicting punishment of attempting to complete a 100 mile endurance run through mostly mountainous trails and a collective vertical gain with thousands of feet? Well if you chose that someone held a gun held to my head, then I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re absolutely wrong… 

Most of us have heard about the hellish 26.2 miles of a road marathon before. It seems like quite the distance to be running at one time, but there is a group of crazies out there, such as myself, that have participated in one or numerous ultra marathons. An ultra marathon sounds exactly like what it is, a marathon distance and then some. It can range from at least 50 kilometers or 31.2 miles to 100 miles and more! But it’s common that the 100 mile endurance run is a more sought after distance, according to most deranged trail and ultra runners.

Now let’s go back in time a little bit, we had just entered 2014. Right from the start I was already feeling the shame of not having accomplished much in my 29 years of existence and I was turning 30 by August. 

A semi light resolution for the new year was wanting to improve my health, but I could barely even run a few steps before losing a breath. I was out of shape, but not obese. I wasn’t confident, but was lucky to have had a girlfriend at the time. Indecisive, although I was able to figure out what I wanted to eat when I was hungry. I wasn’t ambitious, yet picking up shifts from my restaurant serving job was an easy task for me. Financially unstable, but kept it together to make sure I had food and bills paid. No degree and I was working a dead end job and barely getting by. Lastly, my relationship with my girlfriend at the time was actually on a rocky road, yet it started off a journey on which is why I’m even starting a blog years later in the first place. Get the picture or should I spew out more life problems? Moving on…

To be clear, my motive in starting the blog is to venture into the life changing moment that decided to make trail running part of my future and how it changed things for the better outside of that. It wasn’t exactly about achieving the highest of highs after the finish line, but it was the journey to get there. And what inspired Runner’s High Vision is all about the process in trail running and in life.

Motivation

As mentioned before, at the time I didn’t have a lot going on and the future seemed very dim. I lacked commitment and it was one on top of the list I had in mind that needed to change. 

So why not commit to getting back into shape? And what’s one of the simplest forms of exercise?

Say it with me now. Running.

I had no interest in becoming a competitive athlete, but I just wanted to get back into shape and feel healthy. I first set foot out the door and had that “here goes nothing” moment in my head. I wasn’t sure how far I’d be going, but hopefully at least around the block and maybe a little more. Well, I got to the end of the block which was probably no more than 100 meters and my legs felt like it could keep going, so that was a good sign. About half a mile down the road, that’s where I started to gas out and so I gave it a rest and walked it off for a minute. I felt my running legs coming back and picked it up again. The running went off and on about 2 miles and also experienced leg muscles tense.

I was hurting afterwards, I was sore, but damn I felt great that I even had the courage to step out the door. I knew I had to stay consistent and wanted to challenge myself in running one mile without stopping. About three running days later, I was able to accomplish just that. To my surprise, I had committed myself to run just a few times within the week and already kicked off the new year with a one mile run. I felt invincible…

First marathon race in 2015.

Drive

Fast forward to a  months worth of running later, I saw within myself something I’ve never seen before, and that’s drive. Not getting into my car and driving a few miles, but drive as in driven to do something, the drive for accomplishment, the drive for goals. I found this simple exercise a new drive because I saw so much progression from running and began to see improvements everywhere else in life. Aside from running, I started to notice I’m making better health choices, gaining more confidence, decision making was more precise, ambitions became more clear, gained a bit of stability in my income, I could still work toward a degree, but also saw clear through my rocky relationship and where it was heading. 

Now I’m not going on a rant that running had helped solve all my problems and putting an end toward pointless things in my life, but it did get me on the right path. I had a handful of issues (there’s a lot more, but we don’t need to get into that, at least for right now) to begin with and having running as part of my life helped resolve some of those issues. For anyone else, hopefully they found some sort of hobby or passion to keep them focused, but running was and still is an essential part of my life that gives it meaning. 

The drive is something I found through running. From running an entire mile to running more consistent each week was so profound to me that I wanted to achieve more. Achieve more with running and in life. 

Making it to the finish line when you didn’t have to see the sunrise the next day couldn’t feel any better in a 100 mile endurance run.

Journey

Everyone has their own success story. Everyone succeeds at whatever it is they make their goal. Everyone needs a little drive, but without drive, there is no purpose. What will it take for you to get to the finish line and how much would you endure?

I find the journey to be the most exciting and least invigorating getting to the finish. There’s too many successful people we look up to and how much we idolize them. But do we even acknowledge their hard work and dedication? It is the reason why they’re there in the first place. It’s a smaller percentage of “successful” people that get lucky and make it to the top, versus the many of those that continually work hard and is extremely driven. Once you’ve ‘made it,’ what else is there? It’s the same way I feel after crossing the finish line. Sure it’s a huge relief that it was a success and feels good to accomplish such feat, but that feeling only lasts for so long and that’s why the journey is much more exciting. 

Now let’s fast forward to about two years from when I started running consistently in 2014. I ran my very first 100 mile endurance run and it wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. It was a mystery to me what 100 miles was like after having run a 100K (62.2 miles) about 6 months prior. There’s a huge gap of about 37.8 miles of unknowns and I just had to figure it out for myself, whether or not if I was capable of doing it.

Now, all I’m going to say is that there was definitely a lot of pain. Muscle cramps, exhaustion, lack of sleep, lack of calories, queasy stomach, feet hurting, legs hurting, back hurting, mind hurting, everything hurting. Well, I knew that these issues would come up trying to attempt a huge feat, but there was something in me that wanted to keep going. I dabbled with many other races at various lengths typically from the marathon up to 100 kilometers before the big 100 miler, but I had failed and succeeded with some of those distances, and yet I never had a desire to quit. In a span of about three years, with many races, many months of training at a time, the journey was long and arduous, but so was getting to the finish line of that first 100 mile race. 

Yes, to many it was and still is quite the achievement to have run that far, but what matters most is to keep doing what you love. To have a passion and to keep working at it. It is impossible to say that you can just pick up something and be a pro at it. It’s just not that simple. But from where you begin and where you succeed, the journey in between that is where character develops, where drive continues to go further, and it is the journey that will surpass that first step out the door and after that first mile. 

I have many goals in life, from traveling and summiting mountains, to becoming financially stable and making a better means for myself. My journey with trail running is never complete, there are endless trails on the planet, and many people to meet. My love and passion for trail running will only further my experiences in life as long as I’m able to get myself where I desire to be. And being an impact to people is only part of the success.

This new journey of blogging is probably not as physically demanding as say trail running is, but it’s a form of development of character and challenge that I am interested in. Runner’s High Vision has been thought up for so many years and had gone through so many changes to identify with, and finally it can be shared with the world simply with blogging. The motto for Runner’s High Vision is to impact those within the community by sharing their journey to help inspire others and to realize that the sky is only the limit. 

What’s your Runner’s High Vision?