Unless I'm in the company of other runners who share my passion for long-distance, I never reveal that I'm an ultra-runner - it seems implausible and galactically bananas to admit that you can't think of a better way to spend a beautiful Sunday than running for 5-6 hours (or more) and suggests that not all of your oars are entirely in the water.
Who would believe you if told them you ran 30 miles, 50 miles, 65 miles, then 100 miles for pleasure and just to see how much you could push your own limits? But this is exactly the allure - there's no glory, no recognition... just a runner's solitary quest to claw down to the limits of his or her physical, emotional, and spiritual core. In our lives, we're rarely challenged to really dig in, set the bar higher than than we ever imagined we could reach, and then surpass those expectations. And yet, these are the times when we feel most alive, most human, most inspired, and even the most humbled.
With enough passion, motivation, time, and perspective, ordinary people can do extraordinary things. I like to consider myself an ordinary, no - an "ultra-ordinary" person - who happens to care enough about some issues to endure a certain amount of personal discomfort in order to lift the veil of the status quo and maybe change some hearts and minds along the way.
Distance running is mostly about what's in your mind... what could you do if you really set your mind to it?
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