Ultra Runners Quotes

The Devil whispered in my ear: ‘You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.’ I whispered back: ‘I am the storm.

Thresholds don’t exist in terms of our bodies. Our speed and strength depend on our body, but the real thresholds, those that make us give up or continue the struggle, those that enable us to fulfill our dreams, depend not on our bodies but on our minds and the hunger we feel to turn dreams into reality.

Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry,” Mark Twain

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.

To live with ghosts requires solitude.

You were amazing,” Scott said. “Yeah,” I said. “Amazingly slow.” It had taken me over twelve hours, meaning that Scott and Arnulfo could have run the course all over again and still beaten me. “That’s what I’m saying,” Scott insisted. “I’ve been there, man. I’ve been there a lot. It takes more guts than going fast.

I had never felt more alive, more happy to be living in the moment. My suffering stood on the horizon, like the mountain, contrasting comfort. It stood starkly against familiarity, above old limitations, and towered over complacency. The mountains added the beauty and depth to the landscape around me. I was pushing into a totally new realm and pushing towards my dream of testing my limits. It did not feel pleasant, not in this hour, but I forced myself to run the last mile.

Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn’t live to love anything else.

If happiness wasn’t in comfort, was it somehow to be found in being uncomfortable? Was there some need for those of us with no suffering in our lives, to find some?

The death toll had gotten so bad, Mexico would eventually rank second only to Iraq in the number of killed or kidnapped reporters.

Everything that came before had to happen for us to be the person we are now. And the greatest moments of clarity come when we look back and we realise that it was all necessary and all beautiful.

Albert Mummery, that eminent alpinist, described being in the mountains in this way: ‘Above, in the clear air and searching sunlight, we are afoot with the quiet gods, and men can know each other and themselves for what they are.

We either don’t run, or if we do then running has become an ‘exercise’, something that either we are told to do, or we tell ourselves to do. Something that is measured in terms of value and benefit, rather than being an expression of feeling.

I remember being struck by a photograph I saw of the Spanish ultra athlete Azara García, who has a tattoo on her leg that reads (in Spanish): The Devil whispered in my ear: ‘You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.’ I whispered back: ‘I am the storm.

this ninety-five-year-old man came hiking twenty-five miles over the mountain. Know why he could do it? Because no one ever told him he couldn’t. No one ever told him he oughta be off dying somewhere in an old age home. You live up to your own expectations, man.

Running has often been the tool that I use as a way to explore, to learn, to live. It takes me to a place of balance – physical, mental, emotional. Running or not is irrelevant. It is the finding something that lets us delve deeper into our own story that matters.

Hunter S. Thompson said: ‘Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow!” What a Ride!

The turmoil of emotion that permeates my every day – the doubts, the fears, the hopes, the apprehensions, the joy – is held in suspension. There is a quiet within my movement. I think. But my thoughts are not my master. For the moment I am simply running. Identity and purpose are irrelevant. To be running is enough. Because if I am running then I am alive. And to be alive is everything.

As Carl Sagan said: ‘We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.’2 Racing and the training it demands force me to ask myself questions. To find the time, the discipline and the motivation to train I have to decide what among the myriad of obligations of daily life is most important to me. It cultivates self-awareness, I start to become more mindful.

Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that’s all you get, that’s not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high the hill is or how far you’ve got to go. When you’ve practiced that so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won’t have to worry about the last one—you get those three, and you’ll be fast.

Wilt Chamberlain, all seven feet one inch and 275 pounds of him, had no problem running a 50-mile ultra when he was sixty years old after his knees had survived a lifetime of basketball. Hell, a Norwegian sailor named Mensen Ernst barely even remembered what dry land felt like when he came ashore back in 1832, but he still managed to run all the way from Paris to Moscow to win a bet, averaging one hundred thirty miles a day for fourteen days, wearing God only knows what kind of clodhoppers on God only knows what kind of roads.

We all have one. It is that run. Its physical location may change as we move house, region, country, continent. But it is the run that is always with us. It is the run that we can trust ourselves to. It is the run that is waiting to enfold us back again after injury, absence or discouragement. It is where we go in the cool of the early morning, in the heat of the day, in the fading light of a setting sun. It is a place we go to in all seasons, observing and feeling the changes, until the rhythm of the earth becomes our own, a comforting reminder of the impermanence of all things. It is where we go to seek solace, to seek challenge. It is where we go when we need to push, to hold back. It is where we go when we need to find a fragile peace.

while Jack Kirk—a.k.a. “the Dipsea Demon”—was still running the hellacious Dipsea Trail Race at age ninety-six. The race begins with a 671-step cliffside climb, which means a man nearly half as old as America was climbing a fifty-story staircase before running off into the woods. “You don’t stop running because you get old,” said the Demon. “You get old because you stop running.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up,” Bannister said. “It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle— when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

Flashing over the images were motivational messages: “Your feet are your foundation. Wake them up! Make them strong! Connect with the ground… . Natural technology allows natural motion… . Power to your feet.” Across the sole of a bare foot is scrawled “Performance Starts Here.” Then comes the grand finale: as “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” crescendos in the background, we cut back to those Kenyans, whose bare feet are now sporting some kind of thin little shoe. It’s the new Nike Free, a swooshed slipper even thinner than the old Cortez. And its slogan? “Run Barefoot.

Life in its entirety is contained in this moment, now. But sometimes we need to go to extremes to recognise that here and now is always with us. The biggest obstacle, of course, is the striving. As long as we look for it we don’t see. To feel the flow of life we have to be totally present in the now – it can only happen to us, we cannot force it.

I start to turn inwards, withdrawing my senses, blocking out all the external stimuli, blind to everything but the narrow stretch of road immediately ahead within my gaze. I focus on moving forwards, riding on the rhythm of my breath. The world and all of time has been distilled down into this one moment. Now. Nothing else exists. Nothing else matters. All that there ever was, and all that there ever will be, is embraced by this one moment and my struggle to keep moving through it. The focus is absolute. It dissociates me from the rest of my journey. I am locked deep within my effort, right there in my moment of struggle.

The Buddhist doctrine of impermanence teaches that one of the truths about life is that nothing lasts. Everything will pass. Everything indeed has to. It is in the nature of things. We cannot fight against the tide of life. In running, and in life, we have to reach deep within ourselves to find an equanimity that allows us to flow through the good and the not so good.

Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone. —KEN CHLOUBER, Colorado miner and creator of

if you don’t think you were born to run, you’re not only denying history. You’re denying who you are.

Janet: One is more of a mental tool. I need to have the form down. I need to be working on all these things at mile one or two, when everything is easy, if I think it’s all going to come together when I’m exhausted and I’m trying to keep going step by step, it isn’t going to happen. If you go to the gym to do push-ups, do five right instead of pushing to do ten wrong. Ian: You want to reinforce the good form, if you do it with bad form, all you’re doing is reinforcing bad habits. An ultra runner’s tool kit isn’t just the gear they use, it’s really a whole set of skills that you develop overtime that is internal.

Resting when you are tired at mountain races is unwise until you reach lower altitudes, I have learned.

Pablo Picasso famously said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” There is truth in that thought. Considering my own experience, I tailored it a little: every child is a runner. The problem is how to remain a runner once we grow up.

A cascade of stress-related hormones floods the body in response to the sustained exertion. Blood tests after ultras have shown elevated cardiac enzymes, renal injury, and very high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, the proinflammatory compound interleukin-6, and creatine kinase, a toxic byproduct of muscle breakdown. That’s a lot for the immune system to handle. Approximately one in four runners at the Western States gets a cold after the race, and this is in the height of summer! Most

The beautiful thing about running barefoot or in minimal footwear is that you are working with your body’s natural proprioception, the ability to sense your own position in space. With nothing between you and the ground, you get immediate sensory feedback with every step, which encourages you to stay light on your feet and run with proper form. Some people who are recovering from injuries or who have structural anomalies or who just like their shoes will keep lacing up. But whether you wear shoes or go barefoot, what’s important is that you pay attention to your form. If running barefoot helps with that, it’s beneficial. You want to try barefoot running? Before you toss the shoes and enter a 10K, remember: slow and easy. When runners do too much too soon, injuries often result. First, find an area of grass or sand and take easy 5- to 10-minute runs once or twice a week. Remember, easy. Don’t worry about speed at all. You’re working on your running form. As long as it feels good, increase the length of one of the runs until you’re up to a 20- to 45-minute barefoot run once a week. I like to do 2 to 3 miles on the infield of a track or in a park after an easy run day or for a cooldown run after a track workout. Two important things to remember—other than starting slow and easy—are that you don’t need to run barefoot all the time to get the benefits. And you don’t need to run completely barefoot. Lighter weight, minimal running shoes and racing flats will give you a similar type of feel as running barefoot. It will all help you with form. I have been running most of my long training runs and ultra races in Brooks racing flats for almost a decade, even Badwater and Spartathlon. Racing flats and minimal shoes provide the best of both worlds: comfort and performance.

peering

Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined.

Just move your legs. Because if you don’t think you were born to run, you’re not only denying history. You’re denying who you are.

You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.” Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined.

As soon as you honour the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.

Perhaps the pain of running helps numb the pain of the past. In all those hours pushing yourself on the trail, perhaps the feelings of despair, loss, rejection, whatever they are, start to soften, and things get put into perspective" (The Rise of Ultra Runners, 75)

I called a team meeting (of one) and we decided I would run with the head torch around my neck and have my drop bag (jacket and painkillers) taken to the foot of the mountain. I couldn’t help but thinking that I was steadily becoming a knowledgeable ultra-marathon runner…

it! Your nutrition and hydration plan The optimal nutrition plan will depend on race conditions and will vary among runners.  The best nutritional plan is the one that works for you.  It is also one that you have practiced during your training runs.  Never try anything new on race day!  Try keeping the food you eat during an ultramarathon like the food you normally eat.  Remember your body and gut are already going to be stressed.  Try to minimize additional stress by eating like you normally do as much as possible.  A general guideline is to eat between 150-300 calories per hour.  Start eating early in the race and eat at regular intervals.  Setting

Ultra running isn’t a mystery—it’s hard work and human nature. I believe anyone can do it. If it’s in you, if you want it, you can do it. You can run 30 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles. You don’t have to look like a runner—anyone can be a runner. You don’t have to be fast, you don’t have to know anything. You just have to start small and break it down. You will be afraid. You’ll worry about wild animals and strangers and getting injured and losing everything. This is natural. This is resistance. You’re stronger than you think you are. Keep going.

But it wasn’t long before this strategy started to pay dividends. With each successive four-mile running interval, I began to pass runners, two to four at a time. When I walked, one of these athletes would again pass me, but not the others. And when I resumed the running, I would pass that person, plus two to three more. Again and again. Leapfrogging my way up the field. And that’s when I started to believe.

Dr. Esselstyn’s son Rip, a former swimmer and professional triathlete, and later an Austin, Texas–based fireman, authored a New York Times bestseller called The Engine 2 Diet, which, in plain English, demonstrates the power of a plant-based diet by chronicling the astounding health improvements of his Engine 2 firehouse colleagues who undertook his regime. And yet another influence on me was former pro triathlete and ultra-runner Brendan Brazier’s Thrive—a go-to primer that details all the hows and whys of plant-based nutrition for both athletic performance and optimum health.

One of the first scientific papers to write about exercise-induced myokines labeled them “hope molecules.” Ultra-endurance athletes talk about the metaphor of putting one foot in front of the other—how learning that you can take one more step, even when it feels like you can’t possibly keep going, builds confidence and courage. The existence of hope molecules reveals that this is not merely a metaphor. Hope can begin in your muscles. Every time you take a single step, you contract over two hundred myokine-releasing muscles. The very same muscles that propel your body forward also send proteins to your brain that stimulate the neurochemistry of resilience. Importantly, you don’t need to run an ultramarathon across the Arctic to infuse your bloodstream with these chemicals. Any movement that involves muscular contraction—which is to say, all movement—releases beneficial myokines. It seems likely that some ultra-endurance athletes are drawn to the sport precisely because they have a natural capacity to endure. The extreme circumstances of these events allow them to both challenge and enjoy that part of their personality. Yet it’s also possible that the intense physical training contributes to the mental toughness that ultra-endurance athletes demonstrate. Endurance activities like walking, hiking, jogging, running, cycling, and swimming, as well as high-intensity exercise such as interval training, are especially likely to produce a myokinome that supports mental health. Among those who are already active, increasing training intensity or volume—going harder, faster, further, or longer—can jolt muscles to stimulate an even greater myokine release. In one study, running to exhaustion increased irisin levels for the duration of the run and well into a recovery period—an effect that could be viewed as an intravenous dose of hope. Many of the world’s top ultra-endurance athletes have a history of depression, anxiety, trauma, or addiction. Some, like ultrarunner Shawn Bearden, credit the sport with helping to save their lives. This, too, is part of what draws people to the ultra-endurance world. You can start off with seemingly superhuman abilities to endure, or you can build your capacity for resilience one step at a time. Months after I spoke with Bearden, an image from his Instagram account appeared in my feed. It was taken from the middle of a paved road that stretches toward a mountain range, with grassy fields on either side. The sky is blue, except for a huge dark cloud that appears to be hovering directly over the person taking the photo. I remembered how Bearden had described his depression as a black thundercloud rolling in. Under the Instagram photo, Bearden had written, “Tons of wind today, making an easy run far more challenging. So happy to be able to do this. Every day above ground is a good day.” Below, a single comment cheered him on, like a fellow runner on the trail: “Amen to this! Keep striving.

Most of the time we exist in a constructed world where everything is designed to keep us comfortable, keep us away from the rawness of life. But we evolved to exist in an environment that would often be tough, difficult, dangerous, and deep down I think we long for a connection to that ancestral existence.

author Dean Karnazes had once said, that people mistake comfort for happiness. ‘Happiness needs to be earned,

Once you descend into that dark place out on the trail, where everything is crashing down around you, you need to find something real to keep you moving. It could be love or pain, but it has to be real. It certainly won’t be Facebook likes.

And thus I kept doing it. Mile 20 passed. Mile 23 passed. Mile 26 passed. Running an ultra is simple; all you have to do is not stop.

Don’t get easily discouraged and don’t worry about what others think. We can tell you straight away that when you slow jog, surprised walkers may overtake you and hard-core runners may laugh. What counts is that you’re out there realizing your goals. You’re much more likely to achieve them jogging at an ultra-slow speed than sitting on your couch.

he

Racing can give me a focus. It can give a direction to and motivation for my daily run. There is, of course, a time for everything. And racing will only ever be a part of my running. But sometimes I need what it is a race can give me – something to absorb my effort, my attention – moments where I am forced to step outside what is comfortable, time after time after time. I’m forced to focus on what I am feeling, on what I am enduring in the here and now, whether that is keeping warm in the cold, keeping cool in the heat, eating, drinking and looking after myself. Despite my physical effort, sometimes during a race I experience the moment where I am resting in stillness; I’ve stopped doing and I’m focused instead on being. And that is when I feel free. But of course the race itself is the smallest part of the story. It is the journey that is important; the everyday, the day in, day out. Start and finish lines are just steps on that journey. The prize is not a position, or a time; instead the getting to know myself, the work and the training must be its own reward.

If I can harness my concentration and focus when I run then my challenge is to learn how to direct it to good effect in my daily life. Therein being the value in my daily run – apart from bringing me to physical health and a point of balance – it presents me with an opportunity to learn, to grow, to change in my every day.

You do not need to seek freedom in a different land, for it exists with your own body, heart, mind and soul. B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life

Have you ever been curious to know how someone can run such a long way? Have you ever wondered what must go through their mind and emotions, what they must think about and feel for all those hours? Whether you race or not, whether you run or not, you are

I cannot worry about what I don’t know. It seems a pointless waste of energy,

Stillness is what creates love. Movement is what creates life. To be still and still moving – this is everything. Do Hyun Choe

When I’m out on a long run,” she continued, “the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run.

But I never did much running again until I signed up to do an ultra-marathon when I was on Blue Peter in 2008. 78 miles in 24 hours. At the time I wasn’t really running at all. I had never done a marathon, but I think that was good, because I didn’t realise how hard it would be to do three.

Everyone can be a runner, all ages, all levels, because a runner is not defined by how fast you are, but how much you love to do it. Your passion for running can have different motives, exploring a place, being outside, staying fit and healthy, social happening, way of peace and meditation, exploring your own capacity, reaching goals and dreams or a professional way to make money.

Two men have died trying to do this. Outside Magazine declared the Race Across America the toughest endurance event there is, bar none. Cyclists cover three thousand miles in less than twelve days, riding from San Diego to Atlantic City. Some might think Oh, that’s like the Tour de France. They would be wrong. The Tour has stages. Breaks. The Race Across America (RAAM) does not stop. Every minute riders take to sleep, to rest, to do anything other than pedal, is another minute their competitors can use to defeat them. Riders average three hours of sleep per night—reluctantly. Four days into the race and the top riders must debate when to rest. With the competition tightly clustered (within an hour of each other), it is a decision that weighs heavily on them, knowing they will be passed and need to regain their position. And as the race goes on they will grow weaker. There is no respite. The exhaustion, pain, and sleep deprivation only compound as they work their way across the entire United States. But in 2009 this does not affect the man in the number-one spot. He is literally half a day ahead of number two. Jure Robič seems unbeatable. He has won the RAAM five times, more than any other competitor ever, often crossing the finish line in under nine days. In 2004 he bested the number-two rider by eleven hours. Can you imagine watching an event during which after the winner claims victory you need to wait half a day in order to see the runner-up finish? It’s only natural to wonder what made Robič so dominant and successful in such a grueling event. Was he genetically gifted? No. When tested, he seemed physically typical for a top ultra-endurance athlete. Did he have the best trainer? Nope. His friend Uroč Velepec described Robič as “Completely uncoachable.” In a piece for the New York Times, Dan Coyle revealed the edge Robič had over his competition that rendered him the greatest rider ever in the Race Across America: His insanity.

extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction.

My arms floated until my hands were rib-high; my stride chopped down to pitty-pat steps; my back straightened so much I could almost hear the vertebrae creaking.

The Running Athlete, the definitive radiographic analysis of every conceivable running injury.

Months later, I’d learn that iskiate is otherwise known as chia fresca— “chillychia.” It’s brewed up by dissolving chia seeds in water with a little sugar and a squirt of lime. In terms of nutritional content, a tablespoon of chia is like a smoothie made from salmon, spinach, and human growth hormone. As tiny as those seeds are, they’re superpacked with omega-3s, omega-6s, protein, calcium, iron, zinc, fiber, and antioxidants.

Scott was a hero for a very different reason among back-of-the-packers too slow to see him in action. After winning a hundred-mile race, Scott would be desperate for a hot shower and cool sheets. But instead of leaving, he’d wrap himself in a sleeping bag and stand vigil by the finish line. When day broke the next morning, Scott would still be there, cheering hoarsely, letting that last, persistent runner know he wasn’t alone.

You don’t stop running because you get old, the Dipsea Demon always said. You get old because you stop running… .

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.