The first ultra-marathon wasn't smart at all
At all
I was at military freefall school with Morgan Luttrell
Marcus Luttrell was in a bad ops
It went bad
He was the only Navy Seal that lived
Morgan is Marcus Luttrell's twin brother
And I was there with Marcus so
What happened was myself and Morgan were in freefall school
At the same exact time as Marcus was in
The worst incident in Seal history
Long story short Marcus is alive and
I go on to wanna raise money for families
All these guys died, they all had kids
I wanna raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation
So I said you know what?
I have to Google something that's evil
Something very hard
I knew nothing about ultra-marathons
I hadn't even run a marathon
I knew nothing about this world
So, I googled the top 10 hardest races in the world
And what comes up is Badwater 135
135-mile race through Death Valley in the summertime
I thought it was a stage race
I thought it was a race where you run like 20 miles
Set up camp, barbecue outside and
Then go run some more the next day
So, I call the race director up at the race and said
"Hey, Chris I want to do your race."
So, we had a long conversation you know
I was much heavier then
I'm around between 240-270
I was a heavy guy
But the long and short of it all was
I hadn't put running shoes on in over a year
So, I call Chris Coster up on a Wednesday he says
"Look man the only way you can qualify for my race is
If you run 100 miles at one time in 24 hours or less."
There happen to be a race that Saturday and he said
"If you qualify by running 100 miles or less in 24 hours,
I will consider you in my race."
I signed up for this race, it was called "The San Diego One Day"
Where you run around a one-mile track for
24 hours to see how many miles you can get
My goal was 100 miles
When I got to mile 70
I cleared 70 miles in like 12-13 hours pretty quickly
I was done
My feet were broken
I was stress fractured, shin splints, muscles were tearing
I was in bad shape
No water
Didn't know what the hell I was doing out there
Had on some tube socks
It was just ridiculous
It was a clown show
So, I sat down at mile 70 and at this time I was married
I look at my wife and I was like
"I messed up bad."
I literally start to turn white
And when a black guy turns white, you're pretty fucked up
Here I am
I am all fucked up in this chair
I'm at mile 70 thinking I got 30 fucking miles to go
I'm jacked up
I got go to the bathroom and the bathroom's like 20 feet from me
It's a porta-potty
I can't get out of the fucking chair
I'm peeing blood down my leg, pooping up my fucking back
And I got 30 miles to go
I can't stand up, my blood pressures all messed up
I've been in three Hell weeks, Ranger school,
Overcome so many obstacles in my life
This last 30 miles of this race is when I realized
A human being
Is not so human anymore
We have the ability to go in such a space if you're willing to suffer
And I mean suffer
Your brain and your body once connected together
Can do anything
Anything
Your brain and your body once connected together
Can do anything
Anything
And this 30 miles was the life-changing moment
I was out of it
I was in the worst pain in my entire life
I was to me on the brink of death
And I was able to chunk this 30 damn miles
Into small pieces
I was so driven
I'm not gonna say motivated because motivations crap
Motivation comes and goes
When you're driven
Whatever's in front of you will get destroyed
So, I sat in this chair and I was so driven to succeed
And at this time everyone's "Were you thinking
About the guys that died?"
And I'm not going to lie to you, I wasn't
This became a personal thing
This became me against this race,
Me against the kids that called me nigga, me against me
It just became something that I took so
So violently personal and I broke this thing down into small pieces
I said okay I got to get nutrition, I gotta be able to stand up
Before I can get off this curve and get off
This chair and be able to go 30 miles
So, I went through all these small steps and
I was able to stand up and then from standing up
I was literally walking around with
My wife at the time and she goes
"You're not gonna make the time.
You're walking like 30-something minutes a mile."
I got my 81 and the second she said
That I'm not going to make the time
I ran the last 19 miles non-stop
I had to get compression tape
And I taped up my ankles
And I taped up my feet
And that's how I got through that race
Your brain and your body once connected together
Can do anything
Your brain and your body once connected together
Can do anything
Your brain and your body once connected together
Can do anything
Your brain and your body once connected together
Can do anything
Your brain and your body once connected together
Can do anything
Anything
Anything
And people may listen to this and say
"This guy is sadistic, he is crazy, he is-"
No, if you know how I came up
You realize
I was just... a scared kid