I’d like to give a little background before I dive into my
blogs. Let me preface by saying that I’m no expert by any means and I am also
not the fastest guy to toe the line at every race. With that being said, I am
currently a 23 year old with 5 months left of school before I finish my Masters
and Bachelors in Electrical Engineering. During high school I never did
anything sports related. I spent all my time hunting, fishing, or working. I
remember when I was in High School, we got our first cross-country team and the
coach came up to me and asked me if Id like to be on the team. “Come on, you
have the perfect physique for it. You’re tall and skinny with long legs. A
runners body!” I blew the coach off by saying no and thinking “Yea right you’ll
never get me to run”…… The old saying holds true, NEVER say NEVER.
In my sophomore
year of college, I began to realize I wasn’t in the best shape. I was still a
tall skinny guy, but I was developing the “skinny guy pooch”. This is where a
person is skinny looking with a shirt on, but without a shirt a small belly
pooch is revealed. In January 2012, I approached my friend, Michael Knight, who
had been a body builder all throughout high school and told him I wanted to do
something to help my over all health and get into better shape. I started going
to the gym with him everyday and he taught me a lot about nutrition. One day
while at the gym, he brought up wanting to do a 5k. I told him that we’d find
one and do it. The Dublin Leprechaun Road Race 5k was in February, so we
decided to do it. We started off running in his neighborhood and I quickly
noticed I would leave him. I thought this was because he’s very short (around
5’ 9” and I’m 6’ 1”). Exactly one month
after I had ever run my first lap around the block, I ran my first 5k in 21:02.
Everyone at the race told me how good of a time that was, but I didn’t know any
better. I thought they were just being nice. I had only been running a month so
it couldn’t be THAT good. Well I placed 4th that day and it really
lite a fire under me. “Maybe this is something I could be good at” I thought.
So I bought
my first pair of running shoes. A pair of the original New Balance Minimus
shoes, which looking back was the best thing I could have done. It allowed me
to learn to run with natural footing from the beginning. In May of 2012 I ran
my first 10k, November 2012 I ran my first half, and in April 2013 I ran my
first marathon. This marathon really kicked my ass and beat me up. The marathon
took place in Nashville, and the day of the race it rained the entire time
while also being 40 degrees and very windy. Not exactly perfect conditions. At
this early point in my running, I didn’t know much about running and nutrition.
I thought you were supposed to eat and drink as much as possible. So that’s
what I did, and my inexperience was detrimental. With it being cold and windy,
I wasn’t sweating near as much as I was used to but yet I was still drinking
water like I was. I ended up getting hyponytremia. At mile 16 I began to cramp,
and by mile 20 I was nauseated, shivering, and cramping severely. I stopped at
an emergency tent and asked for a blanket. I walk/ran 3 miles with the blanket
until I got my body heat up and began to feel better, shed the blanket and ran
the final 3 at a good pace. I attribute this event to me finding the trails. I
took a couple months off after the marathon only ran sporadically on trails for
about a year and allowed myself to fall back in love with it. Trails are where
I belong. It teaches patience and humbleness. It demands attention with every
step. The greatest thing about it was that it allowed me to be out there for
the single reason I wanted to be, because I enjoyed it. I didn’t have to
impress anyone else or worry about times and splits. It was more challenging
than a road had ever been, but didn’t beat me up.
In April 2014, I found out a Professor of mine at Mercer ran
ultras. This was very interesting to me, because ever since I had heard about
ultras, I thought it was a phenomenal feat. Michael was the person who first
told me about them. While working out in the gym one day after I had began to
run a lot he said “Man I read an article the other day about a guy running 100
miles at one time up a mountain!” Completing one had been on my bucket list
every since then. I spoke with my professor and I made a goal, to run my first
ultra that year. A little over a year has passed since then and it has been
amazing start to a life long journey. In November 2014 I ran my first 50k and
placed 3rd at Tortoise and the Hare. December I ran Pine Mountain 40
miler, January Cloudland Canyon 50 miler, February Mt Cheaha 50k, March Oak
Mountain 50k, and in April I ran my first 100 miler Double Top 100. I never thought that a year from planning my
first ultra, Id run and win my first 100 miler. This has been a big year for me
in my running career and I still have many big races coming up. In a week I
leave for Wyoming to run the Bighorn 100, and also on the calendar for this
year I have Georgia Jewell 100 in September and Pinhoti 100 in November. I
couldn’t be more thankful with being blessed at being able to do something that
I enjoy so much.
What started as a pursuit of better personal
health has evolved into something so much more. I would like to end with a rebuttal
to a statement that all ultra runners get told, “That isn’t healthy for you,
you’re going to kill yourself”.
“Find what you love and let it kill you. Let
it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into
eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains. For all
things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but its much better to be killed
by a lover
Falsely Yours,”
