The Rut is a set of races in Big Sky, Montana around the Lone Mountain ski resort in September. The races vary from 11K, 28K and 50K. I’m up for the difficult challenge of the 50K. This race is known for selling out fast with about 500 entries allowed so I stare at the clock waiting.

8:58am, I wait with patience as if I’m waiting for a hot concert ticket to go on sale.

8:59am, the last-minute felt like it’s taking forever. I looked at my watch to see how many seconds until 9:00am. There was about 45 seconds.

A notification pings on my work computer that a meeting had begun with a Customer Business Manager that I work with. It’s not an urgent meeting so I send a swift message that I’ll be running a little late.

9:00am, I refresh the page and paste all my personal information in that I had copied into a note on my computer a few days before so I wouldn’t waste time typing it in. I hit submit, the page goes white and…. I’M IN!

I text my wife, Allison, and her cousin Alexa and Aunt Elise that I am in the race. Alexa and Elise live in near there in Montana so they’ll get to cheer me on! Now for the training to begin.

The Training

I live in Chicago. The windy city is also the hill less city. The only two hills near me are inconvenient to get to and only about 40 meters in length so I opt to run the stairs in my building for training. The building I live in has 20 floors and it works as a decent supplement for hill training. In hindsight, I didn’t run enough stairs in my training.

In a bulk of my training, I slipped back into my default. It’s easy to fall into. It’s hard to break out of old routines unless you’re intentional about it day after day until that becomes the new routine. This doesn’t come from a training plan or writing something down on paper. Breaking out of an old routine and into a new one comes from practice.

As I got into the end of July before my race, I started to feel like a student who procrastinated their thesis paper the entire semester. I started to ramp up my training as I should have several months before. While I’ll say the training was worthwhile, it was too little too late.

I was going to show up to the race no matter what. In the past, I’ve surprised myself in some of the challenges that I have endured. My first ultramarathon was a 50 miler. I didn’t feel as if I was ready for it when the race approached but I showed up and was able to hobble through it.

Even though I surprised myself with making it through the finish line of that race, I didn’t feel much pride in finishing it. The more I have reflected on this feeling, I realized it was because I didn’t train my hardest to do it. What does that mean, “to train your hardest?”

There will be days where you will probably not put the best effort in that you could. It’s inevitable on a long enough timeline. It’s only human to give into what Steven Pressfield in The War of Art calls “resistance” every now and then. Do not try to be perfect, be consistent and effective. Are you more consistent than you are not? Is what you are doing being effective? Somedays it’s okay to only show up but if you only show up everyday, your consistency will not be effective.

That is why I didn’t feel much pride in finishing my 50 mile ultra. While I gave the effort on race day, I had not given the effort across the duration of my training plan. That feeling of real pride comes from knowing that you did everything you could and if you come up short, that’s okay. At least you knew you gave a true effort.

The Race

I flew into Bozeman with my wife and her Aunt Elise picked us up at the airport. We arrived about six days early to help me acclimate to the altitude. The race starts at about 7,500 feet and averages out at about 8,400 feet according to my calculations. During the days before the race, we had a wonderful time out in the mountains fly fishing, hiking and I had the opportunity to do a few shake out runs. The first run out there, I was dragging ass but each day, I felt a little stronger. I wasn’t going to be fully acclimated by the race but if I could get to 85% of the way there, I would feel good about it.

The night before any big race or event is always full of overthinking. Do I have all my gear? Is everything set up? What if I wake up late? Is everything prepared so I don’t forget something if this happens? The scenario planning in your head can be endless so it’s best to make sure you have the main things and try to let go. The mind always remembers that thing you forgot when you’re not thinking about it anyways.

The next morning, I had my 5am wake up call with some left-over pancakes ready in the fridge for me to start my morning on. Elise, bless her, woke up at 5am to drive me to the start point and Allison tagged along to wish me luck before heading back to go sleep for another few hours.

There’s a mixture between anxious and confident energy in the air. The starts of these races are interesting. Everyone has their own routine and needs. People bring theraguns and foam rollers to massage themselves out. Others will warm up for what seemed like an hour straight of doing warm ups.

Over the speaker, I hear a loud Elk screech. This is the starting sound for this race which is fitting. Wave 5 gets called and it’s my time to go. I ended up near the front of the heat. I hate being in front because I feel like I don’t want others to pass me so I’ll run to their pace.

The Elk screech went off and the race began. The first mile was a steady incline. Similar to one you’d run up on a modest incline on a treadmill. It wasn’t so bad. I knew eventually I would have to slow down and I did but not on my own volition. I see runners running up the side of this hill that is steeper than any hill I have ever climbed. It’s one of those hills I’d see those good skiers going down when I was riding along side the catwalks in the winter. Holy crap this hill is steep. My estimations are that this hill was about a 50% grade in most parts of it. If you slipped and fell, you were in for quite the tumble.

I get about half way up the hill and need to take a second to catch my breath. My heart rate was at about 170bpm. I got out of the way from the other runners making their way up and looked down. It was kind of an incredible view. Pitch black out with the only visibility being moonlight and the headlamps of the runners. The trail of the headlamps got progressively smaller down the hill all the way to the bottom.

Another runner also stopped for a break near where I am. I couldn’t help but think that the runner stopped because I stopped. Sometimes in events like these, when you see another person slow down or stop, it gives you psychological permission to do so. Would this person have stopped if I hadn’t?

My heart rate calms down and I continued on. Seeing that another runner stop made me want to keep going ironically. I made it to the top of the hill and of course it was a false summit as there was another hill on the horizon.

My thoughts spiral as the I start to think, “you’re only 3% into this race, if you feel like this 3% of the way through, how do you think the remaining 97% is going to go?”

Thoughts like these are inevitable in any difficult endurance event. It’s the primal protective part of yourself trying to psych you out for your own protection. There’s a part of us that thinks pain is linear. Ultras teach you that pain is not linear. It has ups and downs and sometimes it goes away completely. It’s a great analogy for life. You might have a good day, then for no reason have a bad one. Events like these condense those thought processes from what would normally be spread out throughout weeks and months to 6-10 hours.

I kept moving forward, even if it wasn’t the pace that I wanted to be at. Forward is better than stillness. I began to get into a good rhythm with my trek-poles and started to run with some other runners along the way. I took the moment in and enjoyed the sunrise over the mountains.

As I approached the first aid station at 9am, Allison, Alexa and Elise were there waiting to cheer me on. This aid station had to be a quick pit stop. I had to make sure that I made the cut off but so far, it looked like I had a little time on my side. The next section was supposed to be more rolling hills without the ass kicking of the 50% graded hills. I got this.

I ran the next section with another runner who was local to the state but lived in Missoula. In all honesty, that part of the race was a blur to me so I cannot remember much of what we chatted about. We were mostly concerned about making sure we made the cut off. We were about at mile 9.5 and he said the next aid station was at mile 11.5. I looked at my watch at it was 10am.

15 minutes per mile seemed like we would get there. Our pace was decent but we decided to pick up the pace to make sure that we made it with ease.

Then it hit me. My foot struck the ground and every muscle below my waist became to cramp. They were completely locked out. I was stiff as a board and yelled out.

The man from Missoula asked if I was okay. I nodded back and told him to keep going. I didn’t want to hold him back. He asked if I was sure then kept moving along. I’ve dealt with cramps before. I also knew that some people were behind me so it wasn’t like I’d be completely stranded out here. I was only about a ¾ of a mile away from the aid station which was near the road.

I moved into a squat position hoping my quads would loosen out. After a few minutes they did but then I checked my watch. It was 10:23am. I spent too much time tending to these cramps. I had to move. I would run through these cramps if I had to.

The aid station was a similar location as the previous one. I ran across the bridge that I had run an hour and half earlier.

10:27am, I arrive at the bridge. I’m probably running a 9 minute per mile pace. I’m giving it everything I have.

10:28am, I see Allison, Alexa and Elise but can’t slow down to wave. I have to keep moving.

10:29am, I can see the aid station, it’s about 200 meters away.

I get to the aid station and look at my watch. It flipped from 10:30am to 10:31am.

Did I make it? I’m not sure how strict they’re going to be on this so I play it cool. I see the man from Missoula leaving the aid station and continuing on.

One of the volunteers for the race approached me, “you’ve done such a great job running this race, you should be proud of yourself…. Unfortunately, I have some bad news, you didn’t make the cut off time and we’re going to have to pull you from the race.”

I had a feeling that was going to happen. I didn’t fight her on it. I missed the time and there’s nothing more to it than that. I was disappointed but at the same time, I was a little relieved. I don’t think I would have been able to finish the race. Would I have liked to have had a shot at it? Of course!

I couldn’t imagine running another 16 miles in those mountains. I would have only have slowed down more and would have likely missed the cut off at an inconveinent location. I gave it my best.

I tell everyone what happened and they were as disappointed as me. I got into the car and of course, all the cramps I had earlier came back with a vengance. We got back to Elise’s house and I took a hot bath and reflected on what I could have done different.

Race prep was not the issue here. It was training.

Reflections

This January, I signed up again for The Rut. I’m coming back in 2026 to take this race back on. I’m not going to allow myself to make the same mistakes I made the first time.

I appreciated the challenge of this race. In the past, I have run several ultra marathons but all of them in the midwest. Some of them had rolling hills but nothing compared to running up a mountain at around 8,000 feet of elevation.

I still live in the Midwest. I’m still going to face the challenges of simulating mountain running. I’m not going to let that stop me. I’ll run up thousands of flights of stairs if I must to be ready for that. Running up stairs in an empty stairwell isn’t as fun of an environment to be as running outside in the mountains but that’s okay, I’ll look at it as a way to train myself mentally as well.

I’m fortunate enough to have a support system around me for races like these. One of the things I love about running races is not only the support from my family but also the support from the strangers who cheer people on and run the race. There aren’t a lot of places like it.

The DNF from this race was a hard one to swallow, was I disappointed? Yes. Do I regret it? Definitely not. I’m coming back this September for another try at it.

This week was a great week of training for me. I learned a couple things. That it’s great to have a training plan but you also need to be able to be flexible with your plan. Plans are a guideline, not a rigid thing that you have to follow no matter what. I look at my weekly training as like having some cards that I have to draw during the week. If I’m feeling up to it, I can trade that card in to do something else if it fits into my schedule.

Why would I want to waste a day where I feel great taking the day off and why would I want to not take a day off if I’m feeling run down?

Sometimes it’s good to push through and do the workout no matter what but allowing some flexibility allows me to taper to do what works for me. Our bodies are not cookie cutter and everyone reacts differently to different stimuli. Figuring out what works for you is probably the most essential piece of training.

Monday, June 30th

Plan

• Morning run (easy) about 4 miles

• Lunch WOD: Lift pull workout (back, shoulders, biceps)

Actual

• 3.7 mile easy run.

• Lunch WOD: Chest and shoulder workout.

Tuesday, July 1st

Plan

• Run commute (6-11 miles). This is dependent on whether I take public transit up until my final stop before the office.

• Lunch WOD: Core work + easy run or row machine.

Actual

• Run commute of 7.5 miles + a lunch run of 3.5 miles.

Wednesday, July 2nd

Plan

• AM Workout: 800M repeats at the park (about 3 miles total)

• Lunch WOD: Leg Day

Actual

• AM Workout: 5.5 mile tempo run.

• Lunch WOD: Back, shoulders and biceps

Thursday, July 3rd

Plan

• AM Workout: Morning run (easy) about 4 miles

• Lunch WOD: Core work + easy run or row machine

Actual

• 1 mile run + quick upper body workout

Friday, July 4th

Plan

• Morning run then follow up with a push workout day (chest, shoulders, triceps).

Actual

• 10.5 mile run

Saturday, July 5th

Plan

• AM Long Run (10+ miles)

Actual

• 3.8 mile interval run on the treadmill

Sunday, July 6th

Plan

• Easy, easy day or fill in the gaps if you missed a workout this week.

Actual

• 5.2 mile run

Weekly mileage target: 35 miles.

Weekly mileage actual: 42 miles.

Week of July 7th Plan

Monday, July 7th

• Easy zone 2 run for about an hour.

• Leg workout at lunch

Tuesday, July 8th

• Run commute to work (11 miles)

• Corework at lunch

Wednesday, July 9th

• AM Track workout (400m repeats x10)

• Lunch WOD- chest, triceps, shoulders

Thursday, July 10th

I’m traveling this day at 8:25am so I’m going to have to wake up around 4:30am to get my AM run in.

• AM run: 6 miles

Friday, July 11th

• AM run 5 miles

Saturday, July 12th

• AM tempo run or how I’m feeling. I’ll be still out of town but I’ll see how I feel and fit it in.

Sunday, July 13th

• Treadmill run at hotel for 45 minutes + lift with whatever equipment is available.

Weekly mileage target: 41 miles

This week is going to be a challenge to keep momentum and keep the training plan in place but it’s essential for me to keep the ball rolling. When something is important to you, you’ll find time to make it happen.

The answer was never obvious to me. Was it a pressure I put on myself? Was it my want to test my limits and see how far I can go with it? Was it because it’s a form of exercise that was simple and an easy habit to maintain?

After I finished my first ultra marathon that was 50 miles, people asked me, why did you put yourself through something like that?

The answer was a trite, “to push myself.”

That was a simple answer, but the answer wasn’t that simple.

Honestly, it wasn't clear to me why I signed up for marathons and ultra marathons. In fact, in about every endurance event I have ever signed up for, there’s a point of existential dread where I think, “why am I doing this?”

When you are truly experiencing discomfort, the thought of comfort becomes a siren song.

During endurance events, I’ve thought about dropping out plenty of times when I didn’t need to drop out. Deep down, I knew that I could continue, but the truth was, I would rather not do it anymore. However, my ego was in a conundrum. If I dropped out, knowing I could have given more, what was I going to tell others? What was I going to tell myself?

Moments like these are when you get to weaponize your ego to do something good. Your ego doesn’t want you to look bad, so you’ll tell yourself, “I can make it to the next aid station, and then I’ll see how I’m feeling.”

You get to the next aid station, there are volunteers working there, cheering you to keep going, and then you think to yourself, “well shit, I can’t stop now.”

Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you’ve finished such a large percentage of the race, you think to yourself, “I can’t quit now unless I’m going to miss the cutoff or have to medical drop.”

You keep going and once you cross that finish line, you think to yourself, “I’m never doing this again.”

Two days later, after eating a bunch of food and enjoying those joyous recover days, you forget all those negative thoughts you had during the race and remember the feeling of crossing that finish line. I’m never doing this again, becomes when’s the next one.

Running is for my mental health

I didn’t realize how necessary running is for my mental health until I took a hiatus from it. This past winter, I think in the entire month of December, I ran a total of 4 miles. Aside from my Garmin severely punishing my VO2 max for it, I started to feel down. I didn’t even realize at the time that I was experiencing this level of anxiety because it came upon me hastily.

My decision-making was pure paralysis analysis. I struggled to think about what I needed to do next. Instead, I would do nothing. The only things I would do were the things I had to do to get by. I was no longer being proactive.

The thought of going on a run was like, “do I need to do this today? I can do it tomorrow, I’m not feeling it today.”

I wasn’t feeling it today? There wasn’t much of an excuse, I hadn’t run in weeks at that point. It wasn’t like I wasn’t recovered.

I barely ran all winter and I could feel myself getting out of shape, which made myself feel worse about myself. It wouldn’t be until the spring that I started slow and was able to start changing things.

Breaking out of the rut

It wasn’t until I went some time without running did I realize how important it was to me. This past winter was probably the fewest miles I have run in the last 15 years.

I began running my freshman year of college after I quit playing football. The gym and conditioning drills were always my sanctuary during the offseason. I loved training and that feeling that I was working towards something. During my freshman year, as I started to realize that maybe college football wasn’t for me, I started to think about what I was going to do next. I thought, “maybe I should try to run marathons and triathlons?”

The triathlon part still has not arrived, but the marathon part did. I signed up for my first marathon in my senior year of college. Being a poor college student working at Starbucks for $8.50/hr, I couldn’t afford the sign-up fee of $300 for the marathon. I was paying for rent and groceries on my small wage. Fortunately, I was able to find someone to sponsor me for the race. A family friend who owns a running shoe store was kind enough to sponsor me for the race. (Shout out to Glen Kamps).

After that first marathon, I fell in love with running. It wasn’t just training for races, it was training to always be ready for races.

What I mean by training to always be ready for races isn’t about races. It’s about always keeping yourself in top physical shape. I came to learn that if I can find time to always keep myself in shape to run any race that I want, I’ll be ready for anything that life throws at me.

This lesson isn’t easily learned and easy to forget.

After I got into my rut of not running this last winter, I forgot all these lessons I had learned over the years.

When I tried to get back into running over the winter, I forgot how cumulative the entire process is. I’m not going to get back to running sub-20 minute 5Ks after a single outing. I have to commit and keep trusting my process. Progression is never obvious. You’ll never see yourself get better over a week or maybe a month. Then one day, you’ll start to see progress, but often that comes after many discouraging days.

Some may be discouraged about these heartbreaks that you may feel, but I love them for the life lessons they provide. When you’re training you learn lessons in keeping patiences, trust and consistency. When you’re in a tough race, you learn grit, endurance, and tenacity.

Running is never easy, and that’s why I love it.

My day job is in supply chain planning. I think after the years of working my day job, it has led me to this inclination of wanting to have an elaborate plan for everything.

I think this year, I realized that this may not always be the optimal way.

Three months ago, I created this spreadsheet that had my training plan mapped out for the entire year. It has charts and would measure my actual training against my plan so I can see if I am veering off.

I learned along the way, the more exact of a plan you have, the more fragile it tends to be.

Since then, I am done making my plans too specific. My future plans are going to be action based instead.

This doesn’t mean that there will not be a training plan. There will be an overarching idea of the direction I want to go but the idea is to take everything one day at a time.

This is my training plan this week. As I write this, the morning run on Monday morning has been completed, now onto the lunch WOD.

Monday

• Morning run (easy) about 4 miles

• Lunch WOD: Lift pull workout (back, shoulders, biceps)

Tuesday

• Run commute (6-11 miles). This is dependent on whether I take public transit up until my final stop before the office.

• Lunch WOD: Core work + easy run or row machine.

Wednesday

• AM Workout: 800M repeats at the park (about 3 miles total)

• Lunch WOD: Leg Day

Thursday

• AM Workout: Morning run (easy) about 4 miles

• Lunch WOD: Core work + easy run or row machine

Friday

• Morning run then follow up with a push workout day (chest, shoulders, triceps).

Saturday

• AM Long Run (10+ miles)

Sunday

• Easy, easy day or fill in the gaps if you missed a workout this week.

Weekly mileage target: 35 miles.

For those of you wondering, I am training for a race called The Rut in September. I have run distances longer than this one before but I know this race is going to be particularly hard with the altitude and the climbing. Wish me luck and if you’re training for any races, I’d love to hear about them below.

Every day, we are bombarded with takes on fitness and lifestyle across social media. The challenge isn't finding information—it's choosing the right plan that works for you.

Developing your own fitness plan is a valuable life skill that can save you money, time, and the headache of sifting through endless online advice.

As we age, our fitness goals naturally evolve. In my early 20s, my focus was on training to build muscle but be in good cardiovascular shape. Now, as I've grown older, I've shifted towards functional fitness and long-distance running.

Fitness should make you feel good and be something you look forward to every day. This guide will help you identify and achieve your fitness goals.

Choose Your Goal

The concept of being a hybrid athlete—someone who builds muscle and excels in endurance events—has gained popularity recently. While appealing, this type of training is challenging and may not suit everyone. Hybrid athletes often achieve proficiency in multiple areas but may not reach elite levels in any single discipline. This approach can align well with general fitness goals of feeling and looking good, but it's not ideal for everyone.

For those aiming for specific achievements, like running a marathon within a particular time, a more focused training regimen is advisable. Spreading your efforts too thin across diverse training styles, as in the "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario, might hinder your progress in any single area.

Clearly define what you want to achieve: Is it completing a 5K or 10K, running a marathon, bench pressing a certain weight, building muscle, or slimming down? Tailor your fitness goals to your personal aspirations and commit to these objectives for at least 90 days. Constantly switching between different plans can lead to frustration and minimal progress in any specific area.

Assess Your Current Fitness Level

Understanding your current fitness level is crucial before diving into a new fitness plan. Simple tests like counting how many push-ups you can perform or timing how long it takes to run a mile can provide valuable baselines. For instance, if you run a mile in 7 minutes, it's unrealistic to expect to maintain a 7:10 pace for an entire 5K. Your training plan should reflect more attainable progressions based on your current capabilities.

There's no need for sophisticated equipment to gauge your fitness. Most people have a general sense of their physical condition. Establishing a clear baseline helps you determine a realistic starting point and sets the direction for your fitness journey.

Choosing Your Exercises

When designing your fitness routine, it's crucial to select exercises that address your specific goals and needs. For example, my personal regimen focuses on strengthening areas that enhance my running performance. It's common to gravitate towards major lifts or popular exercises, but these can sometimes lead to muscle imbalances if not balanced carefully.

Consider what's more important for your fitness objectives: Is it lifting three times your body weight or mastering a single-leg squat? Each has its benefits depending on your goals.

I've opted to prioritize functional exercises over heavy lifting to better support my running. Your fitness goals might differ, and that's perfectly fine. Identify exercises that will help you achieve your specific aims. Once you have chosen these exercises, commit to them for at least a month. Consistency is key to seeing progress and making adjustments based on your experiences and results.

Creating Your Routine

When it comes to developing a fitness routine, I find it helpful to use a simple pen and paper. Dedicate around 30 minutes to write down every exercise you know that targets the muscle groups you aim to improve. This "brain dump" method allows you to gather a comprehensive list of potential exercises without the distraction of technology.

Once you have your list, begin organizing these exercises into coherent groups. I typically combine upper body and lower body exercises into one session. However, many prefer to structure their workouts around different models, such as push, pull, and leg days. Choose a grouping that will help you maintain consistency—this is crucial for building a habit and seeing results.

Plan for Progression

When developing your fitness plan, it's not necessary to chart out an entire year's worth of goals. Instead, focus on planning the immediate next steps. Determine what you want to achieve in the short term, and once you reach that milestone, evaluate what comes next. Setting overly ambitious, long-term goals from the start can often lead to frustration and burnout.

Concentrate on the immediate objectives before you and tackle them one at a time. This approach not only keeps your goals achievable but also maintains your motivation by celebrating frequent, smaller victories along your fitness journey.

Protein Intake

Adequate protein intake is vital for any fitness regimen. It not only enhances recovery but also accelerates your progress by helping to repair and build muscle tissue.

However, it's essential to focus on the quality of your diet. This advice isn’t about following the latest dietary trends; rather, it's about understanding fundamental nutrition principles. While foods like fried chicken and cheeseburgers do contain protein, they also come with high levels of unhealthy fats and calories that can undermine your fitness goals.

Trying to out-exercise a poor diet is not only challenging but also inefficient. Integrating healthy eating habits will complement your workout efforts and simplify your fitness journey.

Plan Your Recovery Time

Integrating rest days into your fitness routine is essential for sustainability and preventing burnout. Personally, I designate Wednesdays as my rest days, accommodating my more intense weekend workouts and a regular running group on Mondays.

It’s crucial to ease into any fitness plan, especially if you're returning to exercise after a break. Jumping straight back into old lifting routines or previous intensity levels can lead to injury or prolonged muscle soreness. Gradually increasing intensity allows your body to adapt safely, making your fitness journey both effective and enjoyable.

Tracking Progress

Keeping a record of your fitness progress is a key component of any successful fitness plan. Whether you use a simple note on your phone or a specialized workout app, tracking your achievements helps you see how far you've come and plan your next steps accordingly. Witnessing your own progress can be highly motivating and reinforce your commitment to your fitness goals.

However, it's crucial to maintain a healthy perspective on tracking. Becoming overly fixated on metrics can lead to perfectionism, where you might feel compelled to have the perfect conditions, gear, or equipment to exercise. This all-or-nothing mentality can actually hinder your progress by creating unnecessary barriers to regular exercise. Aim for consistency rather than perfection, and allow some flexibility in your fitness routine to accommodate real-life situations.

Maintain Flexibility

Mastering the ability to work out anytime and anywhere is a game-changer in maintaining your fitness routine. This flexibility instills confidence that you can stay fit regardless of your location—whether you're traveling, at home, or have limited access to traditional workout spaces.

Being adaptable with your fitness plan is key to long-term success. It helps you overcome unexpected challenges and maintain consistency, ensuring that you can keep up with your fitness goals under various circumstances. Learning to be flexible means you're never too far from engaging in some form of exercise, which is crucial for staying in shape and keeping your routine fresh and engaging.

Conclusion

Consistency is the cornerstone of any successful fitness plan. The key is to remain flexible and adaptable, understanding that even small amounts of exercise are valuable. It's easy to fall into an all-or-nothing mindset, where you might think that if you can't complete your usual hour-long workout, you shouldn't bother at all. However, this approach can hinder your long-term fitness goals.

To combat this, it's helpful to have a variety of routines prepared. For instance, I use the Strong App to manage about 25 different routines. Some of these are designed for situations where no equipment is available, allowing me to maintain my fitness regime regardless of my location or time constraints. It's not always about finding time for fitness; sometimes, it's about making time.

This approach ensures that you can stay active and keep progressing, no matter what life throws your way. By building and diversifying your own routines, you ensure that you never have an excuse to skip a workout.

This was an article that I wrote last year but did not share on Substack. This article still is relevant to me as today is my birthday and it’s always a day of reflection to me.

I look at birthdays as a New Year more than I look at New Years as the New Year. It’s an opportunity to look back on what you did in the last year and see if you want anything to be different. It’s also an opportunity to celebrate what you did do which I think is even more important. Hope you enjoy this old read.

About 16 years ago, my father, Marc, was facing a small-cell lung cancer diagnosis that had metastasized to his liver, bones, throat, and brain. Doctors told him that most patients in his condition usually survive about eight weeks. But my father wasn’t most patients.

Instead of accepting his fate, he made it his mission to do whatever it took to stay alive for as long as possible.

I remember when I was a kid, I was asking him some theoretical questions. Some of them were like what he would do if he was paralyzed from the neck down or had some debilitating disease where he was essentially trapped motionless in his body. He replied to me, “as long as I can watch you grow up, I would want to be here under any circumstance that I would face.”

A different kind of moment came, but he didn’t flinch. The first thing he told me upon his diagnosis was, “Drew, remember how I was complaining about some back pain? Well, they found a tumor, it is cancerous. I am going to do whatever it takes to fight this, and I plan to still be your coach this season.”

My dad wasn’t an ordinary dad to my friends and classmates. He was my high school running backs coach.

His first rounds of chemotherapy started in May 2008. The doctors were going to give him everything they had. He began treatments that would begin with three days the first week, then three weeks off. This cadence would continue for six months.

The doctors warned him that the treatments may bring him to his knees.

Talk Of Death Is Not Allowed

The chemotherapy did to him what chemotherapy does to most people. He lost his hair, appetite, and about 30 percent of his body weight.

After the initial parts of treatments, his body began to stabilize. He seemed to be responding well to the therapy. It looked like he was going to extend his lease on life.

“I don’t want to talk about dying. This is about living and you guys reaching your goals,” my father told me. “I want you to keep going about your life as you normally would. There’s nothing you can do right now, and it’s outside your control.”

When we are faced with a stressful situation, the one thing we want is control. Control is not always obtainable. The best thing we can do is focus on what’s ahead. When we focus on the things we cannot control, that is when life can truly start to unravel.

Every moment of our life is precious and we often waste it. We take every day for granted until those days become a number that we can wrap our heads around. We procrastinate, living as if the lease is never going to run out. The truth is, all our leases will eventually are run out.

The Season I Didn’t Want To End

Gearing up for the hot summer weather, my father wore a sun hat, long-sleeved fishing shirt, and pants to keep the sun off his body during the 90-degree summer in Illinois. The outfit looked similar to a beekeepers outfit.

I had buzzed my head before our first double (two practices in one day), and when I arrived, most of the team had already buzzed their heads to support my dad.

Our team was good this season. We had 20 starting seniors and had made it to the quarterfinals the prior year. Our expectation this year was to win state. We had the best running back in the state on our team, and I was the lead blocker for him at fullback. I wore the number 33, the same number as my father.

Towards the end of the season, my dad had to take a break from chemotherapy in lieu of radiation treatments. His bones were starting to weaken, so he had an osteoporosis medication stacked on as well.

The doctor told my dad that he needed to have his affairs in order. My dad replied that he was planning to take my brother and me on a fishing trip that summer.

We finished the regular season 9–0 and won the semi-final game on a 25 degree frozen field.

The State Game

The Illinois Football State Championships were played at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. My dad’s alma mater. He grew up in the town of Danville which is nearby, so it was a bit of a homecoming for him.

I wanted us to win the state game for our school and our town, but it would have meant even more to win it for him.

At halftime we were up 7–6 but, the game was far from over. The school we were playing, East St. Louis, was one of the fastest teams in the state. They could score points faster than anyone.

Eventually, we found ourselves down 33–14 with about six minutes left in the game.

The belief I had in my father had transferred into me believing in our team. I believed we could make a comeback but it wasn’t realistic. Our team’s strength the entire season was our running game and ball control. We weren’t a team that was built to come from behind.

At that moment, I learned that looking at the positives in life isn’t about having delusional optimism. Looking at the positives in life is when you become an alchemist and turn the worst of situations into something you learn and grow from to make yourself a better person in the future.

Seasons End

Denial can be a powerful thing. Especially when it’s reinforced to you. It took me a while to understand that my father was eventually going to die. He was given a few months but seemed able to keep surviving. Why would I think he was going to die?

I was about to go pick up an order of French fries from a restaurant that was near our house. My dad walked out into the kitchen after a nap wearing one of the shirts that were snug on me — but looked like an XXXL on him.

Holding it together, I grabbed the keys to the car and drove out to the restaurant. I turned off the car sat there for a moment and started to tear up. The reality I had denied for months was finally undeniable. He wasn’t going to make it.

In February 2009, the doctors told him that he could no longer do chemotherapy. If he continued, it was going to kill him before the cancer did. Hospice came in to make him comfortable for his final days. I can’t imagine what he must have been going through. Sitting at home, waiting to die, knowing that the number of days you have is in the double digits.

He never brought that up once. During those last days, he was present and never showed a depressed mood. What he was feeling underneath, I will never know.

My birthday was approaching. March 5th. My mother had brought our town’s priest in to talk to the family. I asked him, “What if my dad dies on my birthday?”

He said, “Wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing?” I looked back at him, confused. “The same day that your father passes on from this life can be the same day that you were born into this life. It will be a day that you and him will get to share forever.”

I had never thought of it that way before, and it was a perspective that my dad would have wanted me to have.

March 5th approached. He was on death’s door, but he was holding on. He was no longer able to speak due to the tumors that had grown on his vocal cords; he was incapacitated. Something told me that he could hear us.

He knew it was my birthday, and he didn’t want to die then. He needed my permission.

We played his favorite song, What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. Years before his diagnosis, he had told me that he wanted this song to be played at his funeral.

I gathered my family around him, and we told him that it was okay to go. About a minute later, he took his final breath.

Some Things That You Cannot Explain

In the summer after my father died, a family friend wanted to pay it forward and take me and my brother, John, on a fishing trip in Canada.

I’m not sure if he knew my father wanted to take us on a fishing trip that summer, but if he didn’t, that is one odd coincidence. At the time, I didn’t know that my dad wanted to do this. But my uncle forwarded an email when I was doing research for my father’s story.

John and I brought some of his ashes to put into the Canadian lake. The sun was low on the horizon, beaming across the glassy water. John turned off the boat and opened the bag of ashes and dumped them into the lake. They sank like heavy sand to the bottom.

Within a few moments, we started to hear a loon wailing and then another. Dozens of loons wailed together.

At that moment, I felt like he was there with us. He was somewhere that can’t be explained, but felt in moments like that one.

15 Years Later (Now 16 Years Later)

I wrote this article on my birthday, March 5th, 2024. It was my 33rd birthday. The same number that both my father and I wore.

Every year, on my birthday, I have a life audit. Am I upholding the values instilled in me by my father? As I’ve been writing a book about my father, I seem to more deeply understand now what happened then. Unexpected tragedy can strike you at any time. It happens to people every day. What matters is how you handle it and make sure you mitigate the risk of those things happening to you.

You’re probably wondering if my dad was a smoker.

The answer is yes. He was a smoker. When I was younger, I expressed my concerns it might have on his health. His answer was always something like, “I don’t plan to live to be 80 years old, but I think I’ll make it to 70.”

He was 55 years old when he passed away. If there is anyone younger reading this, my father started smoking when he was in college at about 21 years old.

You cannot barter with death and choose your expiration date. You can make changes to make sure that you are in the best state you can be in given whatever circumstances you have.

It’s not easy. Each day flows by like a grain of sand in a slow-moving hourglass. We think we can put off changes to tomorrow, but tomorrow may never become today.

If you want to make a change in life, don’t do it only for yourself. Do it for the person you haven’t met. Do it to be ready for all the opportunities that may come to you so you won’t miss them. If you make that change, you’ll find that once-in-a-lifetime opportunities can happen more than once.

If you’re interested in updated on the book that I am writing on this story when it launches. Please sign up with the link below.

Towards the end of the summer of last year, I felt like I was trying to churn out as many posts as possible within my niche of running. Everything felt artificial. I started to feel like “what’s the point” with whatever I was writing. Writers block was running strong and I realized it was because I wasn’t writing what I want to write.

I took a step back to reflect. I thought to myself, “what’s the end game of my writing? Why am I doing this?” At first, it was to build a side hustle, sprinkled with the pipe dream of it replacing my 9-5 someday. Then I thought, what’s the point of replacing my 9-5 for a job that’s 24/7 with a lot more risk? Sure, maybe there’s ‘potential’ for higher income in the internet age but content is getting drowned out with A.I. anyways. People are looking for a human connection when they read something online now. At least that’s what I want to strive for. I don’t want to strive to become a content mill.

For those of you that don’t know me, I work my 9-5 as a Demand Planner for a supplement company. I enjoy the company I work for, I like my boss and my coworkers. That’s something that I know a lot of people can’t say.

So why would I want to trade out my 9-5? Well, I think that I got sucked into the side of YouTube and LinkedIn hustle culture that tells you to leave it all behind. Sure, there’s downsides to working a corporate job but it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s a lot of stability in it and I’m better off than a lot of other people. Do I wish that I could be further ahead than I am now? Of course but don’t we all.

I’m writing this post to basically show who reads this a glimpse into who I am. I try not to bring up my personal life in my writings but now I’m starting to think I should. What’s the point of all this if I don’t make a connection with others?

The internet is riddled with people trying to sell you something in today’s age. I don’t want to sell you a subscription to my Substack. I want my Substack to sell itself. So many people have become used car salesman online and I find it disgusting. Even if they are making a good living at what cost? To sell your soul?

I don’t want to do that. I just want to write and get my ideas out there and if extra income comes along the way, then great. If not, I want to keep doing what I love doing.

These are some of the things that I’m passionate about:

• Running: with a site titled Running Relentless of course I love running. The passion of running goes deeper than just exercise for me. I look at running as a mental training ground for myself. The thought of pushing myself to my limits excites me. I want to see what’s on the other side.

• Writing: Despite not posting anything in a while, I was still writing almost everyday. Writing is how I think. That’s something about me that’ll never change. There’s a certain piece about the process of writing that I find freeing. There’s no judgement and I can determine exactly how I think about something. Will the readers occasionally interpret something different than I meant? Of course. But it’s my job as a writer to be intentional about all the things I say.

• Health: Even thought I know running intense races like ultra marathons isn’t the most optimal thing for my health but the key word there is optimal. Who wants to make sure that every piece of their life is optimal? That sounds exhausting. I’m a human being, not a robot. Optimization isn’t the point of all this. To quote Kierkegaard, “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to experience.”

• My marriage: Even though I’m married now, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop dating my wife. She’s always number 1 to me and I’m always looking for ways to improve upon our marriage.

Now that I got some personal things out of the way, lets move on to what I have doing the last several months.

• Wedding: At the end of October, I got married! It was a wonderful day, a beautiful wedding and everything went perfect. It was the greatest weekend of my life.

• LA Marathon: I won a lottery at my work to be sponsored to run the LA Marathon. I was only given about a 10 week notice to train. I’m not going to a PR time but I’m going to show up to see what I’m made of. My aunt and cousins live in Orange County so this is a great opportunity to see them.

• The Rut: I got into The Rut 50K in Big Sky, Montana. This race is intense. It starts at 8,000 feet altitude and climbs up to 10,000 feet. Living in Chicago, training for mountain races is tough. How is this flatlander going to train for this race? Stay tuned. (See the image below of what kind of climb this looks like). Yikes.

I’m excited to start this new chapter of Running Relentless. I’m still going to publish out useful content for readers but it’s going to be more carefully crafted and done with love and care. I will never publish something that is generated with A.I. to get clicks. Part of the passion I have for writing is to figure things out for myself and how will I figure things out for myself if I have some machine do it for me?

I love combining my passions. Photography has been a passion of mine for about 10 years and over the last couple of years, I decided to combine my love of running and photography.

Running with a pack isn’t new to me and I realized that as long as my camera is secure in my pack, I can cover some distance while also taking some great photos. I’ll carve out about 2-3 hours on a weekend day, cover some distance, and get some good time on my feet.

When I started this shoot, I found some beautiful trees but as I ventured into the parks, I became increasingly disappointed in what was presented to me.

The leaves haven’t changed everywhere. The maples weren’t red and the elms weren’t yellow. It looked like it was going to be another week before the leaves were at their peak in beauty.

I didn’t let that stop me though and kept venturing around. I had to pivot on this shoot and keep my eyes open to whatever was presented to me.

When doing street photography, you have to keep your eyes open to whatever is presented to you. If you go out with a rigid mindset of what you want your goal to be, you may come back disappointed. Some of the best shoots you’ll find can come from moments by accident. You may find yourself in the right place at the right time.

That’s what happened to me when I stumbled upon this wedding ceremony.

I saw this wedding ceremony starting in Lincoln Park in Chicago by the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was a beautiful and sunny day in the 70s. As soon as I saw the bride out, waiting to walk down the aisle, I knew I had to pause to take the moment in.

In a week, I’m going to be standing where the groom is right now and watching my bride walk down the aisle.

It’s not every day you get to witness a wedding you were not invited to. Especially the week before your own.

You could feel the excitement in the air.

Everyone looked so happy for these two who met at a pub in Chicago. By the looks of it, they probably got a dog together as it seems like the dog is one of the groomsmen.

One thing that photography has taught me is to stay in the moment. A photo can capture a moment but it will never be the same as experiencing it.

When I go out to shoot, I look for different points of view and vantage points to see what others are seeing.

You’ll never be able to capture exactly what another person sees, but the best you can do is try to convey what they see through your eyes.

It looked like Sam and Anna had a wonderful wedding on a beautiful day. Witnessing something like this makes me wish that I could take a peak behind the scenes to see how things went for them.

Although, I will be living behind the scenes myself in just 4 short days.

In 2025, I’m going all in on Substack. Posting here and interacting with people of similar interests has been a joy.

Before I ran my blog on a platform called a hosting site called Ghost. While Ghost has some good features for running a newsletter and is easier than setting up a website than WordPress, managing all subscribers and posts on different platforms became tedious.

Sometimes you need to pick one thing and go all in.

Substack features for managing your site have improved over the last year. You can now manage different sections of your newsletter and site. This feature I have found critical for managing different types of content. I can now section off different types of content on the backend to make navigation easier for the audience.

Using this, I have now made a separate section for paid subscribers. The reason I have found this useful is it gives someone curious about becoming a paid subscriber to find out exactly what being a paid subscriber will give them.

Writing great copy is important in converting people from free to paid but giving them a better sneak preview is as important in my opinion.

Why Use A Custom Domain?

I had some traffic to my old domain that I didn’t want to lose. It was essentially a mirror of my Substack. There may have been some readers that would look for my domain that would have found the site gone and I wanted to guide them over here.

Beyond getting more email subscribers, I also want to share Substack with more people.

All writers on Substack need to talk about Substack offline to get it to grow in my opinion. Talk about your newsletter with friends and family. Get them “Substack curious.”

I believe people are looking for a social platform like this one. This platform is intended to be built by the creators on it. As someone writing on here, let’s grow this platform by sharing it with others. Show our enthusiasm about it in real life.

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• 5K, 10K, 15K

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Within this, there are various meal plans to customize based on your diet preference. Changing your eating habits can be a challenge. You might as well try to enjoy it the best that you can.

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When I was about 9 or 10 years old, my mother pulled me aside for an important conversation. She explained that people would likely tease me because of my name, and I had to be prepared.

“If anyone makes fun of you, ignore them.” She told me. “You have to let it roll off you, learn not to care and to go along with it.”

I acknowledged it and understood what she said. I turned back to my mother and asked her, “Mom, what’s wrong with Drew?”

She wasn’t talking about Drew. She was talking about our last name, Fagot. Pronounced just as it looks, “fagit.” 

Some people claim that its pronunciation is “fuh-go” and while that’s not entirely wrong, names often change to fit the culture they’re in. 

Like many surnames, mine has origins. It comes from the French word for firewood gatherer. According to records, only 372 people in the U.S. share this last name, and about 3,000 worldwide. So yes, I guess you could say I’m one in a million.

Growing Up

Football was my first love when it came to sports. During tryouts, it was common practice for coaches to put each player’s last name on their helmet with a piece of tape. My neighbor, who was also my coach, was known for being hot-headed and unfiltered. He took me to practice during my first tryouts, but instead of writing my last name, he wrote “Drew” on my helmet. Later in life, I understood why. Given his reputation, parents would have thought he was cruel if he had written “Fagot” on a kid’s helmet. 

Middle school was tougher than high school. Fortunately, I never moved when I was a kid, and my older brother has gone through the same high school, so people in the community knew my family. 

People have asked me if people made fun of me, and of course, they did. But nothing stands out. All of it blurs together because there isn’t anything that I haven’t heard before. Within a few years as a teenager, I had heard everything that was possible. Anyone who thought they were being creative after that was kidding themselves. 

I had no control over how people would act or react towards me. My default reaction would be to laugh along with them and embrace it. When people try to take a dig at you or make fun of you, they’re usually looking to get a reaction out of you. If they get a reaction out of you, they win. I never gave a reaction. After a while, the teasing went away. 

It would be entertaining to hear the high school P.A. announcer at football games announce me. It was a 50% chance that they would say number 33 with the carry and the other 50% of the time, they would take a stab at it. I’m sure some of them thought they were about to lose their job after reading it aloud to thousands of people. 

Out of all the people who teased me over the years, only one person sticks out. There was a man when I was a freshman in college that went hard at it. It would be nonstop. It got to the point where it was annoying everyone else around him, and eventually, people started to cold-shoulder him and he stopped altogether. When I was in college, I thought I would be past the worst of it, but some people refuse to grow up. 

Embracing The Hand You're Dealt

My father had a gift for leveraging weaknesses into strengths. Living with our name was a teacher of that. He would utilize his name to ensure that everyone who interacted with him would remember him. 

When you’re dealt a hand like this one, you have to embrace it. If you do not, you’re going to be in for a tough and stressed-out life. 

There’s a bar that I’ve gone to in Chicago maybe three times in the past five years. There’s a bouncer there that every time I go, he remembers me. Some people in my life that I have had 10-minute interactions with remember me several years later. 

There have been former football players in the same graduation year from other schools who remember me playing against them from over ten years ago. 

It’s not an easy one to embrace, but the choice is to either feel sorry for yourself or embrace who you are.

The Meaning Of A Family Name

My father had the opportunity to change his last name when he was 16 years old. His father passed away when 6 years old, and his mother got remarried to a man named John Meyer. John Meyer, who I called my grandpa, asked my father when he was 16 if he wanted to adopt him. My father declined the adoption because he wanted to keep his family name alive. 

My father passed away on my 18th birthday. With that decision comes some weight in the legacy of the name. I respected him more than anyone in the world. 

Many people have asked if I would ever change my name. Some suggest it casually as if it’s as simple as swapping out a pair of jeans, which irritates me. Changing my name wouldn’t erase the experiences I’ve had or the people I’ve met who appreciated me for who I am. 

Changing it on a piece of paper wouldn’t alter how people in my life came to know me. My name has been a part of me, perhaps more so than for most people.

I’ve met maybe three or four people in my whole life who were genuinely offended by my name. To those few, what are you offended by? My birth certificate? It’s as if they think I’m playing an elaborate prank on the world. Hint: none of them were gay.

I wonder if my job applications have been discarded by hiring managers because of my last name. Do automated systems screen me out as a fraudulent applicant? When I graduated from college, I struggled to find my first job and even considered applying under Drew Morrison (Morrison is my middle name). Some online application systems wouldn’t allow me to enter my last name.

Many social media platforms will not allow me to put my name in the system unless I send them a picture of my driver’s license. I did on Facebook, and now Facebook will not allow me to change my name to Morrison there unless I provide legal documentation of it being my real surname. 

My last name is a part of my identity. It’s one that I’ve learned to embrace. It represents my history, my father’s legacy, and the strength that comes with facing challenges head-on.

To close out this piece, here’s a clip from the time my uncle was on the show Love Connection:

Marathon season is underway and over the next month or so, many people will accomplish something they trained hard to complete since the spring.

Marathon season is an exciting time when many people will achieve a goal they once thought was a dream. Getting through that first marathon can be difficult, and how do you make it through it?

There’s no magic thing you can do to ensure you will make it through. Various factors can impact your race from weather, training, and how you care for yourself before the race. Some are within your control and some are out of your control. Focus on what is within your control, give it your best, and then you may have the opportunity to realize a dream.

Start Waking Up Early The Week Before

Sleep is an underrated performance enhancer. In a study with Current Sports Medicine Reports, inadequate sleep can impair endurance performance. This makes sense since lack of sleep can impact your blood glucose levels.

Setting your circadian rhyme to wherever your marathon is will be an important part of running the race. Most races start at about 7:30 am, so the week before the race, you may need to start waking up at 5:00 am or earlier. It’s tempting to sleep in since you’re tapering down for your race and those morning runs aren’t as long as they used to be. Keep your wake-up time aligned with your race day wake-up time.

When I ran the Chicago Marathon for the first time, I lived in the suburbs and had to wake up at 4:00 am to catch the train to downtown.

I was used to sleeping in until about 7:00 am or 8:00 am. Waking up at 4:00 am was a shock to my body. I struggled to fall asleep the night before, and I think I ended up with about 5 hours of sleep. While I finished the race, the morning of the race could have been more enjoyable.

Plan Your Packet Pickup/Expo Trip

For big marathons like the Chicago Marathon, the expo is big. Picking up your packet will likely take several hours.

The expo for the Chicago Marathon takes place on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I would recommend going on Thursday or Friday if you can. Utilize Saturday to rest up and prepare your mind for the marathon.

Expos for big marathons like Chicago are a lot of fun. Thousands of people arrive at the same location, all with the same goal. You don’t get many opportunities to experience something like that. Excitement will be in the air.

Take your time and take it all in. Be grateful that you have the opportunity to run a marathon. You’re in the top 0.1% of the population from doing this. That’s something to celebrate, and don’t worry about other people’s times and how they’re doing. Run your race and be the best version of yourself.

Arrive Early & Warm Up

Arriving at the race early enough to get to your wave of the race may seem obvious, but the challenging part about it is staying warm. 

Marathons like the Chicago Marathon let runners toss their warm-ups on the street and the city will collect them to donate to charity.

Races like the Chicago Marathon open the park up at 5:30 am for runners with the first wave of the race taking off at 7:30 am.

I recommend arriving at the race about an hour before the first waves take off. This will allow you some time to get a lay of the land and where you need to go. 

While you’re waiting at the corral, make sure that you warm up and stay warmed up. When your corral lines up, you may wait there for some time, and standing around makes it easy for your body to cool down. You may feel squished in with people waiting to take off but do your best to keep your body warm.

Stick To Your Target Pace

Sticking to your target pace can be a challenge. If you’re running your first marathon, the adrenaline will be pumping and when you take off from the gate, you feel superhuman.

This is a big mistake. Going out of the gate too fast can cost you dearly.

During my first marathon, I thought that I could maintain a 7:00/min-8:00/min mile pace the entire way. I did until about mile 10, then I started to slow down. I tried to keep up the pace but around mile 16, I started cramping and soon enough, all the muscles in my legs were cramping. While I hobbled to the finish line, it wasn’t the marathon experience that I had wished for.

Had I slowed down and stuck to my target pace in the beginning, this could have been mitigated.

Reframe Your Mindset

Around mile 18–20 of a marathon is where many runners hit “the wall.” The hardest part of overcoming this is the mind.

There are some tricks to preventing yourself from hitting the wall. One of them is to make sure your body is adequately fueled a week up to the race, and you’re fueling during the race as well. You don’t need to go crazy and carry 10 gels with you, but having a couple of on hand during the race and planning out when to consume them may help mitigate this.

If you’re still hitting the wall after all this, try to reframe your thinking.

Instead of thinking:

“I’ve run 18 miles, how am I going to finish?”

Reframe it to:

“I only have two 4 mile runs left.”

The shift in mindset can help you a lot more than you think it will. Your brain knows that you can easily run 4 miles. Make it to the next set of miles that you need to. Keep chunking it out until you get to the point where you know you will cross that finish line.

Have Fun

You’re running a marathon and that’s something to be celebrated! Remember that nothing great comes easy. All those hours training for this moment are finally coming to fruition. There will be times during the event that will be hard, but it will be worth it once you cross that finish line.

Training for your next race or are looking for more training tips? Check out Running Relentless for the training tips that you didn’t know that you needed.

I’m not going to lie. I have been writing online on and off for the better part of 4 years now. There’s been some months where my consistency of writing hasn’t been at its best and it cost me dearly at times. 

I would write an article that would get over 5k views in a month, feel good about myself then another one would barely get to a hundred. 

In fact, a majority of articles I would write would barely get to that one hundred number. 

The failures became discouraging. It made me want to give up but I enjoy writing so I can never give up. Writing is a part of me and if I am going to write, I might as well practice in public and get real-world feedback on it. 

I took a moment to reflect on my failures and my successes over time and it led me to appreciate the reality of how far I’ve come. 

Failure Teaches You No One Cares

If you put yourself out there enough, eventually you will realize that no one cares. Everyone is caught up in their own bubble, the likelihood of them giving you a thought today is low. 

You can look at this in two ways: 

• You either feel isolated and lonely. 

• You feel liberated to do what you want. 

I chose the ladder. There’s nothing more liberating than to realize that no one cares about anything that you do unless it impacts them. 

That article you’re writing that you think might be polarizing probably isn’t. No one is going to care what your thoughts are, especially people who are strangers. 

Dare to hit publish without a care, because no one else does. Stop thinking so highly of yourself. 

Failure Gives You Correct Action

When I attempted to run my first 100-mile ultra marathon, I failed. It was a tough pill to swallow and I worked that hard to get to it and could not succeed. 

This ended up being the best motivation for me. 

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Failure has you confront your insane ways. 

If you never step into the arena to test your skills, how are you going to know if you are good enough or need to take corrective action? 

Some of history’s biggest figures failed over and over again. 

Thomas Edison failed over a thousand times before he finally invented the light bulb and movie projector. He was deemed unteachable in school. 

As important as it is to figure out what you need to do, figuring out what not to do is as important. 

Failure Teaches You Resilience

Everyone is going to fail at some point in their life at something. The people who fail once or twice and give up are the people who end up coasting through an unremarkable life. 

Rarely is there someone who comes out of the gates and hits on everything they do. 

One thing that failure will teach you is that if you do not succeed, you will be okay and you will figure it out. You will learn that your life is not going to be over because you know you will never quit. 

Resilience is something that can only be taught by putting yourself into situations you need to be resilient. 

Why not give yourself the opportunity to teach yourself this life skill? 

Failing Fast Is The Most Important Kind Of Failure

Imagine the failures that you had years ago. What did you do about them? 

Did you fail fast and try again? Or did you let it sit and never resolve it? 

The longer you let a failure go unresolved, it becomes a bigger mountain mentally. Your memory of the failure becomes distorted over time as most memories do and you think that it’s a bigger mountain to climb than it actually is. 

Learn to fail fast because if you don’t, it’ll become harder to resolve in the future. 

Conclusion

Failure can be an important teacher. All of us will fail at something at some point in our lives. Some failures will sting more than others. If you fail at something, it doesn’t mean that you have to resolve it either. I’m not that good at bowling but that doesn’t mean that I need to spend all my waking hours to make sure that I’m not a failure at bowling. 

That might be a silly example but you have to choose what is important to you. If something is important to you, make sure that you try your hardest to make sure that you succeed. All it takes is one success and other successes can keep on rolling. 

Have you been struggling with your failures? That’s why I made a sheet with journal prompts for you to uncover what your failures can teach you moving forward. Look here to get the journal prompts.

There are moments in our lives when we have to make a choice. It’s the red pill, blue pill moment. 

Take the blue pill and you carry on with your life in the same old way and know where the path is going to lead you. 

Take the red pill and you’ll confront the truth with who you are and who you could be. 

The red pill is scary and most people don’t take it at any point in their lives. The red pill has a massive upside to it but it also means abandoning a lot of the comforts that you have today. 

The blue pill is safe. It allows you to blindly follow your impulses and get cheap dopamine hits. However, something about the blue pill feels empty. You know someday you’ll wake up and think, “Is this all there is to life?” 

Deep down, you’ll know one day that you’ll regret taking the blue pill and there won’t be anything you can do about it. 

Part of the thing that makes us human is our ability to make this choice. No other animal forgoes instant gratification for a better future. Dogs are pretty smart animals but if you give them a week’s worth of food, they’ll attempt to eat it in one sitting. 

To become the best human you can be, you must forgo the instant gratification. However, forgoing instant gratification isn’t our default setting. To forgo instant gratification, you have to understand why you are doing it. 

What’s Compelling vs What’s Easy

What compels you can seem like a dream. It’s the Walter Mitty fantasy where we wish our lives would be different than what they are. 

What holds us back? 

Humans are complex and if there was one reason that held us back, we would all be able to identify it and move on with our lives. 

In some cases, we might have responsibilities that we have to take on in our lives. Maybe something tragic happened to us that we weren’t prepared for. Sometimes tragedy can harm us in ways we didn’t realize and can create a ripple down the path of our lives we didn’t know was possible. 

When I was in high school, my father passed away. I knew it would be tough losing him but I wasn’t prepared for the subconscious choices I would make from that point forward. I played life safe. I took a major in college that was safe. I worked extra hard to make sure that I graduated on time while working full-time. 

It made me have to grow up fast. However, during that time, I didn’t see how my choices would ripple down the road. 

Fast forward many years and I’m living life like I took the blue pill. It’s a routine that I’m used to but it’s not the routine that I want. 

The more vulnerable you are, the more likely you’re going to get caught up in cultural conditioning. Our society wants you to be a cog in the machine and carry on with life in a way that convinces you that this is what you want. 

Most people usually don’t start asking themselves the right questions about this until it’s too late. The discomfort of stepping outside your comfort zone may be too uncomfortable and scary so you’ll retreat back to the comfort of your old life. When this happens, you can either start your own hero’s journey or stay home where nothing happens. 

The Real Path of Least Resistance

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..” - Henry David Thoreau, Walden

What we think is the path of least resistance is often the path of most resistance. 

Taking the shortcut tapers with our soul and what compels us. Eventually, we will forget who we are and come to find out that if we made the right choice years ago, the old path of most resistance would have been the path of least resistance. 

Thoreau was right when he said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” 

The quiet desperation he speaks of is that quiet sinking feeling in our stomachs at all times. It’s that feeling that we know that we are not doing what we were born to do but we feel trapped and helpless. 

Research shows that over half of the population would quit their jobs if they won the lottery. 

That tells me that there is a large portion of the population that isn’t satisfied with what they are doing. 

What we do for a living seems to define us as who we are. When you meet someone new, what’s the first thing they usually ask you? It’s what you do for a living. This question often serves as a reminder about who you are and what you never became. There are some people out there that are proud to answer that question but that isn’t the case for a majority of us. 

Beginning The Heroes Journey

I’m not sure how we find what compels us but when we know what it is, it’s hard to keep that out of mind. 

How do we know what compels us? Open up your search history on YouTube or look at what kind of books you’ve purchased. Right there should tell you what compels you. 

We live in a world today where there is more freedom to break free of the societal trap than ever before. If you’ve always dreamed of being a writer, all you have to do is write, post it online, and find a way to get your writing some views. At first, it may seem frustrating when you get no immediate feedback but this is where it’s important to remember to not chase instant gratification. Our brains today are wired so hard to chase instant gratification, we have forgotten what the feeling is like when we accomplish something without it. 

The path begins with a fork in the road. One path goes home and the other path goes on your journey. Which one will you choose? 

Strategizing 

Chasing what compels you isn’t going to be easy if you’ve been stuck for years. That’s where some strategy has to come into play. 

The first thing that you should do is create an actions-oriented system instead of a results-oriented system. Do one thing a day that gets you closer to that goal regardless of the outcome. 

If you want to be a writer, this could be as simple as writing 300 words a day. 

If you want to be an artist, it could be as simple as spending 30 minutes a day to work on your drawing skills. 

Another key to it is practicing in public. Don’t be afraid to post what you love. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t need to tell people what your goals are with it but putting yourself out there can help you reshape how you think of yourself. 

Have you ever looked at a famous YouTuber’s early videos? I’ve made it a little hobby of mine to see where they all started. 

All of the videos and I mean all of them, are not good. 

MKBHD, Ali Abdaal, Nick Bare, Mr Beast, etc. 

The list goes on and on. The thing that separates them from the rest is that they never quit. Heck, a lot of them slowly switched niches overtime on what they were creating content about. Sometimes it takes time to figure out what compels you. 

Just Start

What compels you? Have you wanted to chase something for years but never knew how to get there? At first that inkling that you have immediate success will not be easy to overcome. It will be discouraging. This is where creating a strategy for yourself will come into play. You don’t need to have a complex strategy at all. 

Sometimes the strategy in the beginning needs to be getting started. After you do it for a while, then you can start adding layers to your strategy to become better. 

What’s holding you back from getting started? If you’re interested in working with me for a free consultation. Check out the link here.

This event opened a lot of doors for me for what was possible. After completing this, I set my eyes on new things. The next thing was to run an ultra marathon. 

I used to not think that it was possible for me to run an ultra marathon. I believed that ultra marathon was something that only mutants could do. You had to have some special endurance gene to be able to run that kind of distance nonstop. 

Well, I rucked at least 65 miles during the course of this event. I also had 40 pounds on my back or more for a majority of it. I also didn’t sleep for two days. 

What is running for 12 hours going to feel like compared to this? 

A few years later, I signed up for my first ultra marathon. It was a 50 miler in Pekin, IL. 

I knew it wasn’t going to be a cake walk. Running 50 miles is still hard to do. I was essentially going to be running from sun up to sun down. 

I didn’t have any master plan in running this ultra. I went to it alone. I didn’t have a support crew or anyone to help me out. I basically loaded out a duffel bag full of food and meal replacement powder and decided to go for it. 

It would have been easy to overthink this event and not sign up for it at all. There’s hundreds of blog posts on what people do to plan for an ultra marathon but I decided that I was going to just go with my intuition for it. I would listen to the advice of some friends that had run races like this and not go into any rabbit holes on it. 

Eliminating the overwhelm of planning is often the best way we learn. If I made a mistake over the course of this event, so be it. At least I would learn a little more of what it means to run an ultra marathon. 

The 50 mile ultra beat me in ways that I wasn’t expecting. The most challenging part was keeping pace with the time that I wanted to have. 

I ran the first 35 miles of my race as fast as the last 15 miles. The last 15 miles I was barely running. I was essentially fast hiking up and down the hills. 

I didn’t eat enough throughout the course of this race. Even though I ate the food that came available to me, I should have brought food that was a little denser in calories. Throughout a 50 mile ultra, you’re going to burn about 7,000 calories so fueling is essential. 

I was eating meal replacement powder and drinking swigs of some salt water concoction for electrolytes that I made at home. Was my plan bad? Yes. Was it better than no plan? Maybe. I was winging it during this event but if I didn’t have that badge of honor of finishing the GoRuck HTL, I don’t think that I would have showed up to this 50 mile ultra marathon. 

When you finish something that is hard and I mean, really hard. It changes you. It gives you a memory of what you can endure. I think all of us can endure more than we believe we can. 

Doing this event is one of my fondest memories. I hope to grow more memories like these as my life goes on. 

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After the Tough, we followed the same plan that we did finishing the Heavy. We made it back to the hotel. Jason and Harrison took a nap and I couldn’t sleep as usual. 

I opted to go out and get a real breakfast and sat down at a diner nearby. I ordered the biggest skillet I could get my hands on. The breakfast place was only a 5 minute walk away but I ended up taking an Uber. 

Why would I waste extra energy? I had plenty of energy to give later on. 

It was about 10:00am and I had seen the sun go down and come up twice since I last had slept. It’s strange when you don’t sleep. The body feels off. A mini alarm goes off telling you that something is not right. 

It’s not natural to see multiple day cycles in a row without sleeping but I had to do it. I would rather push through than nap. I was certain if I fell asleep I wouldn’t be able to wake up. I couldn’t risk it. 

Cadre Doug told me, “I’ll see you in a few hours.” And he was right. 

There was no way we weren’t going to show up to the Light after doing the Heavy and the Tough. Something would have to be wrong with us for us to quit at this point. 

Our Light class had a lot of people in it. I would say it was about 50 or 60 people. 

The perk of doing a Light event is it’s supposed to be an entry level event for people starting to get into rucking. There’s not a lot of PT and you mostly ruck. The weight requirement is 10 pounds lighter for a Light event than it is for the Heavy and Tough. That extra weight makes a huge difference for your morale. 

Chad and Doug had the group gather up and we mostly rucked up and down the Lakefront path in the city. There wasn’t a whole lot more to do than that if we are getting a lot of rucking in a six hour span. 

After we rucked back to the start point, I thought that we had did it. We were finished and the event was going to be over. I was going to get the coveted orange HTL patch. 

We all circled up at a playground that was near the start point. Chad had an announcement to make to everyone. 

“We have six people in this group that did both the Heavy and the Tough. Will you step forward. Before earning your patch, you have to do one more thing, you have to do 110 eight count body builders.” 

An eight count body builder is similar to a burpee. You do a full push up, move your legs in and out then jump up from a squat position. 

Everyone gathered around us. We were allowed to do the eight counts in sets so we opted to do sets of 6 sets of 15. On the last set, we would do 20 finish. 

Chad afterwards told us we did every rep and every set with perfect form. One last challenge, one more thing. When you’re relentless, you will not let anything get in your way. 

After we finished the high counts, Chad had us do the tunnel of love. The tunnel of love is where you basically go into an arched pushup position and low crawl under each other.

Chad came to the end, showing the orange patch, “do you want this? Go ahead and take it.” 

All of us didn’t think he meant that literally and we kept going. He had intended for us to actually take it but we just kept going for more. All of us wanted to have it given to us and earned instead of taking it. 

Then he stopped us and gave us all the patch. 

I teared up and gave Harrison and Jason a hug. We did it. We completed something we worked so hard to get to. 

It was one of the most proud moments of my life. I gave my 100% and I know that I gave my 100%. No one can take that away from me. 

There’s a greater sense of satisfaction when you give something your all and finish it. 

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The most difficult part about completing a GoRuck HTL is showing up to the Tough event. You finish a grueling 24 hour event and get the luxury of a 4 hour break until the Tough starts. During those 3-4 hours, you find comfort. 

The level of comfort that you feel after doing a heavy is nice. The bed feels great, the sheets are soft and cool. Every ounce of your being wants to stay in bed. 

The real challenge is getting out of bed. Isn’t that an analogy for life. After we do something that we perceive as hard, we think “I deserve a break.” 

It’s the mentality to have a cheat meal because you worked out once. It’s finding comfort after the discomfort. Our threshold for discomfort is constantly changing. Anytime we find something that is uncomfortable, we seek to find that comfort. When we find that comfort, our threshold for discomfort resets and sometimes dips below where it should. If you are comfortable all the time, any little amount of discomfort will make you uncomfortable. 

We left the hotel and took an Uber back to the start point at Soldier Field. I was hobbling along in the worst physical shape I’ve ever been in but all I could do was smile. 

Why was I here? Why was I doing this? It felt ridiculous to be here. I was in terrible shape. All the muscles in my legs still felt like jello. I did it. I showed up. I made it to this event. 

The Tough class was a lot larger than the heavy class. We had about 40 people show up. Even though our bodies weren’t fresh, we still had about 34 other people who had fresh bodies. 

Mike, Ayn, Teresa, Harrison, Jason and I were the only ones left from the Heavy. 

The Tough event is a little different than the Heavy. In a Heavy, you carry a lot of weight. In a Tough, you do more PT and rucking. Rucking speeds are typically faster, time hacks are faster and the team is prompted to move. 

There won’t be as many breaks during this event like a Heavy. It was okay though. All I had to do was make it until the sun rises. 

The mentality became to make it to the next point. 

Compartmentalization is a critical mental skill to have when doing something hard. You cannot think about the totality of what you have to do. You have to break it down, one piece at a time. If you do not break it down one piece at a time, your mind will become overwhelmed by it. Honestly, what’s the point of thinking about the entire thing? What good does it do you? The only thing you can focus on is what is right in front of you. There’s nothing else to focus on but the present moment. You don’t know how you’re going to feel in a couple hours. What you do know is how you feel right now. 

Our first stop was a ruck to the baseball fields in Lincoln Park near North Avenue beach. Chad had us do wind sprints back and forth on the field along with PT. 

This was brutal considering what kind of condition I was in. I was not in shape to do explosive workouts but I had to dig deep to keep moving. 

My mind was burnt out. I was struggling and falling behind the group. One guy offered to carry my ruck for me for a little bit and that helped me so much. 

I cannot remember the guys name but he saved me during this event. Without him, I’m not sure if I would have finished. 

I was having some dark thoughts during this time. There were parts of me that were thinking that I should roll my ankle and injure myself on purpose. If I was injured, at least I can walk away with dignity and wouldn’t feel like I quit. 

It’s sick what kind of thoughts the ego will create to protect itself. Why? Why would that make me feel better? 

The truth is that it wouldn’t. The ego is often a lie that we tell ourselves to make us think that we are more than what we are. The trap the ego loves to put us in is one built on the unknown. 

If I did get injured, even if it was self inflicted, the ego would have told me, “you could have finished this event if you didn’t get injured.” 

It loves to leave things open ended. It loves when we quit without giving our 100%. If we do not give our 100%, it can tell us that we didn’t give it our all and we could have done it if we had. 

The frightening part about giving a 100% is that it makes us vulnerable. It shows us who we really are. When you give 100%, you either find out if you are good enough or if you are not. 

If you’re not, it really hurts. It makes you feel like a failure. But at least you didn’t allow your soul to be eaten away at the lies you told yourself. 

The guy who carried my ruck for 20 minutes allowed me to mentally get myself together. After that, I let those thoughts pass through me. If I was going to get injured during this event, it would be for real. It wouldn’t be from my own doing. There was no way that I was going to stop now. I was going to keep going no matter what happened to me. 

I ended up making it through the event. The sun came up and I realized that I was going to succeed. 

I got another congratulatory handshake from Cadre Doug and he said, “I’ll see you in a few hours.” 

Indeed he would see me. I can taste the finish. I’m going to get to the end of this.

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See the next part of this story in the link below. You can also find the ebook of this story here.

We took an Uber to Soldier Field, meeting on the side right outside the Field Museum. 

There was around 30 people at this event which would be considered a medium sized class. We met our Cadre, Chad, who was tan with a black beard and his hair slicked back like the Fonz. Chad came off as a little bit of a bad boy as he was smoking a swisher when we arrived. 

We had a special guest at this event as another Cadre. It was Cadre Doug from the Heavy we did out in Portland last year. 

Our team weight was a sight to behold. We called it the “Ark of the Covenant.” The weight ensured that we could never drop the flag and was a perfect representation of 9/11. We were honoring those that fell in 9/11. 

Part of a GoRuck event is carrying an American Flag with the team. If the flag touches the ground, the event is basically over. Every GoRuck event I have been to, the Cadre will tell you that they gave up too much for that flag. If it touches the ground, they will make everyone do PT until we all quit. 

Chad gathered all of us and told us to get our team weight and rucks together. We were to form two lines and move the weight into Soldier Field. 

In a GoRuck event, usually you expect the unexpected but I did not expect us to have access to go into Soldier Field. The field is owned by the city and somehow we had private access to get inside. 

After we got all of our gear inside, we lined up. We had a feeling of what was about to happen. The only reason that they would bring us inside this stadium would be to do stairs. Why else would they bring us inside? 

Cadre Chad spoke to us about the importance of 9/11 as an event. A lot of people were heroes on this day. All of us before this event were asked to bring a story about someone who died on 9/11. When I was reading through many of the stories, you begin to realize what heroism is. Heroism is putting the safety and needs of others above your own. A lot of people on 9/11 were heroes and we didn’t want their stories to be forgotten. 

How did people get out of the World Trade Center after the planes hit? They had to use the stairs. 

Chad told us that we were going to climb 110 flights of stairs. That was how many flights of stairs the World Trade Center was and we were going to do this in memory of those who had fallen. 

We split off into about five groups of six to climb the stairs. The stadium steps at Soldier Field are steep. It felt especially steep carrying a 40 pound ruck on your back. 

We weren’t going to run up the stairs or do it for a dedicated time. The only catch was that we had to keep going. The Cadre didn’t want us to take any significant pauses during our climb. 

That’s the beauty of a GoRuck event is that since this event is already slated to be 24 hours, we have a lot of time to utilize. Climbing this many flights of stairs will probably take about an hour. 

Since you are not allowed to wear a watch or check the time during a GoRuck event, you will begin to lose track of time. There’s two sides to that coin. When you’re feeling beat and broken, not knowing what time it is in the middle of the night makes it feeling like there’s no end. 

But when you don’t know what time it is, it can move faster as well. That feeling of seeing the sunrise in the morning lets you know that you are half way done and it’s encouraging to keep moving forward. 

About half way through the stair climb, my legs started to feel shaky on the way down the stairs. I always felt like walking down the stairs is harder than walking up them. When you go downstairs, you have to catch yourself from the gravity with every step you take. When you go up the stairs, it’s strongest muscles in your body engaged to propel you upward. 

I looked over to another group and saw a guy puking. That’s a bad sign. We’re barely an hour into this event and this guy is struggling. You can usually tell who is going to make it within the first hour of an event like this. The people that come unprepared stand out right away. 

I felt bad for the guy but doing an event like a GoRuck Heavy requires more than just being in shape. You have to be built to carry things. I love running as an exercise but if I only did running in training for a GoRuck, I would not have succeeded. 

We finished the stairs as the sun was setting. Chad had us roll out back to where we met up to start the event. He told us it was time to do the PT test. Luckily, it didn’t seem like there would be a 5-mile run this time. 

The Army PT Test looks like this: 

• 42 Pushups in 2 minutes

• 53 Sit-ups in 2 minutes

• 12 mile ruck march under 3.5 hours. 

The GoRuck Heavy I did last year had a 5 mile run under 40 minutes added but we were not going to do that this year. I was grateful because the 12 mile ruck march was going to be hard enough. 

After the pushups and sit-ups, we were to do the 12 mile ruck march. Chad gave us the option to go individually or as a team. If we went as a team, we had to stick together. After seeing a few people struggle and drop out at the stairs, we opted to go individually instead. The consequences of not finishing as a group could be far worse. 

What we decided to do was break into small groups. Harrison, Jason and I would ruck together. Others followed suit. 

The objective was to ruck to the end of Navy Pier and back two times. It was about 3 miles one way or 6 miles round trip. 

We began rucking and talked about random things. A lot of the conversation topics end up being about different GoRuck events or anything else personal in life. 

We approached Navy Pier and it was fenced off. We couldn’t go to the end of it so we did our best and went as far as we could. With it being fenced off saved us about 1/2 mile on each lap. 

Cadre Doug made an appearance in a red corvette waiting for us at the end of by the pier. There’s an honor system in GoRuck with some of these events but if you are caught breaking the honor system, the consequences are dire. Doug was there to make sure that no one was cheating the event. I’m sure some people would try. 

It’s strange to me why some people would cheat an event like this. You’re signing up for this event to push yourself and prove something to yourself. The only thing you get for finishing this event is a velcro patch. There’s no price money. I guess some people would cheat so they could have the bragging rights that they finished the event. Doing that would not only make them a cheater, it would also make them a liar. 

On our way back to the start point after our first lap, my groin muscle on my right leg started to feel weird. It felt there was something inside it that was going to go off. Then it hit me. I was cramping. 

I paused for a second to see if it would go away but we couldn’t afford to lose that much time. I kept going. 

When we kept going, I was overcompensating to my other leg and that caused my other leg to cramp. 

I thought to myself, “at least the cramps are symmetrical now.” 

The cramps didn’t stop. They slowly went down each muscle in my leg. It felt like I was slowly blowing out tires. 

Eventually, all my leg muscles were cramping. I couldn’t stop. The only thing that was in the way was pain. If pain was the only thing that was stopping me, I was going to push through it. I was physically able to move so I did. 

The pain from the cramps went away but actual cramps themselves didn’t. My legs were locked up. They started to feel like muscles do after a hard workout. 

Mentally I couldn’t allow myself to get rattled. The first thoughts that pop into your head after a situation like this is that you’re only about 1/8th of the way through this event and you’re already cramping. 

How am I going to make it through this? Can I? 

Our mind has a way of thinking of things in a linear way. I was thinking that if I feel this way 1/8th of the way through this event, then how am I going to feel half way through? It’s going to be 4x worse!

Often this isn’t what reality is though. I shifted my focus into just finishing the ruck march and I fought on. 

We eventually finished the 12 mile ruck march with about 30 minutes to spare. Since we finished early, that meant we had a 30 minute break to wait for everyone else. 

I needed this break. It was time for me to recoup, eat some food and take some electrolytes. 

While the cramps went away, my legs felt significantly weakened. My calves felt like jello no matter how hard I flexed them but the strange part was that there was no pain. 

After everyone in the group finished their ruck march, we carried on. It was time for the real event. This was only the beginning. 

Our first stop was to ruck to Ohio Street beach. Anyone who’s done a GoRuck event knows what this means. It means the “Welcome Party.”

The Welcome Party in GoRuck is a piece of it where you do a lot of PT and you typically get wet. All the events I’ve done in Chicago, the Cadres love taking us to Ohio Street beach. 

We rucked towards the beach which is about 2 miles and we had a time hack of 40 minutes. This shouldn’t be too difficult considering we do not have any traffic lights to cross. 

Normally 2 miles in 40 minutes would be easy but when you take into account that everyone is wearing about 40 pounds of weight plus our team weight, the challenge isn’t so easy. 

Rucking in cities for time takes some strategy. You may have to cross a street before you intend so you don’t have to worry about crossing later. Every second counts and losing 30 seconds at a traffic light can derail you from making your time. 

After we arrive at the beach, Chad has us gather up into a horizontal row. We all lock arms and march into the water until we are waist deep. 

Chad has us pull forward a little bit and we begin to do pushups in the water. 

You never know when the pushups will end but you do know they won’t go on forever. The battle in the mind between perception and reality is always on. None of the workouts last forever but you think it will. 

Without a concept of where the end is our brain can easily go into panic mode. The panic sets in when we keep something open ended. The way to train for this mentally is to learn to be okay with there never being an end. You have to be okay going until you can’t anymore. When you can’t anymore, you dig a little deeper and keep going. There is a point where you won’t be able to go, no matter how dig you deep. That point is usually way past where we expect it to be. 

Doing PT in the water isn’t more challenging than on dry land but it’s annoying. The purpose of the water is to make you uncomfortable. Being soaked is definitely a way to make you uncomfortable. 

Water is leaking out of your shoes, your clothes don’t feel right and everything you’re wearing rubs up against you the wrong way. 

Water is annoying but it’s a factor when doing a GoRuck event. The entire point of this was to be uncomfortable.

After the welcome party, Chad had us line up and asked for a couple people to volunteer to be a team leader. We were going to start a new objective and this was to get to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial downtown which was about 1.5 miles away. 

Before we left, Chad had a fun surprise for us. A few extra sandbags for our team to carry. One of the sandbags to fill up was almost 100 pounds in size. We had one big guy in our group named Mike who ended up carrying the 100 pound sandbag during this first go. 

Mike was a mountain of a man. He had to be around 6’3” and weighed about 230 pounds. He looked like an NFL linebacker. Mike was also intending to do the full HTL for this event along with his girlfriend Ayn. 

Ayn was a smaller woman in her late 30s/early 40s. She was a talker. It’s interesting seeing how some people interact. Mike was a quiet stoic guy and his girlfriend wouldn’t stop talking throughout the entire event. 

We headed off to the Memorial with a time hack of 25 minutes. 

Chad started his watch and we headed off. The route we were taking would have to be one that crossed a lot of streets so we had to be careful and turn our headlamps on. 

We have heard stories of people doing these events and getting hit by cars so we never mess with safety. We never disobey a crosswalk. Disobeying a crosswalk is a sure way to get what GoRuck calls “coupons” added to your team. 

A coupon is adding an extra weight to your team. The Cadre’s typically bring a few extra weights or sandbags with them to the event for such an occasion. If your team has enough coupons added, you may be stuck carrying more weight than your team can handle and you will be slowed down. 

We made it to the Memorial in the knick of time. About 1 minute to spare. Chad gave us a break during this time and we took a moment to share some of the stories we brought along with us. This was a powerful moment. 

I chose a story about a man named Rick Rescorla. He was responsible for saving over 2,700 lives by evacuating the tower and singing songs to the people evacuating to keep them calm. 

Rick was in the South Tower and when the first plane struck the North Tower, he was ordered by Port Authority to stay put. 

He told them to piss off and started to evacuate everyone. He was last seen on the 10th floor heading back up to look for stragglers and his body was never found. 

Listening to some of these stories reminds you of the heroism that exists in humanity. Most people don’t choose to be a hero, it’s a part of them. Many people risked their own lives to save the lives of others during 9/11. Many of them paid the price for it. They died heroes. 

Part of what makes us human is heroism. There aren’t a lot of other animals that would risk their own lives to save another that is not their own kin. Humans are special in that way. We should value all of our lives as much as the next life. 

After telling our stories we gathered our things and began to move along. There would be a lot more rucking ahead of us. 

The Sun Rises

There’s nothing like seeing the sunrise in a GoRuck event. The sun gives you a glimmer of hope. It’s a reminder that time is moving on. 

Our team was starting to work well together. We knew when someone was gassed from carrying weight. We weren’t afraid to speak up when we were struggling and we trusted each other. 

Carrying the weight was hard but we knew we all had each others backs. After rucking around the entire city we had rucked about well over a total of 35 miles at this point. 

We knew the event was coming to a close but we had a final stop to make. We rucked to a fire station in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. Chad told the firefighters why we were here and what we were doing. The firefighters decided to give us an old fashioned hose down. 

It wasn’t like we got firehose full strength. We stood out there and it was like a fountain spraying on us. It was wonderful to get the dirt and salt from my sweat off of me. 

After hanging around there for a while, we started to run short on time. Chad didn’t realize that we were so far away from the start point and told us to get to the start point as fast as possible with any means necessary. 

We still had the Ark of the Covenant weight with us. The only option we had to take was the CTA. We had to take the redline to the Roosevelt stop to get back to Soldier Field. 

As we were waiting on the platform, the train approached. The conductor of the train told us that we could not take our weight on the train. 

The train was at a stand still. People on the train started chanting for us, “let them on. Let them on.” 

The conductor gave in and let us on and we were off to the Roosevelt stop. 

We made it back to the start point with about an hour to go before the event was over. 

We went back to the start point and Chad and Doug decided to give us one last challenge. We were to do crab walks and bear crawls. The catch was we had to do them with a partner. 

This ended up being comical. Some of use were grabbing our partner the wrong way and we ended up doing these goofy looking bear crawls. It was the end of the event, we were having a good time. 

Eventually the time in the event was over. Chad and Doug lined us all up and gave us the congratulations hand shake of finishing the event. 

Stage one was over. We finished the Heavy but we were only 1/2 way to achieving our goal. 

Now it was time to get back to the hotel and recuperate. 

We all made it back to the hotel room. Harrison and Jason took a nap. I’m not much of a napper. I was afraid that if I fell asleep, I wouldn’t be able to wake back up. 

I opened the fridge and we had that rotisserie chicken meat and the cold baked potatoes in the fridge. 

I didn’t bring any silverware or plates with me so I ended up eating the baked potato like an apple and washed it down with some water. 

Even though it was plain, eating real food tasted so good. There’s no good reminder about how food is supposed to be sustenance than doing something physically excruciating. Food is fuel and when you’re deprived of it, it feels like magic when you do have it. 

My body started to feel better. I stayed in the hotel room, showered and stretched out. 

Harrison told me before his nap to wake him up at 8pm no matter what. He said to not allow him to sleep longer than that and I held him to it. 

At 8pm, we started to get ready. I brought an extra change of shoes but I thought to myself, “what’s the point? They’re going to get wet again.” 

I knew the inevitable. I was walking back into arena after destroying myself for 24 hours. If I could do this, what else was possible?

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See the next part of this story in the link below. You can also find the ebook of this story here.