I Never Need to Do That Again! Well Maybe Just Once More . . .

[My views are my own]

By endurance we conquer.

Ernest Shackleton

Five years ago, I discovered the Long Island Greenbelt Trails, and I became obsessed with the idea of running from the North Shore of Long Island to the South Shore.

About 9 months ago, on a whim (and without consulting my loving yet skeptical wife) I signed up for the Shore2Shore 50k Ultramarathon which I ran on Saturday.

Check out this video to understand why the S2S 50k was so challenging.

It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

If you adjust for the difficulty of the trails, it was probably the equivalent of running over 50 miles on paved roads.

My Garmin watch estimates that I burned over 5,000 calories.

My strategy was to target an average heart rate of under 140 BPM.

I knew that aerobically I could go all day long. The question was how long my hips, feet, knees, lower back and nervous system could endure the abuse.

There were three different times I hit a low where I was ready to hike out of the woods and jump in an UBER.

At one of those low points, another runner said to me: “Just keep going, there is a second wind just around the corner.”

Around mile 18, I started to pass other runners that had hit the wall.

I just kept shuffling along, targeting 137 beats per minute.

For inspiration, I was playing Coldplay’s Lovers in Japan over and over again, and as I passed the other runners, I got so emotional that I almost cried.

That was when I knew I was going to finish – even if I had to crawl.

On Sunday, I could barely walk.

I made it outside once to walk two blocks to Tal Bagels.

I spent most of the day on the sofa watching Physical 100 on Netflix with my kids.

I told my wife (who was relieved that I hadn’t dropped dead on the course) that I NEVER EVER need to do that again. “I’m one and done.”

However . . .

. . . now that my batteries are recharged . . . and I can walk again, I believe it is really important to keep doing really hard things, especially as we move through mid-life.

There is a second wind just around the corner.

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