Posted on 03/24/2005 12:33:33 PM PST by Fierce Allegiance
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pondering life on his 30th birthday and finding something lacking, Dean Karnazes staggered home from a night out drinking with friends, put on his gardening shoes and went for a run. A 30-mile run. All night.
Reuters Photo
When he survived that, he set his sights on a 100-mile race. Then 135 miles. Then 199 miles. Then a marathon at the South Pole. Last summer he completed 262 miles non-stop.
"I wanted to see if I could make it 10 marathons without stopping," he said. "It took me 75 hours and the conditions were really tough; it rained for about 20 hours of that."
Now 42 and running a natural foods company in San Francisco, Karnazes has just written a book called "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner."
He started running in kindergarten when he decided his mother was too busy looking after his new baby sister to pick him up from school, so he ran home instead. He ran in high school but gave up for over a decade through college, graduate school and into his 20s when he worked in sales for a pharmaceutical company.
"The thing that sparked it was booze," he said in an interview, joking about his conversion to a way of life that seems to have done for him what religion does for many.
"I was in a bar drinking with a bunch of friends, feeling no pain. But I was feeling pain over the course of my life, I didn't feel very satisfied with my job and my career.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
It takes a lot of gumption to run like that.
He runs in slacks and button-down shirts?
So there's still hope for me.
That's Forrest Gump. click the link to go to the story to see this guys face.
what does he do after running all night? what about sleep? running i can sort of comprehend...but not sleeping 70 hours....that is a bit extreme
Yeah, I do it often in hopes of finding my inspiration to greatness as well.
Sorry, I'm a little slow. Like Momma always said....
Run Forrest, Run!
extreme, yes. Precisely.
He eats shrimp.
No sleep, he runs straight thruough. Ultra-marathoners are a breed unto themselves, very strange lot. It's 90% mental, and the other 10% is in their heads.
what do they do in the morning? go to work???
And I am just ponering doing a 5k run for the first time- this guy is amazing.
I'll stick with 26.2 miles.
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