Grab Bag: Why run an ultramarathon?
A better way to binge
Welcome to 100 Atlanta Coffees, where I highlight people taking the adventuresome route to making a better way in Atlanta, along with periodic ‘Grab Bag’ reflections from what’s happening in my world.
While we’re on today’s subject of running adventures, I’m raising money for Back on My Feet as part of running the 2024 New York Marathon. You can click here to contribute! More details below.
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An ultra adventure
The Enneagram is a personality assessment system that I highly recommend. It places individuals into one of nine main personality types (numbered 1 thru 9) based on the core motivations, fears, and desires that drive individual behaviors.
It has its limits (as does any personality test), but I’ve found it to be a tool for self-discovery, understanding, and compassion. It’s also helped me empathize with other people and see the world through their eyes, especially my wife.
I’m an Enneagram 7, commonly referred to as the Enthusiast or the Adventurer. That offers the first clue to why I’m running a 100K trail race tomorrow in Zion National Park.
As some of my friends have said, that’s a lot of K’s! It begs the question: why?
Each Enneagram type has a set of characteristics, including a deadly sin. Sevens are drawn to new experiences, stimulating ideas and conversations. I often struggle to literally or figuratively remain in one place for too long. The deadly sin of the seven is gluttony. We’re given to excess, and when we’re unlucky, addiction.
So the shortest answer to ‘why run an ultra-marathon?’ might be: it’s an adventure. And if we’re going to go, let’s go big or go home.
But I’ve thought about this plenty and there are longer answers to that loaded question. Some are more vulnerable and revealing. Here are three:
Fully using the gift of my body
Exploring my limits
Putting a Win on the board
We’ll explore each.
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1) Fully using the gift of my body
Someone once shared a metaphor about how our enjoyment of nature is pleasing to God. They imagined God as a parent who has labored to create a beautiful backyard playground for their children. What would make that parent happier than seeing the kids out romping through the yard, taking full advantage of the creation.
The same logic holds for reveling in the gift of our bodies, whether that’s through mastery of a musical instrument or engaging in sports, martial arts, or dance. A full expression of our physicality is an opportunity to give thanks for the joys of embodiment.
An ultramarathon pairs the maximal expression of physicality with the awe of being in a beautiful place in nature. It has the special ‘game day energy’ associated with preparing for and anticipating an event. I’ve found it to be a unique healthy male bonding experience.
As far as adventures go, it checks the box and then some.
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2) Exploring my limits
I believe our culture suffers from a lack of healthy young-male initiation rites. For many of us, the closest thing to a ritualized entrance into adulthood might have involved binge drinking, leaving us without a real understanding of what happens when we’re pushed to our limits.
I’m curious what’s going to happen tomorrow sometime past mile 35ish when I feel like quitting and something unexpectedly hurts, but I have 20-something miles to go.
I think there’s a part of all of us that wants to walk through the fire and discover what we’re truly made of. We all have to figure out what it means to be a ‘load-bearing wall’ as an adult - how much we can endure and how much others can count on us.
Finding the answers takes different forms for different people, but it’s a call worth answering.
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3) Putting a Win on the board
In a season of relative failure and sacrifice for me, the ultra represents a challenging yet attainable win.
Last spring we had to shut down my previous company, Daymaker. This outcome was obviously far from the hopes, dreams, and high points along the way. It hurt then and still stings, affecting employees I care deeply about and forcing our nonprofit partners serving children to lose a trusted resource.
On the personal front, I have two little girls at home and (God willing) more on kids on the way in the future, and a badass attorney wife who’s going for it in her own lane. Considering that, I’ve been hesitant to have my career at full throttle at the expense of being present and available on the home front.
However, I’m also motivated by success and achievement in addition to adventure. I’m on the verge of launching a new business and I’m working to get 100 Atlanta Coffees off the ground - both ventures that will carry me into unchartered waters.
The ultramarathon is different. It’s hard, yes, but there are plenty of training plans. Success is a somewhat predictable function of intensity and commitment, more controllable than other things I’m chasing.
When I’ve gotten still and asked myself why I’m devoting significant time, money and intensity to running, a large factor is undoubtedly the satisfaction of succeeding at something uncommonly attempted and widely regarded as difficult.
My ego certainly plays a role in this run, as it does in writing this post, and creating 100 Atlanta Coffees. But I’ve come to believe that we should break out of the dominant mainstream cultural inertia and seek a better way to be as individuals and communities. To do this, it’ll take people who are willing to shake things up, examine their motivations along the way, and share their experiences so we can all learn together.
So here’s to having an adventure. I’ll see you on the other side.
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Questions for reflection as we seek a better way:
I’d love to know your Enneagram type if you’ve taken the test? If not, here’s a free test. I’m curious what resonates and what doesn’t.
Did you have what felt like a formative young-adult initiation rite? If so, what was it? If not, do you wish you had, and what might it have looked like?
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While we’re on the subject of running adventures, I’m raising money for Back on My Feet as part of running the 2024 New York Marathon.
Back on My Feet works with people experiencing homelessness or addiction, building community and responsibility through running or walking 3 times weekly before the crack of dawn. My brother has been volunteering with BOMF for more than a decade and I’ve joined him in recent years. Together we’re fundraising to run the 2024 New York Marathon. It would mean a lot if you contributed.
Ps, another reason to run an ultra is the victorious ultimate relaxation that follows:
