| The first ultra-marathon wasn’t smart at all
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| At all
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| I was at military freefall school with Morgan Luttrell
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| Marcus Luttrell was in a bad ops
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| It went bad
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| He was the only Navy Seal that lived
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| Morgan is Marcus Luttrell’s twin brother
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| And I was there with Marcus so
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| What happened was myself and Morgan were in freefall school
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| At the same exact time as Marcus was in the worst incident in Seal history
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| Long story short Marcus is alive and I go on to wanna raise money for families
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| All these guys died, they all had kids I wanna raise money for the Special
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| Operations Warrior Foundation
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| So I said you know what?
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| I have to Google something that’s evil
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| Something very hard
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| I knew nothing about ultra-marathons
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| I hadn’t even run a marathon
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| I knew nothing about this world
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| So, I googled the top 10 hardest races in the world
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| And what comes up is Badwater 135
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| 135-mile race through Death Valley in the summertime
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| I thought it was a stage race
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| I thought it was a race where you run like 20 miles
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| Set up camp, barbecue outside and then go run some more the next day
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| So, I call the race director up at the race and said
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| «Hey, Chris I want to do your race.»
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| So, we had a long conversation you know
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| I was much heavier then
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| I’m around between 240−270
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| I was a heavy guy
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| But the long and short of it all was
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| I hadn’t put running shoes on in over a year
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| So, I call Chris Coster up on a Wednesday he says
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| «Look man the only way you can qualify for my race is if you run 100 miles at
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| one time in 24 hours or less.»
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| There happen to be a race that Saturday and he said
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| «If you qualify by running 100 miles or less in 24 hours, I will consider you
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| in my race.»
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| I signed up for this race, it was called «The San Diego One Day»
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| Where you run around a one-mile track for 24 hours to see how many miles you
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| can get
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| My goal was 100 miles
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| When I got to mile 70
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| I cleared 70 miles in like 12−13 hours pretty quickly
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| I was done
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| My feet were broken
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| I was stress fractured, shin splints, muscles were tearing
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| I was in bad shape
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| No water
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| Didn’t know what the hell I was doing out there
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| Had on some tube socks
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| It was just ridiculous
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| It was a clown show
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| So, I sat down at mile 70 and at this time I was married
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| I look at my wife and I was like
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| «I messed up bad.»
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| I literally start to turn white
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| And when a black guy turns white, you’re pretty fucked up
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| Here I am
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| I am all fucked up in this chair
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| I’m at mile 70 thinking I got 30 fucking miles to go
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| I’m jacked up
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| I got go to the bathroom and the bathroom’s like 20 feet from me
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| It’s a porta-potty
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| I can’t get out of the fucking chair
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| I’m peeing blood down my leg, pooping up my fucking back
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| And I got 30 miles to go
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| I can’t stand up, my blood pressures all messed up
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| I’ve been in three Hell weeks, Ranger school, overcome so many obstacles in my
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| life
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| This last 30 miles of this race is when I realized
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| A human being
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| Is not so human anymore
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| We have the ability to go in such a space if you’re willing to suffer
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| And I mean suffer
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| Your brain and your body once connected together
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| Can do anything
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| Anything
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| Your brain and your body once connected together
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| Can do anything
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| Anything
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| And this 30 miles was the life-changing moment
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| I was out of it
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| I was in the worst pain in my entire life
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| I was to me on the brink of death
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| And I was able to chunk this 30 damn miles
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| Into small pieces
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| I was so driven
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| I’m not gonna say motivated because motivations crap
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| Motivation comes and goes
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| When you’re driven
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| Whatever’s in front of you will get destroyed
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| So, I sat in this chair and I was so driven to succeed and at this time
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| everyone’s «Were you thinking about the guys that died?»
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| And I’m not going to lie to you, I wasn’t
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| This became a personal thing
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| This became me against this race, me against the kids that called me nigga,
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| me against me
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| It just became something that I took so
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| So violently personal and I broke this thing down into small pieces
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| I said okay I got to get nutrition, I gotta be able to stand up
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| Before I can get off this curve and get off this chair and be able to go 30
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| miles
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| So, I went through all these small steps and I was able to stand up and then
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| from standing up
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| I was literally walking around with my wife at the time and she goes
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| «You're not gonna make the time. |
| You’re walking like 30-something minutes a
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| mile.»
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| I got my 81 and the second she said that I’m not going to make the time
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| I ran the last 19 miles non-stop
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| I had to get compression tape
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| And I taped up my ankles
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| And I taped up my feet
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| And that’s how I got through that race
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| Your brain and your body once connected together
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| Can do anything
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| Your brain and your body once connected together
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| Can do anything
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| Your brain and your body once connected together
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| Can do anything
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| Your brain and your body once connected together
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| Can do anything
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| Your brain and your body once connected together
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| Can do anything
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| Anything
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| Anything
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| And people may listen to this and say
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| «This guy is sadistic, he is crazy, he is-»
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| No, if you know how I came up
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| You realize
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| I was just… a scared kid |