Appalled To Awed

I am a little behind on magazine reading because I’ve become a blog reading fool.  Today I read two articles that moved me in two totally different ways.  It’s funny how emotions are easily drawn out of you by mere words on a page.  

Did you hear about the Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh, NC?  It is basically a 4 mile run with a donut break in the middle.  The participants run 2 miles, gorge themselves with 12 donuts, then run another 2 miles to finish.  What?!!?  To me this is just pure crazy and not crazy fun, but just crazy abuse to the body.  Each donut is 200 calories and 10 grams of sugar.  200×12 people, let’s get a grip here.  I understand it may be for a good cause, the North Carolina’s Children’s Hospital, but my problem is with the concept.  It’s crazy stunts like this that has our nation in such an unhealthy state in the first place.     

Later, I picked up Trail Runner Magazine and read the most inspiring story of the body’s true abilities.  Karl Meltzer took a 2,064 mile journey down the Pony Express Trail in 40 days.  Around day 37 he started the day by running 23.5 miles then decided for a break he would play 9 holes of golf and then continued on his quest finishing the day off with another 23.4 miles.  Amazing!  

To have the pure will and drive to run 50ish miles a day for 40 days puts me in awe.  As you know I love running.  And like many do every day I commit to different training schedules with a passion and determination to put my entire self (body and soul) into the distance.  But people like Karl Meltzer are in a whole other running world.  The ultra distance is like some fantasy or fairy tale that does not seem real to me.  When I think back to my early running days when I could just about manage 2-4 miles a few times a week, I believed that running half and full marathons were just as foreign as my current thoughts of ultra distances.  Maybe now after getting 4 full marathons under my belt an ultra distance run is the next step.  Ok, maybe the inspiration as gotten to me.  Pumping me up like some Rocky Theme song.  Maybe I better put that idea away to bring back at a later date.   (source)                                                                                               

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I’m Listening: Would you ever consider the Krispy Kreme Challenge or would you go to the other extreme of ultra distances? 

Closing Thought:  “A lot of people wondered if it’d be a life changer.  It didn’t change my life.  This is just what I do.” –Karl Meltzer about his 2064 mile Pony Express Trail run