How to Run 100 Miles

"Craig, how are you able to run 100 miles?"?

"I don't know, I just never told myself I couldn't."

And that was true. I believed it. There was never a moment, not from the first time I started running and found out about running 100 miles that I thought I couldn't do it. But the answer always felt incomplete. Over the years this incompleteness weighed on my mind and I desired to know, for myself, the real answer behind the basic one given to the masses. I began to take a deeper look into not only how I could run 100 miles, but why I loved running, at all. The outcome of this introspection would change my entire outlook about why we do the things we do, and even more specifically, why we set the goals we do and why so many of them fail and which ones succeed.?

As I began this marathon towards enlightenment about why I ran, I found that I needed to go all the way to the foundation of who I was, to better understand the values that guided my beliefs, and in turn, my behaviors.?

Like many of us, I did the activity where you select your top 20 values from a larger list, then whittle them down to two or three, these being your primary or core values. But it always felt . . . . hollow. How can you distill down the ideals that define us into a single word? The power that drives my need to run, to run really far, diluted down to a single word. Through this basic process I came to the conclusion that I ran for

“Health”

But this term, while useful in focusing my thoughts in the right direction, was in truth far too broad a concept to accurately define my value. "Health" just seemed so ambiguous and large. It occurred to me that my values would need to be defined in more than a word. This motivating force that drove why I ran needed to be a statement, a proclamation to the world that I could scream from the rooftops, a bold announcement about who I was and why this singular act was so important.

“My emotional and mental health is tied to physical activity”

Now there is a statement that defines me. The value clearly defines the importance of not only why I run, but why I ski, rock climb, mountain bike, and so much more. It sets the foundation for why I would never question the ability to run 100 miles because I know, no matter how difficult it might get, I'm better for it.?

This new milestone of understanding about what was at the core of why I ran started to take shape. But I also knew there was more to it than just understanding what my value was. I quickly came to realize that there were some specific beliefs associated with this value of having my emotional health tied to physical activity. As I continued along this course I invested the training into identifying those beliefs. The result of that effort was knowing that if I was to live my authentic value I believed that the physical activity should be?

Fun, Outdoors, and Include Risk

This understanding of my beliefs, as they pertained to my value, came as a shock because now, for the first time in my athletic career, I fully understand why I was so passionate about the sports I participated in. I didn’t run because I wanted to be physically healthy. I ran because it was “fun” and that fun contributed to improved mental health. I ran trails in the mountains and the desert because it connected me with nature, which is a belief that also aligns with my value around Spirituality. It was a profound realization that my beliefs could cross over between values. Finally, running presented a risk, both in the potential for failure to complete a distance and sometimes even a risk to my well-being (and even my life) due to the circumstances of the locations in which I run and the distances I travel, oftentimes alone.?

The truth about why I ran was now clear, as was the truth about why I skied, rock climbed, submitted mountains, and mountain-biked. These activities were in harmony with my beliefs, which were directly tied to my core value. Had I accepted that my value was simply “Health” and not pursued it any further I never would have achieved this sense of enlightenment about why I ran, and like the answer I nearly always gave about how I could run 100 miles, it would have continued to feel empty.?

Running was simply the output of my beliefs as they were tied to my core value statement. Therefore, this idea of running 100 miles never seemed improbable, but instead, inevitable. The process for building up to and accomplishing this distance became more about identifying and pursuing “measures of progress” than setting specific goals that I needed to hit. As the process progressed I found an event I could participate in, I signed up, and had a truly transformative experience. I’ve gone on to repeat this process over 15 times throughout the years.?

We all have this same ability within us, to identify our core value statements and the associated beliefs and then work to align those with our behaviors. When that can be achieved it will invariably redefine what we consider “success” and we will live a life in harmony with who we are, which is the fullest form of happiness.