If you get into running whatever distance you want to get into running, it's very humbling.

No matter if it's you're running 100 meters to doing 100 miles, you will be humbled by the experience.

Trust me, on that one, as I've been humbled many times, I'll get up on that high horse thinking.

I'm like, Yeah.

And then I have a moment where I go, Oh, got to knock it down a couple of notches because, you know, I am human too.

Pre-race I get really nervous.

I just want to get it started.

Oh my God.

Oh, he's here.

It's going to be really interesting and just see how I survived going a thousand feet per mile.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

So psyched you're here.

I'm so psyched that I'm here as well.

Do I get swag today?

Yeah.

Awesome.

Good stuff.

I would ideally like to get under an hour and a half.

In a perfect world, under an hour.

My goal is to make it.

Food truck and steady state health will be set up for you at the top.

And then when our time came, I'm like, All right, let's rip that Band-Aid off.

Let's do it.

My adrenaline is like, Oh, God, I got to go now.

And then I was like, Well, I got to run at least 20 feet.

And I knew as soon as I started my 20 feet, just things were not feeling right.

Things felt very heavy, 20 feet down got my run in.

So I'm already thinking that it's going to be a long day that's already at the beginning of the race of like, Oh my God, I have I have a whole like 3500 feet of climbing to go.

I'm already feeling this at 20 feet.

What's going on?

You can kind of tell when you're going to have a bad day.

And I was trying to not give in to that, but the signs were there.

Well, I'm just going to go one step at a time.

I had a very difficult childhood.

There was a lot of abuse, homelessness.

I lived in numerous foster homes from California to Florida.

Certain things or certain days or times of the year reminds me of certain things.

And, you know, you push through it.

In 2012, my foster dad passed away due to a heart attack in his sleep.

During that time, I was heavy into drinking.

I was smoking a lot of video games and when he passed away, it was kind of like a realization that I needed to do something different with my life.

And that really started my running, you know, seeing how it's was changing, not just physically, but mentally.

The alcohol decreased.

I stopped smoking, I felt better.

And that was kind of like a way to pay homage to my foster dad.

It was like, I'm running this because of him.

Running became addictive.

I was anticipating the the train to take its time up the hill, and then when I saw it passing me with ease, well, there's no way an hour and a half is going to happen.

It was sort of like a relief that I don't have to contend with the train anymore or that I there's no way I'm going to beat it.

So that that anxiety, that that stressor is gone, tried to keep myself calm.

If you start thinking about the anxiety and all that stuff, it's going to increase that heart rate.

Try to do like my mental refocusing type of things to kind of ease things down, do some breathing to be more aware of what's going on out in the sun.

And the medication I'm on is sensitive to the sun, so I'm already feeling it.

I've definitely been back of the pack plenty of times, so it was familiar territory, but I've had good races where I be middle of the pack and I'd be fine with that.

And then I've had races where I'm in the back of the pack.

I need to focus on what I need to focus on to keep my steps moving forward.

Let's make it up there.

Let's enjoy the view.

Let's not swear a lot.

Gary Hello, How's it going.

Nice day out here today.

Oh, that's nice.

Beautiful.

How are you doing?

Making it great.

It's what counts.

Yeah.

Good luck.

Yeah, you too.

The first part of the race before Jacob's Ladder, it was loose gravel.

You're spending more energy because you're losing your step.

About a half mile in the heat was starting to get to me.

We're almost a mile away.

Yeah, that's good.

That's a plus.

It's like the artist side of me where I love views, I love nature, I love being outside.

I started drawing as young as I can remember, drawing on walls and getting yelled at for not drawing on walls, using crayons and things like that.

I didn't really have many positive role models to look up to.

So Fantasy World was my thing.

I was attracted by their strength, their ability to overcome adversity.

It was a powerful message it got me through my childhood.

I think it was the sense of hope, and I needed that as a kid.

And I carried over to high school and then college, and I went to college for art degree, and my foster mom will tell me that I'm a survivor.

You know, given my situation.

I just being out on the trail and, you know, just the steepness of it puts, you in the mind of being mindful, being present in the moment I'm hiking a hill.

The hill is steep.

I'm here mindfulness where it works, though, because it gets your mind off the negative stuff.

All right.

It's, okay.

To be chill.

Depression was always a big thing.

The panic attacks didn't really kick in until 2008.

You have very little ability to stop that.

I know.

I know.

I'm not dying out in the middle of the woods.

I know I'm not having a heart attack, but when your mind's superseding the fact that you know, yes, you're having a certain response going on, it's pretty intense.

Your heart rate's going a lot faster than it should be on an easy run.

You're starting to have restrictive breathing.

I brought myself to the hospital because I thought I was hyperventilating a lot, so I thought I was having a heart attack or some sort of cardiac situation.

And I ended up collapsing at the hospital because, you know, when you're panicking, you're not really breathing efficiently, you're really struggling, getting that air and you become very disoriented.

On top of that, the thoughts that keep running through your head, that's a really bad recipe to add those two together.

I'm in the middle of the woods having that moment.

It happened frequently, so I went into counseling that helped change my medication.

That ended up helping water, thank you so much.Okay.

When that nausea kicked in, I knew I was in the long haul.

It was a cocktail of everything.

I was sort of in my own world.

I really focus intensely on trying to get to my goal.

Is it worth quitting?

Can I keep moving?

There were points where I wanted to turn back, but I. I was like, you know, I'm just going to keep pushing forward.

Even though it's really hard right now, I'm doing something that other people tend not to do or not able to do.

And let's just enjoy this.

I know you're struggling, but let's just do it.

I was trying to weigh out what my options were.

Did it make sense to turn around?

Does it makes sense to just keep pushing forward, huh I knew if I turned around, my anxiety would ease, but my knee issues would play into effect.

I had a hard time just bending my knee, so I added on the knee issue with the mental health piece.

It became discouraging.

My mileage started to decrease more and the lack of movement in my left knee was becoming more prominent when I brought it up to the doctor and they couldn't really find anything wrong with it.

So it was a struggle.

In 2021 I felt, with the running piece diminishing.

Now that was part of my identity.

I was known as the guy that would run the ultra as I was known as doing like these crazy running things.

And I can barely do a mile.

I'm only 36.

What's what's going on?

At first I was beating myself up because I should be doing more, but my knee is not allowing me to do that.

Had good supports, you know, that helped me through it.

But I mean, I'm still recovering from that.

I had a moment where I just paused to watch the train go down for a little bit.

It was a good way to kind of refocus my mind because I was feeling nauseous at that time.

Let's take it one step at a time.

If I puke, I puke.

As long as I am able to make it after Jacob's.

Ladder, where things start to get really steep.

I actually preferred the rocks over the loose gravel and I felt better on the rocks, even though it was steep and I was able to pick up my pace a little bit more with more efficiency.

So I got frustrated.

That was kind of like my turning point where I was like, I'm just pissed.

I'm just going to keep moving forward.

And it takes away that added pressure of like, Oh, I got to get it under a certain time, you know, because that's no longer fun for me.

It adds that anxiety and stress, and I don't need that nice job man.

How's it going, okay, yeah, yeah.

It's hard, right?

It's humbling.

It is humbling.

But it's a gorgeous day.

I mean, you really couldn't have asked for a better day I'm so psyched to see you out here.

You don't even know.

It just made my day.

It's awesome.

I'm slowly making it, right?

You still got that smile.

Don't lose that changing that mentality and just took my time.

I'm not here to break any records.

I can still waddle.

I'm okay with that my main goal was to enjoy the moment.

You know you got this.

If you're struggling in the beginning like that and you're able to push through that, yes, it's a good indicator that you can push through a lot of things, thank God.

And then when I saw that finish line, I was super excited my death march is done nice work dude.

I earned my stripes.

I was excited to see I finished under two and a half hours power through nice job, my friend.

So I was happy about that and I was happy to get whatever was in my system, out of my system after the finish line.

I was so pleased to finish it and it was a lot of hard work.

You finished.

I was worried abut you you did it.

Congratulations.

Oh congratulations.

You know, I'm just going to go as far as my knee lets me and then go from there.