What I learned from running 51 miles

I consider myself a failed athlete. When I was 13, I took up Tae Kwon Do, won some tournaments, and was invited to train in the top category. But, I had an appendectomy which, due to complications, confined me to bed for almost three months. I yearned to return to training, but I was afraid. The pain I felt while recovering, the open wound cleanings that made me faint several times, and the fear of experiencing that pain again were bigger than my desire to get back in shape, compete, and win tournaments. 

During high school, I qualified for the basketball team, first warming the bench, and finally, in my last year, I could play with the first team. College came, I played a little bit my first year, and I started my first company in my third semester. Being athletic was never my forte. I consider myself on the nerd side. I worked late hours, ate pizza, programming, or hacking, and was always overweight. In 2015 I joined Luis and the Ketogains community into a keto lifestyle, and for the first time in my adult life, I got in shape. My body fat was consistently lower than 18%, and every new kilo (pound for the US readers) was from building muscle. I felt great, but it didn’t last long; my son was born, priorities changed, and things returned to normal. I have been able to ski, snowboard, surf, kitesurf, golf, race motorcycles, and paddle board with some proficiency; the good years get me in shape, trying to become proficient at what I am learning. Most years, I restart the journey in January, longing to return to 16% body fat and to get rid of this dad’s body. This overweight, middle-aged flat-footed dad ran 51 miles (82 km) in one week (7 days) this June. I ran an average of 7.3 miles (11.5 km) daily. If you run marathons, ultra marathons, iron men, and triathlons, essentially, if you are an athlete, you might already know what comes next; if you are trying, you’ll find yourself in the following paragraphs, if you are a wanna-be in shape person just like me, we can share the journey.

The inception

(If you don’t care how I signed up to run 51 miles, skip to the next section)

After a highly successful NAA event in San Francisco, I found myself at an exclusive dinner with notable figures from the private equity world. I was told I was seated at the top dogs’ table. AJ, the President and CEO of NAA was also at this table. By the end of the night, I was having a blast. Being amidst this crowd during my first trip to San Francisco since relocating to Seattle in 2021 was beautiful.

Just before leaving, Jordan from 51 Labs, the company producing the event, approached our table. He explained what 51 Labs was about and introduced the 51 Vets Kyle Pease Foundation Endurance Challenge. AJ immediately agreed to participate. I overheard that it involved forming a team to run 51 miles in a week.

I said, "Yeah, sign me up." As a team member, I would probably only need to run 7 miles. However, Jordan then explained other options, which included swimming 10 km or biking 150 miles in a week. That was when I realized the challenge was to run 51 miles per team member in a week, more than 11 km daily. That was almost three times my personal best of 4 km (according to my Apple Watch)!

Ed, an avid swimmer, decided to join. Deborah, sitting to my left, signed up for the biking challenge. As I watched the rest of the table decline the invitation, I was dumbfounded by my willingness to participate. But it was too late; the NAA team had been formed. Jordan managed to recruit Daniel from another table, and we were ready. The peer pressure at the top dogs’ table was too much for me to back out. 

In the back of my mind, I thought, well, I have almost five weeks to train, get in shape and run 51 miles. 

The training

(If you don’t care about Baker Cysts, skip to the next section)

The first few weeks after signing up to run 51 miles went uneventful. I stopped doing lazy keto and doubled down on the keto diet, kept on stretching daily, and three weeks before the challenge, I decided to run a little bit. I live across from a lovely state park with excellent trails for training, lots of elevation gains, and great views of the lake or the forest; also, the forest offers protection from the rain. I ran 4.5 miles with 620ft of elevation for a couple of days at 6 am in one hour. It wasn’t that bad. On day two, while stretching before sleeping, something popped on my knee; immediately, I felt the inflammation on the calve and the ankle. I went to sleep, probably, it was nothing. The next day with the chiropractor, he explained that out of |hyperextension and potential arthritis from all the basketball jumping, I got a baker cyst. Ice, rest, compression socks, and elevated feet were prescribed. I got a very bad cold that week. Anyway, there was no communication from Jordan or anybody else at NAA about the challenge. I even explained to my wife that I probably wouldn’t need to run since it was not happening. 

The next Wednesday, I received an email from Ed, copying the rest of the team -"Adding Carlos’s email (sorry Carlos, you can’t get out of this if I’m in!)". -  On Friday, May 26, it was decided that June 18 was the starting day. 

Google, my old friend, helped me plan training, and I started asking questions to my marathon-running friends. Most of their answers weren’t that encouraging. I didn’t have months to train, I didn’t have planned time to make it happen, and I had a bad knee that it was supposed to be my good knee. Their comments were mostly “Don’t do it” or “You will blow your knees.” One of my investors, Eder, helped me plan the running schedule and the running load. In the next couple of weeks, I did two sessions of weightlifting, with a focus on the core and back to help the legs. At my chiropractor appointment, rest was still prescribed, but he didn’t approve my running plans, I read several blogs about running, strategies, training, and injuries, I scheduled my running sessions, and changed my alarm to 6 am, I scouted several flat locations for the running, I live in a hilly area, and of course, I didn’t want to put my luck to test climbing the steep streets around my house. Bought two new knee running braces and four ice sleeves for knees and ankles; I already had at-home air compression legs that I was using for treating the Baker cyst and resumed stretching one week before Father’s Day. Was I prepared? No. But I was ready. 

The running 

(If you don’t care about pain, skip to the next section)

Sam Robinson from Outside writes: “Ultramarathoning does not hold a monopoly on pain—running’s subdisciplines are unified through deep descents into lactic agony. Racing a 5K is like taking a bath in discomfort. A well-paced half marathon feels like holding your hand in a campfire.” 

I started early on Father's Day, equipped with my new, super comfortable knee braces. I settled for my son's school running track, a flat 0.15-mile oval. That day, I ran 8.17 miles at a great pace. I took a brief walking break until my heartbeat dropped from 179 to 130. Those 90 seconds gave me enough rest to continue running. Though tempted to venture into the forest, the elevation changes challenged my breathing and knees. I decided to return to the track. By mile 7.5, I was exhausted but managed to jog halfway home before walking. I followed my recovery routine, including ice sleeves, a cold shower, electrolytes, and eating. Before bed, I stretched and used air compression legs for half an hour.

On the second day, Monday, Juneteenth, I overslept. Despite feeling tired and having work to do, I thought it was a good idea to run later in the day since my son didn't have school. At 4:10 in the afternoon, after spending hours in a trampoline playground, I started my run with a goal of 8 miles. Running late after a full day proved challenging and required mental fortitude. Although wavering in motivation, my commitment was high.

Around the halfway point, I began to experience some pain, mainly in my knees, but it wasn't too severe. I had anticipated it and believed that enduring the pain would help me achieve my goal. As I reached the last mile, it started raining. Repeating the recovery routine helped me sleep even though my heartbeat was too high compared to my baseline. 

On Tuesday, I split my run into two parts. It was raining heavily in the morning, with temperatures around 45F (7C). I returned home to grab a rain jacket and gloves. In the afternoon, while my son was at swimming class, I ran at a nearby park. To my surprise, on Wednesday morning, the pain became significant. My knees, legs, back, ribs, ankles, and even my hands, which I had tightened to combat the cold, were sore. Seeking a change of scenery, I went to a baseball field, but after half a lap, water from the puddles seeped into my shoes. During my morning stretch, I heard a familiar popping sound from my other knee; a new Baker cyst was born. Later that day, I felt devastated. I neglected to use the compression legs after my morning run or drink 1 liter of electrolytes. Moving became challenging, breathing was painful, and I felt ready to fall asleep. The warm and sunny afternoon was not inviting me to run the planned 4 miles. My wife encouraged me to walk, which led me to the local forest. There, an uphill trail that led to the middle school running track, a quarter-mile oval partially shaded, provided the motivation I needed. The journey was painful and slow, and around mile 29 or 30, I divided the track into quarters to alternate between walking and running. As I walked all the way home, my calves, knees, and ankles were in agony. I also experienced pain below the ribs. After following my recovery protocol and taking two Aleves, I fell asleep immediately.

Some stories from Instagram

Thursday went well despite the constant presence of pain. The ibuprofen proved effective, and I managed to run 5 miles, enjoying myself. I had my son with me all afternoon, and I improvised by running in the parking lot of the dance studio where he attends hip-hop classes. The warm and sunny weather, coupled with my gradually building running muscles, made the experience more pleasant.

Friday was amazing. I didn't go for a run in the morning, and thanks to a good night's sleep and a lunch of nachos, I had an abundance of energy. I was ready to complete my run, but I didn’t schedule it that way. On Saturday morning, with 4 and a half miles remaining, I experienced the same level of pain that I had since Wednesday. Every movement was painful, whether standing, sitting, or even the sharp pain below the ribcage, which led me to search for kidney and spleen pain symptoms (although I believe the nachos caused it). I reached 51 miles. 

The end 

(If you don’t care about purpose, skip to the next section)

On my way home after reaching mile 51, I didn't feel joy. The feeling was more of a melancholic goodbye; the mission was completed, but afterward, I lost a sense of purpose. It was like watching a great movie that had to come to an end or finishing a beloved video game. Yes, I cherished every minute of it; I learned, laughed, cried, and challenged myself, but now it was over. Instead of feeling relieved, I felt a sense of loss, as if that purpose that allowed me to endure pain had disappeared. While icing my knees and ankles, I couldn't distract my mind from inventing a new challenge. Paddle boarding 100 miles in a couple of weeks is still in the back of my mind.

Don't get me wrong. I am a founder and an entrepreneur. I face tremendous challenges daily. I am currently in the process of raising $150M to invest in diverse or female founders with a social impact purpose, which is far more difficult than running 51 miles. True grit is an essential part of our thesis (read this blog). Existentialists, Stoics, and Nietzsche see pain as an unavoidable aspect of life and as an instrument that gives life purpose. Modern business gurus like Daniel Pink argue that without purpose, you won't find joy in your work, and Ray Dalio states that Pain + Reflection = Progress.

To find meaning and purpose, define your goals, create a plan, and get to work. There will be pain, for sure, but in embracing it, you'll discover a deeper sense of meaning and fulfillment.

Here are my 8a learnings from running 51 miles 

(If you don’t care about running or finding meaning, skip to the next section) 

  1. Commitment is more important than motivation - Your motivation can waver, and your commitment makes up for the lack of motivation. Your team will help, but the commitment to yourself is what will make you cross the finish line. Deborah from my team wrote: "I would say I found it very interesting how my motivation shifted throughout the week. It started with wanting to do this for the intended purpose- to support 51 Labs. By the end of my ride Tuesday, when I was thinking, “How am I ever going to do 150 miles” my motivation shifted to not wanting the embarrassment of failing. Then I hit the wall and I had to decide why I was doing the challenge. It went beyond Lab 51, and I ended up wanting to do it for myself. No one was making me do it. It was something I wanted to finish, and that was the ultimate motivation." 

  2. Consistency - This is what separates great athletes from everybody else. I can say the same thing about entrepreneurs and even parents. Sticking up to a schedule removes the guesswork, things will get hard, but half of the job is done just by showing up every day. 

  3. Plan and Visualize - I didn’t have much training time, but I planned everything in detail, schedule, food, recovery protocols, miles per hour, resting times, hydration, and even in which glasses I would drink water. Pre-selected the outfit, gear, routes, and maximum running pace. As Walt Disney would, be obsessive with details. Visualize your runs, this might sound super esoteric, but it works. I was not able to train, but I was visualizing the run, the place, and the pain. I repeated the run again and again in my head.

  4. Measure - there is an old saying in engineering, “To measure is to know.” “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” I learned it in my network protocols course. My Apple watch helped me so much. It allowed me to know versus estimating or guessing. Miles, heartbeat, pace, zones, etc. It had a lot of data that I used to make decisions, decide when to go faster, and when to walk for a bit. It also contained historical information on how I felt when doing another type of exercise. I cross-referenced that with my Oura, and it was a blast. As a great data nerd, it also helped me plan and kept me accountable for the recovery and eating protocols I implemented. You don’t need to be a nerd to enjoy the benefits of measuring, and I believe that in business, there is no way around it.  And my two cents from the international community to my US friends, switch to metric system, it is way more useful.

  5. "An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest" - Ben Franklin - While preparing for the challenge, like in most of today’s human disciplines, someone already walked the walk. Learning about their experiences and what is coming was more valuable than expected. I didn’t find an exact blog or book speaking about 51 miles in a week from when you are 45 and in bad shape, but through the recollection of tips, experiences, training programs, and asking direct questions, I knew what to expect when to expect it and somehow how to prepare. I believe it is the same thing when seeking a mentor for something else; your mentor, the books, the blogs, and your experience will prepare you for what comes next, and you will be able to be prepared for the upcoming adversity. If you are running a marathon, hire a coach. Thank you, Eder, Nicole, Jordan, and Brendan, for your advice. 

  6. Share your purpose, goals, and progress - This is a weird one for me; I don’t care what people think about me. I value the opinion of only a few selected members of society, and I believe in experts, outliers, and 10,000 hours. I wasn’t expecting the support from the people, and more impressive to me was how much it meant to me listening or reading them. Not only was I smiling, but it also renewed my commitment. Thank you to everyone that wrote or told me a few kind words of support; they meant a lot.

  7. You might need to improvise - just like in life, things might not go according to plan. My wife had a medical issue on my running Thursday; my only option was to run in the parking lot of my son’s hip-hop class. I did it, not without the critical looks from disgruntled moms.

  8. Again Invest in yourself - Just like you tune up your computer and your phone for ease of use or get into iPhone vs Samsung debates. Choose your running and recovery gear appropriately; during the pandemic I was doing small runs and took seriously the task of finding the best running shoes for trails for me. The same thing I did with running outfits for colder weather, knee braces, compression sock, and icing sleeves. The way that I felt about it was an investment in the project and an investment in my well-being. Chiropractor included.

Running in a parking lot

8a - The Kyle Pease Foundation create awareness and raise funds to promote success for persons with disabilities by providing assistance to meet their individual needs through sports. 

I don’t believe in wars. I am a humanist in the old fashion Renaissance style. But I am a proponent of diversity and inclusion. These elite force veterans have the right to and should be included in our workforce. As you might know, coming from a different background makes it challenging to blend into corporate America. 

Pick yours, you could help, and all this running was about that.

If you skipped every other section, time to help!

In the words of Jordan, our challenge leader:

"Most people are afraid to start, but you did.

Most people never explore their limits, but you did.

Most people would have given up when it hurt or when they were tired, but you kept pushing.

This challenge is about more than the miles and the pain; it's about remembering and exploring what we are made of.

It's about remembering the veterans leaving a tribe and transitioning to the civilian workforce.

It's about remembering the disabled athletes who still compete despite the odds.

It's a time to feel alive, reenergized, and ready to push beyond our limits".

Kyle Pease Foundation -https://lnkd.in/gU43vxgi

Esposa, hijo and team, gracias por todo el apoyo.

Un abrazo.

If you want a quick guide of gear, diet, running plan, hydration, etc, send me a message, happy to share.

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