To Struggle Is To Be Alive

Lots of excitement and anticipation about today’s guest. One of the most lauded, celebrated and accomplished athletes on the planet, let me introduce you to the guy who can seemingly run forever:

Dean Karnazes.

We're talking about a guy TIME magazine named one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in the World.” Men's Fitness magazine hailed him as one of the fittest men on the planet. An internationally recognized endurance athlete, NY Times bestselling author, in demand public speaker, and successful entrepreneur, Dean has pushed his body, mind and spirit to places most people simply cannot fathom.

To give you an idea of what Dean is all about, let's briefly run through a few of his ridiculous mind-bending running accomplishments:

* Ran 350 miles in under 81 hours foregoing sleep for 3 days;

* Ran a marathon in each of the 50 states in 50 consecutive days;

* On 11 occasions, ran a 200 mile relay race solo, racing alongside teams of 12;

* Won the 4 Desert Race Series in 2008, traversing the Gobi, Antacara, Sahara and Antarctica;

* Won the Badwater 135 in 2004 and has run this race 10 times;

* Ran 148 miles on a treadmill in 24 hours; and

* Ran 3000 miles across the US from Disneyland to NYC in 75 days, running 40-50 miles / day

Given all of these feats of astounding endurance and more, Dean is widely lauded as one of the greatest athletes of our time — an accolade deserved if you ask me.

But it wasn't alway this way. After success on the track in high school, Dean put running in his rear view in favor of business. But by age 30, he found himself at a spiritual crossroads. Dissatisfied with the successful, comfortable life he had built for himself, he yearned for something more. He yearned for challenge. He yearned for discomfort. He yearned for struggle. Because to struggle is to be alive.

After a now famous drunken all night run following his 30th birthday party, the rest is well documented running history. Dean chronicles his discovery and love of running in his bestselling memoir Ultramarathon Man*– a must read for anyone who loves an inspirational story of adversity and personal triumph — and his journey continues in his follow up tomes 50/50*, and Run!* Not enough? Dean is currently hard at work on a new book – a novelized look at the amazing life of Pheidippedes, the legendary Greek who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of a military victory against the Persians, a subject close to Dean’s heart given his Greek heritage.

How does Dean do it? Some chalk it up to genetics – a freakishly high lactate threshold; an unnaturally high tolerance for pain; and an unusual ability to tolerate sleep deprivation Setting aside debate on whether these mental and physiological data points are earned or inherited, I feel compelled to say that the answer to this question is far more co...