You Only Live Once

Right now I am sitting in my hotel room at the Hard Rock Las Vegas. I can hear people screaming, bass pounding, and people enjoying Rehab at the pool below. If this was any other day I would be down there myself, but today I am sitting in my room quietly preparing for the craziest run of my life. I have had my pre-run pizza (a ritual), slogged down as much water as I can and tested all my equipment.

At 8:45pm I will board one of eleven buses headed to the middle of nowhere, about 2 1/2 hours outside of Vegas. I will wrap myself in reflective tape, turn on my flashlight and wait for the gun to fire at midnight. I will be running 51 kilometers in the ET Marathon tonight, that is  just over 31 miles (a marathon is 26.2 miles). A marathon is hard enough… but this in the desert… at night… and the aid stations are at least 3 miles apart. It is going to push the limits of my mind and body like never before.

People often ask me “why do you do crazy stuff like this!?!?” The answer is because I can.

I know I won’t always be able to do the things I can right now. Whether my body grows older, the desert night grows brighter or my life takes me in another direction there is no time like the present. I don’t ever want to look back on my life from a hospital bed and say “I wish I would have”. Our bodies are changing, our lives are changing and the world is changing around us. Some opportunities truly are once in a lifetime.

So tonight I head off on a new adventure. When I get back home I will mark it off and set my sights on the next one. No matter how big or small your adventures are I hope you are doing the same.