I Ran Non-Stop All Day… to Prove My Excuses Wrong

I guess I'd have to say I've fallen in love with running. I know that's where people normally look at me like I'm a nut, but hear me out. Imagine your mind is the storm that is chaotic all the time. Peace is very hard to find, but then you can get to this state where everything makes sense and there is peace in your heart and in your mind all at once. That is running for me. This is where the story begins. I wanted to do a really long run to train for a 100 mile race and I've been doing ultra runs the past few years, so I thought it'd be cool to run from sunrise to sunset on the shortest day of the year. But the day before the run, a problem arised. My feelings weren't there yet, but I knew if I got out on the trail, they would come. It may be harder than running. What is? See, you have to overcome the excuses to do the thing. And my excuses sometimes feel more like truth than actual excuses. It's true, my back is locked up a little bit. My sleep has not been great. The weather's not ideal. How do you stop making excuses? You have to accept that all your excuses are lies. Play it safe. Take the easy road. Avoid pain. Avoid risk. Avoid life. I've had this all day run plan for weeks. But today, the day before the run, I have more excuses than motivation. I can't. When you quit something, you decide I can't. And excuses are how you get to I can't. I saw Casey's video today. It was about Logan, who actually has real excuses, but he overcame them and ran the New York City marathon. And after watching this masterpiece, I knew my excuses are lies. As the video ended, I noticed the title of the video and thought it was fitting. I don't feel like running yet, but I've already committed. So I guess this video today is me doing it anyway. I'll see you guys in a few hours. The idea I run from 7am to 5pm, from sunrise to sunset, all day on the shortest day of the year. If I haven't met you yet, I'm Kramer Ammons. My 10 second story is, I played basketball in high school and college, but unfortunately I tore my meniscus twice, my ACL twice, and broke my back. It's been 10 years since I played basketball, but I found running. And running gives me a clear mind. And makes me happy. So I run. My favorite is trail running. Ultra running. Running as far as I can. I've been running for 4 years now. But 4 years ago, I couldn't run 5 miles, and the fastest I could run was a 13 minute mile. But now I've lost 60 pounds and enjoy races over 50 miles. And as long as I enjoy running, I want to see what my potential is. My knees are getting stronger and I just had a PR mile the other week. Which leads us to today. Stop 1 is 10 miles. I'm meeting up with my brother to do a little bit of running with him. Main goal right now is to get in the frame of mind to where I can really enjoy this. I notice when I'm busy with work and overwhelmed with life, my mind's on running less. And getting into the mode of running takes me a little bit of time. Which is part of what all my excuses are, is me just not being in the frame of mind to run. Or maybe I'm just scared of the pain of running 10 hours. The mental refreshment from going slow is so nice. I've been doing a lot of speed work, and oh man I need this today. Life moves so quick, I can now just process and think. And it happens 20% of the time where I so badly am unmotivated to get out. But once I'm out, I never regret it. Target number 1 is 10 hours on the feet. Target number 2 is 40 plus miles. I'm also really focusing on pace today. I've noticed on my 50 miles plus, I do way too heavy of a positive split. So I'm actually going to try to do like a, basically an even pace all day today. See if I can hold that. And then finish fairly fresh. I don't want to be exhausted. So that's the goal. Hey Kaz, how you doing? I'm going to pause right there on the phone call, because Placeta is sponsoring this crazy run. You see, when a company says they're going to shock your neck repeatedly, your eyebrows raise and you're like, what? But then when you try it and realize your body's state is changing right in front of you, and you feel like you're completely relaxed, laying up in the clouds, you're like, what is this thing? Have you guys heard of this? It's kind of weird, but it works really well. And the way I like to think of it is it tells your body what it should feel. You know, the saying like do the right actions and then your feelings will follow. Well, this is telling your body what it should feel. And so there's different programs of relaxation, to sleep better, to help with pain, to recover. You see, once I finish a workout or in the middle of a day after lunchtime, I'm going to use this device. And I kid you not. It's like a reset of the day. It's like, I'm starting in the morning again, but it's midday, a new boost of energy. I put this device on for five to 20 minutes, depending on what program I'm choosing, put my legs up high, rest my eyes. And it is a reset to the day. It gives you a second wind. I found that through the entirety of the day, I'm more productive when I take a minute to rest and reset. And this device definitely helps me not only take that minute to rest and reset, but it is like resetting my full body because of how it's activating. And it's just like, once it starts, you're just like, oh, like you just feel the relaxation through your entire body. So if you don't have one of these devices yet, you can check my description to get the best deal possible. It's definitely become a big part of my recovery routine. Okay. Let's meet up with Kaz now and continue our 40 mile run. Thank you, Pulsetto. So I'm probably about 30, 35 minutes out. Do you have any fruit or any snacks I could have maybe? Because there's something in the air and I don't even care. No, no, I don't even care anymore. It's like we're losing our track all the time. I just got one thing on my mind, baby. One day I'm hoping that you will be mine. Let's crank in. No way. That's awesome. Is this normal water? That's normal. A little bit of coconut water if you just want to drink it straight out of the thing. Thank you. Yeah. All right. What's the plan? We're going to go do like five and a half mile loop. All right. Mostly on trails. A little bit of road. I haven't done all these trails back here, so it'll be fun. Fresh fruit. Better than candy right now. The idea of meeting up with Kaz and then running to a different park on the other side of the city and having eight to 12 miles between destinations allows me to feel like I've done different runs on different days, even though it's all within one day. It's a way to break up the time and make it easier mentally. I think excuses is often the subconscious mind trying to avoid difficulty and pain. The subconscious doesn't really think long term. It doesn't understand that when you tear the muscle down, it will build. It'll build back up even stronger. And we have to take our conscious mind to overrule this subconscious feeling. And that's largely what an excuse is. But I still struggle with the concept because I feel like all my excuses aren't lies and that there are real reasons to maybe not do something. And that's when I realized those aren't excuses. Made it. How do you feel? That's a great workout for me. Yeah, let's get breakfast today. All right. Any last words? You refill any water or anything? All right. I'll go to the bathroom really quick. That's about all I got right there. That's not true. I could go further, but that's a great workout for where I am right now. Enjoy work. Are you going to work now? Yeah. Sweet. Enjoy it. I'll catch you another time. Yeah. All right. Just left Kaz heading to Palmer Park. It's like my home course. I've run this trail so many times, but on the way there, I think Callie's going to bring me a sandwich or something because I'm hungry. In the meantime, keep moving. I got in the zone, knocked out a few more miles, then met up with my fantastic crew, slash aid station, mobile crew, who came found me because I needed them. Hello, suckers. All right. I'm going to pause my watch. I'm going to hop in with you. I think I need you to drive me somewhere to go. Okay. I thought I was on Barnes. What's this road next one? All right. Well, just finished out a much needed aid station. I ended up having Callie take me. Well, the closest place to go to the bathroom was home. So she drove me back home. That way I could go potty in peace. And now the next five and a half hours are going to be so much easier because I was able to fuel up. It's really easy to think you got to put a rule on yourself of like, I got to not stop moving the whole time. It's like 15 minutes of refreshment will help me go further overall, especially on training runs. So headed towards Palmer Park now. Busy roads, not so fun. But two more miles and we'll be to trails again. Breathing in pure exhaust. Okay. Just made it to the trail. 27 and a half miles. We got four hours and 15 minutes left. So this is my home trail course. There's tons of trails in here, but I'm going to hit up about six to seven miles today in this park. There's a trail right here. Visiting Colorado Springs and wanting a place to run in town. These trails are awesome. A hill with 17% grain feels different when you're 28 and a half miles in, but check this out. Some terminology I really like for training for ultra marathons is to finish fresh on most training runs. I think we'll work our way up there next week. You don't want to be dead when you're done, especially if you're doing like a back-to-back long run. And once I learned to finish fresh on marathon is really when I started feeling confident at 30 to 50 mile races. This one thought allowed me to kind of move up from half marathon to marathon to ultra runs. And I got to the point where I can do a marathon and finish fresh and feel good. So today I want to see if I can finish fresh, but instead of a marathon, 40, 45 miles. Another steep climb to get up there. Oh no, no, you're good. You're good. Stay right there. No, stay right there. You're good. Thanks man. Have a good hike. Thank you. You too. How's it going? Excuse me. It's just so nice to not hear roads. I'm on a road. I like headphones, music, audio books here. Life is good. Okay. Come up to the summit of the park. At least this is one where the wide angle camera doesn't do this justice at all. Let's keep running. Okay. I just got back to the parking lot. Callie should be here any minute for fill up liquids. I'm also going to need to get like a hat and gloves maybe because it's freezing right now. Sorry, buddy. I was trying to get out of the way. All right. Coming up to a stoplight now. I got a coat on and a beanie and some gloves. I was concerned because I was like, my body cannot regulate the temperature. I must be way too worn down. And the car has said it had dropped 20 degrees today so far. So it's in the thirties now. So no wonder I'm cold. I'm in the shorts and very, very light jacket. So got some snacks and going to try to get another eight to 10 miles in here. Oh, and I'm working my way up to a trail that doesn't have much elevation. That way I can run like those little loops until time's up. Entering the trail now. I just saw Callie's car. So her and the boys are already here. I think Fletch wanted to run with me. My four year old. He'd probably do half a mile to a mile with me. We'll see if he still wants to. Now the kids slowed me down a little bit. Maybe cost me a couple of miles, but for moments like this, it's worth sacrificing all the miles in the world. There you are. Thank you. Yeah. If you don't go super fast, you can go a lot longer, you know, but going super fast is fun too. So if you want to go for it, I'm going to keep going. So I'll see you later. Okay. I was going to head off and run, but this guy was just holding my pace. You all right back there? Fletch, my heart rate alarm is going off. So I need to slow down a little bit. You're too fast for me. Hey, look at that. A deer rubbed his antlers on that bush and ripped it up. See, he rubbed his antlers all along here. That's right. I see him in here all the time. It's kind of hard to run with you. Just trying to pick it up a little bit. Have a few strong miles to finish. You guys are good. Thank you so much. Hey, Merry Christmas. How's it going? Excuses are normally feelings or fears that misguide you from the person that you want to be. An excuse can only come after a commitment is made. Once you've decided to do a workout, once you've decided to wake up early, once you've decided to eat healthy. After the decision has been made to do what you know you should do, then the excuses creep in because the subconscious realizes the pending difficulty. But my question was, what if I ignore these quote unquote excuses and I get injured again? Well, it turns out if that's the case, that's not an excuse. That's the truth. And the truth will set you free. Therefore, all excuses are lies. And that statement is not a license to injure yourself. It's not a license to torture yourself, but it's a shield against your feelings, against your fears. And once you know this, the game becomes distinguishing between excuses and truth. And people who can determine the difference and act accordingly, regardless of their feelings, definitely have a superpower. Rice, yak, and veggies. All right. That sounds so good. I'm so hungry. Are you hungry too?