Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One Of The World's Fittest Men, And Discovering Myself Quotes
"I take a deep breath, let it out. I think of the thousand-plus hours of training I’ve done to get this far. I have to do this, I have to get up. It’s a race. I have to get back in it."
"You can stand in the light. And you can set a positive example. But you simply cannot make someone change."
"I was proud that I’d made the squad, but confused, knowing I was in way over my head."
"Yet in that precise moment, I was overcome with the profound knowledge not just that I needed to change, but that I was willing to change."
"Knowing this about myself, and harnessing the tools I’d developed in recovery, I understood that any true or lasting lifestyle change would require rigor, specificity, and accountability."
"But I welcomed the suffering that came with unheard-of routines like twenty 200-yard butterfly repeats on a descending interval that started with thirty seconds’ rest after the first repeat and slowly dropped to just five seconds by the end."
"Previously too lethargic to engage Mathis in an evening game of hide-and-seek, I was now feverishly chasing her around the house until she collapsed in exhaustion—no small feat!"
"I was determined to bridge my talent-deficit gap by doubling down with yardage and intensity."
"Nobody had thought I had the ability to perform as I had—especially with two broken ribs."
"By unanimous vote, I was awarded 'Outstanding Performance' of the meet."
"I was blinded by the bright light of the future that lay within my grasp."
"Although a miracle salve to my social inadequacies, I just liked it too much."
"In other words, where is my next good time? Alcohol will do that."
"He knew I didn’t care anymore. So why should he?"
"The defining characteristic of the alcoholic is denial."
"I was unprepared for the emotions that welled up inside me."
"The tears welled up. And I cried my eyes out for the better part of an hour."
"I decided to commence my drinking within moments of waking up."
"What do you do when you’re just not sure which turn to take?"
"It was a reality far different from what is portrayed on television."
"I knew that a job well done would be rewarded with nothing beyond an increase in demand for my services."
"My first real job. And so I just assumed that my experience was normal."
"I’d underestimated just how mundane, tedious, dysfunctional, and unpleasant the position would be."
"I wish I could say that I knew then that law school wasn’t for me."
"I felt a sense of suffocating desperation. Is this all I am?"
"A plant-based, whole-food diet can minimize and actually reverse the development of chronic diseases."
"If we want to heal—truly heal—and thrive, then we must embrace preventive medicine."
"The word 'diet' can have a negative connotation and is almost always construed as something temporary."
"Merely mentioning plant-based nutrition often prompts immediate debate."
"Retraining your taste buds doesn't mean sentencing yourself to a life of humdrum eating."
"We live in the most prosperous nation on Earth, yet we've never been more unhealthy."
"What ensued was a training program focused entirely on building the capacity and efficiency of my endurance engine."
"You can't build Rome in a year, let alone a day."
"The prize never goes to the fastest guy, it goes to the guy who slows down the least."
"I was proud of myself. I’d showed up. I’d played hard when I was hurt. And I’d gotten it done."
"Remarkably, I’d actually gone faster than David Goggins had in 2006—the man whose stunning athleticism first inspired this harebrained adventure to begin with."
"During the 2009 holiday season, Jason Lester, my Ultraman training partner, visited my family at our house in Los Angeles."
"What he proposed was more than daunting. It was almost unimaginable—indeed, it was verging on impossible."
"In our modern world, there are few remaining untried challenges."
"Yet here it was—a challenge not yet attempted that just sat there, almost begging for a go."
"I’m in," I finally announced to a bemused Jason."
"I remember at that moment feeling relief. I knew that if Chris thought I could do it, then it could be done."
"To adapt to the progressive fatigue I’d face, I even experimented with sleep deprivation."
"But the main thing I had to remember was that this wasn’t a 'race.'"
"Paul had been working his butt off all day taking care of us, and yet, he looked entirely fresh."
"I later felt awful about how difficult I was that night."
"Delirium was really setting in now, against a backdrop of cane fields burning in the near distance."
"Like a surreal landscape conceived by Salvador Dalí, our bizarre environs elevated the strangeness this trip already possessed."
"Grateful to have something to fix my gaze on besides the haunting glow of burning cane fields, I focused on the closed but well-lit storefronts."
"I gingerly laid my body down on the hard concrete driveway, a less-than-romantic backdrop to punctuate the unceremonious completion of our day’s travels."
"I was still sound asleep when Paul, Molly, and Rebecca tracked us down."
"I recall very little of what occurred other than that I needed all the help I could get from Jason just to make it up one simple flight of stairs."
"Waking the next morning around 11:00 A.M., I sought out Jason and our crew, and it was quickly agreed to schedule another rest day."
"I could actually feel my body return to life, inching toward homeostasis with every green sip and bite of quinoa and lentils."
"If you’re polite and maybe even a bit self-deprecating as opposed to self-righteous, you’ll find that people just don’t care."
"It’s the preachy sanctimoniousness that turns people off."
"I always try to handle these social situations with a bit of humor and aplomb."
"My special requests or exclusions sometimes create an intrigue that spawns a surprisingly dynamic and interesting dinner-table conversation."
"Don’t want to cause a fuss? Me neither. So pull the waiter aside when it’s time to order and speak quietly with him or her."
"Veggie burgers also seem to be everywhere these days."
"The worst-case eating scenario for a vegan? French fries."
"The point is to do the best you can, then move on."
"I’m not immune from this scenario, particularly in a business situation, where I don’t always hold sway over what restaurant I’m at."
"The key is to be gracious. If you stand in judgment—or try to rescue or convert—people will run for the hills."