So, you've run a marathon before? That's nice. Dean Karnazes did one this morning, and then went to work. Tomorrow, he'll probably run another one. The premiere ultramarathoner talked with Spencer Hall recently about his upcoming plans, not stretching, the creative side of running, and why you don't want to hit the wall at mile 40 of a 100 mile run. (You probably don't need to be told this would be really bad, but Dean knows from whence he speaks on this.)
↵↵Spencer Hall: Please, what is the proper pronunciation of your last name? I want to get it right. ↵
↵↵Dean Karnazes: Well, I never get it right. Kar-nas-sus. ↵
↵↵SH: Thanks. With that out of the way so I don't sound like more of an idiot than usual: how far did you run today? Editor's note: this interview took place at 9:30 AM PST. ↵
↵↵DK: Ha! I knew you were going to ask that, so I ran a marathon this morning just to make sure I had that covered. ↵
↵↵SH: And you're not lying. Other people would mess around with you on this, but you really did 26.2 today. ↵
↵↵DK: Well, I probably did 27, but who's counting. ↵
↵↵SH: What's your average week, mileage-wise? Not that you could call your numbers average in any context. ↵
↵↵DK: It's funny because I travel so much these days, it fluctuates wildly. It can be anywhere from 50-60 miles to sometimes a 200 mile week. ↵
↵↵SH: (Expletive deleted.) ↵
↵↵DK: I try to maximize the days that I'm home so I can get in some good base miles, but it really does fluctuate a lot. ↵
↵↵SH: What do you do to deal with the stress of that kind of mileage? ↵
↵↵DK: Surprisingly little. I think it was Jack Lalanne who said, "Have you ever seen a lion stretch?" ↵
↵↵SH: You're trying to tell me that stretching -- something I hate -- is something I don't have to do? ↵
↵↵DK: Well, I'm not going to advocate that. I'm going to say that. My guidance to everyone is listen to everyone, follow no one. I have friends I run with who are terrific runners who spend an inordinate amount of time stretching. Personally, I don't stretch, I don't get massages. Maybe massages would be useful, but I just don't have the time for it. Unlike the traditional athlete, I've got to do more than just engage in my sport to put food on the table. When I'm done running, it's straight to the office. ↵
↵↵SH: That's another unusual thing about you. You're an endurance athlete of public note, but you still have a day job, right? ↵
↵↵DK: That's changed a little bit. I took a five-week leave of absence two years ago, and they keep calling me: "When are you coming back?" Between book sales and DVD sales and public speaking, I've been able to cobble together a living running. I'm so much happier than when I had the day job. ↵
↵↵SH: I'm looking at your schedule, and it's loaded. What's coming up in the next year? This has to be difficult coming up with the next challenge, no? ↵
↵↵DK: I don't know if I'm so much fueled by trying to one-up myself so much as passionate about coming up with new and greater challenges. I don't see it as a contest, but as a natural progression. I ran across all the great deserts of the world last year -- the Atacama in Chile, the Gobi Desert in Central Asia, Death Valley in North America, the Sahara in Africa, and the last desert was in Antarctica. ↵
↵↵SH: This may sound like a weird question, but what was the one that was the "most nowhere"? As in, "I've seen nowhere, but this is nowhere to an extreme." ↵
↵↵DK: You know, all of them are in that same vein. Running in the Gobi desert with the Himalayas in the background, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. The Atacama Desert hasn't had any recorded rain in 200 years -- not a drop. It's like a moonscape. You felt like you were on a different planet. But Antarctica was the most removed from humanity that I've ever felt. When you're down there, you're thousands of miles from anything, and you feel it. ↵
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↵SH: I imagine that's your own personal Martian vacation right there, no? ↵
↵↵DK: You have to experience it once in your life. It's so bizarre to get up at three in the morning to constant sunlight. It throws your biomechanics and your circadian rhythms completely off. ↵
↵↵SH: A lot's made of the toll this puts on your body, but people don't focus on the creative side of what you do. Have you seen Man on Wire? ↵
↵↵DK: Yes. ↵
↵↵SH: What he does and what you do don't seem too dissimilar to me. Is it a kind of creative endeavor or art to put something like the Desert Runs or any other challenge together? ↵
↵↵DK: You know, that's an incredible analogy you've just drawn. Until you said that, I never realized that's how I feel. You're absolutely right. I certainly compete in a number of competitive events. I'll be doing the Badwater Ultramarathon this summer. It's my ninth year doing it. It's a competitive race, but I try to keep it in perspective that this is a 135 miles non-stop across Death Valley in the middle of summer where it gets up into the 120s. I love doing these kind of races, but to a lot of people this kind of stuff is just lunacy. They just think surviving in that, much less competing, is pretty far out. ↵
↵↵But beyond racing, I just love the art form of running, of conceiving new ideas like the 50 Marathons in 50 States in 50 Days. It's the ultimate expression of what I love to do, which is run, and travel, and see this great country. In a sweeping answer to your question "What's next?," I'm planning on doing a cross country run from San Francisco to Central Park in New York, all on trails. I've been able to cobble together a continuous footpath across the country. From the time of the early settlers, we've never had a continuous footpath across the country. Not only is it a massive run across the country, but from an environmental perspective it's an amazing thing to do. ↵
↵↵SH: How long will that take? I know you're not shy about tackling the logistics of something like this, so I know you have a number in mind. ↵
↵↵DK: My goal is to do 4200 miles in 100 days, averaging 42 miles a day. ↵
↵↵SH: What did you average in place like the Sahara or Atacama? ↵
↵↵DK: A better comparison would be long-distance runs in the US. I've averaged anywhere between 30 miles and 65 miles a day. It really depends on the weather, the amount of daylight, and the terrain. At sea level in good weather, 60 miles a day is in reach. When you hit the Rockies or the desert, well, 30 is pushing it. ↵
↵↵SH: How does your family approach this? ↵
↵↵DK: They ran with me in stages in the last big race. They follow along, and it's very much a participatory thing. They obviously didn't come with me on the really inhospitable desert stretches, but I had a satellite connection and a modem and would blog from the middle of nowhere at night. I communicated with them every night, chatting back and forth. ↵
↵↵SH: What would you say to someone who wanted to try ultramarathoning? ↵
↵↵DK: Well, to clarify to your readers: a marathon is 26.2 miles, and an ultramarathon is beyond that. I'd say to first-timers: shift your paradigm. You may be a competitive 10K runner, or a long-distance half-marathoner, but define victory in your first ultra as finishing. Put away the watch, don't look at the clock. The thing with an accomplished athlete is that you can grovel through a marathon, go out too hard and then drag yourself across the finish line. If you go out too hard in an ultramarathon, it's a death spiral. When you're talking about hitting the wall at mile 40, there's no way you can grovel through those last 60 miles. My guidance to people is shift your paradigm, smile a lot that first time, and go for it. ↵
↵↵SH: What is your average pace? ↵
↵↵DK: It depends on the length of the race. In my last 200 mile race, I ran the last mile in sub-six minutes. There were periods where I was averaging 15-18 minute miles, really hating life, and then ... the body has this amazing ability to reconstitute. The trick is holding back when you feel great. ↵
↵↵SH: What's your resting heart rate? ↵
↵↵DK: About 38 (beats per minute.) ↵
↵↵SH: Current age? ↵
↵↵DK: 45. ↵
↵↵SH: Hours of sleep a night? ↵
↵↵DK: Four to five hours. ↵
↵↵SH: That's four or five hours of sleep and you’re ready to go, right? ↵
↵↵DK: You know, again: I don't want to advocate doing that. It seems to work for me, just like not stretching seems to work for me. I've got friends who are tremendous runners who get 8-10 hours of sleep. It seems to work for me. ↵
↵↵SH: Another digression: you're very non-dogmatic about your methods. This isn't the case with all endurance athletes. ↵
↵↵DK: There's people who are dedicated to racing, and there's people like me who are out there to do the best they can for themselves. I don't go to the starting line and say, "I'm going to beat that guy, or I'm going to beat that guy." My commitment is to do the best I can. There are certainly competitive people. I've found they tend to burn out very quickly. ↵
↵↵My mindset is really me looking inside and saying, "What is your personality type? How are you hardwired? What is your demeanor?", rather than forcing myself into a competitive framework. If I got on a track and did intervals, I'd burn out. Whereas, if I get a couple of bucks in a backpack, put some food in, and take off on a four or five hour run, that seems to come very naturally to me. ↵
↵This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.