Why I Am Running 50 Miles Overnight, Halloween Weekend 2025

Committing to Running The 2025 BPN "Survive The Night" Overnight, Ultra-Marathon

“What is wrong with me?”

I ask myself this often; but in this unique case, I really have to think about it.

The most I have ever run in one effort is 13.1 miles. With a dial back in running, and shifted focus on doing my first triatholon, I MAYBE have run 50 miles TOTAL in the last month.

Despite this - on Saturday, November 1st, I will be attempting to run 50 miles. Consecutively, and through the night no less. At a literal ranch in Central Texas.

Again - almost certainly, there is something wrong with me.

Warm Up

3 months ago, I ran my first half-marathon. This was a big deal to ME, but in the overall grand-scheme of things, running 13.1 miles once, is not an earth-shattering achievement. For someone who had pretty much never spent time in endurance based activities (even going back to my youth sports days; I hated conditioning/running), training for and successfully completing my first half-marathon was a big deal. I had the running bug, and started to understand why so many people fall in love with running.

I have shared before the interest and journey that led me from training for aesthetics, to strength, and then eventually Crossfit. After needing a shift, I had recently taken to running, and became interested in the broader “endurance sport” world. After going from a scrawny teen tennis player, to college-aged kid into strength and powerlifting, then finally a 30 year-old who could do muscle ups on rings and walk on his hands - I still had always looked at endurance athletes as an entirely different breed of athlete and human.

While the movements (running, biking, swimming) are pretty elementary - the ridiculous mental fortitude it takes to do these for hours on end, at the distance some of these people would do them, is jaw dropping.

“That could never be me”, I thought. A little over two hours in my head running was probably my max. Sitting on a spin bike for 60 minutes can be a struggle. I weigh somewhere between 215-225lbs, I am not built for doing anything for 3-12 hours aside from sleeping.

But one day…

Ah the “one day” fallacy.

It would be cool to “one day” complete all the major fitness event types. I pull out my notes app, enter in “powerlifting, crossfit comp, half-marathon” and quickly add a check mark to those.

I add sprint triathlon, half-ironman, full ironman, and a marathon. I added an ultra marathon as well, effectively a marathon on steroids (50-100 miles+ in length, and in some cases no defined ending - the race doesn’t end until there is one runner left). I view the ultra as something I will likely attempt once I do the shorter events, shed 50 pounds, and built of thousands of miles and hours of training. One day…

I’m a hypocrite. I have internally said “people are capable of so much more than they think they are”, and “most people sit around saying ‘one day’ they’ll chase their dreams, and ‘one day’ never comes and they’re filled with regret”. Shame and fear; keeping them paralyzed from ever trying”.

In truth, I found myself getting softer. Maybe not physically, but spiritually and mentally. When I look back on my early 20s; I reminisce on the optimism, confidence, aggression, the internal drive I felt I had. Now that view replaced by feelings, at almost 32, that negativity, self doubt, and lack of credibility/accountability had taken over. The world has beaten me down a little. I am feeling lost - and then the universe comes calling.

Earlier in the summer, I found myself captivated by a race held by supplement company founder and major fitness athlete Nick Bare at his ranch outside of Austin, Texas. Over almost three days, runners completed a last man standing, ultra marathon style race where runners had to complete a 4.2 mile loop every hour on the hour until there was a single runner left (it took an act of god for the race to end, the two runners never quit, there was a storm that created safety hazards for everyone involved).

A few weeks later, I saw a post from BPN (Nick’s company; one of the biggest brands in the supplement space) about the lottery for another ultra race in the fall. I sign up, and text my best friend - “Imagine. I definitely couldn’t do it, but I would have to figure it out and try”. Always giving my fantasy version of myself way more credit than I give my real life counterpart.

Fast forward a few months, focus fully shifts on life and training for my first triathlon. In the middle of the work day, I find out that out of THOUSANDS of applicants, many no doubt more qualified and experienced than me, I was one of 200 people selected to compete in the overnight ultra on November 1st down in Texas.

Fear sets in.

Is this even possible? It is certainly not “safe”. There’s no way. It’s 10 weeks away. Could I do it? How could I turn down this opportunity? But the risk.

The thoughts flood my mind, excuses, fears, excitement, apprehension, determination all building.

I share it with some close friends and fitness enthusiasts (endurance and non-endurance), and receive the same response: “You HAVE to do this”.

It takes me approximately 48 hours to decide against any logical or reasonable judgement. I have to try.

Why?

I might not be the most prepared. I don’t know if I'll succeed or fail. There is a risk of injury. All those “if, may, maybe” statements. One thing I know for certain, is that if I don’t at least give it everything I have and show up and attempt this, I will always regret it. I’ll always regret, and wonder what if. What if I had bet on myself. What if I had had full faith in confidence in my preparation and dedication and the support around me that I could embrace fear, uncertainty, pain - and accomplish something I never thought possible. Push myself farther than I ever thought possible.

That is worse for me than any “maybe”, “but what about”, or “this might happen”. I would rather go down swinging, knowing I tried - than look back and say I didn’t, that I was too afraid to step into the arena when called. Not hitting 50 miles wouldn’t be a true failure, that would be quitting before I even tried, before I even knew the limits of what I was capable of.

Fear and self doubt will no longer be the overriding factor in my decision making. Will it be hard? That’s the whole [expletive] point. Only certain things can be learned by going through the “hard”. You don’t wake up resilient. It’s forged in the fire of hard.

It’s free, but it costs everything - Zach Pogrob

There is a strong possibility I will not be able to make it through the full 50 miles. I might get injured. I might do all this training, get down there, and not finish the race. I acknowledge those facts.

But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, if I didn’t live by what I believe in. That WE are all capable of anything we set our minds to. That failure is nowhere near as bad as not even trying in the first place. Most times, we quit on ourselves before even giving ourselves the chance to succeed.

I am writing this to hold myself accountable. I am writing this because maybe it will help someone else. I am writing this to document the process and the journey - so I can look back on it as a reminder when I feel that fear, self doubt, and softness creeping in once again. Because it always comes back. It’s never an end, only a temporary reprieve.

I hope I finish. I don’t know if I will.

The only thing I know for certain?

I’m going to try and fight like hell.

See you in the arena.