Updated by: May 12, 2026
The Long Run
My wife runs with the grace of a ballerina. Which makes sense — she trained as one for years before discovering that her real calling was to run extraordinary distances through extraordinary places.
I do not run with grace. I thump my feet too hard. I cut corners in training. We are very different runners.
She recently completed the Tarawera UTMB — 52 kilometers through the forests and geothermal landscapes of New Zealand’s North Island. Her friend Caroline ran 102 kilometers on the same day. I was very supportive from the couch.
My wife recently met Sam Gash, one of Australia’s most remarkable endurance athletes. At 25, Gash became the first woman and youngest person to complete the Four Deserts Grand Slam — four 250-kilometer ultramarathons across the Atacama, Gobi, Sahara and Antarctic deserts in a single year. She has since run 3,253 kilometers across India over 76 days, crossed 379 kilometers of the Simpson Desert non-stop and raised over $1.5 million for charitable causes along the way World Class Expeditions | Samantha Gash
Last week, American Rachel Entrekin made history by winning the Cocodona 250, a 253-mile race through the mountains of Arizona, beating every man and woman in the field. She ran for 56 hours and 9 minutes. She took the lead at mile 60 and never relinquished it.
Many ultra runners describe entering a deep meditative state during long runs. A dissolution of the ordinary mind that Buddhist monks spend lifetimes trying to achieve through stillness. The ultra runner gets there through motion. Through hours and hours of putting one foot in front of the other until the thinking stops and something else takes over.
They become addicted to the freedom, to the pain, to the particular clarity that only exhaustion can produce.
Travel does something similar. It removes you from the ordinary. It places you somewhere unfamiliar enough that the habits of your daily mind have nothing to grip onto. You become present by necessity.
It’s no coincidence that the world’s great ultra races take place in the world’s most extraordinary locations. The runners aren’t just chasing a finish line. They’re chasing a feeling that only those specific places on earth can produce.
My wife knows this. I’ll take her word for it.
Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder
