So on July 15th, 2011, I made my way to Carson City, Nevada, checked into my hotel, and I was all by myself.

And on the next morning, the morning of the 16th at 5 or 6 a.m, I can't quite remember, I was set to join a few hundred other ultra endurance athletes and head out on what was one of the most challenging 100-mile race courses that I ever ran,

the Tahoe Rim Trail 100-miler.

But this is not a podcast to talk about the race or mental fortitude

or the months of training and preparation that went into it.

And it's not even a podcast to talk about my friends Trevor and Mandy,

who changed my dirty socks at Mile 50 because that is true friendship.

Or my friend Mark, who ran well ahead of me in the early morning hours around

mile 70 at one or two in the morning as he discovered and ironically fell in love with the

sport of ultra running.

Ironically, I say, because he'll be running that same course in just a couple of months,

some 10 years later, or Trevor pacing me and trying to talk me out of wanting to

just lay down on the trail for a quick nap around the 90 mile and 9,000 foot elevation mark

because it sounded like an amazing idea at the time. No, I am talking about what I did the night

before the race when I found myself in my hotel room alone. My wife had the kids at home at that time

they would have been ages

seven, nine, eleven, and 13. And they were set to meet me at the finish line sometime early,

early Sunday morning if everything went according to plan. But no, I was alone in my hotel room.

And as I pulled up the channel guide on the TV, I was excited to find access to animal planet.

And I sat there this evening before my run and I, I binged on all of those programs where

they show animals in the wild and hunting and being hunted and how spiders trapped their prey

or how eagles dove at lightning speeds to pick off a mouse in the field or a fish

...