What 100 miles on trail teaches you

On sacrifice, suffering, and the feelings you have to earn

5/6/2026

The only two things I've done that come close to this level of hard: running 100 miles and starting a company.Looking back on both, the lesson is the same. You cannot do either alone.I crossed the finish line and I cried. I'm not sure I fully understood why in that moment, but I think it was because something I had quietly carried for an entire year finally set itself down. A year of thinking about it, training for it, stressing about it, building around it. It was over. And the only thing that made it possible was the crew by my side.THE SACRIFICETraining for a 100-miler while starting a company means you are saying no to almost everything else.No to drinking. No to going out. No to weekend trips. No to powder days (sometimes). My social life got small. Smaller than I'd like to admit.But here's what I learned: saying no is a superpower. It is not a sacrifice. It is a trade. You are trading distraction for focus, and focus is the only currency that actually compounds. I tell my team this all the time: speed makes startups, and focus enables speed. The same is true in ultrarunning. You cannot fake the miles. You cannot shortcut the consistency. You have to choose it, over and over again, until it becomes the only thing.THE MILESI finished in under 30 hours. For context, the pros finish a 100-miler in under 20. I was about 50% slower, and I don't care even a little.Running ultras is not about time. Not for most people. It is about learning something true about yourself in a place where there is nowhere to hide. It is about choosing pain because pain, in the right context, makes you feel alive. It is about pushing through something that feels genuinely awful in the moment and coming out the other side with clearer eyes, sharper gratitude, and a weird appreciation for all the small things you forgot to notice.THE THING YOU CAN'T BUYI said I would never do it again. I meant it completely, standing at the finish line with nothing left.Then I watched the finishers at Cocodona 250 today. Two hundred and fifty miles through Arizona. Athletes who had been moving for days. And I couldn't look away. I wanted back in.That feeling at the finish line, the one you earn after months or years of training and hours of suffering, you cannot buy it. You cannot luck your way into it. You cannot steal it. It requires every single thing you have, and it gives you something back that no shortcut ever could.That is what all ultra runners are chasing. And it is addictive as hell.Think in decades. Do hard things. Earn it.