Why 200 Miles?

Why do I run 200 miles?

People ask with a half laugh, the same one that comes after they say they would not even drive that far.

I wish I had a tidy answer, a sentence that fits on a mug. I do not. My reason is layered, a little beautiful, a little stubborn, and still, sometimes, a mystery to me.

I am not built like a distance runner. I am big, strong, made for moving heavy things, not gliding over mountains and sand. Yet something in me is drawn to the long road. I work in front of a screen all day, the world squeezed into tabs and notifications. A two hundred, that is the opposite life. No computer, no social media, no email pings, only the sound of feet and breath and wind, only the honest arithmetic of one more step.

I love the quiet of it. The way a race strips life to essentials. Eat, drink, move, repeat. The pack on my back, the headlamp circle at night, the way the trail becomes a thin ribbon that invites and dares at the same time. There is something beautiful about suffering, not as a badge, but as a teacher. Learning to suffer well, to endure with intention, to meet discomfort with a steady yes.

Part of it is redemption. As a younger man, I had a habit of quitting. I would start ideas and leave them, make bold plans and let them fade. I did not yet know the slow holiness of finishing. I know it now. And I want to practice it. These long races feel like a ceremony for that, a vow renewed with every aid station and every mile.

Life has not gone according to my plan. I have had some rich seasons, yet the ledger shows more days lived in struggle than in ease. In a strange way, two hundred miles feels like home to that truth. I toe the line with a plan and a few soft spots, some strengths I trust and some weaknesses I respect. The task looks impossible in the afternoon sun. Then the countdown ends, and there is nothing left but to go.

The first miles are simple. Jokes with other runners. The shuffle of nerves leaving the body. A familiar rhythm arrives, and I think, maybe this time it will be easy. It never is. The course starts to speak. Heat presses. Feet complain. Night arrives, and with it, thoughts that try to bargain. You could stop at the next station. You have done enough. There is a shuttle back.

I keep moving. One foot, then the other, the oldest sentence the body knows. There are moments of unexpected joy. A sunrise on day two that rinses the sky clean. A short stretch shared with a stranger who becomes a friend for an hour. A cup of broth that tastes like it was made by angels. The trail at night, dark and honest, a thin whisper that says keep going.

There is always a moment when I have nothing left. The absolute bottom. The point where the idea of the finish line feels like a story I once heard as a kid. I stop. I breathe. I tell myself the truth. You do not need to feel strong to take a step. You only need to take a step. So I do. Then I take another. Soon the world is moving again, and I am moving with it.

In a race this long, you rehearse every exit. You plan your retreat. You imagine the comfort of quitting. You calculate how to get a ride back to the start. And still, you do not step off the course. You keep saying yes. You keep suffering well. Not as a punishment, but as a way to honor the gift of being alive in a body that can still go.

The last miles carry their own weather. Emotion shows up without asking. Pride, a quiet kind, the kind that does not need to be announced. Relief, because it is almost over. Gratitude, because somehow there was enough in me to get here. A very specific craving for pizza, because I am still me.

People imagine the finish as roaring joy. Sometimes it is. Often, for me, it is peace. I cross, I stop, and the noise inside me settles. I am content. Not because the plan worked, it rarely does, but because I met the day with what I had, and found my way through every corner where quitting looked like mercy.

Why two hundred miles? Because the race is a mirror that tells the truth. It shows me the parts I am proud of and the parts I still need to tend. It lets me practice being the man I want to be when life is not tidy, when the map is wrong, when the night is long.

I run because the course reminds me of the life I am still learning to live. Make a plan, carry what you need, accept that it will change. Keep moving. Suffer well. Receive joy when it arrives. Ask for help when you need it. Offer help when you can. Watch the sun come up on a tired day and let it teach you that beginnings do not need permission.

I run because somewhere between mile one and mile two hundred, I remember who I am. Not a man with all the answers. A man who keeps going. A man who can hold sorrow and grit and a small smile at the same time. A man who, in the end, is not chasing a medal, but a feeling that is older than finish lines.

A feeling that sounds like this, in the quiet after a long journey, when the body sits down and the heart does too. Peace.