12 theheraldmagazine 16.07.11

With just 3.6% bodyfat, 48-year-oldDean Karnazes hasbeen told by doctorsthat he has thephysique of a20-year-old

16.07.11 theheraldmagazine 13

IntervIewWordsSusan SwarbrickPhotographsPaul Stuart

‘‘W

hy do we run? If DeanKarnazes had a dollarfor every time he’s beenasked that question,hecouldcomfortablyretireand put his feet up. Not

that he would want to. Karnazes does notdo sedentary. Nor does he do moderation.This is a man who, in recent years, hascompleted 50 marathons in 50 days. Hehas run without stopping for 80 hours and44 minutes, covering some 350 miles. Andhe has traversed some of the world’s mosttreacherous landscapes on foot, includingthe Gobi, Sahara and Atacama deserts, theAustralian outback and Antarctica.

In May, the LosAngeles-born ultra runnercompleted an almost 3000-mile, 75-daychallenge that took him from Disneyland inAnaheim,California, to NewYork City.Daysafter crossing the finishing line, he waspreparing his next adventure: to completea marathon in every country in the worldwithin a year.

Bearing all this in mind, I fear it may bedifficult to pin the 48-year-old down long

enough to interview. In fact, as we settle ata table in the leafy garden of his Londonhotel, he admits it feels alien to be sittingdown.“I never sit once throughout the day,”he says. “Even my home office is set up atwaist level so I can stand. I type on mycomputer standing up, the same withphone calls.”

Thankfully, he is polite enough to remainparked on the seat for the next hour.Karnazes – nicknamed the ultramarathonman – has just published his third book,Run! 26.2 Stories Of Blisters And Bliss,charting the highs and lows of his remark-able life.Sowhy doesherun?Partlybecauseof what he describes as the “magic in themisery”. His achievements may appeareffortless but pain, he says, is a deliciouslure.Neverdoeshe feelmorealive thanwhen“struggling to persevere against insur-mountable odds and untold adversity”.

It’s an intriguing philosophy.Some wouldsay he is off his head,a masochist, I venture.Karnazes smiles softly. “We have been soconditioned in Western society to be at ourhappiest when avoiding pain,”he says.“We

aspire to live in comfort, but we are socomfortable, we are miserable. More andmore people realise that perhaps this life ofcomfort and convenience doesn’t get theirblood pumping or bring them the happinessthey thought it would.”

Dressed inathinvestandshorts,Karnazesis ruggedly handsome with intense darkeyes. His muscles appear to have beenchiselled from granite.Thick veins throb onhis arms and legs, and his skin is a deepconker brown. As he runs a hand throughhis thick curly hair, his bicep bulges withmesmerising power.

Yet he doesn’t profess to be anythingspecial.“You just put one foot in front of theother,”he says,when asked the secret of hisathletic prowess.“Running is a good lessonin simply being in the moment. In life, wecan get ahead of ourselves, which can bedemoralising.Those times when you think:‘I’m so tired, how am I going to get to thefinish?’ Don’t think about the finish, just bein the present.”

Mostmorningsonhis epic trans-Americanrun, his feet ached as soon as they hit the

Inside the mind of Dean Karnazes – the ultramarathon man

Crossing through the wallbecomes more difficult andchallenging, but the elationgets more intense.The highsget higher and the lows get

lower. It’s a wild ride

14 theheraldmagazine 16.07.11

ground.Eachday,though,hewould repeatthe same two words: “Just go.” “You don’thave to go fast,”he says now.“You just haveto go. How do you run 3000 miles acrossthe country? One step at a time. The sameway you get out of bed in the morning.”

Karnazes didn’t start long-distancerunning until well into adulthood when, onthe evening of his 30th birthday, he hit anexistential crisis. While some men mightbuy a sportscar or get a tattoo, Karnazescrept into the garage as his wife sleptupstairs, pulled on gardening shoes in lieuof trainers and started running through thedarkened streets of San Francisco. Thirtymiles and seven hours later he had foundhis vocation. He stopped at a phone andcalled his wife, asking her to pick him up.

That was 18 years ago and since then,Karnazes has lost track of the number ofmarathons he’s run (“when I hit 100 Istopped counting”). In fact, these days amere 26.2 miles isn’t enough to sate hisappetite. He regularly runs to the start lineincluding,on one occasion,100 miles downthe Pacific Coast Highway to begin the LosAngeles Marathon.

Marathon runners talk abouthitting the infamous wall at19 or 20 miles. When doesKarnazes encounter his?“Usually around mile 30,”he

says. “I not only hit the wall, I hit multiplewalls. The further you get into an endur-ance event, the walls become closertogether.Crossing throughthewallbecomesmore difficult and challenging, but theelation once you get through it gets moreintense. The highs get higher and the lowsget lower. It’s a wild, wild ride.”

There are hazards of the job. The firsttime Karnazes ran the gruelling LeadvilleTrail 100 series through Colorado’s RockyMountains,he had to drop out after the highaltitude caused his brain to swell danger-ously. Another year, in the Western States100-mile Endurance race through Califor-nia’s Sierra Nevada, he suffered nyctalopia– night blindness – and had to battle tocomplete the race, crawling on his handsand knees at one point.

Those weren’t even his toughest races.While attempting his first 135-mile Badwa-ter Ultramarathon through California’sDeath Valley – where temperatures regu-larly top 49C – a vicious bout of vomitingand diarrhoea left Karnazes so dehydratedhe began to hallucinate.“I saw this old minerin front of me, a 49er, with a gold pan,mumbling: ‘Water, water,’” he recalls. “Ipoured some water from my bottle into thepan only to hear it sizzling on the ground.There was no-one there. After the miner Isaw dinosaurs scurrying across the desert.It got crazy.”

He dropped out of Badwater that year butreturned in 1996 to finish 10th. He won therace on his fifth attempt in 2004. His fail-ures, he stresses, are just as important ashis triumphs. “I learn more from failingthan succeeding. People need not be afraidto fail. I say: fail spectacularly. Take bigrisks and fail big – then celebrate and learnfrom that. If you don’t fail sometimes youare not pushing yourself hard enough.”

Karnazes tries to include his family in hisoutlandish endeavours. His wife Julie, adentist, their two children, along with

Karnazes’s parents, regularly tag along tomanhis support vehicle,a trustywinnebagonicknamed “the mother ship”.

“I try to involve them as much as possible,”he says. “I get up at 3am to run so I don’tmiss out on spending time with my family.I’ll go out and do a long run,maybe a mara-thon, then come home and fix breakfast forthe kids and get them off to school. Theycome first.”

Of Greek ancestry, Karnazes grew up inLos Angeles, the eldest of three children.His father, affectionately known as Popou,likes to claim the family originally hailsfrom the same village as Pheidippides, thelegendary Athenian herald whose storyinspired marathon races. “I tell him: ‘Dad,we’re from Los Angeles,’” says Karnazes.

Popou also has a maverick streak. Twoyears ago the 75-year-old challengedhimself to play 96 rounds of golf in 48 stateswithin 96 days. He completed 108 rounds.“Obsession? That’s a shared family trait,”confirms Karnazes. “My dad inspires memore than anyone.”

Karnazes describes himself as an introvertby nature.“There is a psychological analysisscale called the Myers-Briggs test they giveto a lot of high-level executives. I havescored the highest introvert reading theyhave seen. I’m a hermit, basically.”

For all he puts his body through, he’snever had a long-term injury. “I have been

tested in every imaginable way, from gaitanalysis to my VO2 max [aerobic capacity],lactic acid levels and blood chemistry, andthe doctors have all told me I have the bodyof a 20-year-old.”

Is he simply physiologically blessed, then?Karnazes suddenly looks bashful: “I’m anaverage guy. I love what I’m doing. If some-one loves what they are doing they can excel.Anyone who is willing to sacrifice, commitand dedicate themselves the way I have,they can do it.”

Such ishispeakphysicalfitness,Karnazeshas a resting heart rate of 39 beats perminute (a typical adult’s is 60-80 bpm) and3.6% body fat,compared to the healthy maleaverage of 10-20%. During his journeyacross America he burned through an esti-mated 467,000 calories, the downside ofhis leanness meaning he couldn’t tap intofat stores for fuel. “I was burning 500-600calories per hour which meant, if I wasrunning 10 hours a day, I needed an addi-tional 6000 calories otherwise I would havesuffered muscle atrophy. Some days I ranfor 15 hours, which is a lot of food.”

Early in his running career, Karnazeswas notorious for ordering pizza on theroad to devour as he ran. These days, hehas sharpened up his diet. “I used to eat alot of junk food,” he says. “But right now Idon’t eat any refined foods, no packagedstuff. It’s pretty much all natural andorganic foods.During the run I tried to stickto that diet. I ate full-fat yogurt, lots ofberries, bananas and almonds.”

No pizza? Karnazes throws back his

From top: Karnazes in New York in May after running across the USfor 75 consecutive days; in Hyde Park, London with Herald Magazinewriter Susan Swarbrick; and flanking Michelle Obama outside theWhite House en route to New York photographs: rex features

interview

If youdon’t failsometimes thenyouare not pushingyourself hard enough’

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16.07.11 theheraldmagazine 17

head and laughs. “I’ll never live thatdown,” he says. “I probably had about adozen pizzas delivered to me out on theroad. People could track my progress liveon GPS so I would come round a corner andthere would be a pizza delivery guy stand-ing there saying: ‘Dave from Cincinnati sentyou a pizza.’ So I did eat pizza – at least apiece.”

With each challenge completed,Karnazesimmediately looks to the next. Crossing thefinish line in NewYork was a moment tingedwith disappointment. “When I got into thestudio and there was the big celebration,that was the low point,” he says. “It wasthe journey that made the magic, not thefinish line.”

His next big adventure – completing amarathon within every country in one year– is scheduled to begin in November 2012and finish with the NewYork City marathonin November 2013. “The UN recognises204 countries and I want to include NorthKorea andAfghanistan,places whereWest-erners typically don’t have access to,”Karnazes says.

Isn’theconcernedabout therisks?“Scareds***less,”he laughs.“The travel will be tough,particularly inAsia andAfrica where thingsare so spread out. It’s going to be trains,planes, automobiles, rickshaws, donkeys,even swimming in some places, just to getin and out. I’ll be sure to time my run inScotland when there are no midges.”

With the interview wrapped, Karnazesinvites me to pull on my running shoes andjoin him for a jog through Hyde Park. I jump

at the chance to run a mile (and a bit) in hisshoes. As the afternoon sun beats down,London is a cauldron of humidity. There isa hazy mirage on the tarmac path aheadand soon I’m in my own personal Badwater,perspiration beading on my forehead andcollecting in slick pools under my arms.Karnazes smiles sympathetically as myface turns puce, kindly offering to hail us ataxi back to the hotel. But we carry on. Aswe pass the Natural History Museum, awoman shrieks: “Oh my God! You’re DeanKarnazes. Can I get my picture taken?”

Though startled, Karnazes smiles andduly obliges.We run on but the deer-in-the-headlights expression returns when anelderly gent calls out:“Saw you on television.Good luck with your future endeavours.”

“You get used to it,” says Karnazes, hisexpression somewhere between bemusedand embarrassed. Another few steps andanAmerican man shouts:“I’m your biggestfan. I love you, man!”

After the fourth, fifth and sixth encounterI learn that it’s best just to wave and keeprunning. I can see why Karnazes craves thesolitude of the remote trails near his Cali-fornia home.By theend ofour run Karnazesis as cool as a cucumber,while I’m sweatinglike beetroot.

Spotting the hotel, I make a dash for theshade, unintentionally leaving Karnazeseating dust in my wake. It’s only as hecatches up that I realise what’s happened.“Wow,” he says. “You beat the ultramara-thon man.”And I really did.n

Run! 26.2 Stories Of Blisters And Bliss byDean Karnazes is published by Allen &Unwin, priced £10.99.Karnazes is preparing to run a marathon in every country within a year

interview