Six miles left, flat ground, you'd think flat would be a relief after 25 miles of trails and 5,000 feet of vert, but flat is where you got nowhere to hide. No hill to walk up, no descent to let gravity carry you. Just you and the pace you can hold.
I was running a full two minutes slower per mile than my marathon pace from a few months back and fighting to hold it. Thirty-one miles into the Chuckanut 50K and there were no questions left, I had changed my mindset the days going into the race, I only committed to being at the start line, everything else was bonus. I had DNF'd a 50k before, I knew I was more than capable of pushing myself hard once the miles started melting away. The hardest part was showing up, this was where I just needed to do the work.
Stuck
Spring of 2024 I was in the midst of the worst career burnout I've ever experienced. A series of lows at work followed by a series of highs in traveling and I knew something had to change. I almost took a job in Japan at the ill-fated Ubisoft Osaka, I was no stranger to international moves having worked in Sweden for a few years. A international move had been the answer before, change the scenery and the situation, but this time I knew it wasn't.
So I started running.
Run clubs became the pillars of my week. My week had no shape and run club gave it bones. Monday Night Track, Wednesday Evening Run, Frelard on Thursday, those days were locked. I reoriented my entire life around making it on time. The schedule gave me structure and the people who showed up gave the structure a reason to hold. I had played soccer once a week for nearly my entire adult life and was no stranger to running a few hundred yards but building the aerobic engine to have a "conversational" pace was a humbling process. The fitness and the people filled gaps I didn't know were there.
The First Marathon
Sometime in the fall of 2024 I ran a 5k, Diplos Run Club, a race followed by a rave. I couldn't even break 30 minutes that morning but I loved every moment of it. The following day I signed up for the Seattle Half-Marathon. While training for that I slightly injured myself on a run and while recovering from that I decided it was time and signed up for the 50th Los Angeles Marathon.
My dad has run over 20 marathons including the 2nd ever 1987 LA Marathon so it only felt right I aimed for it as my first. During that training block I had no idea if I could run the distance. It wasn't a perfect block but I poured everything into it in a way I hadn't done with anything in a long time. At work I'd be going through the motions, the training block was the opposite, it felt like forward progress again.
In the Spring of 2025 I ran my first Marathon in a little over 4 hours.
The Second Marathon
I had a goal of sub four hours when I ran LA so even before finishing the race I knew I had unfinished business with the distance. I signed up for the California International Marathon.
By the summer of 2025 I was in a very different place. I was kicking ass at work, working on side projects I'm proud of, and still training. My life was more complete, more balanced, which introduced a different kind of worry, could I still push myself as hard physically when I wasn't running from something?
In December of 2025 I ran CIM in 3 hours 51 minutes taking off over 25 minutes from my previous PR. It wasn't a perfect training block by any means but I was able to complete the distance, run a PR, all while balancing life and work. Turns out you can push just as hard from a good place, maybe harder.
Chuckanut
The Chuckanut 50K is not a road marathon. A road marathon is you pushing, nearly redlining for the duration of the race. A trail ultra is a different animal.
Thirty-one miles, 5,000 feet of elevation gain, just over seven hours. It's a rollercoaster, I went through waves of feeling good and waves of pain, but the trail lets you cycle through them differently. Ankles hurt from jogging the flats? Walk up a mountain. Quads hurt from climbing? Flex the fast-twitch muscles and sprint down a hill. The terrain is constantly changing, and so is the version of you running it.
Then it ends with six flat miles and you have to find something you thought you used up hours ago. I started that final 10k with a thought, less than an hour left, should be easy. It was not. The minds elastic ability to endure suffering is amazing, with hours left you can tuck it away, theres nothing to do but keep moving. With only a few miles left the mind is screaming at you to stop. I passed that marathon distance feeling good, at mile 27 there was no space in my mind for anything other than breath. Turns out I still got that dog in me.
The Body Knows
There is a version of processing that only happens under load. Therapy works, talking works. But there's something about pushing your body to a threshold where the emotions you've been holding finally surface. Grief, relief, joy, stuff that only comes out when the body is too tired to keep it down. The head can hold onto things forever, the body won't let you.
I don't have an answer to burnout, but I found a way through it.
My solution was to know your body, because it knows you. The big race events aren't even really healthy for you, you train so you can do them. But that's the point. It's not the opposite of productivity, it's a different engine. A way to use your energy differently, entirely orthogonal to the work I do on a computer.
If you're burnt out, go touch grass. Go for a walk, do karaoke at the bar, get drunk with your friends. Go outside. Don't start the MBA application process. The answer to "I'm stuck in my head" is almost never more time in your head.
I have immense gratitude for a body that still shows up. That's not a small thing. You ask it to do something hard and it says yes, even when the training wasn't perfect, even when the sleep wasn't there, even when you weren't sure it would.
Big Dog Moves
The months before the race I was interviewing and preparing for a big life change. The training definitely suffered. I missed runs, cut corners and showed up to the start line knowing the block wasn't what it should've been. The confidence I brought to those interview rooms came from the first marathon, in a roundabout way. The running had rebuilt me and the second marathon proved it held. But now I was spending all that energy on a career move and wondering if there was enough left for the trail.
The day before the race was my last day at Microsoft. It was the longest job I've ever held.
A big dog move is betting on yourself when it would feel safer not to. It's walking into a room and knowing you belong there. It's leaving something stable and good because you need more than good. It's showing up to a start line undertrained and deciding that's not the thing that stops you today.