Dan Martell - October 09, 2023


I attempted The Ultra Marathon (50KMs)

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Martell Noah Big White Masogi Renee Dave
The lighthouse vs the tugboat You have to let them hit rock bottom

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

160.62

Word count

1,723

Sentence count

132

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A little over two weeks ago, we were preparing for the Squamish Ultra, a famous race in Canada. It's one of the most popular ones in the 50k category, and the Thursday before we were supposed to leave, a fire took off.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I wanted to push myself past where I'd ever been before.
00:00:03.800 I wanted to do the 50K Ultra, an incredible feat for me.
00:00:08.820 The longest run I've ever done in my life.
00:00:11.740 The most elevation, the hardest terrain.
00:00:15.600 It was my Masogi for the year.
00:00:16.980 It was that one event that was going to shape me and push me and really just seeing what I'm made of.
00:00:24.700 A little over two weeks ago, we were preparing for the Squamish Ultra.
00:00:29.680 It's a famous race in Canada.
00:00:31.060 It's one of the most popular ones in the 50K category.
00:00:34.540 And the Thursday before we were supposed to leave, a fire took off.
00:00:39.160 The Kelowna wildfire.
00:00:41.060 I thought the whole town was going to burn down.
00:00:42.660 So we go wake surfing.
00:00:44.520 Blue skies, but just this massive smoke line through the air.
00:00:49.060 But we didn't think much of it.
00:00:50.460 And then it got bad fast.
00:00:54.120 As we're parking the boat, we could see the fire crest the top of the mountain.
00:00:58.300 Two hours later, the whole side of the mountain's on fire.
00:01:00.900 Most people were stunned.
00:01:02.120 You could just see for miles just people standing there watching this fire sound.
00:01:06.960 Devastating wildfires ripped through the central Okanagan this afternoon.
00:01:10.740 There was just no part of me that felt comfortable.
00:01:12.480 Dan came home and he's like, we need to leave now.
00:01:14.900 I have a responsibility to keep my family safe.
00:01:16.500 Took us an hour and a half to pack up everything.
00:01:18.240 We had to evacuate at like 10 p.m.
00:01:20.820 And we left.
00:01:22.020 Good thing we got out fast.
00:01:28.300 That night, half the group had decided, because of the wildfires, that they weren't in the
00:01:33.220 headspace.
00:01:34.220 They weren't going to do the race.
00:01:37.360 The other half, we decided to make our way up to Squamish, about a two-hour drive.
00:01:43.280 And when we got there, there was smoke.
00:01:45.280 We got a six out of ten negative error score.
00:01:49.280 Tomorrow morning, it's supposed to go to seven.
00:01:51.860 It was a back and forth, back and forth.
00:01:53.860 Curtis and I are still debating.
00:01:55.900 Are we doing it?
00:01:56.900 No, we're not doing it.
00:01:57.900 that's a good decision. Then we decide we're gonna go register. They don't know
00:02:01.260 that we just checked in though. I haven't told her. They're all like, I'm proud of that, making her a decision.
00:02:06.300 Not anymore. We'll see. We'll see what she thinks, bye. It was a very unhealthy day in Squamish.
00:02:14.060 The smoke was unbelievable. And the smoke kept getting worse and worse and worse.
00:02:20.140 It eventually got to a place where a lot of people were not doing the race. If
00:02:24.240 If you're out on a mountain range and all of a sudden the wind shifts or blows harder,
00:02:28.860 you're in the middle of it, where are you going to run to?
00:02:32.680 Do you really want to put your body and your lungs at risk at that level?
00:02:36.980 I had to be honest with myself.
00:02:40.420 Like, why am I doing this?
00:02:42.040 Eventually, we just decided it wasn't worth the downside.
00:02:46.260 There's part of me that was relieved.
00:02:47.480 I generally believed for the sake of his health that that smoke was going to affect him.
00:02:51.620 but I knew in the back of my mind that he was going to run it someday.
00:02:54.840 I want a race.
00:02:56.700 Trained, showed up, consistent, vacations, run.
00:03:01.220 Weekends, run.
00:03:02.300 Don't feel like running, run.
00:03:04.360 He can't just train for it, talk about it, and not do it.
00:03:08.640 This is Dan.
00:03:09.440 I just kept having this nagging feeling.
00:03:11.820 I was like, am I really not going to do a 50 this year?
00:03:14.460 That was the part that was eating me up inside.
00:03:16.100 When you say you're going to do something, you got to do it.
00:03:18.940 The Monday after, I was in the gym.
00:03:21.360 i was training i was lifting and i just took out my phone i messaged davis i'm doing 50 on sunday
00:03:26.560 he's like you're seriously gonna do it and i said yeah i'm gonna do it essentially we got on a zoom
00:03:30.560 call and designed so this 54k is the route that we've designed to do but it is gnarly when dan
00:03:42.320 wanted to run the 50k on his own course i just thought of course he's going to do this the fact
00:03:48.160 that i'm doing this unsupported is crazy if he like gets hurt it'd be probably like a kilometer
00:03:54.320 walk from the closest thing nearby nobody recommends it's unsupported by myself it's
00:03:59.600 an ultra it's my first i've never done it before so man i'm looking forward to it
00:04:03.760 i slept really good that's always the saving grace
00:04:10.120 i always get up early ding dong
00:04:15.920 i know i'm getting ready and i'm going
00:04:20.060 have a morning routine just had my peanut butter banana bagel coffee i want to get the coffee in
00:04:27.300 early some electrolytes make sure i'm well hydrated
00:04:33.760 Alright, are we going to see you guys at the finish line?
00:04:37.760 Yeah. Thanks bud. Chop wood, carry water.
00:04:41.760 How do you run 50k? One foot in front of the other.
00:04:45.760 If you look at the route, so
00:04:49.760 back side of that mountain with the tower, highway 33 on your way to Big White,
00:04:53.760 in there, start, back, all the way up to the top
00:04:57.760 of that peak, down, cross the valley, hit Mount Baldy,
00:05:01.760 come up all the way on the backside of this then all the way to the top of that
00:05:06.200 mountain all the way to the top of that mountain all the way down and then all
00:05:10.700 the way up that ridge to the backside pretty much where McKinley is all the
00:05:17.120 way up across those humps it's almost like the backside of a dinosaur and then
00:05:22.520 I scoot across all the way back down the valley up into Knox get a run up Ogopogo
00:05:28.820 trail, which is about 500 meters straight up.
00:05:31.200 That would be mile, kilometer 40. 1.00
00:05:35.820 It's just stupid. 0.99
00:05:36.980 Yeah, the plan is to finish here. 1.00
00:05:38.600 Let's go start one foot in front of the other. 0.92
00:05:44.180 It's getting real.
00:05:46.340 Prepped, ready to go.
00:05:55.280 I'm doing it for the firefighters today.
00:05:58.820 My big why for my run is for the BC firefighters, the guys that gave themselves their lives to save our homes.
00:06:11.180 Starting the run. Pretty much running to the top of that. It's called Black Mountain. Here we go.
00:06:22.280 Almost an hour in. First peak in sight right there. Oh my gosh, what a day!
00:06:28.820 The taste is good, the taste is good.
00:06:35.020 My buddy Dave surprised me with an aid station
00:06:37.340 on the first big traverse up and down a mountain,
00:06:39.860 about 20K in, and then he ran with me for about 12K.
00:06:43.440 He's come to join the assault.
00:06:45.620 He actually created it, which I absolutely needed.
00:06:48.120 It was super fun, just hanging out.
00:06:49.580 I'm at 22, 23K, halfway.
00:06:52.860 The thing about racing is that the challenge
00:06:55.340 doesn't start until more than halfway.
00:06:58.140 And it was like kilometer 30, 32,
00:07:01.240 where we came down this major two kilometer downhill.
00:07:04.140 My legs stopped.
00:07:05.360 It was like, I couldn't turn them over.
00:07:07.580 Turns out after about four hours of running
00:07:10.240 up and down mountains,
00:07:11.080 your legs don't want to respond.
00:07:12.420 I was walking.
00:07:13.780 I was trying to run.
00:07:14.960 My left knee started to hurt.
00:07:16.660 And I was worried.
00:07:17.500 I started thinking to myself like,
00:07:19.200 am I going to have to walk the rest of this?
00:07:21.180 Like, am I going to have to walk for the next 15K?
00:07:23.380 And I was thinking, what's that time going to look like?
00:07:25.260 And I was like, no, no, I'm here to race.
00:07:30.680 Dan does Ironmans and 50K Ultras and swims eight kilometers across the lake
00:07:37.400 because it's his addiction and it's a healthy one.
00:07:41.900 I learned so much about myself when I suffered.
00:07:45.740 Every race I've ever done, the last 10% is when I've learned something about myself.
00:07:55.260 The very last part of the race was straight up, literally almost stairs.
00:08:01.160 Got a huge uphill, 300 meters elevation, 47 kilometers in, three left.
00:08:07.520 And it took everything I had inside.
00:08:11.320 I was sweating profusely.
00:08:13.080 It was super hot out.
00:08:14.320 I just had to keep reminding myself that I get to.
00:08:16.960 All I keep thinking about is that I get to do this.
00:08:20.000 I get to race.
00:08:20.940 I get to run.
00:08:21.800 I get to move my body.
00:08:22.960 I get to be here today.
00:08:23.960 and it was just such an important reminder for me to just get past the pain of going straight
00:08:28.840 up the mountain. 1.2 kilometers left. Everything I do is to be better for Max and Noah and Renee.
00:08:42.760 I didn't expect to see them there. When I saw them in the woods they were cheering me on and
00:08:46.920 I just broke down.
00:08:50.620 Oh, it was such a beautiful moment.
00:08:53.620 I gave them hugs and kisses, and I kept going and dropped down the hill.
00:08:56.720 And I looked back, and Max and Noah were running behind me.
00:08:59.520 You guys gonna keep coming?
00:09:00.720 Yeah.
00:09:01.520 Okay.
00:09:02.320 Keep going.
00:09:03.220 You ask my kids, what does it mean to be a Martell?
00:09:05.520 They're gonna tell you.
00:09:06.320 That we can do hard things.
00:09:08.220 Kids don't listen to what you say.
00:09:10.620 They watch what you do.
00:09:11.820 Because one of our values as a family is Martell's do hard things.
00:09:16.920 to run with them for that last kilometer that made this race better than any race i'd ever run
00:09:23.280 before because that happened the easiest way to apply the philosophies i'm sharing today
00:09:28.140 in your life is just get up and go to the gym and if you've been going for 45 minutes go for
00:09:33.160 an hour if you've been lifting 60 pound weights go to 65 like whatever part of your life that
00:09:39.420 you know there's an opportunity to add a little extra just do that that's all i'm doing people
00:09:43.660 see my chapter you know let's call it 25 and they compare that against their chapter three that's
00:09:50.160 just not fair don't think well I could never do that you absolutely could you can learn over time
00:09:55.480 to build the capacity to do it I'm just suggesting start today with something simple if you haven't
00:10:01.540 worked out in a while go outside for a walk don't allow yourself to not push yourself a little bit
00:10:07.320 today
00:10:13.660 Thank you.