Dean Can't Stop Running

From Champoli.com
Let’s say you’ve run 300 miles non-stop, you’ve run 1310 miles in 50 days (make that 50 marathons, in 50 different states), and logged over 5000 race miles in a single year.  What do you do next?  How about becoming the first human to run across all five major deserts in the world in a single calendar year.  Does that sound crazy?  It sounds like Dean Karnazes.
In between desert runs - he just ran across the Sahara Desert and leaves for the last desert run in Antarctica in two weeks - Dean is out and about promoting his new book 50/50: Secrets I learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days along with his continued commitment to improving youth health through his Karno Kids organization.
At the end of the day Dean is all about Inspiration.  He is inspired to test the limits of human endurance, inspired to live a life of activity, inspired to help improve the health of kids,  as well as to inspire everyone to achieve goals greater than they thought possible.  “It’s a two-way street.  I also draw inspiration from the many people I meet along the way,” says Karnazes.
Dean described his goal of running 50 marathons in 50 days, in 50 states as his ultimate family vacation.  The original inspiration was a family traveling by camper, seeing the country, and testing his ability to chain together daily endurance runs.  “I remember hearing about a George Thorogood tour where they played 50 concerts in 50 days in 50 states and thought, ‘wouldn’t that be fun to do with running.’”
But when The North Face jumped in to sponsor the effort along with hiring a world class logistics company the idea was hatched to make this a much larger event where people could join Dean for runs.  The formalized logistics team and sponsors worked with race directors in every state to make sure they were covering official marathon courses with official start and stop times.  The marathon tour also took advantage of premier events that are held on weekends such as the marathons in Boston, San Francisco, and New York.
“I really enjoyed running with people every day.  I am normally an introvert and enjoy the solitude of running but I found during the course of the 50 marathon journey that I really looked forward to meeting with a new group of people the next day.” said Karnazes.  “I ran with one woman who was 53 years old and was completing her 50th marathon on the day she ran with me.  By the way, she never ran a marathon before she turned 50 and she had survived a battle with breast cancer.  Talk about inspirational.”
How does one train to get ready to tackle 50 consecutive marathons?  “I worked with Chris Carmichael who trained Lance Armstrong for the Tour de France races and ran eight 100 mile or greater races leading up to the 50:50 effort.   The thinking was that if I could run and recover from races over 100 miles then 26.2 miles wouldn’t feel so bad every day.”
In response to why he did it and why he wrote the book Dean had a pretty simple response.  “One, for the challenge.  But also to get peoples attention that you can do great things.  My hope for the book is really that when the reader turns the last page of the book that they are inspired to go out and do something.”
When asked about his favorite local run - Dean lives in Marin County - he lit up in describing the course.  “I like to tuck the kids in bed on Friday night and then head out north of San Francisco, through Nicasio and Napa Valley to Calistoga.  It is a 75 mile route and when the kids wake up in the morning the family drives up to Calistoga and meets me for breakfast.”
That is a story that might make you feel a little guilty for sleeping in on Saturdays.  Run, Dean.  Run.
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