Whenever I start to think that my pursuit of the Ironman is a little crazy I do what any other perfectly sane person would do.

I search for people doing even crazier crap on the Internet.

Two years ago my “find crazier people”  Internet search led me to the Badwater Ultra Marathon. That’s some crazy stuff there, people.

Fast forward two years and I actually personally know somebody who has completed the Badwater race. He actually seems, normal. In fact I would say he’s nice and intelligent and very philanthropic. Although he is clearly attracted to ultra distance stuff.

He recently did a fundraiser where he did 1,000 pull ups in a Lululemon store to raise money. I think I might be able to do 2 pullups (with the easy grip).

This year that same guy is going to compete in something called Furnace Creek 508. Look it up. It’s one long bike ride. To qualify he recently did a 300 mile ride in 24 hours. That itself seems like a lot to me. But it’s not the most extreme thing people are doing.

One of his friends / training buddies Jen Vogel,  completed an Ultra Triathlon (yes there is such a thing). A Double Ironman. Give it a second. Let that sink in.  A double Ironman. And just wait … The swim for this double Ironman is in a swimming pool. I’m not making this up. Look it up here yourself.

I don’t know her personally but clearly these folks are amazing endurance athletes.

What’s more if you keep your eyes open you meet people all over the place doing things like this. I recently learned that one of the dad’s in my daughter’s gymnastics team is planning on running 4, one hundred mile ultra marathons this year. That’s impressive.

Plus if you haven’t heard about RAAM. That’s one extreme race, especially if you do it solo.

And I think the most extreme thing I’ve found is the DecaIronman. This you have to read to believe.

More importantly the fact that these folks are doing these amazing ultra things makes my pursuit of a single, albeit somewhat hilly, Ironman seem much more reasonable and far less nerve wracking.

Also, I want to add. None of these things is on my to do list. Nuh uh. nope. no way.

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What’s funny is that this post – this perspective shift eventually became the Mile after Mile Podcast. I’m not quite sure if this post still belongs on the blog.