Running to Mental Health

On today’s episode of the Running to Mental Health Podcast, I interview Marshall Ulrich. Let me list below some of his accomplishments:

• Completed 121 ultra marathons averaging over 100 miles each
• Reached the summit of each of the Seven Summits, including Mount Everest, all on first attempts
• Competed in all nine Eco Challenge adventure races – something only two other people in the world have done – and has competed 12 expedition length adventure races
• Crossed Death Valley a record 21 times, including a solo and 586-mile quad crossing
• Completed a 3,063 mile run across America, equal to 117 marathons in 52.5 days
• Won the Badwater 146 mile race from minus 282 feet to the 14,494 foot summit of Mount Whitney a record 4 times
• Finished a record 15 Badwater ultra marathons
• Completed the Leadville Trail 100 and Pikes Peak Marathon on the same weekend – a feat no one else in the world haa achieved
• Completed all six 100 mile trail races, finishing in the top 10 in five of them in the same year, the first person to do so
• Won two silver medals in the national 24 hour championships with a PR of 142 miles.

Is that enough? Well, he has also raised over $839,500 for charity.

We talk about several issues. Marsh’s first wife died of cancer, so we discuss the effect of running on grief. We discuss his views on the effect of getting away from the world (particularly technology) into the natural environment and it’s effect on mental health. We finally discuss the aging process and how it affects running.

Marshall can be reached at his website, www.marshallulrich.com. He is open to people writing him at [email protected].

Please pick up his book, Running on Empty: An Ultramarathoner’s Story of Love, Loss, and a Record Setting Run Across America.