>>Clare Balding: The thing I didn't mention
in the introduction as well, the extremes
of temperature that you have dealt with, running
across Death Valley in 150 degrees.
>>Dean Karnazes: Yeah.
I'm into this theory of never stop exploring
your potential.
You are right, I did run 50 marathons in all
50 U.S. states in 50 days, which many people
thought would be impossible, myself included.
I thought, What's next?
This is a photo of running across Death Valley
in the middle of summer.
So in this photo, it's 127 degrees.
It is about 55 degrees centigrade.
And it is a 135-mile continuous footrace from
the lowest point in the western hemisphere,
which is Badwater, to the top of Mount Whitney,
which is the highest point in the contiguous
U.S.
The idea is to run from the lowest point to
the highest point over 135 miles and somehow
live.
And this crossing took me 28 hours of non-stop
running.
>>Clare Balding: Why are you running on the
white line?
>>Dean Karnazes: That's a good question.
So the temperature on the asphalt, on the
black, is actually 200 degrees and your shoes
will melt.
So the white deflects the sun and it is not
quite as hot, so you must stay on the white
line to avoid your shoes melting like marshmallows.
[ Laughter ]
>>Clare Balding: Extraordinary.
Not because the police were after you, are
you drunk?
Why would you do this?
I imagine an awful lot of people ask you why,
and we may touch on that.
But how is also a question, I think, worth
answering and particularly in this setting.
How do you do it?
And when did you realize that you could?
>>Dean Karnazes: Well, I think a race like
this, 135-mile footrace, I mean, you run the
first half of it with your legs and the second
half with your mind.
So I think that, how do you do it?
It is as much of a mental challenge as a physical
challenge.
Your body can only go so far.
I learned about my particular talent on a
bad night of drinking on my 30th birthday.
I actually walked out of a bar.
I hadn't -- out of a pub, a nightclub.
Hadn't been running for about a decade.
Used to love to run as a kid and said to my
mates, I'm going to run 30 miles tonight to
celebrate my 30th birthday.
They said, You're drunk.
What are you -- I said, I am but I am still
going to do it.
So I literally walked out of the bar at 11:00
at night and ran straight through the night
30 miles and thought, That was extraordinary.
Why am I alive?
How could I do that?
And just got worse from there.
>>Clare Balding: and You got a real kick from
that, did you?
>>Dean Karnazes: When I sobered up, I thought,
This is the dumbest thing I have ever done.
[ Laughter ]
>>Dean Karnazes: What the hell am I doing?
But it felt right.
It felt like there was something about the
purpose of what I was doing that meant something
to me.
I mean, I was a business guy.
I had gone through and gotten an MBA, business
degree.
And I was in the corporate world, and it wasn't
me.
I didn't feel natural, comfortable in my own
skin.
And running all night like that, it awoken
something in me, a true passion.
>>Clare Balding: This was your epiphany.
>>Dean Karnazes: A couple blisters, you know,
yeah, a little chaffing where the sun don't
shine and that's where I was, yeah.
>>Clare Balding: The 50 marathons in 50 days
presumably got a lot of attention and you
were visiting all 50 states, or could you
start off quietly and then finish with a big
crowd?
>>Dean Karnazes: Yeah.
So, there are 50 marathons in all of the 50
U.S. states.
Most of them were organized marathons.
Some of them were recreations of that city's
marathon.
Iowa on a Tuesday, there is no organized marathon.
So the race director of the Iowa Marathon
set up his official starting line and let
us follow the sanction certified course and
finish at the finish line.
This particular photo is the New York City
marathon, which was the 50th in 50 consecutive
days.
I will never forget, that was my strongest
marathon.
So I finished this particular run in 3 hours,
30 seconds, which is pretty respectable if
any of you run marathons.
[ Laughter ]
>>Dean Karnazes: And race official came running
over to me after and said, I can't believe
you're here.
I can't believe you're standing.
Did you want to beat Lance?
It was the year that Lance Armstrong had done
it.
I was about 10 seconds behind him.
He looked horrible, by the way.
That was hard for him.
But I said, no --
>>Clare Balding: Because you looked so good?
>>Dean Karnazes: I had no desire to beat Lance
Armstrong.
The only person I wanted to beat was P. Diddy,
the rap star.
I saw him at the start and he had all these
gold chains and he was surrounded by this
posse.
I thought if that joker beats me, after 50
marathons, I would be so humiliated.
[ Laughter ]
>>Clare Balding: In terms of sort of after
your 30th birthday then, sort of resetting
your body, what did you do to change what
you ate, how you lived, and change your whole
course of life?
>>Dean Karnazes: Well, I famously ate a lot
of junk food early in my career.
In fact, I will never live down the story.
I was out on a long run one night.
I had no food.
I did have a cell phone and a credit card
and I thought, What do I do?
I'm starving.
So I ordered a pizza.
I just had them deliver it to me out on the
run, and I kind of rolled it up in this big
burrito and kind of ate it as I ran.
People say I was incredible to have a pizza
delivery.
I thought it was the smartest thing ever.
I have refined my diet over the years to really
hone in on what helps me perform at my best.
And so I have evolved.
People change.
I no longer eat pizza.
I have really perfected my diet based on my
performance.
Yeah.
>>Clare Balding: The technology side of things
in your life is extraordinary as well.
Just explain about the watch you wear when
you are running.
>>Dean Karnazes: I have been an early adapter
of technology.
I run with a MOTOACTV device.
I don't know if anyone has heard of MOTOACTV.
It is by Motorola Mobility, which Google now
owns.
And it basically keeps a biometric record
of my pulse through a wireless ear bud, so
it is Bluetooth technology.
And then when I walk back into my house, when
I get within my WiFi, it uploads it all to
the cloud.
>>Clare Balding: Automatically.
>>Dean Karnazes: Automatically.
So I can just look at how many miles I covered,
what was my pace.
I can actually view my route.
I can look at feet ascending, descending.
I can look at how many calories I burned.
And I'm going to get some of those glasses
and maybe spot a pizza and it will say, No,
1,000 calories.
You only burned 800, you can't eat that.
It is quite sophisticated technology.
It let's me track my performance daily.
>>Clare Balding: What for you is the most
enjoyable moment of any given challenge?
>>Dean Karnazes: The pain.
(chuckles).
>>Dean Karnazes: To me it is the idea --
>>Clare Balding: Are you being serious, or
are you joking?
>>Dean Karnazes: I think that -- no, in a
sense, I think that we, at least in the U.S.,
have thought in the absence of pain, in the
presence of complete comfort, we would be
happy.
That was the key to happiness, is comfort.
And I think we're so comfortable, we're miserable.
So I find, as many of these gentlemen do,
that I'm never more alive than when I'm struggling
for something, and in pain.
And I really embrace that.
But it's the idea of never stop exploring,
of being the best me that I can be, and constantly
setting the bar higher and higher and looking
for that next challenge, yeah.
