Texas A&M Cadet Ethan Kimes’ Record Setting 830 Mile Self-Supported Trans-Texas FKT

This isn't a tale of an elite runner surrounded by a mobile support team of nutritionists , trainers and medics looking after their every need .

This is the story of Ethan Kimes , US Army cadet and member of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University , who chose to embark on a solo , self-supported run across Texas , facing the unknown , the unpredictable and the unimaginable , all on his own . Welcome again to the Choose to Endure podcast , the go-to show for back-of-the-pack ultra-runners .

Join us as we explore uplifting stories , interviews , gear and training tips , all tailored towards the unsung heroes at the back end of the Ultra Universe . My name is Richard Gleave . I've been ultra-running since 2017 , finishing numerous ultra distances all the way up through 200 miles .

I'm a qualified US-ca running coach and I'm , unashamedly , a founder member of the back-of-the-pack , just like you .

So , with the vast expanse of Texas now firmly behind him and a story that transcends every step of his remarkable journey , ethan joins us to share his insights , struggles , moments of triumph and anything else really that defined his trans-Texas run From preparation to execution and the personal revelations in between .

Stick around as we're about to uncover what it really takes to endure such an epic solo adventure . Welcome to the Choose to Enjoy show . First of all , congrats , I believe . Actually today you were officially ratified as having the self-supported trans-Texas FKT , correct ?

So you know , like you said , I'm a US Army cadet and a member of the Corps of Cadets and I , just before we begin , I want to say thank you , of course , for allowing me on and to come talk with you and to your listeners , but everything I say is my own opinion and doesn't reflect Texas A&M , the Corps of Cadets , the Department of the Army or the

Department of Defense . But again , thank you so much for allowing me on , sir .

And I want to get into the FKT thing at some point as well , because I was checking the website there and looking at all the posts that you put out there on the fastest known timecom website and , man , there is a ton of GPS data that you had to come up with to put out there .

So I would love to get into how you kind of sorted that out at some point too . But first of all , let's get started from the beginning , shall we ? You've done this amazing journey , but what on earth put this idea in your head ? And then how did you turn it into a reality ? Like , what was the thinking here ? How did this even come up as an idea ?

And he grabbed me and metaphorically , of course , did not actually grab me . But we start talking and you know , lieutenant Colonel , retired Kelly is a marathon runner and he has run over , I want to say , 60 marathons now and 25 plus states .

He's trying to get the one in 50 states and then eventually he and I are going to go do the seven marathons in each continent in seven days . And oh yeah , well , so I'm a 17 year old student at the time and he tells me he goes . You know , I run these marathons and I go , sir , I run two miles .

You know I'm basically like you two miles , 26 miles , it's more or less the same thing and I go . Well , there has to be more than a marathon . And because I was going to prove him wrong , right , I can do more than you . So there is a run over in Texas and it is a about a 70 miler is slipping my head right now .

It's Possum's revenge , or Possum's , yeah , possum's revenge . So , I'm 17 , maybe pushing 18 years old , and I sign up for the 70 miler . And again , I've done a two miler before , maybe a five miler like a 5k or something , and so I get up to the 70 miler .

I rent an Airbnb the cheapest one that they had which was an old crack house , and me and three other guys we all sign up for the 70 miler . We get out there . We don't have a headlamp , we have like a water bottle , richard , like a gas station water bottle . That's our water source . So we're out there and we're trying to run .

I ended up only getting about 52 miles total , but you know , towards the night I was using a phone light from my iPhone to get light on the course , so that wasn't a good one . But you know , I instantly fell in love with the sport , right . And then I get back and I hear about these things called timed races and I'm like what do you mean ?

It's a timed race . So you know , you go out there for 72 hours and what do you do ? You just run . So I go out to this one with Chase and Casey Hammond over at a Kansas called the sticks , and I did it the inaugural year and I'm 18 now , and actually they were putting it on when my high school graduation happened .

So I skipped my high school graduation to go run in the sticks . And so I get there and at the time I'm taking 18 hours of community college online because we were still in that weird COVID phase . So I was running during the day .

At night I'd do a little bit of homework , sleep for three or four and then go run again , and I didn't know that you were supposed to change your socks over three days .

So at the end of it , chase and their parents and Casey's parents , they go hey , you have like three pairs of socks on and I have like three OD green army knee high socks that I was wearing , like all three of them layered on top of each other , and they take them off . And I know , and I just had these gnarly blisters , richard , oh my goodness .

And again I fell in love . You know I drove back to Texas and I told my mom I found my people . You know they let me wake up , eat , burn a little bit of calories and then go to bed , right ? So , and then from there , you know , we met each other over at Cowboy , which I will talk about later , but it's just been a .

You know every single person I've met . It's been awesome . And compared to the 5k world I know we talk about , we go run 5k ultras but compared to the 5k racing world , I love the ultra world , richard .

You know , you and I we've only met once in person and I would consider you a good friend , a best friend , and I really respect you and what you're doing and that just shows you . You know you go out there and you're vulnerable for 10 or 12 hours and it's just the bond that you get , the shared trauma . It's insane and I really enjoy it .

It's why the trail group is so close , and the further you go , the less it's about speed and the more it's just about each person on their journey trying to get , trying to get to wherever they need to be , and I love the fact that everybody is so invested in each other , just trying to try to be the best person you can be , trying to get to the finish .

And I don't know . You know you talked about Jason and Casey and and Cowboy and that was a really good indicator of the trail community , right , especially with your finish up there . So I mean , gosh , if that doesn't , if that doesn't endear you to a community , I don't know what does I mean ?

That that's , they're excellent people and chasing Casey in particular , ultraverse , great , great race company . So you've done the sticks . You've done possum revenge .

How did you come up with the idea for , okay , I'm going to go across Texas now and then , how did you ? How did you , once you had that , how did you prepare yourself mentally and physically to take that challenge on ?

I can run that faster , or I think that's really cool . So I go online and I learn about , like the PCT and the Arizona Trail , and I was going to go run across Arizona and I watched the documentary with a runner named Stringbean and he did it in less than I want to say nine days , and I'm like I'm going to go run the AZT in seven days .

I'm going to beat him . Arizona Trail is like 850 miles and , for anyone listening , you go down to the Grand Canyon and then up the Grand Canyon plus the rest of Arizona . So there's you know that's my 19 year old Ethan at the time who thought he could just run across Arizona in seven days by himself .

And then you know , we start getting more realistic and I heard this Trans Texas and you know I read Don's report . Don is the very first person to do the FKT , and then another man by the name of Kenneth also did the FKT and he had a really good documentary online and I reached out to both of them and I just said , hey , like what ?

You know what is this about ? Like where's the trail ? And they told me , no , like it's , it's , it's road , ethan , and I go , what do you mean ? It's road , like .

So they ran across road from El Paso to Texas , arcana , and that was really cool and I was thinking I was going to do the north to south route , which one man I'm blanking on his name , so I apologize and I hope I remember in a little bit but he ran north Texas down to the bottom , which is a little longer . I want to say two to 300 miles more .

I think it's in like the 1100 mile category again , roads and stuff like that .

So , to answer your question , you know now I found this trans Texas run and I said you know I'm going to run it over winter break because I'm a college student , I'm an army student or army cadet and we have training over the summer , so I didn't want to go run across Texas and then damage myself potentially and not be able to do the training or not be

able to do it at all , because sometimes these training events take 3040 , 70 days combined . So winter break was decided .

This is , you know , early November time and I start thinking to myself , well , am I gonna do it crude or am I gonna do it , you know , self-supported , unsupported , and I actually wanted to do it , like Art Brody , who just set the unsupported Arizona Trail record . He knew person , the first person to ever do it over there , and I was gonna do it unsupported .

But the first 175 miles there's no water that you could get . You have to carry your all your water for 175 miles , which saying that out loud when you and I , richard Fran , you know cowboy together , that basically think you know , like you're going a whole cowboy without water , is insane the whole of cowboy right . So that's at least legally .

You know you read the FKT rules , it has to be from streams if we're looking at the self or the unsupported . And my mom and I , my dad , you know we spent almost a month just like Scoping it out .

And then , if you go on my Instagram , a good friend of mine , jada Hamilton , who's also an endurance athlete here at Texas A&M and also in the core , a great triathlete or great triathlete triathlete , and we went over to Guadalupe mountain to kind of scope out the first 50 to about 170 miles .

So from mile 50 to about 175 , jada and I looked pretty much at every single mile and there just wasn't any viable spots . Richard , that you know I could get water . So we knew then that I was gonna be about 150 to 175 miles without ever getting water .

I decided to carry about eight liters , pushing ten liters of water , which , for anyone who's listening , ten liters of water is is a lot of weight and that's just water .

You know my ruck and a ruck is a , a giant backpack that is issued through the , the military , and this , this rucka that I had was 90 pounds dry , meaning all the , the gear , the food that had , a bunch of MREs , meals ready to eat all of that stuff . We had 90 pounds dry and then I had an additional about 30 to 40 pounds of water weight .

So we were walking out the door on day one with about 125 is what we estimated . Holy crap . I didn't have a scale with me . I didn't want to carry that weight , so , but at the end of the race , if anyone's curious , I had a . The ruck went down to about 55 .

Mom brought a scale at the end and the number one thing I did you know , you watch the video that I upload on to Instagram today and I'm running in and then I sat down we take some photos and I go mom , where's the scale ? And I'm hungry as hell . You know I want a glass of water , but I wanted to see how much this ruck weighed .

Right , and we went down to 50 pounds from the starting of the race to the end . But I want to note to everyone the last two weeks I had to carry a giant jackets , so the actual weight was probably about 40 pounds . So over the course of 34 and a half days , you know , we consumed about 55 to 60 pounds dry of .

Had you been kind of running some prior to and you just kind of did extra strength work , what ? How do you try , how do you train for an 830 mile ?

And I spaced them out for a certain reason because you know I'm on all four of those organizations , right , I go to A&M , a part of the Corps of Cadets , I'm an army cadet , and then I'm also in the old training team . Well , each one of those Brings value to a student like me who wants to do these endurance base . And I'll just begin with Training wise .

Well , the Corps of Cadets , you know we're known for doing crazy , crazy things in the sense of we push ourselves and my outfit , my company , company , I want is is who I fall under . That's what we do , you know , for pretty much every single running event , we're rucking it with about 40 pounds dry .

And the Army ROTC department , they're teaching us how to properly ruck with speed . So , where you have 40 or 50 pounds , but you're running it at an 8-minute mile , at a 9-minute mile , which you know is insane to think about running with a 40-50 pound rock .

But they're , you know , they're teaching us like the proper ways , because it's can be dangerous , of course , and I don't recommend anyone listening . Just strap some bricks or bags of sand and go out for a five-mile or with at an 8-minute pace . So you know , make sure you get proper training .

And then now with the ultra running team , our advisor doctor , lisa Cooper Colbin , is phenomenal . She I Don't even know how to begin in words , I hope everyone googles her she's an amazing Trathal , a triathlete , she's an amazing endurance coach . She is a coach as well , and I couldn't ask for anyone better for our team .

And so I , you know , using all these four resources , right , because also the last one , texas A&M , or the largest university in the nation . We have seventy two , seventy three thousand students , and that does not include faculty .

It's very easy to find students , it's very easy to find faculty who , like you said , richard , who want to help you train , right for these crazy events like how do you even begin ? You begin by by reaching out .

So you know , in the morning , typically , if you were to like , look at a day in the life of me , we have core PT and we have our physical training and we have army PT . That begins about 545 , 6 am , most most day six , and I believe in getting extra PT in , because you know I go to classes right ?

So yeah , answering your question , for me my day begins around 0-3 and then I wake up and I normally like to do rocking . I'm a slow runner , as you know . You probably could tell that at cowboy , you know , I'm not a six minute mile split for a hundred miles coming in and under ten hours or something for the hundred miler , not yet .

At least you know , maybe give me ten , twenty more years , but Maybe yeah maybe so we'll see if we get there right . So , waking up , and I normally do my own PT Through I gotta be careful how I phrase it but I do my own PT . You know , no one's , no organization is holding me against it .

And also the ultra running team does not conduct physical training that early right . So Ethan's going out on his own and doing it and then at six after that . So I normally will try to do maybe eight mile ruck or Even an eight mile walk , because , as you know , just getting miles on your feet to get blisters is is good .

So then we go conduct army PT and then that lasts about 8 pm and then on Mondays , wednesdays and Fridays I don't have any classes for the most part . I have a lab on Wednesday towards the end . So Mondays , wednesdays and Fridays I normally try to go to the wreck .

We have three , actually four wrecks here on campus and either on biking or we have an Olympic pool for all of our students so I'm able to hop in the pool for a few hours and I really want to work on Completing an Ironman before we leave , or I leave college in about a year . So I'm trying to do incorporate swimming now .

But I mean just answering your question . I think it's just putting miles on your feet . You know , I'm sorry that's a long answer , but yeah .

You don't necessarily have that structure around you to enable you to do that , but but you guys , and yourself in particular , it looks like you're in the perfect spot to do to do that , with all your required rucking and Ability to tap into other students and coaches and all the resources you've got . So that's , that's really cool . I love that .

So you've set up , you've decided you're gonna do this . I , I and I'm sure you can tell from the reaction on all the social media stuff , we're just really excited to hear your story . Like you off you go day one . How did this thing unfold for you ?

And was there ever a moment in there , particularly on day one , where you like , yeah , I'm not sure , with your , with your hundred and whatever a pound pack , you like I'm , did I do the right thing here or what ? How did the story unfold ?

awesome . So we start off right . You can watch that video where a good friend of mine , hunter , he , kicks me off and he goes a good luck . And he's recording me at the beginning and I start running , well , about ten miles and I noticed that ruck is starting to break , that the stitching Is coming out because the pack is so heavy .

Again , we're at like a hundred twenty five pounds . So you ask the question of when did you think like you might not finish ? It was honestly day one , the first one percent of the race . So , knowing you know you know me , and how crazy I am , I , I I'm thinking why , how am I gonna finish this ?

And you know again , cadre , here , a and m and the core and the army department , they're always telling us think of different ways that you can lead If hard things happen . You know the show has to go on . So I say you know what ? I guess I can get a shopping cart that I buy a .

I go to some Meet market and I go hey , I'm trying to go across texas . I just started , I'm not that prepared . Apparently . Can I buy a shopping cart from you ? And I spent about fifty dollars , I think , on an old , rusty nineteen , eighty . This is like . This is like k mark style , old Big metal .

The shopping cart itself was probably twenty pounds , thirty pounds . So I take off my rock and I I'm just pushing my shopping cart along the texas road . This is about mile ten , mile fifteen and then my unit .

So I end day one at about thirty miles and that's why I'm laying down at this volunteer firefighter station at the stock , yeah , and I'm laying down at this volunteer firefighter Station thinking of myself wow , like what am I doing , richard ? maybe this isn't a good idea , man . And then again , you know , I wake up the next day and I structured it to wear .

Day one and day two would be about less than thirty five miles , because day three was a sixty mile , or it was from a old ghost town . You can look on the gpx data or you could really just like go on google maps . There's nothing around . So this old ghost town that I thought there would be a burger stand there , there wasn't . It was closed that day .

So they to is ending and we're about mile seventy . Now day three hits . Day three movement is a sixty mile , or I'm gonna get from the ghost town up to guadalupe Park , so that's a sixty mile movement . And again , that was pretty tough , just because you know the first two days are like thirty milers , but I was preparing for that .

And also there was a really nice gentleman named mr county . If you look at my face book and instagram , you see a photo of us with this company came tires , I think . He gave me a bunch of water and sweet tea , orange juice , and then even the last day gave me mcdonald's breakfast , so that was awesome , so , yeah , that help .

But yeah , so tony , mr tony gave me some nice snacks and that third day I was moving pretty slow music sixty mile and I woke up late . And I'm moving slow in the sense of I have a shopping cart that's a hundred and forty pounds and I'm also pushing it up the tallest mountain in texas , right .

So I , oh my gosh , I get into the parking lot and what's funny is jada and I went to that parking lot and we hiked up the peak and I parked my shopping cart and slept in the same spot that we parked A month or two before I texted her and said , hey , not in my truck this time , but I'm still sleeping here .

So I woke up the next day because now we're at about mile one , ten , one twenty ish . And the fourth day movement is about a fifty miler and that's the town of orla . I might be pronouncing that wrong . It's orl a , if anyone's curious . All that is in that town is like man camps and like workers .

There's no hotels and I reached out and tried to explain the situation and ask for a hotel and that wasn't an option for a day . I believe the minimum was like a one week to two week commitment . So I left , go out of the bay peak a little late because I got in really late .

I didn't get into about two thirty three am and I get to the town of orla the next day twenty four hours later and that's only fifty fifty miles . That just shows you I'm averaging like a twenty five minute mile . I took a bunch of trail naps .

I hate the night , richard , you know I hate going through the night by myself and I think a lot of ultra runners we get that two to four am Like ultra running brain is what I call it when you start talking to yourself and you start looking out and you like the cow eyes and you're like , is that a cow ? That demon , like what is that ?

So , yeah , yeah , that really slowed me down . Yeah , that really slowed me down . But you know , richard , I got into town of orla around seven , eight am and there was a gas station there that had like convenience food and they even had scrambled eggs , biscuits and bacon .

And I show up like I just crash , landed for mars , and I go , just give me whatever you want .

And I had this giant clay of nastiness , just biscuits and gravy and bacon and stuff , because you know it's a hundred and seventy five miles and that they give or take right , my one , sixty , one , seventy , I don't know the exact numbers , I'll stop my head and I'm just chowing down on this food .

And then about I sat there for about an hour and a half I charged my phone , scott , everything is Juiced up . I can't , I could , and I move to the town of picos , which is about forty miles away , and I got that . I got there around one or two in the morning and then I stayed at picos for about two days .

I took a day off because my pinky toes were starting to turn blue and I wanted to make sure everything was okay with them . Everything's fine with my pinky toes , for everyone listening that things wrong .

So I get back on the road and the movements after that when we're all forty miles as planned , but after picos actually a severe thunderstorm happened , getting into a death of middle and area .

It was so bad but like I had along the route I had cadets family members that if anything happened I would call you and like hey , richard , I need you to come pick me up . Sir , you know , like the race is over , code red , you get out god yeah yeah , pretty much right .

And One of them his name is colt dinger reached out and said hey , there's a severe hail storm coming in and you're about to get hit . Are you okay ? And I'm like I'm fine , don't worry about me . But my grandma calls me and you know my grandmother calls and says hey , cuz I had Everyone tracking my location for safety reasons .

My grandma calls me and goes hey , there's a severe thunderstorm and potential hail and there was a tornado warning . She goes are you near gas station ? And I go grandma , don't worry about me . You know , I'm a , I'm a grown boy , I'm a nineteen year old man , I'm good . And , yeah , I look back , richard , and there's no thunderstorm .

Well , I sit down and I found a dog . I forgot to say that this day . I found this beautiful dog and there's a photo of it's like a white lab , I believe , or white Type of dog , and this dog and i're sitting together eating mre chicken meals . And I look back and I go that's a very dark thundercloud . And then , all of a sudden , it starts raining .

Well , I'm pushing again the shopping cart on the frontage road of I twenty , which is not that good . It's not meant for everyone listening . I don't recommend you buy a shopping cart and go push it on the frontage road of I twenty . The engineers did not design it for us .

So I pack up my ruck and I put it together in this dog and I start basically booking it to the nearest gas station , which is like four miles away . And I run into this gas station and the dog runs to like this garbage can . And we Parted ways then and I stated that gas station overnight , which is good because they got pretty dark , pretty quick .

And then , a second , I walked into the gas station , richard , it turned from dark to pitch dark and this is the middle of the day , and then the gas station was shaking . It was that bad .

So after that , you know , I picked up , moved the rest of the miles and then again I took a few rest days here and there , just like read Recoup on calories and then rehydrate because I was pretty much drinking gatorade and gator light . I don't like pdl , I don't like electrolyte . There's a lactose in it and milk kind of hurts my stomach . I'm not .

I think I'm lactose intolerant . I'm not entirely sure . I've never been diagnosed by a doctor . So the electrolyte stuff is not like chasing casey's proxima . See , it's not like tailwind or anything . So , no , my electrolytes are not that good and coconut water was not cutting it .

So you know you're taking breaks every day , kind of like trying to get your body recovered a little bit .

But yeah , averaging about forty to fifty miles a day towards the end of the race , when I was over in like the dallas fort worth area , my averages went down about twenty or thirty a day because you gotta understand , after Pekos , mid Pekos , odessa area , I'm now rocking again .

So about five hundred miles was rock and the first Two hundred and the first two hundred ish were I don't know . Yeah , it was all shopping cart , so that's Take right . I don't really know the exact mouse up top my head right now .

You're gonna run it either like a nine to ten minute pace and then the final day . If you look at my course data , that last like mile . I think I ran out like a six thirty minute pace because I was just ready to be done , richard , and but it was fun , so it was good journey oh my gosh yeah , I definitely , I definitely think I could have done more .

. And where people were you getting messages ?

Here and there is you probably , as you had Opportunity , but we were aware of stuff going on around or you were you just focus and I wanted to ask you how much running did you actually do it in among that cuz ? I can't . I can't think you're doing a whole lot of running with a hundred and twenty five pounds or pushing a car .

You know where we're on big family and I they all had my back and every day I was probably getting a hundred text messages from different cadets Saying you got this e thing . You know , keep going . Or you know , in the core , everyone calls me times . So they were just saying you got this kind of all that and it was awesome to hear that .

And then again , it it's just it's one big family . I knew a little bit of what was going on , but luckily it was over winter break , so we kind of take a pause and operational pause . And then towards the end of the race , like I mentioned before the podcast , there was a winter storm that happened and I had to take a break from that .

So I had to email my professors , almost going back to the sticks . You know doing homework During a race , which I think is just a great thing . You know like you go out there to relax and get self clarity and somehow homework always finds its way in richard , which I think is funny . Yeah but yeah .

But then , answering your question about the running , like I said , I think every night I'd go for about two or three miles of running was my goal , just either with the shopping cart .

And what was awesome was in the Guadalupe mountain area there's a lot of downhill , so I would kind of ride the shopping cart like a sled and just Jam out at like 10 miles per hour , which is not that fast , but for me , you know , that's a six minute mile and I'm like man , I'm going at a six minute mile right now riding this shopping cart .

And I will tell you and I wanted to get your take on this too there are some sections of Road that we were doing , especially at night , where the the side of the road wasn't particularly wide and and really like , did you have any close shaves with large moving Trucks ? Or , you know , did you have ?

Like I'm sure you must have had some hair-raising moments out on I-20 or back roads if back roads were worse , I think when we've been doing it , there's just no shoulder .

I had a headlamp on that was pretty bright , and then I had another headlamp around my neck I Like so we do this here at A&M and the Corps and in the Army , you know , we wear our headlamps around our neck .

That way , if you're going through trees the headlamp doesn't fall off right , and so if you're ever doing any ultras , that's my recommendation is put it around your neck . But so there I had lights on . At night , you know , people could see me , and during the day I'll say this right , the people who caused issues , or the car drivers , the big rigs .

They moved over and if it was a really big rig , I would hop into the grass for a little bit and kind of just Not play the chicken game . Yeah , and all the big rigs were nice to me . It was the car drivers . You know , I'd say majority of the times , the close encounters .

They were on their phones , richard , and I think it's really sad that a lot of people do text and drive , and especially out there . I get it . You probably don't think anyone's crazy to run across Texas or run across America , but there's people like you and I who are doing weird , weird , crazy things .

It wasn't necessarily the truck drivers , necessary , you know , but I mean , they're big and a little scary , but yes , it's the phone people , especially at night , when , when they're not expecting you to be on some back road or somebody round a blind Bend or over a , over a blind hill .

And then the rumble strips were something that will live me or live with me long , the noise of the rumble strip . You know , there was a little the notch stuff on the side of the road or in the middle of the road when it kind of the , it's like a bee , the business .

Yeah , if you get lost , I mean , damn , like we got to talk about maybe ultra nix , not the sport for you . So you know , you and I , richard , were probably able to just run together and zone out . Well , when you did your tour to Tejas and I did this , it's hard to zone out because you worry about is a car gonna hit me ?

Yeah so I think there was a lot more mental Engagement and mental stimulus because of that .

a minute . So where they're like how did you manage the Psychological aspects of just running by yourself for such a long distance and a long time , where there are particular Techniques that you were using to sort of keep yourself dialed in ? How did you kind of keep your mental game strong ?

I was trying to to get my inner David Goggins out and no music stay hard , but that eventually that you know it failed because I told my dad this I think at like around day 20 I go , dad this might sound privileged because I'm a in a first world nation but I don't want to listen to podcasts anymore and I don't want to listen to music , music and podcasts .

I don't like them anymore and you know I am fortunate enough to say that , right , I I want everyone to be clear , or I want everyone to understand that I think it's awesome to say that I Don't want to listen to podcast because , yeah , I'm the first few days I was listening to podcasts and you learn a lot , you take a lot of notes .

I would listen to a three , four hour jocco podcast and then take an hour break and do a voice memo , talk to myself and I have these , you know , voice memos that are for me and maybe a book soon and the near future that are Gonna be able to I'm able to look back , think about leadership Techniques and then keep moving forward in that sense .

But you know , I really like I told my dad this because we'd call almost every night and my dad would say well , ethan , you don't seem happy . And At night , you know , especially when you're by yourself you get to those low points and I do enjoy them .

I enjoy the self-hate , I enjoy the , the dark moments , because the next day you get to reflect and it's a wow , I did this , I accomplish that , and you get to keep moving forward , which is awesome . And you know , just knowing , I remember getting to about mile 680 and they had a map of Texas and I sat there , richard , for an hour .

I probably shouldn't have sat there , but I just kept looking at where I was and where I came from and it was insane to me to say , wow , I've , I've gone 700 miles , right , you know , you look at your Google Maps and it's like , alright , well , I moved from that city to this city .

You know , 30 miles isn't that much , which is insane to say that you and I have a lot of , which is insane to say that you and I think that 30 miles is not that much .

But and then you sit back and you look and you go , wow , like I'm in , I'm in Greenville , I'm in Texarkana , and it was just insane , richard , to have like those , those mental , like mental explosions of I'm in Dallas , texas , right now . That's insane .

I'm in Abilene , texas , right now , and it was just those , those moments I broke it down on my , my , my was it called . I had a Google Doc and had all my movements and then I had like a major movement get the Pecos , get to big springs , get to Abilene , get the Dallas , get to Greenville , get the Texarkana , and then with everything in between .

So it was nice when I could cross off . I've made it to Abilene . It was like a reward , giving it to myself Because I think there's no way and you know what I take this back .

I would love to start a race for a scum style where you and I , richard , we just put a hundred bucks on a credit card and a hundred bucks in cash and we just start running not knowing when we're gonna end , because I think that is the biggest mental hurdle you could ever have , if that makes sense .

I don't know that you can do this necessarily as well as you did without a whole bunch of planning up front .

And you talked about having , you know , completing each milestone and Small wins , kind of building up over time , chopping it up into pieces , right , and not looking at the 700 miles that you like I've got okay , I've still got another 130 miles to go you know just the small victories .

But as you had planned everything out , were there any aspects of that planning that turned out to be way more challenging than then you initially Anticipated when you were sitting at the kitchen table putting it all together once you got out there ?

So movement three , movement four and movement five there was not going to be a lot of water , there was not going to be a lot of sleep and those combined movements are 150 miles , which , yes , I've done a 200-miler before . But , as you remember , chasing Casey were giving us burritos , burgers and chili Pretty much every marathon .

Yeah , where I had chili , but it was chili mac out of an MRE , which is a little different , yeah , you know , especially calorie-wise .

So just trying to plan for calories and everyone talks about , you know , towards those end of the races you don't want to eat my old 600 after I wasn't hungry at all , but I was probably burning six or seven thousand calories a day . Maybe I really don't know my watch would say four thousand , especially if I was moving 40 miles in that day .

And I know you have to add a little bit more per mile when you're rucking and Then , yeah , so the rucking calorie plus my daily Staying alive calories . I knew I was not eating enough everyone listening . I started at 205 pounds . I ended at 185 . Now there's a big caveat to that , I want to add .

I had a five-day break where I ate a pizza every day during that winter storm and I was 180 before the , before the winter storm . So I really question you know , the winter storm never happened how much more weight would I have lost ? And again , this was all like muscle weight , right , because I remember looking in the .

You know I'm not that big of a lifter and I don't have that big of a chest , but I remember looking into the mirror one night and I called my mom and I go , mom , I got , I , I have , I have , I , my , my man pecs are gone . I'm crying , I'm like mom , I'm never gonna recover , like I can't even do a push-up at this point .

And so clearly you know I did not go into to rhabdo , which is good . I never peed , your alright , excuse me . I never had any blood out of my urine . I did take ibuprofen for a few times and that was a no-go .

The , the bowel movements , scared me a bit , but I got off the ibuprofen and then that that stuff went away , so if anyone's listening , don't take ibuprofen on an 800 mile ruck run .

Like , was there ever a point where you're like I'm not sure if I should be doing this genuinely ?

It would be an exercise , I think , for most at 90 , 80 pounds and I , I'm struggling to keep a 15 minute mile . And it's just , I kept reminding myself . You know , like Ethan , you're burning seven to eight thousand calories , you're not getting enough electrolytes , but it was just trying to get as much food in as possible to continue the race .

And then you know , I'm a , I believe in the philosophy of if you feel tired , take a day off . You know , like this is your race and it was my FKT , no one's done it before . So , 33 days versus 34 and a half days , I was still able to get the record as long as I finished and I figured I would hate to be a hundred miles away and then burn out .

So If , if , you need a day break , and the day break was one large Hawaiian pizza with extra , extra bacon , then so be it , and that's what we had to do .

I wanted to sleep in a hotel that night and maybe I should have slept outside which is okay to do if it was safe enough but then , mentally speaking , I think I'd go back and tell myself it's not that far . I mean , yes , 800 miles as far . But it's also .

I Really hate when people do it but I guess I'm starting to do it now when we rationalize big numbers , big long mile numbers .

But you know , now that I've completed an 800 miler , if we want to talk of it like that , I think just telling yourself like , hey , man , it's just an 800 miler , soon You're gonna run across North America , so 800 miles is not that much .

insane . Yeah , and and you touched on now you didn't feel safe outside . Was that from when you , when you were trying to sleep , there was that sort of animal wildlife , kind of Not fear , but just you were wary of I don't know , coyotes or whatever is is out there .

Did you have much interaction with wildlife , aside from the dog that followed you to the pizza shop ?

But you know , there was a time when I got to I was probably 40 miles away from the finish , so I was 10 miles away from where I wanted to sleep and I was gonna sleep in a post office the last night .

Coyotes just trying to make noise and my mom goes man , those coyotes sound very close , you should get away . And again , like , I'm 40 miles away from an 831 mile finish . So two things were going in my mind right now there's no way in hell , richard , I'm gonna outrun coyotes with these legs , right , you know , a 10 minute mile felt like a .

I Was doing a four minute mile . And then I also thought to myself man , this would be a really bad way to die . Can you just imagine , like Richard on the podcast hey , everyone , I'm sorry to say . You know , ethan didn't finish his FKT . He was 30 miles away , but those coyotes got to him and that would just really sucked .

Yeah , but , but beyond that , richard , you know , yeah , but beyond that , richard , there was no animal encounters , it was mainly people encounters . I didn't carry a gun with me . All I had was a knife and Maybe I should have had pepper spray or like a bear spray . But you know my my rationale is if five guys come on me , I'm not John Wick .

There's no way I'm taking them all out , and especially not 400 miles into a race when I've lost 15 pounds . I haven't had any good electrolyte mix or not enough electrolytes , as I should say and I haven't had enough food .

I mean I would go to Dairy Queen and eat a the triple buster , which is three one-quarter pound Burgers like stacked together , and I was still hungry . So that just shows you like there was no way that I was gonna fight someone and that situation and win at least .

They was really loud dogs everywhere on the first day and Most of them were fine and harmless because they were behind fences , but there was one kind of little farm on on a road and they had their gate open , three dobermans charging out of the gate and I think I wrote in my race review that I that was the fastest mile I ran in in that whole 200 race

was on day one at about I don't know 30 , 35 miles and I booked it . Those those things were like yelling at me , nipping at me . I've never been as scared and I we had a text group going on at the times .

All the participants had a text group just for safety and so I was texting the rest of the crew like holy crap , watch out when you get to this one , because there's three dobermans loose on the on the thing and they were charging everyone when they came out .

So I know that was a challenge , so I just wondered if you kind of come across the same thing and it sounds like it's pretty similar actually .

the group ? Get some knowledge and experience out there for you .

The route might need to be modified a bit and you have to be very careful the first five or six Movements if you were to follow my movements . But honestly , richard , it's just get out , go do it . Prepare . Of course you know , if you never rock before , I wouldn't recommend you go get a backpack and put a hundred pounds in it and go .

But it's just , you know , go , go do . It is really my , my advice .

America . I don't know how has this impacted your other Ultroning goals or adventures that you might want to get into down the line ? Is this really peaked your interest in going further ? Or has this really said you know what ? That was good , but I'm gonna go . Maybe I want to go shorter and faster , or I want to try something different , like where are you ?

What do you go ? After doing 830 miles across Texas , what the heck do you do next ?

There's a bunch of one to five year goals that I'd like to do to eventually feel confident and doing the mid-level and Then eventually feel confident in doing the top level stuff .

And of course the goal of this make-belief triangle is the stuff on level one is trickling down and you're always trying to come up with something harder and More challenging , if you will . So for me , the top tier , top two is Love to run across North America . I want to go from , like the Alaska to Key West Florida .

But you know I say that there's a bunch of steps I need to do in order to achieve that . Maybe do America first , the 48 States . I would love to start getting into winter Ultras .

I want to go run some 50 mile and 100 mile races in snow not cowboy winter , but like actual snow snow and I really want to do the 6633 , which is a about a 400 mile race over in Canada . And then the I did a rod trail , oh yeah , the invitational one , like the , the main event , which is like the thousand-miler .

I'd love to eventually get there and be able to race and at the same time I want to be able to go to a desert environment and do a hundred milers there . My mentor , like I was telling beginning this podcast , is also an iron man , so he does iron man's and he's really sparked my interest and trying to complete one of those .

But I already told him you know I'll do an iron man but then I'm gonna have to do an ultra triathlon . So I've been really doing a lot of research and reaching out to ultra triathletes who are doing Two or three or ten X iron man's and I think it would be great to do a deca iron man , a man over in Vermont , mr Andy .

He's done a deca and he's a cool , cool guy and a good mentor and I would love to do one with him .

If you go look up , winter spine race 268 miles , but it's through the dead of winter in the UK across all the mountainous Terrain right up the spine of England . It's it's brutal . So if you , if you're looking for something on the winter side , I take a look at that one for sure . But yeah , I think that's amazing .

I'm sure you could go , do any of these things and really it's just about , okay , pushing yourself and Getting through the challenge and how do I get to the challenge , and then what do I do when I'm there and learning about yourself . That's what we're doing right .

It's all growth and learning how to overcome and how I react and kind of going from there you know , richard , I think , like looking back , the way I got into ultras is interesting .

I'd love to go back this year and , you know , do the three-day again and not have to worry about homework and maybe change my socks more than once every three days and see how far I could push myself . In that sense , I just love the idea that you can do something once and again . You go there and you get 80 miles the first time , or you DNF the .

The race over in Vermont was a 500 miler and I only got 200 miles . So I'd love to go back to Andy and try to knock out 350 or 400 miles on his course and go from there .

Maybe you all can show up as the ultra running team , because now you are , are you captain of the ultra running team at Texas A&M ? And maybe you can tell us a little bit about that , like why you chose to set that up and what kind of adventures or Racing that you guys are gonna get into .

So our goal is to to get the team members informed and you know we find a race to go . Sometimes we plan , or we hope to plan , to go as a team . We have not done a race yet Together as a team . There's paperwork involved .

What we have done is there's been two races , one that are I've been to both , or that's a yes , I'll get into that later but two races that we've recommended and just put out and say , hey , if you want to go , reach out to the race director , maybe get a discount on the race , if we can , because you know you're bringing five or six guys Not necessarily

you're bringing , but you're , you're all going in one car Maybe we can get a 20% or 10% discount on the race . But eventually , you know I'd love to to take the team to a race together with t-shirts and , I guess , running gear , if you want to call it that . But we have not gotten there yet .

There are trail running clubs and trail running teams at universities , but to my knowledge , we are the first collegiate level ultra running team in the nation and again , please prove me wrong I want to come run with you and , like I said , you know , our goal is just to provide a safe environment , because last year I was a freshman at Texas A&M and I went

with Richard . Well , I drove up to Nebraska from Texas by myself . That had no clue what I was doing . You know I was like , oh , I'm just gonna go around a marathon in between eight stations and I'll eat a burger and keep going , and I think you know that is a route to learn about the sport . It's probably not the most recommended route that we do .

So if I can help students here learn about Ultras and I can put them in contact , you know , because we have guys on our team who are only interested in running 50 case , who are only interested in running six hour events .

And then you have me , who's an old man , basically , and I want to do these long stretches where you know I can be the back of the pack or I can be the middle of the pack and still finish . I don't have to worry about .

I got to run a 10 minute split for the next 30 miles , or I'm not gonna make the cutoff , so , but we do have about three members on our team who are who are doing that .

You've got the people that want to go out there and charge through a 50k and then you've got the folks like you and I were Kind of more towards the back but we want to go longer , and you could run the same race two or three times . You could go out to the sticks and run it three , three years in a row and have a completely different race every time .

You can Just go back to the same one and it's different . So I just love the Diversity . You know you talk about the timed races versus the distance races versus the , the backyard stuff where you're competing , be last man standing .

I just think the variety of racing and the , the Different experience you can get every time you do it , suits loads of different people . So I think everyone has a place which it , which is something I love sir , I agree .

So one of the things we do , ethan , every episode is , you may know , we do encourage guests to choose a song to add to the free Spotify . Choose to enjoy a playlist , something to lift you up , motivate , get you going while you're out on the trail .

So , ethan , what song did you have on rotation for those days where you were listening to music out there that Got you through what ? What song did you pick and why did that song resonate with you ?

I know I'm not trying to be rude , sir , but you know , for me it's old , but then again , you know , maybe I'm gonna come back in 30 years and we're gonna have some young kid on this and I'm gonna go . What do you mean old ? 2025 was just right around the corner , so , but again , I just yeah , yeah , yeah . Just listening to the songs are awesome . I .

It , regardless of your pace or position .

His journey is a powerful reminder that endurance isn't just about how fast you run , but it's also about having the courage to pick a big goal , whatever that means for you to get to and cross the starting line and find the strength to keep going and the resilience to endure , no matter what challenges you are inevitably gonna face along the way .

So whether you are somebody who's lacing up your trail shoes for for an ultra for the very first time , or maybe you're a seasoned Ultra runner and you're just trying to take on a new or different challenge , I think Ethan's experience offers us valuable insights and inspiration and really proof that the most extraordinary Achievements can often come from the most

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You can see that , so be sure to head over to any of those and check us out , say hello , drop as a message , topic or a feedback if you have a moment who definitely love Getting those interactions ? And go look up Ethan and go look at all his social stuff , because there's some wonderful Videos out there that he is posting of his experiences .

So until next time , run long , although maybe not 830 miles long , run strong and whatever life throws at you , keep choosing to endure .