I’ll start by saying that I admire Marshall Ulrich‘s determination to finish his journey to run across the United States in record time (masters, not worldwide.) I can’t imagine the kind of endurance and grit and takes to get through this whole thing.
This wasn’t originally intended to be a comparison but I couldn’t help myself. Perhaps having interviewed Grabosky personally gives me a bias.
I’m so impressed by Marshall Ulrich’s feats — and they are quite symbolic and inspiring for many people.
However, at the end of the book when he spends a few pages going on and on about what running means and why and how we can accomplish anything we put our minds too — go beyond our mental limits — I wasn’t feeling it. All I could think of was how he kept abandoning his family to get the “rush” and push beyond the limits.
I “get” the ultra thing — I get pushing it and loving and it having it be extremely important to feel sane and happy. But — this book just didn’t hit the spot for me in that way. I’m too much of a wimp to even attach Marshall’s twitter handle when I tweet this because I don’t want him to possibly read this and get a negative vibe from me. Like I said — I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man and I feel like I sound judgmental but…it’s also my blog space and how I felt about the book.
**I would recommend this book for runners/ultra runners to get a sense of the mental & physical journey it takes to do a transcontinental run. But, for a more realistic view of someone doing it on their own, I’d suggest reading Jeff Grabosky’s “Running With God Across America.”
Lastly, I’ve not read any other reviews of this book so after I post this I’m going to go see if anyone else got the same vibe as I did. I find it’s best not to read other reviews before your own!