This past weekend Walk the Dream had the lucky fortune of interviewing Charlie Engle the ultra marathon runner who ran across the Sahara desert. Charlie was running in the “Beast of Burden” 100 mile marathon in Lockport, NY. One hundred miles in twenty-four hours is a daunting task by itself, but add a foot and a half of snow and it becomes a nightmare.
The race started at 7am on Saturday. As Charlie started his hundred mile trek I couldn’t stop thinking about him throughout the day. I kept telling people as my day progressed that I was excited to be able to interview him the next day. Each time I told someone about the interview I would look outside and think about how long Charlie had been running in the mounting snow already.
At eleven hours into his run it started to dawn on me that all of my friends could have the same revelation about me walking for two hundred days. These races or expeditions are such foreign concepts to those who aren’t participating in them. You have to put yourself in a mindset that you will accomplish the goal you’ve set out for yourself, much like your dreams. If you start to think about it like an outsider who is astonished you’ve been running for eleven hours or walking for a hundred days and you’re only half way done your mind will destroy itself.
It was a pleasure interviewing Charlie after he finished the Beast of Burden. Running the Sahara might seem like the craziest thing you could imagine a human doing, but Charlie has a few things up his sleeve that will impress us all if he’s able to accomplish them. I’d love to tell you what they are, but we have to save something for the movie!
