The Marathon - Akira the Don

The first ultra-marathon wasn’t smart at all

At all

I was at military freefall school with Morgan Luttrell

Marcus Luttrell was in a bad ops

It went bad

He was the only Navy Seal that lived

Morgan is Marcus Luttrell’s twin brother

And I was there with Marcus so

What happened was myself and Morgan were in freefall school

At the same exact time as Marcus was in the worst incident in Seal history

Long story short Marcus is alive and I go on to wanna raise money for families

All these guys died, they all had kids I wanna raise money for the Special

Operations Warrior Foundation

So I said you know what?

I have to Google something that’s evil

Something very hard

I knew nothing about ultra-marathons

I hadn’t even run a marathon

I knew nothing about this world

So, I googled the top 10 hardest races in the world

And what comes up is Badwater 135

135-mile race through Death Valley in the summertime

I thought it was a stage race

I thought it was a race where you run like 20 miles

Set up camp, barbecue outside and then go run some more the next day

So, I call the race director up at the race and said

«Hey, Chris I want to do your race.»

So, we had a long conversation you know

I was much heavier then

I’m around between 240−270

I was a heavy guy

But the long and short of it all was

I hadn’t put running shoes on in over a year

So, I call Chris Coster up on a Wednesday he says

«Look man the only way you can qualify for my race is if you run 100 miles at

one time in 24 hours or less.»

There happen to be a race that Saturday and he said

«If you qualify by running 100 miles or less in 24 hours, I will consider you

in my race.»

I signed up for this race, it was called «The San Diego One Day»

Where you run around a one-mile track for 24 hours to see how many miles you

can get

My goal was 100 miles

When I got to mile 70

I cleared 70 miles in like 12−13 hours pretty quickly

I was done

My feet were broken

I was stress fractured, shin splints, muscles were tearing

I was in bad shape

No water

Didn’t know what the hell I was doing out there

Had on some tube socks

It was just ridiculous

It was a clown show

So, I sat down at mile 70 and at this time I was married

I look at my wife and I was like

«I messed up bad.»

I literally start to turn white

And when a black guy turns white, you’re pretty fucked up

Here I am

I am all fucked up in this chair

I’m at mile 70 thinking I got 30 fucking miles to go

I’m jacked up

I got go to the bathroom and the bathroom’s like 20 feet from me

It’s a porta-potty

I can’t get out of the fucking chair

I’m peeing blood down my leg, pooping up my fucking back

And I got 30 miles to go

I can’t stand up, my blood pressures all messed up

I’ve been in three Hell weeks, Ranger school, overcome so many obstacles in my

life

This last 30 miles of this race is when I realized

A human being

Is not so human anymore

We have the ability to go in such a space if you’re willing to suffer

And I mean suffer

Your brain and your body once connected together

Can do anything

Anything

Your brain and your body once connected together

Can do anything

Anything

And this 30 miles was the life-changing moment

I was out of it

I was in the worst pain in my entire life

I was to me on the brink of death

And I was able to chunk this 30 damn miles

Into small pieces

I was so driven

I’m not gonna say motivated because motivations crap

Motivation comes and goes

When you’re driven

Whatever’s in front of you will get destroyed

So, I sat in this chair and I was so driven to succeed and at this time

everyone’s «Were you thinking about the guys that died?»

And I’m not going to lie to you, I wasn’t

This became a personal thing

This became me against this race, me against the kids that called me nigga,

me against me

It just became something that I took so

So violently personal and I broke this thing down into small pieces

I said okay I got to get nutrition, I gotta be able to stand up

Before I can get off this curve and get off this chair and be able to go 30

miles

So, I went through all these small steps and I was able to stand up and then

from standing up

I was literally walking around with my wife at the time and she goes

«You're not gonna make the time.

You’re walking like 30-something minutes a

mile.»

I got my 81 and the second she said that I’m not going to make the time

I ran the last 19 miles non-stop

I had to get compression tape

And I taped up my ankles

And I taped up my feet

And that’s how I got through that race

Your brain and your body once connected together

Can do anything

Your brain and your body once connected together

Can do anything

Your brain and your body once connected together

Can do anything

Your brain and your body once connected together

Can do anything

Your brain and your body once connected together

Can do anything

Anything

Anything

And people may listen to this and say

«This guy is sadistic, he is crazy, he is-»

No, if you know how I came up

You realize

I was just… a scared kid