The Light Weight and the Ultra Runner

Last night the National Geographic Society sponsored a talk by Charlie Engle, an endurance runner and TV producer. Charlie’s latest feat was running the Sahara with three of his friends. This amazing feat was captured on Film and will be released as “Running the Sahara” which should be released in November.

Charlie was an amazing speaker. He has the gift of being funny, serious, and especially motivating. His idea for the run was hatched out on another run one day. He said he just wanted to see if it could be done. There was no “higher motive” involved in his idea. However, it did evolve into a project called H2OAfrica, which is “a clean water initiative with the mission to create widespread public awareness of the water crisis in Africa and gather support for integrated sustainable clean water programs in critical areas.” Having spent some time in the Middle East and assisted in well building, I completely understand his desire to be able to provide more water to remote locations and educate the people on the need to keep the water clean.

Well, now on to the Light-Weight part of the post. Donna and I, along with a couple of other friends met up at Old Ebbitt for drinks and some dinner prior to going to National Geographic. I had two (yes just two) beers and some food. By 9pm I was dragging and ready to go home. I got up this morning for my Friday run and I was HURTING. I just can’t drink any more. I think we ended up running about 4 miles and it really hurt. This was less than 12 hours after listening to a man who had run the f’ing Sahara. Really puts things in perspective.


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