Taylor Spike Fuels Change Through Ultrarunning

Pour Out the Pain: Taylor Spike, Ultrarunner
Taylor Spike completed the Tahoe 200 Endurance Run sub-60 hours, a finishing time only seven other runners have managed in the history of the race.
Over the last decade, trail running has transformed Spike’s life from one of lethargy and addiction to one of healing and drive. He shares his experience with loss, with grief, as well as his truth about pushing yourself as far as you can before you break.
When his 12-year-old son, Donavan, challenged him to a footrace, Spike realized his daily routine of beers, painkillers, and apathy was insulating him from real life. Everything had to change. He originally clung to ultrarunning as ladder to recovery; no longer suffering from the strangle of alcohol and pill addiction, he now willingly suffers physically in order to prosper mentally. Enduring the pain of an ultra coaches him to walk through the grit of life and seek a balanced outlook. When life forces extremes, Spike can navigate back to a healthy center rather than escape to numbness.
In 2016 Taylor unexpectedly lost Donavan, at 22-year-old, in a car accident. From that traumatic day, ultrarunning took on a deeper level of meaning. The distance became an exercise in persistence. A lesson in vulnerability. Practice coping with discomfort. Grinding through a hundred - or two hundred miles - while carrying a small parcel of Donavan’s ashes in his vest pocket reminds him that the pain he is enduring is nothing compared to the pain Donavan suffered. The purpose of the race, for him, is found in exposing and facing the reality of losing his son. Personal growth does not happen in complacency. He spreads the ashes of beloved Donavan in important places during these ultra events to honor him and to return to him later.
As Taylor Spike continues to persevere, his ultrarunning career continues to explode. Ultrarunners often advise each other to dig deep when the miles get difficult, but pushing the limits of a two hundred mile race cuts away every wall, every barrier, and all of the masks. These, too, serve to insulate from suffering reality and walking through pain.
Spike fearlessly pursues the grit and honest self-reflection endurance events offer to those who are willing to look into its mirror.

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I watch this daily for inspiration

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This guy is for real

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Excellent

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Liver is king