What Are You Actually Capable Of? Mark Dowdle On Winning A 306 Mile Backyard Ultra

35:38And it's you and Harvey once again. Yeah. And what happens in this race? Harvey - First of all, how long after the BPN race was this race? So BPN was April 10th. This was June 20th. So you had a decent amount. Okay. Yeah. And Harvey invited me to come to this race. and he, which Harvey, we'll see what your intentions were for inviting me to this race. Yeah, with a twinkle in his eye and a smile. Like, I want payback on this guy. He's like, I'm going to get the best of this. I'm going to get back. But he pitched it as, hey, Biggs has a lot of elevation. Him and I will be teammates this year for Team USA.

36:24And that's in October, right? It's in October. That's like the like premier backyard ultra race. So we'll be on a team of 15 for that competing against like 70 other countries. But he wanted to prepare along with me for that by doing this race. He'd always wanted to do this race and he thought it would be great training and just fun to compete against each other. And so we did it and it was brutal. I mean, average grade is 30%, gets up to 60 % incline. 60%. Yeah. I mean, that's almost like rock climbing. Yeah. If you lean back, you are stumbling back. Franklin, Tennessee. I didn't realize it had that kind of elevation gain.

37:13But Harvey won. Yeah. So Harvey wins this race. There's a video of him sprinting at the end. Celebrating. What is going on with this guy? It seems on paper, not knowing about that elevation aspect to it, that running a one-mile loop would be easier. Setting aside the grade aspect of it, what is the difference doing a 4.2-mile loop versus a one-mile loop? Rhythm and timing. My greatest asset is having my wife, Lucy, there. She cooks all the food that I eat. and because we come back to a tent there's a level of when i enter that tent i sort of get to break down the walls and let her know genuinely how i'm feeling and we can talk about that and it just be a place for us to come together and in this you don't have a tent to go back to you are stuck in this corral where you have three by three space where you get a chair and a cooler and you're next to all 114 other runners like a triathlon transition exactly yeah and instead of having eight minutes that feels like forever you have maybe three minutes and because of the elevation because i you know i tend to like to take my time and and not over burn on on courses i was coming in with like 30 seconds to a minute and it just wasn't enough time and you can't sleep because of the limited time they do a every 12 hours a 20 minute intermission so you can sleep during that but it's just so out of rhythm where you know you sleep for 10 minutes and you eat for five but by the time you're getting back up you're stiff because you've been down and you're out of that rhythm and it was just the whole just your rhythm is off it just the format didn't create this very easy system where you could shut off your brain and you could take time.

39:17Like during the BPN race, when it was down to us four, I laid down belly first on the course. And I was able to have this two to three minute reflective moment where I sat and I said, I want to quit, this is getting hard, but will the version of me 24 hours from now be able to honestly say that I gave everything I had in this race and I could have that moment and it not cost me on time. and i could get back up and then keep going if you do something like that at mid-state or if you take a pee that's longer than you know a minute and a half you could time out and just to catch back up you're hammering down these hills that have rocks and roots everywhere and you know one bad step or it's late at night and you're tired you trip and you fall you smash your face and so i just think that that quickness that upbeat being able to stay it's like an interval workout like a very very long interval workout also you being a big dude like you're at a disadvantage with that kind of elevation gain it's gonna it's gonna beat you up more than it's gonna beat up a guy like harvey i think my quads handled it better than harvey's yeah but you get you have a lot more muscle that can get fatigued true a lot more lactate buildup true true

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44:40so if i was to say ask you like what is your superpower strength or advantage in the backyard ultra context is it your strength is it your resilience because you're kind of born and raised in the midwest and have tolerated terrible weather conditions or yeah i do genuine believe that the strength that i have is not a running per se it's not necessarily a strength per se it is that i'm committed to this mission of finding out what i'm capable of and my heart and my spirit are way more leading the charge than anything else because during mid-state mile there came a moment we ended at 10 a.m monday morning but by midnight i knew i wasn't gonna beat harvey i i just knew it he was looking way too strong he had gone through one low point and then popped back out of it and was looking great and i was just banged up and i just made a decision there i was like i don't care if i don't win this thing i need to know I need to know that I gave everything I had out here and for 10 hours I was able to do that knowing that the outcome was entirely removed knowing that you know the outcome that I wanted to happen there wasn't going to happen and all throughout that day my mind was looking for an out my mind was looking for an opportunity to stop I even was like hoping and praying that I would just eat it going down the hill at night so that I could have some other excuse than quitting.

46:26But it is, and I get this from my mom, this relentless will to not give up on something. Like my mom is the type of person where if I lose this wristband in this room, she will fly out here and she will not leave until she finds it. And she will find it. What is that about? I don't know. This is baked into your genetic code. Yeah. What is the practice of that? Like, how do you, do you have, like you talked about journaling, but are there things that you do to get yourself primed and in that mindset so that you can weather those low moments, those difficult trying moments when everything inside of you is telling you to quit?

47:07I mean, my faith is a big, is a big piece of that. Has that always been consistent in your life or is this something that yeah talk about that no you know grew up in the catholic household went to the jesuit university went to catholic university but never was like so sick of hearing it from my dad so sick of hearing it after i went through this phase of chasing happiness i replaced that with a chasing achievement because i thought that if i do these big events these big races these big challenges people that i respect and admire in the sport then they'll respect me and then i will have achieved something meaningful i will feel whole yeah and you know i did this year-long calendar club where part of the intention going into that was to see what i was capable of but there was also this intention that if i did it i would gain social media attention i I would gain sponsorships.

48:10I would gain admiration from other people. And seven, eight months into the challenge, none of it happened. And I was listening to Sally McRae talk about on a podcast where she finds strength in those moments in her 200 mile races where she is reminded that she's made in the image of God. And something about that just stirred my spirit in a way of like, I've tried everything to feel whole. and I have never found it. And maybe this is a place where I haven't yet searched because I have been taught it by my parents for so long where I just, I don't want anything to do with it. Or I just never actually took the time to take a genuine step of faith, not from a religious background, but from like a genuine step of maybe this is something that I should seek out.

49:01and from then i was able to actually separate myself from running as an identity running as a way of making money or you know growing an audience or creating an impact and recognize that if it gets taken away from me tomorrow or today god forbid it will be hard it will be very hard and there will be a time of mourning for that but i will be okay because the strength that i have comes from a foundation of faith but it also comes from having a strong will and a strong spirit and i look at a guy like mike egan who was at the bpn race who was in a wheelchair right who that is talk about is like an incredible story that is the embodiment and i've texted him about this i'm like i i see more in common with you than i do a lot of other runners because when you're watching a man drag his wheelchair, doing whatever it takes, even when the loop time had passed, even if he finished that loop, he couldn't continue on, but he had a will and a desire to just see what was the limit.

50:14No race win, no amount of money, no amount of people following your story will give you what that can give you, the peace that that can give you. And you can only find that by you doing the work to get there. Nobody can give that to you. And so I find a lot of strength in recognizing that there is something deeper about what I am doing that these external material things can't provide to me. How old are you? 29. Yeah. Dude, you're so young. When I was 29, mine it's an absolute disaster yeah like you're just at the beginning of you know i can see the amazing life ahead of you to have that grounded you know sense of meaning uh in your life where everything is in its proper place like you're just set up for the right kind of life you know it's really beautiful thank you the guy in the wheelchair oh my god mike like he's it's like it's covered in mud you can't even turn these wheels and he was out there like doing like doing a backyard ultra in the mud in a wheelchair it's like i've never seen anything like that when we rolled up i this is not a great thing to admit but i just thought he was out there because it would be a nice little publicity thing like there's no way somebody can do this course for more than a few loops and i didn't know much about him going into the race but then i saw and i was like okay this makes a lot of sense meaning like what is it about that guy like who i don't know anything about him he is a he's a veteran um he the his legs it he was He stepped on a landmine, IED.

52:08He went through tons of surgeries and he got to this point. He shared his story on a podcast recently and he listened to it on our drive to Mid-State. But what I see in that man is somebody who has a relentless will to not let his circumstance define him. And that to me is, those are the people that inspire me as people who don't allow whatever they're going through to define who they are. And it goes back to what we talked earlier. It's like, he is the one that's creating the story that he wants to live by. And that to me is powerful. That to me is empowerment. That speaks to people more about how they can change their circumstance and take ownership in their life than winning a backyard ultra.

52:55Maybe the ways in which I've gotten there or the ways in which Harvey got there speak to it, but it's not the win. It is what you're willing to do despite the win. When I was up at TrailCon the other week, there were all these panels going on. And one of the – like a recurring topic of conversation is the future of ultra running, the changes that we're seeing. We're seeing money coming in. We're seeing so many new people coming into this sport in various capacities. and there's a lot of like concern and hand-wringing amongst the ogs of what is this going to do to this culture the subculture that we care about so much uh and you know how are we going to make sure that we protect what's great about this sport when all of these other influences are now you know coming in and i would imagine that that like what nick bear is doing with bpn is is you know for that old guard is somewhat like a ruffling of the feathers because he doesn't, he's not the picture of the ultra, he's not like the guy with the mustache living in a van down by the river.

54:05You know what I mean? He's doing something very different. And what I find interesting about this is that the new people coming in are in charge of determining what this culture is. And there can be many cultures that can coexist. And this is a guy who is introducing this world to a whole different kind of community or cohort of people and athletes. And because he's so good at the content and filmmaking piece, he's able to create stories that resonate with people and are magnetizing people who otherwise might not ever even consider the sport to start signing up for these things, which I think is, you know, that's a net positive overall.

54:48But it is interesting, the cultural shifts that we're seeing happening right now. Yeah. And I think that's just going to happen. I look at a guy who is really doing this well, and it's Harvey, where he's an older guy in the sport. He's still competing at a high level, but he has adapted tremendously well of putting himself right in the center. He can pop into any community and he'll proudly wear his vegan stuff. You know, it's like he just dropped into the, you know, go one more red hat wearing like world of like bros and hybrid athletes. And he's just his skinny, happy self with his, you know, vegan with his vegan attire on, you know, and everybody loves him because he's just oozing positivity and love for everybody that he meets.

55:38Yeah. And I think with the new age, I mean, I'm a product of people like Harvey, people like yourself, people like Ricky Gates and Robbie Ballinger. I'm a product of listening to those people. So I stand on the shoulders of giants type of thing. But I'm also a part of this new age of coming from a untraditional sport background and using social media in a way that maybe some other people didn't have access to, or I'm very much fit, you know, in a lot of ways, the BPN type of person. Lacrosse player. 100%. Football player. What that does though is the amount of people that then signed up for their first backyard because of what they watched during BPN.

56:25I'm getting like hundreds of DMs about that. And I think what that does is it allows people to get more invested in the sport where then they can look at a guy like Harvey where they might not get pushed his content because they're looking for maybe Jim bro content. but now they're starting to understand somebody like Harvey or like Phil Gore or some of these really OG people in the sport and that helps them as well. Yeah. So I think it all bubbles up to help everybody, but it's I think somebody like Harvey who's embracing that change and putting himself in the center of that. And dude, he's bringing us along on this journey of his as well.

57:08Sure. He is really the face of the sport and he's grown the sport and he loves it and protects it. And there's a sense where when somebody has that much investment in it, I want to honor them and respect that. And he's willing to bring us along on that journey. what you did in 2024 i think it might be the most interesting thing that you've done what's that which is uh this 475 miles worth of running to arrive in ontario for the beer mile world classic so basically you at some point you get enamored with this beer mile thing yep and you're like this is my jam yep uh but instead of just showing up to the beer mild world classic to participate in the amateur category or whatever it was, you decide that you're going to run there.

57:57So you run from Chicago to Milwaukee, then you catch a ferry across Lake Michigan. And then you start basically running from college to college across Michigan, like running beer miles with like lacrosse athletes or something like that to eventually 475 miles later arrive in Windsor, Ontario for this beer mile championship. and then what happens just competition i mean i mean it so what you do you end up getting second right in this race in the amateur category you run like 551 or something like that but you do it in like this like pink and purple like button down shirt yeah um so this is pre backyard ultra but you're you must be thinking at the time like i'm the i'm gonna be the beer mile guy i still am the beer that is the thing most people know me for is you're the beer mile guy right oh they still know you as that guy yeah a little bit more now because of the bpn thing but man it is the beer mile happened because during calendar club a way to sort of celebrate the end of the month and the beginning of a new month was to invite people to do a beer mile and i got pretty good at them and i liked the competition aspect where it's like this really quick thing and then i you know that content was doing well online so i tried to lean into it and see what i could make of it which turned into beat my beer mile where i'd race college athletes yeah you have a bunch of videos yeah like you show up like you get the football team and they run a mile and the challenge is they have to go faster than your beer mile.

59:45Yes. And if I pass them, they're out. Here's what BPN should be doing. They should combine these two things and make the backyard ultra, they should add the beer into it. So after every lap, you have to drink a beer and that would completely change the whole thing. Like how long could you go? How many beers? I would not last Harvey is not. I don't know, man. I think maybe you're made for it. I think you would definitely put Harvey into the grave with that one. That's true. I got Harvey on that one. Harvey, let's do that one. Yeah. I mean, part of it too sparked is I coached one year football after college because I thought I wanted to be a football coach because I didn't want to work a typical nine to five.

1:00:30And I learned very quickly through that experience that there's a difference between loving football and loving to play football. And I did not love the sport. And I wanted to be a coach in large part because I wanted to counsel young men that I now on the other side had better tools to deal with the emotional and the social problems that I dealt with very poorly in college. And there was no time for that in football. It was strictly football. and over the course of the beer miles i transitioned to more na beer because i just it wasn't about the alcohol yeah and going to these college football teams and getting them excited about this weird quirky race that they were being put out of their comfort zone and then being able to sit and talk to them about their experience that to me drew me closer to being able to have an impact that I wanted in football.

1:01:29And the, you know, the run to Windsor was because I'd look at a guy like Ricky Gates and I saw his trans Americana and like that, dude, I get tears watching that YouTube video. It is the thing I recommend to anybody who is interested in learning about ultra running and running and what it means to act like to me, what it means to get to the core and the essence of it and so that to me was like i'm quitting my job and i'm gonna run home to my house in in chicago illinois and then i'm gonna run to windsor and i'm gonna have my own ricky gates experience meaning uh you're gonna go get like a stroller or a push cart and do it ricky gates style i mean sleep in parks find a random spot yeah you mentioned uh your interest in coaching football stemming from this desire to be a helpful voice for young men.

1:02:25And I feel like that's the spirit and the sensibility in which you kind of show up on social media. It's always positive mindset oriented. It's never like, look what I did or anything like that. I feel like you're fulfilling whatever it is inside you that wants to be that mentor and that coach, at least digitally in the way that you acquit yourself on social media. That's what I hope. I think it's always, it's affirming or reaffirming to get feedback. Some of the DMs I've gotten is incredible. And I'm just so appreciative that people are taking that message and then taking action in their life.

1:03:10you know when that one of the months of the calendar club challenge i had encouraged people to come out and i would help set their new distance pr and one of my buddies landon he came out and he did 13 miles then a guy from his hometown had seen him do that and decided to sign up for his first half marathon and only because he'd seen landon do that and to me it was this opportunity to see how what i was doing was rippling out into this friend that i had and because he had taken action on on a belief um it had caused a ripple effect out and that's only possible if people take action that's only possible if like i don't want to create a bunch of couch supporters or people that are just there to cheer me on i genuinely want people to take the lessons that i'm learning and apply them to their own life in the ways that i was able to do and still continuing to do and learning from guys like harvey and i want that for other people and i think what the thing that i do that embodies this most that i get to witness this is the run and plunge stuff we do because in real time it is watching people do something that they never thought they could possibly do let alone run five miles like most of these people showing up aren't runners and then you get to see them transform it and then the next week you see them bring back a friend and they're inviting people into this experience and i think so many people watching this or listening to this, you have that ability to impact somebody in a way that gets them excited to show up more in their own life.

1:05:02And if nothing else gets taken away from what I have to say, it is that what you do matters, how you treat people, how you impact people matters. And it starts by you showing up and demonstrating that in your life so that people can say, if you can do it i can do it too you're a change agent you're a change agent masquerading as an ultra runner you know what i mean yeah like that's the real mission that you're on i think yeah and running is a vehicle for expressing that that idea but you're trying to get people to wake up and transform their lives. When you're out running your calendar club training plan, do you have like threshold days or tempo days or is it all just zone two, you know, in your mind or whatever, like whatever pace you can sustain for that distance?

1:05:59Yeah. It's like 12 and a half minute mile and it's stopping at a grocery store to get some donuts or something. And that's, that's it. There's no threshold that, you know, there's no, There's no need for you to run fast ever. Ever. Yeah. Ever. So it's really more, you know, the running has, I've built that foundation in that year long calendar club, really built that foundation. But to me, what gets affected more in the backyard ultra are those moments where I have that identity of who am I? and so to me it's trying to find ways to do that more in my own life like i've said this before but i don't get to decide if i'm a good husband my wife gets to decide that i don't get to decide if i'm a good friend my friends decide that and so it's that constant communication and relationship with am i showing up with the fullness to which i need to show up in the places that i need to or am I just thinking that I am or telling myself I am or stroking my ego enough to tell that story in mine.

1:07:12And if there's any disconnect in what is reality versus what is like a self-belief, then that is what will show up for me 70 hours into a backyard ultra. And so as much as the running and the strength training and all that are good work towards becoming a better athlete, I really lean on trying to be the highest of character person I can be. How is this relationship with running contributing to you being a better human as opposed to an ego obsessed performance optimizing maniac? Great question, Rich. No, I mean, that's the question you're at. Yeah, like this is, there's a difference between being able to put in a good performance at a crazy race like that.

1:08:05and somebody who's looking at that as a means by which to become a better human being. Yeah. Early on in my journals, it was me trying to create evidence to build courage and confidence because I had that belief, but I didn't have that as the reality. And now that I have a lot of the accolades or the things that that person, that younger kid would have knew in his heart, but couldn't actually show anyone or even himself. Now it is a constant trying to go inward and remain grounded and humble because now on the other side, all of those things can get wrapped up and swirled and taken me in a direction that I don't want to go in or get wrapped up in things that aren't at the core of what I do.

1:09:00And I think having a strong wife and keeping me grounded in that way has been the biggest blessing that I could ever ask for because she really keeps me rooted in the things that ultimately matter. And, you know, funny instance where at Mid-State, I was 24 30 hours in and I waved off one of our helpers or you know our crew guys Cody and she was like Mark mind your manners these people are here helping you I'm like okay I'm sorry so it's just like it is this I have these good people in my corner that don't care about that. Don't want me to get wrapped up in that. And I think that has helped me in ways that I'm so blessed for.

1:09:52What is the message to the person who's stuck? It's similar to the question I asked you before, but if you were to look directly into the camera and deliver the football coach speech to the young man who's on the couch and can't get off YouTube, likes your videos, maybe even watch the BPN live stream and is inspired by that, but is struggling to connect the dots, translating inspiration into contrary action. I think it is trying to bring the awareness to the disconnect that you feel with yourself is because of a lack of action. Like it all comes back to what you are either doing or not doing to bring yourself closer to this belief that you have.

1:10:44Because if they feel stuck, that means that they feel like they should be somewhere else that they're not. And the only way to get there is by taking a step forward. That's the only way that I get through the backyard ultras. That's the only way that I get through any of the hard moments in my life have been taking the next possible step forward and then taking it and not being so focused on the outcome or focused on the result of that, but just appreciating the fact that you took one step and you can look back and see that you are now farther along in the journey to becoming closer to the person that you want to be.

1:11:23it's about the step that you can take in the moment that you find yourself in it's not about uh running in the cold to the mississippi river and taking a sledgehammer to the river to jump into the you know like i think people think well i'm not really doing anything unless i'm doing something like that it's not going to matter whether i get up and walk around the block or decide to put my phone down for an hour. But those really are the levers of change. Each tiny little thing that you do engenders you with a little bit more self-esteem than you had prior. And it's about building ever so gradually on top of those things.

1:12:03People don't realize you've been out crushing ultras for like seven years now. You put seven years into being able to do what you've done this past year and to set yourself up for the races that you're going to be participating in this year. It didn't happen overnight. And yeah, you were a football player and a lacrosse player, and you had some experience with being an athlete, but you weren't a runner and you went into this unknown world and you went all in, but it started with that first jog when you were confused and your identity as an athlete was being challenged and you were trying to figure out who you were or who you were going to be in the aftermath of that college experience.

1:12:45Yeah. The podcast with Rachel, I think you guys touched on how it was one decision, very similar to mine, of going out for this run. And then you now have this understanding of what potential you have and what you can have in the future. And one small decision made many, many times opened up the door for this incredible experience for her to win this race and inspire so many people. But that only happened because she took that first step. There is so much potential in anybody's life, the person listening to this, that you will never experience if you just sit and do nothing. And nobody else can do that for you.

1:13:31Nobody else can want that enough for you. You either have to be in fear or hate your situation so much that you're willing to change, or you have to want that outcome or that journey or that person that you want to be to become a reality so bad that you're going to do anything to make it happen. but it all like the mountaintop is one step the journey i've been on took one step one run and building upon that and it took seven years and i'm still not done you know i'm still on this journey it's still the same process but now it's it that momentum has built when i think about your story, I think you are a beautiful embodiment of what I call the holy trinity of change.

1:14:24To change, you have to do things. It's about doing, it's about action, contrary action, consistency, momentum, all of these very kind of like tactile, practical, actionable things that you have to do to move your life forward in a different trajectory. But there are also a bunch of things that you then have to undo. If you just keep doing, eventually you're going to be running in place unless you look in the rear view mirror and start to untangle a bunch of knots about your story and why you are the way you are. Otherwise, you're going to trip yourself up at some point, and you're going to plateau.

1:15:02So you have to be able to have the courage to do that part of of change i think and then the third the third piece is being like you have to be able to be present at some point you have to be able to show up conscious enough so that you can enjoy this experience that you are having so that you can return it to other people as an act of service because if you're not present and you're always caught up in the next thing or what happened the day before you're missing your entire life and you're missing the gift that you've been given that you are in the position to then pass on and i see you kind of firing on all cylinders with respect to that and and and being such a young person like that's truly inspiring thank you the thing i've been most proud of that is helped a lot of saying yes to a future ahead You know, there was a time when I was on a work trip in the van in Texas and I went back to a stadium that I played in a national quarterfinal game, junior in college.

1:16:18We lost that game. I was distraught after that game. And years later, I went back and I sat in that stadium and I just watched myself. and I watched this kid who was getting in all sorts of trouble dealing with all this emotional burden and and not knowing how to deal with it and walking around surrounded by people but feeling entirely lonely and now three years later I was able to forgive that person I was able to look at that person and understand that the reality of the situation that he is in is not the full truth because i'm sitting here today and i get to see where the life has has led to from that decision and from the decisions that followed and that to me of like sitting in reflection and recognizing that like this goes back again like the story that you have that you want to right is in your hands.

1:17:19And I truly believe that no matter what situation or circumstance somebody is in, they have the ability to make that change. And if they decide to do it, they're going to bring other people along with them because people just, they're drawn to that. When people decide to say enough is enough, I want to move in a different way. There's going to be some friction, I'm sure, but there's also going to be people that have been waiting to be given permission to do that in their own life. You can be that person to somebody else and you don't have to do 500 miles or 300 miles at a backyard. You don't have to run to the Beer Mile World Classic in order to do that.

1:18:01You just have to take whatever you're running from right now, whatever fear you are afraid to face, when you face that, you will inspire somebody else in your life to do that as well. The AA version of that is the person who has seven days of sobriety is going to have a larger impact on the person who just walked in the door who has zero days than the person who has 28 years. that's an alien to that person. Yeah. Just like Harvey Lewis or you is going to be an alien to somebody who's never run a mile. But if you've never run a mile and you run one mile, then you are a source of inspiration for that person who can't get off the couch.

1:18:46Yes. Which means we all have the capacity to inspire and uplift the people around us. And everybody on that journey is as important to the impact of the continuum of that. Yeah. we need everybody along that path. You need the person to run one mile. You need that five, like everybody. What is hard to you is hard to you. It is not different than what's hard to me. It's just a different experience because of the years of which I've been doing this. But somebody's 5K is as hard as running 306 miles is for me. And you need to step into that. beautiful man i think that's a that's a great place to end it for today amazing you're amazing dude i'm such a fan uh and i feel like you're just at the beginning of this amazing career and adventure and you have so much to give that's your gift and that is your superpower uh running is just one way of giving you a platform to express that but when the day comes and ultra running isn't what you're doing anymore, it feels like you're going to transition into some other way of continuing to carry this message, which transcends the sport of ultra running.

1:20:12And it's a privilege and an honor to spend time with you, dude. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. Right on, dude. Seriously. Right on. Peace.