Ultradrinking and Ultrarunning

I tore through a short biography, a novela maybe, in the last 45 minutes. I don't rightly know how long it is as it has only been digitally released and never meant for the paperback.  The dude, and rightfully called, who put these words to type is a man much like myself, only a few years older, sober, and trail hardened. An ultradrinker turned ultrarunner, Mishka Shubaly.

The Long Run is the bookish thing I read and everything is still spinning fresh in my head. In the near future I want to read it again immediately before heading out for a solo long run and see what happens. For now I want you to read it, here's my take and then a few quotes to get you hooked. Expect to read half memoir of an alcoholic misspent youth followed by years of touring in a boozey drug induced state. Mikasha writes of love lost, fortune gained and immediately spent, pain and nightmares bordering a mind lost the distinction of knowing wakefulness from sleep. At some point the anger turns him to run. The run releases him from anger, and the ultrarunner is born. I promise it's a quick read and engaging from start to finish, but then again I've always been a sucker for story of the substance abuser, even before I was one. Interesting.

"I drank because I wanted to drink. Every single drink, every single drug I took, I took because I a made the decision to get fucked up and fuck the consequences. I was sad and angry and a little alcohol made me feel better. It took a long time to realize alcohol made me feel worse. Whoops."

- Mikasha Shubaly, The Long Run

Yes I drank because I wanted to. I usually kept drinking because I wanted to, but I couldn't stop. That first drink pours in and the thirst is only truly quenched from blacking out or passing out. Always, I drank more than I intended. If I stopped, it was only to resume later on my own without judgement. I can remember that first beer. So many people remember hating their first beer. I loved mine and everything about it. It was a long neck bud light, ice cold, in a friends basement shooting a game of pool when I was barely 18. I had tried beer before, but this was the first that was mine and legit. I felt the alcohol coursing through me as I finished the drink a few minutes later. All I could think was, "Sign me up, I can't believe this is what I have been missing." The alcoholic signs were ever present. I would have drank more, but 7-8 beers later and the stock was empty, damn. It was all over from there. A quick rise in tolerance. Soon I was off to college where I really honed my drinking skills. Anyway, back to the quote. I don't blame it on the alcohol, it was always me, but my alcoholic mind, the thirst was always there. Guess I'm not normal. When it comes to beer I'm all in or all out. There is not middle ground.

"And when you treat your body like a science experiment, whether with ultrarunning or ultradrinking, you spend a lot of time sleeping and a lot of time in pain."

- Mikasha Shubaly, The Long Run

I couldn't sleep when I drank. After a multi-day weekend bender ending Sunday night. I would be in bed by 10 and up at 1 consumed with cold sweats, accompanied by a tremendous overwhelming sense of guilt so powerful I can't relate in words. My mind felt disconnected from my body, from my soul. Hanging on by a few fragments of wire unable to complete thoughts and wanting nothing more than to be overcome by sleep and it not happening for more than 15 minutes at a time. But, if you asked me then, I didn't have a problem. Whoops. Now I'm all out and writing my own story of recovery. Sleeping I can't do enough of either, it comes with ease and I've never felt better. I may not be an ultrarunner yet, but I'm on my way. Running, I'm all in.