MH: Hi, my name is Melissa Hendershot, and I am a graduate student at UCSF.
Today I am here with Chris Garcia,
who is a professor and Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at Stanford University.
Chris is a dedicated professor, but he also
spent thousands of hours training for and running ultra marathons.
So, welcome Chris. Thanks for joining us.
CG: Thank you.
MH: First of all, can you just tell us a little bit about what an ultra marathon is and what that entails?
CG: Technically an ultra marathon is any distance race longer than a marathon.
So ultra marathons can be anything from 50 kilometers, which is a pretty popular distance,
to a hundred miles, and, you know, there are races in between 50 milers, 100K's,
so that is what defines an ultra marathon.
MH: When did you first start running seriously?
CG: Well, I was always an athlete. I was a tennis player growing up. A pretty serious tennis player,
and then in graduate school I started running, and I started running marathons on the East Coast,
and actually rode a single skull for a while when I was in graduate school.
And then when I moved to California for my postdoc,
I started getting more serious about running and doing triathlons.
And I did a lot of triathlons when I was in San Diego doing my postdoc at Scripps,
and you know I had always heard about ultra marathons
and I'd always had a predilection for distance.
And I knew that ultra marathons were a big thing in the Bay Area,
but you know, like 15 years ago when I was just hearing about them,
they weren't as popular as they are now.
So it was kind of an urban myth, these races where people run a hundred miles, and so...
I felt like that was something that I could potentially be decent at.
And it kind of escalated from there.
MH: What was your first ultra?
CG: So my first ultra was... actually a postdoc in my lab had run some ultras
and she got me to sign up with her
to run a race in the Marin Headlands called the Marin 50K.
It went through the Headlands and through the trails.
It was just a.... It was almost like an out of body experience.
It was just running through the fog over there
and along the coastal trail, and through the rainforests, and it was from the first time I ever did it,
it was just... that was it. I was hooked.
And that was almost 12 years ago.
MH: How many ultra marathons have you done? Do you know?
CG: Yeah, I have done a total of 80 or 82, or something like that,
and amongst those 80-some races,
I think I have run about 13 100-milers, probably 25 or 30 50-milers,
and 10 or so 100K's and a lot of 50K's so kind of
very long distance races you run fewer of because your body just can't take that many.
MH: How do you train for the races?
CG: So during the week I do normal distances. I'll run 6 or 7 miles, maybe four times a week.
And actually I do a lot of cross training.
I swim a lot. I swim with Stanford Masters team a lot in the mornings, and I also cycle a lot.
And so I have like a 25 mile loop that I do to get to work just to sort of take the pounding off my body.
But then on weekends, there is usually a long Saturday run, that is anywhere from 20 to 30 miles
with a group of people I have been running with for a long time.
They are great friends, and a big part of why I am doing this, and that is a Saturday morning staple.
And then as we are sort of ramping up into race season now,
you'll back it up again on Sunday with maybe a 15 or 20 mile run.
So the key to doing ultras is the long run.
And the long run can be anywhere from twenty to forty miles.
And then backing it up with a long run the next day.
And so, it comes in large chunks. So for me, going into a 100-miler,
I might max out at like and 80 or 90 mile week for a few weeks,
but average total maybe 60 or 70 miles a week.
Some people run 150 miles a week, the real elite ultra runners will run 150-200 miles a week.
Some people can get away with less. And so it is a very individual thing.
MH: How do you manage to push yourself past the feelings of discomfort and unhappiness?
CG: That is a good question. You just keep going. You realize when you first start doing these races,
you really doubt what you can do, and you fear failure.
But then with enough experience, you realize you can get past those bad patches
when you are just completely...you just can't go on.
If you understand your nutrition well enough, if you know how to manage yourself,
hydrate yourself, and you know, you have the confidence,
you have done those longer distances before,
you can push yourself through it and you recover.
It is amazing in these races how many times you go to complete failure,
and you recover, and then you are running along just as if you had started running ten minutes ago.
And so it is a constant sort of cycle of ups and downs in these races.
MH: What sorts of things do you think about when you are running?
CG: You know, it is interesting. Well, when I am running just for training
or in the afternoon here at Stanford, like out here,
I am usually thinking about problems in the lab.
Science. Projects. Issues with people. Managing projects.
But then when you run far enough, your mind goes blank and you don't really think about anything.
You don't have enough glucose in your brain to think,
and, you know, people ask me what do you think about during a hundred mile race
when you are out there for a day? Do you get bored?
And it's amazing how fast these things go.
I barely remember anything that happens in these races.
You know, you are just kind of in survival mode.
And you are thinking about managing yourself and your nutrition,
and so you are just so in the moment
and you are not thinking about anything else except maximizing how good you feel.
MH: Have you ever had a scientific breakthrough moment
while you have been out running on the trail?
CG: Yeah, actually a lot of them.
I have had a lot of ideas for projects, usually early in the run.
And I remember very distinctly when I was an Assistant Professor
we were trying to solve a crystal structure that had a very complex packing and symmetry problem.
And we were banging on the thing for a week or two, and, well, the project took longer than that,
but once we had phases we were staring at the graphics
and couldn't figure out the symmetry of the thing,
and I took a run around Stanford and I solved the problem in my head. It just came to me.
It just kind of percolated up, and so stuff like that happens all the time.
MH: How have you found ways to balance having both a
demanding profession and a pretty demanding hobby?
CG: Well, I am very disciplined with my time, and I don't have a lot of free time.
I am usually doing one of two things. I am either working or I am out training.
And I get up at 4 in the morning and then I work for awhile, and then I swim, and go to work,
and then I go to lab, and then later in the afternoon
I usually do another training session and go back to lab, and then go home.
I don't get a lot of sleep, and I enjoy it. I love it.
I love the immersion. I love my life, and there's not a lot of tolerance.
The tolerances are pretty fine between the stuff I am doing,
and I always feel like it is on the verge of blowing up, but I feel very fortunate.
You know, there's so many things I want to do that it is difficult to find enough time in the day often.
MH: Do you see any parallels between running ultra marathons and running a lab,
or any skills that you have acquired through your racing that have helped you as a PI?
CG: Definitely. It's been hugely, enormously helpful.
Just athletics in general has a lot of lessons to learn about doing science.
And there is a physicality to science that I think people tend to underestimate
that you need to be able to push yourself through barriers
to keep going on hard scientific problems.
And ultra teaches a lot of lessons about humility and stoicism,
staying within oneself, and being in the moment.
It has had a great pacifying influence on me, for sure. And also having the long view.
Science, if you are working on hard scientific problems,
or any sort of important scientific problem,
it is generally going to be a long term problem,
and you have to have the patience and the foresight to understand that the payoff is in the future.
It is in the distance.
And it is also in the process of doing the science. It is not just in the reward.
So ultra has the same kinds of lessons to teach
about enjoying the process, learning from the process,
and having the long view, and having the confidence that you can get there if you just persist.