ultrarunner and author<\/a> shares his thoughts on the popularity of athlete-influencers and why taking on crazy personal challenges will always grab attention.<\/p>\nWhat Ultrarunning Looked Like in the Early Nineties<\/h2>\n The races were much more about adventure because nobody had a smartwatch to tell them they were two feet off trail. You\u2019d get lost a lot. The competitor fields were small, mostly older men. PowerBar had just come out, but it was just dried fruit blended up and baked. I mostly ate quesadillas and real food. Everyone was dirtbagging it, even the elite runners. I remember Ann Trason, who was winning every big race back then, told me she could barely pay her bills off of running.\u00a0 Scott Jurek got a shoe deal with Brooks that paid him five grand a year, and we were like, \u201cWow, you\u2019re killing it!\u201d<\/p>\nKarnazes became a running celebrity in the nineties. (: Courtesy of Dean Karnazes)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHow the 50\/50\/50 Idea Originally Came Together<\/h2>\n The North Face came to me and said they wanted to design a line of footwear for trail running. That was a pretty novel idea back then. The company has an annual process for proposing expeditions for athletes, and the ideas usually involve climbing K2 or the Eiger or whatever. I thought, An expedition doesn\u2019t have to be in the mountains<\/i>. So I put this proposal together about running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, and thought there was no way they\u2019d go for it. They were an outdoor company, not a running company. But they thought it was novel.<\/p>\n
They were smart marketers and hired a good PR agency that sent out news releases in every city I was going to. There was this tech company, Bones in Motion, that sent out group SMS messages to runners prior to me arriving. Like, \u201cHey, Dean is here in your city today.\u201d<\/p>\n
People came out to run with me. I met with city mayors, state governors, and other local famous people. Some of them came out to run with me. It became a community thing, and the collective idea was like\u00a0this is kind of cool.<\/em> The next thing I knew, National Geographic<\/i> wanted to publicize it, but an executive was like \u201cWhat if this guy dies after five marathons?\u201d So I ran with a videographer, some kid who had just finished film school at University of Southern California and knew about the Internet, and he told me, \u201cI\u2019m going to put the video on something called YouTube.\u201d I thought it sounded crazy, like science fiction. But it all worked.<\/p>\n\nKarnazes lives most of the year in Greece these days (Photo: Courtesy Dean Karnazes)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\nOn Being an Outdoor Influencer Before the Term Even Existed<\/h2>\n I\u2019m actually very proud of the work that I did, because one of the challenges I took on early in my career was to get this sport, ultrarunning, to a point where athletes could actually earn a living off of it. It brings me a lot of gratitude to think that I contributed to that. I also take a lot of satisfaction from the impact I had on other people\u2019s lives. I was going through TSA at the airport one time and a lady stopped me and said she recognized me from\u00a0Regis and Kelly.\u00a0<\/em>She\u2019d started walking 5-kilometer races because of that. I\u2019ve kind of crossed over at every distance.<\/p>\nWhy He Thinks Crazy Athletic Challenges Have Become Part of Outdoor Culture<\/h2>\n Most people I see are not doing their stunts for commercial reasons, but rather for self-fulfillment. I think people more than ever are feeling empty with life, and they hope that doing something meaningful or inspirational or insane\u2014just for the heck of it\u2014is going to make them proud of themselves. They want it to inspire awe in the people around them. I think like the stunt that I did\u2014and stunts that others have done\u2014give them permission to follow their idea.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Five Wildest FKT Attempts in 2024<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nHow Running Fits into His Life at Age 63<\/h2>\n I\u2019m still running 100 milers and racing as much as ever. I\u2019m slower but I\u2019m still doing it. I can\u2019t put up with the big miles that I used to, so it\u2019s more high-intensity training like hill repeats. I\u2019m also doing a lot of nose breathing while running as a form of forced hypoxia. My VO2 max actually went up ten points doing that. I\u2019m also doing a lot more strength training and muscle building, too. Last year I did 14 or 15 races. I\u2019ve still never had a running-related injury, overuse or otherwise. I\u2019ve lost toenails, but no Achilles tears, no hamstring problems.<\/p>\nKarnazes says he\u2019s slower and older. But he still loves running as much as he did 30 years ago. <\/span> (Photo: Courtesy Dean Karnazes)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHis Advice for Outdoor Athletes Who Want to Keep Competing into Their Golden Years<\/h2>\n I still view running as a form of play, just grown-up play. Believe it or not, I still love running as much as I did when I got started. What drives me is different now. I love going to trail races where you\u2019re gone for 24 hours. How often does any other human watch the sunrise, the sunset, and the moonrise in one day? My advice:You don\u2019t need to quantify every workout, or see it as training. Don\u2019t do the same route. Don\u2019t run at the same time of day. Put on a headlamp and run at night. My advice is go on a run for the pure joy of running.<\/p>\n
This article is from the Spring 2026 issue of Outside<\/em> magazine. To receive the print magazine, become an Outside+ member here.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dean Karnazes discusses the backstory of his 50\/50\/50 stunt, what ultrarunning looked like in the nineties, and the attitude that keeps him logging big miles in his sixties. Dean Karnazes running the Santorini Experience in Greece. (Photo: Elias Lefas\/Santorini Experience) Published May 7, 2026 08:45AM The athletic feat seemed like something out of a science<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wild-living"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}