Project 30 in 5 Numbers
It's official! I have finished the insane year that was Project 30! This post is a snapshot of this year by 5 main numbers
I HAVE COMPLETED PROJECT 30!!!!
It’s surreal for me to believe that I would ever be able to write that sentence, let alone write a blog about my completing Project 30. Since it’s nearly impossible for me to distill an entire year of crazy runs and travel, I have decided to make a post dedicated to 5 numbers that represent the completion of Project 30!
As in the average number of days I had to complete a run to finish Project 30 within the year. The only way I was going to accomplish this goal was by being able to muster up the physical and mental strength to run a marathon or ultra-marathon in an average of less than every two weeks!
Running an ultra every two weeks was especially hard in Asia because of the sheer heat, humidity, and difficult courses that I faced with each run. In fact, I ended up averaging a run only every 18 days while out in Asia. My time out in Asia also caused me to have a short 4-run stint where I could only muster a marathon distance (26.2 miles) as opposed to my goal of 30 miles.
As October came and the end of the year loomed, I realized that I would need to run more often than every 13 days if I wanted to finish all 30 runs by the end. So, from October until the end of December, I ran 10 runs, finishing a run every 9 days!
As in the amount of countries I ran in. I traveled to 17 countries across four continents. I had the chance to visit:
Europe
Italy
France
Portugal
Norway
Hungary
Switzerland
North & Central America
USA
Jamaica
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Asia
Thailand
India
Indonesia
Singapore
South America
Peru
Brazil
As in turning 30 years old this year and deciding to run 30 runs worldwide. I finished Project 30 by running 5 marathons and 25 ultras. Of those runs, I only participated in three official runs. The first was an ultra run aptly named 'Skydive Ultra' because the run starts off by jumping off a plane and skydiving to the ground, then running a 50k.
The second official run was a marathon in Tromsø, Norway. Tromsø is located 220 miles north of the Arctic Circle, allowing me to run during the 'Midnight Sun' phenomenon. This run was extraordinary because it started at 8 pm on June 18th, the night (well, daytime in this case) before my 30th birthday. I finished this run on my 30th birthday just past midnight with the sun shining at noon. It was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday.
The final official run that I did this year was the "Inca Trail Marathon." This is considered the "toughest marathon in the world," and the race didn't disappoint. The terrain was as stunning as it was difficult. The run included ascending Dead Woman's Pass, a 13,828 ft peak, the highest (and the most dreaded by many) point of the Inca Trail. All included, the race required about 10,000 feet of elevation gain and about 12,000 feet of elevation loss. It was an epic run that ended at the legendary Wonder of the World, Macchu Picchu. I also had the added bonus of finishing this race first among 19 other tough and badass racers!
The other 27 hard-fought and self-supported ultras and marathons I ran were spread worldwide. I ran:
on ancient European cobblestone streets.
the mountain trails of the Andes, the Rockies, the Appalachian, the Sierras, and even the Swiss Alps.
in the dense jungles and the massive metropolis of South East Asia and India.
30 different runs in 30 locations worldwide, all during my 30th birthday year!
As in the 10,950 minutes I spent running during my Project 30 runs, in other words, I spent 182 and a half hours running a Project 30 run this year. Meaning I spent over a month's worth of 40-hour weeks running.
Across all 30 of my runs, it took me 10,950 minutes to complete, which means my average pace was 12 minutes and 10 seconds. These include my various mountain trail runs, beach runs, and city runs. On average, my runs took me an arduous 6 hours and 5 minutes to finish. So, I wasn't breaking any records with my pace. During my runs, I would be awed by the environment I was in. There were so many points during my runs where I would stop to take in the sheer rugged beauty of the part of the world that I was in. This was especially potent on mountain runs like I did near the famous Matterhorn mountain in Switzerland. On other runs, I would be so exhausted and seemingly broken down that I would need to stop for 10 to 15 minutes to catch my breath and cool down. For example, I ran on an excruciatingly painful knee for 18 miles in Bali. That run took me nearly 8 hours to finish.
These runs weren't about proving my ability to finish ultras at a certain pace but rather an opportunity to push my physical and mental limits while seeing parts of the world that were best seen and appreciated on foot.
As in the number of miles I had to travel to get to all the places I got to throughout Project 30. To get to this number, I went back and looked at all of the major modes of transportation that I had to take to get to the countries, cities, towns, and even remote mountains and forest areas where I went to do my runs. The major modes of transport included motorbikes, boats, cars, buses, trains, and planes
Overall, I spent over 280 hours traveling and went just shy of 100,000 miles. To put that into perspective, I spent seven 40-hour workweeks in some form of transportation. And I traveled the entire circumference of the Earth four times!
Undoubtedly, I will have missed moments of travel that I took, but I believe this list to be a pretty good representation of the time and mileage it took to complete the travel portion of Project 30.
What these numbers cannot include are all the wonderful people I met throughout the year. They can’t represent the amount of times I had to dig in deep into myself and pull out whatever motivation I had left to keep running. And they can’t represent the wealth of memories and growth that I experienced.
Project 30 has been a year full of powerful memories and moments that I will never forget, I am so grateful to all of my friends and family that supported me throughout the year. Thank you all for helping make turning 30 a spectacular moment in my life!
Happy New Years!!
Incredible!!
Happy New Year and congrats on an amazing year!