Mindset to keep going with help from family.
For this week my guest is Shaun Bemis. He is a soon-to-be retired Naval Special Warfare Leader, and ultra-runner. He joined the service the day after the attacks of 9/11 and he worked in Navy Intelligence, giving support to special forces operations.
Shaun was a competitive and fast soccer player growing up, but he really hated running more than a few miles. But it was while visiting family in Brooklyn that he started running in the mornings as a way to explore the city. Running became an everyday thing for him, and he decided that he would run a marathon. The New York City marathon seemed to him to be a fitting way to commemorate the last year of his Navy career. But he didn’t make it into the lottery.
Then he discovered ultramarathons. Why run a regular marathon when you could run an ULTRAmarathon? So he signed up for the Jupiter Ridge Sand Spur 50K in Jupiter, FL. It is a looped course (9 loops for a 50K) that is soft “sugar sand,” and it includes climbing and descending a sand dune.
Shaun’s 14-year-old daughter was his crew for the race. And when he felt like he couldn’t go on, she said, “Dad. You’ve got this.” That was the encouragement he needed to reframe his mindset and keep going.
His next ultra was a road race of 50 miles to Key West, FL. The heat was brutal, and the physical challenges brought up doubts and fears in his mind. His wife was his crew and encouraged him, and he listened to a podcast from a mindset coach who did a doctoral thesis on the mindset of the ultra-runner. The words he heard helped normalize the experience he was going through, and he was able to finish.
He has his eye on more ultra-running adventures in the future, along with pursuing new career opportunities after he retires from the Navy.
Connect with Shaun:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunbemis/
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