If I Can, I Will: William Goodge On Running 50 Marathons In 50 States In 24 Days

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You're gonna do 50 marathons in 50 states in 24 days.

William Goodge (1:33)

Correct, yeah.

Rich Roll (1:34)

This is a whole new level of insanity.

William Goodge (1:37)

This is Mission America.

Andrew Yang (1:39)

William Goodge.

Rich Roll (1:39)

William Goodge. William Goodge. Ran across the entire United States.

Andrew Yang (1:43)

Fastest British person ever.

Rich Roll (1:45)

He's an absolute beast when it comes to ultra running.

William Goodge (1:48)

On paper, this should be the most difficult thing I've ever done. The level of intricacy and detail on this is unlike anything I've ever done before. So it has to flow exactly right.

Rich Roll (1:58)

How do you think about that and prepare yourself?

William Goodge (2:01)

I think a lot of us move through life with fear. And a lot of the time, fear stops us from chasing our dreams or chasing our goals. So I have the most simple phrase, can I take another step?

The answer is always yes.

Rich Roll (2:16)

Well, it's good to have you back here, man. For round two, I'm one of your biggest fans.

You keep raising the bar on your challenges, challenging yourself. And the latest iteration of this is very difficult to get my head around. Many people have run, I don't know how many, but more than a few have run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. We all know Dean Karnazes, he's probably the most celebrated person who's done it. And he wrote a book about it. I know that book was very influential on you. Do we know how many people have done that?

William Goodge (2:49)

I have no idea, no.

Rich Roll (2:51)

Yeah, I would imagine there's a handful at least, right?

William Goodge (2:54)

Yeah, and they'd have probably done it over like a period of years as well. Because there is one record for a lady that's done the fastest average time in all 50 states, which I assume would be actual races. Yeah.

Rich Roll (3:07)

Right, but with no time limit on, or like doing it in a calendar year or something like that, right? But what you're about to embark upon on October 3rd is at a whole other level. You're going to do 50 marathons in 50 states, and you're going to do it in 24 days.

William Goodge (3:23)

Correct, yeah.

The only thing is I'm starting October 9th, but- Oh, October 9th, sorry. Everything else is gold.

Rich Roll (3:31)

October 9th.

It's difficult for me to even get my head around this. Not only are you kind of having, you know, cutting in half the amount of days that Dean did it, it's like then one more day. Like you could have set it for 25 and said I'm gonna cut it in half and you went to 24 I'm curious around that. This is bananas. On most days, you're gonna be running two marathons in two different states, but on four occasions, October 17th, October 19th, October 25th and October 30th, you're gonna be running three marathons in separate states in a 24 hour period. Yeah. How is this possible?

William Goodge (4:16)