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(dramatic music)

Downloaded from YTS.MX

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- [Person Off-Camera] What makes a person want

to run 150 miles?

These people, they come out here,

they torture themselves,

they're pushing themselves to their physical limits,

running marathons back to back to back here in this heat.

What about approaching those limits

helps them reach what's torn inside of them

and then as they're out here

and they're finding where they're broken,

can the desert,

this fiery, vast expanse,

can it fix them?

(punches resound)

- I hear a lot of times that, you know, I'm just hard nosed.

I just like to see people suffer.

I am Reid, I'm the race director.

My job at this race is to create the hardest race possible.

Bring in the heat, bring in the altitude,

bring in the elevation changes,

bring in the mileage,

make it so incredibly difficult.

Suffering is a good thing.

It makes you feel alive.

It brings you to that center of who you are

and what you're capable of.

If you don't suffer,

you'll never know what you're capable of.

(punches resound)

- I am Kyla Claudell.

I am the Racer Liaison for the Desert RATS Stage Race.

- I'm out there on the course making sure

that everybody is safe

and when they get into camp

and they're upset that the day was so difficult,

way tougher than they expected,

that's what Kyla does.

She deals with their moods,

she deals with getting them all settled down.

I'm not afraid that people are gonna get upset.

They're going to.

Desert RATS is a 150-mile race

from Fruita, Colorado to Moab, Utah.

Takes place over five stages

through the desert in the summer.

- This race is the desert

and there is a magic in the desert, truly.

It's like when there's a movie and New York is a character.

The main character of this story is the Kokopelli.

It's this trail,

some of the harshest and most beautiful conditions

on the planet.

It will be in your soul by the time this is over

and you'll be so much better for it.

So we are looking at past year's expedition journals.

- Yes.

Renée. - [Kyla] This was a huge year

- Hiding underneath the underneath the rock,

the only rock in that whole area.

And that first day, everybody gets hit hard.

Everybody thinks they did heat training

and then they get out there and it's just way worse

than they imagined.

Running in the desert, if it was cool

would be like climbing Everest if it wasn't so high.

- Why did you do these journals?

- So the journals were just so that we could keep track

of everybody out there.

And if we had to go find a body out there,

we would say, "Okay, it's the body laying there

with the journal in their pocket."

- A good cop and bad cop, both love those,

that's why we're there.

It is an unbelievable feeling to have your place

in the world be make people,

watch people achieve impossible things.

(gentle music)

- My job is to make you suffer.

I have brought in the heat,

I have brought in the elevation.

The eight stations are spread out.

- This Desert RATS will be my third,

my third Desert RATS.

- I have completely detonated and hit the wall hard in races

that have been hot in the past,

and so I'm terrified of the heat.

- Well I'm the big sister,

she's the little sister in our family.

They call me Boss Baby.

I don't know what we call you.

- I'm just the peacemaker.

- Yeah, she definitely is.

Also, I'll say, and when you run the trails,

you feel like badass.

And so like this is a chance for us to do stuff

that people are like what?

- Feeling good, good crew.

Just getting ready to embark on this journey together.

It's good, it was funny like five miles out,

we're all chit-chatting and stuff like that,

having a good time.

And then as soon as we realized

we were approaching our starting point,

it got real quiet.

I'm a dad and I work to support my kids

and in my off time, I like to run.

(steady guitar music)

My wife and I and my family,

we partook in a half marathon up in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Year after year after, I ended up doing this race 10 times.

Running is often identified as like a very singular,

individual thing.

And that weekend was all about us as a family.

Then in my life,

something I could have never fathomed happened

and everything I had been working for was gone.

I felt like I could no longer show up as Phil Pinti.

I just started showing up to races as the Macho Man.

Now here is this uniform, almost,

this armor that I could wear

and I didn't have to be Phil Pinti.

I could be the Macho Man.

The Macho Man could show up.

It almost seemed like every race that I did,

it got bigger and bigger and more flamboyant.

Who, dressed like that, wouldn't feel spectacular

and you know, larger than life?

So in a sense I had like two personas, right?

Like when I was at home, I was Phil Pinti, I was Dad.

And then when I was running races, I was the Macho Man.

- [Reid] The racers, they're thrown into this situation

where they're suffering together with people

they've never even met before.

- [Klaus] You haven't met anyone,

but you know there are all these lone,

long distance runners

who share one thing that you share with them.

- [Jason] So I have a military background.

Almost every race that I'm in,

I carry a flag with me.

- [Tim] I'm surrounded by amazing athletes.

I'm doubting, did I do enough?

Did I put in enough work?

Did I train enough?

Because I haven't competed at a super high level

in a race like this before.

- [Reid] Stage one is a Salt Creek stage

and it's 20 miles.

It's open desert.

It's tough because people are introduced to the heat.

(starting gun bangs)

(country guitar music)

- [Kyla] It's really interesting to see

the new racers every year.

There are those looking to win,

the ones that just want to survive.

The runners, the walkers,

the solitary seekers and the social animals.

Everyone brings a different strategy

to somehow cope with this impossible task before them.

It's tortoise and the hare stuff initially,

but pretty quickly, you realize

it's about something much more

and that's, you know, the story each person brings.

(country guitar music continues)

- I've never done anything like this.

I mean, part of the reason I signed up for this race is

because I wanted to experience

what it was gonna be like racing back-to-back days.

It's kind of terrifying in a lot of ways.

When I think about a stage race

and I think about what this is gonna demand,

not only in terms of heat

but also just in terms of the day in, day out,

getting up and getting it done,

it's gonna be a journey.

Only three miles into this thing.

It's definitely getting hot.

I'm already tired,

no idea how I'm gonna finish the rest of the week.

- My parents went with,

what's everyone calling their children?

Amy, what's no one calling their children?

Michael Lynn.

We don't live very close together.

We've had a lot of time apart

and we were really close growing up.

Like, I wouldn't even go outside and play

if she wouldn't go with me.

- Or she would get babysitting jobs

and I would go babysitting

and give her half the money. - And she'd give me

half the money.

So yeah. - So I was Boss Baby,

Peacemaker.

Only took a few wrong turns.

That's okay though, we didn't go too far

down the wrong path.

- Wait, babushka.

She has a long history of sucking me into things

that she thinks that would be fun.

- Growing up, Amy always had it together

and I didn't like her at times.

You know, you're very jealous.

She always had the right answers.

- [Amy] Everything was competition.

Cleaning the house was a competition.

How many flips can you do on the trampoline?

Any sport, anything we did with my dad.

- [Mikie] Volleyball, basketball, softball.

We would race on roller skates,

skateboards, we'd race our bikes.

She's prettier than me, she's faster than me.

She's better at softball than me.

My dad loves her more than me.

- [Amy] I am faster than her.

She's tougher mentally, she is.

I tell you what, she can handle pain.

(clock ticks)

(bell rings)

- [Reid] Everybody needs to be that hero.

Everybody needs to be able to dig deep.

Everybody needs to be able

to break out of their comfort zone.

- So I started running in September of 2019.

So I've done these distances before

but never like back to back.

I'm really excited for it.

It'll be the hottest too, by far.

By far the hottest.

I'll go swimming.

(water splashes)

I lived out in Colorado for a while and out in Utah.

Got my commercial helicopter license in Utah

and was just climbing and having a good time

working menial jobs,

waitress, ice cream scooping, PetSmart.

I was a ski instructor, raft guide, EMT

and now I'm with the Navy.

(bell rings)

(crowd cheers)

That was the hardest thing on the entire world.

I was like every couple feet I'd be like,

go like five steps and I'd like sit down.

Yeah, I'm really, really worried about tomorrow though.

- I'm first a dad, you know,

husband, father, five kids,

youngest just graduated from high school.

Turned 50 this year.

So I did one tour in Iraq,

got home in 2005,

got outta the military in 2006

and then pretty much just kind of wandered a little bit.

You know, I found myself

for personally really kind of getting angry

a lot more often.

My wife saw that hey, something's not right.

And when I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress,

and so I started running just out on my own

to try to help.

I mean, it got to the point where if I was having a bad day,

my wife would say, "Hey, do you need to go for a run?"

6'6", 250 pounds,

not usually what I see when, you know,

when I go to the starting line and I look around,

I guess the way I would describe it is

most runners, more like a gazelle

and I'm more of a Clydesdale.

The interesting thing happens when you carry the flag,

it's hard not to stand up a little bit straighter

and move a little bit faster.

It's not about you anymore.

I think that's really where it comes from.

It's about something bigger,

that idea of what we can be.

(pensive music)

It was tough because I had been to Iraq,

I'd done these crazy things in Iraq

and then I came home.

I have a group of four friends

that I run with and over the course of a couple of years,

we had run a lot of miles together.

And also at that time,

I would had been struggling with post-traumatic stress.

Part of that healing process was

getting out with these friends.

For some reason when we were gonna go on a run,

if somebody didn't show up,

you got a message from them saying

"Hey, where were you?

We missed you."

And the reality is, these people saved my life.

So I started building flags to show them how grateful I was.

We had an old cedar fence that had been taken down

and was literally just leaning against the house.

So I took that wood, took it apart,

pulled the nails out one at a time

and use that wood to make flags for these friends.

Because in my mind, I was this old, used up thing

that had experienced this brand-new life

because these friends,

you were worried about me and were concerned

and made sure that I got up and was moving

and taking care of myself.

When I go to the lumber store,

I'm not looking for the nicest pieces.

I'm looking for the stuff

that maybe is a little bit twisted

or I'm, as I'm driving down the street,

if I see a couple of boards sticking outta somebody's trash,

I'm thinking, oh, I wonder if I could use that.

It's just amazing to see this, you know,

old, used up piece of wood

kind of go from that to suddenly really this beautiful flag.

To me, the flag represents what we can be,

not what we are because we're not perfect,

but what we can be.

That it should represent every person,

every American,

every person that comes to this country

should be able to look to the flag

and know that they are someplace safe.

The flag is really important to me.

I have, you know, stood on the tarmac in Iraq

as the coffins of four soldiers were carried

onto an airplane and their coffins were covered in the flag.

So when I am making a flag,

it's hard not to think about those things.

(bell rings)

(crowd cheers)

- [Person Off-Camera] I think everyone coming into this race

at the start of it has the reason why they're here.

And on Saturday when this thing wraps up,

for many folks, it's not gonna be the same thing.

And that thing that they leave with,

they don't even know what that thing is yet.

They'll find it this week.

- [Reid] Day two is the Milts stage

and it's 40 miles.

They're expecting heat

but they have no idea how hot it's gonna get.

I watch people suffer

and that's okay

because I know what's on the other side for them.

I've seen it so many times.

I know what's on the other side.

(bell rings)

- Tuesday's the great equalizer, baby,

for no one else but for you.

Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

'Cause Tuesday's coming for you whether you like it or not.

(pensive music continues)

- I didn't go into this thinking, you know, oh I'm so fast.

You know, I recognize I am not the fastest guy out there.

I will always be at the end.

I have won one medal in a race

and that was for a third place

'cause there was only three of us.

(cheerful music)

- [Person Off-Camera] What's in the bag?

- Most important thing.

A book.

It's on Thoreau, Henry Thoreau.

I like to read, I love to read.

It's my way of engaging the mind

and it's my way of having a different experience

or different entry into the same terrain

or people exploring nature

in a way that may teach me

how I might want to change some of the things in my life.

He promoted the let's go back to nature.

We don't need all those perks

that everyone is chasing after.

We just need to run 150 miles, right?

It's certainly a little crazy

when you have to carry everything

for miles and miles

in not so friendly terrains,

to carry that extra book.

- [Sabrina] In ultra running, we always talk

about the pain cave, when you go into the pain cave

and you come out stronger from the pain cave.

(tense music)

And it seems really kind of masochistic

to wanna know what that's like.

But I guess I kind of do.

I wanna prove to myself

that I'm strong enough to get out of it.

(tense music continues)

- [Reid] The heat out there is more intense

than most people have ever even experienced in their lives.

People suffer hard.

- [Person Off-Camera] Oh yeah, that heat was unforgivable.

- [Person Off-Camera 2] This blows, it's 100 and fuck you.

- [Person Off-Camera 3] The air's hot.

The water that you're drinking's hot,

everything that you have is hot.

- [Phil] The heat, the open desert out there

and the isolation and stuff like that,

that can really catch up and just really wear you down

and make you feel vulnerable and helpless.

- [Person Off-Camera] The heat in the desert

when it's really bad, it's surreal.

You kind of can't believe it's happening.

And you keep asking yourself, am I this hot?

Can I keep breathing?

Can I keep moving?

Can I handle this?

- [Reid] But when it's 110 degrees,

now they're panicked.

I'm going to die.

(indistinct chatter)

- [Person Off-Camera] We had felt hot weather before,

but just nothing like that.

It just got, as the day progressed,

it just got hotter and hotter.

(tense music continues)

- We are hiking up there, we're doing good.

Amy's kind of lagging behind

and she's like, "Just go on, just go on."

And I'm not feeling the best.

- I was pretty discouraged and tired

and you know, these salt tablets that you could chew

and with salt tablets that you swallow with water

and the pill went down my throat dry and just stuck.

And then I realized I cannot breathe.

- I had decided to go up ahead

and a guy came up and said,

"That blonde girl was choking."

Instantly. I'm like, oh my god, that's my sister.

- [Amy] It felt like I swallowed like tiny nails

that were like clawing at my, you know,

scratching my throat.

So I just flooded my mouth with water

and kept trying to throw up

and somebody came by and hit me on the back

and then I started to be able to cough.

- They came running in and said,

"A woman down the trail is choking.

I Heimliched her."

What? - [Person Off-Camera] Yeah.

- This fear comes over you

'cause you're like, oh my God, what you gotta do?

You know, that's my sister, you know?

And all of a sudden it's like, you know,

maybe I should run down there.

And then Kyla was like, "She's breathing, she's okay."

- It was just relentless and it was just hard to breathe.

It was hard to think.

I, emotionally was just done

and I could hear the aid station.

So, but I just, I couldn't breathe.

- I hiked for two miles because they said

my sister wasn't breathing.

Ah.

She's choking, but she's breathing now, she's good.

- Those low moments can be really low

because five miles might not seem

like a long time to get to the aid station

or to the finish line or whatever,

but it can seem impossibly far

when you're out in the elements

and it's 100-plus degrees outside,

it truly becomes about survival.

And you have to set the competition aside

enough to make sure

that your brothers and sisters that you're out here with,

all the other Desert RATS, are okay.

Came across Mike, who was sitting in third place.

He was just suffering.

And at that point,

it wasn't about first place or third place or last place.

It was about let's get through this together.

It was so hot.

I mean, it was so hot.

It became a mission in survival

and I was just there to help Mike.

I wasn't internally focused anymore

on winning another stage.

I was like, let's get this done.

So there's this thing in racing,

I guess in life when you're competing

and the metric you use for success is

how well you're doing against the next guy.

And you see that guy, Mike, in this case,

I mean Mike's this badass

who's run all of these stage races all over the world.

And I realized at that aid station,

like we've been running neck and neck all day

and then I see him just decimated

and I'm like, oh my God, he's done.

But this switch goes off and I can't even explain it.

This competitive thing just goes away.

And all I saw was him suffering

and this deep impulse in me,

it's like, this guy needs me.

Like, we have to get going again.

(uplifting music)

What company can do, encouragement can do,

it's everything out here

and suddenly it's this beautiful thing.

It's not me versus him anymore at that point.

It's us versus the desert.

And that's what makes this race more beautiful

than almost any other race I've been to,

easily the most rewarding finish of my life.

All that pressure of winning and performance,

it was just gone.

We did it together, me and him.

We beat the desert together.

At least for one day.

(emotive music)

- I didn't plan on this portion of my life,

going to races, dressing up like this professional wrestler.

But it helped me through this period.

(emotive music continues)

Fairly early in life, my wife Jen and I thought

that we had everything.

The world was our oyster.

Like, everything was really going great.

A little daughter that's four,

a son that's two.

33 years of age, we got devastating news

that my wife was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.

I don't know what was going through Jen's head,

but I know for me,

I couldn't even wrap my head around that.

We were listening to everything the doctors were saying

and we were willing participants,

but we didn't want to comprehend.

We didn't wanna understand

what they were saying because we,

that's just not the way life is supposed to go.

So we never spoke end of life.

We never spoke about death

and we never spoke about what the other side

would look like for the kids and I.

Post-diagnosis, we only had six months to spend together.

You just wanna climb into a hole and die.

You know, you don't want to keep on living

and keep on going.

You know, we went into that thing together

and now I'm doing it alone.

And I think in the months that followed after losing her,

I didn't know how the kids and I were gonna get through it.

It kind of became this cathartic thing

where Phil could be hurting like on the inside,

but when I was running,

it was just about being carefree and like enjoying myself.

- [Person Off-Camera] Is Mikie still with you?

- I don't know.

She was moving pretty slow.

- Mikie and the big guy, I don't know, she was loopy.

She was basically saying, "I wanna go to sleep."

And I was like, "Dear, get up."

- And I'm starting to feel a little bit nauseous

and in my mind I'm thinking I can push through this,

you know, it was just a little upset stomach,

push through this.

Start on the road and I just feel myself

and I'm just like.

(Mikie groans)

So I'm like barfing up everything that I've,

I think I had in my whole entire body.

- [Person Off-Camera] She laid down

under the railroad bridge

for maybe half an hour

and she got up and kept going.

- [Amy] This girl is the toughest girl you'll ever meet.

She's been through tons of shit in her life

and she just keeps on going.

And so I just know how tough she is,

but I was like also,

she's the kind of person who dies

because she doesn't know that you should stop.

- So they saw Reid. - Okay.

- And he's, so he's running around

trying to get cell reception.

- Oh. - They're working on it.

- [Person Off-Camera] Hello. - Hold on.

- She's four miles from the aid station.

- She's four miles, she can't make it.

I should have made her quit.

So damn stubborn. - [Person Off-Camera] No.

- I know.

(Amy and Mom laugh)

I know.

- Stay here and stay in service

until I hear from her.

- In these races, you gotta know your body,

you know, you always worry about your kidneys

or something like that shutting down.

And I'm just like, okay, can I go on, can I go on?

Made it 0.7 of a mile and I said I gotta sit down.

I sat there, lost it again.

(rhythmic country music)

- [Reid] The decision has been made

to pull Mikie from this stage.

It's just not safe for her.

- So I said, you know, I'm just not gonna do it.

I don't have it.

So we waited an hour and a half,

I slept and vomited,

drank the hot Coke a little bit and then, you know,

got picked up and that was my Tuesday.

(Mikie laughs)

- [Person Off-Camera] Is that a person?

Oh shit.

- I had no recollection of where I was

or what I was doing or anything.

At one point I was having double vision,

but it's almost like somebody was like closing the blinds

or like turning off the lights.

Then it got to the point where I thought

I was gonna potentially like lose consciousness

and it just felt like every movement I was making

was taking all of my energy.

I couldn't get cool enough.

I was burning up.

I could not have taken one more step

and I didn't want to be there anymore.

I was in hell.

Why am I here?

Why did I do this to myself?

Why do I continually punish myself?

Why did Jen get sick?

Why did Jen die?

Where's the Macho Man now?

- [Person Off-Camera] Why'd you go on?

- My life is harder than this.

My day to day, my week to week is harder than this.

This isn't hard.

I do this year after year

because

no matter how bad it is,

no matter how much suffering there is,

I see these other people here

and I see the different walks of life that they're from

and the fact that they're like challenging themselves.

Some people have it better than other people.

Some people are just doing it for the fun of it,

just doing it for an adventure, which are great things.

I'm not doing it for those reasons.

Like, there's things that I do on the day to day

that I don't want to do.

I don't wanna be in the situation that I'm in.

It just broke me down and broke me bare, broke me open.

In that darkest moment,

this inner voice came to me

and I just thought of my children

and I thought of our home

and I thought of all the things that we had built together

that couldn't be taken away by life or death.

I may have lost someone,

someone very special to me,

the most important person in my life.

But I still had two amazing, beautiful kids at home

that were waiting for me.

And at that point, I wasn't just doing it for myself,

I was doing it for them.

Jen had told me, "You have to keep on keeping on,"

like what you're doing now, whatever makes you happy now.

If you like running now,

whatever you can do to keep yourself going,

you gotta keep doing those things.

- The balls of my feet are just wasted at this point.

Started to get a little bit scary.

Every step was like stepping on Legos.

That's just what it felt like.

Every time I put my foot down,

I'm really getting frustrated.

The minute you start thinking about quitting,

boy, those thoughts just get bigger and bigger and bigger

in your head.

And so I start thinking maybe I'm not gonna make it.

I just didn't have it in me.

(evocative music)

So I know that I'm way behind.

I also know though that I have to finish.

(evocative music continues)

About a mile before the end,

made the decision to pull the flag out.

That's where the energy comes from.

(crowd cheers and applauds)

(bell rings)

Then I stopped and I looked down

and could see blood coming through my shoes.

I immediately went over to medical

and they helped me take my shoes off

and cut my socks off

and found that on my left foot,

there was no skin left on the pad, that had all come off.

There's two layers of skin basically that have,

that are completely gone now on both feet.

- We're gonna have to take off a lot of that loose skin.

- Feet is one of the biggest problems

that people have out there.

They don't realize how the heat is going to affect

their feet.

They know that they've put it this many miles in before

but they haven't done it in the kind of heat

that we're putting them in.

- From here to here on your foot?

- Yeah. - And here to here.

- Yeah. - Your skin is

not in contact with the layer below.

- Okay, I figured that.

- And you got a few gaping holes with it.

- Yeah.

- It still might hurt a lot because it's.

- Yeah. - You know, an area this big.

- Big, yeah, yeah.

It hurt a lot today while I was, the last 10 miles, so.

- Putting on a race where people have feet problems,

it just slows them down.

And I have seen blisters like you wouldn't believe,

you could barely see their feet beyond the blisters.

We have a medical crew that takes care of it for them

and that's great,

but blisters is still an issue out there.

And I've had so many people that say,

"I have never had a blister in my life until now."

- He is a badass for how far he ran on these.

And I have a feeling he's gonna be a badass tomorrow

'cause I think he's gonna run on them.

- Yeah, why, wait, is there a choice?

(indistinct chatter)

- [Medic] There's always a choice.

- [Reid] Day three is the sprint stage,

it's nine miles and the runners find themselves running

along the Colorado River.

(uptempo music)

- [Person Off-Camera] It's this is whole head game

with a stage race

that sets itself apart from just a regular ultra

'cause this is like an ultra on steroids.

- [Mikie] I think one of the unique aspects

of this stage race is that you can drop

from a day but your race isn't over.

- [Amy] You drop and so you know

that you are not gonna be a finisher really.

You can still go out every single day

and face whatever challenge that day brings.

- [Person Off-Camera] You know exactly

what route you're gonna do.

You've planned it exactly

and then everything goes to shit.

And that's what makes it super fun

because you have to figure it out on the go.

- I did, I'm just tired of eating dirt.

I'm tired of eating dirt.

- I always love inspiring people

to do big things.

I wrestled in college, I wrestled at Ohio State,

I wrestled some international after that.

And then I got into mixed martial arts.

When you're in practice and pushing it every day

and getting hit and knocked down

and have to get back up every time

and you see positive things come out of that,

that's where you learn it.

Back in 1996, I did the Eco-Challenge.

It was 10 days out in the back country.

We had whitewater rafting, horseback riding,

running, canoeing, going over glaciers

and it was tough.

It was really difficult.

You look at me, I'm not built like a runner.

I don't have long legs, I don't have,

I have asthma, I don't have great lungs.

There was just this slow decline as the days went on.

And the one thing that I learned there is

that everybody reaches a low point at some point.

And I remember when I reached that low point

and I had to give my pack over to my teammates

to carry and I was humbled.

That was not a good feeling.

I like to think of, you know,

there's the "Rocky" montages

where it's a 30-second clip of him doing all these exercises

and it's fun and it's exciting.

That's not how the real world is.

It's just hours and hours and hours of grind.

And then when that grind stops, that's the big payoff.

(water splashes)

I had heard about the Marathon des Sables

and I had heard about some other stage races

and I was inspired, I wanted to do them.

I wanted to be a part of it

and it was out of my price range.

Okay, well how can I be part of this?

I could create this.

I think that a lot of people never reached

that low point and they never experience

the high that comes as a result of that.

I want to provide people that opportunity.

It's not about making people suffer,

it's about providing them the opportunity

to see what happens when they get through it.

(calm music)

Day four is the expedition stage and it's 43 miles.

It goes from the hot desert

through a torturous climb,

goes all the way up into La Sal Mountains.

(birds chirp)

- [Person Off-Camera] There's just this energy around camp

and there's this underlying anxiety

that we don't know what we're gonna face today.

- [Person Off-Camera] You know you're leaving

at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning

and you're gonna hit camp at 10:00 or 11:00 at night

and nobody does that.

No one goes out running and says,

"I'll see you at midnight tonight."

It's the longest day.

- [Jason] Now, I'm tired, I'm hot,

I'm dirty and my feet are hurt.

- [Phil] This stage is terrifying.

8,000 feet of vertical gain

just seems insane with the way

that my legs feel right now.

- [Kyla] I think they go from being a group of strangers

to being friends.

And then on this day, the bond clicks

and they're family

facing this monumental challenge

and they're gonna get each other through it.

They will have each other's back

and that is why they're here.

- [Reid] It's really all about the expedition.

Day four, it's got the most mileage,

it's got the most elevation gain,

usually hot around the bottom.

It could get cold up around the top,

they could see some weather.

They're calling for some storms.

- [Jason] At this point, you know,

I think I described it as Legos before,

now it's a little bit more like glass.

(thunder rumbles)

- My head exploded from heat on Tuesday

and I'm like, oh, bit goosebumps.

How good is life?

It's gonna start raining.

It's religious, man.

- The thing about Mikie is people don't know

like how incredibly tough she is.

You know, I think the thing that illustrates it to me

the most is she left journalism

and she become a state trooper.

She was a single mom.

I was helping her move and I just thought,

I couldn't do this.

It's too hard.

And she's just the toughest person I know.

She's been through so much

and she's been mistreated by so many people.

Her job is really hard.

Being a police officer is,

it's dangerous, it's stressful.

- [Mikie] I'm in law enforcement.

I'm currently assigned to the FBI task force

where I investigate crimes against children

and human trafficking.

- She loves serving, she loves helping people,

but

it's lonely, as a woman, and it's isolating

and the things you see change you, you know?

And I think for her, this is

a chance to be who she is in her heart.

You know, she doesn't have to be tough.

She doesn't have to, you know,

save anybody's life or give anybody good, you know,

it is just,

she's silly and she honestly could have been

a standup comedian.

She's very funny.

♪ Raindrops keep falling on my head ♪

♪ And just like the man whose feet are too big for the bed ♪

- I get to joke, I get to laugh.

You get to have some fun.

I get to, you know, not be so serious,

may, you know.

Yeah, I get to you know, tease my sister.

Because you have to have Coke in a bottle.

Coke in a bottle. - This is 17.

(indistinct chatter)

- You want a nurse?

- I shut my mouth. - Oh.

- You want to choke me again?

(group laughs)

- Maybe.

(indistinct chatter)

What I wouldn't give for some hot water now, right?

- [Amy] What are you, come on.

She said, this is our sister trip.

This is our sister time.

We don't feel like we get enough.

- Out here, you know, I just get to be.

- That was a lot of up

and my back is chafing like a mofo right now.

(group cheers)

(indistinct chatter)

As you get older, time kind of moves so quickly.

When you're a little kid, time seems to move so slow.

It relates to new experiences

and like living in the moment.

So because everything is new

and everything is fun when you're young,

and everything's like a growing experience,

you remember it better

and so it solidifies in your mind

because it's new and it's fresh.

But as you get older,

you just kind of start repeating the same shit

over and over and over again

and you don't really remember it anymore.

And so it all just kind of melts together.

So having new experiences and doing new things is

a way to like bring out that childlike experience

where you're learning again

and everything is fresh

and you experience time better.

Like it expands, like you actually live

as opposed to just going through the motions.

- [Person Off-Camera] Jason just left Onion Creek at 3:00.

- [Sabrina] Still going?

- [Person Off-Camera] I'm surprised he's still going.

- I think he's got the toughness to suffer

and he'll just keep going

because he kept going with his feet getting that way

in the first place.

So I think he'll just keep going through it.

- [Person Off-Camera] Crossing the finish line on stage four

is the moment that everything turns

and you start to believe

and you believe you're capable of big things,

you realize the why

and why you're out here.

(group cheers)

(bell rings)

(group cheers)

- [Person Off-Camera] Anything from Jason?

- He's, so you heard about his cutoff?

He made it into the 3:00 PM cutoff at 2:54

and then went out again and is on his way

and it's gonna be tough.

- [Reid] Jason's moving slowly.

He's out there somewhere.

We heard he did a half mile in about 45 minutes.

(thunder rumbles)

(rain splashes)

Everybody gets stripped down bare.

That's where the change happens.

When you get beaten down,

those little things show their face.

(rain splashes)

(contemplative music)

(birds chirp)

- [Amy] This has been like a huge swing

from the hottest temperatures on Tuesday

to why do I do this kind of stuff?

It was the sand to the face and my legs.

It felt like needles and I was like, I can't do this.

It was cold, it was really cold

and I did not feel warm ever.

Then we kind of just tried to shield ourselves

from the wind.

That wind was so cold and we were so wet.

I never dried out.

(contemplative music continues)

- [Reid] Jason is suffering. - [Kyla] He's in the car,

he's gonna wait right there.

He handed the flag to Amy.

- So I made it about, I don't know,

28 miles on stage four

and my feet just wouldn't hold me up anymore.

So,

I had to drop out.

(Jason sniffs)

You know, you only learn from when you do hard stuff

where there's a chance of failure.

But man, I didn't want to.

I wanted to find a way to just keep going,

but I would've fallen over

and I gotta go home to my family at some point.

I didn't know where Amy was.

And then as we were driving,

they mentioned that Amy was gonna get in around this time

as we were coming down the mountain.

I passed her and I told her I was sorry,

but she took the flag and Mikie, her sister

and (indistinct) are going to come across with it.

And I'm just grateful for those friends

and I'm gonna try to

hobble across the finish line with her.

(crowd cheers)

(car horns honk)

(crowd continues to cheer)

- [Person Off-Camera] Yeah.

(crowd cheers and bell rings)

(crowd chatters indistinctly)

(gentle music)

- I couldn't do it.

(gentle music continues)

Unfortunately, I only made it 28 miles

and I couldn't go any farther.

And so I got into the vehicle and I was just devastated.

I mean here in my mind at this moment, I'm a failure.

I didn't do what I said I was gonna do,

yet all of these people came out

and they were concerned and loved me in spite of that.

And it was amazing, just the outpouring of love and kindness

for really people I'd only known for a few days, you know?

Where I'd spent all this time praying for a miracle,

that my feet would get better

when the miracle was right there at the finish line.

For me, before this race,

I would've said that success was finishing,

crossing the finish line in the allotted time.

But then I got to the finish line and I realized

that's not what success is.

It's not, you know,

no, I didn't cross the finish line,

but I finished,

I did everything I could.

I left nothing out.

There is literally pieces of me on this course.

(Jason laughs)

(gentle music continues)

- [Kyla] It is the final day,

last stage, marathon, and then it's over.

- And I just want you guys to know

how much I love and appreciate all your help and support

for me personally.

You know, as a veteran it's really easy to feel like

you're all by yourself, like nobody cares.

Nobody understands.

And when you have these type of shared experiences

and we all get to kind of experience the same,

the same amount of suck, you know,

you realize you're not alone.

I carry the flag because it's estimated

22 veterans a day commit suicide because they feel alone.

If you know a veteran, please reach out to them.

Just let 'em know that you see them.

Obviously, I can't carry the flag today.

I'm not running today, as much as I would love to,

I just can't do it. I just want you guys to know,

I have a lot of love and respect for this group

and for really for runners.

I mean, it's amazing, the camaraderie that you feel is

when you get with this group.

And it's not that different

than some of the camaraderie I have with fellow veterans.

(bell rings)

(group cheers)

- [Tim] I don't know if sometimes in life

we give ourselves enough credit,

but I've seen a lot of people

from all different walks of life.

You know, teachers,

contractors,

lawyers,

executives,

moms, dads do some pretty phenomenal stuff, you know?

And we were doing it for ourselves,

but we were all doing it together.

And I think that's a pretty special thing.

(bell rings)

(crowd chatters indistinctly)

- 22.

- Good on ya, man, you are moving.

It's feeling great.

It's exciting to see the runners come in, cheer for them.

So, it's been awesome, I'm loving it.

And the weather just,

I don't think it could be any better.

It was great to cheer them on

and to see them and have them say,

"Hey, how are you doing?"

And, you know, and tell 'em I was doing great.

Sometimes the best place to be is not focused on yourself,

but on the people around you.

And so everybody has this incredible shared experience.

And then to add to that,

you care about these people.

You want to know how are they doing?

How'd they do?

Did they accomplish what they wanted to?

I'm just grateful for that, you know,

for that friendship, that instant friendship.

- I realize how much I doubt myself.

Like, I'm just like an amateur athlete.

I can't come out and win this thing,

I'm just trying my best out here.

And like coming down that road, I was like,

I've like freaking doubted myself this whole time.

That, like, hit me pretty hard, you know?

Like I gotta believe in myself and my training

and like everything that I'm doing out here

and like this self-doubt and all that will just sabotage you

as like a human being.

Like, how often do we go out there

and just sabotage ourselves

because we don't believe that we're good enough

or fast enough or strong enough

or smart enough to do X, Y, Z.

It's just all about giving your best, man.

Everybody out here is giving it everything.

You know?

That's what it's all about.

(group cheers and applauds)

(uplifting music)

(group cheers)

(bell rings)

(group cheers)

- Go see your family.

- It is a pretty powerful deal.

I can't even wrap my head around it, man.

You know, maybe I can inspire somebody else

to get out there and believe in themselves

and do something that's crazy,

that seems like larger than life

and pour some life into some other people along the way.

'Cause that's what it's all about, you know?

Just what a beautiful experience, man.

Everybody laid it all out there.

(group cheers)

(bell rings)

- Oh my God.

(crowd cheers)

- I ultimately wanted to do this race

to like destroy myself and break myself down.

And I did exactly that.

But I came out on the other side,

like with these wonderful friendships.

There's so many people in life

where like something really horrible

and really devastating happens.

They let that just define the whole rest of their lives.

Like, that's just what they are.

I feel like when you learn to like push yourself

through hard struggles,

you realize that one thing doesn't define you.

I don't wanna be a widower my whole life.

I don't wanna be a single parent my whole life.

Maybe for this window right now, I'm an ultra runner

and I take these crazy adventures

and I'm hoping it can get me to like the next chapter.

I think I'm getting there.

(crowd cheers)

(upbeat music)

That's the beauty of this Desert RATS race.

We all had different experiences.

We were all dealt different things

and yet we all got ourselves from Fruita, Colorado

to Moab, Utah on our own two feet.

I think that's a pretty amazing thing.

- Yay, we're done.

- It's kind of really sad, isn't it?

- I know, it is kind of sad, kind of happy.

- Yeah.

- We're milking this for every minute.

- Yeah, they gave us eight hours,

we're gonna take it, all of it.

It is a tremendous experience

when I don't get to see her as often as I want.

It's just we get to be friends for a whole week.

- It was a week of us with no kids and no husbands,

nobody, no phones.

Every minute here with her is like just a gift.

And I'm just, I know how lucky I am.

(bell rings)

(crowd cheers)

- [Kyla] Initially I thought the common thread was

people who have had life traumas and big experiences

and things that they need to work through.

Things that they need to get hundreds of miles away

from civilization in the middle of the desert,

night and day to try to address.

I believed that.

And then I realized that that's the human condition.

We all have that.

And maybe the people that do Desert RATS are

the people who know it,

who want to explore their human condition

and who want to work through some of that

and move towards enlightenment

or whatever happens after a week

where you transform yourself

and you learn more about yourself

and you learn more about being a human.

I think these people want more

and they wanna get through their story

and see what comes next.

(upbeat music continues)

(gentle country music)

(group cheers)

(bell rings)

(group continues to cheer)

(cheerful, rhythmic music)

♪ You gotta walk ♪

♪ That lonesome valley ♪

♪ You gotta walk ♪

♪ It by yourself ♪

♪ Nobody else ♪

♪ Gonna walk it for you ♪

♪ You gotta walk that valley by yourself ♪

♪ Well, my mama had to walk ♪

♪ That lonesome valley ♪

♪ She had to walk ♪

♪ It by herself ♪

♪ Ain't nobody else ♪

♪ Gonna walk it for her ♪

♪ She had to walk that valley by herself ♪

♪ All right now ♪

(cheerful, rhythmic music continues)

♪ My daddy had to walk ♪

♪ That lonesome valley ♪

♪ He had to walk ♪

♪ It by himself ♪

♪ Nobody else ♪

♪ Gonna walk it for him ♪

♪ He had to walk ♪

♪ That valley by himself ♪

♪ You gotta walk ♪

♪ That lonesome valley ♪

♪ You gotta walk ♪

♪ It for yourself ♪

♪ Ain't nobody else ♪

♪ Gonna walk it for you ♪

♪ Oh, you gotta walk that valley for yourself ♪

(cheerful, rhythmic music continues)

♪ Oh, Jesus had to walk ♪ ♪ He had to walk ♪

♪ That lonesome valley ♪

♪ He had to walk ♪

♪ It for Himself ♪

♪ Nobody else ♪

♪ Can walk it for you ♪

♪ He had to walk that valley by Himself ♪

♪ You got to walk ♪

♪ That lonesome valley ♪

♪ You got to walk ♪

♪ It for yourself ♪

♪ Nobody else ♪

♪ Gonna walk it for you ♪

♪ Well, you gotta walk ♪

♪ That valley for yourself ♪

♪ You gotta walk ♪

♪ That valley for yourself ♪

♪ You gotta walk ♪

♪ That valley by yourself ♪

(cheerful, rhythmic music continues)