The red rocks in front of me were almost swirling around and jumping up at me from the ground, causing me to trip every now and again. At around mile 18, I sat down on a rock. I felt dizzy, exhausted, and defeated. How could I have gone from running 15 miles in 2.5 hours, feeling amazing, to 3 miles later, feeling absolutely defeated? Probably because it was my first ultra and I knew absolutely nothing.

One Saturday in February, at around 9am I pulled into busy Sedona, Arizona. This time with the expectation that everything about this run would suck and I was totally okay with that.

When it comes to big goals, start with why. Here are 136 of them.