Karel Sabbe is a Belgian dentist and he also happens to be one of the best ultramarathon trail runners in the world.
In 2016, Karel beat the record for the fastest known time to complete the Pacific Crest Trail. Then in 2018, he ran the Appalachian trail and broke the fastest known time record by four days! Karel started running as a hobby so that he could get some exercise after work. Now, just a few years later, he’s running some of the longest wilderness trails on earth.
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Shelby Stanger: Karel Sabbe is a Belgian dentist who also happens to be one of the best ultramarathon trail runners in the world. When Karel started running, he wasn't trying to break records. In fact, he didn't even know that trail running was a sport. For him, it was a hobby that he just stumbled upon.
Karel Saabe: I just always went into the forest and if it was a single track, I would enjoy it a lot more than running on concrete. I'm not the type of runner who is very focused on heart rates and interval training and track training and things like that. I always go into a forest and then I let my mind wander and I let my legs wander. For me, that's the perfect escape.
Shelby Stanger: Now, just six years since Karel started running in the woods, he holds the fastest known time for running the Pacific Crest Trail. He also holds the record for running the Appalachian Trail, beating his predecessor by four days. Pretty impressive for a full-time dentist. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. Most champion-level athletes train their whole lives to break records, but Karel didn't even start running until he was 24 years old.
Shelby Stanger: Don't get me wrong, he enjoyed playing soccer, but he was not a record-breaking athlete. When Karel started working full-time as a dentist, he decided to look for an individual sport that he could do anytime, anywhere.
Karel Saabe: When you study to become a dentist, I mean, you're a student. I was studying in a fun town. You go out a lot and then you work a bit and you learn the dentist profession. Then actually starting to work full-time as a dentist, I was impressed and surprised after three months like, "Whoa, this is intense." It's 10 hours a day in a very, very small area. You need to be focused. You need to be delivering high quality.
Karel Saabe: Then I realized, okay, running is perfect for me. I just have to put on shoes and I can go out into the trails and have a good time. That way I could enjoy my dentist profession a lot more and I would be a lot more healthy as a person. One day I remember I said, "Okay. I'm going to run half a marathon." I did it and it felt fine and I wanted to do more. It's always been like that and I've kept on increasing the distances.
Karel Saabe: The first time I ran 70 kilometers, the day after I was ready to do it again. I didn't know that that was something that I had in me. That's how I evolved into extremely long distances and I'm still enjoying those the most.
Shelby Stanger: 70 kilometers is about 44 miles. That's pretty fricking far to run. What's even more remarkable is that Karel didn't feel sore or tired afterwards. When he realized he could run these super-long distances, it dawned on him that he could go after an old dream. He could finally do the entire Pacific Crest Trail, also known as the PCT. How did you decide to run the Pacific Crest Trail?
Karel Saabe: I think it's now maybe about 15 years ago that I had a free summer at university. When you pass all your exams in Belgium, you get three months holiday. I think it was between my second and my third year at university that I signed up for a volunteering project in the United States, in the national parks in the Southwest. We were based in Flagstaff, Arizona, and then we were sent out to the Grand Canyon to Yosemite National Park to work on the trails.
Karel Saabe: Every night after a day of working, we had campfires and there were a lot of young volunteers and hikers. I think at least every night, at one point, the conversation got to the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail. I knew as a hiker and as a lover of nature that that would be the most incredible experience ever to hike such a long trail because it doesn't exist in Europe. It's such a unique thing that you can hike over 2000 miles on a single track just in nature and just setting up your tent.
Karel Saabe: Then, as you said, to hike the PCT, it's anywhere between three and six months to do it. At that time I already started working as a dentist so I didn't have the time anymore to take that amount of time off. I knew, "Okay. I desperately want to do the Pacific Crest Trail because it's so beautiful. It's so varied and it's so incredible, but I don't want to wait 40 years until I'm finished working as a dentist."
Karel Saabe: Then I started discovering ultrarunning and I discovered that I was loving that and I was good at it. Then I decided, "Okay. What if I could run the PCT?" Then I googled, "Is there a record for it?" Then in my naive stupidity, I thought it was achievable.
Shelby Stanger: Okay. So many questions. Let's just go back. How did you train for that first long PCT attempt? I mean, I realize you did other runs to prepare for this one.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. From the beginning I realized my body was good at doing very long distance at a slow pace.
Shelby Stanger: You said you were running about 11 minutes a mile.
Karel Saabe: Something like that.
Shelby Stanger: That's still pretty fast for how many miles a day?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. During a record attempt, it would be slower. Before doing the PCT, I realized, "Okay. If I run 60/70 kilometers at an easy pace, I can do it again the day after." Actually at the time where I decided to go for the PCT, my longest run was 67 kilometers, but I felt so good the day after that run that I decided, "Okay. I can do this day after day and I will go for the PCT." Then when I decided, "Okay. I'm going to do this." I signed up for my first 100K, my first hundred miler.
Karel Saabe: Then I did a big race called the Marathon des Sables, which is a multi-stage race in the desert of Morocco, but that was all within one year. I upscaled extremely fast to be ready for the PCT.
Shelby Stanger: That's incredible. Okay. Instead of just doing running, you actually just entered races, which is actually really smart because that sets you up for real life.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. It does. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: After 52 consecutive days of running double marathons, Karel beat the record for the fastest known time to complete the PCT in 2016. He beat the previous record holder by 10 hours. There are two types of records for the PCT. Unsupported, where the racer manages their own food and supplies and supported, where the racer gets help from others. Karel did the supported version. His good friend, and brother-in-law, Jo Biebuyck, went with Karel and brought him sleeping supplies and food every day on the trail.
Shelby Stanger: You'll also hear Karel refer to the AT, the Appalachian Trail, which he ran in 2018. How do you do this? Do you start in the dark? What's an average day like? Just take me through a full 50 miles on the trail and how long a full 50 miles takes.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. We would wake up in the morning at, I think 4:00 or 5:00 AM, so before sunrise. Then I would start running and then my friend, Jo ... we'd always sleep in a tent, so he would pack up the tent, hike to the car, drive around the car to the next place, hike in, because the PCT isn't crossed by that many roads. He always had to hike in towards me. Then he could either, if it was possible, resupply me during the day and give me some food and some extra water.
Karel Saabe: Then at night he could set up the tent and make sure it was ready by the time I got back to him. Then we would sleep in a tent and repeat it the day after. Usually my days were anywhere between 14 and 24 hours every day.
Shelby Stanger: Wow. That's wild. Then when you camped, did you have a nice tent and a nice sleeping pad or was it pretty minimalistic?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. That we did have.
Shelby Stanger: Oh, you did. Okay.
Karel Saabe: Jo hiked in with a big backpack at PCT often with water because we couldn't always camp near a water source. Then he had two sleeping pads, two sleeping bags, and then he could set up one tent. Blow up the mattresses and set up camp. Then when I would arrive, I would have a dinner and immediately go to bed and sleep.
Shelby Stanger: Wow. Did you ever have a shower?
Karel Saabe: Not often. During the PCT, I remember I had three showers during those 52 days. It was a very good feeling to have a shower.
Shelby Stanger: I bet. I've read that when you ate, you actually ate running uphill, is that true?
Karel Saabe: Because then you are hiking and it's easier to digest. Every uphill I was eating, eating, and then on the downhill, you run more so it's harder to eat.
Shelby Stanger: What are you carrying for food in your pack that you're eating? Just bars and...
Karel Saabe: It had to be as varied as possible because if you have candy, you want potato chips. If you have potato chips, you want candy. I had sweets. I had salty things. I had soda. I had just regular sandwiches, a big variation so that all the time I had at least something that I was willing to eat because during such a record attempt, I was at anywhere between eight and 12,000 calories a day so you have to eat all the time. After three weeks, you don't want to eat anything anymore.
Karel Saabe: Then you need as much different things as possible in your backpack so at least something you can still digest and eat.
Shelby Stanger: Wow. You're just eating pretty much the whole time every hour?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: As much as possible.
Karel Saabe: Then I remember during the PCT, Jo put a bunch of snacks next to my pillow because I would wake up sometimes at night from my muscles cramping up. Then he said, "Ah, well you're cramping up anyway. Have some snacks and eat so you're better recovered on the next day." I was just eating, eating all the time.
Shelby Stanger: Jo is so smart. What kind of wild animals did you see out there?
Karel Saabe: On the PCT, a lot of snakes and then some bears as well, black bears.
Shelby Stanger: What would you do?
Karel Saabe: I would make a lot of noise and scare them away. It was a very welcome addition to that whole experience because being out on these trails for such a long time, sometimes people or ... I mean, it's a very small minority of hikers that are arguing that it's a waste to run a beautiful trail like the AT and that you can't enjoy it because you're going too fast. I mean, not many people are saying that, but on the other hand, because I'm having friends supporting me, I never had to leave the trail, so I was really becoming part of wildlife.
Karel Saabe: Then having those bear encounters and hearing the animals, I could really become part of nature as well. That was my feeling. That is why I enjoy these long trails so much because I could hear better. I could smell better as well. I could smell hikers before I saw them just because your senses gets stronger. Yeah. Just smelling a day hiker because they had deodorant on and you feel like you smell it because it's out of place in nature.
Karel Saabe: To me, that was such a beautiful experience that maybe while hiking the trail would have been more difficult to accomplish because you have to hitchhike out to resupply in towns. When you're in town, yeah, you decided to have a party with fellow hikers. For me, it was a very wild experience because during those 52 days I didn't leave the trail at anytime. For me, that was a very special experience.
Shelby Stanger: That is so cool. You just camped on the trail?
Karel Saabe: Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: Literally, like just right off the side of the trail. Did you run into people a lot then?
Karel Saabe: The first three weeks, I didn't. At least not at the PCT because everybody had left the desert already because in June in the desert, it's not the best time to be there. At first I didn't see any people. Then I was catching up with the hikers and then it was fun to be camping with the hikers. Mentally, it was sometimes hard as well because going for the record, I had to go into the nights quite often to stay on record pace.
Karel Saabe: Then I could see the campfires from the hikers and they were singing songs and I was like, "Oh, now I want to be there and not being at midnight, still running and not knowing when I'm going to be able to sleep." It was nice to connect with the true hikers and often they knew that I was doing it and there were some fun conversations as well. It was also fun, yeah, that they could help out when I was having difficult times.
Karel Saabe: Like I remember at one point in Washington State because of circumstances, Jo and I had to go through the night because Jo couldn't reach me or couldn't reach the trail. We had to take the next trail to the PCT, which was a lot more north than the one that he was supposed to take. We had to go through the night and we met up at 9:00 AM after running more than a hundred kilometers.
Karel Saabe: Then I remember that day where I slept one hour and carried on running again for the next day to stay on record pace that forest true hikers ran with me for like three or four hours with their backpacks just to keep me company and to talk.
Shelby Stanger: Oh, that's so cool.
Karel Saabe: I remember, yeah, it was my hardest day, but because of those guys I could carry on and be happy again. It was nice to talk to them.
Shelby Stanger: How did you and Jo keep in touch with each other? Was that hard?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Often there wasn't any cell phone service. During the PCT, we did buy or rent satellite phones because it was just too dangerous to do it without. Basically, yeah, we would know, okay. The next meet-up is in 20 miles. Then we would have a very wide range of when I might make it there. I could have a good day and be there fast and I could have a bad day or very rough terrain and then it would take many hours. But we never had that I was so late that Jo started getting worried.
Karel Saabe: He would just wait and have confidence that I would show up eventually and maybe he would start hiking towards me or ask hikers, "Did you see Karel?" Or something like that.
Shelby Stanger: Karel also ran the PCT and AT with a GPS tracker so that friends and family could see where he was. When we come back, Karel explains what happened to his feet after running 2,650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail and how he mentally prepares for thousand-mile ultras. Born in the Swiss Alps, the all-new Cloud ultra-trail running shoe from On is designed to conquer epic mountain mileage in quick burst over rocky routes and gravel paths. In this shoe, no distance is off limits.
Shelby Stanger: The Cloud ultra is equipped with a two-layer mash made from a hundred percent recycled polyester for maximum breathability and durability. It also has two layers of Cloud tech cushioning to create extra soft landings. It features mission grip to deliver unbeatable traction on any surface with a closed outsole to help you glide over mixed terrain. Plus, the innovative flip release tool makes finding a more comfortable fit among runs as easy as flicking a switch to expand the laces.
Shelby Stanger: Ultra cushioned, ultra comfortable, ultra versatile, switch on, go ultra, exclusively available at REI stores in rei.com. You can imagine that running thousands of miles took a toll on Karel's body. Luckily, he didn't suffer any major injuries, but like many runners who do long journeys like this, his feet got destroyed. Part of his feet turned black. They were cracked and wrinkly. He lost toenails, but more than anything, he finished running the PCT in August and he couldn't feel his feet again until Christmas.
Shelby Stanger: Talk to us about what your feet looked like, what condition your body is in, and what happens to you after 40 or 50 days of 50 miles a day running.
Karel Saabe: Because I've been doing this for five years now, I'm an expert in feet care and I know everything about how to take care of your feet. For example, during the PCT, I was a very inexperienced ultrarunner, so by four weeks I was having a lot of callus on my feet. I had blisters underneath that callus. I couldn't reach the blisters because of the callus and I couldn't pop them. When I had a blister, it would hurt for three days before it would actually pop.
Karel Saabe: Then eventually they started, yeah, hurting so much that sometimes in the morning I needed to take a painkiller to get into my shoes again and the first mile I was really stumbling. By the time I got back home from the PCT, I couldn't feel my feet anymore. I think the endings of the nerve die because of the constant pressure in shoes and not being able to shower and to clean them properly, until December where I could get the feeling back again. Luckily, there was no permanent damage. Yeah.
Karel Saabe: After experiencing that myself, I googled it of course, because I was worried it will be permanent, but it's something that's common with expeditions like that. Also in polar expeditions and they call them Christmas feet because after the expedition, by the time it's Christmas, you feel your feet again.
Shelby Stanger: Wow. What is good feet care? What does that look like?
Karel Saabe: During the AT, we had this whole routine of taking care of my feet. The most important thing is washing them. At least once a day, I would clean them. Sometimes during the day as well I would get rid of all the dirt. Then I would use a lot of powder to keep them dry enough. Then before I went to bed some cream. Then I would treat my callus so there's a little bit of callus but not too much. Then I had a different cream in the morning to treat my feet and, yeah, a whole routine. Three pairs of socks every day.
Shelby Stanger: Three pairs changing?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. Changing socks.
Shelby Stanger: You changed your socks three times a day? Wow.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. I mean, your socks are so dirty, full of gravel and that dirt can start chafing. By the end of the day, you have a blister and you want to avoid it. Your feet are really your most important thing during such a record attempt.
Shelby Stanger: How many shoes and socks did you go through?
Karel Saabe: During the PCT, I didn't have enough socks at all, so I think over there, I only had four or five pairs of socks. Then I learned my lesson and during the AT I had like 40 pairs of socks and during the day I was replacing socks to have fresh socks all the time. Then I was running with, I think, 10 pairs of shoes. During the PCT, I only had five or six pairs of shoes.
Shelby Stanger: You stayed injury-free, which is really rare for that long. How do you stay injury-free? Do you stretch? Do you do yoga? Do ice?
Karel Saabe: Well, I think for me, the biggest advantage has been that my friend Jo, who supported me during the PCT and the AT, is a physiotherapist, so whenever I could feel the smallest injury coming up, he'd say, "Okay. Pay attention to your running technique and try this." Then he would immediately treat something. Instead of letting small issues become big issues, we could treat it immediately. Then also I think, to me, it feels like the most natural way of running. There's a very famous book called Born to Run.
Shelby Stanger: Oh, Chris McDougall. He's been on the show.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Shelby Stanger: He's great. Yeah.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. To me, that explains why I'm into ultrarunning. It's the most natural way of running. You run slow, but you run in a natural way on trails, really long distances, but at a lower intensity. Of course, with the things that I'm doing, a lot of people say, "Hey, you're wasting your body and by the time you get 40, your knees will be done." It doesn't feel like that at all. I feel personally, I don't get injured at all because you're hiking uphill. You're running the flats, the downhills, every step is different because of the terrain.
Karel Saabe: Your foot is going to be tilted left, right, forward, backwards. During my training as well when I'm running more on concrete and trying to increase the pace, then I get injured. If I'm running in the mountains, 80, 90, a hundred kilometers a day, I don't get injured because I think it's the most natural way of running.
Shelby Stanger: That's so cool. Does Jo give you exercises for prehab and rehab to do?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. He does. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: You actually follow them too?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do my best because I know he's like ... Yeah. He's working with runners a lot and he knows what's going on. He's a very complete physiotherapist. If a knee would start giving issues, he wouldn't only look at the knee, but he would see my hip is tilted and then he would treat something else to get the knee issue.
Shelby Stanger: It's always alignment.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: Once you're out of line, everything else starts hurting. You and your friend, Jo, your brother-in-law, you always seem to be really positive. Is this a Belgian thing? Are you just naturally positive?
Karel Saabe: We were two guys at a place they love, which is the outdoors and it was an adventure. For sure, we had a very hard time, but at every moment we would be happy that we were there. Even if it was hard and we didn't sleep, there you could enjoy the scenery. You would have a nice sunrise, a nice sunset. You would have wildlife encounters. Even though it was very hard and painful at times, because my feet by the time I was running for four weeks, they were totally wasted, we could stay positive because okay, we signed up for it voluntarily.
Karel Saabe: We also knew every single moment that it's a luxury situation. We are healthy young guys being able to do what we want. We were on an adventure in nature. We didn't feel like we had the right to be negative. For us, it came natural, but it was the most important factor of being able to finish and to set the record. The fact that we were so positive and our interaction as well, I mean, being so tired and doing such long days, I could become maybe very tired and negative.
Karel Saabe: Then Jo would be there to cheer me up and say, "Hey, Karel, just remember where you are running and what you are actually accomplishing." We would cheer each other up.
Shelby Stanger: Jo wasn't the only help you had on the trail, right?
Karel Saabe: I remember on the Appalachian Trail, we were always starting at 3:30 or at 4:00 AM at the latest in the morning. Then the people living around the trail that were following the record attempt knew about it. So often at quarter to 4:00, a local runner would be there with her torches ready, giving snacks, and then saying, "Okay. I can run two miles with you before I have to go to work later today." Those are the moments that you really appreciate being part of the running community, as well as the hiking community. A lot of fun moments.
Shelby Stanger: Thanks to Jo and the locals who ran with him, Karel crushed the Appalachian Trail record in 2018. He beat the previous record by four days, running an average of 53 miles a day for 41 straight days. Because of his record-breaking success, Karel was inducted into an even more elite running community. He was invited to run the Barkley Marathons. The Barkleys were a different story from Karel's previous record-setting runs.
Shelby Stanger: After only four days, he decided it was unfinishable. You've done the AT, the PCT, all these other ultras and we get to the Barkley Marathons, which if people don't know, maybe you could just really quickly explain what those are. Obviously a movie recently just came out with you about you training for the Barkley Marathons and then competing in it one year.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. In short, the Barkley Marathons is a combination of ultramarathon and social experiment. Basically, the setup is let's create a race that's barely possible to finish and see what happens. In the course of 35 years, only 15 people managed to finish the Barkley Marathons because it's so hard. You need to do five loops in very difficult circumstances, with a lot of elevation change. The course is not marked. The weather is always very bad. Yeah. The concept of the race is let's create it so that it's barely possible to finish.
Shelby Stanger: You're also doing a scavenger hunt when you're doing the Barkley, right?
Karel Saabe: Yeah. You are. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: You're trying to find things using a map, but it's a topographic map and you have a compass.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Map and compass, and to prove that you've followed the exact course, there are 14 books that you have to find and out of every book, you have to tear a page which corresponds to your bib number. Then after the loop, you have 14 pages and then you've proven that you've done the correct loop.
Shelby Stanger: That is so crazy.
Karel Saabe: Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: Is there a safety measure though? Because it looked like you could have gotten really injured if you kept going.
Karel Saabe: No. Well, you are not allowed any electronic devices. The organizer of the race expects self-extraction. If you get injured, you need to get back to camp yourself. In the past, people with broken kneecaps and broken shoulders had to hike back to camp for multiple hours because nobody knew where they were and they had to get back to camp. The organizer of the race, yeah, really enjoys seeing what happens when people set out and face their limits and fail and see their reaction to their failure.
Karel Saabe: For me, it was a very interesting concept as well, because yeah, I was very successful during my record attempts. I was always ahead of schedule and everything was going great. I realized there's a lot of interesting things going on when you face your own limits, physically and mentally. During the PCT and the AT it takes two, three, four weeks to get to your limit. Then you go on and on.
Karel Saabe: During something as hard as the Barkley Marathons, after 24 hours, you're in the mental state of two weeks of PCT, for example. I knew it would be very interesting to participate in a race like that.
Shelby Stanger: I mean, you still are the person who went the farthest in 2019 out of anybody else.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody finished and I didn't finish, but I made it until the fourth loop of five loops that you need to finish the race. Then I also, yeah, got very sleep-deprived and couldn't carry on anymore. I had to quit.
Shelby Stanger: What did you learn from this race that you're looking to apply for the next one?
Karel Saabe: What is usually my mindset for doing something is "Okay. I'm doing it and I'm not going to try it. I'm doing it no matter what." During my first Barkley, you go to the Barkley to experience failure, but for me, I didn't fail because I didn't finish. I failed because during the fourth loop, I thought it was not possible anymore to finish. I decided to quit. When I'm going back more than the last time, I will say, "Okay. I'm carrying on no matter what."
Karel Saabe: Even if I run out of time, I'm going to carry on and see where I end up because now I had the opportunity to continue and I decided to turn back to camp myself, which was a failure to me. Next time I will be more set on not quitting and finishing and doing everything possible to make it to the finish line.
Shelby Stanger: I think what's also so interesting is this isn't your full-time job. One, that takes a little bit of pressure off, but also, I mean, you beat people's times who are just professional runners and that's all they do. It's incredible.
Karel Saabe: Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: You're very humble about it.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. The thing is when you're a professional athlete, I mean, the longer the adventure is, the more room there is for the mental strength that is going to be the deciding factor of whether you will be doing great or not. I mean, if you're competing with professionals in a hundred mile distance, the professionals are always going to win because they have been able to train more and train on the right terrain.
Karel Saabe: If you're doing something that's 3000 to 4,000 kilometers, okay, you have your part of training, but then after two weeks, what you've trained doesn't matter anymore. It matters if you are mentally strong and if you like where you are, and if you are positive and you want to keep pushing it. That is why I'm able to compete with the pros, because I just simply love what I'm doing.
Karel Saabe: Every moment out on such a record attempt I feel grateful that I'm there and I'm in such a great place mentally that I am able to push it really hard during the day and day after day. I think that's the reason why I can be faster than people who are professional runners.
Shelby Stanger: I mean, your energy is contagious. I feel like going and running 20 miles right now, which is wild. Do you have a mantra that you say to yourself when things get tough? Because there are times where being positive is a little bit more challenging than other times.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. What has been a lifesaver or a adventure saver during the things that I've done was just a really good analysis of what I'm going for before setting off. Be very careful in picking your ideas and your plans and your adventures. I mean, I decided to run the PCT because being outdoors and running on single track is my biggest passion. When I was ready to do the PCT, I was accepting the fact that for the next 52 days, it will be hard.
Karel Saabe: There'll be a lot coming at me and I will have to cope with it and react to it. Whatever comes at me, I'm going to do it. In ultrarunning that's a very important mindset because if you have constant self-doubt and the constant opportunity to quit at one point, it's going to be mentally so challenging. It's a [inaudible 00:32:45] that goes on in your mind day after day. I think if I would have accepted that during the PCT, after three weeks, it would have been too hard and I would have said, "Okay. It's impossible to continue."
Karel Saabe: Before setting off on the PCT, I said, "Okay. I'm doing this no matter what. If I need to run through the night to stay on record pace, I'm doing it." Removing that question of, "Can I quit or not?" Is such a life changer in an ultramarathon or in a speed record attempt because it's so energy-draining to be doubting, "Should I continue? Should I not continue? Am I-
Shelby Stanger: That wasn't even an option. Quitting was just not an option.
Karel Saabe: No. No. It wasn't an option.
Shelby Stanger: Awesome.
Karel Saabe: No.
Shelby Stanger: I love that. It sounds like this is the same thing that you do on the Appalachian Trail, on the Barkley Marathons, everything.
Karel Saabe: Yeah. Yeah. It is.
Shelby Stanger: That's amazing.
Karel Saabe: Life in general as well. I mean, before ultrarunning, I have an idea and go for it and try it. Then at the first backset I would quit and think, "Okay. It's not possible." Now when I'm doing something, whether it's starting a new company or something like that, before doing it, I decide, "Okay. What are the reasons that I can quit?" If those aren't met, I'm going to carry on and continue until I've achieved what I set out for.
Shelby Stanger: When the pandemic ends and Karel's allowed to travel again, he's planning on running the entire length of New Zealand on the Te Araroa Trail. He's also planning on participating again in the Barkley Marathons in Tennessee. If you want to learn more about Karel's journey to the Barkleys in 2019, I highly recommend his movie. It's called Out There. You can find it on YouTube or Karel's website, Karelsabbe.com. That's K-A-R-E-L-S-A-B-B-E.
Shelby Stanger: If you want to keep up with Karel's training and races, check out his Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube @karelsabbe. Again, that's @K-A-R-E-L-S-A-B-B-E. Thank you so much to Karel for coming on the show. I am so amazed and inspired by you and I'm running so much more because of you. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me. I'm Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Sylvia Thomas and produced by Chelsea Davis.
Shelby Stanger: Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we appreciate when you subscribe, rate and review the show wherever you listen. Remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.