Quarter II 2020 Mental/Physical Challenge: Ultra Marathon Row
By: Dillon Burns
Tags: Mindset, Challenge, The Dillon Burns Method, Mental Health, Fitness

DO HARD SHIT: EVERY DAY

The journey to rowing 50,000m for my quarter 2 mental/physical challenge was hard fought and definitely warranted; warranted because I had put it off for the longest time. You see, a few years back the CrossFit Games athletes rowed a marathon which is 42,197m in competition and I thought to myself man, that looks tough and I’ll probably never do it. I can vividly remember watching the athletes get started and I hung around for maybe 20 minutes of rowing, then took off. When I came back a few hours later, they were still rowing away trying to get to 42,197m. It’s no easy task and from that point on, I had been fascinated with that length of row, never to even consider doing it until this year.

After my quarter 1 challenge I quickly decided that I would do an ultra marathon row of 50,000m instead of just a marathon at 42,197m because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do a marathon row and even go further for that mental boost of knowing I could do more.

I kept track of my stats as I was rowing for the most part and I hit a full marathon row in 3h50m48s. From there I continued on to row 8,000m more to finish out at 50,000 meters with a time of 4h29m15s. Average heart rate was zone 1, so for me that was roughly an average of 126bpm. I burned 3,242 calories during the 4.5hrs and my estimated recovery time was 67hrs, which if we’re keeping track, that means I can get back on the wagon today and begin to workout again!

Mentally I had a plan when I went into the row, I was going to split it up every 5k (1k = 1,000m) and get up to walk around, stretch, and hydrate. However, when I got on the rower the morning of June 14th, 2020, at 630am my body had a different plan. I felt so good right off the bat that I stuck to it without getting off the rower for 30k! Don’t get me wrong, in my head I was fighting a battle of, “Just go another 5k then get off. Just go another 10k then get off.” etc. I flew past the first 5k and felt amazing, breezed passed the 10k mark and from then on, I would only question myself every 10k to do a quick inventory of how I was feeling.

Right out of the gate, I went 30k meters without stopping, which was far more than I thought I would go before I hopped off for a quick stretch and hydrate. After that, I went roughly every 5k meters to stop and stretch, generally on the rower, grab a quick drink, then back to it. I only ended up getting off the rower twice throughout the entirety of the row. At the 30k mark, my hips were in pain and my hamstrings were super tight, so it was warranted to take a 90 second break off of the rower to get a little stretch in. At that point, my heart rate was on a steady incline due to compounding stress over the past 3 hours of rowing and began to sweat heavily. By this time, it was between 930–10am and I hadn’t eaten anything that morning on purpose — just to make it a little bit harder.

At the end of the day when the row was all said and done, the pain was worth the suffering and the sacrifice or preparing myself over the past three months to get ready for the ultra marathon row was exactly what I needed in my life to help hold me accountable. Accountable to myself, accountable to my brothers who have gone before me (Zach, Guzzo, Curtis), accountable to my family, and just as important as everything else, accountable to living life on my own terms and doing hard shit every single day I’m alive.

If there’s something you want in life, you have a choice between only two options: Get busy living or get busy dying.

During the process, I also took donations for Children International, the charity that I and my business back and support 100%. We managed to raise around $200 which in turn will allow for nearly six sponsorships for children living in poverty around the world. Everything I do is on purpose — to make an impact in my life and in others.

#TheDillonBurnsMethod