Several weeks back I was contacted by a friendly gentleman from the North Face Endurance Challenge granting me an opportunity to interview an ultra runner for my blog. WELL DUH, OF COURSE I WILL.

For those playing along at home, my 50-miler is part of the North Face Endurance Challenge Series, which is happening, by the way, in SIXTEEN DAYS, in case you're also counting.

Enter Michael Wardian. Mike? Michael? Let's call him Mike. I didn't know a lot about Mike when offered the opportunity, but if you know me, you know I'm real good at stalking, so you better believe I was all up on his Wikipedia page and Facebook page and Twitter and everything on the internet ever.

He does some pretty epic stuff. He just placed third in the Badwater Ultramarathon, which is, like, 135 miles of awful. 50Ks, 100Ks, 50-milers, trail races, road races, marathons. He's done -- and continues to do -- it all. Basically he's my mom's worst nightmare. I, however, think it's incredible.

So huge thanks to North Face for giving me the opportunity to ask him a few questions, and an even bigger thanks for taking the time to have him answer the questions via video. There are four videos, but today I'll start with the first:

What have you dealt with in your running career that reminds us that running is not a glamorous sport?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eARUS8wioXQ[/youtube]

krittabug