Looking Back on 777: The Full Story

When I first started 777, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I remember when I went to book the initial trip to Antarctica, I asked myself: what am I getting myself into?

Now it’s done. And it seems bizarre. Honestly, it’s October 3 years later, WTF?

One of the purposes of an impossible challenge isn’t the challenge itself, but who you have to become in order to complete it.

A lot of the past few months have gone into reviewing that transformation and letting it sink in for me. It’s taken some time, to be honest, the entire summer has been a bit of a decompression phase and I’m just starting to put it all together.

As for the schools + the kids, we’re sorting out the details with the builds themselves (they’re in progress), and we’ll have more details on them soon.

I’ve got a bunch of things on the radar for “what’s next”, but before I jump into the next thing on the impossible list, I wanted to take time to look back on everything that it took to finish 777.

This post is a bit selfish – as it’s as much for me to help understand the actual transformation of myself through the challenge, but maybe you’ll get some inspiration from it as well.

Patagonia: The Kick-Off

After an exciting launch, I headed to Patagonia to one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been: Torres del Paine. The race feels great and I’m excited about the rest of 777, but exactly 26 miles in, a 20mph gust of wind blows me across the road and I roll my ankle – hard. I try to walk it off and despite the pain, finish the remaining 13 miles. Icing the ankle post-race does nothing and I soon find out that I’m diagnosed with a severe sprain and can’t run for 6 months.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWxaeEDl1uy/?hl=en&taken-by=joelrunyon

— The Unplanned Intermission —

I busted my ankle, did 6 months of rehab, created MoveWell, got sued by a billionaire for 20 months, and after a way-too-long-process, was cleared. With a bruised ego, confidence and fitness. I started to look up….

Chicago: The Benchmark Race

After more than 18 months off running (with a loss of confidence and running fitness) I decided I either needed to give up completely and do something else or try and go for it and finish 777. I chose the Chicago 50k as the race that I did back in 2012 to build the first school with PoP as a “benchmark” race to see how I could hold up. Without telling anyone, I went to the race and did it. It was not a pretty race, but I was able to remind myself what I was capable of.

It wasn’t pretty, but it got done – and helped me gear up for the next stage…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMK0QbmjVkp/?taken-by=joelrunyon

Australia: The WTF Race

After I got my confidence back up, I decided to just go for it. I lined up a race on New Years in Narrabeen Australia, just outside of Sydney.

What I thought would be a 5k loop, turned out to be a 2.5km out and back, for 12 hours straight – while there was a party-boat blasting EDM music next to the trail.

New Years Eve. 6pm. 2.5km out and back. As many times as possible. For 12 hours. Some people go to clubs for fun. I run until my legs are numb and the farthest ultra I’ve run in years. More than the distance though, the constant back & forth over such a small distance was the real mind f—.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT93dvkFHFl/?taken-by=joelrunyon

Antarctica: The Race At The End of the World

The one that I had been dreaming of for years, was finally here. With only 9 people in this race, spread out over a 10k loop (that you ran 10 times), I realized that this race – if I could do it – meant I could finish the rest.

Despite the temperature and the unsure footing of running on compressed snow on a glacial field, it was like nothing else experienced. It was my last shot to run an ultra marathon on the continent as our running of the race was the final one.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQfrUp_Fkox/?taken-by=joelrunyon

Thailand: Basically Hell

After running 100k, just two weeks prior, I went into this race feeling confident – and for the first half of the race, it went amazing. The back half the race, things became hard. There was an un-runnable 2 mile section of a single-track up and down. The heat turned up as we hit noon and out-and-backs every 10k meant  I invented an entirely new set of swear words that will be added to the dictionary in 10 years.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQFiqSljrWb/?taken-by=joelrunyon

The Arctic, Finland: The Expedition Race

10 minutes before the race started, my camelbak broke and soaked my entire gear bag. It was all downhill from there. My water bottle was finished by the first 10k, and in the following miles, I ate snow to hydrate, melted snow down over an open fire, poured it into my water bottle, only to have the water freeze from the cold. I got lost twice on the unmarked + self-supported course and almost broke my big toe. It was all worth it on the last mile of the race when the northern lights showed up as a welcome-back present.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQqu1CklCc4/?taken-by=joelrunyon

— 48 Hours In Doha —

The last race almost didn’t happen. En route to South Africa, I was pulled off the plane in Doha, and told my passport didn’t have enough pages to enter South Africa (it did). What followed was a sleepless 24 hour chase around Doha to get an emergency passport at the US Embassy. After a sleepless 24 hours, I barely made it on the flight the next day to South Africa. #neveragaindoha

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSfqObclrka/?taken-by=joelrunyon

South Africa: The Final Ultra

After running the last 6 races mostly alone, this was the first race I was able to run with 11,000 other people – the second largest race in South Africa (next to Comrades).

My buddy Alan came out and we got to run with 11,000 other South Africans. Running in South Africa is amazing and the crowds there are like none other. It was a fun race and a beautiful ending to the running portion of 777.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BS9fJyelQoK/?taken-by=joelrunyon

We Do Hard Stuff + IMPOSSIBLE

With all the races finished, and about $20,000 left to go, we partnered with Jesse Itzler and WeDoHardStuff.com – a group that does fitness challenges for charity.

For every workout challenge completed, a total of $300 was donated, and in June alone, we raised $36,124 built school #7 to finish the #777Project. #boom

What’s Next?

Like I said in the intro, this summer has been a bit of a decompression period for me. I’ve been reflecting a lot on the last year and going through a bunch of projects that I put on “pause” while I finished 777. I’m excited to relaunch + share a few new ventures that I’ll be sharing in the near future, but for the rest of this week, I’ll be reflecting on 777 and releasing a few final videos and wrapping up 777 for good.

Keep your eyes peeled on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for that.

In the mean time, #pushyourlimits and #dosomethingimpossible.

https://www.instagram.com/p/-bBp2OzFsB/?taken-by=joelrunyon