42. Phil Pinti - Ultra Runner on Grief, Catharsis, & Building Yourself Up Mile by Mile

Phil Pinti - aka @macho_man_runneth - cruised into his 30s with a brass ring firmly in hand. A post-9/11 stint in the Marines had him deployed to - and now safely home from Iraq. Married to his college sweetheart and the love of his life and raising two beautiful young children. 

A life-long athlete, our guest made the Hershey Half Marathon an annual family pilgrimage. When hip-pain sidelined his wife, however, and normal treatments did nothing to alleviate the injury, tests revealed that his 33 year old bride was suffering from stage-4 lung cancer, which would tragically take her life just 6 short months later.

Faced with picking up the pieces and raising their two young children alone, Phil turned to a local race - the Mid Maryland Ultra 50K - in part to search for and feel a pain different from the anguish he had felt from his wife's passing just 3 months earlier.

The race gave him some perspective and as you'll hear, made him a better man and father, and drove him forward in his life. He continues to live the lessons that he learns on ultra courses around the country - which he will be doing in a few weeks here in Colorado at the Desert RATS ultra stage race which will take him on a 6 day running journey from Fruita, CO to Moab, UT. It will be his 3rd running of this race.

Links: 

Phil Pinti @ Athlinks
https://www.athlinks.com/athletes/213605338/results

Phil Pinti @ Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/macho_man_runneth

And that's the show! Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks again to Phil Pinti for joining us.

We do a special post for each episode on Instagram, so look for the post for episode 42 with a picture of Phil if you have comments or questions - shoot me a message @troybusot or shoot us an email to podcast@athlinks.com. 

Share it with friends far and wide - give us a review if you dig it - and, until next time, happy racing everybody.

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