This post is about a 5-year journey that changed everything—and what it taught me about resilience, strategy, and becoming who you thought you couldn't.
The Impossible Beginning
In 2020, I was that guy: an ITB alumnus running a creative digital agency, completely sedentary, leaning hard into unhealthy habits. I wasn't sick, wasn't in crisis (yet), but I was fractured. The pandemic hit, and something in me broke open—not dramatically, but quietly. I hit Obese level 1. My cognitive function tanked. I remember calling it "slow thinking"—like my brain was running at half speed. I'd sit in strategic meetings and feel... foggy. Unreliable. Not myself.
In August 2020, something shifted. I decided to run 5 kilometers.
I remember telling people: "I'm going to run a marathon one day." They laughed. Not unkindly, but the kind of laugh that says sure, buddy. And honestly? I didn't believe it either. A marathon felt like claiming I'd climb Everest. A 100K? Laughable. Impossible.
But here's what I didn't understand then: impossibility is just a lack of systems.
By July 2023, I was running marathons with the ASICS Marathon Team. By 2024, I was a Pocari Sweat Marathon Pacer. And in 2025—just 5 years after that first terrifying 5K—I ran not one, but three 100K ultra-trail races in eight weeks.
When I delivered this presentation on October 30, 2025, I had already completed two of them: BDG Ultra and Trans Jeju by UTMB. I was mid-mission, riding the momentum toward the third race (BTS Ultra), still processing what was happening.
Now, writing this in January 2026, with all three finishes behind me, I can see the full arc of what happened.
100+ km. Done.
The journey wasn't about getting faster or stronger (though both happened). It was about discovering that the person I thought I was—sedentary, undisciplined, limited—was a fiction. And once you see through that fiction, you can't unsee it.
Along the way, I learned seven fundamental truths. Not secrets, exactly. More like operating principles—frameworks that work because they're rooted in how humans actually function, not how we wish we functioned.
These aren't just running principles. I've watched them reshape how I lead Suitmedia, how I make decisions under uncertainty, how I handle the scaling challenges of a growing business. They're transferable. And I think they might work for whatever your "100K" is.
Secret #1: The Power of Showing Up (Consistency Beats Intensity Every Time)
The Real Problem with Motivation
Let me tell you about motivation: it's a liar.
Everyone approaches running (or fitness, or any ambitious goal) the same way: they wait for motivation. They imagine themselves as the kind of person who loves running. They picture early mornings, sunrises, that runner's high. They motivate themselves into a frenzy and commit to running 5 days a week, 10km per session.
Then Tuesday comes, and they're tired. Wednesday, it rains. Thursday, work runs late. By Saturday, they've missed three sessions, feel like failures, and quit.
This is the motivation trap. And I fell into it hard in those first months.
What changed everything was understanding BJ Fogg's Behavior Model: Behavior = Motivation + Ability + Prompt. You can't rely on motivation because motivation is volatile. It spikes and crashes. But you can control ability and prompts.
Here's what I did differently:
I started absurdly small.
My first running routine wasn't 10km, 5 days a week. It was 15 minutes of walk-jog, 3 times a week. That's it. Not impressive. Not Instagram-worthy. But doable. Even on bad days, even when I was tired or stressed, 15 minutes felt achievable.
The magic wasn't in the 15 minutes themselves. It was in building the habit first, the pace later.
I treated running like a professional appointment—non-negotiable, scheduled, the same time each week. Not because I loved it, but because it was on the calendar, and I show up to calendar items. This sounds obvious, but most people don't do this. They think discipline comes from feeling like it. Discipline actually comes from removing the decision.
By month three, running 15 minutes 3x a week felt as normal as brushing my teeth. My brain stopped negotiating it. Then I extended to 20 minutes. Then to 5 days a week. Then the distances grew. But the foundation was the habit—showing up, even when it sucked.
The "Good Enough" Run
Here's something they don't tell you: not every run needs to be great.
In October 2025, I had completed a 266-week running streak—5+ years without missing a single week. Some of those runs were transcendent. Most were forgettable. Some were genuinely ugly. I remember a 6am run in Jakarta heat where I barely made it 5km and felt like I'd been hit by a bicycle. But I showed up. That run counted the same as the perfect long run on a cool morning.
The breakthrough moment came when I stopped chasing the perfect run and started celebrating the completion of effort. Some weeks, "showing up" meant a slow 8km jog in humidity. Some weeks it meant a brutal 30km weekend run. Both counted. Both built the streak.
This is counterintuitive but critical: Discipline is built by showing up on the bad days, not the good ones. The good days take care of themselves.
Secret #2: Embrace the Ugly Miles (Discomfort Is Information)
Reframing Pain as Progress
By 2023, when I was doing my first marathons, I hit a wall I didn't expect: mental. Not physical.
Around kilometer 30 of my first marathon in Tokyo, my legs felt like concrete, my glycogen was depleted, and my brain was screaming at me to stop. It wasn't injury—it was just the gross, uncomfortable, unglamorous reality of pushing your body for hours. And my instinct was to treat it as bad.
But I had a realization: What if discomfort isn't a warning sign? What if it's just information?
I started reframing. That burning in my quads wasn't "pain"—it was my body adapting. That wall of fatigue wasn't failure—it was growth happening. This sounds like self-help fluff, but it's actually rooted in sports psychology. When you reframe discomfort as adaptation rather than damage, your nervous system responds differently. Your cortisol doesn't spike as high. You stay calmer.
In the actual 100K, this became critical. Around hour 18, I was running on fumes. My feet were trashed. My mind was foggy. And instead of thinking "this is suffering," I thought: "This is where the real training happens. This is where the mental edge develops."
The Recovery Pyramid
But here's the thing they don't tell you: you can't just push through discomfort and expect magic. Recovery is where the adaptation actually happens.
This led me to understand what I call the Recovery Pyramid:
- Base (Foundation): Sleep, Stress Management, Recovery — Without these, everything else is fragile
- Next Level: Nutrition & Hydration — Fuel for adaptation
- Next Level: Active Recovery & Mobility — Movement that aids blood flow and reduces soreness
- Top: Supplements & Massage — Nice-to-haves, but only if the foundation is solid
Most people obsess over the top of the pyramid (the sexy stuff) while ignoring the base (the boring stuff). I started tracking my sleep obsessively. I made hydration non-negotiable. I took active recovery—easy walks, stretching, yoga—seriously.
The result? My body could actually handle the discomfort of hard runs because it was being properly rebuilt in between.
Learning from Tough Runs
After every difficult run, I started doing something radical: I'd analyze it like a business problem.
What made this run hard? Was it sleep? I'd checked—I'd slept 7 hours. Nutrition? I'd fueled properly. Stress? Actually, yeah—I'd had a tense client call the day before. Hydration? I'd run in midday heat and only drank twice.
By treating each ugly mile as data, I could optimize. The next run in similar conditions, I hydrated more frequently and avoided scheduling stressful calls beforehand. I wasn't getting lucky or hoping for better motivation. I was systematically removing obstacles.
This is exactly how I approach business challenges at Suitmedia. A failed pitch? Let's analyze the variables. A missed deadline? Let's look at what constrained us. Discomfort in business is information too.
Secret #3: Your Body Is Your Lab (Experiment, Don't Guess)
Testing Everything Under Race Conditions
One of the biggest reasons people fail ultras isn't because they didn't train hard enough—it's because they showed up to race day with untested gear, untested nutrition, and untested pacing strategies.
I made a decision early: Nothing new on race day.
That meant every piece of gear—shoes, socks, vest, clothing layers, headlamp, trekking poles—had to be tested during long training runs. I'd wear them for 6 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours. I'd run in them in heat, in rain, at night. Not because I'm obsessively cautious, but because I'd heard too many stories of blisters, chafing, and equipment failure at the 80km mark when it's too late to fix anything.
The same applied to nutrition. Ultra-trail running requires fueling during the race—gels, bars, electrolyte drinks. But your gut during a 30-hour run is not your gut at rest. I spent months testing what my body could handle while moving hard. Some gels made me nauseous. Some didn't digest properly. Others worked perfectly. By race day, I'd consumed thousands of kilometers' worth of fuel, and I knew exactly what my gut could handle.
This isn't just about avoiding disaster—it's about confidence. When you know your gear will hold up, when you know your nutrition won't betray you, when you know your body's signals because you've studied them extensively, you can run the race in your head. You can focus on pacing and mindset instead of troubleshooting.
Autoregulation: Listen to Your Body
But here's the trap: you can overtrain. You can push too hard, accumulate too much fatigue, and break down right before the race.
This is where I learned about the Goldilocks Principle in training: not too little, not too much, just right. The problem is "just right" is individual and changes week to week based on sleep, stress, life circumstances.
So I started practicing autoregulation—adjusting training based on internal cues, not just the plan.
On weeks when I was under stress at work, I'd reduce volume slightly but maintain intensity. On weeks when I was sleeping poorly, I'd dial back intensity and focus on recovery. I'd track my resting heart rate, energy levels, and how my legs felt. If I was consistently sluggish or sore, I'd take an extra recovery day.
This sounds simple, but most runners follow their training plan like scripture. They miss the feedback their body is constantly sending. By treating my body as a lab rather than a machine to be tortured, I stayed healthy and peaked at exactly the right time.
Secret #4: Master the Mind Game (Your Brain Determines Everything)
Segment the Distance into Manageable Chunks
Here's the psychological reality of 100K: it's too big to hold in your mind.
If I'd spent the entire race thinking "I have 100 kilometers left," I would have quit at kilometer 20. The distance is paralyzing. So I didn't think in kilometers. I thought in segments.
I'd broken the course into 9 sections:
- Healing Forest to Yeongsil Entrance (13.1km, expected time: 2h 30m, Effort: Steady)
- Yeongsil to Eorigok Entrance (8.3km, 1h 45m, Moderate)
- And so on...
At each checkpoint, my brain didn't think "70km left." It thought "12km to the next aid station. I can do 12km." Then: "11km to the one after that." I was essentially running 9 separate half-marathon-ishes, not one impossible ultra.
This is a technique called mental chunking, and it's used by everyone from ultra-runners to surgeons to CEOs managing large-scale projects. Break the impossible into the manageable. Make it psychological bite-sized.
Developing a Personal Mantra
Somewhere around hour 22 of the race, my legs were screaming, my brain was foggy, and I was genuinely uncertain if I could continue. This is where the mantra comes in.
Mine was simple: "Forward. Always forward."
Not "I'm strong" (I wasn't feeling strong). Not "I can do this" (I doubted that). Just: forward. Motion. One foot in front of the other.
This sounds almost mystical, but the research is solid: positive self-talk measurably improves performance, increases self-confidence, and reduces anxiety. The key is that the mantra has to be believable to you in that moment. "I'm an ultra-runner" would have been a lie when I was struggling. But "forward"? I could do forward. I could always do forward.
Mindful Awareness on the Trail
Around hour 24, as dawn was breaking, something shifted. I stopped fighting the fatigue and started noticing it.
I focused on my breath. The cool air of early morning. The specific sensation of my feet hitting the trail. The way my body was moving, even though it was tired. This is mindfulness—not transcendent meditation, but simple present-moment awareness.
What this did was break the spiral of negative thinking. Instead of catastrophizing ("I have 6 more hours and I'm dying"), my brain was anchored to the present: "Right now, I'm moving. Right now, I'm okay. This breath is fine."
The research confirms this works: mindfulness-based interventions measurably reduce pain intensity and perceived suffering. It's not magic—it's neurology. When you're focused on present sensations, you're less focused on catastrophic futures.
Secret #5: Gravity Is Your Friend (Technical Efficiency Over Brute Force)
Power Hiking: The Secret Nobody Talks About
Here's a truth that shocks most runners: the fastest way up a steep hill is to walk.
I didn't believe this until I read the research. A 2016 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology tested runners on steep inclines. The data was clear: at gradients steeper than about 15%, walking burns fewer calories than running. Your body is simply more efficient moving uphill on foot than trying to maintain a running pace on a grade.
In the 100K, there were brutal climbs—1,000+ meters of elevation gain. My first instinct was to run them. I'd gas out within 500 meters and have to walk anyway, demoralized.
Then I reframed: power hiking wasn't giving up. It was strategic efficiency. I'd lean forward, pump my arms, attack the climb at a walking pace. And I'd pass runners who were trying to run and failing. By the time we got to the top, I'd be fresher and more confident.
This taught me something that applies everywhere: sometimes the "slower" path is actually faster. Sometimes walking is better than running. The ego wants to always be pushing, but wisdom is knowing when to conserve.
Look Ahead, Not Down: Trail Scanning
There's a simple technique that elite trail runners use that makes a huge difference: they scan 3-5 steps ahead instead of staring at their feet.
Why? Because your brain and body react faster to obstacles when you see them in advance. You can adjust your foot placement before you hit the root, not after. You maintain flow and efficiency instead of constantly reacting.
I practiced this in training, and by race day, it was automatic. In the dark sections at night (with a headlamp), I was scanning the trail ahead, placing my feet with intention, avoiding the micro-losses of balance that add up to exhaustion over hours.
Again: this applies beyond running. In business, scanning ahead means looking at market trends, competitive moves, and team dynamics before they become crises. It's the difference between reacting and leading.
Controlled Descents: Building Confidence
The flip side of climbing is descending. And descending is harder than it looks.
Downhill running places massive eccentric load on your quads—the part of the muscle contraction where you're lengthening under tension. This causes soreness and, if you're not careful, injury. Most runners are terrified of downhills.
I spent months training downhill runs specifically. I'd practice on slopes, working on controlled descent—not blasting down (which causes injury and exhaustion), but using gravity efficiently while braking with my quads.
The payoff in the race was enormous. When other runners were limping down hills at hour 25, afraid of their legs giving out, I was moving efficiently. I wasn't fast, but I was controlled. And that's what matters in an ultra.
Secret #6: The Pre-Race Playbook (Certainty Reduces Anxiety)
Gear Testing: Beyond the Mandatory
Race organizations give you a mandatory gear list: shoes, lights, rain jacket, etc. Most runners buy this gear and show up to the race.
I did something different: I tested everything extensively.
Not just the mandatory stuff—but my entire kit. How does this vest sit during 12 hours of running? Do these trekking poles cause shoulder fatigue? Does this headlamp battery last long enough? Are these socks causing blisters after hour 8?
I ran in my race outfit for 12+ hours straight during training. I used my actual race nutrition. I tested my headlamp in actual darkness. When race day came, there were zero surprises. My gear wasn't a question mark—it was a known quantity.
This sounds obsessive, but it had a massive psychological benefit: confidence. I wasn't worrying about whether my vest would hold up. I wasn't guessing about my socks. I could focus on running instead of troubleshooting.
In business, this is equivalent to thorough preparation before a major pitch, product launch, or board meeting. Uncertainty creates anxiety. Certainty creates presence.
Course Segmentation and Visualization
I didn't just break the course into segments logistically. I visualized each segment.
I'd study the race map obsessively. I'd look at elevation profiles for each section and imagine what the terrain would feel like. I'd visualize the aid stations, the volunteers, the moments where I'd transition to night running. I'd imagine the hard sections—not to fear them, but to meet them mentally before they happened physically.
Visualization isn't wishful thinking. Research shows that mental practice activates the same neural pathways as physical practice. By the time I reached a difficult section in the actual race, my brain had already "run" it a dozen times.
Contingency Planning: Expect the Unexpected
The smartest thing I did: I made a list of potential race-day problems and pre-planned my responses.
- Bad weather? I knew which layers to add, how to pace in rain (slower), when to consider quitting (basically, almost never).
- GI issues? I'd practiced dealing with nausea during long runs. I knew which gels my stomach could tolerate when upset.
- Extreme fatigue? I knew my breaking point wasn't actual physical breaking. It was mental. I had a mantra and a chunking strategy.
- Getting lost? The course was marked, but if I missed a turn, I had GPS and a contingency route.
- Gear failure? I had backup gear in running vest and I knew how to keep moving with minimal equipment if needed.
The beautiful thing about contingency planning: it reduces panic. When things go wrong (and they will), you're not in shock. You're executing a plan. You stay calm and solve the problem.
Secret #7: It's Not About the Running at All (The Real Transformation)
Running as a Metaphor for Life's Challenges
Here's the thing they don't tell you about ultra-running: it's not actually about running.
It's about what running teaches you about yourself and the world.
In five years, I learned more about perseverance, strategic problem-solving, and resilience from running than I learned in my first 10 years at Suitmedia. And I'm not being sentimental—these lessons directly transfer.
When I'm facing a scaling challenge at my agency, I think like an ultra-runner. The problem is too big? I break it into segments. I'm exhausted by the process? I focus on the next day, the next week, not the next five years. I hit a wall? I reframe it as information, not failure. I'm uncertain about the path? I make a contingency plan.
The discipline forged on the trails translates directly to the discipline required to build a high-margin, scalable business. The mental toughness I developed showing up on days I didn't want to run? That's the same mental toughness required to push through the rough early years of a startup.
Discovering Your Deeper Well of Resilience
But the deepest benefit isn't strategic. It's existential.
For most of my life, I had a story about myself: I'm not an athlete. I'm not someone who does hard physical things. I'm a knowledge worker—smart, strategic, but not strong.
Running a 100K shattered that story. Not because I became a great runner (I'm not). But because I proved to myself that I could do something I genuinely believed was impossible.
And once you've done that, everything changes. Because suddenly the other limits in your life—the professional ones, the creative ones, the personal ones—look different. They look pliable. Not impossible, but just unexamined.
When I faced the decision to scale Suitmedia aggressively, to hire differently, to go after bigger clients, I carried that knowledge: I've done things I thought were impossible before. That belief changes your risk tolerance. It changes what you're willing to attempt.
Mindfulness and Presence as a Life Tool
The mindfulness I developed running—the ability to anchor into the present moment when everything else is chaos—has become my most valuable tool outside of running.
In tense negotiations, I use it. When I'm facing uncertainty about direction, I use it. When my team is stressed and I need to be calm, I use it.
It's simple but profound: The ability to be fully present is the ability to make good decisions. When you're spiraling in anxiety about the future, you can't think clearly. When you're regretting the past, you can't adapt. But when you're anchored to right now—to what's actually happening, what you can actually control—you become effective.
Ultra-running is just a laboratory for developing this capacity. The principles work anywhere.
What's Your 100K?
I ended the presentation with a question, and I'll end this the same way:
It wasn't about running 100 kilometers. It was about discovering that I could.
The specific achievement—the ultra-trail race in Jeju—is almost incidental. What mattered was the transformation. The person who couldn't run 5K became someone who could run 100K. More importantly, the person who believed he had fixed limits became someone who understood that limits are mostly fiction.
Your 100K might not be running. It might be:
- Launching a product you've been afraid to build
- Transforming your relationship with your body and health
- Scaling your business through a critical growth phase
- Learning a skill you thought was beyond you
- Healing from something you thought was permanent
- Taking on a leadership role you didn't think you deserved
And those systems are available to you right now:
- Show up consistently, even when motivation is gone. Build the habit first, the mastery later.
- Embrace discomfort as information, not failure. The ugly miles are where the real growth happens.
- Treat your body (and mind) as a lab. Test, iterate, optimize based on real data, not hopes.
- Master your mind. Chunk the impossible into manageable pieces. Develop practices for staying present under pressure.
- Move strategically. Sometimes the slower path is faster. Scan ahead. Build confidence through controlled practice.
- Prepare obsessively. Certainty reduces anxiety. Contingency planning keeps you calm when things break.
- Recognize that the real goal isn't the achievement itself, but who you become in pursuing it. The 100K is just a vehicle for discovering your deeper resilience.
I don't know what your 100K is. But I know it's possible. And I know that if you apply these principles systematically, with the patience to show up 266 weeks in a row, with the wisdom to embrace discomfort and recover well, with the discipline to prepare and the mindfulness to stay present—you'll discover what I discovered on that trail in Jeju.
You're capable of far more than you believe.
All you have to do is start showing up.
What's your 100K? I'd love to hear it. Drop a comment or reach out—let's build the systems that make the impossible inevitable.
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