Adventure racer Marshall Ulrich has run 113 ultra marathons (more than 100 miles each), hiked 586 miles through Death Valley, and climbed Mt. Everest and the world's six other tallest mountains. Ulrich, 54, was in Raleigh to help pace his wife, Heather, in today's Umstead 100-mile Endurance Run.

So what continues to drive this earth-beater? Ulrich spoke to The N&O's Jaymes Powell Jr. after giving a speech at the newspaper on Friday.

Q: How'd you get started adventure racing?

A: I started running because my [deceased first wife] was dying of cancer. It was a way for me to medicate the high blood-pressure I was having. ... I discovered that I was good at it, so I started running races. ... In 1995, I got a call for the first Eco Challenge. The team needed someone good on their feet, so they got a hold of me.

Q:What drove you to traverse Death Valley four times in a row?

A: It hadn't been done and I wanted to prove that it could be. Extreme temperatures, distances and altitude is always a challenge.

Q:Does pushing the human body to the limit also drive you?

A:That, and just surviving, thinking that I was going to be the next to die after my wife died. Some of it was out of fear, some of it was compulsive addiction. That insatiable appetite where I would get done with one event, be barely recovered two days later, then find something else to do. I wasn't at peace with myself, so there was restlessness there that motivated me, too.

Q:Ever been in an event that might have been too much for you to handle?

A: The quad crossing of Death Valley. It was extremely hot and I started getting tendonitis at about 275 miles. On the third lap back, a doctor told me I could cause permanent damage to my feet because of the swelling. ... I sat down, I thought if it was worth it or not. Then I realized that there were eight [people in the support staff]. It took me 10 days to do this, and I thought it was more than just about me. Also I was raising money for children in Africa, some war-widowed women, some impoverished women. It was bigger than me.

Q:Would you recommend adventure racing to anyone else?

A:I've never been asked that, that's tough. No, I wouldn't. I would question why they were doing it. I would want to know where they were coming from, and it would probably be a very troubled place and trying to cure what was going on in their head. But on one level I would say no, but if that's the only way to find peace in your life, then so be it.

I was out there, maybe, trying to prove something to my father, on some level. We had a very troubled relationship and I was trying to make him proud of me.

Q:Your reasonings were troubling. Would you recommend it to yourself?

A: What I would do, a half-dozen years ago, is just shake myself and say, "What's the point of all this? There has to be an easier way." So no, I don't think I would recommend this to myself.

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