Cant hurt me master your mind and

Why?
Again the same boring
question. 
Why?
Four hours later, at nearly 2 a.m., I hit the eighty-one-mile
mark and Kate broke some news.
“I don’t believe you’re gonna make the time at this pace,” she said, walking
with me, encouraging me to drink more Myoplex. She didn’t cushion the
blow. She was matter-of-fact about it. I stared over at her, mucus and
Myoplex dripping down my chin, all the life drained from my eyes. For
four hours, each agonizing step had demanded maximum focus and effort,
but it wasn’t enough and unless I could find more, my philanthropic dream
was dead. I choked and coughed. Took another sip.
“Roger that,” I said softly. I knew that she was right. My pace continued to
slow and was only getting worse.
That’s when I finally realized that this fight wasn’t about Operation Red
Wings or the families of the fallen. It was to a point, but none of that would
help me run nineteen more miles before 10 a.m. No, this run, Badwater, my
entire desire to push myself to the brink of destruction, was about me. It
was about how much I was willing to suffer, how much more I could take,
and how much I had to give. If I was gonna make it, this shit would have to
get personal.
I stared down at my legs. I could still see a trail of dried piss and blood
stuck to my inner thigh and thought to myself, who in this entire fucked-up
world would still be in this fight? 
Only you, Goggins! You haven’t trained,
you don’t know dick about hydration and performance—all you know is you
refuse to quit.
Why?
It’s funny, humans tend to hatch our most challenging goals and dreams, the
ones that demand our greatest effort yet promise absolutely nothing, when
we are tucked into our comfort zones. I was at work when Kostman laid out

---

his challenge for me. I’d just had a warm shower. I was fed and watered. I
was comfortable. And looking back, every single time I’ve been inspired to
do something difficult, I was in a soft environment, because it all sounds
doable when you’re chilling on your fucking couch, with a glass of
lemonade or a chocolate shake in your hand. When we’re comfortable we
can’t answer those simple questions that are bound to arise in the heat of
battle because we don’t even realize they’re coming.
But those answers are very important when you are no longer in your air-
conditioned room or under your fluffy blanket. When your body is broken
and beaten, when you’re confronted with agonizing pain and staring into
the unknown, your mind will spin, and that’s when those questions become
toxic. If you aren’t prepared in advance, if you allow your mind to remain
undisciplined in an environment of intense suffering (it won’t feel like it,
but it is very much a choice you are making), the only answer you are likely
to find is the one that will make it stop as fast as possible.
I don’t know
.
Hell Week changed everything for me. It allowed me to have the mindset to
sign up for that twenty-four-hour race with less than a week’s notice
because during Hell Week you live all the emotions of life, all the highs and
lows, in six days. In 130 hours, you earn decades of wisdom. That’s why
there was a schism between the twins after Marcus went through BUD/S.
He’d gained the kind of self-knowledge that can only come from being
broken down to nothing and finding more within. Morgan couldn’t speak
that language until he endured it for himself.
After surviving two Hell Weeks and participating in three, I was a native
speaker. Hell Week was home. It was the fairest place I’ve ever been in this
world. There were no timed evolutions. There was nothing graded, and
there were no trophies. It was an all-out war of me against me, and that’s
exactly where I found myself again when I was reduced to my absolute
lowest on Hospitality Point.