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Run For Your Life: The Catharsis and Conflict of Ultrarunning

We spoke with comedian Richard Gadd and musician Mishka Shubaly about how ultrarunning helped and hindered when they sought to face their demons.

Mishka Shubaly discovered his aptitude for running the day after a brutal New York bar fight. But this was not simply the adrenaline-fuelled short-burst stuff that comes with the territory when you live the way he once did: this was real running.

Now an impressively frank writer and musician, Shubaly spent the worst part of 15 years at the bottom of a vodka bottle, with a side order of some seriously grim narcotics. As such, it came as more than a surprise that his booze-abused body could perform feats of supreme endurance. Less than a year after quitting the drink, the long-time waster was competing in ultrarunning events. "I've run a lot of 50 milers, a 100k race," he tells VICE Sports, displaying a curious lack of pride. The Lycra-clad elite were not people he ever thought he'd hang out with.

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"I don't run because I have any kind of passion for it or because I want to belong to the running community," he admits. "I run to keep the wolves at bay. I run because I fear exercise less than I fear death, less than I fear my old life."

"Still, I own a pair of tights. It is what it is, man. Life as an alcoholic is far more humiliating than life as a runner."

Mishka celebrates another successful run // Image via

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