Finding Ultra, Revised and Updated Edition: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself by Rich Roll
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Rich Roll has always been one of those people who just gets me thinking.
As someone who acknowledges his own less-than-healthy past, and history of overweighted-ness, his story is that much more relatable, as he talks you through his own transition from a promising college athlete, through alcoholism and junk food binges, and now into a healthful lifestyle, studded with both athletic and personal accomplishments, some of which were previously unachieved by anyone ever before.
I found myself cheering on the young boy who became known as the first-arriver, and last-leaver of swimming training; and his gratitude to his parents during this time is tangible in his writing and acknowledgement of their involvement in his early successes. As he ages, I found myself having an equal level of disappointment as Roll, as he reflects on his time at Stanford and his unexplored potential. The way he describes his fall from grace, into a blur of poor-but-lucky choices and accidents, I felt for him as he described his “rock bottom”moment.
His climb back to athletic prowess and almost super-human levels of endurance are inspiring, and his story is one of the tales that encouraged me to pursue both veganism and more structured athleticism in my own life.
