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Published by 80/20 Publishing
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
In a battle for survival and self-acceptance, Matt Fitzgerald is willing to risk it all to outrun chronic illness.
When sports journalist and bestselling author Matt Fitzgerald is struck by long COVID, his lifelong passion—running—becomes a distant memory, leaving him trapped in a failing body that simply won't cooperate. After authoring dozens of books and articles on athletes pushing the limits of human endurance, Fitzgerald is now forced to confront his own limits in ways he never imagined. Doctors have no answers and every day feels like an endless loop of misery and mental fog, but Fitzgerald is determined to reclaim his life and his passion.
Despite serious health risks, lack of training, and a body that has become utterly unreliable, he makes the reckless decision to run a 100-km ultramarathon in a record-breaking desert heatwave. It's an audacious gamble that could cost him dearly, but Fitzgerald won't surrender to chronic illness without a fight.
Drawing inspiration from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, and epic tales from Greek mythology, Fitzgerald embarks on a grueling physical and spiritual journey to discover what it truly means to live when your body betrays you. He has no idea if he'll find redemption or ruin in the scorching heat of the Sonoran Desert, but one thing is certain: This is a race he can't afford to lose.
When sports journalist and bestselling author Matt Fitzgerald is struck by long COVID, his lifelong passion—running—becomes a distant memory, leaving him trapped in a failing body that simply won't cooperate. After authoring dozens of books and articles on athletes pushing the limits of human endurance, Fitzgerald is now forced to confront his own limits in ways he never imagined. Doctors have no answers and every day feels like an endless loop of misery and mental fog, but Fitzgerald is determined to reclaim his life and his passion.
Despite serious health risks, lack of training, and a body that has become utterly unreliable, he makes the reckless decision to run a 100-km ultramarathon in a record-breaking desert heatwave. It's an audacious gamble that could cost him dearly, but Fitzgerald won't surrender to chronic illness without a fight.
Drawing inspiration from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, and epic tales from Greek mythology, Fitzgerald embarks on a grueling physical and spiritual journey to discover what it truly means to live when your body betrays you. He has no idea if he'll find redemption or ruin in the scorching heat of the Sonoran Desert, but one thing is certain: This is a race he can't afford to lose.
Excerpt
NOT A DREAM
Awaken; return to yourself. Now, no longer asleep, knowing they were only dreams,
clearheaded again, treat everything around you as a dream.
—Marcus Aurelius
In my dreams oftentimes I am racing, and it never goes well. I show up for a triathlon only to realize I’ve forgotten my bike. A marathon course leads me through a mazelike high-rise apartment building with staircases that dead-end or fold back on themselves like something out of an Escher drawing. Classic anxiety dreams, in other words—a thousand variations on a single theme.
In one variation, I have post-acute COVID-19 syndrome, better known as long COVID, a form of chronic fatigue that transforms healthy exercise into a toxic stressor, and I’m about to start a sixty-two-mile ultramarathon that I signed up for months ago but didn’t actually train for. Except it’s not a dream. I do have long COVID, and I did sign up for an ultramarathon, and I haven’t trained for it—not properly—because I can’t. And the race is tomorrow.
I’m wide awake and freshly caffeinated, heading south on Interstate 17 from the lush mountain forests of Flagstaff, Arizona, to the desert hellscape of Fountain Hills. I know I’m awake because in my dreams I never doubt the reality of the absurd disasters I confront on race day. But here in the captain’s seat of the Dream Mobile—a twelve-passenger van with Dream Run Camp decals affixed to the side panels—autumn sunlight slanting through a panoramic front windshield and warming my silent ruminations, I consider and reconsider the fantastic unlikeliness of my situation, and I think, I must be dreaming. Which can only mean I’m not.
Come morning, I and several hundred other runners will attempt a distance that I failed at when I was younger, healthier, and fitter. Most will run to finish, a few to win. I alone will run to spite a disease that for four long years has threatened everything that makes life precious to me. I shouldn’t be doing what I’m about to do, and that’s exactly why I’m doing it.
Long-Haul Blues
The drone of a distant mower
is the sound of missing out.
The thrum of a two-stroke motor
rousing me from barren sleep
at one o’clock on a Tuesday
afternoon signals my body’s
betrayal.
A neighbor taming grass in
hardy swaths as I lie listening
is the call of a world moving on
without me.
Awaken; return to yourself. Now, no longer asleep, knowing they were only dreams,
clearheaded again, treat everything around you as a dream.
—Marcus Aurelius
In my dreams oftentimes I am racing, and it never goes well. I show up for a triathlon only to realize I’ve forgotten my bike. A marathon course leads me through a mazelike high-rise apartment building with staircases that dead-end or fold back on themselves like something out of an Escher drawing. Classic anxiety dreams, in other words—a thousand variations on a single theme.
In one variation, I have post-acute COVID-19 syndrome, better known as long COVID, a form of chronic fatigue that transforms healthy exercise into a toxic stressor, and I’m about to start a sixty-two-mile ultramarathon that I signed up for months ago but didn’t actually train for. Except it’s not a dream. I do have long COVID, and I did sign up for an ultramarathon, and I haven’t trained for it—not properly—because I can’t. And the race is tomorrow.
I’m wide awake and freshly caffeinated, heading south on Interstate 17 from the lush mountain forests of Flagstaff, Arizona, to the desert hellscape of Fountain Hills. I know I’m awake because in my dreams I never doubt the reality of the absurd disasters I confront on race day. But here in the captain’s seat of the Dream Mobile—a twelve-passenger van with Dream Run Camp decals affixed to the side panels—autumn sunlight slanting through a panoramic front windshield and warming my silent ruminations, I consider and reconsider the fantastic unlikeliness of my situation, and I think, I must be dreaming. Which can only mean I’m not.
Come morning, I and several hundred other runners will attempt a distance that I failed at when I was younger, healthier, and fitter. Most will run to finish, a few to win. I alone will run to spite a disease that for four long years has threatened everything that makes life precious to me. I shouldn’t be doing what I’m about to do, and that’s exactly why I’m doing it.
Long-Haul Blues
The drone of a distant mower
is the sound of missing out.
The thrum of a two-stroke motor
rousing me from barren sleep
at one o’clock on a Tuesday
afternoon signals my body’s
betrayal.
A neighbor taming grass in
hardy swaths as I lie listening
is the call of a world moving on
without me.
Product Details
- Publisher: 80/20 Publishing (September 8, 2026)
- Length: 288 pages
- ISBN13: 9798994780114
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
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Book Cover Image (jpg): Dying to Run
eBook 9798994780114
