Paul catches up with Dan, a 19-year-old ultrarunner he first met in the French Alps in February, where Dan was volunteering with Altitude Mission… a Christian charity running free “Beer and Burgers” nights, refuge beds, and mountainside “Ski Angels” support for seasonal workers.

Six days before this conversation, Dan finished the Lakeland 50… 50 miles and 3,000 metres of elevation through his home turf in the Lake District, with barely any structured training behind him, two concussions, a knee injury, and a hip flexor strain picked up days before the start line.

What follows is a wide-ranging, genuinely moving conversation. Dan opens up about years of bullying, crushing social anxiety, and a suicidal crisis at fifteen that he faced almost entirely alone, and the faith journey that pulled him through it, now the foundation for the confidence and warmth Paul witnessed firsthand watching Dan work a ski resort full of strangers.

They talk honestly about the difference between physical pain and a genuine reason to stop, Courtney Dauwalter’s “pain cave,” and why showing up for people on a mountainside, at a bar, or fifty miles into a race matters more than any finish time.

The conversation also covers the mechanics of ultrarunning: why Dan skipped the marathon altogether and went straight to ultras, the running pedigree of a family where both parents have run the Lakeland 50 twice and his dad’s completed the 100, aid station strategy (salty potatoes over gels, four and a half sandwiches, a hard no to sweets by mile 27), and why he’s already eyeing the Lakeland 100 next year. Paul, naturally, asks to come suffer alongside him at a future race.

Funny, candid, and unexpectedly profound, this episode is about ultramarathons, faith, mental health, and what happens when you decide to keep going anyway.