Joshua Yabut

My running journey started at age 17 in 2006 after I graduated from high school in Durham, Connecticut. At the time it was the height of the Global War on Terror. Having been born into a military family through a navy hospital it was a matter of fact I was going to go it was just a matter of selecting which branch and component of the armed forces I'd be in and which physical fitness test I would need to pass.

The type of household I grew up in was one where my Filipino father reminded me of the responsibilities that first born sons have. One of my first ever memories was just Japan. At the time I had no concept of the continental United States and understood my family was not Japanese we're American military. My father a corpsman during his enlisted service just exploded with anger with my mother after my little brother fell down some stairs and hit his head. I was age 4, my mother previously arranged to have an American friend my age over for dinner, and it was just unreal to us and she was talking back. I think that fight might have caused their short-lived divorce in which it split me apart from my siblings.

I had set my sights on becoming a fighter pilot since I can remember and was accepted at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida but decided to go to a different school to be closer to my girlfriend at the time. After considering my options and career paths I chose combat arms within the Florida Army National Guard with the military occupation speciality of Infantry having wanted to be a Cavalry Scout first but there were no vacancies available and was then placed under their college-first program.

By the end of the semester and after about a week of sleeping in my car I found myself at Infantry School in Fort Benning, Georgia (aka The School for Wayward Boys) absolutely hating the intensity of running they had us do. They split us into pace formations (I was Charlie group) and the Army's doctrinal training program didn't positively improve my running ability throughout my military service.

In Georgia, it wasn't until we did a Battalion 5-miler all in cadence and all at a slow pace which was a peculiar and weird thing for me having never ran at that intensity level on purpose before or at such large of a formation. There was over five hundred of us all infantry just shredding it singing cadence just weeks before many of us shipped off to battlezones. That first Battalion run started with immense fear and apprehension and during it I was blissful that I was actually going to make 5 miles and wouldn't fall out of the formation. Except for Battalion runs it wasn't until after my military service that I ever had easy paced runs.

In 2020 after a period of investigation the Virginia Army National Guard initiated a medical separation for me as result of actions that occurred in a 2018 Bipolar episode which had been previously undiagnosed. So the methods of managing symptoms were unknown to me and I was also not aware of the mania-causing risks of SSRIs. My moral compass told me that I needed to resign my commission that I earned in Chicago, Illinois. So I resigned rather undergo medical separation after having served as a Platoon Leader, Executive Officer, and Commanding Officer of few Virginian Guardsmen.

It wasn't until 2024 while training for my first ever race and marathon during a hospitalization and after having read 80/20 Running by Matt Fitzgerald that I came upon the realization that I enjoyed long slow distance running.

In 2026 I took a leap from full marathons into my first ultra race which was the Bull Run Run 50-miler which is a club race and in which provides no medical support. Of the runners that registered and started less than half finished; a historical low for the race in which hot weather is blamed for. A lot of people fell to heat stroke and I remember talk of paramedics picking people up off the course and I drank about 12 liters of water through the race. I didn't enjoy the ultra and liken it to a bad mushroom trip with distinct memorable phases knowing that it will all come to an end soon enough; I just had to endure it. But still after all that I'm still seeking longer distance. 50-miles isn't enough.

In that race I knew I'd rather fall over and fucking die than not succesfully complete the course. An unreasonable thing, I know. I remember the crowded start, faces, their behavior, juxtaposed against the failure rate. I distinctly remember the courage of other runners pursuing those 50-miles relentlessly and without sympathy and in which I know and surely they must know that they won't make it.

It's only relatively recently that I now see running as a recreational thing and having it before as always a requirement, always a burden, always a performance metric type of thing, and always a responsibility.

So that's my mental mindset on running but which physically puts me out here and at the end of the day I'm just happy to be running regardless.

I'm not on social media but am open to e-mails.