CV NEWS FEED // Johnny Kuplack, 36, dubbed by one Catholic YouTuber as the “Catholic Forrest Gump,” is running 100 ultra-marathons in 100 days to raise money and awareness for Sebaste, an organization which supports young men’s flourishing in their masculinity.
“Tyrannized by safety and comfort or pumped up on an egotistical stoic machismo void of passion or purpose, the young man of today is expected to instantly perform as a contented, polite and obedient member of the societal machine,” Sebaste’s website states. “The deepest passions of his heart for adventure, challenge, heroism and dominion are labeled as dangerous, inconvenient and toxic. His heroes and role models are weak academics, wealthy sociopaths or empty muscle heads.”
The organization runs several programs as a response to today’s challenges for young men, including a construction internship to help build a shrine in New Mexico and leadership conferences for students, teachers, and businessmen.
Kuplack’s pilgrimage, which aims to raise money for Sebaste and set an example of penance for young men, totals 3,500 miles and began on January 18 in Southern California. It will end on Divine Mercy Sunday at the National Shrine of North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York. Kuplack’s one-man crew consists of his long-time friend, Joe Meyers. The two are traveling across the country in a van while Meyers runs all of Kuplack’s public relations.
In a March 31 interview, Meyers spoke with CatholicVote about the challenges of Kuplack’s journey.
CatholicVote: What does the recovery process between races look like for Johnny?
Meyers: He runs 35 miles every single day. And recovery is just whatever his body could possibly do. So the whole thing is in the spirit of a pilgrimage. It’s a very penitential and brutal enterprise and undertaking. Sometimes he has trouble sleeping, sometimes he loses his appetite just because his body is pushing so hard, but he is adapting. Some days he bangs out 35 miles and it’s not a problem. And some days his legs feel like they’re 1,000 pounds and he can barely move forward. He’s just in pain, talking to God all the time. It’s pretty cool to witness as his crew. I forget how massive of a feat it actually is because I live with it daily. But if you take even one step back, it’s like, we actually don’t know whether it’s physically possible to complete. It’s like in the whole ultra running culture is, is just so, the whole thing is just like pushing what we think are our limits again and again and again.
CV: What does a typical day look like for you both?
Meyers: I am the whole crew. And I’m also all the PR and the fundraising for the thing because we’re living in a van just completely off of the support of like-minded Christians who feel motivated to give alms during this crazy thing.
On a day-to-day basis, we wake up. He usually gets coffee and tries to get some calories in. He takes a slow morning and then gets on the road between 10 and 11 a.m. And then he runs about 25 miles, usually at one stretch. And then he stops for food. And he has a race vest on with a lot of powders and goos and hydration materials. He sort of keeps going for 25 miles straight and stops, eats, then runs another five or 10, then stops, eats again, then runs the last five or 10, stops, eats again, then eats again, then sleeps.
CV: How has helping Johnny through this challenge strengthened your friendship?
Meyers: It’s totally unbelievable. I mean, we were pretty good friends when we started, but just the amount of our proximity, the intensity of what we were doing, and the total lack of stability inherent in the lifestyle that we’re living just rocked both of our worlds completely.
Honestly, we reached a point about two weeks in where we both kind of wanted to murder each other, and the only stable thing in either one of our lives was just prayer and the fact God wanted us to do this thing.
The only sacred and stable part of my day-to-day is an hour with scripture and coffee in the morning when Johnny’s running his first 25 miles. With there being no constant in life other than God was just totally unbelievable. We both leveled up in so many areas.
t’s also just brutal to put two dudes in a six-by-six foot space and have one of them be constantly exhausted and one of them be constantly busy. It’s totally brutal. But you know how it is for all of human history. You put men in intense situations where there’s a lot of suffering and they come out best friends. You know, ships, trenches, all those places. So this is another ship-trench type experience. It’s been super cool.
CV: I saw in another article that Johnny got married about a month before the challenge. Has his wife been able to attend any of his runs?
Meyers: She’s flown out a total of three times: once on Valentine’s Day, once in Dallas, and then once just a few days ago to visit and support Johnny. She is fully on board with what we’re doing, even though it’s not really much fun from her end. She’s been able to spend some good time with Johnny, and she’s helped us out quite a bit behind the scenes.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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