Finding Ultra, by Rich Roll

I know it's a generalization, but triathletes are typically type-A, arrogant, insufferably vain, number-obsessed athletes.  Rich Roll is all that, times ten.  Of course, in the case of competitive triathletes, and ten times in Roll's case, these qualities directly impact their individual success.  In Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself, Roll tells the story of rise to high levels of competitive swimming, the lows of alcohol abuse, and the highs of ultra-distance triathlons. 

Roll serves his story up with a healthy dose of ego.  He's the kind of guy who makes most guys absolutely sick.  He had privilege and athletic gifts, and squandered it with partying.  While attending an elite prep school in D.C., he joined an exclusive swim team and became nationally ranked.  He turned down an offer to swim for Harvard, choosing to head east to Stanford instead.  There his partying increased and his performance suffered.  His alcohol habit caused him to miss out on Stanford's national championship meets.

Fast forward through many years of alcohol abuse and, paradoxically, professional success, and Roll decides he needs to get in shape.  Like a true addict, he doesn't do anything half way, and begins triathlon training.  All the Ironman triathlons are booked for the next year, so he talks his way onto the starting line for the Ultraman, a three-day race that is double an Ironman.  Later, he and a friend do the Epic5, five Ironman-distance triathlons on five Hawaiian islands in seven days.  I have to admit, his accounts of these races tempt me to try triathlon racing, in Hawaii or elsewhere.

On the one hand, Roll's story is the inspiring story of a guy who didn't reach middle age and give up on reaching for audacious goals.  He doubled down on aging and proved to himself that he could go faster and farther.  He was, in fact, named by a health magazine as one of the fittest men in the world.  On the other hand, it's the story of a prep school kid who blew opportunities, who got away with partying through school and still getting a degree, goofing off through a legal internship and still getting into an Ive League law school, drinking his way through the prime of his life and still achieving a level of athletic performance most men can only dream of.  He's a guy who prioritizes his training over his family and law practice, travels to Hawaii to participate in races to stroke his ego, and still manages to come out on top.  Yeah, he worked hard to become competitive in ultra racing, but he comes across as a groan-inducing braggart.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!