Lucky, a tricolor dog of uncertain age and breed, joined David Green during an ultramarathon in Brazil, ran more than 100 miles with him and has rarely left his side since.
So of course when Green took a short 14-mile training run Monday morning, preparing for his next 100-miler, Lucky joined him, running every step, leashless.
Five-and-a-half miles in, they paused under the Beach Boulevard Intracoastal Waterway bridge and Lucky plunged into a pond shared by three otters. Once cooled off, he rolled enthusiastically in some tall grass.
There: Ready to finish another run with his human.
At 55, Green is trying this summer to complete the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning — four 100-mile mountain races spread out over just 10 weeks. Each takes place on single-track trails, and runners go day and night to the finish.
So far it’s two down, two to go.
The first, in California, started in deep snow, on the steep side of a mountain. The second, in Vermont, was swamped by 100-degree temperatures and soaking humidity.
The next, in Colorado, will take place from 10,000 to 13,900 feet — up and down, over and over.
They say the fourth, in Utah, is the toughest of them all, with runners tackling 25,000 feet of climbing within 36 hours.
He laughed. OK, it’s not much. But it seems to work.
Since 2011, Green has tackled 24 ultramarathons of between 100 and 200 miles, many on single-track mountain trails. He’s finished 21 of them. When other runners find out he’s from Florida, they always ask him: How do you train?
His answer? “I have a bridge I go up and down a couple of times.”
If Green completes all four in this summer’s Grand Slam, he’d be the first Floridian over 50 to do it, he said. It’s a daunting task. Most runners are in their 30s and 40s, and he’s noticed that he doesn’t recover as quickly as he used to.
“I’m tired. I’m not going to lie. It’s a deep exhaustion,” he said.
The Grand Slam’s first race, in Squaw Valley on June 29, was brutal. He finished in 29 hours and 49 minutes — with just 11 minutes to spare before the race’s 30-hour time limit. “I was under the gun the whole way. It was the snow that was tough, the elevation, the climbing, the downhill. It was all tough,” he said.
Colorado’s Leadville 100 is next, on Aug. 17, at altitudes that would make it difficult for many flatlanders to take even a brisk stroll. He’s heading out more than a week ahead of time to try to acclimate.
He’s asked: What if he can’t finish? What if the altitude is too much?
“I can’t imagine it,” he said. “I won’t let it creep into my thoughts.”
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Green makes his runs in a $15 straw hat that’s become something of a trademark for him. Other runners call him “Cowboy.” He laughs: He’s a city slicker.
He grew up in New Jersey, and wrestled and rowed crew at Columbia University. He began his career as a broker on Wall Street, then started a investment reporting company that was acquired by a large software company. Looking for warmer weather — his wife, Monica, is from Brazil — he moved to Jacksonville Beach 17 years ago. He’s an entrepreneur who’s started several companies and has some real estate holdings.
He found they suited him: Triathlons were competitive, but the long runs are “community-driven.” “They didn’t feel like contests. They felt like family. ‘Hey, we’re all trying to do something that’s really out there, and let’s do this together, have some fun, bring some meaning to our lives.’”
Green is athletic, but said he’s not a runner, not someone who glides effortlessly through a run.
“I am a plodder, but I want to this,” he said. “I have a strong mind and a strong will and I know what I need to do. It’s not about being the fastest.”
Toward the end of a run, it becomes as elemental as having the will to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
“You’re hallucinating,” he said, “and you’re not able to add 1-plus-1 because your mind is shutting down to preserve energy for critical life functions. Oh yeah.”
His wife teases him good-naturedly about his obsession. But it’s just part of him, she said: “He cannot live without challenges. So he’s always trying to find something more difficult.”
“Through that process, of going deep, and tearing back the layers of who you are and how you think, you almost find a very peaceful moment in all of that,” he said. “And when you come out the other side, it’s almost a cleansing.”
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In 2013, Green had just finished a relatively short race, the Boston Marathon. After charging his phone at a nearby store, he was walking back to the finish line when two bombs exploded near him, killing three people, injuring many more. As bystanders fled in terror, Green pulled out his phone, took a quick photo, and ran to help.
He remembers a shoe to one side with a foot in it. He remembers a young woman missing a leg, and the EMT who grabbed a fleeing man, tore off the man’s belt and used it as a tourniquet on the woman. He remembers sitting down next a dazed man, just talking with him until firefighters came.
Green became part of the news that day: It turned out his photograph had captured a clear image of bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, wearing a white baseball cap backwards, leaving the carnage. Green shared the photo with the FBI, which encouraged him to share it widely. It soon went viral online, which led the New York Times and other outlets to reach out to him. Days later, Tsarnaev was captured after his brother, the other suspect, was killed in a shootout.
Green was deeply affected by what he saw that day, though he went back to run the marathon a year later. Actually, he started earlier than most that morning, running from the finish line to the start, then from start to finish, all over again.
Green has gone to run in Brazil six times, finishing a 135-mile run through the jungle and mountains. Twice he’s combined that run with a longer, multi-day trek of some 375 miles, along the Camino de Fe, a pilgrim’s trail through the countryside.
Stray dogs often join runners along the way, but in 2018 one dog — severely emaciated, sickly, ridden with ticks and heartworms — was especially persistent. He joined Green and his group and stayed with him for about 140 miles, somehow keeping up.
They lost track of each other, though, after Green sought medical care for his ravaged feet. Four hours later, in the middle of the night, Green was trudging through the mountains when the dog appeared at his side and stayed, for good this time.
After Green arranged for a vet and paid $3,000 to a pet transporter, the dog has filled out to 65 pounds. He now shares a house in Marsh Landing with three other dogs.
Green calls him Lucky, and said Lucky still stays close to him, looking at him, as if asking when they will run next.
He wonders: Why did Lucky follow him? Why do they have this connection? Green, who’s not religious, not a believer in the supernatural, doesn’t know for sure. But he has a theory.
“These running adventures take you to the edge, and magical things happen.”
Matt Soergel: (904) 359-4082
