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We Have a History of Doing Crazy Things Together

By 29029 Everesting

November 27^th, 2021

If you were in Vermont for 29029, you probably saw them. Their infectious energy and excitement couldn’t be missed out on the slopes. Three cousins; Craig, Elijah, and Jeremy were there tackling the slopes, aiming to pull on that coveted Red Hat. We sat down with the three of them to learn their story.

29029: First of all, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us. We hope you’re well rested and fully recovered now. The best way to start this is probably just to jump right in, so what made you decide to tackle something as challenging and unique as 29029?

Craig Canton: Thanks for having us. This whole thing started for us because I had joined Jesse Itzler's ‘30 days of excellence’ program early in 2020. Through those sessions, I learned about 29029, and thought to myself man, this would be an amazing thing to do.

Immediately, I reached out to my cousins, Elijah and Jeremy, and asked them if they wanted to do this thing with me. Without delay, they enthusiastically said yes.

29029: Wait… just like that they said yes? Without really knowing what it was all about?

Craig: [laughing] Yeah… We have a history of doing crazy things together - doing fun things together as a family. It all started with our oldest cousin, Byron. He’s in his 50’s now, but when he was my age, he used to take me on these crazy and amazing adventures. We paddled through the Panama Canal together. The next year, Elijah paddled the canal with Byron too.

Jeremy Ceille: I’ve done lots of hiking with Byron - we did a big trek through the Dominican Republic up Pico Duarte, the highest mountain in the Caribbean. I’d say we definitely have a history of doing some pretty interesting, out-of-the-box adventures.

Craig: Yeah, I mean Elijah and I have gone running with the bulls too… so when I saw this thing and asked “who’s in?” immediately they both replied with an enthusiastic “yes.”

Elijah Santiago: Right when Craig said “we got in!” I was PCSing [permanent change of station] from San Antonio to Maryland. I was in the process of buying a house there, so I just let Craig handle things. I wasn’t spending a lot of time figuring out what 29029 was all about yet…

"We're Hiking the Distance of Everest"

29029: It sounds like you all have quite the extensive resume of interesting adventures, so what about 29029 spoke to you? What made you choose to make this event your next adventure?

Craig: I’ve always been personally fascinated with people who climb Everest. But for me, it’s just not something I want to do. It’s costly, it’s risky… But this just seemed like an epic challenge to do the equivalent of Everest in 36 hours.

I’m a naturally bigger guy, so I knew this wouldn’t come easy to me, and I knew it would be something super hard to test myself. And there’s nobody I’d rather do it with than Jeremy and Elijah.

Elijah: I think how we ended up signing up for this event was pretty hilarious. Craig sent us a note, and was just like “Hey… this event we’re going to do is hiking the distance of Everest.” and left it at that.

So in my mind, I was doing the math. 29,029 feet was about 5.5 miles. I’ve done that… I’ve marched double that with a 60lb pack. That’s nothing!

Then the numbers came out. 17 laps! I’m no math major, but 1.3 miles per lap… 17 laps…

I thought to myself how is this 5.5 miles?

Then I realized, we’re doing the elevation, not the distance. I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into.

All: [Laughing]

"I Bought my Shoes a Week Out From the Event"

29029: Nothing like a little fear of the distance to motivate! Talk us through the training and the prepwork leading up to the event. What was that like?

Craig: [Laughter]

Jeremy: So… maybe we let Elijah start with that one.

Craig: [Still laughing]

Elijah: I was actually trying to hit the 1200 lb club at the time, so I was doing a lot more strength work. I wasn’t really doing any endurance training, and didn't start, even after we registered for 29029.

About a month and a half out from the event, my wife actually looked at me and said, “Hey… maybe you should start training.”

I said, “What are you talking about? I’m deadlifting, squatting, bench pressing… all that stuff! I’m a fit guy.”

“What about your cardio?”

And I was like, “We don’t do that…”

Jeremy: At that time, me and Craig had been doing lots of training, lots of hiking, lots of miles.

Elijah: My prep definitely wasn’t the best…

Jeremy: [Laughing] Didn’t you buy your shoes right before the event?

Elijah: Yeah… I bought my shoes a week out from the event and wore them twice. It was a bit more of a gut check than good prep. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Craig: I took the other approach. I gained the COVID 20 lbs that everyone talked about. I knew Elijah and Jeremy were fitter than me, so I followed Coach Brent’s guide to the letter. I did a lot of training far out because I knew I needed it. I actually ended up losing 30 pounds in the process!

"What Did We Get Ourselves Into?"

29029: Jeremy, what about you? How did your training compare to Craig and Elijah’s?

Jeremy: I fell somewhere in the middle. I ran cross-country in high school, so I was feeling pretty confident. A big focus for me was making sure my legs didn’t burn out, so I was doing a lot of stairmaster workouts.

Craig: We were actually sending each other stairmaster rehab workouts back and forth to help each other out.

Jeremy: Something I did neglect was the hip mobility workouts. That came back to bite me during the event… If I was talking to anybody who hadn’t done it before, I’d tell them to definitely do all the hip mobility training, no matter how prepared you think you are!

29029: Tell us about your confidence heading into the event. How sure did you feel that you were going to finish?

Craig: I felt incredibly confident.

Until we got to the mountain and looked at it.

Elijah: [laughing] It’s true!

Craig: Then I felt a lot less confident… The mountain looked pretty intimidating.

Elijah: We actually went up the course about 500 feet after registration, just to see what it felt like.

Craig: And then it was like oh man, what did we get ourselves into?

Elijah: You have to know that when Craig initiates a challenge, there’s really no option for ‘no’ with us. So we were confident because we didn’t know any other way.

Craig: [laughing]

Elijah: When we were there at Stratton, we knew we weren’t going to quit because we were all together. There was just no option of not finishing.

29029: Did you all hike together the entire event?

Craig: I knew that if I stayed in my heart rate zone, I could finish - as long as I paced myself well. But I also knew I was going to be slow compared to Jeremy and Elijah. So what they would do is they would hike ahead, up to a spot, then stop and take a rest. I’d catch up, and then we’d repeat.

They were able to pace themselves, and I was able to avoid going into the red to try to keep up. For the first half of the event, that was our strategy.

As we hit various troubles later on, we switched up who was hiking with who. Jeremy and I ended up spending a lot of time hiking together at the start of the second day… and you should tell that story, Jeremy, because what you did that day was legendary.

Jeremy: Our goal was to finish together. We’d set the vision of crossing the finish together. Elijah, maybe you should start with the photoshoot story first though…

All: [laughing]

Elijah: So this was me and my wife’s first true vacation since having a baby. We had actually scheduled a family photoshoot the Wednesday before the event - something to capture our first family trip together - and then the photographer's car broke down on the way there.

She told us the only other time she could reschedule to was Saturday morning. And before I could say anything, my wife was like, “Yeah, we’ll take it.”

I didn’t really know how that was going to work. So the plan was I’d have to crush 29029 day one, all to build enough spare time during day 2 to drive to the photoshoot and back, before rejoining Craig and Jeremy.

I did one extra lap on the night of day one, and then we started together on day two. The whole time, I was doing the math in my head… If I can get this photoshoot done in an hour and a half, I can rejoin them after they finish another lap, and we could all be on the same ascent again.

Needless to say, because of the weather, the photoshoot was cancelled, so thankfully I didn’t need to do that, and that’s why I ended up an ascent ahead of them.

"Quitting Wasn't an Option"

Craig: That 2nd day was tough. We ended up turning in for the night earlier than expected on day 1 because of the weather. It was muddy, dark, rainy, wet, slippery… you name it. So we finished Day 1 around 10:30, and started up again at 5 am the next morning.

Jeremy, you should tell them about the start of the 2nd day, because I really thought you just gutted it out. It was impressive!

Jeremy: Well, I woke up in a very dark place…

We talked about confidence earlier, and my confidence was great for the entire first day. Everything was great.

But the next morning I woke up, and I couldn’t walk! My hips completely locked up and I couldn’t even lift my legs. My hip flexion was completely gone!

I told these guys what was happening, but in my mind, I knew since I was with them, quitting wasn’t an option.

I started coming up with a game plan on how I was going to do this. At 5 am, in the dark, while barely being able to walk, I decided to just do one lap - one foot in front of the other - to see how things went.

That lap was hard, but I did it. When we hit the bottom, I knew I needed a short break, so I told Craig and Elijah I was going to hit the recovery room for a half hour before I could do another.

Craig: [laughing] And then I told you “Nah… how about 15 minutes?”

Jeremy: The complete pros in the recovery room helped me loosen up my hips. I did another lap, and I came down still feeling pretty bad, so I told Elijah I needed some ibuprofen to gut the rest of this day out.

Elijah: You told us you were just going to take it one lap at a time, and you just kept going.

Jeremy: Things turned around after that. All of a sudden I started feeling great; better than I’d felt the first day even. I started going fast…

Elijah: Yeah, Jeremy was sprinting at one point…

Craig: [Laughing] It must have been the ibuprofen.

Jeremy: Craig told me, “Slow down man, we’re good!”

All: [Laughing]

"There's no Negativity on the Mountain"

Craig: That was the moment I knew we were going to make it. Jeremy had just gutted out these tough, tough, tough 2 or 3 laps. There’s no way we weren’t finishing after that.

Jeremy: Craig’s lap 16 was such a legendary performance. It was the fastest of the entire event! Craig was in the zone. He was yelling at people...

Elijah: In a good way.

Jeremy: [Laughing] Of course, in a good way. There’s no negativity on the mountain, and everyone understands that.

Craig: It took a little bit of gutting out. I think there’s a video of me crossing the line up top on that lap, and to say we were pumped up is an understatement. [laughing]

Elijah: I was waiting for the guys to finish their 16th so we could start the final ascent together, but some weather was rolling in, and the race coordinators told me, “You have to keep going if you want to finish. We don’t know if we’ll have to shut down the gondola.” So, I started my 17th lap while they were on their 16th.

My finish was rushed. I grabbed the Red Hat, and went straight to the gondola. Racing down to the bottom, I grabbed a celebratory bottle of tequila, and rode the gondola right back up to meet Craig and Jeremy with celebratory shots at the finish.

Craig: It was an amazing way to finish - celebrating as a family!

"I Know I Can Stay Positive, No Matter What"

29029: Anything you took from the event back into your everyday life?

Craig: One of the things I love about events like this is how you get to see what you’re like when you’re down - when things are hard. One of the things I learned is that when things get really hard, I can stay positive.

I mean there were people there who were clearly in better shape than me, and were doing their ascents way faster than me, yet I was still able to cheer for them and support them with a smile on my face.

There wasn’t a single moment in that event where I was down. There was no shortage of times where I could have the excuse of being in a bad mood. Of course I was tired. Of course I was hurting. Of course I was sore. But I just kept going, and I kept trying to support others as best as I could

It’s something I’m taking back into normal life. Elijah and I are both parents, and you know that means late nights, dirty diapers, and things that are tough… but they all just seem a little bit easier now. I know I can stay positive, and be helpful to others, no matter how much I’m struggling myself.

"The Mountain Gives You So Much Energy"

Elijah: The feeling of finishing to me is like filling three buckets; your personal accomplishment, your family or inner-circle, and finally the larger community and how you fit into it. 29029 was something hard I did for myself - something to prove I could do hard things. But it was also something hard we could do together as a family. Finally, it was something we could do as part of the bigger community of 29029, getting support from everyone on the mountain, and sharing our own support with them as well.

I think the biggest thing I noticed after finishing was just learning to appreciate what I can do and what I’m capable of. Whether it’s minute by minute, hour by hour, or even longer, it’s good to remind myself to focus on what’s possible.

Jeremy: We had so much support - our family was there, Craig and Elijah were there, and the whole community of 29029 was there. The mountain gives you so much energy.

I was trying to give some of that energy back - dancing as I crossed the finish line, staying upbeat while on the slopes, and just trying to help spread some positive energy to everybody else out there. It was just really fun… and I’m pretty confident to say that we had the most fun out of anybody there.

From a more meta perspective, the decision to do something like this seemed very natural because it’s just something we do as cousins. But when we first signed up for this, like I mentioned, only Craig really knew what we were in for.

Elijah: Craig held out on us with the true details….

Jeremy: [laughing] As we learned more, we realized this was going to be such a monumental experience, and I think that leads into my biggest takeaway.

The decision to do something like this - something this hard - is a decision that 99% of people won’t make in their life. But they can, and they should!

Making decisions to do hard things that are so enriching is something I want to keep doing every day in my life. That was my biggest takeaway now that we’ve finished.

29029: Amazing. You’ve all got quite the story, and quite the infectious energy. Congratulations on your Everesting achievement! Is there anything you want to add before we let you go?

Craig: You know, I think there’s one more really relevant thing to talk about, and that’s this:

"We’re coming back!"

"We usually only do something big once, but this was such a special experience that we’re already planning to come back next year. We’ll see you in Vermont again!"