this tells you a lot about the man:
It is also obvious to all that Young is stressed. He knows he is an absent husband and father who is putting the family’s future in jeopardy. Since leaving his job, he has used up his savings. There is no cash coming in, which worries Joanna, who has moved back to Poland with Alexander to stay with her parents. Though she is greatly supportive of Young’s running, she hates being so far away from him, and being dependent on others. “We were fighting all the time,†Joanna says. “We were on the border of splitting up.â€
She asks him to come home, and he agrees. They talk some more and decide he should carry on. “To have quit would have ruined me as a person,†he says.
He does not hide it when he thinks the race organisation is lacking. Bryce Carlson, an American ultrarunner who eventually finishes second, describes Young as the most volatile runner in the group, playful one moment, yelling and pouting the next. “He probably ‘quit’ the race at least five times, always making a bit of a fuss, but he always managed to show up at the starting line again the next morning,†Carlson writes in an email.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/sport/2016/03/man-who-could-not-stop-running