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—In April 2024, David Roche’s body was on a beeline toward death. Thrown off his bike by a turning car, Roche flew 100 feet into a fence. A concussion, a broken wrist, and stitches ensued, but so too did the lingering effects of a near-death experience, that strange and wildly scary reminder of fragility that feels all the more terrifying when one is blessed with a body that has never had to be reminded of such a thing.

For Roche, that accident was what led to his fuck it moment: a decision to live his life as a demonstration of love, grit, and joy. While recovering, Roche decided that he needed to go big. Fuck the haters. Climb the mountain. Do the thing. And he did. He won the historic Leadville Trail 100 just five months later. It was his first attempt at the distance. He set a course record.

When I first spoke to David Roche in February 2025, it only took him about 30 seconds to mention death. “Everything,” Roche told me over the phone, “starts with death and impermanence.” It was a jarring introduction for someone whose public persona feels so overwhelmingly positive. Love, kindness, awesomeness, even huzzah—these words punctuate Roche’s social media posts, his Strava runs, and, recently, the texts and emails he sent my way. “So excited,” he emailed me, with four exclamation marks, when I told him I was flying out to Boulder, Colorado, to spend some time with him. And yet, as he told me over the phone, he is always subject to entropy, the unalterable process by which each of us, and I do mean each of us, is heading on that beeline toward death.