By Olivia Turner | Arts & Life Editor

In April, Dallas senior Carson Sheldon was the first known person to make the 38-mile run from Waco to the Buc-ee’s in Temple.

Now, after accomplishing what most would consider the feat of a lifetime, Sheldon has broken through obstacle after obstacle with a series of long-distance ultra runs. The grand finale? A run Sheldon calls “Tour de Buc” — from the Buc-ee’s in Hillsboro to the other in Temple.

“I’m a big believer [that] if God, give gives you a gift, it’s your obligation to use it for the betterment of other people,” Sheldon said. “I’m not gonna say my gift is running; I think my gift is discipline and being able to do the things that I can put my mind to. A lot of other people see a wall or a blockade and they say, ‘Oh, I can’t get by it,’ but there’s always a way around it.”

Since April, Carson has kick-started Project Ultra, a running series that started in September and will end in April. So far, the series, a mixture of races and solo runs, consists of one run per month, each a different distance and location across Texas.

The first — and hottest run — took place on Sept. 27, the 50k Piney Woods Ultra out in Tyler. Sheldon said it was his first trail race, in which he completed four laps of a seven-and-a-half-mile course, taking sixth place out of 35 runners.

Next up was another 50k in Farmersville on Oct. 18, a back-and-forth-style race in which Sheldon placed fifth. He averaged a steady nine minutes and 15 seconds per mile, 15 seconds faster than his average pace for his Buc-ee’s run back in April.

Now, Sheldon is about to embark on his third ultra, a distance of 42 miles from Waco to Clifton. Starting around 5 a.m. Saturday, Sheldon will set out on his scenic trek. At mile 30, a few friends will join Sheldon to accompany him to the finish line.

“Clifton is just one of those quaint little small towns,” Sheldon said. “I went there freshman year, and I just kind of fell in love — nice people, nice little restaurants, nice little parks. Whenever I was planning all this, I was looking for something that was in the 40-mile range, and Clifton, it fell perfectly into that.”

Scottsdale, Ariz., senior Carter Bitticks, Sheldon’s running coach, said he is the kind of person who doesn’t deal with tasks lightly. He puts 100% toward his goals.

“He’s very intense,” Bitticks said. “He’s just go, go, go all the time. … He wanted to be the absolute best he could.”

Bitticks said the two met a few years ago through a mutual friend when Sheldon asked him to train him for a marathon. Bitticks has been coaching him on and off ever since.

While Sheldon’s run times continue to improve with the ultras, Bitticks said the Buc-ee’s run was more of a confidence boost for the runner than anything.

“It gave him that platform to see how far he could actually take this thing,” Bitticks said.

He said much of the training for the ultras took place in the summer, with Sheldon putting on as much mileage as possible. Now that he is in the midst of the series, the goal outside of the runs is to make sure Sheldon is in good health and uninjured.

“I used to give him a strict program, like I do this exact amount of miles this day, but now it’s a range,” Bitticks said. “So now the training is just based on how he feels after the races. He’ll take a couple days off, then a couple of easy runs and get back into it.”

Throughout the time Bitticks has coached Sheldon, he said his improvements have been astronomical.

“Carson was not a runner in terms of running ability — he was way behind me when we first met,” Bitticks said. “But now he’s doing ones that I’ve never even done, or I might not even ever do.”

After Clifton, Sheldon has another ultra set up for December, one that will follow the outskirts of Waco, flowing through Hewitt, Woodway, China Spring and Bellmead, totaling 53 miles. Following that are even more ultras, including a possible trip to Austin and a run to the Hillsboro Buc-ee’s preceding the final Hillboro-to-Temple run.

Despite his past running feats and plans to keep on going, Sheldon said he doesn’t love running. His hobby isn’t always fun. It’s not comfortable. It requires him to endlessly give up his time that could be spent with friends and effort that could be channeled into other passions and responsibilities. Still, Sheldon said his search for truth and understanding he finds with God through running is what he loves, what leads him to put on the shoes day after day.

“You make time for the things you love,” Sheldon said.

Due to his high involvement in his sport, Shelon said he spends a lot of time on his own and has a small circle of close friends. However, while he would describe himself as often “alone,” he wouldn’t use the word “lonely.” Sheldon said God is with him with every step of every run.

He also uses running as a means to work out problems he faces in life, he said.

“We live in a society where it’s a lot of comfort,” Sheldon said. “And, you know, I want to quit. But like, let’s say it’s a 20-mile run, that’s two and a half hours. That is just me sitting with my thoughts. I like to think about problems and my life and try to optimize them.”

Sheldon referenced a quote from a prominent ultramarathoner, Dean Karnazes:

“If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to change your life, run a marathon. If you want to talk to God, run an ultra.”

“When you’re on mile 30 and everything has gone wrong, your fueling system is off, you’ve got a blister the size of a planet and you’re just pouring out sweat, you’re not thinking about the little, minuscule issues in life,” Sheldon said. “You’re not thinking about, ‘Oh, you got that test on Monday.’ You’re thinking about, ‘How am I going to survive?’”

More than anything, Sheldon said he does his runs to show others they can do anything they put their minds to, and to “stay different,” a mantra that often concludes his videos on his running Instagram page.

“The whole goal is to people to understand their potential,” Sheldon said. “There are a lot of people, especially in college who have completely sold off their whole life to some company. And I try to tell people, look — you’re either going to live your dream or someone else’s dream in life, and helping people understand you have this gift that no one else in this room has, and you can help change other people with it.”