Charlie Engle (marathoner)

Charlie Engle, born September 20, 1962, is an American ultramarathon runner and author. Born to parents who were students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he ran a mile in under five minutes in eighth grade, but he struggled with alcohol and cocaine in college, and a shooting at his car in Wichita, Kansas in July 1992 led him to begin attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that day. He started running marathons in 1989 with Big Sur, and in 1996 he entered his first ultramarathon by accident in Brisbane, Australia, thinking it was a shorter event, and won the men's division. He then entered endurance competitions around the world, including the Borneo Eco-Challenge, for which he shot footage for the CBS series 48 Hours, and he later worked on the camera crew and as a producer for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.