Voices: “All I Ever Wanted Was Community.” Mitch Ammons On Running, Healing, And Pure Ambition

AUSTIN—Mitch Ammons is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. 

Seriously. 

Big smile. Firm handshake. The 36-year-old has the kind of aw-shucks demeanor that would welcome anyone into his orbit. From the next-door neighbor, to the high-level athlete like Olympian Gabby Thomas (no, really, they’re friends), to your everyday Lady Bird Lake runner. In recent years, Ammons has carved out a very successful life as a real estate agent, connecting with big-time developers and shapers of the city. In his element, Ammons is a man of the people. 

But his life wasn’t always like this. He’ll tell anyone willing to listen that it turned around the moment he beat addiction and found community. The Dallas native moved to Austin roughly 10 years ago, a little beat down and unaware of where to go. 

Then he planted a stake in the ground and began to run. He joined Gilbert’s Gazelles, at a point in his life when he needed a change of pace. From there, things started to shift. He started to let people in. “I wanted to be this mysterious runner, but I realized, like, that was pointless,” he said. He met his best friends. Confidantes. Even his wife. 

Ammons became a sleeping-giant of cardio, a metronome of kilometers and miles that eventually morphed him into a zero body-fat superstar in the marathoning world – a story which is almost unfathomable, considering most high-level marathoners are former collegiate stars (Ammons, ironically, never ran in college despite attending the University of Arkansas – which is considered “the track capital of the world”). 

He joined Bat City, an elite run club in Austin, and proceeded to carve out an incredible marathon resume, clocking a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes and 19 seconds in the Chicago Marathon in 2019. Three years later, he hit 2:16:52 in California and then doubled back and went 2:16:01 at the McKirdy Micro in New York in 2023. The latter performance qualified him for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in 2024 – where ran 2:26:03, achieving a bucket-list moment. 

That same year, Ammons was second overall at the Indianapolis Marathon, just nine seconds away from the overall win. By then, he was rolling, winning Austin staples like the Cap10K and the Austin Half Marathon. Even then, however, he was not satisfied. He jumped into the world of ultramarathoning. In June 2024, Ammons won Bare Performance Nutrition’s (BPN) Survive the Night 50-miler. It took him six hours and 35 minutes. 

Mitch Ammons wins the Austin Half Marathon. Photo Credit: Cory Mull/Austin Fit Magazine.

About a year later, he moved up a level with BPN’s G1M Last Man Standing Ultramarathon – a race where, literally, the last man standing won (for the record, two men ended up tying at 235.2 miles after inclement weather forced it to end). Ammons ended up running 126 miles and finished third. 

Today, Ammons is a man of routine. He wakes at 6 a.m. and runs eight miles every day. On his way back, recovering from the lactic, he gets a coffee and his typical breakfast taco order (Bacon, egg and cheese with migas chips). He’ll spend time with his wife, Jordy, then head off to work. On any given week, he may run 70 miles, or he may log 100 or more. 

In November, Ammons, who’s sponsored by BPN, aims to follow-up his win at Survive The Night with another victory. But he says that won’t be it. By next year, he wants to chase after another U.S. Olympic Trials marathon qualifier (the 2028 Olympics are in Los Angeles) before deciding his athletic fate from there. We caught up with Ammons recently to talk about his career, his running ambitions, what inspires him, and much more. 

There’s something inside of you that’s maybe built a little different. No? A guy named Max Jolliffe. His instagram handle is called @woah_max. He has a very similar story to me. Grew up in California, got addicted to drugs. He got sober, much younger than I did, but he’s kind of making a splash in the ultra world. And he told me this one time, he’s like, ‘What kept me addicted to drugs is what keeps me is what makes me good at ultras.’ And I hear it. It’s what makes me addicted to those miles. Experiencing it. It’s like, every single fiber in my body says quit. But my mind is like, ‘One more step, one more step. Just get one more step.’ And that’s where it’s just, that addiction is – that I just want to keep going. It’s beyond me and beyond why. I don’t know why, because it’s awful. But when I’m out there, I say, ‘Just one more. Keep going.’ 

What time do you get up in the morning? I’m running by 6am every day, weekends, holidays. It doesn’t matter.

That kind of process to you – those and organizational habits and responsibility. Is that an example of your process? What is the process to you? I do the exact same thing every single day. I wake up at the exact same time. I drink my coffee, I let the dogs out. I go from my run. I get the tacos, two tacos at the same taco spot I’ve gone for the last three years. I get a coffee. I’ve run from the same coffee shop for the last three or four years. I go home, shower, I go to work. By the end of the day, whatever time I get off, I go walk the dogs, I make the same thing for dinner. I do the same routine before bed, and I go to bed. I watch TV for an hour before bed, and I do the same thing every day.

Your ultra I just can tell me a little bit about what that experience was like. Was it three days of running? It was 30 hours. OK, so 30 hours, four miles, every hour, right? 126 miles. Can you describe what that experience was like for you? I mean, first of all, it was incredible. It was fun. The majority of it was fun. There were some pretty dark moments, but the camp was so hype, the runners – because we started on the hour, we always started together. And my usual was like, I started in the back. I made my way past everybody, because I moved a little faster—it’s just my base, my base running pace is even a slow pace is faster than most. But it was just fun to be able to run past everyone and kind of run with some people for a little bit, talk with them, run with some other people for a little bit, talk with them, and keep going.

There’s got to be some moments of hesitation, right? Is this the last mile? There was a moment, I think, mile 70, where I was like, ‘I don’t think I can go on. I can’t do this anymore. This is gonna be it. I’m not going to make it to 100.’ And then that’s the thing with ultras and fueling. It’s like, I drank some calories, got some salt, ate some noodles, and I was back. I was back. It was like it never happened.

I don’t think anyone is going to understand that — anyone can understand that feeling — but you and ultra runners. It’s hard to process how you can do all that, run 24 straight hours and consume calories and still be good. It’s remarkable. I think it blows my mind. Like I don’t get it. I had no idea I could do that.

Do you right now think you have speed in your legs? I think I can break 4:20. I think I can just break 4:20 …it would hurt.

 The body knows what the body knows. I just think years, after years of it. It doesn’t go away that quickly.

Where do you want to get to with the marathon? I’m kind of over the marathon. I think my priorities have shifted in the last couple of years. It has shifted from, like, not necessarily wanting to be known as ‘Mitch, the runner,’ but ‘Mitch, like the real estate professional,’ and with the marathon, I have become known from it. And I like that. That’s cool, but I think more so that the local stuff, the local races, the ultras – which everyone locally follows, like BPN. Those sorts of races get me more into the community.

Mitch Ammons competes at BPN’s G1M Last Man Standing Ultramarathon. Photo Credit: BPN Media Team.

So for you, it’s really important to be in Austin, to be around the people you see and live around. Can you describe what community means to you then? It’s everything. First of all, I think it saved my life. Truly, when I got sober, this happened. Even when I was sober, there was a point where I wasn’t happy. I was miserable, actually. Like I was miserable, and I was like, ‘If this keeps up and I’m this miserable sober, why wouldn’t I just go be miserable high?’ It just didn’t make any sense.” For me, that’s where the community came in. I found community and I found that I never had to run alone again. I think from the moment I started, I joined a group. Even today, there are very few runs that I do alone, and it’s only when I’m in the depths of marathon training, and it’s because it’s a run that I have to do that no one else is available. It is the community that got me there.

So what’s the joy you get out of running? I don’t love running. Like I said, I won’t do it alone. It’s a chore if I have to do it alone. But I couldn’t do it without the people who make it fun for me.

New goals for you? 2:16:01 is my PR. The new trials qualifier is sub-2:16, so (I would need) two seconds. I wish it would have been 2:12 because, like, that time is the worst it could have been. I can do it, but I will have to be fitter than I’ve ever been, which – it’s possible, but it’s going to be really hard, and everything will have to line up perfectly to get two seconds. It’s just sad, but I’m gonna try it again. As far as my goals, I just want to break 2:16 and want to qualify for the U.S. Trials. I’ve let go of trying to get to 2:10 or 2:12. It’s a whole lot of work for maybe not even working out.

That’s fascinating. You spend your whole (life) just working toward a moment, and then if you do fail, it’s like, how do you reconcile with the fact that you’ve put all these stakes into it? There’s got to be a happiness that still is there, regardless of how you finish, right? I get so much accomplishment after training and running a marathon. Whether I blow up and fail. The worse I hurt, the more accomplished I feel. So when I blow up, I still know that I gave everything I had, I still feel very accomplished. I consider myself a pretty tough runner, and so I’m really not afraid of things going wrong. If it happens, it happens. I’ll get through it.

Your life has sort of shaped the person you are as a person and a runner. Has being an open book helped you tell your story? I started being open about everything in the hopes to help somebody that’s struggling, because I truly believe that, like my past, is catastrophic as it was to me, and however bad it actually was on paper – everybody has an event in their life that was that catastrophic to them, whether it’s actually as bad on paper as that or not; it’s that bad to them. I don’t like to brag, but I realized what I’ve done is miraculous.

Favorite place to run? I love the Town Lake Trail. Like I don’t do it often, so that when I do it’s the best, but like, it’s a soft surface, it’s 10 to 13, it’s three to 13 miles uninterrupted by roads.

Any bucket list items on your list? A 100-miler, a straight 100-miler. I think probably Leadville or Western States. 

If there was a movie about you, would Glenn Powell play you? People tell me I look like an actor. Who is it? Let me think … Rob Schneider. 

No

That’s what I’ve been told. I used to have long, curly hair. 

No. Oh my God. 

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