The Zac Clark Show - The Viral Paramus Half Marathon: What Really Happened | Zac Clark

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

What happens when the race probably should be canceled — but nobody stops running? Zac breaks down one of the wildest races of his life: the Paramus Race Faster Half Marathon, where torrential rain turned the course into knee-and waist-deep water, rushing currents, slippery trails and even a detour into traffic. Despite it all, Zac and hundreds of other runners kept going. After footage from the race went viral, Zac reflects on why he never considered stopping, the strange tunnel vision that takes over when you're chasing a finish line, and the unexpected sense of community that came from getting through something difficult together. This is the story of the craziest half marathon Zac has ever run — and why he'd probably keep running until someone physically pulled him off the course. Connect with Zac https://www.instagram.com/zwclark/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/ https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclark https://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553 https://twitter.com/zacwclark If you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release Recovery: [phone] releaserecovery.com @releaserecovery Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, mid-sized business. We see your big ambitions, but how do you achieve the wins you want when your technology is holding you back? SAP Grow is built to grow with your business, no matter its size, with AI embedded at its core, working across every system, all ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow. AI Cloud ERP for any size business. Bro, this is nuts. I had one of the craziest experiences of my life. I had to get on here and talk about this half marathon yesterday.

When I look at the video and watch it back, I don't know. Was it fun? Was it crazy? Was it stupid? It was a life experience. I can tell you that. The whole thing was insane. I ran yesterday the Paramus Race Faster Half Marathon in Paramus, New Jersey.

I'm training for the New York City Marathon. I have an ambitious goal of running a 305. So my coach suggested that I sign up for a race here somewhere in between in the middle of my training block, which is the block of weeks where you run a lot of miles in order to try to run a fast marathon. So my goal going into yesterday is I'm going to go into this race and I'm going to run between a one hour and 26 minute and a one hour and 28 minute half marathon. That would have been a personal best for me. It's a flat course. It's in my home state of New Jersey.

I was rip-roaring and ready to go. Start to follow the weather forecast leading into the weekend and it did not look good. One, it looked super humid, which for runners sucks. And then we started to see these storms rolling in. We get a notification on Saturday night from the race, basically saying that this race is going to be moved back from 8 a.m. on Sunday morning to 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. I think nothing of it. Okay, fine.

There's a little bit of rain. They're going to let it pass through. and it's going to be a lovely half marathon through this Saddle River Park in Paramus, New Jersey. I had done some research on the race from prior years. The field, it is a local race, 400, 500 runners, not a lot of fanfare, kind of show up. It's timed, get in there and get out. It's actually a nice event. I pick my buddy Theo Pucci, who, by the way, has been running for four months and just

ran, I think, an hour and 20 minute half marathon. He's a legend. early Sunday morning. We hop in my car. It's pouring rain in New York City. It's absolutely pouring rain. We drive out to Paramus and the entire ride, we're kind of laughing and giggling like, what is actually happening here? What are we going to do?

We eventually get to the parking lot and it's organized chaos. There is probably 100 people tucked into this cabin like rotunda. in the middle of this New Jersey park. So we park the car and we are trying to date this experience seriously. So in our minds, we need to get our bibs, which is the number you wear on the front of your jersey or penny. And we need to warm up. We need to warm up two or three miles to get ready for this half marathon

because we both have ambitious goals. Never once do we think to ourselves, you know, might want to sit this one out, but that's just who I am as a person. Safety never comes to my mind. We're kind of actually egging each other on, to be honest. So we walk into this rotunda. There's people picking up their bibs.

It feels like a normal race outside of the fact that it is pouring rain. Pouring rain. I get my bib. I drive down to the parking lot where I'm going to park. We sit in my car for, we probably got there at 8.45 or 9 o'clock for a 10 o'clock start. We put our bibs on and the rain is not letting up. It is getting worse. We're meeting our other friend, Mike Hoffman, who works for us here at release at the race as well.

So there's three of us in total running. But the cars are pulling into the parking lot. People are picking up their bibs. There is no thought that this thing is going to be canceled. I'm putting down my window. Hey, did they say anything up there at the thing when you picked up your bib? No. Not one person appeared to pull into this parking lot and then leave because of inherent safety concerns.

Around 9.30, we hop out of the car and start to do our warm up. Within 30 seconds of starting our warmup, we are soaking wet. Soaking wet, head to toe. It's almost comical. We get over to the start of the race and the race director gets on the megaphone and basically informs us of the direction of the race, the course map, gives us some encouraging words. And then mentions that at about the mile and a half mark, There's going to be some water that is up to about your calf and that the rest of the course should be perfectly fine. In my mind, the only thing I can think about is how does that affect my time? Because I'm going out there with one thing in my mind.

And that's to hit my goal time. It's looking back on it wild to me that no one in that crew of runners, and maybe they did and I just didn't hear it, had the wherewithal to say, hey, this might be a bad idea. At about 9.56, the corral, so the starting line for the race is still empty, and people start to make their way in the pouring rain down to where the race is starting. We get in the crowd. Fast people up in front. Everyone kind of files in behind them. The gun goes off and we start. The first mile and a half, it's like a normal road race. It's wet. It's muggy. The heart rate spikes a little bit. I'm checking my watch. I kind of find the people, that I'm going to run with and I'm not thinking anything of it. When we get to about a mile and a half, there is water, which the race director kind of alluded to. I get through that and I immediately check my watch because I'm concerned about how much it slowed me down. When you're running at the paces that I'm trying to run at, five or 10 seconds a mile crushes you. It crushes you. So I'm

starting to have some anxiety around the water that I just went through, having to pass that one set of water going back in because it's an out and back course, which basically means you run out 6.5 plus plus miles and then run back the same. It had only just begun. By mile five, there had already been legitimately three or four, I would call rivers that were needing to be trudged through. Some of them were up to your kneecap, some of them were up to your waist, but it is slowing all of the runners down. There's this funny thing that's happening though, which is all of the runner's are continuing to race the race. And I find myself in some crazy mindset of how I'm going to walk through the water and then

sprint to the next one. It's almost like you had these mini built-in brakes and the water was cold. It was ice cold. So you were essentially running as fast as you could for 0.5, 0.75, sometimes a mile from from water to water. And then you're getting this almost relief because your legs are getting cooled down. You're getting to walk. It almost turns into an interval race, an interval race where you're sprinting and you're walking.

And while you're out there, while I'm out there, I'm starting to make friends. I meet this guy, Ace, he was trying to go under 90 minutes. And we all kind of, for better for worse, acknowledge that we're not going to hit our goal times. It was eerie. It was weird. There were water stations, which there are at most races. The energy at those water stations were, the best way I can describe is that the people handing out the water almost had the same amount of anxiety or anxiousness around what was going on as the runners did.

I don't know if you were supposed to take a water. I didn't know if you weren't supposed to take a water. The whole thing was insane. I end up trudging through this race. At some point, when I realize I'm not going to hit my time because I have a strict kind of no phone rule while I'm running races, I start to take some video and the video is wild. I don't realize how wild it is when I'm in it, because there's something tunnel vision about still being in a race. In my mind, I still thought to myself, I want to place. I want to place in my age group. I want to do well. I want to finish as high as I can. I attack races with a competitive spirit. Around mile eight, and this is the video that went absolutely nuclear, viral on Instagram yesterday. And it's one of those things you post and

you think nothing of it. Cut to every news station in the country reaching out to see if they can use the video or talk to me or whatever it is about this race. We're basically in a river. And thank God there are railings that you can hold on to because all the runners are trudging through this river and the water is running like a rapid. I don't have confirmation that no one was injured seriously. I really hope they weren't. At the time of this talk, I don't have that information. The people around me stayed safe. The people around me kind of helped each other. But there was this human instinct that kicked in. And I don't know if it was a race, if it was because it was a race, but we just had to get through this water. And then we were just going to keep trudging along to the point where the river might not have been

the craziest part. Once I got through that river, the course led into another river, which they weren't letting us cross. They kind of got their wits about it and they detoured us up this hill. But up this hill was a major highway. And there's one guy that works at the race kind of like directing traffic. But cars are driving by and runners are still racing. So just as dangerous as this river voyage was, they're sending the runners in a race at mile nine when we're smoked into traffic. Then you get through the traffic.

And the woman who I've been pacing with kind of the whole time gets to the top of the hill to drop back into the course and she slides on her ass down this whole thing. It was carnage. The fact that they weren't just pulling people off the course is beyond me. I will also tell you that I am a human being and I have the ability to make my own decisions. I decided I was going to finish the race. There was something in the moment that was fun about it when I look at the video and watch it back. I don't know. Was it fun? Was it crazy? Was it stupid? It was a life experience. I can tell you that. About a mile after that main river blockage and they took us off road, I had kind of settled into this groove where I was by myself. And a tree

about 20 yards into the forest while I was running fell and it sounded like an earthquake. And it was so wet that it almost created this nuclear smoke around it. And in any other circumstance, I would have stopped. But I was racing a race. And it says something to me about the human mind, because my only goal was still to get to the finish line, despite the fact that I had no chance of hitting my goal time, that there was very dangerous situations happening, and that other people's lives could have been affected. I ended up finishing the race.

I do it in about an hour and 40 minutes. After the race, I think I was 18th overall. There was a couple hundred people that signed up. I don't know how many people bailed during the race. I'm assuming that there were people out there that were smarter than I was and called it quits. I know there was another group kind of running around the parking lot because they had kind of came up and around and skipped all the trails and they basically said, we're going

to do our own makeshift 13.1 and get the miles in, which was super cool. There was a lot of beauty in it. There was a lot of community in it. Obviously, we were rooting for each other and hoping that everyone was safe. I am not a race director. I don't know who made the decision. It's not my decision to make. I don't know what goes into those.

I am a participant in races and if the gun goes off, I'm going to do the race. That's as far as I'm willing to take that situation. And then across the finish line and there was this really gross, gnarly pond that we all jumped into. It felt like the right thing to do in the moment. We all had our medals. We celebrated and it finally kind of hit me when I got in my car. I was going to the Eagles game last night.

It finally kind of hit me when I got in the car and started thinking about what we actually just did. It was insane. And I don't know where I land with the reflection on this thing. For me, I think life is crazy. The world is crazy. The weather is crazy. I am someone that typically waits for someone to tell me I can't do it for me to not actually do it. So in the case of yesterday, I was going to run that race unless someone pulled me off that course. And perhaps that's something I need to look at. I don't know. What I can also tell you is that the there was, and this is not knowing whether someone got injured or not, I assume everyone is healthy,

I assume we would have heard something, but there was some beauty in the day in the sense that it made people slow down, it made people talk to one another, it created human connection, I came away having a few people that I've met there out on the course that I plan to stay in contact with, and we got through something hard together. And there's something really, really beautiful and poetic in that. And so that is my recollection of the Paramus, Race Faster, Half Marathon that took place yesterday that everyone seems to be flipping out about. I think the video that I put up, Jay, is that what, like two and a half million views or something like that. It's on literally every news outlet. And I'm getting tons of text messages from my family and

friends. And so I wanted to kind of break it down because people have a lot of questions about what went down. And yeah, I, I will. now choose another half marathon to run before the New York City Marathon, and I will certainly remember this race for as long as I live.