“I thought that if I went through university and I got a good job and I was making a good earning, that I would be happy. And I did those things and I was miserable. I didn’t like being a businessman. It just wasn’t who I was as a human.”

Dean’s first run was fueled by a lot of drinking on his 30th birthday, where he had kind of a midlife crisis or an epiphany, and thought “You’re either going to spend the rest of your life wishing you weren’t doing what you’re doing now, or you’re going to make a radical alteration. I chose to make a radical alteration. A lot of people think about it, but need something, they need an impetus to really take action.”

Dean did take action: “I’m much happier now. I’m living the life that I chose for myself versus living the life that I thought society had prescribed for me,” he says.

Dean turned running into a way of living and inspires people around the world by sharing the importance of living actively and being outdoors. Dean became well known in 2006 when he ran 50 marathons, in all 50 US states, in 50 consecutive days.

In 2002 he completed the South Pole Marathon on regular running shoes.
In 2004 Dean won Badwater 135, one of the world’s hardest and hottest races and he finished in the top-10 five other years between 2000 and 2008!

Dean is an 11-time Silver Buckle Holder of the legendary Western States Endurance Run (WSER); he won the medals for this 100-mile race between 1994 and 2006.

In 2009 he completed “The Relay”, a 199-mile (320 km) run from Calistoga to Santa Cruz for the  11th time.

Now in his sixties, Dean is still going strong.
As a Greek American he is now living and running California and in Greece on a semi permanent basis and loving it.