Charles Costa, long known professionally as King Charles, embraces the rhythm of running and how it can help improve mental health.

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For the past three months, Charles Costa’s days have frequently started the same way: packing up his tent or bedroll and pressing southward on the Pacific Crest Trail by 7:30 a.m. He runs and power-hikes his way across the picturesque Sierras and Cascades, munching up miles and hoping to keep his ankles in good shape.

The London-based singer/songwriter is an ultrarunner on a mission to complete 90 marathons in 90 days, built around supporting mental health and suicide prevention.

“I think running and singing are two closely linked kind of elemental processes that really elevate your matter into something great,” Costa said early one morning in late September.

His undertaking began July 20 at the Canadian border and, in the months since, he has made his way through Washington and Oregon and into California, aiming to reach the Mexican border on Oct. 15. At the time of this interview, he was only 4 kilometers behind his total goal — so, essentially on track.

By the end, he’ll have logged many 10- and 12-hour spans, waking at 6 or 6:30 a.m. and climbing as much as 8,000 feet as the hours of the day tick by. Guided by his Garmin and swapping between pairs of La Sportiva and On trail running shoes, Costa said the terrain on sections of the PCT can be “relentless” — jarringly steep uphills at times, and incredibly rocky downhills at others.

Yet even on the days that go by painfully slowly, there’s a feeling of accomplishment after each one. Each day starts anew. And the distance — 42km at a time — brings a manageable aspect into the feat, helping to ground the mental game that this kind of campaign impacts.

“One thing I love about running is the rhythm of it. It’s the effect that rhythm has on your mind,” Costa said. “Days like I’m doing at the moment, it’s dawn to dusk. It’s up to 12 hours of just pounding the ground. And there are so many different rhythms that you get into.

“And I think once you’re in a rhythm, your mind gets into a different place. You start thinking less,” he added. “You let more in, especially when you’re in beautiful places. You let more in in terms of inspiration. So, I find running very inspiring, especially in the wilderness and in some of these incredibly beautiful places.”

Costa’s musical career has been fueled by his inspiration and how he embraces and adapts to the world around him. Performing professionally under the name King Charles since his debut album in 2012, the 39-year-old musician is currently rebranding his image and working on his first album under his given name, Charles Costa. New singles are on the verge of being released, laying the foundation for a soundtrack to the last stage of his multi-marathon campaign.

“I’m so happy to be releasing this new music in this kind of a new stage of my life,” he said. “I feel like a new artist. It’s a place that’s much more refined into who I really am and what I really love and where I find interest and inspiration.”

Costa discovered ultrarunning after suffering a traumatic brain injury during a skiing accident a decade ago — something that put him in a difficult place emotionally and psychologically and continues to shape his mental health journey. He said that running offered him a remedy from the pain and gave him a space to process what was going on in his life.

Costa’s PCT marathons are helping to benefit two charities: The Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults, and James’ Place, a UK-based charity that provides free therapy and is dedicated to suicide prevention for men.

“They’re very emergency-based, and it’s phenomenal work that they do,” Costa said. “They save lives daily.”

Costa said that he has already helped the organizations raise £130,000 ($170,000 USD).

“I really want to support them and raise awareness for that,” he said. “I just keep beating the drum that getting out there and running is really healing and is really beautiful. It gives you a purpose, and it gives you freedom.”

He said he is driven by a sense to “head out and conquer some territory” in a way where he can continually strive toward the next horizon. Since he began doing ultras, he’s done events like the 70k Montreux Trail Festival and the 81k Swiss Canyon Trail. He also ran the length of Great Britain, spending months going from John o’ Groats in Scotland down to the southwestern tip of England at Land’s End.

Unsurprisingly, Costa said his preference will always be trails over roads.

“It’s so much more challenging in the actual process of putting your feet in front of the other,” he explained. “On the road, you don’t have to look at your feet, you’re just focusing on your energy, you’re just kind of processing data. I don’t like running on flat ground; I get really bored.”

He puts his trust in his mountain training, because at these distances, the slow progression can make it tough to recognize whether the miles are ushering in fitness improvements and whether one’s physical energy needed is matching the mental energy.

Yet despite the stresses and other difficulties that trail running brings — and, specifically, what he calls some “savage” days on the PCT — he finds almost every step of the journey to be incredible.

“When you’re on the trail, you’re taking in the world,” he said. “And that’s what I love about it: Even if you’re going uphill and you’re going slowly, it’s always changing, and it’s always throwing different obstacles and challenges at you.”

His approach to music channels a similar sentiment. He said it helps to transport him to new places and better understand one’s environment, which is something that he finds very fulfilling.

He’s appreciated the people he’s met on the PCT — many of them, like him, from European nations, yet traversing the same trails that barely spans a foot-wide in some spots. Costa describes how raw it can be to talk with someone else sharing this experience and knowing that you’ll never see them again. There’s an attachment and “a closeness that is very unexpected,” Costa said.

Of course, not everything is a struggle. Some days, it’s simply enjoyable to see someone slathered in the same red juices while crossing paths in a berry patch — this wonderful world in which everyone is trying to make their way.

It’s hard not to imagine Costa missing the trail once his journey wraps up in a few days.

“I think with running and music, it’s all about negotiating the process of time and turning it into something exciting and vivid,” Costa said. “With music, you sing along to it and it’s turning time into something that you can groove to and dance to. With running, it’s another way of opening up your spirit and connecting to your body and feeling human.”

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If you would like to donate to the organizations that Costa is supporting, you can do so for The Jed Foundation on CrowdChange and for James’ Place on GoFundMe.

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Ryan Tipps is Managing Editor for ActionHub. He lives along the Blue Ridge Mountains, is an avid hiker, backpacker and trail runner and has been a part of the wilderness search and rescue community since 2005.