Race Report: 2026 FANS 24-Hour Run

On the weekend of June 6-7, I ran the FANS 24-Hour Run.  I do this race almost every year.  For the last several years, it’s been held at Normandale Lake Park in Bloomington, MN.

In a 24-hour race, you can run, walk, or take rest breaks, but the clock is always running.  The objective is to run or walk as far as you can in 24 hours.  We started at 8 AM on Saturday, and we had until 8 AM on Sunday to see how far we could go.

The 24-hour race has separate divisions for runners and walkers.  I usually do the 24-hour run, but there are serious race-walkers in the 24-hour walk.  This year there were three walkers from Europe who came here to see if they could earn a Centurion badge by walking 100 miles in 24 hours.  The one rule the walkers have to follow is they can never have both feet off the ground at the same time.

Besides the 24-hour race, there’s a 12-race, a 6-hour race, and a marathon.  The marathon was new this year.  All of the fixed-time races started at 8 AM, but the marathon started at 10 PM.

Our course was a 1.85-mile loop around the lake.  The whole course is paved, except for two short wooden bridges, where we cross Nine Mile Creek.

This is a local race for me, but for the third straight year, I chose to stay in a hotel that was close to the race venue.  A long-term construction project on I-494 has made drive times difficult to predict.

I checked into my hotel in Bloomington Friday afternoon.  Then I went over to the lake to pick up my race packet.  For the second straight year, I had bib number 2.  Of the people doing the 24-hour run, only Ed Rousseau had more lifetime miles.

I had dinner with Deb, Betty, and John.  I went to bed early and slept for about six and a half hours.  Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I slept well the previous two nights, so I crossed my fingers that I got enough sleep to get by.

There was an area on the west side of the lake where we could pitch tents.  As usual, I was sharing a tent with my sister, Betty, and her husband, John.  Betty always volunteers at this race.  John does the 24-hour walk

The tent gave us a place to store all our gear.  Some people take naps during the night, but John and I usually press on through the night.

The earliest we could set up tents was 6:00 Saturday morning.  Betty and John were also staying in a nearby hotel, and we all arrived by 6:00, so we could get our usual tent site before someone else claimed it.

After setting up our tent and unpacking our gear, John and I each needed to pick up our timing chips and weigh in at the medical tent.  During the race, we needed to weigh in every four hours.

It was a hot day.  When I left the hotel, the temperature was in the 60s.  Humidity was so high that I had to run the wipers, because my windshield kept fogging up.  When the race started, it was 70 degrees, but the afternoon high was in the upper 80s.  Making matters worse, it was a bright sunny day, and I rarely felt any wind.

The last time I did this race, my goal was 100 miles.  I started too fast, and I got dehydrated on a hot afternoon.  By nightfall, I was struggling.  I fought hard to try to stay on pace for 100 miles, and I wore myself out.  My attitude was “100 miles or bust.”  When I was no longer on pace for 100 miles, I stopped.

This year, my goals were more flexible.  I was hoping to get to 100 miles, but I had doubts about whether I was in good enough shape for that.  The weather conditions made it even more unlikely.  I started the race on pace for 100 miles, but if I couldn’t get there, I would do whatever I could.

The course is moderately hilly.  None of the hills are long or steep, but there are about a dozen hills in each lap around the lake.  My pacing plan was to walk all the hills.  That gave me a dozen short walking breaks in every lap.  The beauty of this pacing plan is that I actually looked forward to the hills.  Instead of taking more energy, the hills were my rest breaks.

For the last two months, I’ve been doing most of my training on the race course.  More often than not, I’ve been walking the hills, so I could get an idea of what my average pace would be.  This is an image I captured after one of my training runs.  The dark blue segments are where I took walking breaks.

I found that if I walked every hill and ran the rest of the loop at a comfortable pace, my average pace was between 12:00 and 12:30 per mile.  That’s without stopping to eat or drink.  During the race, I needed to stop briefly at the aid stations.  I also needed to stop occasionally for bathroom breaks, periodic weigh-ins, or to get things from my tent.  Factoring in these stops, I expected my average pace to be at least 30 seconds per mile slower.

To get to 100 miles, I needed to average 14:24 per mile for 24 hours.  I was OK with starting a little faster than that, knowing I would almost certainly slow down in the afternoon heat.  I also expected to be slower in the second half of the race.

There were two aid stations on the course.  The main aid station was set up near the bandshell.  This aid station had water, Gatorade, and a variety of snack foods, including cookies, fruit, and sandwiches.  The secondary aid station was at the opposite corner of the lake, near Nine Mile Creek.  This aid station also had water and Gatorade, but not as much food.

I drank Gatorade at both aid stations.  To take in enough calories, I also occasionally ate solid food at the main aid station.

There were two methods of lap counting.  The primary method was chip timing.  We all wore ankle straps with timing chips, and there were timing mats at a few different places.  As a backup method, there were also volunteers at the main aid station who were manually recording our laps.

Every lap finished at the main aid station, but the first lap started near the medical tent, where we checked in.  This was done for convenience.  Our first lap included an out-and-back segment, making it longer than other laps.  This was done so the 100-mile point would come right at the end of the 54th lap.

The out-and-back was new this year.  There was one other small difference.  We used to go down a steep hill just before the secondary aid station.  This year, we approached that aid station from a different direction.  That made each lap slightly longer than it has been in past years, but it removed a steep drop that was somewhat uncomfortable.  The new approach was more gradual.

I did dozens of laps on this course in training, so I would know every turn and hill by heart.  I was training on the old course, so on race day, I had to get used the new approach to aid station #2.

There have been other hot years, but I usually felt comfortable during the morning hours.  This year, I felt warm right away.  I noticed the humidity from the first lap.

My past experience was that drinking a cup of Gatorade at each aid stations was sufficient for the morning, but I needed to drink more in the afternoon.  Last year, I didn’t drink enough, and I got dehydrated.  This year, I overcompensated.

Because it warmed up so quickly, I started drinking three cups per lap.  At one aid station, I’d drink two cups.  At the other, I’d drink one cup, and I’d sometimes eat some solid food.

For the first hour of the race, I was averaging about 12 minutes per mile.  As I started taking bathroom breaks and spending more time at aid stations, my pace slowed to about 12:30 per mile.  That was about the same pace as my training runs, and it felt pretty easy.

By noon, it was 80 degrees, and the sun was intense.  Now I was drinking two cups pf Gatorade at each aid station.

My first periodic weigh-in was at noon.  I was up 3.5 pounds compared to my pre-race weight.  I was shocked to have gained so much weight so quickly.  The next four hours would be the hottest of the race, yet I cut back on my fluid intake.

I had a cooler at our tent filled with Gatorade bottles and crushed ice.  I was expecting to need to supplement my fluid intake by drinking Gatorade each time I came by our tent.  I held off on that.

To cope with the heat during the afternoon hours, I started putting ice in my hat each time I came by the tent.  I also started taking electrolyte capsules.

In the afternoon, I was making more frequent bathroom stops.  Those stops, plus the time I spent at our tent getting ice, caused my average pace to slow down.  My afternoon pace was slower than the 14:24 I needed to average.  Some miles took more than 15 minutes.

About every four laps, I ate something at the main aid station.  I had a couple pieces of energy bars.  Then I had some trail mix.  When I came by at the end of my 13th lap, I saw pizza.

One of the sponsors was Parkland Pizza, and they delivered pizza at different times during the race.  It was a tavern-cut, making it easy to grab one square and eat it during a short walking break.  The pizza was better than any of the other odds at the aid station, so I ate pizza three times during the race.

I reached the marathon mark in 5:47.  That’s longer than I’ve taken in the past, but anything faster would have been too fast for the conditions.

I needed to focus on intermediate milestones.  The next one was 50K.  I reached that during my 17th lap.  When I finished my 18th lap, I was more than one third of the way to 100 miles.  I got there in less than eight hours.  In theory, I was on pace for 100 miles.  In reality, I had already slowed down too much.

With more frequent bathroom stops, my pace got slower.  Sometimes it was slower than 16 minutes per mile.  It became obvious that I was no longer on pace to get to 100 miles.  Realizing that goal was out of reach, I switched my pacing strategy.  Instead of walking the hills and running everywhere else, I started mostly walking.  I only ran on downhill sections.

 I was carrying my electrolyte pills with me in a small zip-lock bag, so I could take them at the aid stations.  I couldn’t get a pill ready while running, so I had to do it while I was on a walking break.

For several laps, I kept forgetting to get a pill ready.  I wouldn’t remember until I was already at the aid station.  Rather than stopping to get a pill out, I kept telling myself I’d remember on the next lap.  Then I’d forget again.  That contributed to problems I would experience later.

At 4 PM, I weighed in again.  Despite cutting back on my fluid intake, I was up another half a pound.

By now, most of the ice in my cooler had melted.  The rest had frozen into large chucks.  I no longer had enough small pieces of ice that I could put in my hat.  I thought it was late enough in the day that I no longer needed to out ice in my hat.  I neglected to consider that it was actually hottest at 5 PM.  Without ice in my hat, it was harder to cope with the heat.  I didn’t realize how much the ice was helping until I no longer had any.

My body was sending me mixed signals.  In the late afternoon, I was needed to stop to pee every lap.  On one lap, I made two bathroom stops.  Between that and the weight gain, it seemed clear that I was overhydrated.  On the other hand, my mouth and throat were always dry.

Now that I was doing more walking, I started to walk at a somewhat brisk pace.  My average pace wasn’t much slower than it had been when I was mostly running, but I wasn’t working as hard.

By 8 PM, I had run 48.1 miles.  In theory, I was on pace for 96 miles, but that was misleading.  At the pace I was going now, I would be doing well to get into the 80s.

This is an RRCA state championship event.  There were RRCA awards for the top male and female overall, and well as the top male and female in the open 40, over 50, and over 60 divisions.  I wondered what it would take to win the over 60 division.  When I’ve won it before, I did at least 100 miles.  On such a hot day, would something in the 80s be enough?

I weighed in again.  Finally, I had some good news.  My weight was down two pounds since 4 PM.  I was still two pounds over my pre-race weight, but I was moving in the right direction.

After another lap, I reached the 50-mile mark.  When I finished that lap, the lap counters ran a cowbell for me.  They do that whenever someone reaches 50 miles, 100K, or 100 miles.

Betty had been doing lap counting from 2 to 8 PM.  When her volunteer shift was over, she checked the live results to see how competitive the over 60 division was.  There was a guy over 60 who was already 18 miles ahead of me.  He was in third place overall.

Clearly, I could forget about competing for that award.  That left me with one other goal.  I needed 140 miles to get to 1,500 lifetime miles, so I could join the 1,500 mile club.  If I could run 70 miles this year, I would just need 70 more next year.

To get to 70 miles, I needed to finish 11 more laps.  That a lot of laps.  At this point, each one seemed to take forever.  I had plenty of time.  At the rate I was going, I could get to 70 miles and still have time for a few more laps.

The sun set at 9:00 and within half an hour, it was dark.  The course was lined with battery-power lamps, but there were still dark patches.  We were expected to use a flashlight or headlamp to help with visibility during the night.

Once the sun went down, it immediately felt cooler.  The temperature came down gradually, but without direct sunlight, it was much more comfortable.  I didn’t need to drink as much, but it was hard to resist drinking at aid stations.  On some laps, I only drank at one aid station.  At others, I couldn’t resist drinking at both.

As the night progressed, it got harder to maintain a brisk walking pace.  I wanted to average at least three miles per hour (20-minute miles), but I had to go faster to compensate for bathroom stops and other downtime.  With effort, I was keeping most of my splits under 19 minutes, but that effort was wearing me down.

I had to focus on more immediate milestones.  The next one was getting to midnight, when I would weigh in again.

At midnight, my weight was up again.  I had regained the two pounds that I previously lost.  I didn’t realize it yet, but that was my undoing.  I was drinking too much, and I wasn’t getting enough salt.  My fingers were starting to swell, which is one of the symptoms of hyponatremia.

By now, I started to notice that I wasn’t always walking in a straight line.  At first, I wondered if I was just a little disoriented because I wasn’t seeing the full width of the path.  I also wondered if it was the result of muscle fatigue.  I was also starting to lean to my right, as my core muscles got fatigued.

This was something else.  Over the next several laps, I noticed it more and more.  I was weaving back and forth.  I also started to feel punchy.  It was like I was drunk.

My next lap took me to 100K.  The lap counters rang the cowbell for me again.  After that, I still needed four more laps to get to 70 miles.

On my next lap, I was staggering, but I kept making forward progress, and I got through that lap.  Now, I just needed three more laps.

The next lap was much more difficult.  It was scary.  I didn’t know if I could get through another lap safely.  I worried that if I started another lap, I might not be able to stay upright.

I was still two laps short of 70 miles, but I couldn’t go on like this.  I told my lap counter that I was going to take a break at my tent, so he shouldn’t be concerned if he didn’t see me for a while.  Then I went just far enough around the loop to get to my tent.

I borrowed a heat sheet, so I wouldn’t get cold, and I sat down to rest.  The guy in the adjacent tent asked me if I needed anything, such as water, Gatorade, or chips.  Potato chips sounded wonderful.  He gave me some potato chips, and they were wonderfully salty.  It was just what I needed.

Rather than rest in the night air, which was getting chilly, I decided to go back to the hotel.  I took a hot shower and climbed into bed.  I set an alarm and tried to take a nap.

Before I could fall asleep, I needed to get up to pee.  I climbed back into bed, but before long I needed to pee again.  This went on for a while.  I never got to sleep, but I was gradually passing all the excess fluid I had been carrying for most of the race.

I eventually got dressed and went back to the lake.  I felt better, but I chose not to run any more laps.  I ended the day with 66.78 miles.  That’s disappointing, but I didn’t want to drag myself through another lap or two in my current condition.’

I talked to the people at the medical tent.  What I was experiencing can sometimes be a symptom of hyponatremia.  I’ve heard of this symptom before, but I had never previously experienced it.  It’s sometimes called water intoxication or water drunkenness.

John, who was walking, also had a goal of getting to 70 miles.  He went well beyond that, getting to 75 miles.  He could have gone farther, but he stopped at 75, so we could start packing up our campsite.  By 8 AM, we were all packed up.

After the race, there was a post-race breakfast, followed by an awards ceremony.  A surprising number of runners had strong races, in spite of the tough conditions.  Two of the race-walkers earned centurion badges by getting to 100 miles.

I expect to be back at FANS again next year.  I need 72.6 miles to get to 1,500 total.  That’ll probably be my overriding goal.

Race statistics:

Distance:  66.78 miles

Official Time:  24 hours

Actual Time on Course:  18:42:20

Average Pace:  16:48 per mile

Marathons/Ultras in 2026:  15

Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:  587

Minnesota Marathons/Ultras:  116

Lifetime FANS Miles:  1427.4

TBT: 2007 Mississippi Trail 50

This is a Throwback Thursday post.  I didn’t start writing race reports until 2010, and I didn’t start this blog until 2014.  This week, I decided to write up my recollections of a race I ran almost 19 years ago.  It was one of the best race performances of my life.  It was also one of the most surprising.

On March 10, 2007, I ran the Carl Touchstone Memorial Mississippi Trail 50.  This race was held on horse trails in DeSoto National Forest.  The closest city with hotels was Laurel, MS.

Deb and I flew to Gulfport and drove from there to Laurel.  Deb had a sinus infection, and her congestion made her ears painful on the flights.  We had to stop at a pharmacy to get her a stronger decongestant.

Packet pickup was in Laurel, where there was also a pre-race dinner and briefing.  The race was named in memory of Carl Touchstone, who was a well-known local runner and race organizer.  At the dinner, I met a runner who had known Carl.

What I remember most from the pre-race briefing was the race director telling us that it was turkey hunting season, and there might be hunters in the forest during the race.  We were cautioned not to wear anything red, as the red wattle of a male turkey is something hunters look for.

It would have been nice to get that information before we left home.  I brought a fuel belt that had two small red pouches on the front.  At this point, it was too late to get something else.  I went to bed that night hoping I wouldn’t get shot during the race.

The race started in a campground in the state forest.  We had to get up early to make the drive from Laurel.  I woke up with the beginnings of a cold.  My symptoms were mild.  I didn’t know how it would affect my race.  I also didn’t know how exerting myself for 50 miles would affect my body’s ability to fight off the cold.  I just had to show up and do my best.

I had low expectations for this race, and it wasn’t just because of the cold.  I had never run an ultra on trails before.  Training through the winter, I had done all my winter training on a treadmill.  I ran a road marathon a month earlier, but I had not done any training on trails.  I was in pretty good shape that year, but I was out of my element.

I wanted to get to the campground well before the race started.  I thought we were going to get there about 30 minutes early.  As we were looking for a place to park the car, Deb said, “I think they’re lining up to start.”

I assumed she must be mistaken.  The race didn’t start for another 30 minutes, or so I thought.  It turns out I was mistaken about the start time.  When I saw for myself that the race was about to start, I told Deb to just stop the car and let me out.

Fortunately, I was already wearing my fuel belt, and I had filled my bottles before leaving the hotel.  I hopped out of the car and ran over to the starting line.  By now, the race had already started.

We were supposed to check in before the race, so they would have a full accounting of who was on the course.  I ran up to the RD, who was at the starting line, and I asked him where I needed to check in.  He said, “You’re checked in.  Go!”  By now, everyone else had been running for almost two minutes.

The course was a 12.5-mile trail loop.  For the 50-mile race, we had to run four laps.  There was also a 50K race that started with two laps of the same loop and then switched to a shorter loop with different trail markings.

When I signed up for this race, I wasn’t confident that I was ready for a 50-mile race.  I was working on a long-term goal of running a marathon or ultra in every state.  I chose this race for Mississippi, because it fit well into my schedule, and we were able to get a good airfare for our flight to Gulfport.  Back then, we wouldn’t fly anywhere if the airfare was more than about $250.

I could always start the 50-mile race, but switch to the 50K race if it wasn’t going well.  I might not have signed up for this race if I didn’t have the option of dropping down to a shorter distance.

The course started out running though the campground.  I wasn’t familiar with the course, and the other runners were already too far ahead for me to see them.  As I ran through the campground, I was asking campers, “Which way did the runners go?”  The campers pointed, and I ran than in that direction until I was onto the trail.

Within another minute or two, I could see some of the runners.  I was catching up to the back of the pack.

We were on a trail that was wide enough for horses, but there wasn’t much room to pass other runners.  I wasn’t expecting to be competitive, but I also didn’t want to be stuck behind everyone, so I worked hard to get around people and move forward through the pack.  It’s only because of my effort to pass people that I started at a fast pace.  Otherwise, I would’ve paced myself more conservatively, knowing that I had never run 50 miles on trails before.

After at least a mile of working frantically to pass people, I suddenly broke into the clear.  There were still runners ahead of me, but they were so far ahead that I couldn’t see them.

The first time I reached an aid station, I asked one of the volunteers how many runners had already gone by.  He said, “five.”  I topped off my bottles, ate a donut, and continued running.

The course didn’t have any major climbs, but it was still semi-technical.  There were stream crossings, roots, and occasional patches of mud.  Thankfully, it had been a dry winter, so I could hop across most of the streams without getting my feet wet.

I still couldn’t see any of the runners ahead of me.  I was expecting to be able to follow other runners.  Instead, I was on my own to look for the trail markings.

At one point, it occurred to me that I couldn’t see any of the ribbons marking the route.  I didn’t know if I had missed a turn.  I briefly stopped to look back.  I didn’t see anyone coming up behind me.  I wondered if I should stop and wait.  Not wanting to lose too much time, I continued running.  Soon, I saw a ribbon, and I knew I was still on course.

The course was mostly a loop, but there was one short out-and-back-section.  When I got there, I saw the lead runner coming back.  As I continued, I saw the other four runners who were ahead of me.  By the time I reached the turnaround and started coming back, I could no longer see any of them.  They were too far ahead of me.

I was almost back to the campground when I finally got close enough to another runner to see him just ahead of me.  I passed him as I ran through the campground for the second time.

As I ran through the same section of trail where I was passing people before, I recognized most of the turns.  After another mile or two, I caught up to another runner, and we had a brief conversation.

Her name was Anne.  She was from Wisconsin, and she knew some of the other runners.  She said the next runner I would catch was Larry, and he was from Chicago.  As I went ahead on my own, Anne told me when I saw Larry, I should tell him Anne says hello.

Gradually catching up to the runners ahead of me kept me excited.  I never expected to run this race competitively, but I was now in fourth place, and I got more excited each time I caught up to another runner.  Soon, I caught up to Larry.  I gave him Anne’s greeting, and then I moved ahead of him.

Ultramarathons are at least as much psychological as they are physical.  Obviously, longer distances require more training, but it’s easy to underestimate the importance of things like confidence and excitement.  Each time I passed another runner, I got more excited, and I gained in confidence.  I didn’t stop to ask myself if I could run this fast for 50 miles.  I just got caught up in the excitement.

I eventually passed one more runner.  Then I reached the out-and-back section again.  I looked for the last remaining runner who was ahead of me.  I never saw him.  He finished this section before I got there.  For the rest of the race, I wouldn’t see another runner ahead of me.  I was running on my own for the rest of the race.

When I finished that lap, it was decision time.  Should I continue on the 50-mile course or switch to the 50K course?  I didn’t have to think too hard.  I felt good, and I was excited about being in second place, so I started a third lap of the same loop.  It would have still been possible to stop after three laps and get listed as a 50K finisher, but that wasn’t very palatable.  Three laps would be 37.5 miles, which is much farther than 50K.  I committed to running 50 miles.

For someone with no training on trails, I did remarkably well at maintaining a good pace, while avoiding roots and navigating stream crossings.  At one point, I did trip on something, but I was able to keep from falling.  I had a rather awkward landing on my other foot, however.  It was so jarring, that I immediately felt pain in my lower back.  My right leg briefly felt numb.  I managed to keep running, and within a minute or two I felt normal again.  That was a huge relief.

We were sharing these trails with a few people on horseback.  At one point, I passed a few riders.  When they saw me coming, they stopped, so their horses wouldn’t get spooked.  I could see places where the horses had stirred up mud on some of the softer parts of the trail.

My biggest recollection from my third lap was getting a sung stuck in my head.  It was The Chicken Dance, which is a song you typically only hear at wedding receptions.  I had that tune in my head for about an hour.

I was trying to catch up to the lead runner, but he was getting farther ahead of me.  Each time I finished a lap, I saw a  board showing what time the leader had gone through.  By the time I started my last lap, I knew I had no hope of catching him.  Instead, I focused on staying ahead of everyone else and running the best pace I could.  I may have slowed a little in the last lap, but not too much.

I finished the race in second place, roughly 20 minutes after the winner finished.  My official time was 7:24:02, but that was the time from when the gun went off.  By my watch, I ran the course in 7:22:29.  Either way, it was a 50-mile PR that I’ve never broken.  Even on roads, I never came close to matching that time.  I still don’t know how I did that.  I’m normally slower on trails than on roads, and I’m even slower when I’m carrying the extra weight of water bottles.

Later in the day, there was a post-race dinner back in Laurel.  When I told another runner about The Chicken Dance, he got a good laugh.

My award for second place was a plexiglass trophy in the shape of Mississippi.  It’s one of my favorite awards.

The winner of that race was a park ranger who worked in the DeSoto National Forest, so he was able to train on the same trails that we were racing on.  He outclassed everyone there.  I did well to finish second.

After the race, I no longer had any cold symptoms.  My exertion may have helped me fight off the cold.  That’s the sort of thing that can go either way.  In other news, I didn’t get shot by any hunters.

The next day, Deb and I drove to Gulfport.  Before flying home, we drove the coastal highway between Gulfport and Biloxi.  It was two years after the area was hit by Hurricane Katrina, and I wanted to see what the area looked like now.  I used to visit Biloxi on business trips, so I was familiar with the area.

I was astonished to see the damage along the coast.  Of the buildings I recognized, only a few were still standing.  One was a shopping mall.  It had damage, but it was still intact.  Another building I recognized was a small shop next to the beach that sold beach ware and souvenirs.  I don’t know how that building survived.  Larger, sturdier buildings were reduced to rubble.

Location was critical.  The buildings along the coast were all destroyed, even though many of them were modern brick buildings.  Just a few blocks farther inland, wooden houses were still standing.  Apparently, the larger buildings along the coast felt the full brunt of the storm.  They sheltered the smaller, more fragile buildings behind them.

I was pleased to see that the local governments had invested in restoring their white sand beach.  Having been to Biloxi before, I knew how important tourism was to the local economy.

The following year, I was contacted by the race organizers.  Because I placed second in 2007, they offered me a complimentary entry in 2008.  I had to decline.  At the time, we could only afford a few trips per year.  I was prioritizing races that gave me new states.  Other than local races, I wasn’t repeating any states.  That’s probably just as well.  There’s no way I could ever recreate the magic of my second-place finish in 2007.

Race Statistics

Distance:  50 miles

Official Time:  7:24:02

Actual Time on Course:  7:22:29

Average Pace:  8:51 per mile

Race Report: 2025 FANS 24-Hour Run

On May 31, I ran the FANS 24-Hour Run.  This is one of the FANS Ultra Races, which also include a 24-hour walk, a 12-hour run, a 12-hour walk, and a 6-hour run.  The race venue was Normandale Lake Park in Bloomington, MN.  The course was a 1.82-mile paved loop around the lake.

We could pick up our race packets at the lake on Friday.  Alternatively, we could pick them up Saturday morning before the race.  Race morning is always busy, so I picked mine up on Friday.

I was assigned bib number 2.  That’s the lowest bib number I’ve ever had.  The lowest bib numbers were given to the runners who have the most cumulative miles at FANS.  The runner with the most lifetime miles is Sue Olsen, but she was doing the 6-hour run, and the shorter races had different ranges of bib numbers.  Of the runners doing the 24-hour run, only Ed Rousseau had more total FANS miles than me.  Ed is the only runner who has done this race every year.

Ordinarily, I would sleep in my own bed, but I made a last-minute decision to stay in a hotel that was just a mile away from the lake.  There were two things that drove this decision.  First, Interstate 494 through Bloomington was shut down for the weekend.  To drive to the race from home, I would’ve needed to detour on side streets, which would force me to leave awfully early.  Also, staying in a hotel made it easier to get a large quantity of crushed ice.

There was an area at the west end of the lake where we could set up tents.  I shared a tent with my sister, Betty, and her husband, John.  John was doing the 24-hour walk, and Betty was volunteering.  The race didn’t start until 8:00 AM, but we could start setting up tents any time after 6:00.  The three of us arrived at 6:00, so we could get our usual tent site.

After setting up, I had time to walk through tent city and visit with other runners.

Although I picked up my race packet on Friday, I still had to check in Saturday morning to get the ankle strap with my timing chip.  Then I weighed in.

Weigh-ins were optional, but I find them to be helpful.  A large fluctuation in weight would alert me if I was overhydrating or underhydrating.  In addition to my pre-race weigh-in, I also weighed in every four hours during the race.

I had the same two goals as last year.  My first goal was to run 100 miles.  My second goal was to win the state championship for men over 60.  In the past, I would’ve taken 100 miles for granted.  My poor performance at the Across the Years 48-hour race in January shook my confidence, but I’ve had several good race results since then.  I’m not as well-trained as I was last year, but I’m still in better shape than I was three years ago, when I ran 100 miles with minimal training.

The temperature at the start was in the 60s.  It was forecast to get up into the 80s in the late afternoon.  That’s hot, but I wasn’t too concerned.  I was planning to take frequent walking breaks, which makes it easier to keep from overheating.

What concerned me more was the air quality.  Smoke from wildfires in Canada has been moving into Minnesota.  The air quality wasn’t too bad on Friday, but it got into the unhealthy range on Saturday.  I don’t have asthma, but it still wasn’t an ideal day to be outdoors all day, much less running.  The timing wasn’t great, but this is the only day of the year that I get to run this race.

I wore two watches.  On one wrist, I wore a Timex watch, which I used to keep track of elapsed time since the race started.  On my other wrist, I wore a Garmin watch.  My Garmin is an inexpensive model.  It has an estimated battery life of 22 hours when it’s in run mode.  That’s not long enough for a race like this, so I wasn’t using GPS.  To know my distance, I just needed to know how many laps I completed.  I wore the Garmin watch so I could have a record of my heart rate during the race.  It also counted my steps.

There were two methods of lap counting.  The primary method was chip timing.  We all wore timing chips on our ankles, and there was a timing mat at the end of the loop.  As a backup method, there were volunteers who were counting our laps manually.  If you weren’t sure how many laps you completed, you could always ask the lap counters.

The course had two aid stations.  The main aid station was next to the bandshell.  There was also a secondary aid station at the opposite corner of the lake.  Both had water, Gatorade, and food, but there was a wider variety of food at the main aid station.

We had until 8:00 AM on Sunday to run (or walk) as far as we could.  We could take breaks at any time, but the clock was always running.

The first lap wasn’t a complete lap around the lake.  Instead of starting at the main aid station, we started near the tent area.  That was done for convenience.  After that, every lap started and finished at the main aid station.  That’s where the lap counters were.

There’s an award for the person who runs the fastest first lap.  This award is named after Bob Frawley, who was the founder of the race.  Bob used to have a reputation for starting fast.

The first time I ran FANS, back in 1998, Bob was still the race director.  Bob later handed off the reins to other race directors, but he continued to run in the race.  Bob passed away last summer.  As a tribute to Bob, I decided to run fast for the first lap before settling into a more sustainable pace.

I lined up in front and went out at a fast pace.  Initially, one other runner was keeping up with me.  He was a runner I met two years ago, when we were both doing the 6-hour run.  He was doing the 6-hour run again.

After about half a mile, another runner caught up to us.  His name was Chris, and he was doing the 12-hour run.  For the rest of the lap, I ran side-by-side with Chris.  I had to work hard to keep up with Chris, and I couldn’t have done it for much longer.

I assumed this award went to the 24-hour runner with the fastest first lap, so I didn’t really need to compete with Chris for it.  I kept up with him, but I didn’t try to outsprint him to the finish line at the end of that lap.  We hit the line together with a lap time of 11:45.  The first lap was 1.51 miles, so our pace was about 7:47 per mile.

That was fun, but it was crazy.  After pausing to get a drink of Gatorade at the aid station, I had to walk for a few minutes to try to recover.  When I resumed running, it was at a more relaxed pace.  My left Achilles tendon felt a little bit tight.  I considered stopping at our tent to massage my left calf with a massage stick.  Instead, I waited a few laps to see if it would loosen up on its own.

Starting with the second lap, I used walking breaks to slow my pace down to something that I hoped wouldn’t wear me out.  In the past, I always started my walking breaks at the aid stations.  That way, I didn’t have to resume running immediately after eating or drinking.  The problem with that strategy is that it has me walking on the flattest parts of the course and running on the sections that are rolling.

This year, I tried something different.  Instead of one or two long walking breaks per lap, I took several short ones.  I walked most of the uphill sections and ran where it was either downhill or mostly flat.  In the last two weeks before the race, I did most of my training on the course.  I picked out eight hills that I planned to walk, but there were five other places that could technically be considered to be “hills.”  This course really doesn’t have any big hills, but there are lots of small undulations.

The image below is from one of my training runs.  The areas in blue are the hills that I was walking.  One was so short that it barely shows up in this image.

Besides the hills, there were also two wooden bridges, where we crossed Nine Mile Creek.  Sometimes, I also walked across the bridges.

Finally, I sometimes walked briefly while eating or drinking something from an aid station.

Over the next few laps, I gradually caught my breath.  My left Achilles tendon didn’t feel as tight, but both of my calves felt a little sore.

For the rest of the morning, I was averaging about 20 minutes per lap.  I knew that was still too fast, but I was planning to slow it down as it got warmer.

I was drinking Gatorade at both aid stations and occasionally eating solid food.  That was fine for the morning hours, but as it got warmer, I assumed I would need to increase my fluid intake.  I had an insulated bag at our campsite with several bottles of Gatorade.  If drinking at the two aid stations wasn’t enough, I could also stop at the tent to get a drink of Gatorade.

At noon, I weighed in again.  My weight was half a pound higher than it was before the race.  That surprised me.  I expected my weight to be down slightly.  I assumed that drinking at the two aid stations was enough, for now, and that the extra half pound was attributable to the sub sandwich I had just eaten at the aid station.

Realizing my pace wasn’t sustainable, I made an adjustment to my pacing strategy.  I started taking two additional walking breaks per lap.  I picked two more sections that were slightly uphill.  The sections I chose helped break up my longest periods of running.

The additional walking breaks didn’t slow my pace as much as I thought they would.  I was taking at least 10 walking breaks per lap, but they were all fairly short.  I was still running the majority of the loop.  It felt easy, but it was still too fast.

It was a sunny day, and the sun was now high in the sky.  By 1:00, I was already feeling hot.  I felt a little bit tired, and I had a little bit of soreness in my legs.  That was a bad sign.  I’ve never felt sore or tired this early in a 24-hour race.  Usually, I feel fresh for the first 10 hours, even if I’m going too fast.

My last line of defense against overheating was putting ice in my hat.  My Gatorade bottles were packed in crushed ice.  I stopped at the tent every lap or two and put a handful of crushed ice in my hat.  That’s an amazingly effective way to cool your self down, but it takes some getting use to.  It’s not comfortable, and the first time you do it, it can be a bit disconcerting.

I also added a cooling bandana that had been soaking in ice water.  As the ice in my hat melted, the cold water ran down the back of my next and was absorbed by the bandana.

There were signs around the lake marking various milestones we would hit at different points during the race.  During my 15th lap, I reached the marathon mark.  I got there in 4:56:22.  That’s not as fast as last year, but it was still too fast.

All through the afternoon, I was walking up the same ten hills.  Everywhere else, I ran at a relaxed pace.  I continued drinking Gatorade at the aid stations, but I only stopped to drink at the tent once.  Every few laps, I had some solid food.  Usually, it was a PBJ or some type of bar.  One of the race sponsors was Parkway Pizza, so I had pizza once.  Another sponsor was Jimmy John’s, so I sometimes ate part of a sandwich.

When I weighted in again at 4:00, I fully expected my weight to be down.  It wasn’t.  I was still up half a pound compared to my pre-race weight.  In retrospect, I probably was losing weight, but my wet hat and bandana made me weigh in a little heavier.

The lap counters ring cowbells whenever a runner reaches 50 miles, 100K, or 100 miles.  In my 28th lap, I reached 50 miles.  When I finished that lap, they rang the cowbells for me.

I ran the first 50 miles in 9:56:46.  My primary goal was still to get to 100 miles.  To do that, I just needed to run 50 more miles, and I had 14 hours to do it.

I still felt tired, and I still felt a little sore, but I didn’t feel any worse after ten hours than I did after five hours.  That seemed encouraging, but there were other signs of wear and tear.

I wasn’t drinking as much as I usually do on a hot day, yet I always felt like my stomach was full.  In the late afternoon, the air quality was getting worse.  At one point, I coughed a few times.  When I coughed, I almost threw up.

That sensation of almost throwing up is something I had to fight down three or four times during the race.  I sometimes wanted to skip an aid station, but I didn’t think that would be wise unless I had some evidence that I was overhydrating.

At 6:30, I stopped at the medical tent to do an unscheduled weigh-in.  I was hoping my weight would be up, which would give me justification to occasionally skip an aid station.  My weight was still the same.

My body was giving me mixed signals.  On one hand, I felt like I was overhydrating, because I always felt so full.  On the other hand, I wasn’t peeing as often as I normally do.  I sometimes went three or four hours between bathroom stops.

In the evening, my throat constantly felt irritated.  The sky was hazy, so I assumed it was from the poor air quality.  It didn’t occur to me at the time that I might be getting dehydrated.  I kept expected my weight to drop if I wasn’t drinking enough, and it never did.  At my 8:00 PM weigh-in, my weight was still the same.

Heading into the late evening, I was slowing down substantially.  I was still doing the same proportion of running and walking, but everything was slower now.

After one of my laps, I was met by a friend at the aid station.  My friend, Karen, came out to run a few laps with me.  She also brought some homemade ice cream.  I could only eat a little bit at a time, but it was a nice change of pace from drinking Gatorade every lap.

After the sun went down, I stopped at my tent to get my headlamp.  There were street lamps in a few places, and there were enough battery-powered lamps that it wasn’t too hard to see where the trail was.  Still, there are always shady spots, so it helped to have a headlamp.

While I was running laps with Karen, I reached the 100K mark, but I forgot to record my time.  Shortly after that, I had to do more walking.  There were still three small hills that I was previously running.  Now I was walking every part of the course that was uphill, however short.

After Karen went home, I was running by myself in the dark.  My running had degenerated into a slow shuffle.  My walking was more of a slow stagger.  At times, it seemed like I wasn’t always walking in a straight line.  Some of that was fatigue.  Some of that was stiffness in my muscles.  Some of that may have been disorientation.

It felt much cooler after the sun went down.  I started to feel cold, so I had to stop at the tent to add gloves and a jacket.

There were several Centurion walkers in this race, including six who traveled from Europe.  To be a Centurion, you need to walk 100 miles in 24 hours.  All of these walkers have done this before in other countries, and they came her to earn a Centurion badge in the United States.  Most people slow down as the race progresses, but Centurions are very consistent in their pacing.

Even though I was still doing more running than walking, I was frequently getting passed by the Centurions.  I could no longer run as fast as they were walking.

By midnight I had run more than 72 miles.  I just needed to run 28 more miles, and I had eight hours to do it.  Ghat should’ve been easy, but I wasn’t sure if I could make it.  My pace now was just barely fast enough to get there, and it was gradually getting slower.

After midnight, I adopted a new strategy.  I only ran the downhill sections, and I walked everything else.  On a long flat section, I could walk much faster.  I was now power-walking most of the lap.  That was fast enough, but I didn’t know how long I could sustain it.

Most of my training has been running.  I’ve done hardly any race-walking this year.  Race-walking is good cross-training for running, but running doesn’t prepare you for race-walking.  There’s no substitute for putting in the training, and I haven’t done that lately.

I was able to walk fast, but I quickly started to feel sore across my lower back.  I was using muscles that weren’t trained for this, and they quickly got fatigued.

John was doing the 24-hour walk, but he sometimes took rest breaks.  On one of my laps, I saw John in the tent and asked him if he could walk with me for a few laps.  He had just started a rest break and said he would be starting another lap for about half an hour.

The next time I came by, John was still there.  He was ready to resume walking now, so we walked together for the next four laps.

I stopped running the downhill sections.  While I was with John, we just power-walked the entire lap.  To get to 100 miles, I needed to average about 31 minutes per lap.  For the next two laps, we were about to walk them in about 28 minutes each.  Then I couldn’t keep it up any more.

About halfway through my third lap with John, I slowed down substantially.  I was completely fatigued.  Now I could only walk at a slow pace.  It was no longer fast enough to get to 100 miles.  On top of that, every step was painful.

At 2:00 AM, we both did a weigh-in.  We weren’t actually due to weigh in until 4:00, but we both got confused about the time.  My weight was up a pound since midnight.  I can’t explain that.  I was only drinking once per lap now.

During my last lap with John, the pain got to be too much.  There was still five hours left in the race, but it was no longer possible to reach 100.  If it wasn’t so painful, I would’ve kept moving, but the pain in my lower back was excruciating.  I couldn’t do that for five more hours.

I seemed like it took forever to get back around to the main aid station.  When we got there, I informed the lap counters that I was done, and I turned in my timing chip.  I finished the race with 44 laps, which is 81.6 miles.

From there, I still had to walk the rest of the way back to our tent.  John was planning to take another rest break, but first, he helped me carry a few things to my car.

The temperature had dropped to 59 degrees.  Now that I wasn’t moving, I quickly got cold.  It only took me a few minutes to drive back to my hotel, but my hands were turning white.

I took a quick shower to rinse off the salt and sweat.  Then I dried off and climbed into bed.  I was hoping to take a nap before I needed to drive back to the race.

As I climbed into bed, both feet and one calf muscle started to cramp up.  It took several minutes to find a position that didn’t make my feet cramp.  Then I started to shiver.  I took a few minutes bundled up under warm blankets for the shivering to stop.

I got back to the hotel just in time.  If either of these symptoms hit me while I was still walking around the lake, it would’ve been much worse.

I wasn’t able to get to sleep.  After resting in bed for a couple hours, I forced myself to get up.  I was more stiff than before.  I worked on my calves and hamstrings with a massage stick.  That made a difference.  Now I could get dressed and walk to the car.

Before driving back to the race, I had breakfast at the hotel.  We would have a breakfast after the race, but that wouldn’t be for another two and a half hours.  I was starving, so I needed to eat something right away.  I knew my body chemistry was off, but I figured eating some real food would help restore my electrolyte balance.  I still didn’t feel great, but it helped.

John was still walking, but Betty and I started packing and bringing things to the car.  I was moving in slow motion, but we had plenty of time before the race was over.

When John reached his mileage goal, the three of us took down the tent.  Betty and John waited to see the last few Centurions finish their races.  I started walking to the main aid station to see if there was still some food that would help settle my stomach.  I had some potato chips and a cup of ginger ale.  I think the potato chips helped.  I don’t think I was getting enough electrolytes during thew race.

After the post-race breakfast, there was an awards presentation.  First, they do the top finishers in each category.  Then they do the RRCA awards.  I didn’t win the over 60 title.  There were two men over 60 who ran or walked at least 100 miles.

I also didn’t win a director’s award.  I was expecting to win the award for the fastest first lap, but they were including runners from all races, not just the 24-hour race.  Chris, who did the 12-hour run, beat me to the line by a tiny fraction of a second.

I fell short of all of my goals at this race, but the most frustrating thing is that I’m not entirely sure what went wrong, other than starting too fast.  I know my nutrition was off, but it’s hard to know for sure what happened.  I’ve run in similar conditions before, but my body had never behaved like this before.  I had some symptoms that suggest I was getting dehydrated and wasn’t getting enough salt.  I had other symptoms that were inconsistent with that.

Race statistics:

Distance:  81.6 miles

Official Time:  24 hours

Actual Time Before Stopping:  18:42:53

Average Pace:  13:02 per mile

Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:  546

Minnesota Marathons/Ultras:  106

Lifetime FANS miles:  1360.6

2024-25 Across the Years 48-Hour Race

On January 1-3, I ran the Across the Years 48-Hour Race.  This is a fixed-time race where you run as far as you can in 48 hours.  They have other fixed-time options, including 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 72 hours, and 6 days.  They also have fixed-distance options, including marathon, 100 miles, and 200 miles.  Finally, they have a last person standing race.

The 6-day race started on December 28 and ended on January 3.  For most of the other races, you could choose which day you wanted to start.  I could’ve chosen to start the 48-hour race as early as December 28, or as late as January 1.

I considered starting on December 28, but changed my mind and started on January 1 instead.  Finishing on January 3 made it possible for me to attend the awards banquet, which was held two hours after the end of the 6-day race.  If I finished earlier, I probably would’ve flown home before the awards banquet.

I’ve done Across the Years three times before, but I always seem to run only about half as long as I expect.  The first time I ran the 48-hour race, I started to develop an ankle injury.  I stopped after 28½ hours, because I didn’t want to make it worse.

On my second attempt at the 48-hour race, I went into the race with a hamstring injury.  I tried to run the race with the injury, but it didn’t go well.  I stopped as soon as I got to 100 miles.

Two years later, I did the 24-hour race.  Four weeks before the race, I fell and broke a rib during a trail race.  I recovered sufficiently to be able to run, but coughing was still painful.  The course was mostly dirt, and it was dusty.  Breathing the dust was starting to make me cough.  Because of the pain, I stopped after 50 miles.

This year, my training was going well, and I came into the race with high hopes.  A lot of diffe4rent things can go wrong during the race, but I thought I was at least making it to the starting line healthy.

They had a new race venue this year.  These races used to be held at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, but that facility wasn’t available this year.  The new venue was the Peoria Sports Complex in Peoria, AZ, which is on the west side of Phoenix.  The Peoria Sports Complex is a baseball facility used for spring training by the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres.

The course was a loop through the facility.  The first part of the loop went around the perimeter of a stadium.  This part was concrete and included two ramps.  The second ramp came up to a bridge going over an entrance on one side of the stadium.

After that, there were sections of dirt and gravel, as we wound our way around several baseball diamonds.  The tent area was at the beginning of the longest dirt section.

The last part of the loop was along a concrete sidewalk and through a parking lot where people could park RVs.

I flew to Phoenix on December 30.  My flight was delayed, so by the time I checked into my hotel, it was almost dinner time.  My hotel was less than a mile from the race venue, and there were lots of nearby restaurants.

Arriving a day early allowed me to drive to the Peoria Sports Complex on the 31st and check in early, even though I didn’t start my race until the next day.

When I registered for the race, I had the option of renting a tent.  Having a tent gave me a place to store my gear and change clothes.  I was going to experience a wide range of temperatures, so I anticipated adding or removing layers a few times during the race.

When you rent a tent, you don’t have to set it up yourself.  All the tents are set up in advance by race volunteers.  I just had to choose an unclaimed tent and attach a sticker with my name to show that this was my tent.

The tent included a cot, and I also rented a sleeping bag.  I didn’t know if I could make it through the whole race without sleep.  I was hoping to keep moving for the whole 48 hours, but I needed to have a backup plan.  Having a tent with a cot gave me a place to take a short nap during the race, if necessary.  I didn’t think driving back to my hotel would be an option.  If I was too sleepy to keep running, I would also be too sleepy to drive.  Besides, going back to the hotel would take extra time, even though it was close.

After I picked up my race bib, I looked around to find a tent that wasn’t claimed yet.  After picking out a tent, I loaded my gear into it.  I wouldn’t leave anything of value in the tent, but I was comfortable leaving spare clothes and shoes there.  I also took the time to organize things a bit, so I could find things quickly when I needed them during the race.

While I was there, I saw several runners I know.  I had a chance to visit with some friends who were there for the 72-hour race.  Then I went back to the hotel to do some strength training exercises before lunch.

In the afternoon, I went back to the race venue, and I walked a couple laps with some friends who were doing the marathon.  That gave me a good preview of the course.

Setting up in the morning gave me an idea what the temperature would be like in the morning, but I still didn’t have an appreciation for how much colder it would feel during the night.  Walking the course in the afternoon gave me an appreciation for how much warmer it would get in the afternoon.  I was going to experience temperatures ranging from 40 to low 70s.

For dinner, I went to an Italian restaurant that I knew had good pizza.  What I didn’t know was that they had a limited menu for New Year’s Eve, and pizza wasn’t on the menu.  I didn’t find that out until I got there.  Since I was already there, I still ate dinner there.  Instead of pizza, I had to settle for pasta.

Most people stay up to celebrate on New Year’s Eve.  For me, it was the night before the race, so it was important to get as much sleep as possible.  I went to bed shortly after dinner.

I slept until about 3:15.  Then I woke up, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.  My mind was racing.  I rested in bed until 5:30, but then I got up and started getting ready.  It would’ve been nice to get a few more hours of sleep.  That’s not a good way to start the day when you’re hoping to get through a 48-hour race without sleep.

The race started at 9:00 AM.  Most of my gear was already in my tent, so I didn’t need to get there too early.  That gave me time to have breakfast at my hotel before driving to the race venue.  When I got there, I dropped off my warm-up layers at my tent.  It was cold, so I waited in my car until it was time to go to the starting line.

Because of the chilly morning temperatures, I started the race in tights.  I didn’t know if I could wear them through the afternoon hours or if I would get too hot.  I had to wait and see.

I assumed the dirt portions of this course would be similar to the course at Camelback Ranch.  My experience on that course was that the fine dust would gradually work its way through the fabric of my shoes.  Gaiters help, but they only slow the inevitable.  Once that dust works it way into your shoes, it’s almost impossible to get them clean.  I assumed any shoes and socks I wore during this race would be ruined.

With that in mind, I only brought shoes that already had enough wear that I would’ve been retiring them soon anyway.  I brought four pairs of shoes and socks, with the intention of changing shoes every 12 hours.

If I learned anything from my experience at the FANS 24-hour race last June, it’s that I had to have a plan for how to pace myself.  Winging it doesn’t work.  I went back to a tried-and-true method.  I had a target time for each lap, and I used variable-length walking breaks to ensure I wouldn’t go too fast.

My plan was to run each lap in 20 minutes.  If I finished a lap ahead of schedule, I would walk until the next multiple of 20 minutes before I started to run again.  I chose a target time of 20 minutes for two reasons.

First, 20 minutes divides evenly into 60 minutes.  My target time always ended with 20, 40, or 00.  That made it easy to remember.  In this long of a race, it’s important to keep things simple.

The second advantage of running 20-minute laps is that it put me on pace to run slightly more than 100 miles in the first 24 hours.  That’s a pace that I assumed would be manageable for the first 24 hours, but would get progressively more difficult in the next 24 hours.  I didn’t know long I could keep up that pace, but it seemed like a reasonable pace to start.

I came into this race with two straight rest days, so there was a danger that I would have too much pent-up energy.  Having a pacing strategy was the only thing to keep me from going out too fast.

As far as goals go, my primary goal was to make it to the end of the race without quitting.  I had never done that in a 48-hour race, so this was going to be a learning experience.  I wanted to find out what the second day feels like.  I also wanted to know whether I could get through the entire race without sleep.  If I couldn’t, I wanted to find out whether I could get to sleep quickly and how soon I could get back onto the course.

I wasn’t focused on any one mileage goal.  First, I needed to go farther than I’ve gone before.  I assumed that would be easy, since that was a distance that I had run in a 24-hour race.  Beyond that, there were a few numbers I was hoping to hit, but I really didn’t know which ones were realistic and which ones weren’t.  It all depended on how long I could continue running three laps per hour.

There was a tent with food and beverages in the start/finish area.  As long as I stuck to my pacing plan, I would go by the aid station every 20 minutes.

My first big concern came early in the race.  In recent weeks, I’ve sometimes noticed soreness on the inside of my left foot when I wake up in the morning.  I had been assuming it was from sleeping in a position that had the side of my foot pressing against the edge of the mattress.  I sometimes noticed that when I first woke up but the soreness would go away within an hour of waking up.  On race occasions, I would feel that same soreness during a run, but I didn’t think it was a big concern.

This was one of those mornings when I woke up with a sore foot.  It hurt more than it has in the past.  When I started running, I felt the same soreness.  It was a minor concern, but you don’t want to start a long race with something already hurting.

At some races, you weight in regularly, and you can tell if you’re hydrating properly by paying attentions to fluctuations in your weight.  They don’t do that here.  Instead, I needed to pay attention to how I felt and how frequently I was making bathroom stops.  That proved to be more difficult than I thought.  More on that later.

Another challenge was taking in enough calories.  I won’t go through my calculations in detail, but I estimated I would be burning 400-425 calories per hour for as long as I was doing 20-minute laps.  I could meet some of my caloric needs by the slow metabolism of stored fat, but also needed to take in as many calories as my digestive system could handle.  I expected to get some of my calories from drinking Gatorade at the aid station.  The rest had to come from solid food.

One of the foods at the aid station was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut in half.  I’ve found that PBJs are something I can eat all day without having digestive issues.  They provide easy-to-digest carbs, while also having some protein and fat.  If I ate half of a PBJ every hour, that would provide about 200 calories.  Between that and the Gatorade, I would probably take in enough calories to get by.

The food tent had different foods at different times, and I sometimes ate different foods just to get some variety.

You may be wondering why I wasn’t eating gels.  A gel packet has about 100 calories, so eating one gel per hour isn’t enough without also eating some real food.  When I’ve tried gels in other races, and I’ve found that I can only them for about 10 hours before starting to feel bloated.  PBJs work better for me.

That’s one of the things about a race like this.  Everybody’s digestive system is different.  You have to experiment and find out what foods your digestive system can handle.

It was chilly at the start, but it warmed up quickly.  I started the race wearing a Tyvek jacket and gloves, but I took then off during my third lap.  My tent was right next to the course, and I went by it about halfway through each lap.  That made it easy to stop briefly at the tent to add or remove a layer of clothes.

In the early laps, my walking breaks got longer with each lap.  By the fourth lap, I was already starting each lap with 10 minutes of walking.

By the end of my fourth lap, my legs were already getting sweaty.  It had warmed up enough that I needed to change into shorts.  On my next lap, I stopped at the tent to change.  To do that, I needed to take off my shoes.  That took extra time, which came out of my next walking break.

By my seventh lap, my walking breaks were back up to 10 minutes.  By my eighth lap, I was walking all the way to the midpoint of the lap before I needed to switch to running.

Just past the start/finish line, they had a screen that showed your name, lap time, number of laps, and total distance.  Each time I finished a lap, I looked at the screen to see my name come up.  After my 10th lap, I never saw my name come up on the screen.

I had my phone with me for the whole race.  I usually kept it in airplane mode to conserve power.  I took it out of airplane mode, so I could look at the live tracking.  I saw my time for the midpoint of my 10th lap, but not for the end of that lap.

There was a chip mat in the middle of the lap.  The next time I crossed it, I checked the online tracking again.  It showed that I had reached the midpoint of my 11th lap, but it still didn’t show a time for the end of my 10th lap.  When I lap 11, I stopped at the timing tent.  They showed me with 11 laps completed.  That was official, even though one of my lap times was missing from the live tracking.

I talked to a few other runners who had similar issues with the timing.  After that I always looked for my name when I finished a lap.

The dirt portions of the course were dusty.  Whenever someone ran by me, they raised a cloud of dust.  After four hours, the dust started making me cough.

When the races were held at Camelback Ranch, they used to change directions every four hours.  Here, they didn’t do that.  It’s a somewhat complicated loop, which includes about a dozen turns.  Always going in the same direction made it easier to get used to it.  After a while, I could do it on autopilot.  I was happy to always go in the same direction.  Changing directions might have been confusing later in the race, when I was tired.

After about 15 laps, I started to notice chafing under my arms.  I know other runners who put Vaseline or Body glide in that area.  I’ve never needed to do that, because I don’t usually chafe in that area.

This is an arid region.  The air is dry enough that your sweat evaporates quicky, leaving behind traces of salts.  My T-shirt was dry but the salt residue created extra friction.  This was something else that I could tune out, but I was concerned about the number of minor issues I was already having in the first five hours of a 48-hour race.

The PBJs were something I could take with me and eat on my walking break, but I wasn’t carrying any fluids with me.  I could eat a PBJ slowly and swallow it down, but it wasn’t long before I wanted to eat something different for a change.  As I finished my 16th lap, I saw that the aid station had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.  I took a grilled cheese sandwich in one hand and a cup of tomato soup in the other hand as I started my next lap.

A few laps later, as I finished a lap, I saw a volunteer holding a tray with several paper cups.  They were smoothies.  I usually drank Gatorade, but on that lap, I had a smoothie instead.  I also had a smoothie after my next lap.

As my walking breaks grew longer, I found myself getting into a nice rhythm.  Without really trying, I was starting to walk faster.  That, in turn, led to me to go even farther on my walking breaks.  My walking breaks grew to be 13 minutes, then 14 minutes.

As my walking breaks grew longer, I got excited about it.  Now I was putting more effort into walking at a brisk pace.  Soon, my walking breaks grew to almost 15 minutes.

The second half of the loop included a long section that was dirt.  Some of the dirt sections also included a few rocks.  I really hated to have to resume running while I was still on this long dirt section.  There were two reasons why I preferred to walk the dirt sections.  First, walking didn’t raise as much dust as running.  Second, I was less apt to trip on a rock if I was walking.

I kept putting more effort into my walking until I was able to walk all the way through the last of the dirt sections.  Then I only had to run on the last section of the loop, which was all pavement.

I was eating PBJs every three or four laps.  After lap 24, I was due to have another PBJ, but as I walked though the food tent, I saw small pieces of pumpkin pie.  On that lap, I had the pie instead.

At 4 PM, it started cooling off.  For most of the afternoon, it had been about 70 degrees.  I didn’t think the heat was wearing on me, but I felt more comfortable as it cooled down.

By late afternoon, my walking breaks peaked at about 15 and a half minutes.  Unfortunately, I had not trained to do this much walking at a brisk pace.  It started to get tiring.  You don’t want to start feeling tired this early in 48-hour race.  Putting so much energy into my walking was my first big mistake of the race.  It was also the first sign that my race plan was going to go off the rails.

About nine hours into the race, I saw my first sunset of the race.  After that, it cooled off more rapidly.  I don’t think the temperature had actually dropped that much, but it immediately feels about ten degrees cooler when you no longer have the added warmth of direct sunlight.

The next time I came by my tent, I put on gloves.  I also replaced my running hat with a warm winter hat that has an LED light.  The course was well lit at night, but the LED made it easy to find things when I needed to go into my tent.  The tent area was the only part of the course that wasn’t lit up at night.

At first, I thought the hat might be too warm.  I quickly realized it wasn’t.  I really needed the warm hat to keep me warm as it kept cooling off.

I eventually realized that I needed to do more running and less walking.  I wanted to walk all of the dirt sections of the course, but I was also walking some paved sections that came early in the loop.  I started running those sections, as well as the longer paved section at the end of the loop.  I continued to walk the only two uphill sections.  One was a ramp at the beginning of the loop.  The other was the ramp coming up to a bridge.

Now that I was running more, I could throttle back the pace of my walking until it was just a casual walking pace.  I should have started doing that much earlier.

With the revised run/walk mix, I still had to pay attention to when I needed to end my last walking break and run the rest of the loop.  I was still finishing my laps in about 20 minutes.

By 7:30 PM, it had cooled off enough that my legs started to feel cold.  I needed to change from shorts into tights, but I waited.  I was planning to do my first shoe change at 9 PM.  I needed to take off my shoes to change into tights, so it made sense to do both changes at the same time.  In retrospect, I should’ve just changed shoes earlier.  This was my second big mistake.

Through my first 35 laps, I was consistently finishing my laps anywhere from 12 to 15 minutes ahead of my target time.  At the end of my 36th lap, I was only eight minutes ahead of my target time.  I realized at this point that I could no longer stay on the same pace with my current run/walk mix.

I was tiring.  I wasn’t sure what to do next.  One option was to abandon 20-minute laps but keep running and walking the same part of the course, knowing it wouldn’t be as fast as before.  I worried that even doing that might continue to wear me down.

It was time to change into a new pair of shoes and socks, so I stopped at my tent.  I was originally going to change into tights, but I decided to change into sweatpants instead.  I might not need something that warm yet, but the temperature would keep dropping all through the night.  I would need sweatpants eventually, so why wait?

Changing shoes was a glacially slow process.  First, I had to unclip each of my gaiters from the shoelaces.  Then I could untie the shoes.  Taking off each shoe was difficult.  Even with the gaiters, there was so much dirt on my shoes that they were stiff.  I had to loosen the laces to get them off.

I wear orthotics in my shoes, so I had to remove the insoles to take out the orthotics.  Then I needed to put the orthotics under the insoles of the clean pair of shoes that I was changing into.

Next, I removed my gaiters and my socks.  Then I put on clean socks.  Now, I could finally change from shorts into sweatpants.

Putting on the clean pair of shoes also took time.  It was tough to get them onto my sore feet.  I needed to loosen up the shoelaces, so I could pull the tongue back as much as possible.  I forgot that I had brought a shoe horn.  Using that would’ve helped.

The last thing I needed to do was attach my gaiters to the laces of the new shoes.  I had trouble with that.  Maybe it’s just because I was tired, but I really struggled with getting the clip to go over the shoelace.

That whole process took somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes.  My legs were cold even before I started.  Sitting that long in the cold evening air made them even colder.  When I stood up, I could barely walk.  My legs were too cold and stiff.

The long break was hard to avoid, but it didn’t help that my legs had already been cold for a long time.  My legs don’t respond well to being too cold for too long.  This was the same issue that caused my race to come to a sudden end at FANS.

It took some effort just to walk in a straight line.  At first, I was staggering.  With more effort, I managed to walk forward at a normal (i.e. casual) pace.  It took even more effort to walk at what felt like a brisk pace.  Running was no longer possible.  For the rest of the night, all I could do was walk.

There was some good news.  After changing shoes, my feet felt great.  I had noticed soreness in my left foot since the beginning of the race, and I felt other minor irritations in both feet as dirt worked its way into my shoes.  Now, I no longer had any discomfort in either foot.

After another lap, I stopped at the tent again.  My hands were too cold with just the polypro gloves.  I added a pair of Gore-Tex shell mittens.  At first, my hands were still too cold, but they gradually warmed up.

The course was much quieter now.  There were fewer runners on the loop.  Runners doing the shorter races (marathon, 6-hour, 12-hour) were already done.  Runners doing the longest races (200 mile, 72-hour, 6-day) tended to sleep at night.  Even many of the runners doing the 24-hour or 48-hour races took breaks during the night.  The only runners still out there all night were the ones who were the most competitive.

I wanted to know what my pace was now that I was only walking.  At a minimum, I wanted to maintain a pace of three miles per hour.  That meant completing laps in 28 minutes.

The lap with the long clothing change was obviously slow.  The next two laps were about 26 minutes each.  I was still going faster than three miles per hour, but not by a wide margin.

After another lap, I stopped at my tent again.  I was still cold, so I took to time to take off my jacket and T-shirt, so I could put on a long-sleeve polypro shirt underneath.  Now I was wearing three layers on top.  That was as many layers as I brought.  I never imagined that I would need more than that.

During the night, the temperature was in the 40s.  That may not sound cold, but it feels much colder during the night.  Also, 40 degrees in the dry desert air is not the same as 40 degrees with humidity.  If you’re not moving, it can feel bone-chilling cold.  At this point, I wasn’t moving very fast.

I didn’t want to be reduced to only walking.  There was one part of the course where it was easy to run.  That was on the ramp coming down from the bridge.  I started running down that ramp on every lap, even though it only saved a few seconds.  Mostly, I wanted to preserve my ability to run.  I’ve learned the hard way that if you walk for too long, it can be difficult to start running again.

For a few laps, I tried to keep running after the course leveled out again.  With effort, I could do it for about 30 seconds, but it was really tiring.  After trying that for a few laps, I went back to just running down the ramp and walking everywhere else.

During the day, I was consistently making bathroom stops after every third lap.  In the evening, my bathroom stops got more frequent.  At one point, I had to stop to pee on consecutive laps.  I assumed I was overhydrating, yet I felt thirsty after every lap.  My body was giving my mixed signals.

After talking to a more experienced runners, I concluded that it was the dry air that was making me feel thirsty.  I cut back to just drinking a sip or two after each lap.  I was keeping my mouth from drying out, but I wasn’t drinking much.

That was my third major mistake, although I wouldn’t realize it until much later.  I was peeing more often just because it was nighttime.  Sometimes kidney function gets weird during the night.  During the night, I gradually got dehydrated, because I thought I was overhydrating.

As the night progressed, my pee breaks became less frequent.  Eventually, I was back to only making bathroom stops every few laps, yet I continued to limit my fluid intake to only a sip or two after each lap.  I should’ve gradually started drinking more.  I still didn’t realize that I was letting myself get dehydrated.

In a long enough race, where you’re eating solid foods, it’s inevitable that you’ll need to poop at some point.  Fortunately, there were real bathroom in the stadium, and they were right along the course.  Near the end of my 43rd lap, I stopped to poop.  While I was in the stall, I looked down at my shoes.  I had only been wearing these shoes for about three hours, but they were already getting caked with dirt.

When I finished my business and tried to wipe myself, I didn’t realize my jacket was in the way.  I got a poop stain on the bottom of my jacket.

I had to take the time to wash that part of my jacket in the sink.  That took time.  Then I needed to dry my jacket with a hand dryer.  That also took time.  The time I lost on that lap was time I could never make up.  I just wasn’t walking fast enough to make up for any significant downtime.

It was then that I realized that I could no longer sustain a three miles per hour pace, when I took occasional stops into account.  That realization was demoralizing.

After that I gave up on trying to walk at a three miles per hour pace.  It was taking too much energy.  I walked at a pace that didn’t take too much energy, and I accepted that I was going to be slow.

With all the layers I was wearing, I was still getting cold.  I wasn’t moving faster enough.  I wasn’t generating enough heat to stay warm.  Dehydration probably also played a factor, but I didn’t realize that yet.

I talked to a runner from Chicago who had brought her warmest winter coat to cope with the nighttime cold.  She couldn’t believe I didn’t.  I had warmer clothes, but I didn’t bring them.  I didn’t think I would need all the layers I was already wearing, much less anything warmer.  That was my fourth major mistake.

It was only 2 AM.  The temperature wouldn’t bottom out until 7 AM.  I didn’t know how I could get through the next five hours.

They had a warming tent near the finish line.  After my 46th lap, I sat down in the warming tent and tried to figure out what to do next.

Before the race, several people asked me what my goal was.  I was hesitant to commit to a mileage goal, even though I had a few numbers in mind.  Instead, I always told people that my primary goal was to make it to the end of the race without quitting.  My resolve to do that was being put to the test now.  Everything was going wrong, and I really wanted to quit.

I decided to go back to hotel for the night, but keep open the option of continuing in the morning.  I was clinging to hope that I might be rejuvenated if I could get warmed up and get a couple hours of sleep.

I talked to one of the race officials to find out how best to proceed.  I needed to stop at my tent to get a clean pair of shoes to wear in the morning.  The tent area was in the middle of the loop.  The official I talked to suggested that my best course of action was to start another lap.  By following the race route to my tent, my walking was all productive.  I picked up a pair of shoes at my tent, and I continued walking along the route until I reached the point on the course that was closest to my car.  When I got to the parking lot, I went straight to my car and drove back to my hotel.  I waited until the next morning to complete that lap.

When I got back to the hotel, I wrestled off my dirt-encrusted shoes.  Then I got undressed and climbed into bed.  It was 3 AM now.

As soon as I got into bed, I started to shiver uncontrollably.  That lasted for 10 or 15 minutes.

I normally keep my hotel room pretty cold at night.  I wasn’t expecting to come back to the hotel until after the race, so I didn’t set the thermostat as cold as I usually do.  It was about 67 degrees in the room, but I was covered with thick warm blankets.  There’s no way I should feel this cold.

That’s when I realized something was wrong.  I was dehydrated, and it was impairing my body’s ability to regulate my body temperature.

Under the warm blankets, I eventually warmed up, but it took a while.  Then my attention switched to another problem.  My left foot started to hurt again.  I couldn’t find any position that didn’t make that foot hurt.

I had previously written off that sore spot as something caused by spot pressure if the side of my foot pressed against the edge of the mattress while I was sleeping.  Now, I had to consider the possibility that I had a more serious injury.

The pain made it difficult to fall asleep.  I was lying in bed for what seemed like two hours. Then I finally rolled over to look at the clock.  It was 4:20.  I still had time to try to get to sleep.

I laid in bed for what seemed like another hour.  Then I looked at the clock.  It was 7:30.  I could see light filtering into the room from outside.  I never felt like I fell asleep, but I couldn’t account for how much time had passed.  I must have drifted into a light stage of sleep.

I got up, but before getting dressed, I took a quick bath and did some stretches.  The time I took to do that proved to be a good investment.  I also took the time to have a quick breakfast at the hotel before driving back to the race venue.

I started the day in the same clothes that I was wearing the night before, but I changed into a new pair of shoes and socks.

It was only now that I realized that trying to take a nap in my tent would never have been practical.  Before climbing into a sleeping bag, I would need to take off my dirty shoes.  Before the race, I didn’t have any appreciation for how long that would take.

I parked my car in the same spot where I was parked the day before.  I re-entered the course in the same spot where I had left the course.  Then I walked the remainder of the lap that I had started seven hours earlier.  When I crossed the chip mat, I looked at the screen and saw that the timing system had recorded my 47th lap.

As I started my next lap, I was still walking, but after crossing the bridge, I ran down the ramp.

After running down the ramp, I decided to see if I could keep running.  To my surprise, I could.  It wasn’t as tiring now.  In fact, I was able to run all the paved sections for the rest of the lap.  Between the rest, the hot bath, and the stretching, I had rejuvenated my legs.

I was overdressed now, so I stopped at my tent to shed my jacket and the Gore-Tex mittens.  I also swapped my warm hat for a regular running hat.

It was warming up quickly.  On my next lap, I took off my gloves, and I removed the polypro shirt that was under my T-shirt.

One lap later, I changed into shorts.  That involved taking off my shoes, but they weren’t too dirty yet.  I was able to continue in the same pair of shoes.

I wasn’t running all that fast, but running half of each lap allowed me to make respectable time.  My lap times weren’t as fast as the first day, but they were only a couple minutes slower.

I started the morning with only about 64 miles.  I needed 36 more miles just to get to 100.  At the pace I was going, I could plausibly get there before nightfall.  I was now focused on that goal.

Before the race, getting to 100 miles wasn’t even on my list of goals.  I took it for granted.  I was hoping to get there in the first 24 hours.  Now, I had to work for it.

At the aid station, they now had breakfast burritos.  I had something similar for breakfast at the hotel, but now that I had completed a few laps, I was ready to start eating at the aid station.  A bacon and egg burrito doesn’t digest as quickly as a PBJ, but its something you can easily carry with you and eat while you’re walking.

As the day progressed, I was able to keep up the same run/walk pattern.  I remained focused on getting to 100 miles before nightfall.  In the afternoon, however, I started to notice the heat.  It was a few degrees warmer than the day before, and I noticed the sun more.

They food tent featured different foods at different times.  The next treat that appealed to me was a hot dog, but I couldn’t eat a hot dog without having a beverage to go with it.  Instead of taking it with me and eating on the run, I had to eat it before leaving the aid station.

There was a particularly long section of pavement at the end of each lap.  As it got warmer, it was too tiring to run the whole thing, so I started adding a walking break in the middle of that section.

My lap times were a minute or two slower now.  As I did the math, I realized I wouldn’t get to 100 miles until about 20 minutes after it got dark.  That wasn’t a big deal.  I remained focused on that goal.  I knew exactly how many laps I still needed, and I counted them down.

I was drinking much more than I was the previous afternoon.  The first day, I rarely drank more than half a cup of Gatorade.  Now, I was sometimes drinking a full cup of Gatorade and also drinking some water.

As I was on my 63rd lap, I was particularly thirsty.  I wondered if they were going to have smoothies at the aid station again.  As I finished that lap, I saw two race volunteers holding out trays with paper cups on them.  Smoothies!  I had two of them.

The last special treat I had at the aid station was a plate of pierogies.  The volunteer in the food tent warned me that they were still hot.  I had to stay in the food tent while I ate them, so I could follow each bite with a sip of water.

At about 4:30 PM, it started to cool down.  I needed four more laps to get to 100 miles.  Before I got there, I saw my second sunset of the race.

With one lap to go to reach 100 miles, my legs started to feel sore as I started running.  I’m surprised it took that long.  I had held up well all morning and afternoon, but now it was getting difficult again.  That would be my last running of the evening.

It was cooling off rapidly.  I didn’t want my legs to get too cold, so I stopped at the tent to pull on a pair of Gore-Tex wind pants.  I could put those on without having to take off my shoes.  I also added gloves and a jacket.

Before the race, I wanted to know if I could get through two nights without sleep.  Since I had already gone back to the hotel during the first night, there wasn’t much point in trying to plow through the second night.  I knew I didn’t have adequate clothes to make it through the night.  Going back to the hotel was inevitable.  It was just a matter of when.

At first, I was going to start walking laps after I reached 100 miles.  I wasn’t going to go back to the hotel until I got too cold.  Continuing into the night, however, carried some risk.  Now that it was dark, there was a real danger that I could start getting sleepy at any time.  I wanted to drive back to the hotel while I could still do so safely.

After reaching 100 miles, I started one more lap, but I wasn’t going to finish it until the next morning.  I stopped at my tent to get my last clean pair of shoes.  I also put on my warm hat, so I would have it when I returned in the morning.

I walked most of that lap, but I went to my car before finishing the lap.  Then I drove back to the hotel.

I saw another runner in the hotel lobby.  She was cheerful, and she had obviously changed into clean clothes.  I asked her which race she did and when she finished.

She had done the 100 mile race, and she finished the day before.  That explained how she could be cheerful.  By comparison, I was a train wreck, although I was happy to have reached 100 miles.

We started talking about the race.  We had some similar experiences.  In particular, she had also come back from the race during the night and started shivering after getting into bed.  We talked until I started getting sleepy.  Then I went up to my room and climbed into bed.

I was sleepy, but I had a hard time getting to sleep.  At first, I was hot.  My metabolism was probably still revved up from the race.  I had to push the blankets away.  Also, my foot hurt.  During the race, I felt it, but I could tune it out.  Now the pain kept me awake.

I was still awake at midnight, but I slept well for the rest of the night.  I wanted to get back to the race by dawn, so I set my alarm for 5:30.  The alarm woke me up.

I wanted to be back on the course before 7:00, but I had time to take a quick bath and do some stretches.  My left Achilles tendon was tight, but stretching helped.  I had noticed it was getting tight the day before.  I was only going to be running until 9 AM, so I wasn’t too worried about it at this point.

I changed into my last clean pair of shoes and headed back to the race.  I got there around 6:30 and finished the lap I had started the night before.

I was once again able to run the paved sections and walk the dirt sections.  My pace was about the same as the day before.

My first full lap after getting back on the course was in the dark.  Then I saw the sun rise.

I had time to run at least four more laps.  As long as I did enough running, I could probably do five.  With only a couple hours to go, I didn’t need to stop at the food tent to eat.  I barely even needed to drink.  The only stop I made was to shed some clothes as it warmed up.

After running four more laps, I still had plenty of time for a fifth.  I could’ve walked that whole lap, but I still ran half of it.  I finished my final lap after 47 hours, 49 minutes, and 10 seconds.  That lap brought me to 109.9 miles.

I wanted to take a picture of the screen showing my final lap, but it never came up.  My final lap wasn’t recorded by the timing system.  I immediately went over to the timing tent to let them know, and they recorded that lap manually.  The time recorded for that lap was a few minutes later than I actually finished it, but that doesn’t really matter.  What matters is your official distance.  Everyone’s official time is 48 hours.

Every runner gets a mug.  I have four of these now.

If you finish a multiple of 100 miles, you also get a belt buckle.  This is my third 100-mile buckle from this race.

On my way back to the car, I stopped at the food tent to get a breakfast burrito.

After stopping at the car to drop off my mug and belt buckle, I walked to the tent area.  I needed to pack up all my gear and bring everything back to the car.

They had an awards banquet at 11:00.  I had everything back in my car by 9:20, so I had time to go back to the hotel, unpack, wash up, and change into clean clothes before going to the awards banquet.

The awards ceremony was held in the stadium, where there was seating.  They had food and beverages, but we were all there to hear about the runners who had epic results.

They started with the top finishers in the various shorter races.  Most of those runners had already gone home, so they weren’t there to receive their awards in person.  The last awards were for the top three men and women in the 6-day race.  Those runners were all present, and the mileage they each ran (or walked) was impressive.

In four tries at ATY, I’ve yet to have a good race.  There are a lot of things I like about this race, but there are also two things I hate.  I’m not a fan of the dirt sections of the course, and I have trouble with the nighttime temperatures.  Will I be back?  Probably.  Would I do a few things differently?  Definitely.

One good thing that came out of this race is that I had my first experience with sleeping during a race and then coming back to do more running in the morning.  If I ever do a longer multi-dace race, I’ll have a better idea of what to expect.

My biggest concern coming out of this race is the pain in my left foot.  Is it a bruise?  Is it tendonitis?  Is it a stress fracture?  Is it plantar fasciitis?

That last possibility is something that didn’t occur to me until the day after the race.  For the first time, I had discomfort in my foot just from putting weight on it.  When I’ve had plantar fasciitis in the past, the onset of pain was much more severe.  This has come on much more gradually.  Whatever it is, I needed to figure it out, so it doesn’t become a long-term concern.

Race statistics:

Distance:  109.9 miles

Official Time:  48 hours

Actual Time Before Stopping:  47:49:10

Average Pace:  26:06 per mile

Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:  536

Lifetime 100s:  16

Lifetime ATY Miles:  382.85