Days 4,206-7—I Started Running Ultras to See if I Could Do It: I Came Back for the Stories—

 

Before the Race

        I was packing until the last minute, still feeling like I had left something behind. The drive went by quickly. The only thing I remember is my daughter asking me if we were almost there. We had been driving for five minutes. I promised to update her on our status when we were close. We saw the sign for Bass River Resort. It had a fish saying, “Hi,” and pointing us in the right direction. It was the nicest-looking camping place I have ever seen. There were majestic cabins in the front, lining the side. I dropped off my bags, picked up my packet, and got my key for the cabin quickly. It took me a moment to open the cabin door, but it was beautifully quaint inside with more than enough room for the four of us. I read through the packet in the car, and it said I needed my headlamp at the start. I couldn’t help but think it was never that dark at 6 a.m. in previous races, so maybe it wouldn’t matter, but figured I should bring one just in case. 

        I couldn’t find my headlamp, so I realized that must have been what I was thinking I left by accident before we left. I remembered I had packed three headlamps in my drop bags, so I could get one of them. I drove my wife’s car down to the lodge for the pre-race meeting. The hall was packed, and people were finishing eating dinner. It was pasta and salad. I never considered that it might be vegan-friendly, so I didn’t ask. Also, I was excited about eating tacos, which was the plan for tonight once I got back to our cabin.

        The pre-race meeting went over mostly the stuff that the guy talked about in the race packet. We also got to hear from some of the people who made the race possible. Including a woman who had been working to preserve the Ozark Trail for over a decade. I didn’t know that he had a 430-mile trail in Missouri! I am surprised that I haven't heard more about people hiking it.

        It took me a while rooting through the drop bag area to find the one, I could use for the morning, but it could have been worse. All the bags were in huge black trash bags, so I was worried I would have to dump some of them out to find the right one.

       When I opened the cabin door, it looked like my family and my wife’s parents were nearing the end of dinner. I quickly ate as much as I could, knowing 2:30 a.m. was going to get here soon, so I hoped I could go to bed early. I hadn’t slept that much on Thursday, maybe 5 hours, so I was counting on Friday night to get some deep sleep in. I was in bed staring at the ceiling at 9 p.m. Sarah came to bed around 10. I was still half awake. I slept for a couple of hours and then heard a thud, which must have been my toddler falling off the bed in the other room. I woke up a little later with my son’s feet in my face. I moved him and slept for half an hour, and then I started feeling wetness all around me.

        I remember saying, “Felix is spitting everywhere?!”

He wasn’t spitting; he was throwing up. It is incredibly rare for either of my children to throw up. My daughter has been sick like that, three times total, so this was so odd considering how happy and active Felix had been all evening. As my wife was driving me to the lodge to get on the bus at 3:10 a.m., I was worried about Felix. Sarah said he had been sick almost all night. Also, worried about how little sleep I got before I was planning to stay up all night on Saturday. 

        I got on the bus and sat in the front and talked to a guy who I had met at previous races. He is a Principal at a special needs school, just the nicest guy, and someone I have a lot in common with. I talked with him almost the whole drive. My only regret was not resting more during the 90-minute drive to the start.

        The bathrooms at the start were tents with buckets, so a new experience for me, but in some ways better than a Porta Potty. As we started lining up, no one was in the front, so I pushed through with a handful of other guys. I saw Chris Roberts there. Chris is the most successful ultra runner in St. Louis. Someone else could be more accomplished, and I just have never heard of them, but Chris is someone I consider in another league than me. He has won the Shippey twice with times significantly faster than mine, and he just completed a 24-hour race where he ran over 150 miles to qualify for some elite team.

The First 14 Miles 

        The first section we had to run up less than a mile and turn around and run back. I wondered out loud, “Isn’t this race at least a mile over 100? Why are we adding this random amount?”

        Chris told me to stop complaining and said he did one race that was 110 miles. I told him my point was about being specific as opposed to being upset about the extra distance. I just don’t like false advertising. If you’re doing a race named after a distance, shouldn’t it be that distance? I talked to Chris for the first 4.6 miles. He told me he couldn’t imagine pictures or smells. It was interesting to me because I have only recently learned how oddly visual, I am, which is why reading was hard for me initially. When I see words, I immediately translate them into pictures. I don’t hear the words, nor do I visually see the letters.

        The positive is that it makes reading an incredibly visceral experience for me, but the downside is that I often skip words when I write and talk because, for me, the suggestion of the idea is enough to get the picture, and the individual words aren’t as important if I am looking at the picture in my mind. I lost Chris when I stopped to fill up my water bottles at the first aid station.

        It was still dark, which shocked me knowing it was after 7 a.m., yet I was still using my headlamp. I noticed that my toe was peeking out of my right shoe, which annoyed me because I had layered Shoe Goo over the small hole several times recently. I decided I would try to cover the small hole with duct tape at the next aid station, which was at mile 14. Only a few miles later, I realized my left foot was falling out of my shoes. I would step down, and my foot started to slide out. I started tightening my shoes every ten minutes to help keep both my feet inside my shoes. Although I didn’t look at my shoes closely, I expected that there were more holes.

        Once at the aid station at mile 14, a guy gave me a roll of duct tape, so I took it to the bathroom to change and tape my shoes. I looked at my left shoe and saw that the right side had blown out, so my foot was literally sliding out of my shoe as I ran. I didn’t know what else to do but tape it up. I was just glad I was able to borrow someone’s tape. I ended up with two shoes fully covered around my toe area. I put a decent amount of tape around my shoe, wrapping the tape multiple times. I thought I had probably overdone it and was optimistic about the next section. For the past 10 miles, I had to slow down and be extra careful not to make the hole worse, so I was hoping I would be able to make up some time now. Immediately after leaving the aid station, the tape on my left foot came off. With that, I realized keeping my shoes together might be more difficult than I thought. 

      I am running behind now, but I just finished the second section, part II of the race. This morning, I was thinking about how lucky I am that I haven’t been injured to the point where I have had to stop my streak. Injury could happen to anyone, and the only reason it hasn’t happened to me is luck and not because I have somehow figured out the perfect way to prevent injury. So many people who succeed at anything convince themselves that it is because they have done something to deserve it. I know for me this is not true. I do what I can, but so many times I have been so close to serious injury, and only luck has kept me going this far.

Part II: The Tape Keeps Falling Off, but I keep Moving Forward 

        I went and gathered the tape and reattached it to my shoe. It lasted a little longer and then fell off again. I bent down again and put it back, trying to curl the tape back to keep it from sliding off. When I started running, I was feeling like it was holding on a little better, and I was trying to decide on a strategy to know how frequently I should be stopping. Should I wait until it falls off, or should I tighten it up when I feel it getting loose? I didn’t want to spend too much time messing with it, but I also didn’t want to lose the tape and have to spend more time going back to find it.

        I ended up letting people pass me only to catch them when my tape was on, and then they would pass me when I was bent down trying to get it back on. The next aid station was only at 19.3 miles, so hopefully they would have duct tape, and I would be able to put it on so it doesn’t keep falling off. When I made it to the next aid station, Stillwell Hollow, I was desperate to get this fixed. They had duct tape! I sat down and explained the situation to the volunteers. Someone asked me if they were a favorite pair of shoes. I told her no and that I hadn’t even put that many miles on these shoes. They might have a couple hundred miles on them. She suggested I write a review. She asked me where my other pair of shoes were.

        “At the Hazel Creek at mile 65.” She asked me if I was sure it wasn’t at a closer aid station, but I told her I was sure. I could tell how much she wanted to help me. She offered me her duct tape, but it was an almost full roll, so I didn’t want to carry something that heavy. This might seem like an inane decision in retrospect, but at the time, I truly believed that the tape solution would work. I just didn’t do a good job my first time trying. This time, a guy helped me do it and taped both of them up as best he could, putting on many more layers than I did in the past. I was confident it was going to work better this time!

        The tape on my right foot immediately fell off. It was the foot that had worked up until that point. Now, it was suddenly like my left foot had been and started to fall off. When it did, I would put it back on the best I could, tighten my shoes, and start running again. Then I would try to think of the positives. At least it is not falling off both shoes. At least I am distracted thinking about my shoes and not focused on something being wrong with my body. At least I am getting plenty of breaks, and I have no risk of exhausting myself early. The negatives were there too, but I was doing my best to counter everyone with something positive, and if not positive, neutral. It is easy to see what is wrong all the time, much more difficult to be optimistic. I was losing daylight!!! And with daylight gone, it will be hard to make up time on the second half because the terrain will require me to go slower so I don’t fall. I knew this was true, but I chose not to think about it. I instead thought maybe there will be fewer rocks and roots after the sun goes down. Also, my headlamp was at mile 47.2, which initially seemed like an easy goal to complete in 12 hours, but now that I was going at a pace that was dependent on my shoes, I didn’t know if I would make that cutoff. I did not want to be out there in the dark. I could use the light on my phone and walk if it came to it, but my phone battery was already depleting quickly. I have two power banks in drop bags, but I was unsure how the charging would work because lately my phone had been finicky about connecting to a charger cord. There was nothing I could do about any of these things, which made them all feel so scary, but at the same time irrelevant because I could do nothing about it.

        By the time I made it to the next aid station at 24.6, I still only had tape on one of my feet, except it was the opposite foot. This time, the aid workers knew about me. The woman at 19.3 must have radioed ahead and told them to expect me. I got my water refilled, and I sat down again to tape up my shoes. I was still ambitious to try something different this time with the tape. I put tape on both shoes with one of the aid workers help. I was trying to learn from my mistakes and not give up on the idea, but once again, as soon as I started back on the trail, the tape started falling off again.

        This time, on my right foot, the tape was coming off on both sides, and on my left shoe, it was sliding off. Both of my shoes had the sides ripped, so I could slide out of them, but consistently, my left shoe was worse than my right. With my right foot, I could manage running slowly and carefully without tape and be okay, but with my left shoe, it was almost impossible. I tried to run faster, only to fall on my face and cut my finger. It took a couple more falls before I started slowing down on all treacherous terrain. I had accepted any area where the rocks were unavoidable; I would need to walk. I would get into a rhythm, and then the tape would fall off. I would start to feel optimistic about my progress, and then someone who I was far ahead of a short time ago would pass me. Then, I would have to wade through water at a stream crossing, and the tape would get looser and start catching on rocks and roots as I was running. More than once, I caught myself almost tripping because of something catching the tape, and more than once, I wouldn’t catch myself, and I would fall. I started thinking maybe tape was the wrong solution, and if I only had some small rope or shoelaces, tying that around my feet might be enough to keep them secure.

        When I made it to the next aid station at mile 31.3, I was less optimistic about finding a solution that worked and was content with having to struggle through each mile, frequently having to secure my feet. However, the guy at this aid station and the woman who helped me were different. The guy said he had something like this happen before, and he had gorilla tape as opposed to duct tape. We strategized before we started. I explained how I thought the rope might work, so the woman who was there cut off the bungee cord she had on her headlamp to let me use it. He carefully layered the Gorilla tape on both shoes and then let me tie the cord around the left shoe. Lastly, he put athletic tape around each foot over the gorilla tape. He explained that it would be tighter than the Gorilla tape. Before I left, he handed me the rest of the Gorilla and white athletic tape. I thanked them both profusely and started back out on the trail. Would this solution work? I was cautiously optimistic. It certainly felt more secure.

Part III of the OT: Making it to 47.2 Before Nightfall  

        The miles went by, and so far, the tape hadn’t come off yet, and I felt secure. I kept looking down at my feet, expecting that the tape would be gone or it would be shifting in ways that would make me worried, but it didn’t so far. The next 8.7 miles to Brooks Creek went by quickly for the first 4 miles, but then I slowed down as I realized how far the aid station was still. I thought about the positive nature of having an aid station so far away. It meant fewer stops to waste time that I didn’t have, so that was the big one. Also, so far, the weather has looked the same all day. It was cold but not that cold, and it had been looking like it was about to rain all day. The trail would have sections that were cleared of leaves, and you could see the ground easily to sprint, but then there were suddenly rocks and roots in every inch of the path. Small rocks, which made my ankle twist as I landed, and I felt the pain. More than once, I landed and connected the sharp edge of a rock with my toe, and I would want to shout out in pain. I didn't think I would start talking to my pain. Thanking my pain for being there to show me what was hurting, but not allowing it to overwhelm me. I could still run if my toe was broken, I told myself. This was nothing, just some sharp pain that would come and go.

        I was finally starting to pass some of the people who had been running close to me for the past few hours. I felt well ahead of them when I made it to the 40-mile aid station, but when I stopped, they had all caught back up to me, and some of them started back before I did. It was around 4 p.m., so I had two hours to make it 7.2 miles, which seems like an easy task normally, but all I could think about was how if the tape came off again and if I couldn’t get it on in a way that I could move, I would easily lose that time, but so far, so good. The only thing that worried me was all the stream crossings, which seemed to noticeably make the tape loosen and begin to slide. I saw Jake G. at this aid station, whom I hadn’t seen for hours. He had helped me with all my questions before the race and was part of the reason I signed up for the OT. It was his favorite race, and I could see why. It was run well, and the woods were pretty in the fall, especially with fewer bugs and animals out.

        He started before me, but I ate cup after cup of vegetable soup. I knew I should have headed out sooner, but I was so hungry all of a sudden, and I was already getting tired. When I started back on the trail, more than 6 people who I had passed previously were in front of me. Would I make it to 47.2 before nightfall? All I could do was try. 

Part IV of the OT: 7 miles until my headlamp

        I kept looking down and checking my shoes, but so far, the new tape and rope combination was holding them together. When I got to one of the many creek crossings, I powered through and tried not to look at my shoes until a while after. I made it to the 47-mile aid station roughly around 5:30, so 30 minutes before nightfall. I sat in a chair at the aid station, relieved as I told the workers there that my shoes were still working okay. Everyone was so helpful. I asked if someone might change the batteries in my headlamp, which I thought wouldn’t be that difficult, but it turned into a more difficult task than I thought, involving at least two volunteers. I explained how changing the batteries in that headlamp was one of the reasons that headlamp became my backup. My fingers just don’t work so well after running about 50 miles. I had fallen so many times at that point and mainly caught myself with my fingers. My fingers start to swell over time, and they become less cooperative than they were when I started.

        By the time I headed back out, at least 4 different runners who I had passed were now ahead of me. I started sweating and feeling overwhelmed all of a sudden. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but then I realized it was relief because I had my headlamp, and I was confident that I would be able to make it to my other pair of shoes. I tried to slow down enough to take a video and enjoy the moment. I still hadn’t listened to any music or used my phone for anything other than pictures and videos. I debated letting myself start listening to music at the next aid station. I paced the first 50 miles in under 12 hours somehow, but it was going to be very difficult to do another 50 miles in the dark at that pace to sub 24 hours. Right at 6 p.m., it started getting dark rapidly, and 15 minutes later, it was pitch black, and it started to rain.

Part V of the OT: Running in the Rain and Why Would Anyone Be So Nice to Me

        I had just hit mile 50, and I wondered how likely it would be that it would rain all night or if it would just be a few hours. While my shoes were working better than ever, I was still so excited about the prospect of putting on my second pair of shoes and completing the rest of the race with them. I was also hoping I might get some more hot food somewhere. The aid stations had some stuff I could eat, but I hadn’t gotten a lot of hot food yet. When I made it to the mile 55.8 aid station, I didn’t plan to stop long when people started asking me about my shoe situation again. Some guys were asking me about my shoes and asked me what size I wore. I told them size 12 with an apology, knowing how people usually respond when they realize how uncommon my size is for runners. One guy offered his shoes to me, but he was a size 13, so I just didn’t see how those would be that helpful, but still, a size 13?! It was crazy that his feet were bigger than mine, which often is not the problem. Then, this guy Greg offered me his shoes, and he was a size 12! I didn’t want to take them at first. They were my size and my brand that I wear, but I was, after all, only 10 miles from my regular pair of shoes, so I knew I could wait until then. Yet, it was raining more and more, and I could see the delicate combination of tape might still fall off with all the rain and the ground getting increasingly muddy.

        He said he had only worn them twice and wanted to return them, but he couldn’t. I was sold. I said yes, and I would be happy to leave them somewhere so he could get them back, but he insisted, “no.” The woman who had met me at a much earlier aid station and called ahead to let the other aid workers know of my situation was there, and she tried to talk me into saving my old shoes. She was saying how epic the adventure was that they had gone through, and I should save them. I said they could throw them away. I thanked everyone profusely before I left. Mainly Greg! Greg had made me smile again. I was so happy starting off on my next 10-mile stretch.

        When I was a little way off from the aid station, I started to cry. Just a little. I didn’t make any typical crying sounds, but my face got heavy and my eyes became full of water. I wondered why I was crying, and I just thought about how unworthy I felt, how undeserving I was of anyone’s kindness. When I realized that’s what it was, I just reflected on why I felt like that. Maybe it was just growing up with the messaging that no one gives you anything for free, which I still think is sometimes true, but I give people things for free regularly, so it cannot be true all the time, and here was a guy I might never see again who literally gave me the shoes off his feet, asking nothing in return. Thanks, Greg.

Part VI of the OT 100

14 hours

8 p.m.

58 Miles

Weather, Low 50s, high 40s, raining

        The only thing that was bothering me now was that I hadn’t gotten to eat any real food except for the vegetable soup I had at one aid station. I also noticed my watch getting increasingly off. The official race distance was 100.9 miles, and my watch showed 102.4 miles, so a difference of 1.5 miles, which isn’t that bad. I could easily suggest that .4 of that is due to me walking around at aid stations and having to backtrack twice. For most of the race, I was about a mile off. I was predicting finishing at 102 most of the race.

        I didn’t have many miles until the 65.4-mile Hazel Creek aid station, and all I could think about was how nice it was to have shoes that weren’t held together by tape. I was constantly looking down at my feet to see if anything had changed. For a while, the tape would get caught on rocks and roots, making it easier for me to trip. I tripped many times early in the race when the tape wasn’t holding up as well, but I was doing better now. The new shoes I was wearing felt slightly big, but I might have just needed to tighten up the laces. Sure, they still weren’t my shoes, but I am not complaining. They were a million times better than what I was running on, and all I could think was that the nightmare was finally over. I was going to make it to my HOKA Mountain Goats that I barely wear, and I was going to make it to my nice headlamp. I was using my backup now, which isn’t as bright as my one in the next drop bag.

        I was struggling to go faster. I was listening to music, which gave me a boost. I started this section with two sub-12-minute miles and did the next three going significantly faster than I had been, but I was also doing the occasional 17-minute mile. I was holding out hope that once I got my Mountain Goats and drank caffeine, I would get the boost to push the pace. I hoped the rain wouldn’t continue throughout the night, and so far, it has been more annoying than anything else. It felt great to be completely caught up on hydration, but I was hungry and sleepy.

Hazel Creek

16 hours

10 p.m.

Mile 65.4

Weather, mid to low 40s, raining

        I sat down with my bag and dumped everything out. I immediately had volunteers taking off my shoes, helping me dry my feet, and putting on more socks, but I wanted to put Vaseline on my feet first. A woman who had gloves came over and said she would do it. It was nice not to have to bend over to do it myself, and the woman was kind of being funny. She told me so many times how much my feet were just like hers, meaning ugly. I know I have ugly feet, maybe even grotesque, so it was a helpful distraction. All I could think was how I didn’t have a bunch of blisters and none of my toenails were broken, so I thought my feet were looking pretty good considering, but I knew what she meant. She then realized the person she was volunteering for was there, so she went to help them, and a different person helped me put my socks on and get me back on the trail.

        Before I left, I drank three cups of Coke and was ready for the boost of energy. Even though I hadn’t slept that much all week, at least the caffeine boost should be helpful since I was so dedicated to staying off the stuff for a full week. 

I left the aid station finally wearing my shoes! They felt amazing! I also had warm socks, and I changed my shirt. It was Jake who told me to wait until changing shoes until mile 65.8. which I am glad he did. I wonder if I would have brought another pair of shoes otherwise. The only thing I wish I had considered more was just biting the bullet and buying a brand-new pair at the store the week before the race. I kept on seeing so many other runners on the course at this point, which seems odd on a trail run of this magnitude. It is normal to see more runners on a loop course and ones that have several different races at one time, but this one was only a 100 mile race no other distances and it was a point to point, yet I was running around the same pace as at least 5 other runners and some of them had pacers that were helping them through this section.

        None of them were that chatty, but that was okay. I was focusing on my own thing, but I do remember commenting to someone how, at this point in the race, each mile seemed to take seemingly forever. I would run as hard as I could for what seemed like miles, and I would only have completed roughly a quarter of a mile. I would try to laugh at this because it was also true that I knew I would barely remember this point in the race, so it somehow felt longer in the moment, but it would be completely obscured by morning.

Pigeon Roost Rd.

18 hours and 30 minutes  

12:30 a.m.

73.3 miles

Weather, mid to low 40s, raining

        I had been asking all the aid stations about their hot food, and this one had a guy who was vegan, and he made me a quesadilla with vegan cheese. It felt amazing to have some actual hot food, and I was finally feeling at a good spot with how much I was eating. I also had  more Coke. I think I had a couple of cups, and then the aid worker just gave me a can. I was still so tired, and I wasn’t sure how long I would have to stay up.

        When I started running again, I kept doing the math to figure out when I might finish. It shouldn’t be impossible to run 26.7 miles in 5 and a half hours to finish around 24 hours, but the course seemed to have gotten more difficult. I was dealing with a lot of sections that were unrunnable with how little light there was; the rain was making it muddy and slippery, but it still wasn’t that bad, and I heard it might stop in the next couple of hours. I got tired of stepping wrong on the rocks, so I started to just walk when I hit a section with a bunch of rocks. More than once, a guy with poles passed me. He wasn’t running at all, just doing a better job of managing his walking pace than me. I thought I either needed to practice running trails in the dark more or use hiking poles when it gets dark. My body was holding up fine, but I did start having some moments of soreness in my quadriceps and thighs. My calves were almost fresh without nearly as much use. I kept telling my body that I had only just started and would sing along to the music I was listening to. It would only last for a few lines until I would go back to focusing on breathing through my nose and trying to focus on the next path because I was hallucinating at an alarming rate.

        I kept seeing things moving in the corners of my eyes. If I jerked around to look, nothing would be there, but it kept happening. Also, as I looked out in front, I would see what looked like creatures in different spots on the trail. I would acknowledge what I saw, but no part of me was buying into the realness of anything; it just made me worried about how tired I  was.

Berryman Campground

20 hours

2 a.m.

78.6 miles

Weather, mid to low 40s, raining only sporadically

        I was happy to change my shorts this time. It had been raining too muchfor me to go in the dark and do it, but now the rain had stopped mostly. I went behind a tent and quickly changed in the dark. I had changed my shirt a number of times in public, but I figured I needed a little privacy for my shorts. It was so good to feel dry clothes again on my body as I left the aid station, knowing that I just hit the last aid station with a drop bag and was about to come to some of the most difficult turns in the race. Most of the race, I would see the OT markers so frequently that I never worried about if I was going the right way or not, but now I was suddenly getting in a few more sections that made me wonder. I looked at the course in the Gai app a handful of times when I started to get  worried after seeing a different type of marking on the course. It freaked me out more because not only was I seeing a course marker that didn’t make any sense, but I was also not seeing the OT markers as much. Part of me knew this was partially because I was moving slower because it was dark, but I did think it was unique and checked the course a handful of times.

        When I got to the sections with the sharp turns, they were marked extremely well and had so many OT trail markers that it was obvious that I was going the right way. One of them was almost straight up a hill, so I wasn’t surprised that people missed that section, maybe partially out of wishful thinking, hoping they didn’t have to suddenly climb this huge hill.

Billy’s Branch

22 hours and 30 minutes

4:30 a.m.

87.1 miles

Weather, upper 40s, raining only sporadically

        I didn’t spend long at Billy’s Branch. I had a cup of Coke, and then the aid worker asked me if I wanted some Red Bull. It isn’t my favorite energy drink, but the Coke wasn’t doing it for me anymore. One thing that isn’t an option is having cans of energy drinks in your drop bag. The chances are that it will spill before you get to drink it, so you have to depend on the aid stations for the caffeine fix. They all have soda, and although, like many ultra runners, I usually don’t drink soda, some Coke during a run usually hits the spot.

        When I started out this time, I was determined to make up time. I was running as hard as I could on the straights, but found myself slowing down on the rocks. I started to hold onto the hope of running during sunrise after 7 hours. I was thinking that when the sun came up, I might feel a surge of adrenaline and be able to make it to the finish at 8 a.m., but I just couldn’t catch a break. At the same time, I was feeling mostly fresh. I was sleepy and hallucinating constantly, but I was jamming out to my music, and my body wasn’t hurting to the point where stopping was even something I was considering. All I could think was that I needed to go faster. I texted my wife that I was at least going to be an hour late, which was a whole thing because there was no signal for most of the race, but I could get the satellites to connect to my phone if I was patient, so I checked a lot and let her know initially I might be at least an hour later than planned, and then I told her two hours.

Henpeck Hollow

24 hours and 30 minutes

6:30 a.m.

94.4 miles

Weather in the 50s, and the rain has almost completely stopped

        With fewer than 8 miles left, I felt so close to the finish, but at the same time, I knew it might take me another two hours. I was still hoping I would see the sunrise and be able to bolt fast and have a great last hour. I asked if they had any Red Bull or anything at the aid station, but they didn’t, which was fine; I didn’t need Red Bull, but I was just so sleepy, yet excited to finally make it to the end. The only positive to having to deal with the shoe problem for such a long time is that it was such a distraction from running, which meant I was not nearly as physically exhausted as I usually am, as I would have been otherwise if I had been able to go as fast as possible that first 12 hours. Typically, I go a lot faster during that time and take very few breaks. Yet, this time I was forced to spend at least 5 minutes at every aid station and frequently stop on the trail. This translated to me finishing with energy left to spare, yet at the same time, I was so sleepy with how little sleep I had gotten the past two nights.

        Once it hit 7 a.m., it still wasn’t bright enough to turn off my headlamp. I was so upset. I was hoping that I would get a decent picture of a sunrise, and at 8:12 a.m., shortly before I finished, I was able to get one good picture of the early morning light, but it was so cloudy. It had stopped raining for a while, yet it was still dark and cloudy all through the morning. I had my watch set to only show the mile lap, so I would keep myself awake by constantly checking my time to see how far I had gotten through the mile. Once I hit 101, I figured it was any moment now, but with about a mile left to go, I landed on the Bass River Resort’s grounds. It was a solid mile of running, which eased my mind about keeping my streak alive. I always try to think about the continuous mile I can run after midnight, and it was a comfort to know that I easily did it on my last mile of this race. When I got closer, I saw Sarah jump out from a tree and record me. I was happy to see her, but I was still focused on the finish line. Next, some kids asked me if I had run 100 miles, and I responded that it was 100 miles. I am sure it seemed so strange to them that some random people were finishing a race from seemingly nowhere, and they had traveled throughout an entire day to make it there. Part of me thought maybe I hadn’t just been there the night before; it might have seemed more like I traveled somewhere, but it was still so fun to make it to the end, hug my wife, and claim my buckle.