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Most ultrarunners are fueled by a desire to push their limits and explore the boundaries of what is possible. They are drawn to training for and completing ultras because they want to challenge themselves and achieve big goals. The process of committing, training and executing on race day consumes, and ultimately defines, the ultrarunner’s life. The experience and satisfaction of knowing you put everything on the line in an epic test, is what endures.
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The pace was hot from the beginning! With Zach Miller leading the way in his usual fashion we blew through the first mile at 5:56 a.m. and didn’t slow from there. Either I thought this pace was sustainable and forgot it was a 50-mile race, or I just felt like running fast and didn’t care what would happen.
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“Anish” now holds the Overall Self-Supported (backpacker) records for the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and the AZT. She stands alone (and ahead of all men too) in her specialty, with her AZT being two days faster than the Men’s Self-Supported FKT, and was on track to be the quickest AZT ever until Michael Versteeg set a quicker faster (Supported) time a few days previous. Anderson covered the 800 mile route in 19 days, 17 hours and 9 minutes.
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The best ultrarunner in the US knocked this one out of the park and was recognized for it. Records have been kept on this uber-route for decades, recently including Anton Krupicka, Dave Mackey, and Dakota Jones, with Jim taking 25 minutes off Rob Krar’s 2013 time. In the process he blazed South-North Rim in 2:46 which is an FKT itself. Walmsely covered the 42.2 miles in 5:55:20.
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Last spring while training for my first 100K, I became dependent on Strava – an app built for just about everyone logging a daily athletic endeavor. Not only was I tracking my mileage but also time, elevation and routes, as well. This had been the perfect tool to help me record the simple data I needed during each of my training runs. I even had Strava friends who were giving me daily “kudos.” Needless to say, it pretty much became my new favorite social network. And then, I got injured.
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The Sawatch Range in Colorado has 14 summits over 14,000’ high – somewhat lined up in a row, with few trails, continuous rough terrain, navigation challenges, and of course, serious vert. The cutoff time to ascend and descend all 14 is 60 hours. Meghan was the 17th finisher and first woman to tag all 14 peaks over the roughly 100-mile route in that time (Anna Frost and Missy Govney earlier had reached the 14th summit within that time but paused on top). Meghan’s effort was Supported and she completed it in 59 hours and 36 minutes.