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Dan started running with his wife Kathy in 1980. After a brief four years running road races, they were introduced to the trails in Southern California by a group from a local running store. Not long after, Dan was invited by ultrarunning legend, Walt Johnson, to run the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim – his first ultra marathon in 1984. He finished in 12 hours and 2 minutes. Dan was hooked.

I circled the high school track, loop after loop, hour after hour, mile after mile. For 100 miles, to be exact. It was July in southern Utah, where summer temperatures feel like you’re standing on the sun. The high was 107 degrees. I tried to think of some profound response when people asked why I was running 100 miles around a track in July. The best I could come up with was “Well, it seemed like a unique challenge. And I had some glazed donuts I needed to burn off.”

Looking back on my first two years of training for ultra marathons, a lot has changed. Relationships with training partners have waxed and waned, and my running dramatically improved due to warmer than average winter months. But now I realize that change is inevitable, and it’s why I can’t wait for the year ahead.

A runner’s greatest asset is “heart”, the ability to put it all on the line to block out all competition and to run as if you are the only one in the race. It is all about effort, the struggle, survival, victory, and defeat.

On November 21, 2015 for the last 53 years downtown Boonsboro, Md., has been witness to an assembly of runners for the start of the John F. Kennedy 50 Mile (JFK) and commonly called “America’s Ultramarathon”.