I ran my first marathon in December, 1999. The Dallas White Rock Marathon was going to be my first and last marathon. I had some friends who had run marathons and they convinced me I could do it. I finished it and I was hooked. The next year I ran four, then six the next year, 12 the next and in 2007 I ran 30 marathon or longer races including the Lake Tahoe Triple. Three marathons in three days around Lake Tahoe is as much fun as you can have with running shoes on.
The most surprising thing to me through all the marathons I ran, was the number of runners I met who had either run a 100 miler or wanted to run a 100 miler. I was fairly certain that these people were all one brick shy of a full load, had one oar just bearly skipping across the top of the water, had a screw loose, you get the idea. To get these people to leave me alone, I told them that I would run a 100 miler for my 100th marathon. Now at the time I said that I had spent seven years getting 50 marathons run, so I thought by the time another seven years had passed, they would be over the whole 100 mile nonsense.
One year later I was at 80 marathons and all I ever heard about was which 100 miler I was going to do. Well, leaving the country was not an option, so I signed up for the Heartland 100 in Kansas. I had run my first 50 miler there and was very impressed with the organization. I had eight months to complete the 19 marathons I needed to get me to number 99. Cool, I won't have to do any long training runs. I ran three double marathons. A double is where you run a marathon in one town on Saturday and then drive or fly to another town and run a second marathon on Sunday. Then I ran the Lake Tahoe Triple the last of September and finished all three marathons, although the third day was a real test.
On the way home from Lake Tahoe, I told my friend, Brian Hoover (who had gone to Tahoe with me) that I felt doing three marathons in three days had to be harder than running 100 miles. It seemed to me it would be much more difficult to start day two and then again on day three. It was so much harder than any of the 50 milers I had run. Yeah, that's it! This 100 miler will be a piece of cake. I was wrong, so wrong.
We took off at 6 am on October 11th in the Kansas wind on the run of my life. Kathy Hoover had signed up for the 100 so she could pace me the whole way. Kathy is a very experienced runner and trainer so I felt very fortunate to have her running with me. Our strategy was to go out slow, walk the hills, and run the rest of it until we were done. At ten miles we were at the back of the pack, but by 60 miles we were passing people who were burned out and walking. At 85 miles we were running and passing runners who could hardly walk. I was dead tired and it hurt to move but compared to the runners we were seeing, I was doing great.
At 90 miles or so I looked at Kathy and said, "Ok, I understand why a person would want to try to run a 100 miler. What I don't understand is why anyone would ever want to do another one." She couldn't explain it. She thought maybe the good feeling of finishing made you forget the pain. We kept running and running and running. At 92 miles I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, I have to go eight more miles to finish this thing and I can hardly move. It may as well be 800 miles because I can't hardly stand up." About that time Kathy looked at me and smiled. She said, "Come on lets finish, you can do it." You can do it, I thought, yes I can, I can do it.
I ran most of the last eight miles and did finish at 26 hours, 34 minutes, 34 seconds. Our crew, Marvin Lee and Brian Hoover, were smiling, clapping, and snapping pictures and all of the sudden I didn't hurt nearly as bad. Hey, it worked, I had forgotten about the pain. It was a very good feeling, the best running experience of my life. I will never forget my Heartland 100 for my 100th marathon experience. Now I have to figure out what to do for my 200th marathon. Are there any 200 milers out there?