New Level of Insanity
Posted: July 26th, 2009, 9:33 am
Few of you will probably remember monthly reports of marathons prior to August, 2008 when my wife and I adopted our daughter Grace.
After a full year off from running marathons, the wanderlust bug bit again and bit hard. Having totally forgotten how painful the marathons could be, I signed up for a 12 hour event in Wakefield, MA (a small town about a dozen miles outside Boston). Really crazy race that starts at 7:00PM and finishes at 7:00 in the morning. There is no set distance, with runners going round and round a lake with each lap 3.16 miles. And if all this doesn't sound crazy enough my longest run in the last year was only about 10 miles (under a two hour run).
As the race was about to start I met a fellow gyrene and enjoyed hearing his story. His name is John Mortell and he lives in Weymouth, MA. A vietnam era Marine and now 63, John was aiming to qualify for Boston by running a sub-4 hour marathon time.
Three races were actually run at the same time... a marathon, a 12 hour run, and even a 24 hour run. Here the ultra marathoners meet to hear race instructions...
The area was a very peaceful setting...
... though the graveyard area didn't help pick up the mood...
As darkness settled over the lake, it was tough mentally preparing for about 8 more hours of running in the dark of night.
Around 5 in the morning daylight started bringing all of us 12 hour folks still on the course hope that the end was near.
Ran on blisters the last 10 miles and ended with 50.6 miles covered in the 12 hour time span. Definitely one of the craziest things I've done, though I have to say they're are definitely folks even crazier. After returning to the hotel, showering, catching a few hours z's, and eating lunch, I returned to the course and took this photo... it was a little after 3pm and the 24 hour folks still had over 3 hours left to run 
After a full year off from running marathons, the wanderlust bug bit again and bit hard. Having totally forgotten how painful the marathons could be, I signed up for a 12 hour event in Wakefield, MA (a small town about a dozen miles outside Boston). Really crazy race that starts at 7:00PM and finishes at 7:00 in the morning. There is no set distance, with runners going round and round a lake with each lap 3.16 miles. And if all this doesn't sound crazy enough my longest run in the last year was only about 10 miles (under a two hour run).
As the race was about to start I met a fellow gyrene and enjoyed hearing his story. His name is John Mortell and he lives in Weymouth, MA. A vietnam era Marine and now 63, John was aiming to qualify for Boston by running a sub-4 hour marathon time.
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Good for you bud!
