24 Hour Endurance Race

24 Hour Endurance Race

This past weekend, I had the incredible honor to pace a friend at her 24 hour endurance race. Laura (and Joy) have been my 5am running buddies and I was thrilled to road trip the 1 hour to support Laura. 

Joy was ultra-prepared with everything needed. And I just had a chance of clothes and water. Not even a blanket for when it got cold at night, and it did get cold if you weren’t running. 

Laura had already done 7 loops and her goal was 11. Joy, coming off from her 100 mile just the previous weekend (crazy !!!), went with Laura on loop 8&10 and I went for loop 9. 

Definitely NOT a 5k!

Going off to the dark nothingness is very unsettling. 

She was absolutely exhausted and delirious after loop 10, but persevered with her goal of 11 loops. 

Laura was the overall winner with 11 loops in 24 hours. An amazing feat. And I was there to witness how gritty she was and how she just kept moving and not stopping for extended times at the base tent.

Most of our miles with Laura was in the dark, but the sunrise was gorgeous indeed. 

The funny thing was how tri world and ultra world collided – I had no idea that there’d be people I knew at the race. I ended up meeting 4 people – Gary, Cindy and Lizzie who were on a team and Stacy, who came at dawn to run a loop or two. 


There’s crazy and then there’s CRAZY! The ultra world falls into that second crazy with their mental endurance as much as physical!

Are you an ultra runner or crewed for one? What were your thoughts on an ultra event compared to road races?

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