I’m an ultramarathoner. That means I’ve run races longer than the regular 26.2 mile marathon. Actually I’ve only run the JFK 50-miler race – but I did it twice. After I ran it the first time when I was 66 years old – in a couple of minutes over 10 hours, I said, “Never again!” Then at age 73, I ran my second JFK – in just under 11 hours.
The JFK 50-miler race is one of America’s largest and most challenging ultramarathons – over Maryland’s rocky Appalachian Trail and the clay and broken stone flat towpath of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Next weekend on November 17, 2012, is the 50th running with 1,200 runners from around the world. About 10,000 applied for a slot in the race.
It’s interesting to observe runners when they decide to increase their race distance to an ultramarathon. I’ve gone through that escalation. I was a 48-year old non-athletic coach potato when I first started jogging and soon was competing in 10 kilometer races. I thought you had to be demented to run further, such as races of 10 miles and over. But soon I got used to running 5 or 10 kilometer short races. I wanted new challenges.
After I had a couple of 10 milers and half marathons under my belt, I felt running shorter races was no big deal. But still believed that only the unbalanced in my running club would race in marathons. And so, I advanced along the runners’ continuum, successfully taking on longer and longer race distances – and even a metric marathon (26.2 kilometers). I still saw only brain sick runners ahead of me on the continuum (doing longer distances) – and those behind me were running the easier short races.
That’s the way I felt when I got to the start line of my first ultramarathon. I had already run over two dozen marathons and had some fast race times. But for years I shook my head in disbelief at those 50-miler masochists in my Reston Runners Club who willingly chose to punish themselves in that grueling race. It’s nuts to run a race that’s almost two marathons long. I truly felt that way until I was persuaded by Anna B, our club president, that 50 miles was a do-able distance. She runs ultramarathons ever year.
She said, “Consider the Marine Corps Marathon in October to be your long training run for the 50-miler. That means you have peaked for the JFK race that is exactly four weeks later. You need a week or so to recover from the marathon – so you only have to do a few short runs of five to eight miles over the next couple of weeks before the 50-miler. Don’t worry, she said, you will be peaked, fully trained and ready to run 50 miles. Over 90% of our club members that started the race finished within the 14-hour time limit.”
After I ran my second JFK, I wrote about my experience for the Washington Post. See:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content//article/2006/12/01/AR2006120101565.html
And below is a course map and elevation chart from the Wellness Section in last week’s Washington Post.
Running Stories by Jerry Lewis 