Dave Enters 24 Hour Race

No this is not your typical race because there is not a tangible finish line; the participants just keep running from 9am Saturday until 9am Sunday and whoever has the most miles accumulated around this .9 mile loop wins. Sure you can rest, eat, even sleep during this race. Personally I would get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again.

Anyway, we arrived in Cleveland for the race late Friday afternoon, checked into our hotel, checked out the course and had dinner with other participants. Saturday morning was just as busy for me as it was for Dave since I was in charge of setting up the tent and getting all of the supplies from the car to the tent area; this took about 2 hours because in between I aided Dave in what ever he needed like salt tabs and Perpetum drink stuff.

There were secret bets being wagered as to how many miles Dave would run and I must say that everyone guessed really high except me and Lance, but he didn't count because he put in his guess well after the race started. Most guesses other than Lance's were in the low 100's. I guessed 85. This is not because I don't think he has the capability of running 100 miles, but I believed the course itself would be the downfall of him not completing 100. Plus most of our friends guessed over 100 because Nick just ran and finished the Hallucination 100 on the Poto trail giving Dave incentive not only meet the 100 miles that Nick ran but to squash the time it took him to run it as well. Nonetheless, I figured Dave would run "his speed" for the first 35-40 (which he did) and then have to walk the rest (which he did). I really thought it would be the monotonous circle and watching people running past him while he was walking that would do him in, but he stuck with it until his body just couldn't take it anymore. His calves were twitching, he had blisters on the back of one heel and his knees were tired from pounding out a 7 minute pace for 40 miles and a 14 minute walk paced for 47 miles for 16.5 hours and he took a little nap. I know that sounds insane. It was.

So when it was over, which for Dave was at 1:30am, he had accomplished 87.3 miles which is insanely great. Oh and I won the bet.