HOTS UPDATE 168 HOURS: day 8 begins.this is how a day should begin:where am i?oh, yeah, the clarion.whats the weather?oh yes, rain. the default setting!is anyone on the way to the rock?one, still a couple of hours till we have to go.have they started checking in?not yet.where are our people?two of us in kimball, one in bell buckle,one in lewisburg.have the checkins started?only a couple. probably checked in before a sleep break.how many drops?a list Read more…
HOTS UPDATE 156 HOURS: running on fumes.with the leaders in,and on the approach to a week on the road,the race is entering a new phase….exhaustion..the runners are shambling shadows;footsore, sleep deprived, malnourished.they have to reach deeper and deeper to find the motivation to go on.for the ones still with triple digit distances to go,the finish seems more distant than when they first stepped off the bus..the staff has entered a new phase with the onset Read more…
HOTS UPDATE 144 HOURS: oh my god!.that was the first thing we heard from the two leaders.we couldnt see them for the tree cover…..after picking up their trackers at the clarionthe hotties face their biggest challenge of the race in the home stretch.they run to south pittsburgand cross the blue bridge.then they turn off to go climb over hog jaw ridgebefore finally climbing sand mountain to bryant alabama.then they run back down sand mountain…there,after 398 Read more…
HOTS UPDATE 132 HOURS: what goes up must come down… else how can it go up again?.if you ask me there are not enough stories like this right now.is it stupid and pointless to run 400 miles?surely….but oh, the things you get to see.the experiences you get to have!.do you run into a few a-holes?.of course….but more than thatyou get to see what most people are really like.if you want to renew your faith in Read more…
HOTS UPDATE 120 HOURS: 5 days in the water park is not as much fun as it sounds.there could not have been any more joyous group of people on earth to see the sun rise this morningthan what is left of the hotties.after the mayhem last night we expected to see a mass exodus of the surviving hotties….we only lost two more.i will give the survivors credit for this much;they are tough and determined!.78 battered Read more…
HOTS UPDATE 108 HOURS: when does the easy part begin?.what started out as the best weather of the entire event(overcast skies and mild temperatures)would take an ugly turn later in the afternoon….the rains returned..the entire length of the course is now getting hitwith what seems to be an endless stream of stormscoming up out of the gulf from alabama, miss’ippi,and louisianaand traveling north-northeast across tennessee.this is not a slow drizzling rain,but rather pockets of intense Read more…
on the tracker you see the cutoff represented by the total distance divided by 10.5.but the runners have a list of cutoffs that vary slightly,ranging from 1-3 miles short of the cutoffs done by straight math…..these cutoffs are represented by places on the mapthat make logical endpoints for sections of the course….it wouldnt make any sense to pull a runner because they stopped at a place to sleep or eatthat was one mile short of Read more…
HOTS UPDATE: 96 HOURS: this is monday… right?.four days they have been on the road.four days of winnowing has reduced the number from 109 to 90..bleary eyed, sore footed,limping and shufflingthey move on….it is all they knowit is their world..weaving, winding.small towns come and goperiodically the long trek thru a larger cityverdant forestsrolling pasturelandrushing streams,and roiling rivers….everything passes beneath their feet.and something new is around every bend..it has been 4 days since they startedthey remember Read more…