5 days under their belts. the last 24 hours in periodic thunderstorms. we lost mike delang and diane taylor overnight. 12 and 13. with bob’s finish yesterday afternoon that leaves 68 runners out on the road. john price is now tied with the grim reaper… not a good place to be, the reaper is undefeated so far this year. if he catches you, your days are numbered. the rain is a great ally to the Read more…
bloodbath . lets be honest. day 5 has been a hard one for the runners so far. the last half of day 4 was an endless series of severe storms. the sun "came up" to more of the same. what makes it harder is that when the rain stops often as not the sun comes out and all that water hits the runners again on its way back to the sky… in the form of Read more…
the rain came in during the night. it is currently light here at the finish line, but checking the radar our course running northeast is currently almost all getting rain. . some places are getting hammered! . there will be many funny stories to emerge from last night. what did not emerge was jun lin and timothy okeefe. when you are on the edge it does not take much to push you over. and it Read more…
HOTS update…hour 84 . 3.5 days, 4 days of running complete and heading into the 4th night. . the update is late. immediately after posting the morning update we hooked up with carl and drove 100 miles back to pick up a drop then drove back up the course. little did we know there was a second runner only 2 miles back of our pickup who would drop after we left. now, rather than getting Read more…
HOTS update… 72 hours . it does what it does and it is what it is . as i sit and watch the totals start to hit the tracker the runners jumping ahead so that i can see what they got in during the night i think about the new phase the race is entering. . a journey, like life is always changing. . with 3 days under their belts the runners that greet the Read more…
HOTS update 60 hours . slow and fast . the most surprising thing about a race like this is how fast the field moves. bob has been torching the course and has gone all the way thru knoxville and is already at loudon. but bob moves fast. the tail end of the field is already past jonesborough. by morning the last runners will be in afton. (i will let you guess where bob will be) Read more…
48 hours update (2) . real is too real . the third sunrise can be a time of reckoning. this third sunrise is turning into a disaster for some. after two days and two nights on the road that third morning is cruxial. only one person has reached the halfway point. the people back around the cutoff STILL have nearly 250 miles to go. . your feet hurt. you have not had a decent sleep Read more…
HOTS update 48 hours . part 1: the big dance. . the bailout is not simple. there are three of us and three vehicles trying to maintain some reasonable distance from the runners so that drops can be retrieved from the road and returned to the rock as expediently as possible. . i have the simplest job in the lead vehicle. generally it is only a few runners that move to the front. someone has Read more…