Run your age (hours)
9/3/2020 – 9/7/2020
Labor Day Weekend of 2020, ultramarathoners will once again descend on Fred Deadman Park in Manchester, Tennessee. Led by a contingent of wheezing geezers, a couple of hundred of America’s finest footwarriors will circle the famed Deadman Mile for days on end, culminating in the grand finish and banquet at noon on Labor Day Monday. All awards will be handed out at the banquet, including lifetime mile pins (100, 200, 500 and 1000) and the 100 (200) mile buckles. We will not be trying to process that during the event. If you want to come, run part of the race and go home, that is your prerogative. But we will not be processing the final results (nor giving out awards) until the race is over.
All runners 41 and over will be allotted a number of hours equal to those hard-earned years of age in which to accumulate as many miles as possible. All the kids, 40 years, and below, will compete over the final 40 hours of the race. The winner will be the runner with the most miles accumulated by the finish. In contrast to most ultras, where the old guys must settle for a place at the rear, if they can make the time limit at all, the ARFTA is dominated by the super veterans of the sport. In 2019, 34 participants 70 years old and over completed over 100 miles and one participant, 74 years old, completed 230 miles! This is one race where the older guys are right in the running up until the very end. The footspeed may have diminished with the passing of the years, but the fires of competition still burn bright.