I live in a town where abnormal is the norm, so being on campus here in the land of spit & polish and seeing no body piercings, blue hair, or unusual body art really caught my attention. Texas A&M and College Station are so clean. The students, the buildings, the streets, everything. Our course, inside Spence Park and across the street from Kyle Field, is an odd mix of loops totaling 1.547 miles per set. The start and finish of each set was on the Houston St. sidewalk, not too far from George Bush Dr. Next to it was an unusual pattern of sidewalks enclosed in a short fence. The initial loop splits the park, and 200 yards later, reaches Throckmorton St., turns right and rides the sidewalk down onto Cole St. past the University President’s home and another Official’s residence. Cutting the corner of the field just prior to George Bush Dr., we straddle a berm separating the Alumni Center and the President’s home. The trail splits around the fenced in sidewalks, and I follow the right side, taking me up a slight rise right back to the main station on Houston. I pass through the station, go left around the strange sidewalks, back to the trail split, followed by the berm in the opposite direction, retracing our path back to the main station and the end of the lower loop. The lower loop complete, we now turn right, alongside Kyle Field for a 100yard long perfect straitaway, followed by a 90degree turn to a short drop and another short rise. A large parking garage sits on out left, separating us from Joe Routt Blvd. After the rise, we navigate a short loop, which spins to the right and then circles left, alongside the path we used on the lower loop. For a few paces, the upper and lower loops share a section of trail, before we turn left, back down the path to Kyle Field and the way we came. Returning back to the main station terminates the upper loop and finishes one complete loop. Confusing? Yes! But after one loop, my homing device memorizes all the turns and never even comes close to making a wrong turn. Like living in the same town forever and never knowing the street names, you just know how to get there. It doesn’t require thinking! For me, that’s good!

At first glance, the course appears to be flat as a pancake. But after a few loops, I not only learn the deception of my initial perception, but I also learn exactly where all the inclines and declines are, which side’s higher, and where every ridge, bump, rock, and blade of grass is. The two sides begin to feel like two different regions. The high side loop being 17 feet higher than the low side loop stays warm, even after dark and early morning, while the lower side fills with fog on both mornings and gets a tad bit chilly at times. The north side is filled with park benches, picnic tables, large light posts, and many large trees. Falling leaves fill the air and cover the ground, as the wind rattles the leaves and shakes the branches, and squirrels play about and use us for target practice. A group of laborers, working on one of the buildings, gather at one of the picnic tables for their lunch break and watch, but never ask what the heck we’re doing. And there’s one light in the middle of the park that I can turn on or off by hitting just the right spot on the sidewalk next to it. This gave me endless hours of entertainment. What fun!

The lower loop began with the sidewalk bisecting the park, and then a sidewalk in front of the homes. Not much shade along here and I have a choice between sidewalk, road, and grass, which is so thick that I sink into it whenever I leave the sidewalk. I stay in the grass for most of the early loops, but as it becomes harder to lift my feet, I move back onto the sidewalk. The shortcut across the field is also sparse of shade trees and buildings, and the surface worn down to dirt and fairly uneven. This is the only part of the course that it’s ever difficult to see after dark. The berm has 5 metal humps, all dead center and spaced about 5 feet apart. They’re covered in chalk dust so that we could see and avoid them, and the trail splits on either side of them. About 2am, I can identify ghoulish faces in the chalk patterns of each one, and my wife finds this highly amusing! Imagine that!

The 48hour runners start Friday night at 7pm, and have 13 hours lead on us when we start on Saturday morning at 8am. All their running so far, has been in the dark, and it appears from the leader board that some have used this time out of the sun to push the miles, accumulating over 60 miles in the first 12 hours. There are 10 runners in the 48 and another 9 in the 24, but it’s hard to tell for sure, as people keep coming and going. Between 2 and 4 in the morning, there were only 4 of us still running. The others have either quit or laid down for a nap somewhere.

From the start, I fall in immediately with Wes Monteith. We run together comfortable for a few loops and then he stops to walk, so I walk with him. “I’m doing a 25min-run and 5min-walk”, he tells me. “So for every hour, on 25 and 55 minutes, I take a walking break”. It makes sense, it’s simple enough for me to remember, and I’m lazy enough to steal his plan. This is my first 24hour run: another grand experiment of one. Wes and I hang together for most of 20 miles, even with him stopping three times to remove a stone from his shoe. But, his idea of walking and mine are two different things. He does a forced fast power walk and I do a very slow and relaxed resting stroll. Despite this difference, we still manage to link up and run quite well together.

I know what works for me by way of fluids and foods, so I brought my bags of food and cooler of iced drinks and set it out under a large tree. It’s just off the trail and near the main station. I arranged all the gear around a chair so that I can sit down to change shoes and have easy access to everything from this one spot. My wife, Joyce, will be by later to help, but mostly I will be taking care of myself and want everything to be as convenient as possible. If I want, I can run most of the course on the sidewalks, but I can just as easily stay off them also, so I do. There are only a few sidewalk sections, which can’t be avoided. The widest and longest section of perfectly flat trail is along Houston St. and I use this section whenever my plan has me walking through here, to turn and walk backwards for a little hamstring relief. It feels good to change up my leg motion occasionally, and it entertains the students walking by. Also, shortly after 1pm, a shadow cast from Kyle Field covers most of this stretch with a wonderful coolness that I want to savor as long as possible.

Davey Harrison has gone way ahead of the rest of us and is two complete laps ahead by 20 miles. He doesn’t appear to be running any faster than Wes and I, so I assume that he’s not taking as many walking breaks as we are, if any! But, as the sun comes up and the day warms, people begin to slow down and take longer breaks as well. Some of the 48hour runners retire to their air-conditioned vehicles to escape the heat and for a bit of rest. I religiously take two electrolyte caps every hour and stay heavy on the ice cold water, stopping for short breaks at my cooler for ice tea, cool seedless grapes, and dried apricots. I feel good, and even though it’s getting hot, my running pace picks up just a little. The walking breaks make all the difference. I look forward to them, but I also look forward to running again after each one. The 5min break is enough to give me a rest but not enough to allow me to tighten up. And the 25min run is enough to allow me to stretch it out and roll with it, but limits me from going too hard for too long. Wes’s plan fits me to a ‘T’. I think I’ll keep it.

My pre-race quesstimate was to do the first 20 loops (50k) at a 10:20 per mile pace, or 16min per loop. I miss my mark by 17minutes, coming in at 1:37pm. I’m pretty surprised that I actually come close. After all, it was only a guess. Wes is having some sort of problem and has to slow down, and so is Davey. I can see that he’s now taking walking breaks. On my 35th lap, I move ahead of him. My next guess was for the 2nd 20 loops at an 11:38 per mile pace, for a slower 18min per mile loop. I miss this goal also. Probably, because I’m spending more time with my gear. I’m still running well, but I stop once to fix a hot spot on my sole, and change my socks. I also take a long break at dinnertime to eat some hot chili and enjoy some ice tea. I’m close enough to my initial quesstimates to be pleased with that, and also to how well I’m acclimating to this new form of self-abuse.

Joyce arrives just before dark and is now helping me to get through my gradually slower breaks much more efficiently. Sunset’s around 5:30pm and I’m expecting the heat to dissipate soon after. Unfortunately, it feels just as warm and a maybe even a bit more humid after dark. I’m actually sweating more now than I was during the day. I complain to her about this anomaly, and she suggests I lay off the ice tea and cut back on the electrolytes also. Willard Davis is running the 48hour and kept us informed with the Texas/Texas Tech football score, so I look forward to seeing him as often as possible. Even though he runs with a radio headset, he still disappears every so often to watch the game on the TV in his car.

My guess for the 3rd 20 loops is at 14:15 per mile pace, for an even slower 22min per mile loop. I knew I would slow after dark and also the 60 miles would have their effect, so I planned for it. The 50mile and 100K marks are now behind me and I’m well on my way to breaking 100miles. But, I’m still cautious. I know how quickly the wheels fall off, from more than a few personal experiences. I watch as a few of the other runners go quickly from run to crawl, and I wonder when it will be my turn. By now, I know almost everyone else. I have run or walked with all of them for some amount of time. The only runners who escape this awful distinction, have quit early and gone home. I pay little attention to my lap count and distance, except for 20 and 40 miles, until I near 70 miles, and then I check every lap to see what’s left. All my thinking is referenced toward 65 laps for 100 miles, and all the mathematical equations that my feeble brain struggles with after this point all have this same common denominator.

Joyce wants to run with me for a little bit, just to get in some miles and ironically, this is about the same time I begin to struggle with the 25min run. Conversely, the 5min walk is getting easy. I knew I would slow some, so this wasn’t unexpected, but what to do? Chuck Zeugner is running well. He and I are the only ones left on the course for the 24hour run. He is just a few loops back and has just passed 70 miles. I take another long break, sit down, and eat another bowl of chili. Within 10minutes, I’m back in gear and running better, but not with the same sustained energy I had earlier. I put on a long sleeved shirt for the cold lower loop and slide the sleeves up when we rotate over to the high side loop. I decide to just relax and go with it, so I take the time to walk and talk with some of the other people I have met during the past 16 hours. I fall completely off the 25 and 5 plan for an hour or more, and walk much more than I had at any point up to now. We find Chuck moving in super slow motion, and know that he’s found the wall. We stop to talk for a few minutes and he decides to stop. He had one heck of a run, but his body is done. I’m still stuck on my too slow laps and want to get past it. I ask Joyce if she would mind driving out and buying me some sort of egg & sausage meal. I’m craving something solid, and she immediately takes off to find it.

Michael Dorovitsine had taken a sleep break earlier in the night, and he has just come back pretty fresh and strong. I try to hang with him while Joyce is gone and it isn’t easy. Davey suddenly comes back also, and then Wes. All the dead and retired runners are popping back up and the course is suddenly thick with life again. Michael and I make a few fast laps before Joyce returns. I’m at 90 miles when I stop for breakfast and suck down an Egg McMuffin and a cup of coffee. It completely revives me in minutes and I’m back, hard charging again. It was just what I needed. Joyce joins Michael and I for a few more loops leading me up to 100 miles, which I hit at 6:30am. We flew for the last 4 loops, and just as I hit the magic 65 loops for 100 miles, the sun finally rises for the 2nd day. Joyce quits, while Michael and I continue to push the pace, collecting a few more miles before time runs out.

We have waited endlessly for 8am to arrive and now that it’s near, we want a few more minutes to collect a few more loops for some additional distance. Wes is flying, doing 3 loops for my 2. Misty Fillus has come back to watch the finish, and the 48hour runners just kept spinning. They still have another 11 hours to go and another sunset. My fastest loop was 15 minutes and I know I only have time for one more, so I slow down to relax finally and finish easily. Incomplete loops are not being counted, so I stop a few minutes short of 8am, and I sit down. It’s good to be done. I’ve collected 106.7 miles and it’s good enough for me. Scott Demaree has done a great job putting this event together and making it work correctly. He wrote down splits for every runner for every lap, collected an excellent crew of volunteers to help, and kept a great sense of humor all night when it was just he and a few runners awake on the course. Thanks Scott. It was well done and I had fun.

joe prusaitis