February 5-6, 2005
During May 2004, at a family gathering, I set a crazy goal. I wanted to finish a 100-mile race. I had heard of a local Wasatch 100 race before, but I really knew nothing about it. I had supposed that some sort of crazed super humans ran in it. I researched on the Internet and discovered that there was a community of between 5,000-10,000 crazy people in the U.S. called ultrarunners who ran in races further than the traditional marathon distance of 26.2 miles. How is that possible? Could I do it? I had never run in an official race longer than 110 yards. I had been doing fast hikes of up to 35 miles, but was not skilled in the sport of long-distance running.