12 hour training run....friends from Brazil and the Bear 100 Miler

The last couple weeks have been crazy. After running the Mid Mountain Marathon and a week later doing the HooDoo 500 mile bike race I was excited to have some very special friends of mine from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil come stay with my family for a week or so.




Me and Sebastiao DaGuia Neto at the Salt Lake International Airport.

Me Sebastiao and Marks at the airport.

I had planned to do a 24 hour training run and complete at least 100 miles around a 1/2 mile loop in Payson. I was so excited when my Brazilian friends changed their plans to arrive earlier than planned so that they could be with me during this challenge.

Marks ran the first 33 miles with me.....he was a great pacer to have for several hours of running.

I soon started feeling the toll of all the activity I had done in the previous week. Sebastian told me I should consider doing only 12 hours....

Sebastian made sure Marks and I were eating and drinking a lot.

We took several breaks to eat and rest and stretch. I didn't get started until 3:30pm on Friday, Sept. 21st. 24 hours would mean I would run until 3:30pm on Saturday.

I felt pretty good until late in the night when I got really sick to my stomach...which is normal, but usually passes.

I was sick for 4 hours straight, but kept running and walking as much as possible.

My brother, Heath, and my friend Karl Teemant came and ran with me for a couple hours.

Finally I came to my senses about why 24 hours might be too much for a training run when I haven't let my body rest and recover enough from the week before.

So I decided that instead of running 100 miles in 24hrs, I would just do 50 miles in 12 hours...so I stopped at 3:30am and went home and slept. My poor friends from Brazil had been asleep outside for the last several hours that I was running alone....lol

Here's some of the fun things we did with Sebastian and Marks while we had a few days before the Bear 100 Mile Trail Run in Preston, Idaho.

This is Marks taking some swimming lessons at my brother's place.

Marks is a very dedicated Tri-Athlete in Brazil. He's now thinking about doing more ultra marathons too.

We took them with us to church to meet some of the great members of our ward.

We took them to see the local turist sites....

Then of course we had to do some of my favorite training runs on trails where I live so Sebastian could get a feel for what the 100 miler in Idaho would be like.

And we had to take them up Payson Canyon (Nebo Loop) to see the beautiful mountains and Autumn colors.

Then Sebastian wanted to visit the famous Salt Lake Temple Square.

The Bear 100 Mile Trail Ultrathon

Getting ready to drive to Preston, Idaho....yep the place where they filmed Napoleon Dynamite.
This is Phil Lowry, Assistant Race Director/Organizer who was so helpful in getting Sebastian into the race and writing an official acceptance letter to assist Sebastian in getting released from his Marine corp to come to the U.S. to participate as an international athlete.

Morning of the race. It started at 6:00am on Friday, Sept. 26th.

Sebastian is a very good ultra runner and has competed all over the world in places like, France, Spain, the Czeck Republic and even in the U.S. before....but he has never run anything like this mountain ultra marathon.

He hope to come and give Karl Meltzer some competition and at least place in the top 3...

but unfortunately within the first 30 min of the race he somehow took a wrong trail.
It was a beautiful morning and support crew members went to meet their runners at Aid Station #2 (18.6 miles into the race).

Karl Meltzer came through AS #2 first in an amazing 3 hours 35 min....mind you the first 20 miles of this course climbs over 3000 feet in elevation.

We expected to see Sebastian within a few minutes of Karl at this stage in the race....the first several runners came in and NO Sebastian anywhere.

This is my friend Mark Sanderson....he said he remembers seeing some runners taking a wrong turn early on in the race and he knew Sebastian was ahead of him. So he was shocked when we told him that Sebastian hadn't come in yet. Mark went on to finish 16th overall in about 27.5 hours. AWESOME !!!

Finally....about 4 hours later than expected, Sebastian came in to AS #2. He was over 2 hours behind the last runner. But he didn't want to stop there.

By the time he got to AS #6 (mile 41) he had actually run almost 55 miles and made up the two hour gap and caught three runners.

After I ran several miles with him Marks took a turn to run as it started getting dark. Sebastian continued to catch the slower runners and many started dropping out of the race.

By the time he reach Mill Creek, which was supposed to be mile 67, Sebastian had run nearly 80 miles and out of 84 runners who started the race, he had moved up from 2 hours behind the last runner to 65th place. He was discouraged and dissappointed to say the least. It was sad to see him have to make the decision to stop, but it was a wise decision. He had had that mental challenge on his mind for 22 hours now and with 33 miles to go and a snow storm coming he didn't think a 30 hour finish would be respectful. So he dropped :(

It was about 3:30 am.....ironically the same time I stopped my 24 hour run to 12 hours...hehe. After sleeping for several hours we stopped by the finish line only to discover that as of 30 hours into the race only 28 runners had crossed the finish line, 22 had dropped and the rest were out in the cold rain and snow. Sebastian was holding a slower pace and could have gone on to finish in 30 hours (including 4 hours of lost time)....but he was happy with his decision and wanted to look on to his next competition, a 24 hour ultrathon in Argentina in December.

He admitted that this was the hardest race he had EVER done before. The elevation, weather, trails and mental state were too much. He hopes to come back and do another 100 mile trail run in the U.S. someday. Until then....GOOD LUCK WITH ALL YOUR FUTURE RACES!!!

On the drive home we let them play in the snow....which they had NEVER seen before (it doesn't quite snow in Rio)

The End!