Why hello there.

My name is Neil.  You may also know me as Pizzaguy/Pizzagut. I like cats and I run stupidly long races and I over-analyze things too much.  To save you my frustration, I’d like to distill my seemingly unnecessary work into an easy-to-digest guide for other fellow newbie runners to understand before going into these big running events.  I did it for the Spartan UltraBeast with much success, and I’d like to do the same for you on the Georgia Death Race via the perspective of a clueless runner who thinks they might be getting in over their head.  After all, I registered for this event (which sold out in 49 minutes) on a whim with very little understanding of what exactly I got myself into.  Nevertheless, I finished. I then decided to volunteer/crew the next year, while running again the next. I’ve been doing that rotation ever since while picking up new tidbits of knowledge that I hope will help you in this article. I’m going on year 8 now with four GDR finishes now under my belt so I hope the stuff you read here is useful! Here are some pictures so you can yell at me on the course.

And here I was in 2021, in utter disbelief that I finished in the top 30 at a time of 18:27:57. It’s been a long road of improvements

So anyways, I’m by no means an ultrarunning expert but a woefully prepared guy that likes memes and wants you to not make the mistakes I made.

Here is what you can learn from me.

First of all, read the posted race guide. 

I’m going to try my best not to repeat everything you see on the race FAQ.  If you haven’t read the guide yet, I would stop right here and mull through it one, two or five times.  Print it out into a binder for you to review on your car ride up to the event.  You can get a lot of necessary information off of that, but I’d like to give you the bits of information that you won’t hear from it.  That race guide changes periodically through the year and you’ll get emails that give you the heads up.  Read into those changes and make sure you follow all of the rules.  The race director has a marketing strategy of trying to intimidate you, but it’s in all good fun.  Enjoy it!

What the course is like.

In one word – brutal.  This is hands down the hardest ultra on the eastern side of the US.  There were people at this event saying they would happily run a 100 miler instead of this 68-ish (read: 75) mile course.  I agree with this sentiment. The first half of the course is a series of ridge running ups and downs that are either too steep to run up, or too steep to safely run down unless you want to look like Chris Farley tumbling down the mountain in Tommy Boy.  The second half is much more forgiving, but a lot more boring.  As you’re running up and around some mountains you’ll find that one side of a mountain is freezing cold with strong winds, but as soon as you get on the other side of the mountain, the sun will cook you alive as the stagnant air offers little relief to your labored body while you wish for the sweet release of death.  The ground you run/walk on will be just as insane, by the way.  90% of the time your eyes will be locked to the ground to make sure you don’t accidently stub your toe on a protruding rock or root.  I can’t tell you how many times I saw somebody roll an ankle, trip and fall or utterly destroy their toes on something on the trail.  Don’t worry about getting lost, either.  The course is littered in ribbons marking the trees, as well as blinking LEDs for the night running portion of the course.  I didn’t need the National Geographic map 777 or any GPS guidance for this whatsoever for each of the three times I ran this event.  Let’s go into some more detail about parts of the course.

The sections I highlighted in yellow were the sections of the course that you could easily run or power-hike with little risk of injury while keeping your pace under 15 minutes per mile. This is the “I just want to finish” strategy, by the way. In 2021 I went fast beyond those yellow areas and you can crunch the strava details for that if you’re interested.  Keep in mind that this was the elevation profile for 2017.  Obviously it’ll be a tiny bit different from year-to-year, but the current trend is that the course stays relatively the same every year. 2018 for example had some of the aid stations moved around, added or removed. The route was exactly the same, however. In 2023 they started at a venue about half a mile north of Vogel state park, but aside from that it used the exact same trails.

And just for redundancy, here is the course for 2021. As you can see, it’s pretty much the same established course now!

Here is my strava for the 2023 course!

Let’s talk about the weather.

It’s Spring in the GA mountains. It’ll either be scorching hot, or freezing cold. There is never an in-between. If you’re lucky like we were in 2023 it’ll be both! The morning blasted us with frigid sideways rain, rendering all downhill sections of the first 3 hours of the course into a slick mudslide that rendered any kind of running impossible. The afternoon opened up with the hottest course temps ever. This is why it’s important to have a jacket you can quickly put on and off. You’ll be going along the spine of the mountain and you’ll instantly go from hot stagnant air to a howling blast of cold bullshit. If this Floridaman has to choose between the scorching heat and the frigid cold… I’d honestly opt for the frigid cold. When it’s cold I can just go faster or be forced to spend less time at aid stations. Read the forecast and bring clothes for either occasion. Don’t dress just for the start line. In fact, they let you have a finish line drop bag that you turn in at the starting line so you can stash an extra layer in that finish bag right before you set off to run and it’ll be waiting for you at the end!

You will walk.  Make the most of it.

Most of the uphill sections of the course are just too steep to run on unless you’re gunning for a sub-14 hour finish.  This is the part where you stay in second gear.  Don’t change your pace and always walk as fast as possible while taking short steps.  Let me say it again in case you just glazed over that little tidbit of information – TAKE SHORT STEPS.  If you try to go uphill like you’re taking two stair steps at a time, you’re going to unnecessarily fatigue your legs and you’ll pay for it later.  Put it this way… can you do lunges for 20+ hours? Can you do those lunges up a stair-stepper? Okay, then don’t take massive steps uphill. Take short but quick steps and don’t stop moving.  We’re going to do another repeat of words here.  Don’t.  Stop.  Moving.  The second you tell yourself it’s okay to stop midway up the mountain(s) is when you set yourself up for failure.  A quick 10 second break will drift into a 20 second break the next time, then a minute… and then you’ll be hating yourself many hours later when you missed a cut-off by a couple of minutes that could have been prevented if you didn’t stray from a controlled short-step pace.  Take it from me… I missed the last cut-off at the Ultra Beast by four minutes in 2013.  To look at that in perspective, that was an entire years’ worth of training and preparation gone in just 240 seconds.  Also, while you’re going uphill in a forced walk, this is the time when you can afford to take off your pack and grab some nutrition or adjust your gear a little.  Don’t even attempt that while running or you’ll tumble down the mountainside.  Speaking of running…

When you can run… freaking run.

So you just made it to the top of a mountain and there’s a nice, slightly downhill trail that you can briskly walk down.  The temptation to take it easy on your legs will be there, but you need to start running.  I’m sure you heard that you only need to go at a sub-4 mile/hour pace, but the math for that is a little flawed.  I’ll go into the math later on but for now just look back up at the title of this paragraph and run when you can, albeit controlled and cautious especially for the first half of the course.    The second half of the course will be a lot more forgiving and you will even get to run on some relatively flat service roads.  This isn’t time for you to walk and enjoy yourself.  This is the time when you need to run while the opportunity is there.  There was a 7 mile stretch of service road leading up to the second crew station that I probably ran 90% of.  If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have had the very small time cushion to squeak by the final 1am cutoff with just 15 minutes to spare in 2017.  Take every opportunity to run, ESPECIALLY if it’s on a very easy trail that doesn’t have a sharp elevation grade.  Your legs might not be able to move that fast, but you need to move them as best as you can.  Joshua Fiore taught me (the day before the race, mind you) to lean forwards and look about 8-10 feet ahead of you during the downhill runs. In 2021 that worked flawlessly for me and my downhill times were the main reason why I finished in 18 hours and change.

I think I’ve stressed the point enough.  Run when you can.  So we’ve talked about the course a little bit, now let’s talk about you.

Train specifically for this race.

The stair stepper is your best friend.  Much like the Spartan UltraBeast, most of my training for this race was done via the stair stepper, minus the upper body training.  My workout consisted of 70 steps per minute for 45 minutes, and then I’d do a 30 minute stationary bike ride at 15mph, and then back on the stepper for a 45/30/45/30/45 minute rotation.  It’s a brutal grind, but so is this race you’re preparing for.  However brutal the training was, it paid off.  Whenever I’d be going on the uphill section of the race, I’d just equate it to another stair stepper session that my body was very well adapted to.  In fact, I think there was only one section of the race where I was going uphill for longer than a 45 minute stretch, which was only at the beginning section of the course (that’s from mile 3.4-7.2 on my Strava).  Any other uphill section of the course was easier than what I had trained for!   Since I live in Florida, I didn’t have elevated trails and hills to train on so I’d run through UCF campus and go up and down their parking garages.  If you really want to prepare for this event, you’ll find a way.  As for the downhill training, I hit the gym and did a lot of strength work on my quads and glutes. I had zero cramping issues on the course just because I trained very well in addition to keeping my nutrition on point. Oh yeah… nutrition! Let’s talk about that next.

Ultrarunning is an eating contest.

If running a 5k burns around 350-500 calories, what the heck is going to happen to you after a couple of hours when you don’t have any calories left to burn?  Pig out on as much as possible in the days leading up to this event and especially during the event.  On one of the 7 mile stretches I ran out of calories and I immediately felt the ill effects of bad nutrition.  I began to hallucinate colored spots on the corners of my field of view and I kept seeing red and black bugs on the ground plus the common dizziness and general feeling of lost hope that accompanies the ol’ bonk-out.  As soon as I scarfed down some cookies at the next aid station I could feel the energy immediately return to me and I was perfectly fine afterwards.  Some people can’t break past a nutrition bonk-out, so do whatever you can to prevent that from happening.  Some people brought a watch that beeped at them every hour.  No matter where they were when it beeped they would stop what they were doing and eat. Bringing a baggie to stash aid station food in 2019 PAID OFF BIG TIME! DO THIS!

Aid stations on this course are generous as hell. They’re on average only 7 miles apart from each other and they have amazing food. You honestly don’t need to put much in your drop bags or need any crew for this race. Going overboard on either of those two will just get you trapped into spending too much time at those stations anyways.

Take care of your damn feet.

Even if you’re the most swole and fit fella out there, your feet are going to feel the effects of running 75 miles.  That’s just a simple cause-and-effect bound by biology and physics.  Ultra running is a chaotic and insane trial that breaks every person in some way.  Your feet are going to need the best care you can provide.  If you’re feeling hotspots on your feet (you will), you need to take care of it at the next aid station no matter how painful or uncomfortable it is to take off your shoes and socks.  I’d highly recommend a generous application of trail toes whenever you’ve got the opportunity.  Bring extra socks to access at each bag drop or crew station in case the situation calls for it.  I learned from this and when I ran it again in 2019 I had shoes with more padding and slightly less traction and I didn’t lose a single toenail and only had a very tiny blister on one foot. 2021 was even better with the Hoka Speedgoats. However you want to prepare for this event, the next subject is of crucial importance… 

Don’t try anything new.

So you’ve made your 5th stop at REI or WalMart while you’re out there the days before and those brand new socks look really nice, or that calorie-laden snack you’ve been dying to try looks like a nice thing to put into your drop bin.  No matter how tempting something is, do not try it for the first time when you’re out at an ultra.  I’ve seen people with horrifically blistered feet because they decided to break in a new pair of shoes or socks, or vomiting endlessly because they discovered that their stomach actually doesn’t agree with perkey jerkey and fireball whiskey at mile 50.  Use your tried and tested methods out on the course.  Trying new things should be relegated to your training sessions only.  As a quick example, I decided to try out wearing two pairs of socks after the second crew station.  That lasted for about one mile when my swollen feet were trying to burst at the seams of my shoes without any regard to my heel blisters.  In 2019 I decided to hit the whiskey at the second aid station instead of the last two, which turned my stomach into a furnace of regret. In 2021 I used the shoes, clothes and nutrition that I trained in and my body responded perfectly to it.

Learn from my mistakes.  Here is what I should have done differently.

Lose more weight
I had way too much muscle above the waist that I never used at this event.  In addition, I could have probably dropped 5-10lbs of fat around the belly just by eating a little more responsibly in the months leading up to this event.  Every single unnecessary pound becomes an immense burden when you’re running non-stop for an entire day.  Imagine climbing the steps of the Sears Tower with a 30lb wreckbag over your shoulders, now imagine how much less of a hedonistic suckfest that would be if you got to drop that on the ground before climbing.  Lay off the Nutella and PBR, alright?

• How’d this go in 2019? I was only eight pounds lighter on the second go-around and it made a world of a difference. Highly recommended!

• Would I change anything still? Yes. I could have still dropped my bodyfat % down a little and my upper body was still too muscle-heavy.

• What about 2021? I dropped my weight down to 175 for this and hollllly crap did that make a world of a difference.

• What about 2023? Shit, I was fatter this year. I was around 185 and I paid for it by slipping more on the downhill mud. Dropping down to 175 for next time.

Put the knee brace on earlier
In the six months leading up to the Death Race, I had problems with my right knee.  After 15 miles the right tendon would start flaring up in an intense pain that would cripple me to a walk.  I wish I would have put on the knee brace beforehand instead of once I started to feel the pain.  Doing that would have brought my speed up considerably.  If you’ve got an injury, take preventative measures.

• How’d this go in 2019? I heeded this advice and it worked 100%. I crushed the uphill sections of the course and my knees felt just fine thanks to the brace!

• What about 2021? I was only worried about what the course would do to my knee in the first 25 miles, so I removed the brace to improve my range of motion and it worked just fine.

• What about 2023? Get a plunger before you need a plunger. I stored the knee brace in my vest just in case. Didn’t need it but I would have wished I had it if I did.

Bigger shoes
I forgot that feet swell up during these things.  I should have worn shoes that were half a size larger.  Had I done that I could have double-socked it and prevented many of the blisters and busted toenails that I’m currently nursing.

• How’d this go in 2019? Just a half size difference and not wearing thin OCR mud shoes absolutely saved my toes. Only a tiny pencil eraser sized blister on one foot occurred!

• What about 2021? Hoka Speedgoats were my shoe of choice and I only had a small blister on one foot, which wasn’t due to my shoes but a gait imbalance. Highly recommend these shoes!

• What about 2023? Used a pair of speedgoats that were half a size larger. It was fine until they got wet and the movement inside the shoe was a little too much. Still it worked great, I would have just gone with a size 12.5 instead of 13.

Have pockets
Many times during the run I wanted something in my camelback, but I didn’t want to take it off and dig through my pack so I just dealt with the inconvenience until I got to an aid station.  In hindsight, I should have had pockets on the side that I could easily access for things like snacks and salt tabs.

• How’d this go in 2019? Sweet mother of god yes. Just a tiny pocket made it much more convenient to access nutrition. Ladies, I now know of your plight when it comes to those fancy dresses. Pockets are yuuuuuge.

• What about 2021? You bet. I had pockets this time for a chapstick. I’ll be damned if I’m running with chapped lips!

• What about 2023? Upgraded to the vest and had even MORE pockets!

Bring a to-go bag for the aid stations
A small Ziploc bag to stash aid station food in would have been amazing.  My safety runner did this and had no trouble keeping a full stomach.  The food they have at these stations is downright amazing, and to have a consistent supply of grilled cheese and bacon slices with you during the run is nothing short of a koala bear crapping a rainbow into your brain. 

• How’d this go in 2019? By far the best idea since the discovery of sex. No nutrition bonk-outs and my energy levels were through the roof.

• Would I change anything still? Yes, a better quality bag. Mine had gotten holes in it but I still salvaged enough food to keep me going.

• What about 2021? Those at the stations saw me sporting the new and improved Fat Fuck Bag (tm). I voraciously ate out of that thing. 69/420 would recommend.

• What about 2023? Used a vest with more storage but yes, I stuffed food in there and yes I ate like a fat slut. Fight me.

Better socks
Get a good pair of socks and don’t even look at the price.  I had a worn out pair of injiji toe socks that were starting to rip from previous runs.  Sure enough, my big toes tore through the socks by mile 20 and my big toenails are currently paying the price.  I’d suggest toe socks because your toes aren’t rubbing against each other through the entire event, which will prevent some blisters from forming. 

• How’d this go in 2019? Not wearing worn out socks that ripped was phenomenal, imagine that! I still wore toe socks, but they were much more rugged.

• What about 2021? Nothing new here. Wore good socks and had pristine feet.

• What about 2023? OOF. It rained and my feet got wet and I FORGOT TO PUT MY SPARE SOCKS IN A BAG. My one pair of good socks got wet so my feet were stuck in a sarcophagus of juice the whole time.

Fill my bladder to 2L, not 3. WITH EXCEPTIONS.
I thought the time between aid stations was going to be much longer than reality.  Never through any section of the race did I come close to drinking 3L of water from my camelpak.  Having a 2L bladder would have been plenty enough to last between stations and it would have been much less of a heavy burden.  3L of water weighs roughly 5-7lbs depending on what you’re holding it in. 

• How’d this go in 2019? NOT OKAY. Why? It was hot as Satan’s taint this year. I went dry on water three times and I wished I used a 3L pack during the afternoon heat. I brought only a 2L bladder and it wasn’t enough.

  • Would I change anything still? To be safe, I’ll just bring a 3L sized bladder and only fill it to 2L in the cold mornings/evenings and to the brim in the afternoon. If the temperature goes over 70, you’ll need to fill that all the way to 3L.

• What about 2021? It was even hotter that year. I drank over 20 Liters of water, no joke. That thing got filled to 3L every time and was close to empty by the time I reached each station. I don’t know how you folks run with two tiny water bottles in each hand…

• What about 2023? I used the 1.5L bladder (regular water) and a 0.5L vest bottle (electrolytes) and this combo worked PERFECTLY.

Swapped shoes at mile 44. WITH EXCEPTIONS.
This was a big one for me.  I had shoes with a wider toe box but less traction waiting for me.  Unsure about what the terrain was going to look like for the remaining 30 miles, I opted to keep my smaller but more tractioned shoes that worked well in the technical terrain that I had ran in.  The last 35 miles of the course were drastically different and less technical than the first.  If you’ve got more comfortable shoes with lesser traction, bring these for your second crew station!

• How’d this go in 2019? Since I picked better shoes from the beginning and not these super thin OCR mud shoes, I kept my Salming Trail Series 3 shoes on the entire time. I had a backup pair of Speedcross 4s in my drop bin just in case but I didn’t need to swap shoes for this time. Still I would recommend having backup socks/shoes in each of your two drop bins.

• What about 2021? Didn’t have any crew/pacers so I didn’t bring extra shoes. I trained in the shoes I ran in so I was confident in their ability to hold up, and they did. If you have a crew, it wouldn’t hurt for them to have an extra pair just in case you have a blowout.

• What about 2023? Didn’t bring extra shoes because my tried and tested Hoka Speedgoats have served me well in other races. They did fine. If you haven’t put 100+ trail miles on your shoes, bring another pair just in case.

Why people DNF

Stick with me here, we’re almost done with the guide. As a reward, I will show you a comparison of my cat and my pizzagut face. This list isn’t all-encompassing since I’m sure there are other minor reasons out there, but these are the more salient issues that I personally witnessed that caused people to DNF the most. You’re almost at the end of this guide so I hope I didn’t lose you, because these mistakes I outline below get made every year and it’s important you remember these.

Not pacing oneself
Too many people went too fast out of the gate.  I saw people zipping past me in the first ten miles that I slowly sauntered by just miles later and never saw again.  You are out here for an entire day, don’t blow it.  I deliberately had my friend Kris run in front of me for the first 8 miles just because he has a better grip on his pacing than I do.  Sure enough, I found myself creeping up on his ass when I wasn’t paying attention.

Not looking where you’re going
This is especially important when it’s dark and/or muddy out.  I saw so many people smashing their toes and rolling their ankles on the errant roots and jutting rocks that littered the first half of the course.  Don’t ruin what you prepared for months in advance and ran hours into only to lose it all in a split second lapse of focus.  I deliberately ran without any music for the entirety of the race just to force my mind into the tedious monotony of staring at the terrain attentively.  It’s only 20+ hours of suffering you have to go through for a lifetime of pride.  Don’t bring your phone or any distraction and keep your eyes on the ground. Leaves will cover most of the things you’ll trip over, so step cautiously.

Not eating enough
This is a no-brainer, but even I mentally retreated from this lesson.  Ultrarunning is an eating contest.  You MUST keep eating.  The aid stations have more than enough nutritional needs, so eat it all up! If they don’t serve anything you like (unlikely), just bring your food in the drop bin and place it in the Fat Fuck Bag (tm) for you to eat on the go. MRE cheese sauce for the win.

Not doing the math
Ok so, at the mandatory pre-race meetup there were a few people speaking to the crowd of nervous runners (present company included).  One person said something that I almost raised my hand to correct, but I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ so I kept my silence until I got behind the keyboard like all internet warriors do.  He said that 75 miles divided among 24 hours equals about 3.175 miles per hour, or basically running a 5k per hour.  This sounds incredibly easy, and he even said he walked about 4/5 of the course.  Though probably true on average, the math did not add up on certain sections of the course.  This pace was only valid under the following conditions:
                1)  You took 0 seconds break at each of the aid stations, and
                2)  There were no do-or-die cutoffs at any of the aforementioned aid stations.

On average, I took about 9 minutes break at each aid station in 2017, which equates to 1 hour and 30 minutes added to my total time (there were 10 stations).  That brings the needed pace up to 3.33 miles per hour.  Not too big of a difference, but it’s incredibly hard to irk out that pace in the first half of the course, which brings us to the second point.  The second crew station (Winding stair) had an incredibly strict time cut-off, and for a good reason.  The race director didn’t want the slow people out there all night, causing a burden for search and rescue.  Your pace per mile to reach that station had to be in the 4mph range, which wasn’t easy trying to pull off in the steep uphill and downhill sections of the course leading up to it.  I’m pretty sure a lot of people kept thinking back to the 5k/hr pace and took it easy, only to discover that the true math was a lot more crushing when 7:30pm hit before they reached Winding Stair.  The second do-or-die cutoff for me was the very last one – Nimblewell.  In 2017 I got there at 12:45am, just 15 minutes to spare before I would have been DNF’d at the 1am cut-off.  That means that if you made that cut-off you had at least 4 hours to run only 9 miles.  So do the math for each section of the course, okay?  Find the pace you truly need to go, and try your best to stay a little above that (but not too fast, pace yourself) to give yourself a little bit of a cushion in case you have to go slower than normal at a future leg of the race.  Yes, I am aware that there is a section of this whole article that’s telling you not to go too fast, and yet here I am telling you to pick up the pace.  Welcome to the Death Race.

• 2019 update: There were 9 stations this year and my break time average at each station was 4:30! That’s a little over 40 minutes versus 90 minutes compared to my last GDR run. That alone shaved 50 minutes off of my finish time. See what I mean?

• 2021 update: Averaged only 3.5 minutes at each station and you can guess how positive of a result that was.

• 2023 update: Spent an average of 1m50s at each station while allowing myself two stations where I sit down and tend to my feet/chafing/socks/etc for 5-7 minutes. I did this at the two aid stations where we could access our drop bags.

Thinking outside of the present moment
This is the mental aspect of ultra running that many of you have no doubt heard about, but it needs reiteration because I heard a lot of people voluntarily quit at aid stations when they had plenty of time to finish.  This isn’t just hearsay; my safety runner who volunteered at Winding Stair for five hours before I met up with him saw this happen first hand!  Why would anybody in the right mind voluntarily drop, save for any obvious injuries?  They thought too far ahead, or too far back.  Thinking too far back into how far you’ve run so far will lull your mind into a false sense of accomplishment.  It will make you think that you’ve earned that extra 5 minutes at the aid station or an easy walk through a section of the course that you really should be running in.  Thinking too far ahead will just make you overwhelmed at the daunting task that lies ahead.  I’ll admit, I let these thoughts creep into my mind at around mile 20.  The thought of having to do those 20 miles not once, twice but almost THREE times over was insane.  Granted, the first 20 miles were significantly harder than other 20 mile sections, but distance was all the same.  Do NOT let those thoughts creep into your head.  The hours will melt away if you only focus about taking that one step in front of the other.  Thinking about that is the only thing that will benefit your current situation, so focus on that with laser precision.  After all, the difference between a flashlight and laser is merely focus.  You all have the ability to complete this race.  Just live in the moment, and don’t be distracted from the noise.  Whenever I found myself in a dark place, I would always repeat the following mantra in my head:

“Where the mind goes, the body will follow”

[2018 update] - I’d like to add on to the above section a little more, because it needs to be re-emphasized after what I witnessed as a volunteer this year. To those who were there, my group was handling morning-check in while pounding beers at 4am (hi). Every registrant had an underlying façade of insane nervousness, which was understandable. What totally baffled me was the amount of people who physically showed up to check-in, only to explain that they are not racing. Excuses ranged from “I don’t think I’m trained enough for this” to straight up “I don’t want to do it”. I kid you not.

Look, you’re never going to be 100% ready for any extreme endurance event… ever. I’ve gone in with lingering injuries, extreme nervousness and one time I even ran BFX with food poisioning and ended up 2nd place overall. Yeah read that again - I flooded the course with diarrhea and I still crushed a podium finish. The point is that if you made the trouble of showing up, just take that first step and have a good time alright? As the Run Bum explained before, ultras are like scratch-off tickets. They’re never going to give you the result you intended to have, so just roll with it. There are hundreds of people who didn’t make it past the lottery for this race who would have done anything to be in the position you are in.

Later in the day I volunteered at the aid station at mile 44 where I volunteered until my runner came through to support. During this time I saw a lot of crazy shit. The craziest was when runners who were in the TOP TWENTY deciding to voluntarily quit the race for none other than the reason that they’re going slower than they thought (wtf) or that they’re just downright exhausted (no shit). The woman who was in 2nd place overall decided to drop at this station, where we spent about an hour trying to coax her back into the race until she saw the third place woman arriving, to which she quit upon seeing that. Another guy was exhausted so he went and slept in his car for an hour, and since his body went to recovery mode from the nap he didn’t want to run anymore. He flew across the country to be there, spent all that time training and quit because of a 60 minute nap. I can go on and on with these ridiculous and uncessary reasons why people dropped here. After seeing the most over-qualified fit people mentally drop from the race, my advice to anybody reading this is that if you’ve made it to Winding Stair (mile 44), you’ve completed the absolute hardest section of the course and the rest of it is 3x easier than what you just did. So whatever you do… DO NOT QUIT AT WINDING STAIR. Here, I’m going to make the point larger for people who scrolled past this:

DO NOT QUIT AT WINDING STAIR.

Advice from other runners

Louie B - I would add in that changing socks and lubing up your feet again is worth the extra time if you have it.  I changed socks 3 times during the race and had zero blister issues with my toes.

TJ Theis - Another replacement for hill running is dragging a tire behind you as you run.  Many ultra runners attest to that as well.

Josh L - Stick to the game plan of taking the first half of the race easy. Focus on leg strength for training more than running on flat ground.

Matthew J - Eat and drink early and often! Don’t wait until you’re hungry or it’s too late. Focus on effort levels. Take advantage of the runnable sections on the last half!

The ghost of GDR future - Do not quit at winding stair.