“Would you rather play naked Twister with Dick Cheney, or punch a baby in the face?”
This is the stuff great pacer-runner conversations are made of.
Toni and I were just starting loop 7 of the Umstead 100 miler. She was 75 miles in, with 25 left to go.
It was just after midnight, and I’d already paced her through one 12.5-mile loop. We’d spent the previous loop catching up on how her race had gone up to that point, assessing how she was feeling, and going over what needed to happen to get her across the finish line under 24 hours.
She had about nine hours to cover 37.5 miles at the start of loop 6. That’s a totally reasonable proposition for an ultrarunner if that were the task in and of itself. But with 62.5 miles already in the books, it’s a different story.
Fifteen hours into a run, already sore as hell, the sun long down, the rain still threatening a return, and a tough night ahead. It’s enough to leave you feeling like the last Cheerio in the bowl, looking for someone else to cling to.
You know you’ll make it if you’ve got someone else to float with. My job that night was to be a Cheerio. One that could help bring home a sub-24 finish.






