WARREN DILLAWAY
GENEVA — For more than 24 hours, Seth McElroy put one foot in front of the other, climbing hills in the dark and descending mountains at sunrise in an attempt to run 100 miles through southern Vermont.
Several times, the1987 Geneva graduate thought about stopping but his commitment to finishing was buoyed by his support staff and a friend that ran the last 30 miles with him.
“When I got in the car to drive up (to Vermont) I said, ‘I’m not going to go this far and not finish,’ ” McElroy said of the race that was held July 19 and 20 through farms and mountains.
“It’s hard to sum up. It was very intense. It was interesting seeing two sunrises in a row,”
The race started at 4 a.m. on Saturday and ended, for McElroy, 26:21 minutes later — after the second sunrise of the race.
McElroy said he ran cross country, a mid 17:00 5K runner in high school, and track for Geneva High School, but suffered an injury that took him away from running for his college years.
After returning to the area in the early 1990s, McElroy started running 5k races in the area and was hooked again.
When he moved to Belaire, Md., in 2002 McElroy said he joined a running club in the area that had many members that participated in ultra races (more than a marathon).
McElroy said he has been running 25 to 40 miles a week in preparation for the big day and was happy to be one of 173 finishers out of the 265 people who started the race.
“I was kind of surprised I could run that far at night,” McElroy said of the competition that included use of head lamps that made running possible on hilly mountain trails.
The two most difficult times in the race occurred when a blister developed on his foot at the 60-mile mark and a huge hill appeared in the middle of the night at about the 80-mile mark
He said he was able to change socks and shoes about 12 miles after he noticed the blister and received encouragement from his friend when the challenging hilly stretch became an issue.
McElroy said the race was run almost completely on private property owned by more than 30 different people who allowed the competition organizers to use their properties.
Aid stations were placed along the course at five-mile intervals and McElroy stationed his crew for contact every 10 miles.
Leading into the big competition, McElroy ran a 50K race (31 miles) in March, a second 50K around Memorial Day and a 100K (62 miles) the third week of June. He said he concentrated most of his training on trails to prepare for the event that centered on similar terrain.
McElroy said he will probably run another 100-mile race and hopes to break the 24-hour mark, which would earn him the ceremonial belt buckle that honors all that have attained the mark.
