Part I (midnight to dawn): Mr Moonlight

“Is that how you greet me?” Aaron quipped as I puked in the bushes. Atop Hellgate’s highest, coldest mountain, Aaron was waging a heroic battle to maintain his legendary streak of 21 consecutive finishes at David Horton’s infamous Hellgate 100km++ ultramarathon. To do so, he would need to overcome a respiratory virus, a bum ankle, the ravages of time and parenthood, and a past Lyme disease infection that left him permanently hobbled and immunocompromised. Back in 2007, Aaron was Hellgate champion. Today, he would fight just to finish. All I needed to overcome was my perennially bad stomach, which had just unleashed a round of sympathy barfs.

Aaron can run Hellgate on autopilot, but I require the help of support crew. Aaron’s friend Matt crewed and paced my first two Hellgates, but he was in Hawaii this year, so I roped in Mike and Anthony, two recent additions to our Woodley Ultra Society (WUS) trail running group in DC. Mike and Anthony’s chief qualifications were that they (a) are unflappably zen and (b) had already seen me puke aplenty (after Catherine’s Furnace 50km, during and after Highland Sky 40 miler, while pacing Trevor at Hardrock 100, after the Richmond Marathon, the list goes on….). However, Matt is a father who’d “crewed” three childbirths. Mike and Anthony are bachelors in their early 30s who’d never seen a woman fall apart on their watch. As someone who never run 100 milers — or even other 100km races — Hellgate is at the outer reachers of my capabilities. I go to some dark places.

After two “Sissygates” in 2021 and 2023 where everyone wore shorts in balmy weather, I finally got the “real” Hellgate experience this year, complete with frozen feet after the early stream crossing (Aaron’s tip #1: we slathered our feet in diaper creme this year to prevent blistering and it worked). Despite bundling up with tights, a long sleeve shirt, and a houdini jacket, my fingers still froze, making it hard to eat. My hydration pack’s bladder hose also froze, so I couldn’t drink. (Aaron’s tip #2: Aaron instructed me (after the fact) to blow air into my hose during subfreezing conditions to remove the water from the hose and keep it from freezing.)

The sky was crammed with stars. Aaron and I turned off our headlamps so a bulbous near-full moon could light our way through Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. We fell into usual conversational patterns, which means I complained loudly about trifles while Aaron silently suffered for real. I decreed that poles should be banned for Hellgate’s opening mile after another runner smacked me several times in the elbow with his flailing trekking poles during the crowded start. Sharing moonlit miles with Aaron was a rare treat that I couldn’t pass up, but as Aaron crept along at half his usual pace, my blood flow slowed and everything froze from my toes to my ears.

Mike and Anthony were rightfully surprised when Aaron and I came in together around 4:30am at the Floyd’s Fields aid station, the coldest spot in the race. (Aaron’s tip #3: Mike wore a LED light vest at night aid stations so I could easily identify him in the darkness amid the glare of headlamps). My teeth were chattering uncontrollably and my body was slipping into cold shock, so I left early without eating anything. I never saw Aaron again during the race.

Mike and Anthony had been told what to expect at the race. “My fuel will be organized into three buckets: savory, sweet, and liquid. But don’t be surprised if I never touch most of it. When you first see me at Floyd’s Fields, mile 24, around 5am, don’t be alarmed if I look like death and puke at the first whiff of food. Don’t offer me anything or mention any foods by name, because that will immediately make me puke. Wait for me to ask for stuff. I’ll tell you what I want.”

When I first ran Hellgate in 2021, I was a scared mouse who looked to Aaron for guidance on everything. I was crewed by Aaron’s friend, listened to Aaron’s music mix, used Aaron’s hydration pack, and ate whatever Aaron ate. This year, I had acquired my own tastes. I recruited my own friends to crew, picked my own menu (ramen was this year’s food winner), and made my own music mix that toggled between folk, classic rock, and 90s grunge. Aaron’s acoustic guitar playlist calms me, but sometimes I need STP.

“Jenning’s Creek, the fifth aid station, will be my low point,” I’d warned Mike and Anthony. “At my first Hellgate, I just sat there on a bucket and puked between my legs. The night whips me. But,” I chirped, “When dawn breaks on the next climb, and the sun’s rays thaw my fingers and toes, I’ll become human again.”

Part II (dawn to pacers): Here Comes The Sun

Hellgaters sometimes can’t explain why they sign up for this sufferfest year after year, like rats that keep touching the electric fence without learning, but one reason I do it is The Dawn, when light triumphs over darkness and the frozen nightmare is finally in the rear view mirror. Pain becomes easier to tolerate when friendly faces beam smiles and vistas shine in the backdrop. At daybreak I turned on my music, and Smashing Pumpkins, REM, and Neil Young lifted my mood (and pace) across the open grassy fire roads.

Accommodating someone else’s slower gait always hurts, and I paid for the slow, choppy miles I shared earlier with Aaron by flaring my knee tendinitis. Slowing down only made it worse, so I did the opposite of what any sensible person would do when faced with screaming pain in their joints: I ran faster. The grassy fire roads after Little Cove aid are a good place to stretch the legs. I wanted to explain to the dozens of runners I careened past that I’m not an idiot who thinks I’m winning Hellgate. Running it off just helps.

“I won’t see you at the sixth aid station, which isn’t crew accessible, but I’ll be in dire need of a burger at the seventh aid station, Bear Wallow (mile 42), where Mike can jump in to pace me. Expect me to be wrecked. The rocky trail between Little Cove and Bear Wallow has loose boulders hidden under leaf piles and winds around in endless loops that try my patience or, as Aaron puts it, really blows dead goat.”

“So I don’t need to talk the whole time?” Mike, our club’s foremost introvert, was concerned his pacing duties required goods he couldn’t deliver.

“No,” I assured him. “I’ll be non-verbal by then. Your main job is to say kind, encouraging things to other runners we pass when I’m too sick to speak. It can be beastly hard to know what to say when someone is obviously suffering and crawling along. You can’t just blurt out Great job! or Looking good! or Almost there! You have to be positive without being obnoxious. It’s an art.”

Part III (pacers to finish): With A Little Help From My Friends

The never-ending “Devil trail” is my least favorite stretch of Hellgate. It was even worse this year because my bladder froze and I needed to unzip my entire hydration pack to get a sip. The operation was clumsy and I spilled freezing water down my chest and dropped a glove that I had to backtrack to retrieve. I was muttered “F that” and decided to just go without food or water until I got cheeseburgered at Bear Wallow. I looked like a kicked puppy when I arrived and learned there were no burgers on the menu this year. But it was too cold to stand around pouting, so I picked up Mike as my pacer and took a cup of ramen with a side of bacon to go. As Mike and I tramped up the climb, I forgot my woes and became downright giddy to have human company.

Mike is not the best crew I’ve ever had (watching Mike do simple task like fill a bladder requires the same patience as watching an old lady back out of a parking space). Mike is not a man who can be rushed, as we discovered at the WUS donut run. Mike sat and ate donuts deliberately, morsel by morsel, for 50 minutes, longer than it took Anthony to win the race.

However, Mike was a great pacer. Despite being exhausted, famished, and in pain, I was in an exuberant mood during the section we ran together from Bear Wallow, pointing out each beautiful view with glee and laughing at his stories. I ran everything except for the steepest climbs. Then things came to a screeching halt. Mike, why does my Coke taste like shampoo?

Mike took a swig and deduced that the soap was not rinsed out during Anthony’s last flask cleaning. I laughed deliriously. You boys are trying to poison me. I ceased running, talking, and eating and sad walked into the next aid station, where Anthony would assume pacing duties and I hoped to get replenished and turn things around.

Instead, things got worse. Even Grateful Dead hippie Anthony lost his cool when the Blue Ridge Parkway closed for ice on the road and the aid station was being taken down. I got no replacement for the soapy coke and continued my hunger streak, getting sicker and loopier. All I could mutter was “No” whenever Anthony tried to get me to nibble something in the Forever Section. Come on, Martha, one gummy bear….. I answered in the negative with another puke.

Pacing a suffering ultrarunner is a hard task. A couple weeks before Hellgate, Mike and I spent seven hours together running Vicki’s Death March going over pacer instructions in detail. I never conveyed the same information to Anthony. I get into tiffs when pacers inject their own opinions. I never yell at people, but I will rebel and grind to a halt and refuse to move, like the time Sean egged me on to get me to pass more women at the Frisco Half Marathon when I was suffering at altitude. I refused to take another step until Sean let me run my own race. “Blueberry” is my code word for please leave me alone and stop talking.

The final 2.5-mile climb up the road from Day Creek is a death march. This year I got an extra dagger when a bouncy woman ran past me up the hill looking impossibly energetic. (Are you even allowed to run that climb?) But Anthony had regrouped at the final aid station and we made peace at the summit where I agreed to take several gulps of coke. I glanced at my friend one last time before steeling myself to gun it to the finish line. The woman who passed me up the hill was long gone, but, just like in past years, I pulled out 6:30-minute miles from god knows where and soon she was in my sights. I passed her as authoritatively as she’d passed me on the uphill. I know most of the women I pass in the final stretches of Hellgate, but she was unfamiliar. I finished in my standard time of 15 hours, plus or minus, for the third time in a row. Only this year, for the first time, I did not puke on Horton’s finish line.

Hellgate has an unusual rule that top-10 men and top-10 women can’t have pacers, so one of Anthony and Mike’s biggest concerns was that their participation might cost me a puff jacket. Fortunately, I pulled off the rare feat of getting a pacer and a puff jacket by finishing as top women’s master but outside the top-10.

Aaron crawled across the finish line in the pitch dark after 17 grueling hours and 34 minutes, just 26 minutes under the 18-hour cut-off. It was the slowest of his 22 finishes by far, more an hour slower than his worst Lyme disease year. But he preserved his streak, which is all that counts. Fellow Hellgate streaker Darin cut it even closer and finished with a mere 90 seconds to spare. Ultimately, the Hellgate story of the year went to my friend Laney, who finally finished Hellgate under the cut-off on her fifth try, after coming in just 2 minutes over the time limit two years ago.

Anyone following the trends of 2024 should not be surprised that three WUS women — Nora, Keavy, and I — took home Patagonia puff jackets for top-ten or top-masters finishes. WUS women are making a comeback, thanks to Barry’s Friday morning trail runs (Barry also ran Hellgate this year, his second finish) and a new-and-improved generation of WUS gentlemen, of which my crew Mike and Anthony are standard bearers.

Nothing beats a good trilogy (Lord of the Rings, the original Star Wars), and my third Hellgate felt like a good series finale. My first Hellgate in 2021, was an act of desperation during a hellish pandemic year when I was willing to try anything, even Aaron’s crazy ice race, to beat anxiety and depression. My second Hellgate in 2023 proved I’d come to appreciate David Horton and the magical Hellgate experience, which is somehow both tortuous and goofy. After my third Hellgate, I was ready to pass the torch to Mike, Anthony, and Matt, and be their support human as they stumble through the Forever Section. But after convincing myself and everyone else that my third Hellgate would be my last, I woke up the next morning and squealed in bed to Aaron I want to do it again!

Just as we thought WUS was past its prime and getting old and slow, 2024 saw a revival of youthful energy, thanks the arrival of new regulars like Will, plus a crop of new speedy women (thanks, Barry!). The explosion of new energy spurred Jaret and WHT to revive the WUS donut run, Trevor and Keith to eke through Hardrock, and Martha to somehow muster another sub-3 marathon. Not dead yet. We even made new WUS shirts, 3rd edition, although the slogan “The faces may change but the bar remains” has not aged well. Cleveland Park Bar and Grill may be moving down the block next year, following a change of landlord, and WUS may need to survive another big shakeup. But in the immortal words of Bryan Powell (“Jesus, you guys are still doing that Tuesday run?), WUS has a staying power that defies the winds of change and the elbows of Sebastian. Blue skies ahead in 2025. The WUS baby boom is finally over, our 20-year WuSiversay is on the horizon (2026), and a little cross-pollination with road runners may bring a dash more speed into Tuesday nights (don’t give me that look, Old Guard, some of our best WuSsies were snagged from DC road running groups).

I. Scorecard. How many of last year’s predictions came true in 2024? Red is correct guesses.

1. Mass WUS gathering at Hardrock in July.
2. Donut Run is revived. (But Martha probably has to organize it.)
3. Return of McNulty.
4. Clarification: Return of McNulty after dog-friendly outdoor seating becomes available in front of CPBG’s years-in-the-making pedestrian sidewalk.
5. WUS DC United Field Trip led by HKJ.
6. Another WUS tries Ride N Tie.
7. Prize to whichever WUS comes across Martha riding a horse through Rock Creek Park first.

II. 2024 Awards

Best race performances, male

Best race performances, female

Best performance, overall: Take On Me: Bjorn (BRR)

Best race debut, male: Anthony, marathon

Best race debut, female: Nora, ride n tie

Most improved, male: Mike, 9 minute PR at Beer Mile

Most improved, female: Martha, training for a marathon

Best surprise ringer: Amanda, Beer Mile

WuSsies of the Year: Jaret and WHT, for reviving the Donut Run

Best triumphant return: Aaron, finishing a 100 miler for the first time in a decade

Best WUS blast from the past: Matt W birthday WUS

Best performance, locking it up: Jaret

Worst performance, looking a gift horse in the mouth: Mike, start of Richmond Marathon

WUS arrivals: Will, Nora, Keavy, Barry, Theo, Orin, Io and Callisto, Georgia’s new baby

WUS departures: Nick, HKJ, Leda, Zelig

Best new CPBG pizza: burrata

Worst WUS news: the bar is closing in late 2024/early 2025

Best WUS news: the bar is reopening above Fat Pete’s

Best WUS bromance: Sean and Keith (always)

Best WUS fight: Martha and Seb, over which way North is

Worst race rip-off: Morocco 50k, for charging $400 and providing no snacks at aid stations

Worst race experience: Ironstone 100k

Best race experience: Iron Mountain Ride N Tie

Best new WUS real estate: Chamonix

Worst performance, trying to drop out of a race: Keith, Hardrock

Best performance, masking his desire to drop out of a race: Trevor, Hardrock

Best performance, segment records on Rock Creek Park hills: Poppy the white pony

Best performance, Bjorn care: (tie) Chelsea (Catherine’s Furnace) and Keavy’s brother (Breck summer camp)

Worst performance, convincing VHTRC to change SiP to 9am at Pierce Mill: Martha

Best performance, playing off a WUS fall: Heather

Worst performance, playing off a WUS fall: Adam

III: Predictions for 2025:

1. Mass WUS gathering at Hellbender
2. An epic WUS adventure involving HKJ
3. A WUS wedding
4. WUS women make a comeback (after their demands are met).
5. Keith makes a WUS comeback (no comment on whether #4 and #5 are related)
6. Seb finally earns a “real” WUS award by completing his first 100km race (thanks to a phenomenal pacing job by Guy).
7. New WUS house
8. A group of intrepid WuSsies complete a burro race. (And Aaron buys Martha a “Will Run 4 Ass” shirt.)
9. Another WUS tries ride n tie
10. Nora becomes the new occupant of the Bannockburn party house
11. A record number of WuSsies attend Mike’s DC rave (but only the early bird 4pm version)
12. Someone from the Monday night Pacer’s Run joins WUS (once Martha is offered as tribute)
13. A Pacers ringer gives Puff a run for his money at the 2024 WUS beer mile
14. Puff Magic runs a sub-20 hour hundred.
15. Aaron runs his 25th consecutive Boston Marathon in April.
16. Martha celebrates Aaron’s achievement a week later by throwing a Beer Mile party he doesn’t want in his backyard. In the spirit of “we all make sacrifices,” Martha invites all the WuSsies, even the hot sauce thieves. Because in 2025, everyone gets a shot at redemption.

“Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.” – Chili Davis.

Going skydiving would’ve been easier…..

Aaron! My eyes widened. I pinched a strand of hair and dashed into the kitchen. Look!

Aaron flashed the alarmed look of someone who had just been overrun by squirrels. What am I looking at?

It’s gray! I cradled the curled specimen of hair in my palm and offered it to him like a child. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

Aaron stammered, aware of the landmines hidden beneath any conversation that touches on a woman’s looks. Wise beyond his years, he said nothing.

I knew that in my 40s I would hit middle age, go through menopause, turn gray, and lose my speed. But that didn’t mean I was ready for it. I now understood why men panic-buy sports cars in their 40s. Anything to stop the downward skid. But my mid-life crisis package would not include convertibles, motorcycles, skydives, or breast implants. I stared in the mirror and realized there was only one way to turn back the clock. It was time to lace up and run another sub-3 hour marathon.

There were just a few problems. One, I was already 43 years old, well into the Masters runner category where the wheels come off. Two, I was a mom, with limited time to train or perform self-care. Three, my last sub-3 marathon was 8 years ago at the DC Rock n Roll Marathon in March 2016, where I paced my friend Trevor to his first sub-3 hour finish, and also went on to win the race myself.

Shortly after, I got married and welcomed my son Bjorn, and then my marathon times floated above 3 hours for the first time in 13 years. I was more than dismayed, I was in existential crisis, realizing after decades of getting stronger and faster, I was now in decline. My friend Sean welcomed me as the newest member of the “old and slow” club.

Now I know how Greg Lemond felt at the beginning of the EPO era in cycling…..

The arrival of carbon-plated “super-shoes” at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics poured salt on the wound. Just as my speed was fading, everyone else was buying it for $250. Nearly everyone at the 2021 Boston Marathon wore the Nike Vaporfly. The sudden change in pace of people around me threw off my race instincts and seeded more self-doubt. “Cheater shoes” Aaron called them, referring to their enhanced biomechanics. When Aaron finally bit the bullet and bought super-shoes this year, the advantage was pretty dramatic: about 15 seconds per mile, which adds up to a 6-to-7 minute bonus in a marathon. That would have been enough to turn my 3:04 Boston Marathon from 2021 into a sub-3 performance. But I wouldn’t have counted it.

Super-shoes meant I could no longer compete with other road runners on even footing, so I took an 18-month sabbatical from the marathon to focus on trails. I ran Hellgate a second time, I recruited Nora to ride-n-tie, and I learned to mountain bike on single-track in West Virginia. I revived the WUS Tuesday night trail run, which had stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic, and joined a new Friday morning women trail running group organized by Barry (who is not a woman, but appears to attract them in droves, for reasons that are still up for discussion). For the ultimate summer trail adventure, I headed out to Silverton, Colorado, to pace Trevor at Hardrock in what would be my first VHTRC trip without Aaron.

“Teamwork Makes the Dream Work!” – Aaron Schwartzbard

I took away a couple lessons from Hardrock:

1. Trevor is blessed by the gods. (Translation: If I want to run a sub-3 marathon, it would help to have some magic Trevor fairy dust along.)
2. You can do impossible things as long as you have the right crew. (Translation: We might need more people than just me and Trevor.)
3. I can survive without Aaron. (Translation: But someone should be prepared to take me to the hospital.)

I struck a deal with Trevor: if I paced him at Hardrock in July, he would train with me for a fall marathon and pace me to a sub-3 finish. We settled on the Richmond Marathon in November, which I’d never run before but where Trevor set his PR (2:53) in 2016. My training plan would be simple: five long runs during September and October sprinkled with a weekly dose of light speed work. With four children under the age of 6, Trevor would train with me when he could.

Two other Wussies, Mike and Anthony, also signed up for Coach Aaron’s Richmond Marathon training plan. Katie and Steve joined the party too and Barry’s FOMO got so bad he almost reversed his vow never to run another marathon again.

No sooner than we began training in September and Trevor was downed by illness (four kids is TOO MANY kids). But Mike and Anthony stepped up and I never had to run a long run alone. We were the Breakfast Club of marathon training: Anthony was the pot-smoking hippie, Trevor was the Mr Perfect prep school golfer, Anthony’s friend Duy was the fun gay Asian (which was not in Breakfast Club, to the detriment of the movie), and Mike was the quiet guy in the corner who was silently trolling everyone.

For the first time since grad school, marathon training was fun again. The guys laughed at my stories, followed my routes, and kept a spirited but conversational pace. One evening in October, Mike completed my marathon training by taking me out clubbing until 3AM on U Street. After all, running a sub-3 hour marathon meant learning how to be 27 again.

By the end of October, Coach Aaron certified that my 5 long road runs of at least 16 miles, sprinkled with a couple track workouts, counted as “training.” This may not sound like much, but given my history of never training for marathons, this was a victory in and of itself. Aaron spent years trying to convince my younger self that my marathon PR of 2:55 was soft and with the slimmest amount of training I could break 2:50, but I was honestly scared of training. I knew too many women over the years who lost their periods, under-ate, over-trained, and damaged their bodies. Self-preservation was my game. But by age 43 (and with some good therapy), I was finally getting past these mental blocks.

I assume no one from Dojo reads my blog

Aaron and I are in many way opposites. He’s an introvert, I’m an extrovert. He’s methodical, I’m whimsical. He’s vegetarian, I’m a carnivore. He trains diligently for marathons, while I do one confidence-boosting long run (at least 13 miles) a couple weeks before the race and declare myself fit to go. But we actually align quite a bit on our philosophy about how one should train for a marathon, if one chose to do so. Like telling poor Anthony not to run every day at his expected marathon pace (6:30) on the same stretch of Beach Drive until he was so bored and burned out that he swore off marathons forever. Here we spell out the “Marthon” Cardinal Rules for Marathon Training:

(a) Long runs should be a comfortable clip, neither excessively slow nor fast, maybe 60-90 seconds slower than expected race pace. You should be able to converse comfortably. If you’re feeling good towards the end it’s okay to pick up the pace for the last 4-5 miles, just don’t do anything that is going to require more than a day or two recovery. Because later in the week….

(b) You should do a session of speed work. Nothing arduous. You don’t need to do mile repeats. The purpose is to improve running economy and improve your biomechanics and efficiency of stride. If you’re having difficulty getting the right body conformation during these pick-ups, you might need to include some plyometrics (see instructional videos on YouTube). I typically do not wear a watch or record my runs, but for Anthony’s sake I began to wear one and post my activities on Strava, so he could see that light speed work could be as simple as three or four 800m repeats.

(c) The long run and the speed work are the two pillars of your training week that give you the most benefit. Focus on nailing those two days, and the other days are just recovery and endurance building. Fine to mix in some trail runs on those days. If you need to party, do that any night of the week EXCEPT the two important nights before the long run and speed work.

(d) Try not to lose weight during marathon training. Do not diet during marathon training. It may be tempting to believe that you’ll be faster if you can shed a couple pounds, but I’m afraid that ship has sailed by the time marathon training begins. Your body cannot handle the load of marathon training without complete fueling.

(e) You’re going to need super-shoes if you want to compete against others for prizes/BQs/OTs. If you’re going to wear super-shoes in the race, make sure you do at least one long run in them prior to race day.

(f) Train to run easy faster, not hard longer. You may notice killer times posted from training sessions on Strava are not necessarily predictive of performance on race day. Many marathoners take a training approach that focuses on running hard for longer. If they can run their desired marathon pace (say 6:30) for 12 miles, they try to extend the distance they can maintain that hard effort from 12 to 15 to 18 to 20 miles. This may seem logical and sequential, but no one can run at threshold for 26 miles, even the pros. Instead, train to run easy faster. Rather than building strength, build economy. Unfortunately, social media rewards impressive workouts more than running effortlessly. This is one way that the social media age can steer people in the wrong direction. One reason I generally don’t record my training on Strava is because to an outside eye my training would be very unimpressive. Even though marmots try very hard not to fall into the trap of comparing themselves to others and feeling inferior, social media sometimes makes that difficult.

(g) Haine’s Point is where marathon dreams go to die. Many marathoners swear by flat, fast training loops. But Aaron and I design hilly routes through Arlington and Georgetown to build strength. Your pace on a hilly course will look unimpressive on Strava, but you’ll find you have more strength in the final miles of the marathon where you need it most.

(h) Just to leave no rock unturned for Anthony doing his first road race, we also spelled out the 5 rules of marathon water stations. First, when you grab your dixie cup, pinch it at the top to avoid spillage. Second, do not drink yet! Take a couple strides into the middle of the road before slowing to drink. Otherwise you risk getting trampled by the madhouse of runners darting in and out to grab cups. Third, toss your cup to the opposite side of the road from the water station to avoid oncoming runners. Fourth, do not try to keep your pacing group intact during the water stations. Don’t worry if everyone goes their own way, just be patient and regroup after the water station.

Trevor is mortal

While Aaron and I focused on guiding the rookie Anthony, Trevor slipped through the cracks. Trevor is not a marathon rookie; his PR is 2:53. Trevor is a WUS legend for winning every beer mile (in about 7 minutes on a non-traditional course) and miraculously finishing Hardrock last summer on no training. No one ever has to worry about Trevor. But he hadn’t done a marathon in a while. Lesson one: even the magically charmed T-Puff is human. Lesson two: you can pull yourself out of a hole in an ultra, but there is less margin for mistakes in a marathon. Trevor managed to pull off the double whammy of destroying his legs without building much endurance by pacing the 3:15 group at Marine Corps three weeks before Richmond. Questioning whether he could still manage sub-3 pace at Richmond, Trevor panic-bought super-shoes. With Aaron as shopping guide, Anthony and Mike followed suit. Trevor immediately noticed the bounce. I strongly supported everyone else’s decisions to buy super-shoes, while reasoning that I could not. I had to prove that, despite being in my 40s, despite being a mom, I could still go toe-to-toe with my 27-year-old self.

For my future self, it’s worth mentioning that my legs felt cruddy in the weeks leading up to the marathon. I barely finished the NIH 5k, a casual run at work, because my legs were shot after helping Trevor pace 20 miles of MCM (I knew better than to do the full 26.2). Plus, I was fighting the bug going around our house and the November election had me down. But I hope my future self takes note not to freak out the next time my body feels drained going into race day. “Race magic,” Aaron promised me.

Driving down to Richmond with Trevor, my biggest fear was that my stomach would ruin the weekend for everyone. With Aaron home with Bjorn and Trevor jetting back to his brood right after the race, all I had was Mike or Anthony to whisk me to a hospital for an IV after the race (something I did routinely when I was younger, although less as I’ve learned how to better manage my illness).

Trevor assured me Mike and Anthony were up to the task. WUS goes through boom-and-bust cycles as crops of young runners arrive and depart, temporarily joining the old guard of regulars, but our new crop of youngsters was a good one, as evidenced by high attendance at beer miles and bucket brigades.

The sun was shining when we arrived in Richmond, and I was charmed by everything, from Anthony’s quirky AirBnB “castle” to outdoor packet pickup at the Richmond Roadway (way better than ugly convention centers), to the perfect fall weather and easy-to-navigate city. I knew the running gods were smiling on us when Anthony announced that his Pacers running group friends had a hotel room blocks from the race start, where on race morning we could stash our clothes and defile their bathrooms. No shivering outside in port-o-potty lines this time!

The new dot on the plot is satisfying, not just because I met my goal and reversed the downward skid of middle age, but because I had to grow so much to get there. Sean is still a little frightened by this new marmot who trains. I’m a little frightened myself. Not Aaron, though, who’s been waiting for this version for a long time.

The Donut Run 2024 will be a day that lives in infamy.

Or maybe just tummy-achey.

It is a day where we may not remember who won, but we will recall who didn’t lose.

This wasn’t about Anthony winning the Full WUS with a dozen donuts in 48:13. Nor was it about Nora triumphing as our top female finisher in the Baby WUS 3 donut competition. Or even Zach taking first place in the Half WUS category of six donuts. It was not even about Barry finishing both first and DFL in the male Baby WUS category. 

In fact, it should be the story of how Oron despite having lived in this area for more than two decades managed to get lost on the way to DuPont Circle.

Yet it isn’t.

This is the story of a runner with a big heart, but a small stomach.

That is right. Michael Bonfatto now goes down in WUS history not because he finished last by 41 minutes. And it is not because it took him 1:34:43 to complete the course, which is just under six miles. Nor was it because he was one of the first to arrive in DuPont Circle but the last to leave.

It was because Michael defeated those Krispy Kreme donuts one tiny morsel at a time. How long did it take Michael? Bjorn sang the Star Spangled Banner at least five times. We saw the women’s running club enter and leave Dupont Circle at least three times. Even the rats got tired of waiting and moved on to the trash cans rather than wait to see if Mike lost part of the donuts.

Yet despite the pressure, Michael never buckled.

He picked up each donut one at a time. There would be no donut smashing with our champ. He would not try it Joey Chestnut style by soaking the donut in water in his mouth before swallowing. Instead, he gave us the full grandma. He would pull off a dainty bite about the size of the fingernail on your thumb. He would then chew it repeatedly before taking a rest. Then he grabbed another bite and another rest. The entire time his left leg bounced up and done like he was having a spasm. 

This truly was watching the tortoise lose to the hare. Or maybe it was like watching paint dry. In either case, Michael was impervious to pressure or suggestions. This athlete had a strategy and nothing was going to shake him from it. That White House Tom called at one point to say that everyone else had finished was irrelevant. Michael just kept going.

After what seemed like an eternity, what had been a box filled with four remaining donuts was now a box filled with three remaining donuts.

Michael kept going.

He was the Little Engine that Could. (Is that even a children’s book that anyone reads anymore?) He was Rocky making his way slowly up the stone stairs in Philadelphia. He was the Bad News Bears actually winning the championship. 

What he wasn’t was Joey Chestnut.

That didn’t matter. The darker it got outside, the slower he ate each bit. Yet eat each bite he did.

Around the same time the first two buckets of Loose Cannon were being drunk, the perseverance paid off. Michael had conquered those donuts. There was not a single bit left. All he had to do now was run less than two miles up Connecticut Avenue to the bar. While the volunteer crew of Bjorn, Lisa, Martha, JLD, Sebastian, Guy, and myself rushed to the Metro to get to the beer, we wondered what would happen to our fearless competitor. Could he make it over the hill or would those donuts sideline him for the evening into whatever bushes he could find?

The mood on the sidewalk in front of Cleveland Park Bar & Grill was tense. It may have been because the other competitors were still unsure if mixing beer and donuts made sense. Yet it was more likely concern over whether Michael could make it. Within minutes of the arrival of the volunteers, however, the impossible happened. Michael not only made it to the bar, but he opened a beer.

There was a new course record of 1:34:43 that might never be broken.

Congratulations to all the competitors. Thank you to Bjorn for his musical entertainment. And to White House Tom for being my partner in crime in making this event happen as well as for buying beer at the end. And to our volunteers including Lisa, Martha and JLD.

Full Results thanks to White House Tom:

Last Name	First Name	Declared Donuts	Arrived Dupont	Donuts Eaten	Finish Time	Placing
Jodrey	Nora	Baby (3)	25m 31s	3	42m 42s	1st Female Baby
Baylor	Keavy	Baby (3)	24m 46s	3	43m 40s	2nd Female Baby
Hauptman	Barry	Geezer (3)	28m 40s	3	47m 31s	1st Male Geezer
Gan	Oron	Baby (3)	N/A	0	1h 10m 4s	Super Lost Award
Weinberger	Zach	Half (6)	24m 21s	6	47m 18s	1st Male 6’er
Adams	Will	Half (6)	26m 37s	6	47m 30s	2nd Male 6’er
Wolosik	Antony	Full (12)	25m 30s	12	48m 13s	1st Male Dirty Dozen
Christensen	Garrett	Full (12)	25m 27s	12	49m 4s	2nd Male Dirty Dozen
Rasmussen	Adam	Full (12)	23m 57s	12	51m 32s	3rd Male Dirty Dozen
Hasty	Andy	Full (12)	24m 52s	12	53m 25s	4th Male Dirty Dozen
Bonfatto	Michael	Full (12)	25m 30s	12	1h 34m 43s	Record Longest Donut Transition Time EVER!

Cheers,

Jaret

Best performance, finishing the toughest 100 mile footrace in the world on no training: Trevor and Keith

Best runner bio: Keith

Best performance, stepping up last minute to pace Keith after a Krogers nose dive and turn his race around: Heather and Barry

Hardrock course record, f-bombs, grunts, and farts: Keith

Hardrock course record, coughs: PJ

Biggest delta, Actual ability to complete Hardrock minus Perceived ability to complete Hardrock: Keith

Best pre-race boot camp: Keith and Sean in Frisco

Best bromance: Keith and Sean

Best Hardrock romantic moment fail: Engineer Mountain summit (Martha and Trevor)

Best mid-race pick-me-up: “Keith, I swear, if you finish this race we’ll give you another solo week in Frisco with Sean.” (Martha)

Best performance, pacing Hardrock climbs a week before neck surgery, with a back brace and a hacking cough: PJ

Best performance, crew leadership: Ellen

Best race vehicle: Pajellen van

Worst road: A different crew vehicle

Second worst vehicle fail: PJ and Ellen stuck in Kansas for 3 days

Stupidest argument at Hardrock: whether Martha should call Ellen’s dog “Annie” (winner: Martha)

Longest argument at Hardrock: whether Martha should sell her road bike (winner: PJ)

Best wildlife cameo: moose

Best performance, stuffing his pie hole: Trevor (secret to finishing Hardrock without training)

Second best pacer code word: “next slide,” which was used when someone slipped into the topic of US politics

Hardrock course record, saying the word “puke” or any derivation thereof: Martha

Best performance, passing for a Silverton local: Anthony

Best hype man: Anthony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v77j9mAuHpE&t=162s

Best post-race snooze, Anthony

Best silver lining of being too trashed to post-race snooze: Martha and Trevor getting to see ex-VHTRCer Jackie Fritsch finish her first Hardrock during the Golden Hour with less than 10 minutes to spare (Jackie also saved Anthony’s ass earlier that week “soft-Rocking” over Virginius pass with all of his backpacking gear)

Best performance, surprise WUS appearance: Vishal (3rd WUS Hardrock finisher in 2024)

Best riddle: 10 time Hardrock finisher Robert (“Mongo”) Andrulis somehow remembering Aaron Schwartzbard’s birthday

Best performance, spotting WUS cameos on the Hardrock live feed: Aaron

Best performance, spotting good rocks: PJ

Ranking of Wussies from most to least inspired to run Hardrock after the 2024 experience: 

Anthony and PJ (tie): Would give left pinky toe

Heather: Yes, but might need some Valium for the scree fields and deadly drop-offs

Barry: Yes, but might need some testosterone

Martha/Ellen/Tracy (tie): No way in hell

Legends of WUS Hardrock Trivia

Which WUS has the fastest Hardrock finish?

Joe Clapper (31 hrs)

Which WUS has the most Hardrock finishes?

Tie, Keith and Julian Jamison (5)

Which WUS slipped just under the Hardrock 48 hour cut-off during the Golden Hour?

Doug Sullian (47 hrs)

Which WUS has the second-fastest Hardrock finish?

Garret Christensen (34 hrs)

Who is the only female WUS to finish Hardrock?

Kerry Owens

Which WUS finally finished Hardrock this year after entering the lottery 14 times?

Vishal Sahni

How many WUSsies have finished Hardrock?

9: Keith, Sean, Joe, Kerry, Doug, Julian, Trevor, Garret, Vishal