Featured Runner - Edition 2
A Glimpse into the Life of
an Ultra Marathoner
It was midnight just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia near the Blue Ridge Parkway. The temperature was in the teens and the wind was howling. The full moon allowed the runners a natural light as they were able to start the Hellgate 100k without their head lamps. This 62 mile race is the 79th ultra marathon Susan Donnelly has run. As the race progressed through the cold December night, Susan’s gaiters (a lower leg cover to keep debris out of shoes) and shoe laces froze solid as well as her water bottle containing her sports drink. The safety pins on her race number snapped, also becoming a victim of the cold. This is just a glimpse into the life of an ultra-endurance runner, the sport that Susan took up eleven years ago.As a child, Susan loved running around playing tag and hide-and-seek in her neighborhood. In junior high and high school she ran track for Oak Ridge but the distances were so short, she felt like there was something missing. She took a few years off from the sport through college until she read about a 100-mile race that sparked her interest to train again and started competing in 5k, 10k and eventually marathons. Soon, she became bored with the big marathon productions and with trying to shave minutes off a marathon time for no real purpose. “It just wasn’t fun,” she said. “A year or two later, I noticed a listing for a nearby 50-mile race and decided to finally try an ultra.” However, after months of training and preparation, Susan ruptured her appendix, which required two surgeries to heal properly, “…so I shelved the idea,” she said. After a year of recovery, Susan ran into long-time ultra marathoner Kerry Trammell and resumed training. A few months later, Susan completed her first ultra marathon – the Strolling Jim 40 Miler and found what she was looking for.
Since then, there have been many challenges, goals set and made, and very interesting stories to be told with her experiences as an ultra runner. Susan has completed twenty seven 100-mile races, won trail races at the 50k, 50-mile and 100-mile distances, is a 3-time winner of the difficult Superior Sawtooth 100 and has completed the Massanutten Mountain 100-mile race and the Superior Sawtooth 100-mile race more times than any other woman at seven times and eight times respectively. She has run races in Switzerland and Great Britain, raced through an ice storm in Alabama where she nearly caught hypothermia and a 50-miler in Memphis with 102-degree heat “that required strict attention to all the heat-tolerance tricks (she has) ever learned” – just to name a few.
One particular race, a 100-miler in Idaho, became a dangerous situation when she couldn’t find her watch at the start, which got her out of sync on replenishing electrolytes and hydrating. “Hills became hard to even hike up and I got behind my expected schedule and could tell I was not going to get to the drop bag where my light was waiting.” She was able to borrow a tiny ha
nd-held light at an aid station, and then set out on her own into the darkness. “About 15 minutes later, a freak thunderstorm rolled in and the rain turned the trail dust so slick it was like ice, and running on the side of the trail was the only way to get traction.” She was completely alone and in the dark with the temperature falling fast as it continued to rain. She was constrained to running along a treeless ridge top in the lightning when her flashlight began to die. “There had been no headlamp lights ahead or behind, so I finally made it to a rare clump of trees where a race marker glowstick was hanging by some tape, to wait for the next runner to come along so I could piggyback off their light. I waited and waited in the pouring rain, getting colder all the time, trying to think of best option (really, any option!).” When it seemed like no one was ever going to come for relief, Susan decided to pull the faint glowstick from the tree and continued down the trail swinging it back and forth until she finally reached her bag drop where she retrieved her light and some dry clothes. Although her pace gradually dropped, she was able to finish the 100 miler, but after the cutoff time. She spent the next day in the emergency room taking in several bags of fluids due to dehydration.
Despite these stories, most ultra races are not this extreme. Susan’s advice to those interested in taking up ultra running is to “start today. Don’t wait. I’ve had so many incredibly wonderful experiences, seen so many stunning places, and met so many wonderful friends. Just keep in mind that the sport and the community are a bit different than road racing. Many courses are on challenging, single-track trails over rugged terrain and mountains, and are all very different from each other. Therefore, finishing, not time is the primary goal and ultra running is more of a community where we are all trying to get to the finish line – more of a shared experience mentality, especially in the longer races.”
As far as training for ultra marathons, Susan advises to always run with a companion because it’s safer and just more fun to share it. She logs most of her miles at either the North Ridge Trail or Haw Ridge – both in Oak Ridge. But, she spends non-race weekends taking trips to the Smokies, Cumberland Trail, Big South Fork, Frozen Head and Pickett State Park. Susan generally trains using a marathon training schedule during the week with a race or longer run on the weekend. But the best advice of all, Susan says, is to “ask other experienced ultra runners for ideas/advice/etc. That’s how we learned, and we like to pass on the things we have learned to others!”
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When Susan is not running many, many miles or traveling to races, she enjoys gardening with native plants, spoiling her cats and remodeling her house, to which she says is “an ultra unto itself”. She also stewards the North Ridge Trail in Oak Ridge, serves on the Board of Zoning Appeals for the City of Oak Ridge and is a motivational speaker to inspire others to pursue their dreams. For more information about Susan’s ultra-endurance running check out her website at www.susanruns100s.com.
Story by Daniel Julian
Photos Submitted by Susan Donnelly
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