Let's talk about ultra-marathons. Technically, an ultra-marathon is anything longer than a marathon. (Aside: A marathon is 26.2 miles long. That is the only distance that is a marathon. If it isn't 26.2 miles, it isn't a marathon. Every time someone calls any other race a "marathon" a distance-running angel loses its wings.) So, I guess a 26.3 mile race is an "ultra". But really, they tend to start at 50 kilometers (just over 31 miles), and go up from there, generally to increments of 50 miles, 100 kilometers and 100 miles. There is an expectation in road races from 5k up to 26.2 miles that the distance is very accurate. Ultra marathons are generally a lot less picky about the exact distance, because once you're going that far, what's a half mile more or less among friends?
The other reason they're less picky, is because ultra-marathons are often not on paved roads the whole time, and trails are hard to measure distance on. But there's one other thing about trails – they tend to go up and down mountains. Some famous ultras include the Leadville 100, which spends most of the race above 10,000 ft in the mountains of Colorado, or the Badwater 135, which starts in Death Valley and ends up at 8360 ft. The key numbers for these races end up being the total distance, and the total elevation gain. Even if the race starts and ends at the same point (net elevation gain of 0) if there are lots of hills in between you'll definitely notice.
Rather than typing more, I made two charts:
And now I'm ready to introduce the running adventure. You see that green bar? That's the Millwood 100. It's not a race, but it is a route that someone (Jared Campbell) made that runs through Millcreek, Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyons for 100 miles. There's only about a mile that's on pavement, and about a half mile where you loop back onto something that you've already run. Oh, and it absolutely crushes every race that I know of when it comes to elevation gain, other than the Barkley Marathons. (If you haven't heard of Barkley before, block out two hours of your time and come over to my house and I'll tell you all about them. It's crazy. Only 15 people have ever finished. And Jared Campbell is the only person to ever finish it three times.) The fact that Millwood is insanely tough isn't an accident, it was the designers plan, and the question isn't so much "Where does it go?" as "Where doesn't it go?"
Clearly, your question now is: "Clark, how crazy are you to do this?" Answer: "Not crazy at all! Because I'm not doing it!!!" Shannon's brother, however, is apparently exactly this crazy. So if you've got some extra energy, you can join him for a run, starting at about 3:30 tomorrow morning. I'll be joining him from mile 27 to mile 48, at which point I will go home and sleep, while he tries to run another two marathons through the mountains. (Various people will be running with him throughout most of the course.) Assuming no major problems after 35 to 40 hours of trail running, he'll have indisputably proven himself crazier than almost anyone I know!