Across the Years has been one of the longest-running events in our wild and wacky sport of Ultrarunning. Starting in 1983, Across The Years is a fixed-time event full of various types of distances and times from 6 Day | 72 Hour| 48 Hour
24 Hour | 12 Hour | 6 Hour
200 Mile | 100 Mile | 100 KM | Marathon, and Last Person Standing. As a sort of running festival in the Phoenix metro with the races starting at the end of the year into the New year, Across the Years provides us all a really special transitionary event that is a ton of fun.
Aravaipa now owns and manages the event with tons of new distances and offerings like the 200 mile , 100k and Last Person Standing. As a member of the Aravaipa running team, I signed up for ATY in May of 2024 in the 24 hr distance as by running in longer trail races like Tesla Hertz 157 miler or the Cowboy 200, I had come just 3 miles shy of the 140 mile mark in 24 hours to hit a Men’s team standard. Never before running a 24 hr timed event, I felt it was time to expand my skill-set and try something new.
The holidays for my family was a wild one. My Wife, Ashlee, caught a nasty infection just days before the race and before we would travel and we also lost one of our cats just a day after Christmas, who was Ashlee’s true ride or die companion, well before I even came into the picture. Everything was falling a part in many ways. In times like this, I looked to this event at ATY as a formal celebration of life, those we have lost, and truly celebrating what matters most. Ashlee did start to feel better to travel just as we headed out to Phoenix.
This year ATY was held in a new venue, the Peoria Sports Complex, home to the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres spring training grounds. To imagine I would be running through many of the ball field areas and around them for 24 hours. Coming into the venue, I really enjoyed the overall set-up with a 1.42 mile loop. We had a pretty easy trip from Rhode Island to Phoenix and settled in. The weather was looking pretty solid for the event with temperatures right at 70 degrees and in the low 40’s at night.
I just have started working with prolific ultra runner, Zach Bitter who dialed-up a great first month of training for me. He also gave me a lot of confidence in my race plan and I truly felt at ease and ready to execute. Overall, my pie in the sky goal was 150 miles. At 150 miles, that would give me a legitimate placement and spot in the top 6 for the US team in the upcoming World Championships for 24 hrs in October 2025. The plan was to run within a pace range the entire run. 8:40-9:10 a mile which would grant me over 165 miles at 8:40 average and something in the mid 150’s at 9:10. I observed so many other elites speed through 24 hrs in 7:45 miles only to blow-up later in the race and wanted to take a more even-paced approach. My goal would be to hit 80 miles in 12 hours the first time then slow to 70 miles to hit that 150. I accounted for the variability of sleep deprivation and overall fatigue. I would focus on electrolytes and eating around 500-600 calories and hour with about 50-60 grams of carbs an hour along with other healthy fats and proteins. I have always worked well with a wide-range of nutrition but knew that in a 24 hour, I might lean more to my Salted Maple Naak gels than solid food.
It was great to see all the Mount to Coast staff and team at the event and I was kitted out and ready to go. (More on that at a later post).
With my race starting at 9am on New Year’s Day, it was awesome to finally get going. With spending time at Aravaipa events over the years, what I love most about what they do is really treat us runners well. The relationships built with everyone is not transactional. And I think that played a huge role for me feeling so welcomed and comfortable at this event. Rather than giving you a bunch of the play by play of my run, let’s look at more of the big picture learnings of running 24 hours at ATY.
So my ATY started off great. I was hitting my near 8:40 miles, I was drinking my Naak Peach Apricot Drink Mix in my bottles, and just clicking through the paces. Mentally, 24 hour running was unlike anything I have done before. In 200 mile racing, it is all about breaking down the distance to each aid station or check point. For running 1.4 mile loops, I had myself do a countdown of miles from 150 miles. I think this was really helpful for me to break-down the run and mentally stay in it. I had a goal of 40 miles in 6 hours as that would place me at 80 for 12 hours then after that, I would just want to run as many 8:40-9:10 minute miles as I could muster.
A big factor in this race was the really high AQI or Air Quality at 208 during the day. That is a high-enough level that highly suggests not exercising outside at all. I noticed it as soon as I started as my lungs felt heavy, like I was sucking wind at 9,000 feet altitude. Mentally, this was a major challenge for me in the night section, as my pace began to slow.
Much of the first hours was textbook running. I felt strong, even with the high AQI and continued to push. The course is flat but by no means easy. To begin each loop, you would have to run a “Z” zig-zag up and down a ramp near the main bleachers section of the route before dumping down into the outer fields, splitting time between baseball infield dirt and pavement. I personally found the pavement to be my friend as the dirt became loose and worn in spots which worked your muscles more. In the intense sun, I would use the abundant water fountains all around the course to spray water onto myself which worked wonders and helped to save precious time.
As day turned to night, I entered the next phase of the race. I soon felt the fatigue from the what felt like lack of air as I moved towards 100 miles. It was near midnight when I hit 100 miles in and around 15 hours to 15:21 or so as my watch had me significantly a couple miles over what the tracking of the race had me at. Night time began a point where the amount of runners on course would dwindle and only the brave few, would be seen making laps. The race had spot lights all across the course so no headlamp was really needed which was nice.
THE HARD PART:
From mile 100-115, I struggled. My pace soon hit 9-9:25 minute miles and I felt this would be the part where I would need to dig-in. I soon felt that the 160 mile overall mileage was dipping closer to 150 and in a few hours I was thinking I might only be able to muster a number in the 140’s. This is where mentally things were tough. My hip flexors were tight and I felt the pressure that any significant time stopped adds-up quickly in missing your overall goal. I had a few electrolyte tablets which caused some GI distress and forced me to hit some bathroom stops that costed me minutes on the 3-4 laps where I had to go. I switched at that moment to drinking water in my bottles and chugging Chocolate Oat milk within the aid station stops to get dense nutrition. What really helped me in these moments, was having my wife, Ashlee, as well as Kaaren, Trishul, Doug, Nathan and so many others take time to crew throughout the night to help assist me. Mentally, I had a few low moments as I felt that my goal of 150 was slipping away.
Nathan was a runner that was volunteering at ATY and graciously helped crew me during the middle of the night when the rest of the team was sleeping. Nathan was out on the course getting his own laps in and just the few moments he took to encourage me really ignited a fire within myself. From those moments, onward, 120-150+ something clicked. Nathan’s kindness to help support me in a moment of need really gave me this extra boost to push and find a new gear.
FINDING THE NEW GEAR:
It was at this 120 mile mark I used my Theragun for the first time and by unlocking some of the tightness in my hip flexors, I suddenly was able to push again at paces at or faster than 8:40 per mile. I then ran a ferocious pace the next 5-6 hours hitting one 8:17 mile at mile 135, my fastest split of the whole run. Imagine feeling like nothing is going your way to just totally coming alive? It was surreal. As I hammered through those miles, daylight was almost here. Nathan told me that if I averaged 14:48 per 1.4 mile loop, I would be over 150 miles. At the time, I was hitting many 12 minute loops. As the next day arrived, I was what felt like hammering each and every lap. I felt like at any moment, my body could give out and knew I just had to hit 150 before it did. As that last hour hit, I was just 6 miles away. And so I kept pushing, running with reckless abandon until the team told me I had one more lap to go to hit 150. My watch already had me at 152 at this point. And as I was tiring, I hit what we call tunnel vision. It was just about not falling a part in that last lap. I pushed back into the stadium and into the line.
In the moment, I collapsed to sheer shock that I had in fact hit 150 miles, though my watch read 153+. In those low moments, I did not think I would ever be able to hit this number. But with the support and encouragement of others, I was able to rally and surpass my mark. We will talk about this for another day as well but I had about 15 minutes left to do another lap and everyone watching encouraged me to run “one more”. But in my mind, I said I was done and with that my body tightened up completely. Could I have run an extra lap, possibly. But in the moment, I surpassed what I thought I could do on the day.
I ended the event with 152.1 miles in 24 hours. A 9:24 per mile pace. I ended up placing myself in a nice spot in the 4-5 spot for the US team selection and ended up winning the 24 hour though I feel for friend and fellow superstar, Joe (Stringbean) I ended the event with 152.1 miles in 24 hours. A 9:24 per mile pace. I ended up placing myself in a nice spot in the 4-5 spot for the US team selection and ended up winning the 24 hour though I feel for friend and fellow superstar, Joe (Stringbean) McConaughy who went out strong and had some issues in the latter portion of the run finishing in second. I do hope that Joe goes after this 24 hour discipline again in the future.
SO now we wait until May to see if I am on the US 24 hour team. It is surreal to say that I might be making a trip to the World Championships in France as I spent so much of my early years in ultra running trying to make World teams for 50k-100k. What I can say is that keep plugging away. If you do not hit a goal, try again. Sometimes the best things take time and patience and persistence can lead to great successes.
The amount of support from all of you after this result has been incredible and I also just signed a Professional running contract to start 2025 as well. More on that later.
The lesson here from this whole race experience is that pacing intelligently can really pay dividends late in the race. I never felt like I had gone out too fast and always felt like I had that extra gear which I utilized the last 1/3 of the race. If I had gone out too fast, I probably would have really fallen-off without being able to rebound my pace. And that the team that you surround yourself with often can be the difference in terms of fighting off those mental demons or succumbing to them.
A big thank you goes out to my crew, Aravaipa Running and Mount to Coast for making this an incredible race event and experience.
For gear that was used in this endeavor:
T8 Commando underwear–A lightweight and comfortable option
Shoes: Mount to Coast R1R (with outsole)
Socks: Jogology Medium Cushion No-show–1 pair with no blisters or movement in shoe
Kit: MTC shirt, 1/4 zip and shorts.
Squirrel’s nut butter 1 disposable tube for preventing chafe.
1 Chaos Crewing Buff.
Naak– I ate 17 Salted Maple Gels, 7 Naak Purees, and 1 full bag of the Naak Drink Mix: Peach/Apricot Flavor
1 Pair of Tifosi Sunglasses in Orange!
Onward to 2025!
Cresting the Summit 