The longest 15-mile run

By Henry Howard

This past weekend’s Hungerford Trail Races 45K was the longest 15-mile run I’ve ever had.

You read that right. Let me explain.

Hungerford offers 15-mile and 50-mile distances, as well as the 45K I signed up to race. Each race starts with about a 1.5-mile road run before heading into the trails. The 50-mile runners do a loop twice while the 45Kers do it once. The 15-mile runners share much of the same trails.

Overall, the course is very well marked with confidence flags at regular intervals and signs pointing runners which way to go. And since I saw regular markings I was unaware that I had made a wrong turn somewhere. At about the 14-mile mark, I found myself back on the roads, which was a clear indication something was wrong.

I called my friend, Brandon, who is one of the race directors. He patiently helped me figure out my options and talked me through what I needed to do to get an official finish. My options were to go back and hit the A and B aid stations, then proceed through the 45K course, which would have meant a 34-mile run; or turn in a different direction there and take the 15-mile finish.

Since my next race, the Richmond Marathon is in seven weeks, I opted to make this a training run and finish the 15-miler, which ended up being just under 28 miles. I finished in 4:24:31, which was the third-fastest time for those who covered 45K one way or another, and just a bit off what I ran the real 45K in during the 2020 race.

Here are some takeaways from my adventurous day:

• I completed one goal, running every single step, even when talking with Brandon.

• Not only did I run every step, I maintained a solid pace. “My 45K” included the challenging powerline section twice and I ended up with 2,005 feet of gain, while the official course has about 1,215 of gain. Still, my time would have placed me third overall.

• A lesson here is not to take anything for granted and to do due diligence when it comes to studying the course. Even though I had two back-to-back work trips, which concluded the Tuesday before the race, taking an additional half an hour or so to prep could have been a game-changer.

• After I turned around at mile 14, a bunch of the 15-mile runners were heading into the home stretch. “You were the one who was saying, ‘Great work’ to all of us, weren’t you?” a woman asked me after I finished. Guilty, as charged.

And perhaps most of all, I reflected back to a mantra I commonly use, “Someday I will not be able to run. Today is not that day.”

Onward and upward, and on to Richmond.