The Weight Moves Forward

3 a.m.

When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to tractor pulls. I was captivated by the start every single time. The way those machines launched off the line — loud, confident, tires spinning, the crowd leaning in. For a moment, it looked like nothing in the world could stop them.

But that’s not really what a tractor pull is about. The pull is about what happens next. There’s a sled behind the tractor, and as the tractor moves down the track, the weight on the sled gradually shifts forward. Inch by inch, it presses down harder and pushes those rear tires deeper into the dirt. What started as a charge becomes a crawl. Even the most powerful machines on the property eventually met their weight limit. Some stopped. Some didn’t. But you never knew which it would be at the start. You only found out at the end.

Endurance runners are no different.

The goal, and how I’m thinking about it

There’s a race next Saturday that starts at 8 in the morning and ends at 8 the next morning. Twenty-four hours. I’ve done this before, which means I already know what 3 am feels like when you’re still moving, and the rest of the world is completely asleep.

I still can’t quite get my head around it until it’s happening. That’s just the truth.

My goal is to have 50 miles done by 8 p.m. That’s the first twelve hours — and those first hours are the launch off the line. The legs are fresh, the crowd energy is up, and every runner out there looks like they could go forever. We take off strong and confident, moving well, just like those tractors. The pace feels almost easy, and it’s hard not to feel good about all of it.

But the weight is already on the sled. You can’t feel it yet.

If I can “bank” 50 by the time the sun goes down, I’ve bought myself something valuable: a cushion and a mindset. The back half becomes about managing the night, not chasing miles I should have already run. From 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., I have twelve hours and 30 miles to cover. That’s a 24-minute pace. Walking pace. At that point, that’s all it needs to be.

When the weight gets heavy

Here’s the thing about long endurance races that’s hard to explain until you’ve done one: your brain spends the week before it trying to do the math, and the math always feels wrong. Twenty-four hours is too long to hold in your head as a single thing. It doesn’t fit.

So you stop trying to think about it that way.

You split it. You shrink it. You make it small enough to start, and then you let the race do what races do — you stop thinking about the full distance and think about the next loop. Then the one after that.

Because as the hours stack up, you can feel the weight starting to move. The legs that launched off the line with so much confidence begin to remind you of every mile they’ve already carried you through. By midnight, it’s pressing down hard. By 3 a.m., every mile is a negotiation. The tires are in the dirt. It’s just you and the track and whatever you brought with you into the dark.

That’s the part nobody really talks about, and also the part I find most interesting. There’s something that happens in those hours when the math no longer makes sense, and the only reason you’re still moving is that stopping feels like more effort than continuing. That sounds dark. It isn’t, really. It’s one of the stranger and more honest places you can put yourself. You find out things about yourself out there that you wouldn’t learn any other way.

Some machines stop. Some don’t. You only find out at the end.

Why this race, why now

FANS feeds directly into what I’m building toward this fall — the Superior 100 in September. A 24-hour race a few months out isn’t just a bucket list thing. It’s a long training day with structure, support, and a reason to stay out there longer than I would on my own. It’s practice for being in that place where the weight is heavy, the legs are spent, and you have to figure out in real time what you’re actually made of.

My dad watched those tractors to see which ones would make it down the track. I think part of what keeps pulling me back to races like this is the same thing. Not the launch. The pull.

I’ll be finding out next Saturday.