On the 65th day, Russell Secker rested.
That's a good thing, too, because for 64 days straight, the Austin runner pounded out an average of 45 miles a day, on his feet, as the only American competitor in the Trans Europe Footrace.
In all, he ran 2,800 miles, burned up six pairs of running shoes, endured hip and foot pain, slept on the floors of school gymnasiums and church halls, and lost nearly all his body fat as he crossed Italy, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Norway.
Secker, who turned 54 on the third day of the race, retired from his job as a vice president at Hoover's, which provides online information about businesses, and forked over $8,000 to enter. He was the only native English speaker among 68 runners in the competition, which began April 19 in Bari, Italy, and finished June 21 in Nordkapp, Norway.
Secker is not new to ultra running. In 2005, he completed the Transe Gaule , running 725 miles across France in 18 days. Two years later he finished the Deutschlandlauf — 800 miles in 17 days.
But the Trans Europe Footrace is the granddaddy of them all.
Each day the racers ran the equivalent of nearly two marathons. Some stages stretched far longer. "These are hellacious distances on fresh legs — in our weary state, they are really daunting," he wrote about a 60-mile day in a blog he kept during the race. For Secker, who struck a conservative pace of 12-minute miles to thwart injury, that meant 13 hours of running.
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