While many teachers head back to school this week, middle-school math teacher Megan Eckert will be 5,000 miles from her classroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has a good reason to miss a few classes: she’ll be competing at the Global Organization of Multi-Day Ultramarathoners World Championship. On Thursday, more than 100 runners will gather on a start line in Balatonfüred, Hungary, and attempt to run as many miles as they can in six days.
Eckert, who turned 40 last month, has one of the most audacious goals in the field. She wants to beat the women’s world record – and take down the US men’s record, as well. Eckert will be racing against herself for the women’s mark.
Last May, she ran 603.156 miles (970.685km) at the world championships in Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, France, setting the world record (pending final ratification). She bested Camille Herron’s mark by more than 40 miles and became the first woman in history to run 600 miles in six days. That’s the equivalent of running nearly four marathons a day for six straight days.
That performance earned her recognition as one of the top athletes in the sport last year. She was voted third in Ultrarunning Magazine’s rankings for Worldwide Ultrarunner of the Year. Now, Eckert wants to one-up herself – and almost every man, too.
But as she goes through her final preparations for the race, she has some doubts about whether she can actually do it. That’s exactly how she likes to race, and is how she’s built such an impressive running resume – which includes national teams, world records and podiums at Badwater 135, Cocodona 250, and Vermont 100, three notorious ultradistance races. Eckert likes to think about odds when she sets goals for herself.
It’s fitting for someone who spends most weekdays teaching algebra and calculus, when she’s not using her vacation days to chase world records. That wasn’t always Eckert’s strategy. She was once so afraid of failure that it almost stopped her from running at all.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
