The Most Inspiring Runner Stories From the Last Year
Summary
These are 7 of the most memorable "why I run" stories runners and volunteers shared with us over the last year, spanning the Tahoe 200, Bigfoot 200, and Moab 240. A few you may have caught on our Instagram, but the rest are appearing here for the first time. Together, they're a reminder that the reason people line up for a 200-miler is rarely about running at all.
Ask someone at the start of a 200-mile race why they're there, and you'll rarely get a simple answer. Some are chasing a finish. Some are chasing a feeling. Most are out there for a reason that has very little to do with running and almost everything to do with the rest of their lives.
Before each race, we invite runners and volunteers to share their "why" through a short online form. It's optional, and the answers run the gamut from a single line to a small novel. A few of these you may have seen on our Instagram. The rest have been sitting in our inbox, too good to keep to ourselves.
If reading them makes you want to go find your own reason to spend a few days out in the mountains, check out the Destination Trail calendar and find your race.
A Second Chance Spent Well
Carter Burnham, Moab 240
On September 17, 2024, Carter rolled his car on I-70 and broke his neck in three places. He also knew, almost immediately, how lucky he'd been. With 8 to 12 weeks in a neck brace, he made a promise to himself: if he healed right, he was going to do big things and feel the whole of life on purpose.
Weeks later, still in the brace, he was at Moab 240 volunteering at the Needles aid station, cooking food and cheering runners through mile 170. He made himself a deal that if he got in, he'd run it in 2025.
Almost a year to the day after the crash, he toed the line and finished, at 22 years old, in his first race past 100 miles. He also picked up more trash than anyone else on the course along the way. Carter says he isn't a naturally gifted ultra runner, just a kid trying to figure out who he is and whether he used his second chance. From where we stood, that one's already answered.
The Pickle Juice Tradition
Hazel Martin, Bigfoot 200 (volunteer)
Hazel has basically grown up at Bigfoot. She joined the radio crew at 14, working aid stations next to her dad, and at 19, she still comes back every year for the familiar tents, the old friends, and the runners she recognizes from seasons past.
Her favorite memory is of a runner named Doug from New Jersey. On the fire-rerouted 2024 course, he came into her aid station at Twin Sisters sick from an allergic reaction and had to lie down for six hours, right beside her radio.
They joked around when he felt up to it and started a tradition of pickle juice shots before he headed back out. (She always took an extra one, purely to flex.) She tracked him the rest of the way and knew the moment he finished, even though she wasn't there to see it. "Good job, Doug from New Jersey. Maybe I'll see you again this year!" she wrote.
If that sounds like your kind of fun, our volunteers like Hazel are the backbone of every event!
You're a Runner if You Run
Arianna Rumenovich, Bigfoot 200
Four years ago, Arianna didn't think she could run a half-marathon. Then she found a running group, learned that ultras were even a thing, and decided one was something she had to do for herself.
What she most wants people to take from her story is simple: you don't have to look like an elite to be a runner. She's been candid about struggling with body image her whole life, and about how easy it still is to feel like you don't belong at a start line. Ultrarunning is what taught her otherwise.
What she found on the trail wasn't a certain look or a certain pace, it was room to belong, and the realization that the only thing standing between a person and the word "runner" is whether they run. In her words, you don't have to be fast or thin to call yourself a runner. If you run, you're a runner.
Unfinished Business
Nick Pelletier, Moab 240
Nick has done things that make a 200-mile race sound reasonable by comparison. He cycled solo from Cairo to Cape Town (the length of Africa). He swam 113 kilometers without stopping. He BASE jumps for fun. You'd think a guy like that has nothing left to prove.
But Moab got the better of him. Last year, a knee injury ended his race at mile 100, and the DNF stuck with him.
So he came back to the desert to settle it, and this time he finished. "I want tangible proof I can conquer hard things," he says, which is a strange line to hear from someone who has already conquered most of them. Some finish lines are about showing the world. This one was about showing himself.
A Birthday Present to Herself
Jodi Richard, Tahoe 200
Jodi signed up for her first 200-mile race as a 60th birthday gift to herself, with a plan to enter her 60s as, in her own words, a "total badass." She isn't new to this scene, though.
By the time she pointed herself at Tahoe, she'd been running ultras for more than 15 years, so the day wasn't about proving she could cover the miles. It was about seeing what's possible when she brings her whole self to the trail. She wanted to treat a milestone birthday as a celebration of resilience rather than a referendum on age.
What stuck with us is her relationship with the hard parts. Pain, she says, isn't something to fear, it's a teacher. The moment her legs start screaming and her brain starts lobbying to quit is the moment the real run begins.
She summons company for it, too, picturing a wolf and a raven for endurance and clarity, and, when she's sure she's out of water and out of strength, a camel, the unlikely endurance hero she imagines pacing beside her while she finds a little more. "Let's see what 200 miles can teach me," she wrote to us.
Every Mile for Jonah
Kevin Calhoun,Tahoe 200
Kevin wasn't a runner. The idea of running for fun struck him as absurd, right up until a few solo hikes in the Marin Headlands lit a spark. He signed up for a 30K with no real idea how it would go, learned fast that elevation and distance together are a humbling combination, and got hooked anyway. A couple of 50Ks and a 50-miler later, he'd built something in himself he didn't have before.
But the reason he pointed himself at 200 miles isn't really about him. Kevin is running for his nephew-in-law, Jonah, who is living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a progressive muscle-wasting disease. The way Kevin sees it, if Jonah can meet each day with that kind of strength, he can keep putting one foot in front of the other until the finish.
Every mile he covers out there carries Jonah's name, and he's hoping the effort pulls a few more people into Jonah's corner. It's a massive personal goal, run almost entirely for someone else.
If Not Now, When?
Heather Daunis, Triple Crown
Heather completed the Triple Crown this year, three 200-mile races in a single season. She did it for herself, for her kids, and for her husband, who wasn't there to see it.
Running started in 2011 as a way to get healthier, grew into triathlons and an Ironman, and by 2020 had become a family affair, with "racecations" a regular thing in the Daunis household. In August 2023, her husband traveled with her to volunteer and help lock in her Leadville spot, and they climbed Mt. Elbert together. Two days before Christmas, he had a stroke. Weeks later came a diagnosis of rare, aggressive cancer, and they lost him in May 2024.
When Heather sat with the decision to sign up for the Triple Crown, a song came on the radio with the lyrics: "If Not Now, When?" She took it as him telling her to keep setting goals. Signing up, she says, was a way to keep showing up for herself, and to show her children that even when life knocks you flat, you can still get up and "do something great and be great." Running, she says, is her therapy.
Find Your Why
Every one of these stories started as a few sentences in a form, written by someone who decided their reason was worth chasing across a mountain range. The common thread isn't talent or a finish time. Instead, it's about a person who took the first step to accomplish something important to them.
Ready for your story? Find the race calling your name on ourcompare races page, or come see the whole thing up close as a volunteer. Either way, we'll save you a spot at the start line.
And if you've got a "why" of your own, we'd love to read it before your next race!
