Three Sisters Ultra Race Festival - Camping, Running, and Shattering Records

The Three Sisters Ultra Festival is a time race of 6 hours, 12 hours, or 24 hours instead of a fixed distance and there is also relay options and the race takes place in Maryville, TN at Maryville College Woods.  Basically you run a 5K loop through the woods as many times a possible.  We chose the 24 hour relay.  This was my first relay and probably the most fun I have ever had during a race.  The race directors are amazing that put on this race. They also put on the Firewater Ultra and KTC Treadin' Trodden Trail Race series.

We found out the course record was 44 laps or 137.5 miles a few weeks before the race so we talked about how we "thought" we had a really good chance of breaking it.  Never doing a relay before we came up with a rotation that would give us the best chance to do 2 laps every hour and then we would keep that rotation as long as we could until someone or something broke...  We all made an agreement that if one of us started hurting to the point we could not run we would let them sit out as long as needed and give them time to rest.

The morning of the race we are setting everything up with chairs, hammocks, grill, tables, coolers, and all kinds of stuff that we brought as we were obviously over-prepared.  Race start is at 7am and Mike is starting us off and I did this on purpose as I know Mike well enough to know that if he starts the race he can't hold back so I assumed he would run 8 minute miles or better and of course he did so we are coming out of the gate hot.  Everyone runs their few laps with no issues and we are about 30 minutes ahead of schedule mid way through the day.  Basically we were running a lap about every 2.5 hours so the first part of the day was pretty laid back but that would change quickly at night as we started getting sore, cold, tired, and sleepy.  Sure enough it started late in the evening.

The family stopped by before my 4th lap and hung out for a while and my oldest daughter Kali ran the loop with me when it came back around to my turn.  Her pace was pretty amazing as well and I was super proud of her for never walking and finding her own pace.  As the day went on Robert was on lap 5 and 35 minutes into the loop when things started going south we assumed and we were getting worried as we should have seen him by now.  We all got a text that just read "hurting..." and immediately a response from Chad replied that read "you can hurt back here.. get it boy!" and just a few minutes later we saw Robert run out of the woods.  His hip was killing him and he was done.  At this point Robert started taking over as our leader and started tracking our laps and keeping up with the rotation and keeping us aligned as we were doing this in at high level before but was much easier with him just taking it over.  We did not have to think... we just ran when he told us to which was wonderful throughout the night because we could all sleep until it was our turn.


Around 1am in the morning Chad started getting pretty sore and said he only had 1 lap left in him so we all decided we would let Chad rest until 6am in the morning and he could run our last lap.  So at this point the rotation is Mike T, Mike P, BJ, and myself so now we are running a lap every 2 hours so our sleep would be shortened and so would our rest.  Throughout the night we all pushed and pushed each other and kept our pace around 30 minute miles and continued to be ahead of schedule.  Around 3 am it was down to two teams.  Barkely Next (our team name) and I Thought This Was a 5K! were the two top teams and we were only 1 lap ahead so we couldn't let up.  Around 5:30 am we tied the course record at 44 laps totaling 137.5 miles!  I took this selfie to celebrate.  The other team was packing up as they were done. Not us. We still had 1.5 hours left to run.  Now it's time to put the nail in the coughin and get several laps in before the race is over.  We woke Chad up. We needed him.  It was his go time.  We needed his last lap that he had been saving.  Chad finished his lap at 6:47am and started my last and final lap to seal the record in hopes that is will stand for a few yeard.  Barkley Next finished with 47 laps totaling right at 147 miles.

This was one of the funnest ultra runs I have done.  Good times with good friends and families while running trails.  It was my first relay and left me wanting to immediately run another one.  That is how it is suppose to be.  We were relentless but most importantly we had fun.  That is all that is comes down to everytime.  Run. And. Have. Fun.