Superior Hiking Trail, Minnesota

Here is Alicia Hudelson's complete report on her supported run of the SHT in 4d17h26m (May 23-27, 2009).

Start time, northern end: 5:11 a.m. on Saturday, 23 May 2009.

Saturday: I started off slowly due to both illness and very wet trail conditions. I did roughly a 50-50 mix of walking and running, and with stops for clothes changes etc, my pace was around 3.5 miles an hour. My dad had driven me to the start and as I was feeling so sick and was unsure if I was really going to do the run, he met me at road crossings around mile 8 and mile 15. I got resupplies of Advil and a bit more food from him and then carried on to mile 22, where I had my first stashed bearproof box of food. I picked up the pace slightly after this because there was a 1.6 mile road section and then the descent into Magney State Park. I was still feeling very tired from being sick and was having trouble eating or keeping food down if I did eat, but I managed some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, raisins, cheese and Cheerios. Morale improved slightly during the beach walk section because I ran into some people who had seen me earlier on the trail and were impressed at the amount of ground I had covered. I made it to the Durfree Creek campsite, roughly mile 43, around 7:00 and was ready for a quick nap. There was a couple from the Twin Cities at the campsite who very kindly let me sleep in their tent for 20 minutes! I then went on to Woods Creek, where I had my second food stash. I was feeling slightly low on salt, so I gulped down an entire can of tomato soup, and then headed off for the Pincushion parking lot, where I was meeting my pacer for the night (my friend Divesh).

Saturday night: I slept in Divesh's car for an hour and we set off at midnight. We barely did any running the whole night, just walked steadily with a tiny bit of running at the end, and arrived at mile 65.8, a campsite just north of the Cascade section, at 6:30 a.m. We slept for 2 hours here in a tent I had set up on the drive up to the start.

Sunday morning: Divesh was picked up by a second support crew member and I started running at 9 a.m. I made good time on the largely downhill section to Cascade and then started on the hilly section towards Lutsen. It was getting hot out and I think I still had a fever from my cold/flu, so I was struggling with being too hot and not having enough water. I met lots of hikers on this section, though, which helped keep me a little more mentally motivated. About 5 miles north of Lutsen, maybe around 2:30 pm, I saw a runner heading north with a small backpack and thermarest and wonder if this was also someone going for the speed record? At Lake Agnes I met a hiker named Blaine, who was going from Magney to Two Harbors, and we walked together for about half a mile before I carried on running. At this point I was still doing about 50-50 walking and running but was struggling significantly with the heat. About 2 or 2.5 miles north of Lutsen, I slowed down and walked most of the way to Lutsen. I had my next food stash there, so I opened this and resupplied, took a 20 minute nap, and sent some text messages to my support crew regarding our meeting point that night. I felt much better after the nap and made good time on the Moose Mountain/Oberg Mountain section, although after it got dark I really slowed down as the trail was quite rough and muddy for a few miles north of Britton Peak.

Sunday night: Because I was behind schedule (I had planned to make it to Temperance River by 10pm Sunday, but I had only made it to Britton Peak by 11pm), I decided to sleep in Divesh's car in the Britton Peak lot for a few hours and then continue running at dawn. Happily, I had recovered from the cold/flu and was suddenly starving, so I had a rejuvenating feast of rice noodles with soy sauce. Unfortunately I didn't hear my alarm clock go off in the morning and woke up at 6.

Monday: I started running at 6:30 and felt great. I celebrated my first 100 mile run by writing in the trail register at Carlton Peak and then made good time (4 miles an hour) for the next 15 miles. I passed a group of hikers about 10 miles south of Carlton Peak who later saw my report of my run on the Yahoo newsgroup and have emailed me to say congratulations, which was very nice of them! At mile 115 (Sugar Loaf Pond campsite), I met my friend Maria at a tent which I had also set up on the way up to the start. I tried to take a quick nap but couldn't fall asleep, so instead I spent some time relaxing in the tent and cleaning my socks etc. I ate some canned pasta and tried to motivate myself to get going again, but it took a while and we were at the tent for about an hour and a half. Maria ran with me for the next 5 miles or so, past the Caribou River, and then ran back to where her car was parked at Sugar Loaf Road. I reached Crosby Manitou around 6 or 7 pm and started the Sonju/Egge Lakes loop around 8pm. I enjoyed the first half of this as the trail was good for running but then it deteriorated significantly around Egge Lake, where there were a lot of rooty sections and a lot of downed trees from the recent ice storm. I was in a pretty poor mental state when I finally made it out of the loop--frustrated with the trail and with running at night. My parents had left a car parked in the Finland Rec Center lot for me, and I slept in this from about 1 am to 6 am.

Tuesday: I woke up feeling tired, sore and generally bored of running. I didn't get started until 8 am and felt very stiff the first mile. I decided to take some Aleve and some caffeine pills as otherwise I was going to be very slow. These both helped a lot and I got a great "second wind". I made it to County Road 6 at 10:30 a.m. and stopped at a tent my parents had set up in the parking lot there (I had been unsure whether I would spend the night in the rec center or the county road 6 parking lot). I now had about 22 hours left if I wanted to beat the speed record. I knew it was highly unlikely that I could do the remaining 60ish miles in that time, but I wanted to try, so I left any unecessary "luxuries" like spare socks, spare batteries for the mp3 player, etc in the tent and tried to go on as light as possible. I continued to make good time (close to 4 miles an hour) past Sawmill and ran into a hiker who asked if I was "that redheaded girl" that he had heard was running the whole trail! I got to Highway 1 at 12:45 pm and tried hard to maintain my pace through Tettegouche but it just wouldn't happen and I completely ran out of energy on the way up to Raven Rock. I'm sure this was the obvious result of how fast I had been trying to go during the Sawmill section but in a way I was pleased that I had at least tried to make a last-ditch effort at the record rather than giving up. But I was now fully out of energy and mentally exhausted. I went about 2 miles an hour all the way to Silver Bay and only just started recovering during the last mile to Silver Bay. I phoned my parents to ask if I could stay in the motel in Silver Bay with them that night as there was no way I was going to make it to Beaver Bay as planned.

Tuesday night: I stayed the whole night in the motel and ate a giant breakfast in the morning to try to combat my loss of energy from the day before...

Wednesday: I set off from Silver Bay at 9:10 a.m. I had no idea whether I would completely run out of energy again or not, so I took the first few miles very cautiously. After an hour or so I was feeling even better than when I had started, so I sped up a bit and got to Beaver Bay at 10:40 a.m., where I met my parents again, resupplied with batteries and food, and headed off for Split Rock. I was consistently doing just over 3 miles an hour on this section, with a 50-50 mix of running and walking, and felt very good. I got to Split Rock at about 3:30 p.m. still feeling strong, and made it to Gooseberry at 5:10 p.m., again feeling very strong. I had a wrong turn out of Gooseberry which cost me 10-15 minutes but I was doing closer to 4 miles an hour now and didn't mind losing the time so much. The section running up the river from Gooseberry was amazingly pretty as it was a calm, sunny evening and I really enjoyed this part. I met my parents again at the Castle Danger parking lot around 8 p.m. and then set off for the final section around 8:15. I had been a little worried about this section because I could feel my energy draining just before Castle Danger and I always struggle with being too cold at night, particularly when I'm tired. But I was able to keep enough speed up that I wasn't too cold, and the hills up from Crow Creek and the Encampment River also kept me warm! In the last 1.5 miles, I was so intent on getting to the end that my legs more or less went numb and I truly ran, at what felt like a normal running speed, from about the 613 road to the end.

Finish, southern end: 10:37 p.m., Wednesday 27 May 2009.