The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Athelte shares details of grueling Run4Water run
Mentor native Katie Spotz shares details of grueling run across Maine
Katie Spotz completed a 137mile run in 33 hours across Maine, raising over $20,000 for charity.
Katie Spotz is still in recovery mode more than a week after accomplishing her latest — and arguably most challenging — endurance feat.
On Sept. 6, she completed a 137.8-mile Run4Water mission across the western border of Maine in 33 hours.
The effort raised more than $20,000 toward a clean water project in Tanzania.
But she admits that she almost didn’t make it. In a Sept. 14 blog post, she tells of the arduous trek on which she nearly gave up with 5 miles to go.
“The run was fun,” she wrote. “Until, it wasn’t.”
She began her journey Sept. 5 at the Canadian border and said she was “trucking along” in the remote woodlands until night fell.
“This is when anything, and everything, happens,” she said. “The blisters, the chaffing, the sore everything. Kathleen, my dear friend and running buddy from Portland, joined me around 10 p.m. as I was reaching that 90-mile mark. The fatigue was really starting to set in and something as simple as running straight and without falling took more focus and effort.”
Surprises continued to bring energy to the journey, with pacers and new friends making the sacrifice to drive hours to meet her on those “lonely dark roads.”
Somewhere around mile 100 is when she had her first hallucination — somewhat common among ultra runners — thinking that a cheetah was peering at her from the woods.
“Quite possibly the biggest surprise was when I saw my Uncle Pat from Ohio,” she said in her blog. “Like the cheetah, I thought I was hallucinating. This. Was. Real!”
By 11 a.m. Sept. 6, with an hour and 5 miles to go, she met her breaking point.
“I was so tired,” she said. “So tired of being tired and carrying around the pain that I was attempting to block out. The music no longer lifted my spirits. The caffeine and endorphins could no longer (mask) the unbearable throbbing in my ankles. The scenery that kept me feeling energized and rejuvenated in the beginning of the journey now seemed like a trap of endless dark forest that I could never escape. The miles could not pass soon enough and the road felt like it was becoming longer.
“It was then that I officially entered the biggest meltdown in endurance challenges after over a decade of them.”
In sheer exhaustion and delirium, she found herself on the side of the road crying and shouting nonsense, ripping up grass and throwing it to the wind.
“I wanted to find my limit,” she said. “My mind and body had found it at mile 132.”
She credits God and faithful supporters, who popped up along the way to cheer her on and run portions of the journey, with helping her finish. Some church friends joined in on the final 5K, which culminated in a plunge off a rickety pier at Porter Landing.
She is the first person to complete the route and is recognized for the accomplishment on the Fastest Known Time website.
On July 27, the Mentor native became the first woman to run 62 miles nonstop across New Hampshire, in 11 hours, and she followed that on Aug. 7 with a 13hour, 74-mile run across Vermont. She initially had planned a run across Ohio, but the coronavirus pandemic and related travel restrictions caused her to switch to Maine, where she is stationed as a U.S. Coast Guard officer.
Her Run4Water charity challenge raised funds for nonprofit Lifewater International with its global mission to ensure every child has safe water. Run4Water marks Spotz’s eighth endurance challenge for clean water projects in developing communities around the world.
To date, her work has impacted individuals in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, India, Honduras, Guatemala, Nigeria and more. She rose to the public spotlight during her 2010 campaign Row For Life, setting records by single-handedly rowing across the Atlantic Ocean in 70 days.
“I wanted to find my limit. My mind and body had found it at mile 132.” — Katie Spotz
To donate, visit lifewater. org.