In 2024, American Megan Eckert raced greater than 2,100 miles. Certainly, the miles Eckert racked up throughout her races alone is a quantity many endurance runners can be happy with for his or her total annual mileage.
Throughout all these miles, Eckert set a brand new girls’s yard extremely document on the Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely with a distance of 362 miles, or 87 yards (laps), and received every of the Snowdrop Extremely 55 Hour, the Saguaro Showdown Yard Extremely, and Six Days within the Dome outright. She additionally labored as a center college particular schooling instructor in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and coached highschool observe and cross nation.
This is able to be a rare 12 months for anybody, however possibly much more spectacular for somebody who in 2008 had signed as much as run a five-kilometer race with a buddy, did all of her coaching on a treadmill, after which didn’t present as much as the beginning line as a result of she was nervous about working exterior.
Eckert’s ascension to the highest of multiday working occasions was fast, particularly contemplating that after her DNS (didn’t begin) on the 5k in 2008, she didn’t decide up working once more till about 2016 when she was in her 30s. Issues occurred shortly after that. She raced a street half marathon in late 2016, adopted it up by one other half marathon three months later, after which made the leap to a path marathon in Might 2017. Since then, she’s competed in occasions starting from shorter path races to Six Days within the Dome, the place in 2024, she ran some 526 miles to take the general win.
Eckert’s story is way from the usual certainly one of a highschool and collegiate runner, however as soon as she picked up working as an grownup, an unceasing curiosity about what her physique may do has, and continues, to drive her to see precisely how far she will be able to go.
Megan Eckert on the 2024 Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely. Photograph: Alyssa Justice
Early Days of Working
Eckert grew up in Houston, Texas, and decidedly didn’t love working as a child. Whereas she performed basketball and volleyball, which concerned working for coaching, she readily admits, “Working wasn’t my favourite a part of it.” She had cause for her dislike of working, and he or she explains, “I did observe in junior excessive, and I had injured myself within the very first meet of the season. I tore a ligament behind my knee, and had eight weeks of bodily remedy. So I at all times feared working.” She added, “My life was basketball. I didn’t wish to do something that would damage that.”
Then there was the 5k in 2008 that her buddy had talked her into coaching for and racing together with her. After coaching on the treadmill within the gymnasium for six months, Eckert was too intimidated to run the race. She says, “My buddy and her boyfriend on the time, they went and did it. And I used to be like, ‘Yeah, I’m good with the treadmill within the gymnasium, doing my two or three miles.’” She says, “I used to be too afraid to go exterior,” and admits, “I feel I used to be afraid of failure.”
She didn’t take into consideration working once more till 2016. Her return to working stemmed from a need to get her life again on observe after hitting a tough patch. “I wasn’t making wholesome selections; I had gained fairly a little bit of weight and was a heavy drinker. I used to be attempting to get down the correct path once more. Working was a stress outlet for some time.”
Megan Eckert working the 2024 Six Days within the Dome multiday race. All photographs courtesy of Megan Eckert until in any other case famous.
She began by working a few miles a day — exterior this time. She’d met her now-husband in the identical time interval, and accepted his invitation to tag alongside for the 2016 Rock and Roll Half Marathon, which he was working with a buddy in San Antonio, Texas. It was love at first run regardless of, or possibly due to, the course circumstances. “I beloved it. It was chilly. It was raining. I feel it was 37 or 38 levels Fahrenheit in San Antonio. It was windy. It was not probably the most perfect working day.”
When Eckert reached the cut up the place the marathon distance went in a single route and the half marathon turned towards house, she needed to proceed on the longer course. “I had no enterprise doing the entire, however I actually did wish to maintain going.” That half marathon was her first working race, and he or she was hooked. Wanting to enhance her efficiency, she signed up for an additional half marathon three months later.
Discovering the Trails
Within the three months between working her first half marathon and her second, Eckert obtained a pair of path sneakers and fell in with the native path group, the Rockhoppers, based mostly in San Antonio. Eckert explains that the group invited her to their group runs within the space. “They took me underneath their wing early on in my working.”
Eckert and her husband volunteered at a neighborhood race, and he or she instantly felt at house locally. She says, “I beloved the individuals. The race director was superior. The volunteers had been nice. The runners had been nice.” Incomes race credit for her volunteer work, Eckert signed up for a path marathon in Might 2017, her first marathon-distance occasion. She received the ladies’s class. She explains, “I felt so good that entire race. I used to be having a lot enjoyable on the market. I used to be loving the course.”
Megan Eckert atop Mount Whitney in California.
Ending the path marathon in Might, Eckert shortly signed up for her first 60k race in August of the identical 12 months. When Eckert says, “It escalated in a short time,” one may say that she’s making a little bit of an understatement.
Her confidence and curiosity of how far she may go grew shortly. She explains, “I bailed on the 5k as a result of I didn’t assume I may do it, after which to see that I may do that half, after which I may do one other, after which I may do a marathon … that’s when the questions began coming in of how far, and what can my physique maintain as much as, and what’s my physique able to.”
Teaching
In 2019, Eckert and her husband relocated to Santa Fe after falling in love with the paths there throughout a race. She continued work as a center college instructor and began teaching cross nation in 2022, and observe within the spring of 2024.
She run commutes to high school at any time when potential, a distance of three miles every approach. She says, “I attempt to reduce the variety of days I drive in a month. I’m a particular schooling instructor, so often I’ll must drive to convey some additional stuff for crafts or a laptop computer, however most days, I run commute.” There’s a putting similarity to Harvey Lewis, the 2023 Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely winner, who can also be a instructor and run commutes to high school day-after-day. Eckert is fast to say, “I’m not Harvey. I don’t have a backpack with a laptop computer and all of the stuff he hauls.”
Eckert’s college group helps her working, and her college students take discover. She says, “The youngsters are like, ‘You’re that instructor that runs to work.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I additionally coach over at the highschool, so while you’re sufficiently old, you’ve obtained to come back be part of.’”
Now at a much bigger college than she coached at in Texas, and with way more working expertise, Eckert’s teaching type has advanced to turn out to be extra customized for every of her pupil athletes. She says, “Some want the powerful love; some want a extra compassionate aspect.”
Eckert isn’t one to speak about herself a lot, and for a number of years, she saved her working achievements on the down-low round her college life. She says, “I used to be quiet about what I did exterior of teaching. I didn’t speak an excessive amount of about working. Then final 12 months, a buddy mentioned, ‘Why are you not bringing this as much as them? Why are you not speaking to them about this?’ When the youngsters ask now, we focus on it.”
Eckert continues, “It’s an open-ended dialog. I’m not a quick individual, and so they’re working these 5ks, and so they’re fast. A few of my youngsters are very quick, so it’s attention-grabbing to listen to their views on their working expertise and their working growth, as a result of they don’t seem to be the identical as mine. I feel all of us discover working uniquely and develop right into a runner in our personal approach.”
Escalating to World Data
Whereas Eckert hadn’t raced a yard ultra-style occasion earlier than 2024, she wasn’t a stranger to working lengthy distances. Over the brand new 12 months’s vacation because the 12 months modified from 2022 to 2023, she raced the Snowdrop Extremely 55 Hour and was the primary girl. She beloved the occasion, and the truth that it was a fundraiser for pediatric most cancers analysis and faculty scholarships for childhood most cancers survivors. She returned to the subsequent version hoping to enhance her efficiency, and that point, she was the general winner.
Megan Eckert being topped total winner on the 2023 Snowdrop Extremely 55 Hour, which concluded on January 1, 2024.
Shortly after the occasion, somebody talked about that she may benefit from the yard extremely format of racing, the place racers must line up each hour, on the hour, to finish a 4.167-mile loop. The final individual to line up and full a lap is the winner. It’s a format that’s as a lot of a psychological recreation as a bodily one.
The 2024 Saguaro Showdown Yard Extremely in Mesa, Arizona, was a qualifier for the 2024 Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely, the world championships of the yard extremely format. The Saguaro Showdown can be simply over a month after Eckert had run almost 219 miles at Snowdrop. Nursing “a little bit of an overuse damage” after Snowdrop, Eckert didn’t join instantly. She says, “I babied [the injury] for just a few weeks. After which every week earlier than the Sagauaro Showdown, proper earlier than registration closed, I used to be like, ‘I feel I’m feeling a bit of higher. I can do that.’”
She signed up for the occasion about eight days beforehand after which received total with 65 laps and 270.8 miles.
She says, “I felt good early on in that race — simply good vitality. I beloved the whole lot in regards to the course and the individuals, so I rode that. I held on to the great vibes for nearly everything of the race.” The run certified her for Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely in October.
Simply 9 months after finishing her first yard extremely, Eckert accomplished 87 laps at Huge Canine’s, incomes her the place of Help, or the final individual to drop earlier than the winner completes their remaining lap. A seized calf on lap 88 was her final downfall, and he or she was compelled to show again after the primary half mile. However the distance broke the prior girls’s yard extremely document, held by Jennifer Russo, by 51 miles, or 13 laps.
Eckert is satisfied she will be able to go additional, and says she was shocked by her damage, “I used to be feeling nice. I had even instructed my crew just a few yards [laps] earlier than my calves seized, ‘If I can get to the evening, I do know I could make it to the subsequent morning … I used to be feeling good.” She goes on to say, “It was very sudden for me to not full lap 88 and to stroll again.”
Megan Eckert on the 2024 Saguaro Showdown Yard Extremely.
Trying Ahead
Eckert’s pupil athletes had been racing again in New Mexico the identical weekend because the Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely, and knew their coach couldn’t be there with them as a result of she was working her personal race. Eckert says, “Once I obtained again, [the students said,] ‘You ran a number of of our races in a row!’ I feel they do grasp what an extremely is. And so they ask questions. They’re inquisitive. They wish to know.”
It’s arduous to think about that Eckert isn’t planting the seeds that can sprout lifetime runners by sharing her experiences together with her college students. And whereas she coaches others, Eckert isn’t one to comply with a structured coaching plan, saying, “I don’t work with a coach. I don’t even comply with a plan. Every thing may be very unfastened.” Persevering with, she says, I’ve at all times simply gone out and run what I really feel like. The extra skilled I turn out to be, the much less I comply with any construction. Early on, I keep in mind I obtained Bryon Powell’s ebook, ‘Relentless Ahead Progress.’”
No matter Eckert’s working plan is, or isn’t, it appears to be working. As soon as once more, she began 2025 on the Snowdrop Extremely 55 Hour and hopes to return to Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely once more in 2025. She’s on the at-large listing for the occasion this 12 months together with her 87 laps, which implies she’s certified until sufficient individuals run farther throughout qualifying occasions all year long.
She says, “If any person bumps me off, I perceive, however I hope that it’s sufficient as a result of to get there on the at-large listing, to be part of that 75-person occasion, can be a dream.”
When requested about her aim if she will get the chance to return, she says, “I want to see if I may maintain the general [record] sooner or later.”
She finishes by saying, “I feel a variety of it will be taking what I discovered on the course final 12 months and my strengths after which catering to them, as a result of there have been some errors I made in attacking the course that I feel led to being compelled to cease at lap 88. So, if I tweak just a few issues … It will be a problem, however I feel I may get there.”
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