I DID IT! 

On Sunday, July 20th, I finished the Vermont 100 Mile Endurance Run in 29 hours, 1 minute.  It took a lot longer than I expected, but I finished.  I encountered every difficulty I have seen at races in the last year- rain, thunder, mud, soaked feet, digestive trouble, chafing, sleep deprivation... but I survived.  It really is hard even for me to comprehend. 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)

PKD is a degenerative kidney disease afflicting 600,000 Americans. I, Paul Kearney, am one of those Americans. My sister and my father are also living with the disease.

Healthy kidneys filter wastes out of the blood and produce urine. PKD causes cysts to develop which take over the kidneys' filtering tissue, gradually reducing kidney function until eventually, they don't work at all.  When this happens, the PKD patient must undergo dialysis, a periodic filtering of the blood outside of the body by a machine, or have a kidney transplant if a matching donor can be found.  Thankfully, my sister and I are currently in good health.  My father is enjoying a second lease on life, thanks to a successful kidney transplant he received from his brother more than ten years ago.

The Vermont 100 Endurance Run

Yup, that's right.  I'm going to run 100 miles.  All in one go. 

Held each July near Woodstock, Vermont, The Vermont 100 sends runners (and horseback riders!) over 100 hilly miles of trails, rocks, roots, pastures, and mud.  This video offers a brief peek at the race.  The course climbs and then descends a cumulative 15,000 feet of quad-pounding Vermont hills, for a total change in elevation greater than the height of Mount Everest.  It will be, needless to say, the farthest, longest, most difficult run of my entire life, the culmination of an entire year and thousands of miles of training.  As you wake up, go about your day, and eventually return to bed, I will be continually running.  I will start before sunrise on Saturday, July 19, 2008 and run, without sleep, through the entire day, past sunset, through the night, and on into the wee hours of Sunday morning.  My goal for the race is to complete the hundred miles and earn the coveted belt buckle traditionally awarded to those who finish under 24 hours.  I will periodically update this site with information on my training and progress towards this goal.  For more about the race, check out www.vermont100.com.

Let's Find A Cure!

I am dedicating this race to the PKD Foundation in the hope that this extraordinary day will raise awareness about PKD and the crucial funding that is needed to find a cure.  This fundraising effort is not affiliated with any PKD Foundation program.  I am just one runner, living with this disease, trying to help find a cure.  My inspiration to continue running when going another step seems impossible will be the hope that your donations will lead to this cure.  I also hope this run will show other people living with PKD that it doesn't need to shut down their lives, or stop them from achieving whatever they set their hearts on.

Donating through this website is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to support my fund-raising efforts.

I am running 100 miles, an effort that will require me to expend reserves of energy I have never accessed.   Consider digging deep and donating one dollar for each of these 100 miles.  If you cannot, please, give whatever you can.  There are millions of people around the world waiting for good news in the fight against PKD.

Many thanks for your support -- and don't forget to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate, too!

My Training

I had a great winter, logging 40-60 miles per week and lots of 20+ mile runs.  The spring racing season has gone very well, with a 7th place finish at the Pittsfield Snowshoe Marathon, a 2nd place finish at the Fells Trail Race 40-mile, another 2nd at the Don't Run Boston 50k, 6th place at the Wapack 50, and a Boston-qualifying 3:09:33 at the Vermont City Marathon.  I have one more race, the Pittsfield Peaks Race, a torturous 53-mile run with 15,000 feet of elevation gain and loss before the VT 100.  It will be a race I just try to survive, which will be very good training for the 100.  Similarly, I paced my friend Sherpa John down at the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 for 18 hours through the night and into the next afternoon, a very trying experience that has given me a glimpse of what awaits at Vermont. 

You can check out my training by clicking on this link for my training log.  I also play ultimate frisbee in a competitive indoor league once a week.  It's a supremely good speed workout- 10 to 50 yard all-out sprints, over and over, for an hour.  It's great for building hill-climbing strength and power.   

As I have progressed from marathons to 50 kilometer (31 mile) races, and now into 50 mile and 100 kilometer races, they get more and more interesting.  Each event is an odyssey along the trails in which you try to balance your food and water intake with the effort you expend, trying to conserve your resources while still going as fast as you can.  Paradoxically, this often means trying to run slower than what feels intuitive in order to still feel halfway alive in the later stages.  Sometimes a long race will feel blissful and effortless, the comaraderie of your fellow runners and the beauty of your surroundings enchanting you and carrying you along.  Other times something will go wrong and the distance will wear on you, demanding extremes of determination and tolerance for extraordinary fatigue and discomfort.  When your energy stores are empty, it feels like your whole world is distilled to the three feet of trail in front of you, and it takes total focus just to keep moving forward.  It is not uncommon to experience a couple of swings from one extreme to the next, bliss to suffering, within the course of one race.  Each race is different and the ups and downs can make you feel like you have lived an entire lifetime in a day out on the course. 

Recap of my racing in 2007: 

Marathons (3): Boston Marathon (3:32), Vermont City Marathon (3:22), Green Mountain Marathon (3:34)

50k races (31.1 miles)(3)- Finger Lakes 50's 50k (4:55), The Ultimate XC Marathon (about 33 miles)(7:05), Pisgah Mountain 50k (4:57)

50 mile races (2)- Vermont 50 Ultra Run (10:02:01), Stone Cat Brewery 50-mile (10:24:47)

Solo super-run-  Thetford Academy 5k XC Course, 14 laps (7:57 for 44 miles)

Season finale- The Hellgate 100k (actually a devilish 66.6 miles), in the Massanutten Mountains of Virginia (17:38:00). This was by far the hardest thing I have ever done, and warrants a bit more description. 

This was an almost indescribable and extraordinarily demanding race. For one thing, it started at midnight, so the first seven hours were run in the dark, wearing a headlamp.  I ran through the dark, through sunrise and the entire day, finishing after dark, again wearing the headlamp.  Yeah, that's a long run.  Second, it was unbelievably hilly.  The race has nearly as much elevation gain and loss as the Vermont 100, despite being 38 miles shorter.  The weather was great, but the trail is rocky and often obscured beneath your feet by six or eight inches fallen leaves.  With incredible elevation change and serious sleep deprivation, I ran most of this race in a fog of fatigue and pain.  I tried to be very conservative in the early goings, but then ended up chasing the cut-off times in the last half of the race.  I ate thirty packs of energy gel during the race (3000 calories right there!) and everything I could at the aid stations, but I simply wasn't taking in enough calories to keep me fully functional until the next aid station.  I am investigating high-calorie meal-replacement drinks for use in my next race.  Despite seriously bottoming out my energy and feeling as depleted as I have ever been at several points, I actually ran the second half of the race faster than the first.  Although my time was slow, I am proud to have finished this extraordinarily challenging race. In particular, I'm proud to have turned on the jets at the end, cranking myself out of last place in the final miles, up and over the final three-mile climb and three-mile descent at my fastest pace of the day, passing five runners and finishing strong.   I owe my finish to Jill, my wonderful crew-person and partner in life, who rescued me with peanut butter and jelly again and again.  Her help and encouragement was absolutely invaluable.  Almost 18 hours running.  41 hours without sleep.  There's very little I can say to capture the experience.  The Roanoke Times did an incredible multimedia website about the race-course and racer Rebecca Trittipoe, who at age 50, finished in second place!

Curiously, I experienced almost no soreness after this event.  This, and the strong finish, prove to me that this year of racing longer and longer distances has made me strong enough and fit enough to run these events faster; I just need to work on getting in enough fuel.  I have improved this a lot this year, using a mix of solid and liquid foods, i.e. Ensure meal replacement drinks.