How Michael Ortiz Executed the ‘Sport of Hundos’: 100 100-Milers in 100 Weeks

On the muse of March this yr, Michael Ortiz had his crawl time table for the remainder of his yr fully planned out. Ortiz modified into once chasing a non-public aim to total 100 100-milers in 100 consecutive weeks—a run he known as the “Sport of Hundos”—and he had appropriate 32 weeks to trip.

Sure, this would possibly sound insane. But Ortiz modified into once impressed to take care of a narrate of this magnitude by his brother, David, who modified into once killed while riding a motorcycle in 2012 at the age of 29.

David and Ortiz, at the time, lived their lives in very diversified programs. Ortiz labored seven days a week and centered on saving for retirement. David, along with his famous other, traveled and experienced the sector, something he wished his brother would attain. But when David passed, Ortiz realized how famous it modified into once to stay his lifestyles ensuing from all his work would possibly well seemingly be for nothing.

“When he died, I realized, What if I spent my complete lifestyles working and waiting to achieve something and I died?” Ortiz urged Runner’s World in January, after he completed the second-most 100 milers in a yr in 2019. “The guts-broken truth is our endpoints are unknown. My brother had the actual thought all along, and I believe he would possibly well seemingly be proud with what I’m doing this day.”

Courtesy Michael Ortiz

That introduced Ortiz to March. He modified into once bigger than two-thirds completed with the Sport of Hundos, working the Triumph over the Wall 35-Hour crawl in West Virginia on March 6 as 100-miler No. 68.

Sooner than this yr, Ortiz’s planning had been more random, selecting out races worthy nearer to the crawl dates. To toughen his efficiency in 2020, he made up our minds to appropriate knock out the bulk of the planning upfront by registering and reserving flights, resorts, and rental autos at the originate of the yr. It modified into once an out of this world flurry of cyber internet searches and credit-card charges, but it made the logistics more straightforward than in 2019.

And then the pandemic hit.

One after the other, Ortiz’s races had been canceled, his evolved planning backfiring. Shining care for when he signed up, he needed to for my half space up the cancellation complications linked with these races.

“It modified into once demoralizing,” Ortiz said. “Having 32 races locked and loaded, the most disheartening thing modified into once going electronic mail by electronic mail and managing the cancellations, deferrals, refunds, no longer refunds, partial refunds, and all the logistics that went with it.”

Courtesy of Michael Ortiz

For a hot second, Ortiz flirted with the basis of calling it a day on the Sport of Hundos. He is based mostly in Unique York Metropolis, which modified into once an early hotspot for COVID-19, and he couldn’t discover a formulation to proceed his run with the metropolis shut down.

It modified into once a tempting thought, care for that of a DNF to total the struggling of a protracted, painful crawl. A world pandemic seemed care for a solid cause. It wasn’t a injury or exhausting descend that he thought would possibly well seemingly one day upend his effort, but it looked as if it would suit the description of something that modified into once out of his modify.

Then, no longer long after he began working from house and observing the Netflix sensation Tiger King, care for so many others who had puny else to achieve, he realized he wasn’t contented with stopping.

“As I’m observing Netflix, I ogle around my living room and an thought popped into my head,” Ortiz said. “I knew appropriate away it modified into once ridiculous to flee my crawl internal, but how doable modified into once it? I measured the perimeter of the carpet and came correct via it it modified into once 40 toes. Doing that math, that’s 13,700 turns around the carpet.”

The turns weren’t his handiest arena. He also skittish about his neighbors below him, carrying out his hardwood ground, and carrying out his carpet. He had ordered a treadmill, but the shipping modified into once delayed.

His resolution: a cardboard music on top of his carpet, and a dampener beneath.

Courtesy of Michael Ortiz

“I at closing came correct via out from any individual in my constructing that lower than half of the other folks had been serene there when the pandemic began, at the side of my neighbors downstairs,” he said. “For 10 weeks thought, we had strict lockdown orders.”

Winding up 100 miles on that cardboard music took Ortiz nearly 60 hours. And the first two and half of months of the pandemic required an identical creativity to preserve up the sport alive. When his treadmill at closing arrived, he began utilizing that for his 100-milers. When his thoughts wandered, he began to play around with urge and incline settings.

When Unique York began loosening restrictions, he mapped out 100-mile routes around the metropolis. Starting in July, Ortiz flew to flee in a few legitimate races, or he would kind 100-mile routes in states the set aside he hadn’t flee 100 miles sooner than.

“It modified into once indubitably diversified when races returned,” Ortiz said. “I’m no longer as rapidly as I modified into once a yr in the past, so things care for aid stations the set aside I couldn’t appropriate lumber up and spend what I wished, added numerous time once I’m already honest slowed down. Silent, I modified into once contented to be out of my condominium.”

Courtesy of Michael Ortiz

All of his efforts led him to October 24. With a bunch of chums pacing and crewing him in a self-made route that at one point spelled out Sport of Hundos via Unique York Metropolis, he reached a aim that no-one has ever been diagnosed to have completed sooner than: 100 100 milers in 100 weeks. A neatly-deserved champagne occasion awaited him at the compose, and for the first time since slack 2018, Ortiz didn’t must get better hasty for a 100-miler the following week.

Now that Ortiz has completed the Sport of Hundos, he said he plans to spend up on sleep. The week after his closing 100-miler, he slept a elephantine seven hours a night for eight straight days .

As Ortiz has mirrored on his efforts shut to the compose of this trot, he’s thought plenty about the recollections, the challenges, and craziness the closing 10,000 miles have introduced to his lifestyles. Most of all, he thinks of his brother, David. A hundred runs later, Ortiz said he isn’t performed yet. He desires to continuing living his lifestyles to fullest, appropriate care for his brother would’ve.

“I know what [David would say],” Ortiz said. “When he passed, it sank in that what if I died this day? I hadn’t left the country. My lifestyles would’ve been schoolwork, jobs, and 70 to 80 hour work weeks. That’s no longer good. After this, if I seen him at the compose line, he’d greet me with the greatest smile ever. Then he would tell, ‘I urged you it is possible you’ll well seemingly seemingly care for it.’”

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