For 23-year-old Peter Burke, an Island-born-and-raised long-distance runner, it’s the beauty and solitude that he discovers at the top of every mountain, and the reward of the final descent, that turned his love for running into a love for competing in ultramarathons.
Ultramarathons are a more advanced form of long-distance competition running that covers greater distances over rougher, more complex terrain.
“With ultra running, it’s very different from any kind of road racing. You have to be willing to be out there for a lot more hours, and alone for a lot of it, with the tradeoff of how beautiful it is,” said Burke in an interview with The Times. “It’s hard to describe, but I’ve always found the fact that you’re pushing against yourself to be very rewarding.”
For Burke, his most recent ultramarathon was the Grand Traverse, run in August, a grueling, 40-mile point-to-point trail race, in which he climbed more than 6,000 feet of elevation through the Elk Mountains in Colorado, starting in Crested Butte and finishing in Aspen. Burke placed an impressive third at the Grand Traverse race, finishing the rocky run in six hours, 19 minutes.
“It seemed like it would be a beautiful, remote, and high-altitude course, and it was really fun. It was a little daunting, because it was rainy and foggy that morning,” said Burke. “I was super-happy [with my placement] –– my legs were beat up and my calves were cramping, my quads hurt a lot, but I was super-happy when I got to the finish.”
The race wasn’t without its challenges for Burke. Running uphill for miles 10 to 18, he said, felt never-ending. “There are times like that where you’re questioning your choices a little bit, and you get over the climb, and you get this awesome descent downhill. It feels so good to get over the top,” he said.
Burke said most of the terrain was smooth, and used as bike and all-terrain-vehicle (ATV) trails, but the rain made some of the steeper descents more treacherous than expected.
Burke moved up to third place in the race at mile 26, and he said around mile 30 is where the race became a competition of willpower. “The last 10 miles or so, I was still trying to go as fast as I could to catch second place, but I was running a little scared, knowing the person I passed could come from behind and catch me again,” he said.
In training for the race, Burke said, he was running 70 miles a week with elevation, and biking one to two miles a week. Despite his intense training regiment, the race was 20 miles farther than any of his practice runs leading up to it.
During his time on-Island, Burke ran cross-country and indoor and outdoor track and field at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. He went on to compete at Middlebury College in track and field and cross-country before moving to Boulder, Colo., where he developed a love for trail running.
“When I moved to Boulder, there were so many cool trails and beautiful mountains to run, and then the trail running and ultra running started to appeal to me a lot more,” he said.
For others interested in trying ultramarathon and trail running, Burke’s words of advice: Be ready for the surprising challenge that comes in the decline portion of the run.
“When you’re running so much uphill elevation, then a steep downhill, it really beats up your legs and makes your quads want to collapse,” he said. “So anyone who is trying to train for an ultra, you need to train for the downhills more than you would expect. But because of how hard the climbs are, oftentimes it makes the descent and finish so much more rewarding.”
