Francesca Muccini was hallucinating in the final miles of this year’s Last Annual Vol State 500K, Other Hearst Subscriptions.
At least, that’s what her crew told her. All Muccini remembers was swerving from one side of the road to the other—understandable, given that the 52-year-old professor Drew covers a variety of subjects for temperatures apple sauce, and almond butter.
Conditions like this are not unexpected for the Vol State ultra, which is masterminded by Barkley Marathons creator Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell. In this event, runners run on open roads across four states, though primarily Tennessee; runners sleep on the side of the road for rest, and receive assistance from a crew, if they have one, or from strangers who see the race go by every year.
Teacher Runs 100 Miles on Truck Crash Anniversary coronavirus pandemic, with fewer racers and fewer road angels offering support. Muccini and 65 runners stayed socially distant on the ferry ride to the start of the race and then spread out over the next 300-plus miles.
Muccini has three Vol State finishes under her belt, including an outright win in the 2018 race, which she finished in four days, four hours, and 18 minutes.
So for her fourth go, Muccini had one goal: break four days.
Muccini, who is originally from Italy but lives in Nashville, went out fast, taking the early lead and completing 101 miles in the first 24 hours. Runners normally slow down on the second day, so she took that in stride, only stopping to nap a total of six times throughout her race, none more than an hour and a half at a time.
“With this race, if you want to go to a hotel, you can’t hop in a car and drive there. You have to run there and then run back to where you left the course,” she said. “I only did that once for a shower and a nap. Otherwise, you just lie down along the course. on the sidewalk, in parking lots, by a gas station. My husband just gave me a towel from the car to lie down on.”
When she started her fourth day, she had a comfortable, 20-mile lead on second place runner Bob Hearn. But the aforementioned heat beat her down hard, just as it had every day and night. She kept cool by soaking her shirt in water and squeezing it out over her head, and also stopping for slushies—a popular treat during this race—and popsicles. Aside from those icy bites, Muccini fueled with things like French fries, Impossible Burgers, and soup-like humidity in the summer.
But during the final 11 miles or so, during her final push to San Mountain in Northeast Georgia, she started swerving and hallucinating. Her crew helped her focus and told her about the approaching Hearn, but she found her own, surprising solution.
“With a few miles to go, I just kept thinking, Why am I here? What’s going on? What am I doing here?” she told Runner’s World. “The funny thing is I couldn’t walk straight and couldn’t think straight, but I could run straight. When I was walking on the street, I was going from one side to the other. Running was straight for some reason, so I did that.”
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She held off Hearn’s closing push to reach the finish-line throne—a pink lawn chair—in three days, 10 hours, and 49 minutes (the third fastest time ever!), capturing the overall victory and setting a new female course record. She also hit her personal goal of breaking four days.
At the top of the mountain, she chatted with race organizers briefly before she and her husband made their way back home to Nashville. They did take one detour though before beginning the recovery process.
“It’s brutal out there, so we decided to drive back on the course a bit to cheer on some of the runners who were still on the course,” Muccini said. “It was still like, oh my gosh, 100 degrees outside. I felt for them.”
The Story Behind Bostons Heartbreak Hill Runner’s World and Bicycling, and he specializes in writing and editing human interest pieces while also covering health, wellness, gear, and fitness for the brand. His work has previously been published in Men’s Health.
