Imagine trying to run one marathon in your lifetime, then imagine running almost the equivalent of four marathons in one race.

That’s what one Paton-Churdan High School graduate recently did at the Stuffed Turkey Endurance Race at Jester Park in Granger. Taylor King won the 100-mile race in just over 24-hours. He says the race started at 6am on November 30th and the course was a ten-mile loop. During the race, King says nutrition was a top priority.

“You want to stay ahead of your nutrition because the longer you are out there, the more your blood flow kind of starts getting diverted to your muscles or your skeletal muscles as opposed to your digestive system and your other organs. You want to choose foods that are easily digestible, but you also want to get a lot of calories in early on, so that way later in the race maybe when you’re not so hungry anymore, it was just important to get in whatever liquids I could.”     

King took a salt tablet every ten miles to prevent muscle cramps, while eating 200-400 calories and drinking at least 40-ounces of water every five miles. He also battled weather conditions, especially at night.

“It started to rain and hail pretty hard for a little while, and it got really difficult to see just because of all the glare coming off of my head lamp. I’m trying to run on this trail that was well laid out but just difficult to see in the dark.”  

King adds, this race was 37 miles long than any race he’s ever ran. Now having completed a 100-mile race, King is looking to run a 200-mile race this summer outside of Iowa.