In 20021 @seansclayton completed The Country Mile 48hr 133-mile run in South Carolina. In spite of a torrential thunderstorm, he finished 2nd, and immediately started looking for his next challenge. He had completed much of his training for the Country Mile and the NC Dark Horse 100 on a TRUEFORM Trainer and knew that the same routine would take him to his next challenge.
Close to home he found the Palmetto Trail and thought he had a shot at the Fastest Known Time - and so training started. A second TRUEFORM Trainer was added, along with his race buddy Nathan.
The Palmetto trail is a 495.5-mile trail across SC. "We got lost plenty enough to get us over 500 miles," laughs Sean, as he recalls averaging 47.6 miles per day to finish in 10 days and 11 hours, beating the previous FKT by over a day - an honor they share - a tied FKT was always the plan!
It is clear from his story, that training for an ultra on the TRUEFORM was not only beneficial to his physical performance, but also in combatting the mental fatigue of a challenge like this.
In Sean's Words:
"It was a brutal beating that never got easier. Just mentally knowing we had to continually wake up and do that, was a nightmare. We had sub-freezing temps in the mountains, rain on 3 different days, and hot days toward the end but I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. It was the challenge I was looking for."
"Training for it was a lot of back-to-back long days, I spent many hours on my TRUEFORM. There were a lot of days when my wife had stuff to do so I just hopped on the TRUEFORM for a 3-hour run."
"Something I did differently for this ultra was much more barefoot running and the TRUEFORM helped a ton with that. Many times I'd just run for an hour, barefoot, with a 50lb vest on and I think that was huge for my success. This was the first ultra where my feet never hurt. My ankles were beaten up really bad and my knees were rough, but my feet didn't hurt and I attribute a lot of that to running barefoot on my TRUEFORM."
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