It was loud, quiet, confusing, exciting, inspiring, beautiful, difficult, desolate and rewarding.

Two days before heading out to my very first Burning Man, I Googled “running at burning man” to see if I could find anyone to exercise with. Being an active Boulder boy, I wanted to break up the partying with some healthy movement. What came back from Google put a huge smile on my face. The Burning Man Ultra Marathon!  I’d never run a 50k before and I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

These simple, yet powerful words from their website sealed the deal: “It’s fun. It’s insane. It’s the ultimate high.”

We stopped at every opportunity to dance, watched the beautiful sunrise, witnessed the last stragglers wandering off to their camps and ultimately completed four laps of Black Rock City (seven miles each, plus an extra three miles to make it a clean 50k).

I even convinced Waylon Lewis to run the final lap with me, the longest run of his life at seven miles. He was a champ!

The winners, an organizer (Wayne), a friend (Kirsten) and Waylon, who ran a 12K loop with Mathew and Ryan, longest of his “career” (Waylon, unlike those two, is no athlete).

The most amazing, unique and quirky ultra race on the planet:

Big thanks to Cherie and her team Pink Lightning for putting on an incredibly fun race.

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