Moderators: jcmanson, Sly Fox, BuryYourDuke
SuperJon wrote: I love dc Talk.
SCAR wrote:I don't know if there is another thread on this guy but there needs to be one and I was not sure where to put it. I talked with Mark Reed (former Flames hooper that I coached) and he told me about Dr. Horton's movie. Here is the web link: www.therunnermovie.com
He ran from Mexico to Canada and this documentary film maker captures his journey. You can buy the DVD from the website. I was thinking of getting it and having him sign it for me. I had him for phys ed back when I was in the shape of my life, 6% body fat and all that and I could not even come close to keeping up with him when he took us on a run for class. It was crazy. The man is one of the most unbelievable athletes I have even had the priviledge of meeting.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
He's The Ultramarathon Manhttp://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDA ... e=20060821
BY ALAN ELLIOTT
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 8/21/2006
David Horton was 27 days into his attempt to set the record for traveling the 2,666-mile Pacific Crest Trail. At 55 years old in July 2005, he'd been running 13-hour days for nearly a month, averaging just over 40 miles per session.
Now Horton was deep into Yosemite National Park. Headway came in downhill bursts and in slogs through snowfields and mountain passes. The uncertain pace foiled plans by the support crew supplying the long distance record attempt. A missed rendezvous on July 27 left Horton and his pace runner, Brian Robinson, on the trail with no food and liquids.
After camping for the night, the two kept moving. They logged 31 miles in 26 hours, without food, through the brutal, high-altitude terrain. The trial pushed Horton to the limits of physical and mental endurance.
"I determined that day I was going to quit," said the 56-year-old Liberty University exercise physiology professor. "Then, when I was climbing that last mountain I thought, 'Well, what if I took a day off?' "
At first, the idea felt like cheating. But while crossing over the eight passes along the Pacific Crest's mid-section that top 11,000 feet, Horton realized that a day of rest could be his strategy for success.
"I thought, 'If I do this, I can finish,' " he said.
Going The Distance
Horton is, by any measure, a finisher. In 1991, he ran the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail in 52 days. In 1995, he finished third in the 2,906-mile Trans-America footrace, averaging better than 45 miles per day. He has won more than 40 ultramarathons (races longer than 27 miles). Among those are the 50-mile and 100-kilometer races he founded and sponsors in and around Lynchburg, Va.
Horton figures he's run more than 100,000 miles since taking up the sport in 1977. He runs four to seven days a week, averaging about 10 miles a day.
On the Pacific Crest trek, Horton finished in a record 67 days, including his one day of rest. His finish bested the old record by 17 days — unheard of in a sport where records are typically improved upon by a day or by hours at a time.
A native of Marshall, Ark., Horton earned bachelor's and master's degrees in education from the University of Central Arkansas in 1972 and 1973. He taught and coached high school basketball for several years, then earned a doctorate of education from the University of Arkansas in 1978.
Clearly disciplined, he insists play ranks as high in his priorities as does work. A father of two and a grandfather of a 2-year-old, he's been married to his wife, Nancy, for 35 years. Both are devout Baptists who attend church several times a week.
In conversation, Horton badgers and laughs hard. He says he loves to splash through streams and to have mud fights with his students while out on runs. He cites a slightly modified quote from pitching legend Leroy "Satchel" Paige as the philosophy around which his priorities revolve: "When I works, I works. "When I plays, I plays."
That doesn't mean he leaps out of bed each morning hungry to fly out the door to exercise. Horton says he doesn't always enjoy every run. But he compares the process to knowing a test day looms on the horizon.
"I run races. I compete. And I want to do the very best I can for the rest of my life," he said. "So every once in a while, I want to take a test."
To ace a test, students need to study. For Horton, "that means I have to train," he said.
A central theme of Horton's classes is that students practice what they preach. His graduates typically move on to become personal trainers, coaches, physical therapists or go into medical fields. As all revolve around fitness, Horton makes exercise and running part of the course work. To keep students interested, he teaches a couple of running classes in which outings wind along mountain trails.
Many students go on to participate in the Lynchburg series ultramarathons that Horton founded. His former students hold the current records for the Appalachian Trail and the Colorado Trail.
The Pain And The Payoff
Horton believes in giving far more than 100%; for him, training's about 70% psychological effort and about 60% physical effort. When working with students or training runners, his initial lessons revolve around physical principles.
A key goal: Learn to appropriately gauge pain. Pain generally says someone is moving from a lower to a higher level of fitness, Horton says. Such problems tend to go away at some point during a run. In Horton's world this might mean several days of agony. His operating principle? It never always gets worse.
Runners should be wary and back off if pain continues or increases through a run. But the process of a runner listening to his or her body is ultimately personal. Learning to interpret the body's language is fundamental to avoiding injury and advancing.
"Everybody's body is so physically tough it is unreal," Horton said. "But you have to know what are acceptable and unacceptable (levels of pain). You learn that through trial and error."
As the coaching process advances, lessons turn to the psychology of success: Think like a winner. Think like you can do it.
The Mountain Masochist run, named by Nancy Horton, weaves through 50 miles of mountains near Lynchburg. Hellgate, a 100-kilometer jaunt, always begins in the middle of a December night. Horton stands at the finish line of those and the other contests he sponsors to congratulate them as they cross.
"I love to see people accomplishing goals," he said. "There is nothing more rewarding than seeing someone accomplish something they thought impossible."
As a race director and sponsor, Horton tries to know a little about the racers: Is this their first race? What is their personal best time? When racers hit their mark, he shares the celebration. When they come up short, he reminds them they've just completed a challenge accomplished only by an elite few.
Horton still races, lining up, aiming to beat the pack of 20- and 30-something runners. Slower than he once was, Horton says he relies on endurance to decide the race. And he will run until he can't.
His view toward teaching is much the same, giving his tenure as a professor an additional 10, or 20 or 30 years. As he puts it: "I mean, why stop?"
Blazing trails on Candlers Mountainhttp://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... ws!archive
Ron Brown
rbrown@newsadvance.com
August 25, 2006
David Horton’s footprints are now part of the lore of Candlers Mountain.
Over the past decade or so, he has hand built 35 to 40 miles of running trails in the 4,800-acre tract owned by Liberty University, on the south side of U.S. 460 between Candlers Mountain Road and Campbell Avenue.
“I started running the mountain when I came here in 1978,” said Horton, an LU professor and nationally known long-distance runner. “I’ve run many, many miles up here.”
Running on the mountain’s rough-and-tumble terrain has helped Horton build his endurance for several cross-continent runs.
“I like running on trails. I like running through the woods,” he said. “I like seeing snakes, deer, bear and other animals. It’s neat to see what’s around every corner.”
When the 56-year-old first started running on the mountain nearly three decades ago, there weren’t many trails.
“There were a few old roads,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘I wish there were a few more trails up here.’”
Now, the blueprint he made for a trail system could become a part of the university’s official development plan for the mountain.
“Obviously, road building goes a lot smoother if you have an existing path,” said S. Lee Beaumont, LU’s director of auxiliary services. “We are going to utilize these trails in our overall scheme for running and hiking trails or for mountain biking
trails. We are going to widen them and smooth them out to attract more people.”
Jerry Falwell Jr., LU’s vice chancellor, said Horton’s work has given the development plan a jump-start.
“Without his trails, most of the mountain would be inaccessible right now,” he said. “The trails that were there 20 years ago were nothing compared to what’s there now.”
Falwell said the trail system provides the school with an immediate recreational opportunity for its students and the public.
“The main benefit to Liberty is that there will be all sorts of recreational opportunities right away,” he said. “This is something that can happen right now, this semester. As long as it is not motorized, we don’t mind the public coming up.”
The school recently sold the timber rights on 160 acres of land. The proceeds of the sale will help defray the cost of improving and maintaining the trails, Falwell Jr. said.
Horton, a professor of health science and kinesiology, is using the trails right now for the running classes he teaches.
“Running is a part of me,” he said. “It’s part of my life. I hope the morning I die that I’ll have a good run, Lord willing. If I don’t have a good run, I hope I’ll have a good wheelchair race. I just love to see people moving, doing something.”
Fittingly, his automobile license plate matches his lifestyle.
“ILV2RUN,” it says.
That type of dedication prompted Horton to start building the Candlers Mountain trail system about 10 or 15 years ago.
“I thought I ought to make one trail,” he said. “I made one and then another. Another and another. I’ve put one basically on every ridge and down every drainage ditch. There are trails all over the place up here now.”
His trail blazing was aided by topographical maps from the United States Geological Survey, the federal government’s official mapping agency.
He then walked or ran the proposed trail to see if it was suitable.
If so, he returned with a chainsaw, a string trimmer and a rake to clear the trail’s path.
“Let’s just say there is no one who has been over more of that mountain than me,” he said. “I’ve been down every valley and every ridge.”
It was a short jaunt for a man who has logged more than 100,000 miles in 29 years of record-setting runs that have criss-crossed the United States.
In 1991, Horton set a record in running 2,144 miles from Georgia to Maine, averaging more than 40 miles each day.
In 1995, he ran from Los Angeles to New York.
Last year, he ran 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail.
“I averaged 40 miles a day and set the record by 15 days,” he said.
The trail featured a total elevation rise of 330,000 feet, reaching a peak of around 13,000 feet along Forester Pass near Mt. Whitney in central California.
In between cross-continent runs, he has won a number of 100-mile races.
“I’ve been fortunate to do a lot, see a lot and suffer a lot,” he said. “Running is not always easy.”
At 56, he still runs about six days a week.
“Goofing off, I run about 40 or 50 miles a week,” he said. “When I’m training hard, I run between 100 to 120 miles a week. When I was training for the run across America, I was averaging 160 miles a week. That’s a lot of running.”
Through it all, Candlers Mountain has been Horton’s constant companion.
“It’s who I am,” he said. “I love it here. I don’t take a cell phone. No one can call. No traffic. No cars. It’s so pleasant. It’s what God created.
“It’s where I’m supposed to be.”
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