Bursting out of the Dartmouth bubble, eight members of the Dartmouth Endurance Running Team will traverse the state of New Hampshire this Friday, beginning in Dover, N.H. and ending in Hanover to run 135 miles overnight. The race will raise money for the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth.
"It's something fun and interesting and out of the ordinary," said Stefan Deutsch '14, who will run the race for the third time. "It's also a good test of strength and endurance, and a good way to meet people, and it's for a good cause."
Given the race's incredible distance, the eight members of DERT who will run the event Deutsch, Kelly Emery '16, Anna Gabianelli '16, Anisha Mohin '15, Krista Oehlke '13, Meg Parson '16, Ellie Pearlman '15 and Chloe Zimmerman '14 will alternate with one another, running legs of up to eight miles.
Team members who are not running at any given time follow along in a decorated van and offer encouragement. Each member will run two or three legs, and the entire team will run the final leg back to Hanover together.
To ensure safety, the runners don reflective gear and head lamps at night, and the van follows closely behind providing crucial lighting.
"It looks a little sketchy when you have a minivan following a female runner late at night, and we've been stopped by the police a few times," Oehlke said. "We have a few great pictures of us with smiling policemen."
Although the event's distance creates an obvious challenge, most runners seem more concerned with weather conditions and the mental challenges of running through the night, as opposed to the physical distance.
"Being on DERT and running so consistently, endurance is under your belt," Oehlke said. "We have hour-long runs on weekends and run consistently during the week. My primary worry is that it's going to rain all weekend, which is never fun."
As of press time, the forecast for Friday evening is clear, while Saturday is expected to bring rain, which the runners said they were well aware of.
"If it's going to rain, it's going to get super smelly and cold," Deutsch said. "But I'm embracing it."
Regardless of the weather conditions, the runners will be challenged by running through the night.
"I think the lack of sleep is going to be the biggest issue," said Anna Gabianelli '16, who is running the race for the first time. "But that's something people always surprise themselves with, how much they can do without sleep."
While runners may rest while riding in the support van, sleep can be hard to come by.
"I think the most grueling aspect is the mental endurance," Oehlke said. "Being in a van with seven other sweaty bodies at a time is very hard especially after just running."
The event was started in 2009 by DERT founder Emily Koepsell '09 Th'10. Koepsell battled leukemia as a child and wanted to find a way to apply her passion for distance running to support pediatric cancer research.
"That has made the event even more meaningful because we know the roots and feel like we are doing something for a cause," Oehlke said.
The team has raised over $1,500 through their website, in addition to money raised at a bake sale this week.
The team is sponsored by Positive Tracks, a nonprofit that has agreed to match 100 percent of donations to the team.
Gabianelli said the team's positive attitude impacted her decision to run.
"The enthusiasm that the upperclassmen at DERT had about it was interesting to me," Gabianelli said. "[I've] always wanted to do a race like this with people who were happy to do it."
