Jesse Stauffer | 2026 Eastern States 100 Race Report-The Race That Changed My Life Before I Ran It

It all started a little over 2 and a half years ago with a painful separation and eventual divorce. My life was in freefall and not the fun kind when the pilot says “door” and the problems of life disappear as you look down at the airport and then step into pure focused bliss. No it was more like I slipped off a cliff that I didn't know I was standing on and was tumbling out of control. That's where running found me. It gave me something consistent and solid in my life. Something that wasn't easy. Something I could test the limits of. Something I could take the frustration out on. Something healthy, something in nature. It slowly started to quiet my soul.

Fast forward to March 2025 after a number of sub ultra distance trail races that my friend Tony had gotten me into, I ran a 10hr endurance race and did my first ultra distance of 56 miles just out of curiosity of wondering how long i could run, it felt crazy and irresponsible. I had no idea what I was doing but the legs kept churning and the frustrations of life fueled me. The seed of ultra running was planted that day but didn't really take root until a little later in the year.

We have a family cabin in Blackwell that we vacationed at growing up. Some of my favorite childhood memories were made there so I started looking for races in the area and found Slate Run 25k which I signed up for and ran as my first race in the area. It was amazing, the rugged steep trails and views that I didn't take the time to see because I was racing but knew they were there. I started looking for more races in the area. Then I saw it. A race that goes right through Blackwell, across the metal grate bridge that I swam under growing up and up to Gillespie point which was the one trail we would sometimes hike as a child. It was a 103 mile race of brutal mountainous single track with over 20,000ft of vert. I instantly knew I had to try it, but was it even possible for someone like me with no real running experience to get it done under the cutoff?? I smartly decided it was too late to try for the 2025 race and set my sights on 2026. I immediately signed up to help at the Blackwell aid station for that year as I needed to see what this race was all about. This started the journey of the next year and a half of my life!

I knew I needed to run a 100 miler that was a lot simpler and easier to see if it was possible to go 100 miles and to have the courage to go for it in 2026, so I signed up for Devil Dogs 100. I figured doing 50k and 100k first made sense so I found ones that fit the schedule . During this time I got to train alot with Tony who had originally gotten me into running on trails as he had agreed to run the 100k with me. I was surprised when I ran the Rise and Run 50k to come in first place. I'm not a particularly fast or talented runner and just played it off as being a small race but it definitely lit a competitive fuse that had been dormant for far too long in me. The 100k went the same way as I managed to pull off another win. Maybe I was good at this? But 100 miles is a whole other level. I got a running coach because I really have no idea what i was doing and was spending way too much time training to not try to optimize it. My whole identity was slowly becoming focused on running, it's not like it's always that fun for me but it gave me structure and focus in life that i desperately needed at the time.

Because of my coach I set a way more ambitious time goal for my first 100 miler of 21hrs. I finished in 19:02 for the win. My mind is blown. I know deep down now that this is something God has blessed me with the ability to be good at. My heart and soul slowly continue to heal from the broken belief system that I had believed for far too long about myself and a belief that I could accomplish anything that I put my mind to in running was born. I'm no longer wondering if I can complete ES100, but if I can possibly compete?

Somewhere along the line I learned about the Triple crown and so I signed up for Hyner 50k and Worlds End 100K. Both go really well and I pull off a win at Worlds End which was by far the most rugged race I've done to date. I now know i can compete, not really sure how i managed to get from wondering if its possible to finish to aiming for the coveted ES100 axe in a year and a half.

I come into race week a little beat up with a groin/hip injury that had been lingering since spring and had messed up my peak training weeks leading into the race but i knew there was a deep seated driving force inside that would keep me going.I wanted to see what the limit of my mind and body were, sure i wanted to win but even more i wanted to find the limit where i can no longer convince my body to do what i wanted it to. I was going to run a risky race. A goal of 21hrs. When you hit all of your A goals in races it means you're not aiming ambitiously enough. I made sure to not make that mistake this time. I took the taper week to appreciate how much this race had truly changed my life for the better no matter how it went.

Finally the part about the actual race.

I showed up Saturday morning ready to get the party started with the normal race nerves and insecurities as my hip was still bothering me but as Ben performed his “magic trick” and we started off down the road every worry faded into the background and mind, body and soul calmly settled themselves in for a long day of that odd mixture of pain and adrenaline that iv come to love. The first couple of miles flew by easily enough as I tried to find a rhythm. The first climb hits like a sucker punch and I remind myself to take it easy as there are only probably 5-10 runners ahead of me at this point but before I knew it my heart was pounding out of my chest. I look down at my HR- mid 180s- not good. I could not convince myself to slow down anymore so just like at Worlds End I made the mental note that this is not sustainable but that it is what it is because I've been able to hold it together at other races when it felt impossible as well. The goal was to make it through the first 50k with all the brutal climbs and then keep it chill till Tomb Flats and then start racing. I managed to calm things down after the first climb to what I thought was a manageable effort and rolled into Little Pine Bottom to see my crew for the first time right where I wanted to be according to my splits. The plan was going perfectly, until it wasn't. I started to reel in the leaders in front of me after leaving Lower Pine Bottom way faster than I wanted to. I knew it was too soon and not a good sign. The leader of the race at mile 20-30 is rarely able to hold on and win but I knew it would be fun to try. I soon found myself running with Gabe for a section and had a great time grinding though the miles with someone who has a lot of experience at this race and is always towards the front of the pack fighting for a podium spot. Somewhere between Browns Run and Happy Dutchman i hit the 5 hour mark and realized that I hadn't peed yet. I knew this wasn't good because I was following my fuel and hydration plan to a T and was pounding 1 liter of water with the normal sodium level that I had trained with but something was wrong. I soon noticed that my hands were swollen and began to suspect that I had way overdone my sodium. This was a first for me in a race so i diverted from the plan and slowed the sodium intake but the damage had been done. In that section Gabe smartly let me go and as I rolled past the lady setting up all the stuffed animals before Happy Dutchman, she said that the leader was right ahead of me. That was not the kind of fuel I needed at the moment. I soon caught a glimpse of Tyler on the power line section off in the distance. This was a section of the course I had not run before and i didnt know it was going to be so runnable. I reeled in Tyler over the next couple of miles by running way too fast. He seemed surprised when I came up beside him as he knew he was moving at a good pace. Just another sign that I was overcooking the legs 🙂. Had some great conversation about Amish, Mennonites and Christianity and rolled into Hyner Run side by side. I was still feeling decent and thought I could possibly still hold it together but at this point I was completely guessing on the sodium and fluid intake to try and get back to processing water like I should. I picked up James as my pacer and headed out. I hadn't met James before that morning and was excited to have someone to talk to. I had met and passed so many people by this point who when I told them my name said “oh are you the Jesse that James is pacing?” He apparently knows everyone running and volunteering at this race! I'm still new to this game and it didn't take long to appreciate the pacing expertise that James brought to the table as I slowly realized that my quads were disappearing with half the race to go. He had a way of stoking the embers of hope that will always lie simmering in the back of my mind no matter how badly things are going. These words felt like a lie as I had to admit that my legs were trashed and this wasn't going to go as I had hoped but were at the same time exactly what I needed to hear at the time. I had slowed down considerably by mile 53 and was dreaming of making it to Tomb Flats to cool off the legs in the river. I was slightly frustrated at this point because downhills have always been my strength and this was the first time that my body was letting me down. One bright side of this problem was that during this section I was going slow enough when I rounded a tight downhill switchback that I could get stopped just so in time for my first rattlesnake encounter of the day. You could not have placed that snake more perfectly around the corner to be at the worst spot. We had a nice little stand off before we figured out a way to get by. I had been yo-yoing back and forth with Tyler at this point and I finally let him go after he caught up to us at the snake stand off. I was moving slow enough downhill by this point that I was beginning to wonder where everyone else was at as I thought I should be seeing people coming up behind me. A couple miles out from Tomb Flats after one of many small creek crossings before starting a climb I saw thee Kaylee Frederick with her pacer coming up behind me. I could still climb ok so it felt like an eternity till she passed me on the downhill after the climb. During that time I could hear her chatting effortlessly to her pacer and somehow knew instantly that she was going to have an amazing day and win outright! Seeing someone else having such a great day when mine wasn't going as planned gave me an odd sense of joy that I wasn't expecting and became my favorite moment of the whole race. By this point I had emotionally given up on racing and was planning on hiking it in from Tomb Flats. I Definitely had some guilt from knowing that i had drug my whole crew of friends and family along for this and now i was going to force my best running friend Tony to slowly hike for countless hours from Tomb Flats to Blackwell when the plan was to push hard through this section as there is a lot of runnable trail. I hit the Pine Creek crossing with an expectation of a cold water reset for the legs. It felt like a bathtub, nothing like I had dreamed of for the last number of hours. It's the little disappointments that seem to hit the hardest

My crew got me squared away with a shoe and shirt change which I definitely needed for my wrecked feet. I started off with Tony from Tomb Flats still in 1st place male and third overall but had completely given up on racing and was trying to grapple with the idea of walking for the next 15 hours to try and finish this thing. It was humbling to tell Tony that I couldn't even jog the bike trail section without walk breaks and as soon as we were back onto single track it was hiking only. Time drug by slowly and I'm so thankful I had Tony along. I actually was able to start to appreciate the amazing beauty that I was surrounded in now that I wasn't in race mode. It was like a switch had been flipped and I wasn't frustrated at all as the sun started to set on these beautiful mountains that had humbled my legs. I had found the limits of my body and had crossed those limits and that was the goal all along. The positivity soon came to an end or more like switched to im positive that I need to DNF. I had been walking for a couple hours at this point and was on the steep descent into Cedar Run and started to get dizzy. It was at this point that Francis passed me on his way to being the male overall winner. In hindsight I should have sat down but was so close to the aid station that I pressed on. This is the first time I ever feared for my physical safety as I could barely stay upright as I tried to navigate the steep moss covered rocky descent. Tony was right behind me ready to keep me from face planting down the hill and I could tell I was making him nervous but somehow I made it down. The first words I blurted to the first aid station volunteer was “can i drop here?” In the brain fog I wasn't sure if I could quit at a non-crewed aid station and frankly hadn't given much thought to how that worked before the race. In my mind at the time I was frustrated and hopeless because I had walked for 3 hours at a super low intensity and could now barely stand as the world spun around me. I knew there was no way to finish if I couldn't walk and decided that I was done! But thankfully they don't let you quit that easily.

Enter my second favorite experience of the race. I laid down on a cot and had 5-6 of the most helpful people willing to do or get me just about anything. Best aid station experience ever. If you're reading this “Thank you”! You saved my race. Ems checked me out and soon came back with a verdict from the medical director that I was going to be held for 2 hours and then reassessed to see if I could continue. There wasn't a chance that i was going to continue but i soon found out it would be close to 2 hours till the sad wagon could come pick me up. I'm stubborn and have never quit a race before so I made a deal with myself that I would wait the 2 hours and hope that I was medically pulled from the race so that I didn't have to make the decision of quitting myself. I knew my plan had gone sideways after 90 minutes of being treated like a king with people bringing me endless delicious food at my command when I opened my eyes and realized a switch had been flipped. My mind and emotions were clear again, the dizziness was gone. Crap, I no longer had an excuse to quit and I knew in that moment there was no chance of getting medically pulled anymore. I slowly started putting my gear back on and impatiently waited till my 2 hours were up to start the slow trek onward. I was still expecting to probably drop at Blackwell but knew I needed to try so off we went. We soon come up on some other runners who were having a hard time as well and it somehow warms the soul to know you're not the only one struggling along.

I stumbled into Blackwell a couple hours later and didn't let myself think at all. I just went through the motions with my crew who had been waiting at Blackwell for the last 9 hours not really knowing what was going on(sorry guys). I headed out with Cody trying to not think about what lay ahead as I don't think I could handle the thought of another 10 hours of this. By this point I had learned that my body wasn't able to regulate my temperature properly and I felt like I was overheating and not able to sweat at all at a walking pace. I found that I needed to take 10 minutes to cool off my head with ice at each aid station to feel better. By Skytop i could feel my legs coming back but my body still couldn't regulate temperature and i was still overheating. I got to experience the world famous blueberry pancakes at Skytop which i normally would not have risked eating if i was running. They were as delicious as rumored! Soon after Skytop I was able to start running small sections of flats and Cody was a good sport and very encouraging whenever I managed to make it up to another climb or jog for 30 seconds. Limited by overheating more than my legs being trashed we limped into Barrens and I finally knew I was going to finish. The rest is a bit of a blur of run/walking until about 2 miles from the finish or wherever that God forsaken descent from the top of what must have been the tallest mountain around started. I had heard it was a steep descent but I normally thrive on the steep stuff so I originally was looking forward to it. This was different. My quads were still gone and every step I took I had to painfully stop my forward momentum. What should have been 15 minutes of pure bliss bombing down the mountain to the finish turned into over an hour of hell. There is one section after about 30 minutes of downhill pain that it levels out for a second and you can see out over the valley below. All I could see was the steep, relentless mountainside disappearing into eternity below me when I had really been expecting to see Little Pine State Park. I was mad. My brain couldn't process that I might not even be half way down and I could no longer lie to myself that at any second I would be at the bottom. At this point I shut everything down. Just me numb to the world, a place I was all too familiar with and had used too many times to get through life.

I crossed the finish line in 28:52. Strangely content, satisfied. This race had changed the course of my life long before I had ever run it. I learned that I was human and had limits. I was surprised that my competitive nature wasn't disappointed in myself as it seemed to know that the day went exactly as it was meant to go. It did leave me with something a little different this time though. By Sunday afternoon only a few hours after finishing, I knew I needed to come back to see if I can piece together a good day and mostly to see if I can run that last God forsaken descent and try and regain the part of my soul that it crushed.

To my Crew and Pacers: Katie, Tony, Joe, Duane, Jamie, Cody, Kylee - Thanks so much for the support, I would not have finished if it wasn't for you.

To Ben and Jade and all the countless volunteers who helped make this race a reality: Thank you! It changed my life. See you next year.