Photo by Randy Ericksen FIlms: Marshall native Josh Anderson runs on a trail during an ultramarathon in the Black Hills. Anderson is working on completing a circuit of four races in the Black Hills with distances of 100 miles, 50 miles, 50 kilometers and 30 kilometers.

MARSHALL — Josh Anderson hadn’t always considered himself a runner. The owner of Marshall Machine Shop had always had an outdoorsy side to him, but it wasn’t until a trip to the Black Hills a few years ago that he started developing a passion for running. Now, Anderson is one race away from completing a circuit of ultramarathons.

Anderson’s introduction to distance running came about when he, his father, Doug and his friend, Shawn Myers, went on a four-wheeling trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota in 2019. On his last day at his cabin, he noticed the people moving into the cabin next door didn’t have dirt bikes or other all-terrain vehicles, so Anderson struck up a conversation to ask what brought them out to the area. The woman there told Anderson that her husband was running the 100-mile race.

“What do you mean? Nobody had ever heard of anybody running more than a marathon. People actually run more than 26 miles?” Anderson recalled thinking.

Anderson’s confusion bred curiosity, so he and his camping group went to one of the race’s aid stations and stayed up until 2 a.m. partying with the race’s volunteers and talking to the runners as they stopped for water and nutrition.

“I didn’t realize it back then, but nowadays, people get so comfortable. They strive for comfortable. They don’t want to do something because it’s hard. They don’t want to do something because it’s too hot or it’s raining. People get complacent with where they’re at,” Anderson said. “Seeing people just put themselves to utter exhaustion. There are guys that look great. 40 miles in, they’re cruising. Other people were camped out in the chair trying to fix their feet, trying to fix their stomach, just completely suffering. I don’t know what it was, they just looked alive.”

Before seeing that race, Anderson wasn’t a runner. He had tried once more than ten years ago but decided it wasn’t his sport after nearly getting sick. To add to the disincentives, he had also been having knee problems. Watching the runners push past their discomfort, combined with seeing a friend of his who lost some weight recently, made Anderson want to make some lifestyle changes.

“I was a bit heavier, I drank a lot, I didn’t eat very good, just basically unhealthy. A couple of weeks later, I thought, ‘Let’s give this running thing a try,’ Anderson said.

After downloading an app called Couch to 5k, Anderson began to work his way up in terms of mileage. He intended to return to the Black Hills to run the 50k the next year, but the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the cancelation of the race. Determined as he was, Anderson didn’t let the lack of a race stop him; he went up on his own and ran it anyway.

“That was a really, really hot year. But that was my first unofficial 50k and that’s what kind of started it,” Anderson said. “I got immersed in the culture, the community. It’s a huge community full of really cool people. There aren’t too many around here, but there are a few. There’s a couple of guys in town that have run a couple of pretty hard 100 milers and Sioux Falls has a big community down there.”

On his unofficial race day, Anderson went out to South Dakota with his wife, Sara, and set up some of their own aid stations. Running 50 kilometers in heat is never easy, but without water or nutrition, it becomes unsafe. Sara and Josh dropped coolers full of water in two separate spots on his route in advance of the run so he could stay hydrated and made sure he had some nutrition as well. Josh typically goes for high-calorie and high-carb goos, gummies or gels.

“You have to keep eating and you have to keep drinking, but when you run for a long time, you don’t want to eat and you don’t want to drink. What comes with experience is knowing that no matter what, you have to eat or you’re going to pay for it,” Anderson said. “You get behind on nutrition, especially water or electrolytes, you really pay for it and it comes on pretty quickly.”

In Anderson’s first official 50k in the Black Hills, he recalled getting behind on hydration early and, as a result, cramped the final 12 miles of the race.

“If I was walking, my legs were cramping. If I scratched my nose, my arm would cramp. I just couldn’t get back on the right side of electrolytes and water. But then I’ve had races where I eat at every interval and I keep up on my water and it goes great,” Anderson said.

While his knees’ ability to stay healthy was an initial concern for Anderson, he was pleasantly surprised that distance running actually had the opposite effect. He planned on running until his knees told him he had to stop. Instead, he found that his knees had never felt better than they did after he started, a development he attributed to strength training.

As much work as Anderson puts into pounding the pavement, the mental part of the ultramarathons is the bigger challenge, Anderson says. It’s a race that requires constant thinking but, at the same time, as little thinking as possible.

“That’s something that I enjoy with doing this. The 100 miler is nothing but problem-solving. Problem comes up, you solve it and on to the next one. You fix your feet, then your stomach’s starting up, there are all these things that you have to work out before they become a big problem,” Anderson said. “The best thing you can do is not to think about anything. Especially during an ultra, you’re trying to just basically get to the end, so the more you dwell on, ‘oh, my feet hurt,’ the more you think about your feet hurting so the more those are going to hurt.”

Some of Josh’s solutions for keeping his mind off the race are inundating his ears with distractions. Podcasts, audiobooks and music are his go-to’s, with his playlist ranging from underground country to chill-hop.

At the moment, Anderson is training for the Black Hills 30k. It’s the shortest of a four-race circuit, including a 100-miler, 50-miler and 50k in the Black Hills. Josh has already completed the other three races. Upon his completion of the race on June 29, Josh will receive a Man in Black Award, which comes in the form of a painted buffalo skull.

Josh started with the 50k because he wanted to break the ultramarathon barrier — defined as anything longer than the 26.2-mile distance of a marathon — and saved the 30k for last as a sort of celebration.

“It’s going to be a party. Maybe a beer at an aid station or a shot of Fireball [whiskey],” Anderson said with a laugh. “I don’t really go out for time. I’m not that great of a runner, I just try to get in before the cutoff times.”

When it comes to the endurance test of an ultramarathon, completion alone is an accomplishment. Still, Anderson’s had some close calls. He beat out the 14-hour cutoff for the 50-miler by seven minutes and finished the 100-miler with 10 minutes to spare before the 34-hour cutoff.

For the final seven-and-a-half mile, Myers helped pace Anderson through the race. While the race against the clock put some pressure on Anderson, he was confident once he met up with Myers, saying that he knew he was in the clear once he made it there.

“On my way back, my feet were pretty much wet the entire race. So I was dealing with trench foot and really sore feet. There were a few instances that it started creeping in that maybe I wouldn’t make the cutoff, but I learned you have to think positive, so get rid of all the negative thoughts and go back to positive thinking and just keep moving forward,” Anderson said.

While Minnesota weather isn’t typically conducive to running in the winter, Anderson doesn’t let that stop him from hitting the roads. Unless it’s particularly slippery, Anderson rarely opts for the treadmill instead of the pavement. Last year, he ran five 50-mile races and a 40-mile winter ultramarathon.

His training also varies a lot depending on just how long his ultramarathons are. His Saturday long run can range from six miles for a 30k training block to 25 or 35 miles for a 100-miler training cycle. Typically, though, his weekly mileage remains in the 40 to 50-mile range and is coupled with strength training.

One of the big developments for Anderson’s training over the course of time was his nutrition science. He said he worked with his coach, Ron Hammett out of Sundog Running in Florida, to get it down to a science. They used sweat tests to figure out how much hydration Anderson needed to replenish the water he lost and how many calories he needed to consume. Now, it’s become a sort of muscle memory where he doesn’t even think about it when he takes a sip from his CamelBak.

“That’s the big thing that made my 100-mile more bearable than maybe it should’ve been,” Anderson said.

Anderson tried to get his kids, Danica and Tucker, into distance running, but the two have taken more to other sports. Still, what Anderson most wants his kids to take away from his ultras is the sort of wanderlust sense of community he’s gained from his sport.

“There are a couple of friends I’ve gotten to know through the course of all of this,” Anderson said. “One of them got his buffalo skull this year, another has one race to go. You’re always meeting new people too. When you share some miles with somebody and you’re both suffering and hurting, you kind of get to know them pretty good.”