930 Mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail

Diane Van Deren had never heard of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, the 930-mile trail that stretches from Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains to Jockey's Ridge State Park on the Outer Banks.

She's more intimately familiar with it now.

Van Deren is a professional ultra-runner, meaning she sneezes at 26.2 miles, the marathon distance. One-hundred-mile races are more her game. She's a seven-time veteran of the Hardrock 100 in Colorado, a race with 33,000 feet of elevation change, and she won the 300-mile Yukon Arctic Ultra in 2008.

Last October, the Colorado resident spoke about her exploits in Raleigh. After the event, she got to talking with Kate Dixon, the executive director of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. The trail is a work in progress, with some sections linked together from existing trails. Other parts are on back roads and bicycle trails.

Dixon slipped in that Matt Kirk, an ultra-runner from Marion, had just run the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in 24 days.

Ever the competitor, Van Deren decided almost immediately that she would like to give the trail a shot, with the goal of finishing in 21 days.

Van Deren set off before dawn from Clingmans on May 10 and by the end of the day had covered 60 miles.

Since then, Van Deren has run through torrential rain in the Linville Gorge area, causing painful blisters that have forced her to drop her average daily mileage from about 60 to 40 miles.

Chuck Millsaps, the expedition coordinator who works for Great Outdoor Provision in Raleigh, one of the run's sponsors, accompanied Van Deren on part of her trek through the mountains.

Mostly, Millsaps said, Van Deren has had to walk at a fast clip instead of run through the mountains because of the rugged terrain.

"We ran a little bit, but she's coaching us, telling us, 'Hey, we've got 1,000 miles to go. The trick is to preserve the body,' " Millsaps said.

Long-distance running has given Van Deren relief from epilepsy. A competitive athlete growing up, Van Deren started suffering seizures. A portion of her brain was removed, which stopped the seizures. But she lost her ability to organize and keep track of time.

Running provides her with some clarity and comfort. In press materials about the run, Van Deren said the rhythm of her feet and breathing on a long run are healing.

Van Deren was not available for comment. She's running up to 20 hours a day.

To help guide Van Deren on the trail -- she can't read a map and suffers from short-term memory loss -- Millsaps put out a bulletin to runners across the state, asking them to run with Van Deren for various legs of the trek.

"Everyone was saying, 'I'll clear my schedule,' " Millsaps said.

From our area, the runners who accompanied Van Deren include Annette Bednosky, a decorated ultra runner from Ashe County.

Van Deren passed through our area earlier this week, covering 30 miles on a "down" day from Stone Mountain State Park to 10 miles short of Pilot Mountain State Park. On Tuesday, after about six hours of sleep, she left Danbury at 4:30 a.m., heading for Bur-Mil Park in Greensboro.

Millsaps said that now that Van Deren is out of the mountains, she will be able to make up for lost time. If all goes well, she is expected to arrive at Jockey's Ridge on May 30 -- right on her goal of 21 days.

"Her goal really is to finish and keep moving forward. There isn't this sense of 'Buddy, you're going down,' " Millsaps said about her feelings toward the record holder, Matt Kirk. "It's more like, 'Let's see what this experience is like.' "