Meet this year's last woman standing in the Mid-State Mile Endurance Race, Jill Dennes. What is the Mid-State Mile race? Also known as the the Murder Mile, the course is housed on private land just 20 minutes from Downtown Franklin, Tennessee. Within 1 mile and 340 feet of elevation gain per loop runners encounter two climbs with fast runnable sections between them and an easy downhill section through the field to the start/finish area. Runners will be given 20 minutes to complete the loop and must be back in the starting corral ready to start the next loop, otherwise you are out. The race continues until one runner is left standing. Here is Jill's story/race report: This is my second year doing Mid-State Mile and damn do I love doing this race! This is probably one of my favorite races! You don't have to be the fastest nor the strongest runner out there, you just have to complete the mile in under 20 minutes. It takes a lot of mental and physical strength to go far in this race!
I love being surrounded by like-minded people out on the trail and we all get to work together to push one another to get one more mile! Without each other, we cannot get far in this race! Last year I came out to Mid-State Mile completely clueless on what the course was going to entail and how steep the climbs were going to be. Prior to running this race last year, the longest race I ever ran was a 50K. I ended up running 89 miles last year and getting 1st Female, 6th Overall. This year I was determined to go much further! With the help from my Crew and all the other runners, I was able to get 113.3 miles in! I was 1st Female, 3rd Overall. The experience of this race is like no other! Everyone is like a family out there! We all help each other to get as far as possible in this race! Like I said earlier, without each other, we cannot go far in this race! When things start to get tough, we lean on each other for support. Mid-State Mile brings people together! You see people at their most highs and their most lows. That's the beauty of this race! We all struggle at some point, but we have to stick together in order to go far! This year my goal is to do some type of race each month. In July I have a 24 hour race which consists of a one mile flat loop. I will be aiming to get at least 100 miles there. August I go up to PA for Eastern States 100! I will most likely be doing some type of road marathon this fall and then a few other trail races in the fall/winter.
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