Century mark: Marysville native Kennedy runs 100-mile race
It may have been years ago, but Josh Kennedy can vividly remember his introduction to the sport of ultra running.
Though he wasn't even a teenager at the time, something caught his eye while watching the local news one evening and gave him a goal which he would spend his life trying to achieve.
"I saw my first Western States race on KCRA back in 1984," Kennedy, now 39, recalled. "They were televising the finish line and I remember saying 'I've got to do that one of these days.'"
On June 25, the 1990 graduate of Marysville High finally got his chance when he took on one of the country's most challenging foot races by running in the 38th Western States Endurance Run.
Also known as the Western States 100, the race is a 100-mile ultramarathon held each year on the last full weekend in June, run solely on mountain trails high in the Sierra Nevadas, starting at the base of the Squaw Valley ski resort and ending down the mountain at Placer High's track in Auburn.
Run on a portion of the historic Western States Trail linking Salt Lake City to Sacramento, the race worked its way through rugged country usually only accessible to hikers, horses and helicopters. Runners had to negotiate snow and ice during the early portions of the race, while climbing a total of 18,090 feet and descending some 22,970.
"It's kind of like the Boston Marathon of ultra running," said Kennedy. "It has the most history and it's a great trail. Among ultra running, it's the big one — it's a great event."
Runners finishing before the 30-hour overall time limit received a bronze belt buckle, while runners finishing in under 24 hours received a silver belt buckle.
Kennedy attempted the race back in 2002, but he didn't finish. This time, not only did he want to complete the event, he wanted to do it in less than 24 hours.
The race started at 5 a.m., continued throughout the day and into the night and early morning. Kennedy methodically worked his way down the mountain and when he finally crossed the finish line, he could barely control his excitement.
His time: 23 hours, 9 minutes.
When all was settled, 310 of the 415 runners completed the race, with Kennedy finishing 92nd. He was one of just 125 individuals to take home the coveted silver buckle.
"It was brutal. At about mile 3 we got into snow and at mile 15 we got out of it," Kennedy said. "You just go across it. It was real slick, so I just tried not to slide."
Kennedy said that running in the snow was the most difficult part of the race, however he soon got his second wind and started to make up for lost time once getting below the snowline.
Checkpoint after checkpoint went by, and he kept right on pushing.
"My legs were dead. There were three or four things going wrong and when you're only at the 10-to-15 mile mark you're thinking 'This is not happening,'" Kennedy said. "Fortunately, you kind of get wise to the experience. At about the 40-mile marker everything started to recover and I got my legs under me.
"I knew I had it. I just had to keep grinding it down and stay on plan."
Only one mile was run on pavement, the rest were on mountain trails. Kennedy even had to run thigh-high through a creek, not a pleasant experience considering the temperature was a brisk 40 degrees that morning.
It was the culmination of more 10 years of hard work for Kennedy, who was valedictorian when he graduated from Marysville in 1990. He played three years of varsity soccer, three years of varsity track and three years of varsity football for the Indians.
His grades and athletic prowess earned him acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., where he graduated in 1994.
"I graduated from Marysville and two weeks later I was at West Point," Kennedy said. "That was some summer vacation I had."
He now resides in Huntsville, Ala., where he is the operations chief of the Army Aviation and Missile Command located at the Redstone Arsenal. He is an aerospace engineer and a major in the U.S. Army Reserves.
His father, Jim, was the former treasurer/tax collector for Yuba County and now serves on the Yuba College Board of Trustees.
Kennedy broke into ultra running in 1998 before starting a family. And while he'd already ran five ultramarathons before, this was the one he really wanted.
"It was a bit surreal. It had been 25 years since I last saw the finish line," said Kennedy, who knocked off 6 hours off his previous best time. "The last 10 years I've been focused on running it again. It all built up to this."
