Take a number of former 7 Mile Bridge Run champs, mix them with excessive triathletes, and toss in a number of extra runners who perennially sit atop race leaderboards in Monroe County – put one other method, assemble the Keys’ personal Avengers of distance working.
Then, inform them to go run 100 miles as quick as they will, and benefit from the present.
On Might 17, first-place squad PeaK Pulse left little question within the group relay of the Keys 100 ultramarathon, maintaining the pedal to the metallic from Key Largo to Key West and finishing the course in 10 hours, 26 minutes and 20 seconds.
We’ll prevent the calculator – that’s an AVERAGE of 6 minutes, 15 seconds per mile, all accomplished in mid-80s temperatures and not using a cloud within the sky. The group arrived in Key West almost 28 minutes earlier than their subsequent rivals, smashed their “type of brutal” aim of 11 hours – their phrases, not ours – and topped the profitable relay time from 2024 by greater than an hour.
“Truthfully, I simply needed to make as stacked a group as attainable,” stated Aydan Little one, the 2019 Marathon Excessive graduate and 2018 7 Mile Bridge Run champ who hatched the concept for PeaK Pulse’s squad with Marathon triathlete John “Bucky” Wile. Recruiting fellow triathlete Adam Matyi, the crew added Key West native and 2025 bridge run champ Owen Allen earlier than turning to the Bursa brothers, Large Pine-based distance phenoms.
Contemporary off their Marathon Excessive Faculty out of doors monitor season, the roster initially included youthful brothers Vance and Tony, however a foot fracture sidelined Vance simply days earlier than the race, forcing a last-minute step-in by elder brother Jakub.
Not concerned in aggressive racing since his 2024 commencement, Jakub informed the Weekly he’d been working solely eight miles per week, with most of his current exercises changed by distance biking. And with primarily zero coaching becoming the character of the race, the oldest Bursa brother turned in what his teammates known as an “MVP efficiency,” almost equaling his tempo from highschool races to match the group common throughout his 13 assigned miles.
“We didn’t know what to anticipate, and he got here in and completely crushed it – the identical (tempo) as Bucky and I,” stated Little one. “Jakub stepping up and with the ability to cling in there and put that a lot coronary heart and energy into it – that was loopy to see.”
Bursa wasn’t alone in gutting out a technically sound and blazing quick efficiency. Taking over the bridge he conquered only one month earlier, Allen gladly traded a heavy headwind from April for the warmth of Might, reportedly lighting up the seven-mile span in lower than 40 minutes and dropping his tempo under his championship-winning pace by greater than 20 seconds per mile.
Making the most of almost each alternative to cross the baton, the group was the image of consistency, hitting the 50-mile mark in precisely 5 hours and 13 minutes. And though some 50-mile relay groups had already reached the Seven Mile Bridge as PeaK Pulse handed by “downtown” Marathon, by the point they hit Key West, the crew had left even that race’s high finishers behind.
And whereas he couldn’t pound the pavement as one of many group’s quickest projected runners, his teammates had excessive reward for Vance’s function in facilitating your complete 100-mile effort.
“I used to be water boy, transition boy, fueling boy, hydration boy,” laughed Vance.
“It was an entire system, and we trusted one another,” stated Tony. “We had been all into it. It’s not like a race the place it’s simply you towards you – you utilize the entire group, and it’s much more entertaining.”
“It was nothing however a good time,” stated Little one. “Vance was in a boot, however he had water, ice packs, maintaining the whole lot sorted and orderly. Having the whole lot come to fruition and undertaking our targets, and simply all being there collectively on the finish was very nice.”