“I limped across the finish line,” Johnson said of the 13.1-mile race, “and thought to myself, ‘I’d never be able to run a full.'”

Not long after, Johnson followed the same steps as he gutted out his first full marathon, spanning 26.2 miles.

“I felt like I had nothing left to give and had kind of topped out.”

There has been a pattern to Johnson’s physical and mental evolution as a distance runner, which ultimately led him to enter his first Black Hills 100 race in South Dakota late last month. The initial dismissal of the idea. The second thoughts. The second guessing. The shrug of the shoulders. Education. A cost-benefit analysis. Mapping out a strategy. And finally, going all-in.

Submitted photo: Brady Johnson after finishing the Black Hills 100 ultramarathon with his father, John; girlfriend, Emily Wood; and mother, Shari.

The “100” in the title of the Black Hills event? That stands for miles.

“I know it seems crazy,” Johnson admitted with a laugh. “It isn’t easy to explain to people. Even as I’m saying it, it sounds totally absurd.”

There’s something about the thrill of the chase that excites the 2009 Fort Dodge Senior High graduate and former part-time Messenger sports writer.

“I guess more than anything, you learn you are capable of way more than you think,” the 33-year-old Johnson said. “We tend to put limitations on ourselves. But once you get past a lot of the mental hurdles, you can really surprise yourself and accomplish things that you hadn’t even considered possible.

“You find out a lot about who you are, and it gives you both a different perspective and appreciation of life in general.”

Submitted photo: Brady Johnson, a 2009 Fort Dodge Senior High graduate, completed the Black Hills 100 ultramarathon at the end of June.

Johnson first into the distance running scene for a few years after the Reno half marathon. He took a break, though, and didn’t return to action until 2021.

“That’s when I first found out about ultra running,” said Johnson, who currently lives in Evergreen, Colorado and serves as a marketing and communications specialist for the Arvada Fire Protection District in suburban Denver. “I went down a rabbit hole of books, documentaries, podcasts, articles and race reports.”

Ultramarathons are technically any race over 26.2 miles. The most common distances, though, are 50k (31 miles), 50 miles and 100 miles.

Johnson spent a good portion of 2023 preparing for his first 50-mile event last November. After he finished, his mind — and body — immediately shifted into preparation for the 100-mile challenge.

“I trained for seven months,” said Johnson, the son of Fort Dodge’s John and Shari Johnson. “Running for five or six days a week, a lot of long runs on the weekends, probably 1,000 total miles…building a plan and following it.

“So much goes into it, both mentally and physically. Your food consumption, for instance, is critical; you have to eat about 300 calories an hour (during the race) without getting sick.”

Johnson found inspiration in the stories of others who had crossed the finished line after their own 100-mile journey.

“I read about people (beforehand) who thought they had nothing left, but kept going,” Johnson said. “How do you handle the adversity and the emotions when it gets really tough? What kind of internal conversations do you have with yourself?

“I was just so intrigued by it all.”

Johnson, his parents and his girlfriend of nine years — Emily Wood — arrived in Sturgis for the June 28-29 race. The distance isn’t the only detail that separates the Black Hills 100 from traditional marathons; the terrain is also anything but normal.

“It’s kind of like a rollercoaster,” said Johnson, a 2012 University of Iowa graduate. “A standard marathon is typically on pavement and pretty flat. An ultra is typically dirt, gravel, mountains, hills, narrow paths…(the Black Hills 100) is all of that, plus over 16,000 feet of elevation gain.”

There are different aid stations set up for the runners along the way. Pace is everything, along with fighting the internal urge to walk away.

“You deal with so many things,” Johnson said. “You get hungry. You feel stomach pains. Your feet become an issue. I actually did OK for the most part with my mental perseverance and resolve, but my feet didn’t hold up well at all.

“I was committed to finishing, though. When you get to the second day, you start to think about how far you’ve come and you realize if you don’t make it, you’ll have to either start over (in the future) or never try it again.”

The first day went about as planned for Johnson.

“You see other (competitors) and even have conversations with them to pass the time,” Johnson said. “I talked to a guy who had done 25 of these races. He was between 50 and 60 years old. You try to occupy your mind any way you can.”

Eventually, the herd starts to both spread and thin out.

“Fifty-two (racers) finished (the Black Hills 100). About 40 didn’t,” Johnson said. “I’ve read that’s pretty common; typically about 20-50 percent usually drop out mid-race for one reason or another.”

Johnson admitted there were moments in the latter half of the race where hesitation and doubt started to take a toll.

“When I got to the last aid station, I was wrecked,” Johnson said. “Just completely falling apart. It’s impossible to go the whole way without hitting those walls, either physically or emotionally.”

Johnson’s support system played a crucial role in the entire process.

“I can’t say enough about my mom, dad and Emily,” Johnson said. “Your crew means everything. They’re there for you when you have nothing left to give. Every time I hit a low point, they were there for me. I literally couldn’t have done any of this without them, as well as my sister, Keelie, who was supporting me from Chicago.

“For such a seemingly-individualistic pursuit, running 100 miles with a crew is a team effort. Finishing is a shared success.”

The home stretch was when both Johnson’s parents and his girlfriend really saved the day.

“Emily was with me in the middle of the night, helping me with pacing and keeping me company,” said Johnson, who met Wood — a native of Maine — while working at the University of Nevada-Reno nine years ago. “When I got to that last aid station and was in really bad shape, she was there, dressed and ready to run.

“That was incredible. I really needed that. When I saw her dressed and ready to run the last seven or eight miles, I got that final wind. And seeing my parents jumping up and down, waving at the finish line…it’s a special memory I’ll have with me forever.”

Johnson’s official time — 30 hours and 20 minutes — placed him 26th overall. He had started at 10 a.m. on Saturday, and finished at 4:20 p.m. Sunday.

“It was a little slower than my goal, but I got it done,” Johnson said.

The recovery from the race “definitely takes a while,” he added. “Basically two days of not being able to go very far and feeling pretty broken.”

He then laughed, “Of all the bad ideas I’ve had, this may have been the worst.”

The tables have now turned in the Johnson household. Emily is preparing for her own 100-mile ultramarathon in their home state of Colorado: the Leadville Trail 100 in mid-August.

“We’re totally on the same journey together,” Johnson said. “We’re basically taking turns. She supported me; now it’s time for me to be there for her. It’s cool, though, that we’re on the same page for so much of this. I’m not sure it could be done otherwise.”

The 100-mile seed for both Johnson and Wood was planted almost a year ago, ironically during the 2023 Leadville Trail 100.

“Emily and I were in town (while the race was happening) and didn’t know anything about it,” Johnson said. “At first, of course we said, ‘who would want to do something like that?’

“But then we looked at each other and the wheels started turning. I spent the rest of the day thinking about it, and I know she did, too.”

Initial dismissal. Second thoughts. Second guessing. Shrug of the shoulders. Education. Cost-benefit analysis. Mapping out a strategy.

All-in.