DOB- 6/11/58
Winchester, CA
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I achieved 100,00 lifetime miles on 10/10/2011 and I am currently at 150,285 total miles as of 8/10/2025.
I started seriously running in 1977 upon first learning of the Boston Marathon and the existence of road racing. I focused on marathons, of course, my first few years trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. That proved difficult to do and it was three years before I finally qualified but by then I was just happy running local races and I had discovered the new sport of triathlon in 1980.
Jumping into triathlon in those early years was a blast and I competed in several around the country although there were not that many around then. I did race in the Ironman championships in Kona (the first 4 years they were held on the Big Island) with my best finish in 1984 with an 11th place overall finish.
In 1986 I discovered the world of trail ultra running and threw my efforts into that sport. My favorite sport is trail ultra running which has still retained all the appeal it had in the beginning even though the sport has grown exponentially in the years since. I really preferred trail 100's but have tried most every distance up to the 135 mile Badwater race distance.
The highlights of my career to me are: being awarded the USATF Ted Corbitt award for ultrarunner of the year (and Ultrarunning magazine's ultrarunner of the year) for my 1992 season with my four 100 mile trail wins (anytime my name is linked in any way with Ted Corbitt is quite an honour); My induction into the Ultrarunning Hall of Fame in 2021 (https://ultrarunninghistory.com/hall-of-fame/eric-clifton/); my 1994 JFK 50 miler pr; my 1996 Rocky Raccoon 100 pr; my 1992 Superior 100 win and my last win at the Chino Hills 50k in 2014 at age 56.
I am still actively racing triathlons, road and trail races and ultras with a 12 hour event this weekend 8/16/'25. Oh, and by the way, I finally got to the Boston Marathon- 1996 100th running almost 20 years after I started running with that goal in mind.
PRS:
1 mile-4:44
3k-9:18
2 mile- 10:44
5k-16:04
5 mile- 27:39
10k-33:00
10 mile- 54:42
Half marathon- 1:14:14
Marathon-2:31:56
50k-3:38
50 mile- 5:46:24
100k- 7:55
100 mile- 13:16:04
24 hour- 127.5 miles
I have been meaning to contact you since I hit 100k lifetime miles but I am such a procrastinator that I have reached the 150k point in my career. I started my running seriously in April of 1977 but only starting documenting in December of that year. I have documented all my training since Dec. of 1977 and can tell you exactly what I did on any given day since then. Until I started triathlon racing in 1980 most of my road courses (which was the majority of my training) I measured via a car odometer which we both know is not super accurate. After 1980 I measured most of my courses via bicycle computerized jones counter which should be pretty close.
I was an early adopter of garmin devices and have been measuring courses, especially my trail courses, with garmins since around 2000. However, I have noticed that with every upgrade to my garmin devices the mileage they report is shorter so a course I ran in 2000 may have given me credit for 7 miles while in 2010 on the same course it credits me with 6.75 miles. After considering how garmin devices work and the fact that they are impossible to measure a course actually shorter than it is I have started only giving my runs a buffer of .01/ mile. So for every 100 miles I log I have to have 101 miles according to my garmin. I have been adjusting my mileage down since about 2010.