A short visit to a place can capture your desire for a return trip. Such was the case with Hungary and the area of Lake Balaton in its southwest. It beckoned me, as if to say there was unfinished business to attend.

My first visit was brief; the purpose was to evaluate the course of Ultrabalaton, a 212-kilometer race around Lake Balaton, central Europe’s largest lake. I only had enough time to see most of one side of it, and from that side to look across at the hills and mountains on the opposite shore.

One thing I knew for sure, it was a lovely setting for a race. More importantly, seeing the other side gave me some insight into the challenge I would face sometime during the race. A challenge I was willing to accept, just to see the other side of the lake.

My initial trip followed a stint as the USA Track & Field Team Leader for the 24-hour Run National Team, which participated in Brive, France in mid-May of 2010. Following a successful effort by the team and a bronze medal finish for the men, I would stay in Europe and then head for another race in France a week later, the 48-hours of Surgeres.

Between trips a jaunt into Hungary was incorporated and with the cooperation of the Hungarian 24-hour Run National Team providing a car ride, the scene was set.

I was met in Budapest by world champion Edit Berces, a professor at the business English college. I would be giving a lecture on financing minority sports in the U.S. prior to running the Ultrabalaton race. This gave me an opportunity to tour the college campus and get a feeling for the audience and the insight I might provide them.

I arrived in Vienna about 10 hours later than scheduled due to weather delays in Atlanta. A student from Zalaegerszeg, in western Hungary, the city I would give my presentation the following afternoon, waited patiently for my arrival and then we drove for nearly 4 hours to our destination.

Following a stimulating massage and lunch, I was taken to the Chamber of Commerce offices and lectured on my suggested topic, with Edit, who speaks many languages, as my translator. The audience was small, but those in attendance were very interested and the questions I received were intense and showed real knowledge of the topic, but also showed how misunderstood U.S. athletics and funding were construed by former eastern bloc constituents.

An interview with a local newspaper reporter followed and then it was off to Fonyod, a city situated on Lake Balaton’s southeastern shore, where Edit’s family maintained a summer home. Her parents accompanied us, we spent the night and the next day drove towards Tihany, on the opposite shore, where the race would start and finish. Because of the lack of time we took a ferry across.

After picking up the race packet and timing device, one I had never seen before, we went to stay with Edit’s running club friends in Vaszoly. It was a very old farmhouse, turned into a lovely guesthouse. There we met other runners from the club and we all bunked together. After a restless night, with little sleep, we had breakfast in the barn-turned-kitchen with Attila and Eva providing food and then we were off to the 10:00 a.m. start. I made sure I wore the chip as shown, but was confused as what to do with it. It looked like a plastic finger and it had an elastic band on it that slipped over the finger like a ring.

At the first checkpoint, which was near the place we spent the night, Eva came towards me holding a small red box with a hole in it. She grabbed my hand and put the timing device in the hole and it beeped. In this way, split times were recorded, without the use of mats and cumbersome battery hookups.

The course was challenging, lots of hills early on; some were 10% grade for a kilometer or more. I was glad to have put on my Wigwam Compressor socks, which reduced leg fatigue and enhanced circulation. I managed to conserve my energy, walked some of the hills and was cautious because of the heat. Later, much of the course became a bike path and flattened out.

Edit assembled a crew to assist me and they followed along on bicycles and kept me nourished and hydrated. There were also aid stations every 5-kilometers or so. It was at one of these I must have picked up some kind of “bug” which eventually caused stomach distress and 5 bouts of vomiting.

Trying to heave, I coughed violently and did something to my back. I began to get back spasms and was leaning severely to the right side. Eventually, this lean would cause me to lose my balance and I would fall in the bushes alongside the path several times.

I walked much of the final 50-kilometers, determined to become the first American to finish the race and not walk away with a DNF behind my name in the results. After exactly 34 hours of running and walking I returned to where it had all begun the day before.

Edit, always the linguist, coined a new word: HEROYIC!