"The hardest ultramarathon you’ve never heard of—the Iditarod Trail Invitational— traverses roughly 1,000 miles through the Alaskan wilderness in February and March. Since 2000, just 15 runners have completed the route between Wasilla and Nome, and of the five or so participants who line up each year, fewer than half finish (all entrants must first complete the 350-mile version to prove their winter survival savvy)."
"It is promoted as the longest, most remote winter ultrarace in the world, a slog across century-old marshland trails from the outpost of Knik over the Farewell Hills, up the Yukon River, through the ghost towns of the Kuskokwim Mountains and on to the Bering Sea."
"You can’t begin to do what Tim Hewitt just did in walking 1,000 miles across the godforsaken, frozen wilderness of Alaska in less than 20 days to set a record in the Iditarod Trail Invitational, and he doubts you’d want to."
"It isn't that Tim Hewitt loves pain. He loves challenges and is willing to endure pain to overcome them. Mr. Hewitt, an employment lawyer in Latrobe, is 56. He is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. He doesn't look to many like the toughest athlete in the world, but that's what author Ed Mayhew ("Fitter for Life") thinks he is."
"Yep, oh yeah, lots of people have asked. I think we're used to it by now," she said of her husband. "People always want to know if Tim's crazy."
A better word might be "focused." Really, really focused. Tim Hewitt, a 51-year-old attorney from Greensburg, set out on foot Friday to cover the icy, 1,112-mile Iditarod course from Anchorage, Alaska, to Nome."
'“You dive deep in the tank for this race and it takes a long time to recover,” he said. “I would blame it on my age if it wasn’t for the fact I feel like this after every race, even in 2001 when I was at the peak of my running ability. It is just a draining event.” Draining, both physically and mentally. The race tests strength, coordination, direction, and the body and soul of each runner."