Walker enters what she calls "the shuffle" — not quite a run, not quite a walk, but enough to cover ground.
Deep in anguish, she offers a revelation: "Maybe the suffering is the point. Maybe we create these suffer-fests because we have made our lives too easy for ourselves."
Family Support and the Final Climb
Though 82% of this year's miler runners are male, women are making strides in trail running. Rachel Entrekin recently beat all comers in the Cocodona 250.
Walker embraces that mantra: "Why not me?"
She started running because she didn't want to be a "fat bride," but now she celebrates what her body can do.
She talks with her daughter about strength and being comfortable in one's own skin.
Back on the trail, Walker runs through pure blackness with 140 kilometers behind her. The final aid station is meters away, where Cam, Ben, and Sidney wait.
She will run another 20 kilometers through the night to the finish line.
"If you took my family out of the equation, I am 99% certain I would not have finished," she says.
Just after midnight, after tackling 951 steps straight up, a medal is placed around her neck.
Her watch shows nearly 44 hours on the trail, with less than two hours of rest.
"I just grabbed my kids' hands and they ran over the finish line with me," she says.
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"In the really dark moments, I had come to peace with not finishing, so to cross the finish line with my kids made it even sweeter."
