Farmdaze 2026

A few weeks ago, I headed to rural Georgia to run Farmdaze 24, a 24 hour run on a farm. It was my first time out there, and I have to say that this race really captures the spirit of ultrarunning – silly, convivial, and celebratory of the sport, without taking itself too seriously. It was so fun to go out there and spend time with old and new friends.

The race is a 1.67-mile loop around a family-owned farm, Hunter Cattle Co. Shoutout to this family and their five kids for being incredible hosts. The race has 6 hour, a 12 hour, and a 24 hour options. However, the running is almost secondary to the community aspect of the race. Andrew and Victor, the race directors, have put together a really spectacular, inclusive community- and family-oriented weekend. It includes activities like:

• Midnight karaoke at the start/finish
• Low country boil: a iconic, one-pot dish with shrimp, sausage, corn on the cob, and red potatoes boiled together with heavy cajun seasoning. Often cooked outdoors for crowds, it’s served on newspaper or butcher paper – or, in this case, straight on a folding table – photos below)
• A night-before beer mile, which I got to emcee and was really fun
• Camping: a lot of runners, myself included, choose to camp out for a few nights around the race
• Smores
• A “0.0” race that you can register for if you’re a supporter or just want to come hang out. The 0.0 features a variety of backyard games every hour on the hour. I don’t know what the games are, but I gathered they included things like “throw the hotdog into the toilet paper roll,” and some sort of bouncy ball egg-on-a-spoon game
• An on-course duck hunt, where you would find a rubber duck somewhere on the course, then re-hide it for another person to find

The course

1.67 miles through a meadow, a forest, and some paddocks. Photos below. Running by the horses, cows, chickens, and goats every lap was a massive highlight.

Actual race

My goals for the race were to 1/ not get injured 2/ run some miles, and 3/ hang out with friends. All of these were accomplished, although the mileage was really low.

The last year or so has been pretty trash for me from a running perspective. Between rehabbing a couple of injures (hamstring, ankle) and recovering from mono, I really didn’t have a good running year. My ankle was still a bit dicey leading into this race, so I committed to stop running when it started acting up. I just wanted to get out there and do some miles without re-injuring anything.

Without getting into too much detail, the race started at 9am (with an incredibly heartfelt speech by Victor). I ran about 31-33 miles before my ankle started acting up. Coincidentally, that’s when the rain set in. I took a nap for an hour and tested the ankle again, but it wasn’t feeling good, so at that point I decided to turn in my ankle transponder and turn off my watch. Weirdly, having both of those on made it really hard to relax, because I felt like I needed to be back out on the course.

The rain was really picking up, but lots of runners were still going at it, which was amazing. I manned the aid station for a while with my friends Kim and Alex, then danced to some karaoke while Ray took photos of the singers with his camera. At some point in the early morning I headed back to my car (where I was camping near the start/finish) and got some great sleep (thanks to Ray’s inflatable pool mattress, I slept like a princess in the back of my rental SUV).

When I woke up, I saw Ray still doing some laps and it made me want to also do some laps. Ankle felt okay, so I retrieved my ankle transponder from Tim Waz, the timing extraordinaire, who, after almost 30 hours of no sleep and protecting the electronics from the catastrophic weather, was heroically holding down the fort until the end of the race.

I ran about ten more miles. I felt great during those ten and was glad to have gotten back out there. I ended up with about 43.5 miles, which is like, pretty terrible for a 24 hour race, but still somehow good enough for the top third of the field. It was a low mileage year due to the weather.

Overall

Great race, super fun time with friends, will 100% go back. It was so fun to see everyone and catch up with folks, many of whom I hadn’t seen for a while (Alex!!!!). Only regret is I didn’t stay overnight on Sunday to spend more time with everyone. Next year!

Thanks Victor and Snopes for putting together such a special experience, and for Snopes, Alex, and Tim for carrying the torch forward next year & beyond.