Dayton teen top 10 in Tahoe Rim Endurance Run

Fitzsimmons plans to continue competing in Ultra running after completing 50-miler.

Dayton High graduate Trey Fitzsimmons smiles after finishing the 50-mile endurance marathon on the Tahoe Rim Trail over the weekend. Fitzsimmons, 18, was the youngest competitor in the field since 2010.

Dayton High graduate Trey Fitzsimmons smiles after finishing the 50-mile endurance marathon on the Tahoe Rim Trail over the weekend. Fitzsimmons, 18, was the youngest competitor in the field since 2010.
Courtesy Andrey Fitzsimmons

By Carter Eckl

Thursday, July 22, 2021

 Long, outdoor excursions are nothing new to Trey Fitzsimmons.The recent Dayton High School graduate has spent a good chunk of his 18 years alive pushing himself to new challenges around Nevada.He started with backpacking and trail hiking through his early teenage years.
Prior to pursuing running, Fitzsimmons hiked the Nevada County High Points – which involves making it to the top of the highest point in each of the 17 counties in Nevada.
Eleven of those 17 peaks are over 10,000 feet of elevation.
“I’ve always enjoyed pushing my limits and seeing how far I could take it,” said Fitzsimmons. “I’d hear these stories of people who run a 100 miles and it seems like such a cool thing to say you did.”
This past weekend, the newfound harrier completed a 50-mile endurance run along the Tahoe Rim Trail and took ninth of 128 runners in the field.
Fitzsimmons, 18, was the youngest competitor in the field since 2010.
What makes the accomplishment more impressive; Fitzsimmons didn’t start running until last November.
With less than a year of true running experience under his belt, the desire to keep pushing himself started after his first 10k race.
“I entered my first race in March. It was just a 10k and I came in the top 10 or something,” said Fitzsimmons. “I think I did one or two more 10k races before I entered the 50-mile race.”
Fitzsimmons ran all of the streets in Carson City as a training routine for his hobby, as he says.
“I needed a project to keep me motivated,” said Fitzsimmons. “I heard about a professional who did every street in San Francisco. I ended up doing every street in Carson. That helped me build a base for my running.”
The project itself posed plenty of logistical complications and took Fitzsimmons about five months to complete.
His total distance covered in town worked out to be roughly 400 miles.
“I spent hours planning out runs on streets I hadn’t been on,” said Fitzsimmons. “It was a logistical challenge as much as a physical one.”

Running the Tahoe Rim Trail
Fitzsimmons said one of his biggest passions with the 50-mile endurance race was not only seeing if he could finish, but see where his mind would go after hours on the move.
It’s not uncommon to hear about endurance runners hallucinating while pushing their bodies through immense, long lasting stretches of exhaustion and exertion.
“I started to just disassociate. I was just kind of focused on running,” said Fitzsimmons. “You get in this zone. It was draining and I was so tired at the end. You definitely enter this place of darkness where you are tired, but just keep on moving.”
The second half of the race, Fitzsimmons realized he was in the top 25 and continued to catch fellow competitors through the final 15-20 miles of the race.
Trey’s family was waiting for him at the finish line and the 18-year-old had goals of completing the endurance run in less than 20 hours.
Fitzsimmons finished in 11:01:22 to complete the race inside of the top 10 overall.
“I never expected to finish that quickly,” said Fitzsimmons,” I was just hoping to beat the cutoff, which was 20 hours.
“It was a life moment for me. It was really special,” Fitzsimmons said. “It made me really confident. In running in general, in my abilities and doing something that I thought would be so much harder and (I would) not do so well in.”
He tracks his runs and training through an app called ‘Strava’ which allows others to follow his runs.
He plans on continuing to pursue his newfound running talents and expects to continue competing in endurance races.
What’s next for Fitzsimmons depends on where life takes him.
Whether it’s a potential sponsorship to keep running, pursuing an academic field of interest or going into the Forestry Service the 18-year-old has options aplenty after pushing through plenty of barriers in his way.
“Now I know I can do this distance and that opens up so many opportunities,” said Fitzsimmons.

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