Minus a rough patch at 10,000-plus feet Saturday night, Michael Koppy of Hermantown got through the Moab 240 relatively unscathed.
Relatively.
"My feet look like the canyonlands," the 67-year-old said by phone Tuesday from Moab, Utah, where he was relaxing a day after finishing the 238.3-mile trail race in just over 82 hours.
Koppy hoped to come in under 80 hours, and likely would have done so if not for a taxing climb up Shay Mountain on Saturday night that sapped him. He says he was "up there for 12 hours," twice as long as he anticipated.
"That was the only time during the race I thought, 'I don't know if I can do this,' " Koppy said.
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The Moab 240 started Friday morning. That afternoon, in low country, the temperature approached 80 degrees. That night, in the mountains, it plummeted to 6 degrees. A little colder, Koppy said, "and I might not have made it." The only way to stay warm, he said, was to keep moving.
Indeed, Koppy slept a total of 6.5 hours. From even the shortest stint of shut-eye, he said he'd wake up feeling "brand new."
So now he knows what to expect for next year's race, right?
"I don't know about that," Koppy quipped. "I know what I just went through, and to know I would have to do that all over again ... "
Koppy's crew consisted of his wife, Carol Bonde, and their daughter, Cathy Bonde, who lives in Moab. He got choked up talking about their support throughout the race.
"I get all the recognition," he said. "But there's no way you can do this without a crew."
Koppy finished 22nd in a field of 127.
Courtney Dauwalter, a Minnesota native now living in Colorado, won in 57 hours and 59 minutes.
