CHADRON, Neb. – Brett Hunter, the Chadron State College men's wrestling coach, achieved his goal of finishing the Lean Horse 100-mile run in the Black Hills of South Dakota with more than three hours to spare on Saturday. 

Hunter crossed the finish line in Custer at 4:53 Saturday afternoon, 28 hours, 53 minutes and 47 seconds after the race had started at the same location at noon on Friday. He averaged 17 minutes and 21 seconds per mile. 

Hunter completed the race, his first at that distance, in plenty of time to beat the race's 32-hour cutoff to receive a commemorative belt buckle. Among 94 initial entries, Hunter crossed the line 40th among the 60 racers that earned the coveted buckle and "finisher" status.

"It was one thousand percent harder than I expected, without a doubt," Hunter said. "The first 50 miles, I was feeling good. From miles 60-90, I was starting to break down mentally and physically.  The last 10 miles, I was hanging by a thread from being sleep deprived and mentally and physically fatigued, but I had to continue to move forward."

The contestants ran 50 miles on the Mickelson Trail to Deadwood, then reversed their course and returned to Custer. Hunter had to run alone for the first 50 miles, but received pacing and aid assistance from former CSC wrestlers and endurance race veterans Jake Holscher and Seth Groff, as well as current CSC student-athlete and defending 184-pound national runner-up Keegan Gehlhausen.

"My crew is what kept me going," Hunter said. "Jake, Seth and Keegan did a phenomenal job. Being a crew member took a toll on them. They were at every aid station trying to figure out what I needed from a nutrition, gear and body standpoint."

Groff, who ran a 100-mile race of his own last fall in Florida, was the first to the helpers to run with Hunter. They met at about 1 a.m. Saturday morning at Deadwood when Hunter was heading back to Custer, where the race had started 13 hours earlier at noon Friday and would end after another 50 miles were left behind. When Groff arrived, it was raining hard in Deadwood and there was thunder and lightning. In shifts, Groff, Holscher (who rode a bicycle 3,000 miles across the nation in 2014 and swam the English Channel in 2023) and Gehlhausen provided peripheral support and ran alongside Hunter through the wee hours of Saturday morning up until the finish line at nearly 5 p.m. that evening. 

"They kept me going when things were extremely difficult, and I couldn't have done it without them," Hunter said.

The first finisher was Matt Smith, 46, of San Antonio, Texas, whose time was 16 hours, 41 minutes. Second was Justin Alpaugh, 31, of Pocatello, Idaho, in 18:07.52. Third was Nathan Michale, 37, of Billing, Mont., in 19:43.56, followed by Carlos Ibarra, 54, of Houston, Texas, in 20:41.55, and two ultra runners from Wyoming—Josh Richardson 41, of Gillette in 21:05.51 and Joe Wilson, 49, of Lingle, 21:16.07. Rapid City's Zane Musgrave, a 2023 Chadron State graduate, led for most of the race before dropping out in the final stages.