Going the distance: Lanier Greenhaw's special 50-mile run through the great outdoors

At 53 years old, Athens native Lanier Greenhaw has completed numerous races in various locations all throughout the United States of America — but his most recent race in Payson, Arizona, left even him stunned.

“You know those moments where you get to the end of the day and you are tired and flat worn out, but you just can’t help from smiling,” Greenhaw said. “I don’t know what it is exactly, but to me that’s what life is all about.”

The Zane Grey Race was a 50-mile trek that took distance runners up and down the rough Arizona landscape. These runners had to battle the fickle climate and weather that the Grand Canyon State is known to provide.

“It is usually a hot race, but when I woke up the morning of the race it was cold, windy and wet,” Greenhaw said. “And of course, just past where we climbed up to for the race to start there was snow on the ground. So, it was definitely a battle of attrition.”

The race got its start in 1990, and was named after famous western author “Pearl” Zane Grey. The race is modeled after a wild-west experience — handcrafted to make even the most tested of runners break.

“About 92 of us started the race out together, but only 52 finished,” Greenhaw said. “That’s the fun of doing it though, I’ve always believed that if it was easy to do then there would be no point in doing it in the first place.”

Greenhaw placed 36th out of the 52 total finishers on April 27, completing the long and winding run in a little over 14 hours and 12 minutes. Despite the time as he crossed the finish line, Lanier made sure to talk about the true purpose of the journey not being the end of the road, but the trip itself.

“The greatest thing I love is meeting the people along the way, and the things you can learn only on the trail itself,” Greenhaw said. “When you are running with someone, you never know what you are going to talk about, you just know that you want to help the other person reach their goal.”

Greenhaw also mentioned that when you are running long distances, anything to distract yourself from the race itself can be the difference between finishing and dropping out.

Among the many unique conversations Lanier shared with other runners in Arizona, he noted the talks about pop-culture icons such as “The Brady Bunch” and “Rocky” as his favorites.

“That’s my generation, you know, that’s my type of stuff, so once we started going on about that I knew I was in good shape,” Greenhaw said. “It is that atmosphere though, the people mixed with the environment, that’s why this was one of my Top 3 favorite races ever.”