Stopping at Hopkins Mill Road during a Long Run in January 2022
About Me
My name is Duncan Hopkins and I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Ever since I learned that you could run further than 26.2 miles, it’s been my dream to run ultramarathons. That dream became a little bit more clear when ultrarunner Zach Miller (who is also from Lancaster) competed in the 2014 World 100k Championships in Qatar placing 9th. Ever since then, I’ve had a firm belief that I have what it takes to compete in that race and become a competitive ultrarunner.
In 2022, I was about a month and a half out from the MadCity 100k, a qualifying race for the World Championships, when I was hospitalized with chest pains that made running impossible. My best guess is that this was a mixture of overtraining and not being fully recovered from Covid, which I had in October 2021. I was distraught that all of the work that I had put in, including several weeks running between 110-120 miles had gone to waste. Over the next two years, I tried and failed to make a comeback as my fatigue became impossible to overcome. I was losing my identity as a runner. I almost gave up on my ambitions of being a competitive ultra runner and began to accept that serious running was going to be a thing of the past.
Even though I was almost ready to quit, I still had a little flame left inside me: In July of 2024, I tried yet again to make a comeback and somehow, it worked. I began building mileage, running workouts, and making lifestyle changes to account for what I’m calling a renewed lease on health.
Ever since I came back to running, not one day has gone by where I haven’t thought about running in the World Championships. I know that I will cross that finish line in 2026, and I have a plan to get there over the course of three hundred kilometers:
November 2025: Complete a “dry run” 100k course across Lancaster County
April 2026: Run the MadCity 100k fast enough to qualify for Team USA
Fall 2026: Put one foot in front of the other for 62.2 miles at the World 100k Championships
That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it.
-DMH, May 2025