It was near dinner time when one runner glanced toward the sun as it descended below the horizon of corn fields, not yet harvested, and thought back to when he last saw such a bright sun less than one month earlier.

Marshall Ulrich's feet continued to pound the pavement, one after the other, propelling him on the endless stretch of asphalt before him. He was close, in fact. Painfully close.

Ulrich's 3,106-mile run took him north of Pittsburgh through New Castle, Lawrence County.

But the last 160 miles of his journey, from Vicksburg, Pa., to City Hall in New York City, might have been the most painful. He finished with a numb right foot, possibly due to plantar fasciitis, an injury that affects a tendon in the bottom of the foot. .

Not exactly a stroll through the park.

Ulrich, 57, of Idaho Springs, Col., began his journey in San Francisco on Sept. 13. He set a goal of running 69.8 miles per day in an attempt to finish on Nov. 2, which would have sealed a world record.

Though he didn't finish as intended, he wrapped up his run on Nov. 4. With his time of 52 days, Ulrich set the new grand master's record for runners over 50 years old, and the master's record for runners over 40 years old.

Ulrich ran the country as part of the United Way's Live United program, which helps build awareness for childhood obesity and youth fitness.

His feat is accomplished by few people. It falls into an extreme category of marathons known as "ultra-running."

Ultra-running is any run that exceeds the 26 miles of a marathon. The most common distances are 50 and 100 miles or 50 and 100 kilometers. Other ultra-runs include 24-hour and multi-day events like Ulrich's run that span 1,000 miles or more.

To the casual or recreational runner, these numbers may seem preposterous. To the ultra-runner, it means just another day of pounding the pavement.

"It's how they live," said Dave Schmidt, health and physical education department chair for North Allegheny School District. "That's their whole lifestyle. Their whole life revolves around their runs."

Jeff Lynn, an associate professor of exercise science at Slippery Rock University, has researched ultra-runners' hydration for the past six years.

Having run a 50-mile event himself, he said ultra-runners are more like go-getters.

"Once you get around these people, you realize they're really just eccentric overachievers," Lynn said. "If they couldn't run, they would do something else. I'd say 9 out of ten of them are overachievers."

A few things separate the ultra-runner from the neighborhood runner.

First is the mental commitment.

"Just the notion of doing the same thing all day long is psychologically taxing," Lynn said. "Usually recreational runners can think about how they feel because they'll be done in a mile or two.

"If you only focused on how you felt while ultra-running, you would get some thoughts of, 'Why am I doing this,' because you'd only think about how sore you were and the repetition of movements."

Lynn said there have been reports of ultra-runners experiencing hallucinations.

He has heard of people claiming to have seen kangaroos hopping along the side of the road and houses shifting places, which he believes come from a combination of fatigue and sleep deprivation.

Successful ultra-runners know when to disassociate and focus on other things to try to find some motivation.

"For this guy running 3,000 miles, if he feels bad, he's in trouble," Lynn said,

"But a lot of these folks seem to tap into their inner-drive. It's one of their traits."

Ulrich admitted that thinking about his pain can only hurt his efforts.

"I can't think, 'Well, I have to get up tomorrow and run another 60 miles'. I just kind of stay where I'm at in the moment and bite off small chunks," Ulrich said.

Another difference between the ultra-runner and recreational runner involves the meticulous monitoring and reconciliation of the ultra-runner's body.

Unlike recreational runners, ultra-runners must monitor their calorie intake while in motion due to the severe physical demands.

"When you are casually running, you just drink water," Lynn said.

But drnking water does little for an ultra-runner, whose body requires more. Lynn said if an ultra-runner drank only water, he or she would most likely become "hyponatremic." Hyponatremia, a form of dehydration, occurs when the body loses its normal amount of sodium, usually through excessive sweating, and the sodium is never replaced.

Symptoms, Lynn said, include brain swelling leading to convulsions and in some cases death.

Hyponatremia isn't a problem for recreational runners.

To combat this, ultra-runners are normally followed by a crew whose job is to monitor their health and caloric intake.

"The base drink is called Muscle Milk and I keep that with me all the time." Ulrich said, "It's high protein stuff; I'm consuming 8,000 to 9,000 calories per day."

Each ultra-runner has a personal preference in the mixtures they use, but most follow a similar structure.

"Usually you need something very high in carbs, low in fat and high in protein," Lynn said, "Usually light, too, but I've seen some people have fried chicken and pizza."

Ulrich's logistical supportalso demonstrates another difference between ultra-running and recreational running.

A recreational runner might bring along a friend -- or even a dog -- to set the pace. But Ulrich's crew consisted of five or six people, including a medical doctor.

"The logistics of doing this without having people in a van would be impossible," Lynn said.

Ulrich also was accompanied by another crew of about a dozen people who planned his route, making sure no roads were closed or too dangerous to run.

On top of that, a documentary film crew from NEHST Studios filmed Ulrich's journey for a movie, "Running America,," to be released next fall.

Ulrich said his wife pushed him through the run's difficult times.

"There were a couple of times where I was downright depressed, and she filled the emotional side of it," Ulrich said. "There's no way I'd be where I am now without her."