History

History

Around and Around Since 2010

3 Days at the Fair began at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in 2010, bringing fixed-time ultrarunning to a short loop in Augusta, New Jersey.

The original course measured .8578 miles. It would later evolve into the certified 1.000-mile loop used today, making every completed lap a mile and changing the way distances appear in the results.

The races have gotten longer. The course has changed. Records have fallen. Thousands and thousands of laps have been run.

But the basic idea hasn't changed much.

Run a lap. Pass the aid station. Run another.

And another.

And maybe a few hundred more.

More Than a Race

For the people who return year after year, 3 Days at the Fair becomes something more than a race.

Runners set up camp around the course. Families and crews settle in. People eat together, sleep for a while, head back out for another lap and watch the same familiar faces pass by again and again.

Someone might be chasing a national record. Someone else might be trying to reach 100 miles for the first time. Another runner might simply be trying to make it through one more lap.

After enough years, the Fair starts to feel less like an event you enter and more like a place you come back to.

A Place for Big Miles

The simple loop and fixed-time format have made 3 Days at the Fair a place where runners have chased enormous mileage—and sometimes national records.

In the inaugural 2010 event, Liz Bauer ran 205.01 miles in 48 hours, setting an American women's masters record.

A year later, Phil McCarthy ran 257.34 miles in 48 hours, setting an American record at the time. That national record has since been broken, but McCarthy's 257.34 miles remains the greatest 48-hour distance ever recorded at 3 Days at the Fair.

When the event expanded to six days, the numbers became even larger. In 2018, Johnny Hällneby ran 547 miles in the 144 Hour, setting a Swedish national record.

And in the unusual fall edition of 2020, two more American records fell in the 48 Hour. Bob Hearn ran 240.353 miles for an American men's masters record, while Marisa Lizak covered 243.555 miles to set an American women's record.

The records are part of a tradition that eventually became one of the highlights of the Sunday breakfast and awards ceremony—hearing just how much history had been made while everyone was going around in circles all week.

[ RESULTS & RECORDS ]

THE FAIR THROUGH THE YEARS

2010

THE FIRST LAPS

The first 3 Days at the Fair is held at the Sussex County Fairgrounds.

Runners circle a .8578-mile course, rather than the exact one-mile loop used today. The shorter original loop accounts for the fractional distances found throughout the earliest results.

And the record-setting begins immediately: Liz Bauer covers 205.01 miles in 48 hours, setting an American women's masters record.

[ 2010 RESULTS ]

2011

257.34 MILES

Phil McCarthy covers 257.34 miles in 48 hours, setting an American record at the time.

The national record would eventually be broken, but more than a decade later, McCarthy's performance remains the 48-hour record at 3 Days at the Fair.

[ 2011 RESULTS ]

2014

271 MILES

Marylou Corino runs 271 miles in 72 hours, winning the race outright. Contemporary reports identified the performance as a Canadian record.

[ 2014 RESULTS ]

2017

THREE DAYS BECOMES SIX

The 144 Hour race joins the schedule, giving runners six full days to accumulate miles.

The event gets twice as long.

The name stays exactly the same.

[ 2017 RESULTS ]

2018

547 MILES

In just the second year of the 144 Hour race, Johnny Hällneby covers 547 miles in six days, setting a Swedish national record.

His performance pushes the event's mileage milestones into new territory, leading to the creation of the 404-mile and 505-mile buckles.

[ 2018 RESULTS ]

2019

TEN DAYS AT THE FAIR

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of 3 Days at the Fair, apparently six days wasn't enough.

A special 240 Hour race gives runners ten full days at the Fairgrounds. Twenty runners take on the 10-day event, with Philip Eberts covering 731 miles and Yoshiko Jo reaching 530 miles.

The 10-day race lasts for one anniversary year.

[ 2019 RESULTS ]

2020

NOT AT THE FAIR

For the first time since the event began, May arrives without everyone gathering at the Fairgrounds.

With COVID preventing the traditional race, 3 Days NOT at the Fair takes its place. Runners participate virtually, entering miles completed wherever they could run. Some take on fixed-time challenges while others accumulate mileage throughout the entire month of May.

Participants receive a special 3 Days NOT at the Fair coin to remember an extremely strange edition of the event.

Later that year, the real 3 Days at the Fair moves to September and returns to the Fairgrounds. The move causes the normally scheduled One Day event to be canceled.

And despite everything else unusual about 2020, the relocated race produces two major 48-hour performances: Bob Hearn runs 240.353 miles for an American men's masters record, and Marisa Lizak runs 243.555 miles to set an American women's record.

For one strange year, there is both 3 Days NOT at the Fair and 3 Days at the Fair.

[ 2020 RESULTS ]

2024

ONE MORE LAP

At just 21 years old, Lila Gaudrault takes on the 12 Hour and spends most of the day accumulating miles before discovering late in the race that the women's course record is within reach.

With just over ten minutes remaining, she needs one more lap. Gaudrault runs the final mile in 8:42, finishing with 74 miles and a new women's course record.

She also finishes first overall in the 12 Hour.

[ 2024 RESULTS ]

2025

444 MILES

Jenny Hoffman runs 444 miles in six days, setting a new women's course record and an American W45–49 record for the 144 Hour.

She doesn't just win the women's race. She wins the race outright, finishing 40 miles ahead of the next runner.

NINE RECORDS IN SIX DAYS

Erlinda Biondic turns one six-day trip around the Fairgrounds into nine Canadian age-group records.

Competing in the W85 category, Biondic establishes new Canadian marks at 50K, 50 Miles, 100K, 100 Miles, 12 Hours, 24 Hours, 48 Hours, 72 Hours and Six Days.

By the end of the 144 hours, she has covered 386.243 kilometers — about 240 miles.

[ 2025 RESULTS ]

ONE MILE AT A TIME

The Fairgrounds course hasn't always been a mile.

The original course measured .8578 miles, creating the fractional distances still visible in the early results.

Eventually the route evolved into the certified 1.000-mile loop used today—a mixture of pavement and crushed gravel winding through the Sussex County Fairgrounds.

That change did more than make the math easier.

The mile became part of the identity of the event. Runners came to know every turn, every landmark and every trip past the timing mat and aid station.

After a few hundred laps, they probably knew it considerably better than they wanted to.

And over time, that familiar lap acquired a name of its own.

THE McNULTY MILE

Over the years, longtime Fair runner Tim Hardy gave that familiar loop another name:

THE McNULTY MILE.

Named for the McNulty family behind NJ Trail Series and 3 Days at the Fair, the nickname stuck among runners who return to the Fairgrounds year after year.

Today, the name carries even more meaning.

Jennifer McNulty was part of the family, community and countless days spent at the Fair. Her presence remains part of the event, and a memorial bench along the course gives runners another reminder of her with every trip around the mile.

At a race measured in hundreds of laps, that's a lot of reminders.

TRADITIONS BUILT ONE YEAR AT A TIME

Not everything that became part of 3 Days at the Fair started with a plan.

Milestone buckles gave runners another number to chase. Lifetime mileage began accumulating across years. Quadzilla and later Hexazilla gave runners entirely different ways to spend several consecutive days doing something unreasonable.

And the Sunday breakfast and awards ceremony grew into a tradition of its own.

Runners gathered after days on the course to eat, celebrate the week's performances and hear about the records that had fallen—sometimes national records, sometimes age-group records and occasionally world records.

People enjoyed it.

So they came back the next year.

Like a lot of things at the Fair, tradition grew mostly because people wanted to keep doing it.

[ AWARDS & LIFETIME MILES ]