Six years ago, David Pharr weighed 314 pounds and could only manage to run a half-mile on the treadmill. Today, he's 100 pounds lighter. And able to go much farther. In July, he ran a 314-mile endurance event, which he completed in less than six days.
Beginning July 14, the 32-year-old preacher and father of four from Chattanooga, Tennessee, celebrated his weight loss and running journey by completing the Last Annual Vol State Road Race (which, despite its name, has been running for 30 years).
The 314-mile route takes runners across Tennessee to Castle Rock, Georgia, with a time cap of 10 days. With no aid stations, runners have the option to run with or without a crew.
Pharr's wife, Amber, and their four children (Kherington, 7, Lukas, 6, Linkoln, 2, and Crockett, 1 month) provided on-the-course support. Pharr ran at night and rested—taking naps in a truck bed—during the heat of the day when temperatures climbed into the 90s.
“I had some really good times and some extreme lows,” he said. “It wasn’t really like hitting a wall, but my feet got trashed, and I had at least three DNF moments where if it was any other race it would’ve been over.”
Other Hearst Subscriptionsth out of 62 runners with a time of 5:21:26:19. And the next day, even with blisters and aching feet, he ran two miles. That's because Pharr also has a running streak: He hasn’t missed a day of running since December 1, 2009—that’s 2,431 consecutive days of running at least two miles.
“Best Running Shoes 2025th birthday and I was heavily overweight—about 314 pounds," he said. "I had a little girl and I just thought, ‘I need to do something or I’m going to have a heart attack. I want to see my daughter grow up.’”
So he started running—first just a half-mile on the treadmill. He credits his consistency for his success. And that's how the streak got started.
“I had lost weight before, but the problem is you take a day off then it turns into a week or a month and suddenly you’ve not stepped foot in a gym in half a year,” he said. “So that’s when I saw the goal to run at least two miles a day every day for 100 days to cover the holidays and keep up my goals. Then I just kept going.”
After his first marathon, running became a passion—not just a weight-loss tactic. Pharr joined the club Run It Fast and discovered ultrarunning with the encouragement of club founder and three-time Vol State Road Race finisher Josh Holmes.
Now Pharr averages between 50 and 70 miles a week. Having reached his goal weight of 214 pounds, he's now focused on getting faster. He'd like to push the pace at the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run, the world's oldest 100-mile trail race.
“Now it’s not just how long I can go, but how well I can do that distance,” he said. “It went from ‘Can I run 100 miles?’ to 'Can I run 100 miles on a trail in under 24 hours?’”
For Pharr, the journey is 90 percent mental, and all about the want and desire to put time in. “I’m so thankful for this experience,” he said. “All I could think about when I got to the finish was, ‘I’m so blessed.’”
