NEW ORLEANS - Six Vermilion Parish runners set out to run 126 miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans over the weekend, and they accomplished their mission by Sunday afternoon.

Running and finishing in the first ever Rouge-Orleans Ultra Marathon were Matt Hebert, Chas Bourgeois, Richard Greig, Taylor Mencacci, Anne Sagrera and Monica Broussard, who all completed the 126-mile co-ed race in 16 hours, 58 minutes and 34 seconds for a second place finish.

Their goal was to run under 17 hours, which is what they did.

They beat out 10 other co-ed teams. They were only 20 minutes behind the winning team.

They crossed the finish line around 1 p.m. on Sunday after starting the race at 8 p.m. Saturday night. Most of their running along the levee was done at night.

They wore a headlight which shined around 15 feet in front of them. Despite running in the dark, the team had little trouble with their footing.

While they ran, a teammate road a bike along side for safety reasons.

The biggest problem of the race was what they feared before the race - the weather. Throughout the race, they ran against strong 25 mile per hour winds and rain.

“The wind slowed us down,” said Hebert Monday afternoon. “Other than that, everything went fine. No one got hurt.”

Each runner had a to run four legs which averaged around five miles per leg.

Hebert had the final leg and when he got 50 yards from the finish line in New Orleans, he stopped and waited for his teammates.

All six runners crossed the line together.

Throughout the race, Hebert was able to keep friends and family up to date with their progress through e-mails from his phone.

He passed the phone around to each runner to let them read everyone’s texts.

By the third leg, everyone was beat up but survived.