There are probably a thousand and one ways to categorize your runs. You can do it by course description: the trail run, the road run, or the mountain run. You can categorize it by time: the weekday run, the evening run, or the crack of dawn run. Or by effort level: the easy run, the…
Eastern States Is Coming
Holy Freakin A. Eastern States is coming. I ended my last blog post with this phrase and it wasn’t until I typed the period that it hit me. Eastern States is coming. And not coming as in here comes Christmas or the weekend is almost here sort of way. Coming as in my car has…
Training Time
Sigh. Time to get back at it. It’s been 5 weeks since MMT100. I took the first week “completely” off and only logged 12 miles. I followed that with a couple 25 mile weeks and then bumped that to 40 last week. None of those weeks included anything longer than 7 miles. I view the…
East Coast Runner
I try to stay positive and upbeat in my writing here. Not so much because there’s already too much negativity in the world (even though there is) as that it’s just more enjoyable for me. I get more happiness from trying to be uplifting than by throwing a bunch of angry words onto the internet.…
Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life
There are three types of people in the world. The first are those that think Monty Python is someone in adult entertainment. The second are those who know that it’s just a flesh wound. Then there are those who can recite the entire Dead Parrot Sketch with the correct accents. If you’re in either of…
DiNFY
DNF. The three most abhorred letters in ultrarunning, which stands for Did Not Finish. Did. Not. Finish. While certainly not unique to ultras, most people progress through their running life without ever really questioning whether or not you’ll finish the race. Hit a certain time? You’ll definitely worry about that, but not the actual finishing…
When Good Habits Go Bad
I need to chill. It’s only been two weeks since my last 100 miler (MMT100) and I’m already chomping at the bit to get back into my normal training routine. My legs felt decent after only three or four days and they were borderline fresh after 10. I’m starting to get mentally anxious that I…
The Numbers Behind 2019 MMT100
Anyone who has spent any time with me knows that I’m a numbers guy. Over the years, I’ve spent so much time calculating and tabulating that it’s difficult for me to completely understand a thing unless there are numbers attached to it. Adjectives only go so far in my opinion. And so every run has…
2019 Massanutten Mountain Trail 100 Race Report
MMT100 is a 100.6 mile race put on by the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club in the Massanutten mountains of the Shenandoah Valley. The single loop course has 10 major climbs with 18,500 feet of elevation gain. Runners are provided 35 hours and 15 aid stations to cover the course. And while accurate, that description…
MMT100 Preview
I’m four days out from Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 (MMT100) and I’m already all keyed up. It’s funny. I used to get extremely nervous heading into these races because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Now I get extremely nervous heading into these races because I do know what’s going to happen. MMT100…