If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. I’m now 0-3 in 100 mile race lotteries. The first two were Western States and with my odds below 5% in both years, I was not expecting to get in. Things were different with Massanutten Mountain 100 though as there were only about…
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I headed over to my favorite local trails yesterday for a 25 mile training run, but came home with only 20 miles on the Garmin. It’s very rare (like maybe once a year) that I don’t end up getting in my planned mileage. While I’m a little disappointed in my performance, I’m not overly torn…
2018 Year in Review
Coming into 2018, I had accumulated 5 years of running history with four years at marathon or beyond distances. While I don’t have anywhere near expert level knowledge on running, I think I’ve developed enough proficiency to understand where I am personally pretty well. I know what I can do and what’s not feasible. I…
A Season of Waiting
Your tree has been carefully selected and placed in the living room. The ornaments have been pulled from storage and arranged just so. The lights have been untangled and strung from top to bottom. Presents have been purchased. Cards have been sent and received. Parties have been prepped and invitations sent. While there will always…
NJ One Day at the Fair Preview
I have my last race of the year in a couple days and I’m not nearly as anxious heading into it as I normally am. Typically, I’m all kinds of obsessing over weather and gear and logistics, but I’ve hardly given the race much thought over the past month or so. That’s not to say…
Just a 20 Miler
I had a humorous exchange with a co-worker this past week. He’s training for his first ultra that’s coming up in a couple weeks (Labor Pains) and I asked how far he was running this weekend. He said “just 20 miles” and immediately paused like he’d just dropped the F bomb. After a second, he…
Bighorn 100 Mile Preview
My big western adventure is about to begin. Between work and life, I’ve been a bit too busy to put together my normal preview post. I feel physically and mentally prepared for the race. Logistics will be a bit more challenging given I’ll be flying to a race for the first time. I think I’ll…
Long Run Fail
Well, that was ugly. I’m 3 weeks out from Bighorn so had 31 miles scheduled this morning for my longest run of this mini-cycle. Unfortunately, I only managed 26.5 miles before pulling the plug and calling it a day. This is an extremely rare event for me. If I have a distance planned, then I…
What I’m Reading Today – May 2018
Ultrarunning is still very niche and not well known, but three of the larger races in the sport have been able to percolate up to the broader masses: Western States (original 100), Badwater (135 miles in the desert), and the Barkley Marathons. The latter is run by a guy named Gary Cantrell (aka “Lazurus Lake”)…
Caught a 10K
No, didn’t hit my big 10K target (finishing a hundred 100s), however I did reach a little one this morning – namely 10,000 miles running. Or more specifically, 10k miles in my training log which dates to August 2012. I ran track for a couple years back in high school and “trained” for several 5ks/mud…