Deepest apologies for ghosting you over the past couple weeks. I’ve had a couple ideas for posts, but haven’t wanted to spend any time writing them up. Here are a couple quick hit thoughts I’m having this week.
Volunteering
I’ve gotten in a couple volunteering stints over the past month. I helped out at AS #2 during Phunt this year. I would tell you what an amazing race this is, however chances are you already know considering how popular it is (i.e. the 2026 race is already sold out). I’ve run the race five times over the years and always enjoyed myself. Well, as much as possible for a mid-January race. I live about 30 minutes away from Fair Hills so it’s the most local ultra I know. I had a blast refilling water bottles and handing out candy to runners. So much fun.
A couple weeks later, I helped out overnight at DUC 100k which is a top 4 race experience for me. Some races I want to go back to every year (Eastern States). Some races I’m pining to go back and run again (Laurel Highlands). And some races were so perfect that I don’t want to run again and sully my memories by providing a comparison that would pale to the original (Old Dominion, DUC). If you’re an experienced ultrarunner, you should sign up for this race. If you’re not, you should get a bunch of experience so you can sign up for this completely unique ultra experience. I’d tell you more about my evening, but the whole point of the race is not to know what you’re getting into. So I won’t.
One of my major failings as a member of the ultra community is my limited history of volunteering at events. I’m hopeful to ramp up my volunteering over the next couple years. I’m glad I got a good start to the year.
Junk Miles
There’s nothing I love more than logging a bunch of junk miles. Slow, completely chill effort is what I do day in and day out. I don’t do speedwork. I don’t do structured workouts. I rarely do hill repeats. I do enjoying walking up hills when they get a little steep. Even when they’re not so steep. What I lack in quality, I make up for in quantity. My training is not optimized. I doubt there’s a coach out there that would recommend training like I train. But I find it enjoyable so that’s what I do. Better my imperfect training plan than a perfect training plan that I don’t want to or am unable to execute.
DQed for Shoes?
The winner of the Jackpot 100M was DQed for wearing shoes with a stack height above 40mm. It kinda blows my mind that there are shoe rules for ultras. Well, that’s not entirely correct. I understand that there should be rules against your shoes having a real technological advantage (i.e. wheels), but rules for material construction seems far too nitpicky to me. Maybe it’s because I lean more towards the low key type races than the larger ones. Maybe it’s because I’ll never be up at the pointy end of the field. Regardless, the guy ran a sub-12 hour hundred mile race. That just blows my mind.