26 April 2014

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...Or How to Have Fun on Monte Sano Mountain

I can't lie, I wish I had signed up for all three stages rather than just one of the inaugural Grand Viduta Stage Races this weekend. As it happened, my wife and I decided against the Nashville Country Music Marathon (e.g. I'm too cheap to pay $400 a night to stay at hotel) and ended up staying in town, instead. I had been running a lot and really needed to take a day or so off, so I decided to only register for the Saturday stage of the races. One third of my usual training group (Jerry and James) had registered for the whole weekend and been training for it, Ed and I registered for Saturday only and had also been training for different events, only Mike and Rich opted out entirely. In any case, we were all training for one thing or another.

19 April 2014

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Always the best tech shirts at this race:-)
This was my first short distance "race" event in quite some time, almost 2 years to be exact. I had run other short distance races since I started my recovery, but I had been taking it easy, not trying to push at all. My main goal was just to return to running, not to break any personal speed records. My recovery had been going well and my return to ultras had gone extremely well for me personally as well. I ran my first ultra since my return from my health woes in January of this year at what I would call a "leisurely pace". I managed to get a finish and I my endurance base and speed continued to gradually improve from there. A month later, I started to put more focus on my diet, which I had been neglecting for the most part. Just like most people, I had gained a few pounds every year since high school, but my running had kept that gain somewhat in check. So when I started to see some positive results in my training, I figured why not improving my diet as well, since it was about to be time for another annual check up with the doc.

13 April 2014

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My favorite pic of my wife and I. No need to zoom in to see us both smiling war to ear:-)
The local inaugural Bridge Street Town Centre Half Marathon was part 2 of my weekend of running adventures. After running the SweetH2O 50K just outside Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, I had signed up for this half marathon to pace my wife to what hopefully would be a new PR for her. My body was a little stiff on race morning, especially my quads were shot, but I was hoping that I would be able to keep up with my wife once we started actually running. Thankfully, that's exactly what happened.

12 April 2014

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A great shot taken by one of the race volunteers. A beautiful day and course, indeed.

... or Tails From the Front of the Middle of the Pack

I signed up for this one as my 50K for April, one race in a line of "local" monthly 50k-50M races I put on my calendar in training for the Pinhoti 100 Miler in November. I ran this race for the first and only time three years ago, long before I had my "health issues". Since I consider everything prior to Pinhoti 100 in November a training race, actual racing isn't really on my mind, but I have been noticing that I've steadily been getting faster since puttin' on my ultra running shoes again earlier this year. My initial thoughts of "wow, I'm just glad to be out here running ultras again, DFL or not" have slowly turned into "$h!t, I might actually be getting faster than I was before my reconstructive ankle surgery, multiple DVTs and bilateral pulmonary emboli, yeah buddy!"

US STATES WITH 100 MILE RACES COMPLETED (15)

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COUNTRIES WITH ULTRAMARATHONS COMPLETED (13)

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RACE CALENDAR

  • Mount Mitchell Heartbreaker 50M (Old Fort, NC) - March 23, 2024
  • Oak Mountain 50K (Birmingham, AL) - March 30, 2024
  • Southern States 200M (Delta, AL) April 12-16, 2024
  • Cocodona 250M (Black Canyon City, AZ) - May 6-11, 2024
  • Mohican 100M (Loudonville, OH) - June 1, 2024
  • Bighorn 100M (Dayton, WY) - June 14, 2024
  • Crazy Mountain 100M (Lennep, MT) - July 26, 2024
  • Eastern States 100M (Waterville, PA) - August 10, 2024
  • SwissPeaks 360 (Valais, Switzerland) - September 1-8, 2024
  • Indiana Trail 100M (Albion, IN) - October 12, 2024
  • Rim To River 100M (New River Gorge, WV) - November 2, 2024 (WAITLIST #99)
  • Charleston 100M (Mount Pleasant, SC) - December 27, 2024
  • The Montane Winter Spine 268M (Edale, UK) - January 12-19, 2025

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