Catching Up

Wow, I've been away from my blog for a long time. No worries, I'm still running, just not writing about my running. Here's what you've missed.

Javelina Jundred

This was a lot of fun. Susan and Rob (both accomplished and prolific ultrarunners) from Tennessee were there. Rather than write a belated race report, I'm taking the easy way out and providing you a link to Susan's race report. There are even a few pictures of me. Towards the end you can see a picture of me with the "leans". I couldn't tell that I was leaning until someone told me. I've added some intermittent core exercises to maybe prevent this from happening in the future. I also enjoyed meeting my pacers, Lauren and Jessica, who both did a fantastic job of keeping me awake and moving through the night. Tammie was fun to run with the last couple of miles, she kept trying to get me to run and I tried telling her that her Jedi mind tricks wouldn't work on me, then I ended up running anyways.

Pacing At Pinhoti

Just two weeks after Javelina I found myself in the Alabama woods waiting for my runner. I paced co-worker Ronnie the final 30 miles to his first hundred mile finish. The terrain at this race was much more difficult than my hundred milers and the temperatures dipped into the mid 20's during the night. I think I was more nervous about my first pacing job than I was about running my first hundred. Ronnie did great, finishing in 28:25.

Las Vegas Rock N Roll Marathon

I was planning on going to Vegas around this time anyways, so I though what the heck, I'll run a marathon while I'm there. This is a fantastic half marathon. As a marathon, not so much. The first half is run up and down the Strip and there are enthusiastic crowds and great energy. The second half is run through an industrial area with no scenery, endless turns, abandoned bandstands and nearly abandoned aid stations. There was a 5 1/2 hour cutoff and even with that, the headliner concert was finished by the time I crossed the finish line in 5:05. The biggest disappointment was that the beer garden was already shut down even with about 1000 marathoners finishing after me. If you want to run a marathon in Nevada, pick another one.

What's Next

This Sunday I'm running the GUTS FatAss 50K at Sweetwater State Park. The forecast is for sleet and snow, so it should be a fun time.

If I still have any readers, sorry for the long hiatus, and thanks for sticking around.