My first 48

3 Days @ the Fair = 144 laps for 123.52 miles. Thoroughly, thoroughly pleased with this first foray into multi-day fun.

It's Thursday the week after the run and my brain's still got a general fuzziness about it, but here are some impressions that I need to commit to words in hopes that they don't vanish.

Things to remember: Take a table. Take a lawn chair. HEED watermelon rocks. Fresh fruit (watermelon, blueberries, strawberries) rocks even harder!!! Decide to take a sleep break only when your eyes begin to cross. Opt for covering two more laps before each sleep break. Eat a belly-full immediately before sleeping. Change SOCKS!

More things to remember: Spray bottles with cool water. Rain hat. When running on this much pavement for this long, re-apply sunscreen often. Pitch tent as close to the tangent you will be running as you can. Extra steps matter a LOT when you're going for this long.

Practice VERY slow running. Often. So that it doesn't seem quite so weird when you are forced to do it. Develop several different walking "gears." Practice those often, too.

For 2011, remember to bring RD Rick McNulty a six-pack of Starr Hill Lucy.

So, how did it go? Still not sure I have the words to convey it just yet, but i did learn a few lessons along the way.

10) A .85-mile loop is just about perfect for the multi, especially when there's a full-service kitchen right on the course that stays open the entire race.

9) Walking through the heat of each day = solid strategy.

8) Cheese quesadillas are ridiculously tasty at Hour 42.

7) When you sleep, make sure the shoes are off and the feet are ABOVE the heart.

6) A kind word is always worth the effort.

5) Sitting in a "normal" chair without propping your feet above your heart? Worthless.

4) Tough is contagious. Soak it up at every chance.

3) Laughter is strong medicine. For yourself and those around you.

2) Bacon. rules.

1) Run 3 mins., walk 2 mins. is solid. And will be even moreso as I learn how to run slower.

Random thought that flashed through my mind about 3 a.m. Sunday: There is a universe between "I think that I can" and "I have."

Here It Comes ...

Three gear bags jammed full. A sleeping bag. A tent. A cooler on wheels. A folding chair. A four-pound bag of trail mix. Myoplex lite. Organic chocolate milk.

Am I running a race or going on a two-week jungle safari?

The 3 Days at the Fair is Friday through Sunday at the New Jersey State Fair. Course is a .85-mile loop. Entrant list reveals 31 pre-registered runners are in the 48-hour. Starts 9 a.m. Friday. Ends 9 a.m. Sunday.

Do I have any idea what I'm getting myself into this time? Not really.

Do I have a plan? Yes. Run 3 minutes. Beep. Walk 2 minutes. Beep. Repeat until i can't stand it any longer, then go to something else. Idea is to go SLOOOOOWLY until, oh, dark ... the first night. (Wow. Yeah. You know it's something when you can use "first night" AND "second night" when talking about a race you're doing. Wow.)

Message for this one is simple: Run from the heart. Embrace the unknown.

This one's been calling to me for some time now. Tomorrow is the 6-hour drive up. Friday, we tee it up. And round and round we go.

Here's to shuffle shuffle plod plod fun fun. And hopefully some unbridled joy along the way.

Always Remember

Yep. Did it. Busted out my 10th Umstead 100-Mile finish last weekend. So much help from Potts and Amy Leigh "Flame" Brown. So much good juju from so many others. Equal parts humbling and hard-to-believe-all-aimed-at-me.

Potts crewed me throughout the day and paced me from 50 to 75 miles. He saved my race at the end of Lap 5 by making me eat when I was totally outta gas, and then making me feel as if it was MY decision that we get up and get back out there. Flame jumped in @ Mile 75 @ 11:45 p.m. and dispensed her charm, fantastic compassion, expert ultra knowledge of what it's like to be "out there" all the way until we crossed the final line. At 7 a.m. the next day. Incredible. Not sure I could have done this without those two.

I really thought I'd have something moving to write about as the magnitude of this thing sets in. Truth is I don't. What I do have is a snip from a mid-week this-week e-mail to my dear friend Bobby G ...

When I was 9, my “other” dad, University of Tennessee men’s swim coach and legend Ray Bussard (my dad Sam’s best friend since the ‘50s), said this to me through a serious Jack Black haze: “Bill, listen to me. Never forget this. Dedication is the simple virtue that separates the extraordinary from the ordinary.” Heavy for a 9-year-old but, dude, I took it to heart. Never had a ton o’ talent in the running or the writing, really, but I’ve always recognized that sheer will gets you a long way.

Ray is early 80s and memory loss is kicking his ass right now, but he’s still around. Anyway, when I got to the Mile 11 pie plate on my final lap Sunday morning and me and Flamey were kinda quiet for the lone moment in the final 25 miles she paced me, I looked up at the sky and said, quietly to myself, “I heard you, Coach. And I promise to always remember.”

Umstead No. 10? Really?

Seems as if it was just last year that I got the crazy idea to drive down to Raleigh and run around in circles a buncha times to see if I could finally get to the finish line of a 100-mile race. Turns out that "last year" was really 1996. Yeah. 1996.

Although I had packed in some 30 ultra-distance finishes by then, I had tried and given up three years in a row at the Old Dominion 100-Miler. Good sense would dictate that 100 miles was probably not my distance. Me and good sense have never been pals. In this case, it seems to have worked out OK, I guess.

What do I remember of that first Umstead? I remember my finish time of 24:44:18. I remember hiking the final 25 miles with the legendary Aaron Goldman, who was 67 and had triple-digit ultra finishes but never a 100-miler until we made it around. I remember my friends Andy and Shelly Wunch passing us with one mile to go on Shelly's way to the overall female win.

Other Umstead memories: That time Doug Young and I split 9:25 for the first 50 on a blisteringly hot early-April day, then my stomach imploded and I somehow barfed/slept/walked/suffered my way to a 27:30 finish. That time Ben Clark and his Army Ranger buddy D.J. and I joined together and crushed the final 30 miles en route to a 21:57 finish. The "hurricane year" when I DNF'd at Mile 54 with early-stage hypothermia. Stuff happens when it rains sideways and the temp drops 37 degrees in an hour.

For me, Umstead is about each of the people I've had the pleasure of sharing the path with. Doom. Will Brown. Lee Cox. Mike Whalen. Clifton. Leo Lightner. Tom Green. Missy Heeb. Art Moore. Kevin Sayers. Bob Ring. Dennis Hamrick. Tom Sprouse. Pete Lefferts. The list goes on and on.

I've seen Umstead balloon from a field of 54 to a field that fills online in seven minutes ... when registration opens in September.

Umstead is the massive start with all of its crackling energy, and also the stunning quiet of an 2 a.m. lap when it feels as if you are the only person still awake on the whole planet. Umstead is aid every 2 miles or so, with no worries about going off course ... even when I'm so tired that I run headlong into a tree (see 2007!).

Umstead is RD Blake Norwood, assistant RD Joe Lugiano and a cast of thousands who give of themselves so we can come play and play and play. It's Myra Norwood, Blake's wife and a calming presence with one of the world's best, kindest smiles.

Umstead is a 12.5-mile loop that has a pie plate marking every one of its miles. Umstead is a worthy challenge. Umstead is sneaky hard. Go out too hard and you can pay dearly. Before you start, 100 miles doesn't really seem like 100 miles at Umstead. After three loops, it often still doesn't. After five ... a different story.

Umstead gets in your blood. If you fight it, it can bite you. Hard. If you embrace it and take what it gives you, it can be your friend.

Umstead is an indelible part of my story.

Whole Lotta Ahhhhhh

If it weren't a 5-hour round trip from Grottoes, this would be my Home Away From Home.

Oh wait. Maybe it already IS! :-)

By The Numbas

1,102 days in the run streak as of 2.25.10

687 calories in that totally yummy McSkillet Bfast Burrito i just knocked down!!!

200 laps of the same 400-meter track that i ran in 7:44 one 1995 August day in Maryland

129 finishes marathon or longer in my "career"

90 miles, my 24-hour format PR ... so far :)

45 marathon finishes

25 Shamrock Marathon finishes

20 pull-ups done after this morning's run

16 100-milers I have managed to finish

14 laps of the 2.5-mile road circuit over at EMU covered in a long training run last summer

12 Mountain Masochist Trail Run 50-Miler career finishes (really???)

10 Umstead 100-Miler finishes i will have after i bag this year's in late March :)

8 DNFs at 100-milers across the years (OH to be even half as tough as my friends)

5 guys who will gather tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. to run w/ me

2 hours of run/walk for this morning's "workout"

1 ultra finish it took me to find my true home

One of the Giants

Ladies and Gentlemen, the phenomenal Ed Whitlock ... in the conversation of the fastest of all time. The personification of simplicity.

Happy Meter

Totals For January: 40:28 for all runs. Long runs: 15 for 33:18. Legs feel great. Brain feels better. Happy Meter is pinging on all cylinders, which is no small feat these days with work, the fam, blahblahblah lotsa other things asking for attention.

A great test — and the main non-racing test — of my fitness works like this: When, during a run of 2 hours or more, does the Happy Meter peg a 10? This morning is a perfect example. I felt the rush at 45 minutes. Wow. After only 45 minutes? Perfect!

The Happy Meter is also my best mode for watching frequency of long-run activity. Too many long runs packed too closely together and — bam — the Happy Meter doesn't buzz until, say, 1:20. Sure sign that I need to back off in a big way to just shorties for three to four days straight.

Good to have benchmarks. :)

Day 1,075 ...

Today was Day 1,075 of the current run streak.

Popped 2 hrs. of 7 mins run/3 mins walk today starting at 5 a.m. with Carp, TJ, PJ and Frazier. I'm a lucky dude to have buddies crazy enough to join me for a weekday, before-work 2 hrs. Especially when it's 16F. Beautiful full moon. Minimal breeze. Lotsa laughter. Good, good times.

Why a streak? It's a question I've been fielding a lot since this streak jumping into four digits back in November.

Aren't you worried about your knees? (No.)

What do you do when you're sick? (Suck it up and run/walk the 20-minute minimum. Only happened once so far during this stretch.)

With reffing three to five nights a week during high school hoops season and getting home anywhere from 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., how do you get enough sleep? (Sleep is a crutch — at least for me.)

Do you really, truly like running that much to not take a day off? (I love hearing the following echoing in my head: There will be a day when I can no longer do this. Today is not that day. :)

It's actually pretty simple. I just go run. It helps me think. It helps me work. It helps me be a better dad, husband, friend.

Maybe most of all, though, it makes me very, very happy. As long as that keeps happening, why take a day off?

The best ultra runner ever

Check this out.

Pretty darn motivating.

The Pain Cave

Really, really interesting read here. Applications to competition and regular ol' life too.

Four words

Editor's Note: My dear friend Michelle asked me how it was pacing Bill Potts at the Grindstone 100-Miler. Here's what I wrote ...

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Pacing Potts at Gstone ranks in my Top 3 all-time trail experiences. Right up there with when me, Quatro and Mike Bur did that Double Rivanna. And when me and YOU did that Promise Land in the thunder and lightning and downpours and mud in 7:55 a mere five days after you did that Boston Marathon. Those are def my Top 3.

Potts was simply amazing at Gstone, M. I got him at the Wild Oak parking lot at 66 miles at 10:15 a.m. I'm thinking RUH-ROH, my boy is waaaaay too fast because Wild Oak parking lot at 10:15 a.m. is 24-hour pace. Oh dear. This is gonna get butt-ugly. I'm thinking, oh boy, my job status just ramped skyward from Pacifier Holder to Honest-To-God Pacer.

So off we go. We climb Lookout Mountain and Potts is struggling. We get to the Mile 72 aid station and he rallies a little. Cute, happy girls there. They bring out the best in Potts. About a mile farther along, he is in a bad way. Sleep-deprived. A little overheated. I'm just about to call a 10-minute TV timeout and suggest a catnap when Potts says, "OK. You see that meadow up there? When we get to that meadow, I'm out for 10 minutes under that tree. Set your countdown timer." I do. He plops down, pulls him Nathan pack off for a pillow. Out. 7 mins. later, just as I'm standing to do a bit of yoga, I hear, "Damn. That was GREAT! OK. Let's move out!" And off we go. Climb another mile or so, then rocket down this incredible Dowell's Draft Trail that's probably the most beautiful single-track I've been on. Not technical at all and just a gradual downhill. It's so sweet that Potts had to rein us in with my countdown timer (run 6, walk 2) out of fear that he would run so much that he would blow a gasket. So we blitzed that stretch into the 80-Mile aid station at 1:20 p.m. That means we just did a huge all-up-or-down 14-mile stretch from Mile 66 to Mile 80 in 3:05 INCLUDING THE 10-MINUTE NAP. Holy cow!

Maybe 10-minute stop at Mile 80, then off we go. Next up is the dreaded Chimney Top climb that took us 1:00 on Day 3 of our ridiculous 3-day summer training camp, so we knew what lay in store. This time it was more like 1:20 or so, with me on the point and in full-on storytelling mode. I had THE biggest smile on my face the whole way up that monster. Once to the top, we took a 2-min. timeout to get the heart rates down and cool off a bit. It was low-70s, so not killer hot, but you know Potts and the heat, so we were being extra careful. From there, it was across the ridge and then about 2 miles of cascading downhills into the Mile 88 aid station. Man, was this a day for the ages!

Mile 88 aid station is a freakin' smorgasbord, thanks to folks Potts and his buddy Robert Gillanders have as crew/fans. A cup of mashed potatoes with butter and pepper. YUMM! Only 5 mins. here, then it's off for one more windy, twisty, technical climb, then a push across the last real ridge top and, poof, hellooooo the Road Straight Down 4000-foot-high Elliott's Knob. Then same single-track to the final aid stop at Mile 95. This time? Mac and cheese. HOMEMADE mac n cheese. I told them I was gonna gain 8.6 pounds while running 34. Sweet!

From 95, it's a relatively flat push home. Me, Potts, Bobby G. and his pacer Bill Young, who doubles as Potts' cousin. Onward we roll, getting ever more giddy by the step. Potts is still amazing. G's feet are, in his words, "just a pair of meat hooks now," but onward he presses.

The final 45 mins. we need flashlights. At the 1-Mile-To-Go sign, I look over Potts' right shoulder and see THE most picturesque full moon. The scene
-- Potts with his head held high still running strong, the moon casting its countenance over us -- actually made me cry. How completely awesome is THAT?!

Potts: Dude, you OK?

Me: Oh yeah. I dunno if I've ever been better.

So we waited at the dam that you just had to drop down below, then clamber over, until G and B. Young get there. We do the final half-mile along with a cast of maybe 10 other supporters. Ultimately, we let Potts and G do the finish line hand-in-hand.

Potts worked his *** off this summmer. Even with that, I had no clue that he would run 25:24!!! 12th overall. Male Master's winner.

So how was pacing Potts at Grindstone? Four words.

It. Was. A. Dream.

Swing and a miss

When it got hard, I pushed. When it got really hard, I quit.

Did I set myself up for failure? Armchair quarterback answer: yep. Even with training my butt off for the past six months, the idea of 100 miles in 24 hours isn’t so realistic for me any more. Neither, probably, is my lifetime best of 90 miles. A reachable goal? Probably 80 miles – especially on this 1.52-mile loop format that allows for SO many options to call it a day if you're a little slow or need a little break.

Hinson Lake 24-Hour Ultra Classic is such an interesting challenge. Soft, most shaded, nearly flat surface. Cheerful volunteers. Some 170 starters this year, so a lot of different people to pass and be passed by, at least until the 11-hour mark when it gets dark and the course gets pretty darn empty.

Want to know a way to make Hinson Lake a REAL mental bear? How about this: When you friend Bob asks if – rather than the more traditional method of pacing whereby he would start with you at, say, dark -- you think it’s a cool idea if he pays the paltry $24 entry fee and then run three loops with you, then sits one, and then repeats that the whole 24 hours … you answer, “Dude. That sounds PERFECT!”

What makes this insanely hard is when Bob decides at, oh, about 2:18 a.m. that he has had enough, that he’s got 50 miles in and that he’s calling it a night. And that he’ll get his sleeping bag out and hang until you finish.

(Enter that little voice in your head, the raspy one that is telling you to have mercy on the poor dude, who you know can’t sleep in a sleeping bag and who also cannot find his way back to the hotel without your help …so that you should just be a pal and stop now, too. That same voice, a bit more insistently, points out that you have clearly missed both your 100-mile goal and your 91-mile goal. Same voice questions what, if anything, is the value of walking the final 5 hours for, what, another measly 15 miles?)

As I said earlier … when it got hard, I pushed. When it got really hard, I quit. Fast.

Upsides: No stomach issues, even in heat that has often turned my gut to stone. Succeed Caps are a definite winner! Also was great seeing Suzanne, Doom, Laura, Ray K., meeting Christian, chatting up the vaunted Gary Cantrell and sharing an early-morning walk lap with Hinson RD Tom Gabell, a stud runner and a genuine guy.

Aftermath: It’s Monday and – thanks in part to taking this day off from work! – energy levels are soaring back in the direction of normalcy. So are legs. Did a 25-minute run/walk to keep The Streak alive at Day 942.

Hinson last year, I went out way too fast and blew up at 63 miles in 14.5 hours. This year, out much more slowly, a lot hotter, and a final tally of 70 miles in 19 hours.

Disappointed in myself? Yes. Devastated? No. A bit more wise than before? I’m a slow learner.

Over the next horizon ...

is Hinson Lake 24-Hour Ultra Classic, the one I've been prepping for since Umstead 100 back in April.

Format: 1.52-mile loop around a small lake in the hamlet of Rockingham, N.C. Soft, rock-free surface. Basically flat. Gun fires at 8 a.m. Saturday. Air horn blares at 8 a.m. Sunday. If it works out the way I've been dreaming it will, I will still be out on the course. Running.

Plan: Run 5 minutes. Beep. Walk 5 minutes. Repeat. Do. Not. Go. Out. Too. Fast.

Food: HammerGel at one to two hits per hour until dark. Nutri-Grain bars after that. One 8 oz. chocolate milk every two hours. Also, I'll be rockin' the Succeed Caps every hour on the hour until dark. I have ginger. I have Maalox chewables.

Prep: Crazy amounts of climbing and dropping. Lots and lots of bodyweight leg work. A 1:50 at the wicked 15-Mile Charleston Distance Run two Saturdays ago, way faster than I thought I could go. Or would.

Last year, I wasn't this uber-fit, started too fast and spent the last 2 hours getting my butt kicked by the Barf Monster before throwing in the towel at 15 hours and 63 miles.

Am I ready this Hinson? Yeah. Yeah, I am. Nervous? That too. How's that feel? Pretty darn good.

Ready for something!

August tally: 15 runs of 2 hours or more. Total time of 43:45.

I've been keeping long-run records since 2003. This crushes my heaviest non-100-miler month by 9 hours.

After 3:15 Thur a.m. with Jack Broaddas and then 2:00 Fri a.m. with The Posse, I was gonna phone it in today w/ a streak-saving 25 mins. Instead, found some free time mid-afternoon so ... cashed it in for 2:00 of 7/3. Temp was 93F at the start. Run was muggy as heck. Focused on relaxing during the run phases. Actually felt stronger the final 4.

I've probably eaten 2,000 calories since finishing. So far.

Now, where'd I put that bowl of vanilla ice cream?

If It Ain't Fun ...

So much for my little foray into posing as an ultrarunner who still gives a flip about serious training!

Last week I set a goal of 10 consecutive days of 2-hr. runs. Made it through four of them before I hit a bit of a roadblock because I couldn’t drag my butt outta bed this morning. Rolled back over and didn’t get up in time, so was only able to get in 1 hour. Followed it with some Pilates, yoga, extra core work, a 5-minute leg routine and several sets of push-ups.

Know why I slept in (well, if you wanna call getting outside at 4:20 a.m. “sleeping in”)? Because, when my eyes first popped open at 3:06 a.m., it felt too much like work to head out there. So I bagged it and opted for 1 hr. instead. Could I have physically handled the 2 if the fam schedule had allowed enough time? Yeah. Did I feel like a wuss for not doing the 2? For about a minute, yeah. Then, I got over it. And did what I had time for. And felt the cooling drizzle on the back of my neck. And heard birds singing. And thanked the Lord for yet another chance to move and play and do this thing that I so dearly love to do, this viewing of the world and all that is in it at 5.5 mph.

Review:

Thurs, July 23 3:12 Here, There and Everywhere run before work on H-burg roads. 10 run/5 walk. Slammed 40 ozs. fluid.
Fri, July 24 2:00 H-burg roads w/ Carp and PJ. 7/3.
Sat., July 25 2:00 up and down Madison Run (aka “a Maddy) in the early afternoon. 10/5.
Sun., July 26 2:00 out-n-back to Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport. 10/5 out, 4/1 home.
Mon., July 27 1:00. 4/1.

So what now? Do I push on and keep trying to slam the 2s through Saturday? How about maybe I do that but make Thursday a 3 so that the final 10-day total equals 20 hours? Dunno yet. Depends on how much fun I’m having.

10 Days of 2

Crazy idea as I prep for Hinson Lake 24-Hour Sept. 19, but sometimes you gotta shake stuff up a bit ...

I've set this goal of at least a 2-hour run/walk for 10 straight days.

Started it Thursday with a very nice 3:12 effort on hard top around Harrisonburg before coming in to work at 10:30 a.m. Followed that with this morning's 2:00 deal (thanks Carp and P.J.). So far, so good.

Big challenges will come Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Because of fam stuff, I expect each of these to require 0-Stupid-30 wake-ups.

Nothing like finding out how badly you want something, huh? :)

Personification of "Stud"

Is this guy human?

What's Been Cookin'

How 'bout a quick review of all the fun that I've been having the past month or so? OK, here goes ...

Batesville Days 10km
I finished fourth overall in the 32nd Annual Batesville Days 10km, putting up a 43:34 on a brutally hilly course on a steamy day. Had the honor of suffering like an animal for the final two miles with my brother Bill Potts, who smoked himself the week before on his way to a tie for eighth overall at the Capon Valley 50km. My efforts were good enough for a $25 Ragged Mountain Running Shop gift cert, a cool trophy that Ben has on his dresser :-). Two more major benefits: The orange tie-dye race T will be my favorite for many, many years, and then Potts introduced me to the Batesville Store, a true haven of peace and tranquility. I've been back there twice since (falafel wrap and coffee are A++!), and my new necklace made by children from the Kenyan village Batesville folks sponsor is an ongoing memento of a great, fun effort.

Whadda Triple
Then there was the 6hr/5hr/5hr Memorial Day Trifecta that was an amazing mix of ease, pain, suffering, triumph with just the right amount of beer thrown in to cap it all off. Saturday was 6 hours hiking with Bob Ring out at Wild Oak. Sunday was 5 hours running Rip Rap with Sophie and Q-Bob. Monday was 10 loops of my flat 2.5-mile loop out at EMU, plus an extra half-mile, plus one set of 41 tricep dips, one set of 41 incline push-ups, and a total of 41 burpees. The 41km run and the rest of the Day of 41s Monday was in honor of my dear fellow exercise freak buddy Michelle Huston's 41st b-day the following day. That was sorta in answer (although well short of it on the Studly Scale) of M's freakin' 200 burpees that she did in my honor for my also May b-day. The things we do for our friends! :)

A Solid FCR
Sunday afternoon Ring and I clipped off a 5-mile FCR -- aka Fast Continuous Run -- at 7:43/mile pace out at Montezuma as part of his return to glory plan for an August 10km. He wants to get it down to 7:00 pace before then. I dunno about that, but man did it feel like old times just running side-by-side in full stride with a buddy along a flat country road on a warm day with the breeze at our backs. At one point, I closed my eyes and it was 1982 and I was on the Airport Loop outside Buckhannon, W.Va. Pretty darn cool. So were the post-run Yuengling Lagers. Yum!

Touchdown Jimmys
This morning during our 2-hr. run/walk, Vince Bowman introduced Paul Johnston and me to his version of what we call Touchdown Jimmys. My version has been a 40-second push up the face of a grassy hill on the JMU campus to the wide sidewalk in front of the ISAT/CS Building that features a James Madison statue I think looks a lot like Notre Dame's Touchdown Jesus; hence, Touchdown Jimmy. Vince's version is OMG-harder. Vince's version starts a lot lower on the hill and goes up to my sidewalk and then STRAIGHT up to Touchdown Jimmy himself. How up? So up that I was barely still running. We did three of them this morning. They sucked! And now I want to bag 10 of them before the summer's out.

What's Next
Let's see: Thursday should be 2.5-3 hrs. on Hburg roads. Friday will be 2 with Vince and PJ. Saturday is The Priest with Sophie and a buncha others. Massive climbing and descending. About 3 hours of good, quad- and hamstring-pounding fun.

Highlands Sky 40-Miler is June 20. Expectations for great fun are high as those West Virginia hills.

Summer General Strength Progression

This one will give a lot of you a run for your money. It's most def kickin' my butt!

Summer General Strength Progression

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Go Ry Go!

A little inspiration here. Actually, MORE than a little.

Not too shabby at all

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

27:34 for Umstead. No nausea. No bonkiness. Managed well the entire time. Final 12.5-mile lap of 2:56 was my fastest of the day by 19 minutes. Very, very fun. By FAR the most fun of my nine Umstead 100 finishes.

Did 5/5 almost the whole way. Out in a pedestrian 13:15. Home in 14:19. Not too shabby. Coulda gone faster, but didn’t really want to risk another big, fat bonk, so I just kept it in second gear the whole time. Man, was it fun to be starting that final loop full of energy and running as the second day dawned. What an incredible feeling of control that was.

First 4 loops with my pal Bob Ring until he decided to drop at 50 miles. Lap 5 alone with my iPod Shuffle (run 2 songs, hike 1 … unless it’s a Beach Boys tune, then you have to run that one too. Seriously, who can hike to “Barbara Ann” or “409?”). Lap 6 with pacer dude of trail name Ram, who turned out to be a JMU Class of ’89 physics grad. Half of Lap 7 alone before catching my pal Mike Lipton and his pacer Chris Damico. Then Lap 8 with the same Chris. By the time I was finished with the boy, he was ready to do the 50 next year. :)

Nutrition: Took EIGHTEEN freakin’ S-Caps! One every hour for the first 18 hours. Mainly made it around on roughly 15 GU gels, a couple Perfect Zone bars (Wal-Mart over-the-counter meal replacement things), one can of Kirkland chocolate meal replacement drink, two cups potato soup during the night. Fluid was Gatorade Endurance, a little water and maybe 20 ozs. total of Nuun.

Weather: Low-50s at start, mid-70s during the day, high-50s at night and probably around mid-60s by the time I finished.

Aftermath: No muscle soreness. Big blister on ball of right foot, but not big enough to keep me from running Monday and keeping The Streak intact. (As of this writing, 780 days ... and counting). :)

Middle of Lap 3, Umstead race director and longtime friend Blake Norwood tells me I’m having too much fun and to get my *** moving. I tell him, “No, no. The plan this year is to come here in sub-22-hour shape, take it nice and easy, and finish in one piece … and so far, it’s all good. Maybe I’ve finally learned something.”

As I move almost out of earshot, Blake hits me with his booming baritone: “You learning something, Gentry? That means there’s hope for us all.”

The Best Of ...

With Umstead 100-Miler this coming weekend and me in full-on taper mode, complete with 743 thoughts per second rushing through my brain, now seems a solid time to reach for my all-time list of most-telling endurance quotes.

Here's hoping at least a few of these strike home for you.

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Thinking of the above runner studying the [Badwater] course at home, perhaps planning pace and strategy for these climbs, I am put in mind of a statement of Malcom Campbell in the middle of a 6-day. "You know," he said, "this was so much easier at home with my #2 pencil." – as told by Marv Skagerberg on The Ultra List

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“To finish Hardrock you have to look deep within yourself and find something powerful that motivates you. You need to find a true connection with the mountains, the thin air, the rushing streams, the icy cold nights with their crystal, star-lit skies. You need to touch the softness that hides in those dark cliffs and deep chasms. Leave your self images behind and surrender yourself to what is. The race clock is ticking. But, time is an illusion. All that exists is the present moment. We can experience neither the past nor future directly, only the present is real. Yet, we try to dwell in either the past, through our memories, or the future, through our hopes and dreams. By looking to the past and future we constantly reject the present, which is reality. As Ram Dass said, "Be here now." – Peter Bawkin, 2006 Double Hardrock finisher

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Seriously, Armstrong has been tested so often that I bet he can urinate into a salt shaker without splashing a drop, and he has always come up clean. As he said in that old Nike promo: "Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?"

------------

"Amy has dropped at mile 41, so now it is the four of us, wondering if it was really only today that we had gone insane, or if it happened years ago and we can only tell at moments like this." – Andrea Feucht describing her 2002 Lake City 50 Miler experience

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"Still waiting for my high to occur today, or hell, I’ll settle just for a medium. Anything out of the basement would feel great." – Mike Campbell more than halfway through 2002 VT 100.

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"I have heard it said that preparing for a 100 miler is like training to be hit by a truck. There is only so much that you can do. Regardless of how smart you train or how hard you race, there are no guarantees. The only sure thing is that it's going to hurt and something bad is going to happen. It is not a question of ‘Will something go wrong?’ The real question is ‘How will you respond when things get bad, really bad?’ How bad do you want it?” -- Luis Escobar

------------

Christopher Rampacek, a personal trainer and lifestyle manager from Houston, began doing serious long-distance running after his orthopedic surgeon replaced his hip 10 years ago and told him he would never run again. That was 50 marathons ago. This is his fourth Badwater. Last year, he recalls vividly hallucinating throughout the mountain stretch. What did he see? "A swimming pool," he says. "Oh, and the animals were cheering for me." – Washington Post story on the 2006 Badwater 135

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“Just means The Ring will be hanging around your neck like some nuclear-waste-deformed albatross for yet another year... Lucky you.” – Chris Scott, cajoling me into running the Massanutten Ring Trail 71-Miler, which I finished in 2005

------------

And perhaps my personal fave, from my brother Fred “Doom” Dummar, asked why he does ultras …

“I just love kicking my own ass.”

Just chillin' ...

at Va. Beach this afternoon. Watching a little NCAA hoops. Havin' a few Yuengling Lagers in the aftermath of a lunchtime visit to Chipotle. Knocked down a veggie bowl, arguably among the most yummy grub I've had for awhile ... and that's saying a lot.

May have to go scare up Bill Potts and his crew in a few.

Sunday should be some major fun. If what I heard during my two hours working the pacer booth this morning come true, we'll have about 20 runners, including first-timers Lauren and her best friend who will be sporting tutus.

Lots of excitement at the expo. Love the chance to tap into all of that.

Oh, my pacing partner Mark? This is only his second marathon. No sweat, though. He spent 30 years working ... as ... a ... Navy SEAL. And if two hours of hanging out is any indication, he's a first-rate guy too.

Weather forecast calls for 36F at start, mid-50s by finish and ... drum roll, please ... only 2 mph wind. Yeah. 2 as in t-w-o.

No matter what, this one ought to be a blast.

Ready ... set ...

This Sunday is Shamrock Marathon, where I'm heading up the 4:15 pace group.

In two weeks, it's back to Umstead 100 for a 25- or 26-hour jaunt.

Two weeks after that, it's down to Hampton for a 24-hour where I hope to go farther than the 90 miles I did the last time there, and have high hopes to put up something in the triple digits.

Can I lick all three? Dunno for sure. If I did know, what would be the point? :-)

A lil' extra motivation

Umstead 100 Most Finishes …


Male (13) Sprouse, Tom (entered 2009)

Male (10) Lefferts, Peter C (entered 2009)

Female (10) Mason, Louise (entered 2009)

Male (10) Morton, Alex (entered 2009)

Male (9) Fiorito, Mike

Male (8) Calabria, Robert D (entered 2009)

Male (8) Gentry, Bill (entered 2009)

Male (8) Moore, James E

Female (8) Rozanski, Susan

Male (8) Smith, Mike (entered 2009)

Streak is at 2 today

Snowy, sleety, rainy 2-hour jaunt this a.m. to commemorate Day 730 of my running streak.

If I wasn't such a slug, I'd go back through the records and chronicle all the ultras. And marathons. And the long runs. And the weeks where I've done three long ones in the same week. And four. And five.

There was a time when all that stuff mattered to me. A lot. Now, it's more about the actual running than about the record-keeping. It's more about me and my thoughts on a quiet country road under last week's gorgeous full moon at 4:09 a.m. on a Tuesday. Or about the flash of brilliant beauty when I saw a bald eagle in full flight on the Trayfoot Trail back in December. Or the complete feeling of solitude that washes over me somewhere in the middle of every 2-hour run. Well, check that, every 2-hour run except for that ridiculous one Carp, PJ, TJ and I did where the wind chill of -10F.

This streak is a lot different from the half-dozen others. Maybe it's cuz I'm older. Maybe it's cuz I'm not as fast. Or as competitive.

Or maybe just maybe it's cuz I don't need any of that. Maybe it's cuz I like it easy. Did I run today? Check. Is my brain in a better place cuz of it? Check. Am I ready for the day? Check check.

Craig is right. I am in hippie-out mode. Know what? Pretty darn cool place to be.

14 Rocks

Sunday was a 14-rock day. That's one rock for each 2.5-mile lap over at the Eastern Mennonite University campus. So that's 35 miles total. In 6:58:45. From 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. A little gravel, some asphalt, about half of it concrete.

I figured I'd lose track as the mind has a tendency to wander on a loop, so I gathered 10 rocks from beside my driveway and put them in the bed of the Millennium Falcon. After each loop, I moved a rock. Once I got to 10, I piled all the rocks up again and started over. Very cool watching the line grow each time. Amazing how that kept me so scary focused. I almost even missed the hot chica in the black top who blew my doors off. Well, missed her the first time, anyway. ;-)

Nutrition lab: I knocked down 70 ozs. of green tea and 8 ozs. of Hammer Gel. It was warmish (50F at the start, 63F at the end), but a steady breeze kept me cool. Energy was steady. Brain was strong. Legs were just slightly pounded by the 3/4s mark, but rallied by the end. All in all, ranks right up there with the best really long training runs I have done. Period.

Only nutritional holes: No electrolytes. And no salt. Fixable. Easily fixable. Why focus on the holes? Um, maybe because of the little fainting spell about an hour or so after I finished. Yeah. Bit the living room carpet big time. No, nobody was home. Yeah, I woulda gotten a total a**-kickin' if they had been. Much less so when I confessed later. :)

Today, legs were fine. A gentle 20-minute run/walk got rid of any residual. Remarkable, these bodies of ours.

Hammer. A++. Green tea? Um, nice with dinner. On the run? Not so much maybe.

Changes: Gatorade Endurance. Lots of it during the waking hours. And any long run gets at least 20 ozs. of GE, the high-sodium one. And I'm hitting CVS before the week's out to score its OTC electrolyte tab that I once swore by back before I thought I was tough and knew everything.

Seven hours. 5 mph average. 14 rocks. One to remember.

Update x 2

So, when we last heard from our hero, he was bravely talking smack about how much he loves to suffer and about how he was gonna march in the footsteps of some of his heroes, stare the Richmond Marathon straight in the eye, purse his lips and squash that thing like a bug.

Been watching a few too many action movies lately, maybe.

Richmond Marathon: Typhooned it. Needed a sub-3:30 to grab a Boston Marathon qualifier. Finished in 3:47. And tweaked my right hammy. Ugly work, this Richmond. Butt ugly.

Given that 8:00 miles is 3:29 and change, I started out at a reasonably comfy 8:10 pace for the first five miles, then began dialing it down from there. Hit 10 miles at 55 seconds slower than BQ and the half-marathon mark at 40 seconds slow. Peachy! Also pretty hot. As in “we’re calling for 58F and 20mph winds but what you’re really getting is 70F and, well, by the time the stand-your-scrawny-***-straight-up wind is in your face, it ain’t gonna manner any more anyway.”

Reduced to a jog by 18 or so. Reduced to a head-down shuffle by 19. Thank God my ultra buddy Mike Lipton cruised by at 20 so that I had somebody to snivel with as we did a 4-minute run/1-minute walk routine from 21 to the end. Felt decent by Mile 24 or so, but still was very glad when it was over. Mike, you carried me to the finish, bud. I owe you big time. And thanks to Michelle for hanging out with me for a couple hours afterward while I licked my figurative wounds, and to Heidi J. for letting me commandeer one of her “old” half-zip pullovers so I didn’t get hypothermia as the sun went in and the temps dropped to quasi-normal mid-November numbers. Strong reminders all that I am little without my friends.

VHTRC 50km: Speaking of friends, I took the show on the road to Clifton a month later for the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club Fat-Ass 50km, a gem of a run on single- and double-track trails at Hemlock Overlook Regional Park. Ran the first 21 miles with Mike Broderick, with whom I once shared the entirety of a Mohican 100-Miler and who I haven’t seen nearly enough in the three years since. Great fun running, laughing and route-finding through the Do Loop with Mike before he pressed on from the final aid station a bit faster than I wanted to go. Not long out of that final stop, I lucked into the delightful company of Rick Kerby and Jim Miller, good runners and two of the sharpest wits I know. Good times sharing the final 4 miles and change with those two knuckleheads as we finished in 6:28, a stronger day than I’ve had at that run in many, many moons. Much fun at the post-run pizza fest too.

Richmond – rugged. And then some. VHTRC 50km – a veritable walk in the park.

There are no guarantees. Part of the fun of it all.

Goin' 4 It!

Richmond Marathon is tomorrow.

My Boston Marathon qualifying time is 3:30. It has been 17 years since I last qualified.

Tomorrow, I roll the dice one more time.

Why try? Why not sandbag like always? Why not just run/walk for the first 20 and then find somebody who is struggling near the end and help that person finish? Several reasons ...

• The 19:09 5K I ran two weekends ago is concrete evidence that I am in way-faster-than-3:30 marathon shape. More like 3:07 shape.

• My buddy Bob is struggling these days with injuries and will be pretty pleased if he breaks 4:15. His PR is 2:49. If Bob was in 3:07 shape, he would try.

• My friend Dennis can't run any more. Ever. His PR is 2:37.

So this one's for Bob. And especially Dennis.

A Smack in the Mouth

So the other day, this is what I woke up seeing …

As We Forgive Those

As We Forgive Those

As We Forgive Those

Wow. How’s that for a smack right in the mouth first thing out of the box?

As we forgive those? You mean, even when I feel as if I am one of the few who is getting it right? You mean, even when I am so sure that somebody else is all about himself and how he looks? You mean, even when I am doing good, solid, heart-felt work with precious little support? Even when the other person isn’t my friend? You mean, always … in every instance?

You mean, even when up until sometime recently, I was grinding my teeth at night because of all the uncertainty at how I’m supposed to figure out how to get all this work finished when I feel as if I am all by myself on most of it? And even if I feel so strongly deep in the core of my very being that I am pushing myself hard, yet seeming to miss every deadline because of factors outside of my control? And even when people are unkind and change their minds and jerk my chain?

As We Forgive Those?

As We Forgive Those?

Yeah. Every time. No matter what.

Wow. And I thought finishing a 100-miler was hard.

On a Bit of a Roll

Saturday: I do the JMU Dukes Homecoming "5K" Run. Brutal course, teeny field, no mile marks, no splits, very low-key. I crushed it, finishing 7th outta 66. Raced the whole way, never looked at my watch, just focused on being controlled, working every climb, steady on the flats, open it up on the downs. After the initial shake-down of a torrid start on a fairly steep uphill, there are two guys within striking distance: one maybe 30 meters up and the other maybe 60 meters at, say, Mile 1. I work my way up to the first kid by the end of a sweeping flat curve, then dust him on a fairly long downhill. The next kid I get on a sharp uphill before, say, Mile 2. From there, I start the long surge to the end, just like the old days. Just like the old days, the mantra is "CHP. CHP. CHP." (Chest up, hips forward, push off.) The final half-mile is flat, and I tie up just a little bit the final 300 or so.

I hit my watch at the finish. 21:00.

Wow. With this effort, I know this course is way longer than 3.1 miles. After a 10-min. warm-down, I find the young kid who is the RD (he refs basketball with us) and ask him how long the course really is.

His answer: It's 3.4 miles. (Traditional course. Sees all of campus that they want to show off, hard to change it now that it's been going on for many years blahblahblah).

Using a Runner's World conversion tool, I ran ... 19:09. Yeah, 6:10 minutes per mile pace. 19:09. That's 18 seconds faster than I went last July in a 5K that's very accurate with a much larger field, hence plenty of people to key off of when you are gassed at the end.

MAN, was that fun :)

Sunday: Planning to do an easy 2-hour run/walk, wake at 6:30 a.m. without time to get in said 2 hours before church, so opted instead for taking the online basketball ref test. Cranked the 100-question, true-false test in an hour. Needing a 70 to ref varsity and an 80 for post-season eligibility. Instant result: 88! Sweet! Church at 8:30 a.m. with a seriously moving ceremony, then groceries. Expecting to pump out a quick 25-minute run before taking Ben to lacrosse practice in C-ville, then rush back in time to head off to Strasburg for a ref meeting. Get home to find a voicemail from the lax guy saying practice is moved from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., so Heidi cuts me loose to head off for a long run ... so I drive to JMU and do 2 hours very gently of 9 mins. run/1 min. walk. Legs felt awful at the start, then totally peachy by the end.

Monday (aka one amazing way to cap a pretty neato three days): On my 25-minute jaunt before work, I find a $20 bill!

A 19:09 5km, a 2-hr. run/walk and a little extra green. Not a bad three days at all.

Wherefore Art Thou, Patience?

Did just less than 64 miles at Hinson Lake 24-Hour Sept. 27 before calling it a day at around 11 p.m.

Went out too fast (AGAIN!), threw up on Laps 38, 39 and 41, then quit after Lap 42. Was shooting for 66.

All in all, more disappointed that I just gave up than that I didn't have the patience enough to go slower at the start. Nausea does that to me. Lots to learn still. Just when I think I have the nutrition thing figured out, the target moves.

So, what's next? Maybe Potomac Heritage 50km next Sunday on trails in and around D.C. And then maybe the Greasy-Gooney 10K near Front Royal Saturday, Oct. 25. And then definitely Richmond Marathon with my buddy Michelle Huston Nov. 15. And there's always the VHTRC 50km in mid-December and perhaps the annual Red-Eye 50km in Prince William Forest near Quantico Marine Base New Year's Day.

And, oh, look, this morning's little jaunt around Digger Park with Happy G. marked Day No. 600 of my streak.

OK, maybe I'm doing better with the cave-in at Hinson than I thought. :-)

Right around the corner now

That would Hinson Lake 24-Hour, a new-for-me race held on a 1.52-mile mostly dirt loop in the burg of Rockingham, N.C. It happens Sept. 27-28. 0800 start.

A little research provides that 66 loops is something like 100.3 miles. That would be a pleasant number to hang.

The run/walk strategy for this one will be 5/5 in hopes of saving enough energy to actually keep cranking after dark. It's been awhile since I have managed to do that. Then again, it's been awhile since I've been this fit.

Nutrition: I've been experimenting with Accelerade, an Endurox product that seems to me to basically be Gatorade with protein added to it. The fruit punch is fairly tasty. Also planning to use green tea, a few Ensure Plus, peanut butter crackers and probably some store-bought trail mix.

Last week was the last real week of the build-up. I did 2 hrs. Wed, Thur, Fri and then 5:08 on trails mostly in the gorgeous Elliot's Knob area (THANKS SOPH!!!) on Sun. Awesome, awesome cap to a really, really stellar last several months.

I am already getting psyched. :-)

102, 276, 547

Knocked out a 4:02 effort on the streets of Harrisonburg Tuesday.

That marked No. 102 run of 2 hours or longer for the year. That puts my point total at 276 for 2008.

The 547? That's the total number of consecutive days in my streak, which also equals 1.5 years.

Tuesday sure was a heckuva good day. :-)

Nice mix

Significant runs of late ...

Saturday, Aug. 2: Covered 2:34 on fire road and single-track in Shenandoah National Park.

Sunday, Aug. 3: Did 4:16 on flat roads on the Capt. Yancey loop with Bob Ring. Total of 20 miles.

Tuesday, Aug. 5: Punched out 2:30 before work, including 45 mins. at sub-9:00 with Wellness Train members Charlie and Buffy.

Thursday, Aug. 6: A gentle 2:00 of 7/3, most of it on Memorial Hall track.

Friday, Aug. 7: Steady 2:00 of 7/3 on roads before work with Carp and PJ.

Saturday, Aug. 8: A gentle 3:15 at the EMU track. Ran 4 songs, walked 1 x forever. Wore my Columbia boonie. Fine choice on a warm, sunny day.

Some thoughts here: If you kick out the Aug. 2 run and run the numbers conservatively, I just did a 70-mile week. Maaaaaan!

Then during my 1:05 trek this morning, I punched out 3 x 800 in 3:20, 3:12, 3:07. Woo!

I sure am having some fun these days.

Bringin' It

Saturday, July 19: A whopping 6:42 in the Trayfoot Trail area with my buddies Sophie, Tom, Gary, Q, Deb, John, Jill, Dave and Marc. Great group. Great fun. I met them on the trail from the Grottoes side, which means a steep climb up Furnace Mountain, then down, then back up and onto the Trayfoot Loop, then back on the Skyline Drive and down Brown Gap Road. Smokin' hot, terrific chance to slow down and manage the pace, way encouraged that I was able to do just that and still have enough energy left to mow my yard.

Sunday, July 20: A pleasant 5:00 out at Wild Oak, climbing Hankey and descending to the fire service road at the base of Big Bald, then rolling back 8.2 miles on the road, then drinking beer for 2-plus hours while the real studs (and studdettes Sophie and Marty) finished the entire monster loop.

Saturday, July 26: A steamy, rocky, up-and-down 7:06 at Catherine's Big Butt 50km. Wow. Stayed pretty steady, climbed well and then fell apart a little bit in the final hour. Still, another brick in the wall in prep for Hinson Lake 24-Hour Sept. 27-28.

Speaking of Hinson Lake, working up from the ill-fated DNF at Old Dominion, I have put in at least one 4-hour effort in six of eight weeks. And, after a little break this week, I'm going in a bit late on Tuesday mornings each week in hopes of continuing the 4-hour string at least one day a week. That mimics my prep for The killer Massanutten Ring event back in 2005, one of my best ultra efforts.

Extra stuff: Reffed six varsity girls' hoops games (two Fri, four Sun) during the July 26 weekend, and have continued push-ups, pull-ups, yoga, Pilates and trying to eat more. Have reffed a total of 26 high school games this summer at various area college camps. Wonderful, wonderful cross training.

Should be interesting to see how this 4-plus-hour thing plays out. So far, so good.

OD 100 Reflections

It's 3:15 a.m. already and I never looked at my watch once during the night. That's some pre-race sleep right there. Sweet!

Holy shmoley, we start five mins. from now at 4 a.m. and it's already 74F with big humidity. Hey, it is what it is. Deal with it.

Helloooo Burnshire Bridge at about 4 miles in 45 mins. Easy does it there, dawg.

Lookit, daylight and topping out at Woodstock Tower. That 2-mile climb wasn't so bad.

Man, this gentle downhill to Boyer aid station at 11 miles goes on forever.

20 MILES! Drop bag! Ensure. Yum. ICE! Wait, go back and wet that bandana. Smart runner. Smart runner. Easy does it now.

Thermometer on the old country store bldg at St. David's Church aid station says 86F. It's on the porch. With its back to the sun. LOVE that bucket of cold water with the sponges. Ahhhh.

I know that guy there who is in charge of the 28-mile station. OMG, Kevin Black! No way! He was third here once and was ridiculously fast in several other races too. No WONDER he has popsicles and ice-cold water for dousing us.

Four Points 1. 32 miles. Lots of open road so far and this heat/humidity combo sucks, but morale is good and the stomach seems fine. Cool! Hey Quatro. Nice lid, dude. Hey Pat Botts. Great to see you again too, and thanks for your help with putting ice in my Nathan hydration pack. No room for my other 20 oz. green tea? Here. Give it to somebody else. No, wait. What would Ben Clark do? OK, lemme drink half and then you put ice in the rest. I'll just carry it in my hand and drink the rest of it myself.

Duncan Hollow. My nemesis. Let's see who kicks who's ass today, baby ... AID STATION is here at 39ish thanks to two guys on motorcycles ... Chrisman Hollow Trail and 1.5 miles to the road ... CREEK CROSSING ... ahhhhhhhh.

Medical aid station at 43 miles. I'm only down 2.5 pounds. Awesome! Gut is great. Brain's getting a little scrambled, but to be expected in this heat, I guess. FROZEN MANGO CHUNKS!!! And a Pedialite popsicle. Talk about being a happy, happy boy.

Road stretch to Four Points 2 is a blast furnace. Hang in. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

Four Points 2. 47 miles. Sit down and try to cool off. Succeed cap, please (to go along with the 3 others I've taken so far). Ensure on ice. Yum! Green tea in the pack's bladder. I know, Q, I know, I've been here too long, but I'm still not really cooled off yet. Shade is good, but it doesn't do a thing about the humidity. OK, lemme get that iPod Shuffle with the arm band and I'm outta here. See you guys at 75 miles.

50 MILES IN 12:10. I hear the voice of my pal Bobby G. saying HELL YEAH! OK, that means 16:50 left to do the last 50 miles. No, wait. 15:50. OK. Whatever. Too early to start with that, even if I could get the math right. You just keep moving and let the rest of it take care of itself.

OK, this arm band is annoying. Put the iPod away for now. At Edinburg, put the clip one on.

Dude, it's just a Zip-Loc baggie. OK, how 'bout this: shove a handful of Frito's in your mouth and then just fold the top of the bag over. Good. Yeah. That works. Man, did they put any salt on these chips???

Each time the right foot strikes the ground is one ... 59, 60, 61 ... 89, 90, 91 ... 100, walk ... 48, 49, 50. Run ... easy does it, boy. Easy.

MUST eat these chips. Even two chips each walk break is better than nothing. OK, do a gel. Good. Great decision. I wonder how old that Succeed electrolyte drink mix is that they have had out here today? Wonder how they make it so completely tasteless?

Oh good. I think this is the windy downhill to the aid station. Will be good to grab a quick seat and see if I can cool off a bit.

Is that Potts? Looks like he's shooting video with his sweet handheld digi. WHOA! WOOZY! What the ???? Oh wow. OK. That's it. I'm done. Woozy? Yeah. Bed spins? A little bit like that, yeah.

OK, yeah, it's about 15 mins. back to the start from here. Ready when you are.

Hey, could I be completely pathetic and ask you to help me take my tent down? Not sure I should be bending over, really.

Dude, it's been an hour and a half and I don't feel any cooler than when I dropped. What's up with THAT? And yeah, I'm trying to drink that Gatorade but, man, it seems like it's all I can do to take little sips.

Oh MAN this big electric fan here in the fairgrounds bldg is perfect. I probably ought to be freezing to death sitting this close to it on full blast, but this is nice.

OK, yeah. It's only an hour to drive home. Yeah, I'm going back roads. And I'll watch myself.

Well, OK, so it takes me TWO hours and two stops but still, I'm home. Thank God!

(Recap: 49 starters. 20 finishers. Aid stations and support were top shelf. All in all, not a bad effort for my first exposure to these conditions in 2008. I'm sure I was on the cusp of some real ugliness. Glad I made the right call and bagged it when I did. Hey, sometimes turkey, sometimes bone.)

Steamy

Old Dominion 100-Mile Endurance Run is this weekend.

The expected RealFeel temp on Saturday is 106F. hahahah. ahahahah. 

I have drop bags with green tea, Frito's Corn Chips, Ensure Plus and then the latter ones some Red Bull too. OD aid stations are supposed to be pretty good these days, I'm told. Nice boost if that turns out to be so.

Potts will be around to crew me for a good bit of the second half, and Sophie plans to be my "safety runner" from Miles 75 to 87, the gnarly single-track chunk. Looking forward to sharing some aid station stops with Willy P. and a nice hunk of dark with Speedy Sophie. 

I should be terrified by this heat and humidity. I am not. Weird.

Showering off after this morning's light 25-minute run, I knocked my gym bag over and guess what fell out? My first iPod Shuffle. So I brought it in and uploaded some more recent tunes on it and now have TWO of them. This means, if the specs are correct, that, minus the 3.5 hours I'm running with Soph when I wouldn't be listening to tunes anyway, I should easily be able to pound tunes the entire way.  

o4oo Saturday start. Would be completely awesome to hit the finish line before daylight on Sunday. Course stays open until 0800 Sunday, so there's still quite a bit of breathing room there. Gonna be one of those years when you just gotta take whatever the day gives.

I am jacked to see how much joy I can find out there. 

well, anyway,some great OD prep

Came up just a little short on the admittedly pretty lunatic plan to do 2 hrs. Monday through Friday, then Trayfoot with Potts and Sophie.

That's "short," as in I only managed 25 mins. on Friday. Hit the rest of the days as RX'd though. And, when you package that with my having done 2 hrs. on the preceding Fri and Sat, then you get long ones on seven of nine days. 

Trayfoot was, of course, amazing. Sophie and Potts were kind enough to wait for the old, slow guy after they blitzed most of the downhill sections. Potts was shooting video and stills of the morning, which means that some really, really scary stuff may one day appear on YouTube and Flickr. What a fun, fun morning playing in the dirt with two of my faves.

All in all, pretty awesome prep for Old Dominion 100. Woo.

Streak Update: Thursday was Day 450. How cool is THAT?! 

All in good fun :-)

So I'm taking a quick break at work and doing a little surfing when I happen on this ad ...

It's for the Salomon XT Wings Challenge. You make up something stupid, then write back after you do it.

So, what the heck, how could I not bite, right?

What follows is the description i wrote ...

To celebrate my 47th b-day on May 9, I am doing a 2-hr. run/walk each day May 5-9, then a 21-miler on the Treyfoot Trail May 10 with my ultrarunning buddies.

(If I pull this off, what awesome training for OD, plus, who knows, maybe some sweet goodies too!)

Triple Dip, Part 3

Promise Land 50km in a word: AWESOME!

Ate steadily, maintained a gentle-yet-even-and-basically-whenever-I-wanted-to-punch-it strong pace. Had no problems with stomach (yay!) and even managed to be a little stronger still in the final 50 minutes, aka that awful downhill stretch at the end that crushes your quads whether you run 6:40 (three years ago) or 8:02, as I did Saturday.

Nutrition: An ice-cold 20 oz. green tea 30 mins. before the start. On the course, dried fruit, potato chips, a cold slice of pepperoni pizza (!!!), a tiny cup of ice cream (double !!!), maybe 75 ozs. of water and a couple cold cups of CLIP. Oh, two cups of Mountain Dew too. And several banana chunks.

The 8-hour jaunt to cap a 15-hour training week is a huge step in the right direction for OD.

Sure was great to hang with Potts, Dan, John, Neil and crew Friday night. Same goes for running with J.R., Blake and Dorothy, and hanging post-race with the usual suspects, a list that included Sophie, Flame, the Quiveys, Gary Knipling (THANKS FOR THE KNOB CREEK AND PEPSI, dude!!!).

I've done seven of the eight Promise Land runs. Horton knows how to put on a great show. Here's hoping he keeps it going somehow, even with the Promise Land camp being for sale.

Fun weekend. Fun run. Awesome prep for OD.

Triple Dip, Part 2

Part Dos was a little tougher, but just a little.

As predicted, the tough part was waking up. Did a 7 min. run/3 min. walk routine the whole way. Ate a Snickers Chocolate Chip Marathon Bar at halfway. Yum! Drank 16 ozs. from a hand-held bottle. Kept the run pace very gentle. Stayed mostly on flat stuff. 

Hammered two Egg McMuffins after. Brain seems to be working fine (relatively speaking, of course), so that's a great sign that recovery is happening.

Tomorrow should be most interesting. I have done a lot goofier triples than this (see the Great Tour de Skyline run), but not ones with sooooo much climbing on the final day. Talk about terrific training for OD! 

Promise Land is so steep at the start that you really have no choice but to be patient. Part of the built-in blessing. As long as I watch not to pound the downhills, this has all the ingredients for a great start to the OD build-up.

Triple Dip, Part 1

Part 1 comfortably in the bag.

A gentle 2 hours of random iPod run/walks. Most were three songs run, one walk, but a couple went 2/1. Depended on the song. I am sorry, but there are just some Sugarland songs that you cannot walk to.

Wore my Ultimate Direction hydration vest pack thingy. Drank 30 ozs. of water. Rare that I even take fluid on a 2-hour, mostly-in-the-dark run. Decided to change things up a bit to see if it has any positive residual. Well, and a 51F start is a lot warmer than, say, a 6F start, even if I don't sweat much even when it's 78F. 

Run was great. Did some push-ups and pull-ups after. Pounded a Greenberry's Supremo Mocha Mint latte. Ahhhhhhh. Probably enough calories in that to cover me for the run, b-fast and lunch, but scrawny runners need their food, so no thoughts of skipping lunch.

Found on the run: 43 cents (one quarter plus EIGHTEEN pennies) and one huge, live blacksnake. Kept the coins. 

Can anybody say "Triple dip?"

So I'm thinking, if I am "training through" Saturday's sometimes brutal Promise Land 50km with my eye on OD 100, why not go big ... as in sticking with the typical 2 hrs. Thursday a.m., 2 hrs. Friday a.m. routine, then follow it up with 7 to 8 hours at PL?

Would create quite the training effect, esp. with PL being such and up-and-up-and-up-and-down, single-track wonderland.

Can I do it? Or is it just too stupid? Ah, don't ya just love the questions that are just begging for answers. :-)

Wise words

Wow. Just read this column by Kristin Armstrong (one of my favorite writers of the moment) ...

http://tinyurl.com/3vs2dj

I use these feelings all the time in training, the amazing sense of wonder of the next moment, what's around the next turn, some view of a random rooftop that I've run past 50 times but never noticed. Same goes with a particular drum beat or other background sound when sporting the iPod Shuffle.

I left all that at home for this year's Umstead. Wow.

I agree with K. It's really a LOT more about persistence than talent. Especially when you're talking about 100-milers.

You can only do so much with your body. You finish 100s with your mind. A 100 is a test of will. Running helps, but running isn't all of it.

Old Dominion 100 is June 7. Glad I get another shot soon. :)

Wrong kind o' yakkin'

The short version of Umstead 100 2008: Swing and a miss.

My stomach was a complete mess from about 20 miles until I finally called it a day at the end of Lap 5, 62.5 miles in 15 hours and a little. That's my first DNF in a long while. It's still just as humbling as ever, if not moreso.

I've beaten myself up a fair amount trying to come up with some answers for what the heck went wrong. The reality is that I have no clue. I should be comfy in that state, given that it's where I've spent my entire ultra career.

Amazing how I can do a fairly tough 50-miler on cookies and water with energy to spare, then be in peak fitness and running a lot slower at Umstead, yet have some dramatic nausea before the marathon mark. Weird.

When I got home Sunday, it was straight here to the computer and away I went on a literature review of all things drink replacement. Sheer desperation almost led me to order one of them. Then I noticed a torn black notebook on the floor near the computer. An old hand-written running log I kept for years in a three-ring binder. Digging in, I found that magical year in 1998 when during a 10-week span I spanked Umstead in sub-22, then the challenging Bull Run Run 50-miler in 9:50 and my then-nemesis Old Dominion in 22:51. On the back page of the OD entry I wrote: Eight drop bags filled with one vanilla Nutrament, one sandwich baggie of Fritos and took one S Cap every two hours.

Hmmmm ... let's see ... that's a WHOLE lot less than I was trying to push in Saturday. Hmmm ...

Perhaps too much grub and not enough salt has been the problem more often than not since that magical 1998 stretch?

Stay tuned for more. OD 100 turns 30 this year. Seems as good a time as any to get reacquainted.

Umstead 100 Finish No. 9???

I go visit my old friend Umstead 100-Miler this weekend.

Completely and utterly psyched to catch up with old friends, make some new ones, tell a ton of stories, get my brain as far away from work as it can possibly get.

I have broken my cardinal rule and actually tapered with only 20- to 25-min. runs since last Friday. Trying to approach this one as an adult would. I actually have a nutrition plan. And I have committed to taking it VERY easy the first 25 miles. Hoping that combo will make it possible to make it through a whole Umstead without a nap (or a 3-hr. collapse like last year).

I'm really fit. I'm tapered. The weather looks hot and humid (yay!).

Found out just today that my buddy Amy Leigh "Flame" Brown has offered her services as Pacer Extraordinaire for the night shift, so that's added incentive for me to keep myself in one solid piece until darkness strikes. Imagine me and Flame blabbing our way through the North Carolina night together?

This could be one to remember.

Make that TWO dogs with everything ...

(Overheard on this morning's 2-hour run ...)

Little Voice Inside My Head: Dude, the veggie thing ain't cuttin' it.
Me: What?

LV: Your diet thing. It's not working.
Me: What?

LV: For one, you have been passing OUT at like 8:15 p.m. every night.
Me: What?

LV: And then you don't even know anything about nutrition OR take the time to fix the right foods. Then you fill in with total crap like candy bars. So the veggie thing is dumb.
Me: You think so?

LV: Plus, most important of all, how can you get your Little Kid on when you don't eat Jess' chili dogs? Or those steak pitas you like so much?
Me: Hmm. Valid points.

LV: I mean, really, aren't you supposed to saving exertion of will for 100-milers and crawlin' outta the rack at 0400 for weekday runs and stuff? What the hell have you been thinkin'?
Me: Umm. That I would feel better?

LV: Dude, you see that piece in Runner's World that says we are burning 591 calories an hour at our easy-run pace? That's, oh, about 1,200 cals a long run. So you're starting most days of late seriously in the hole.
Me: Crap. Really good argument.

LV: Man, are you a dork. Riddle me this: When was the last time you looked at a menu without indecision?
Me: Umm. Christmas?

LV: Exactly. So it's time to get over yourself ... now, go knock down some chili dogs. And chase 'em with onion rings. And a beer. Or two.
Me: OK, OK. You win. I give in. Just go away, OK?

LV: Not to worry. Gone! But I'm sure you'll give me a chance to be back soon.

Awesome short day

This morning is a pretty typical "short" day for me.

Did 25 mins. of 4/1 (note: i detest 20F), then followed with some Pilates, yoga, extra abs. Pilates was The Hundred, Leg Beaters (20 each side), Hip Beaters (10 each leg), Bicycle Twists (15 each leg), Superman (10 x 4 counts). Yoga was Drunk Flamingo (2 x 30 secs. each leg), modified Sun Salutation and modified Downward Dog (lotsa ahhhhhh from both). Finished with 60-second Plank and 45-Side Plank x 2.

Add to that a quick stop for some 7-Eleven coffee and you have a great, great way to kick-start the day.

Veggie Boy? Yup.

When you say, "I am a vegetarian," what does that mean?

Could mean lots of different things. In my case, what it means is that I am exploring a different way of fueling this engine, a way that hopefully makes me feel as good when I am not running as I do when I am.

It's not nearly as hard to do this as it was back in my post-collegiate days, really the last time I paid any attention at all to what I put in my mouth. Maybe that's because there are, according to a recent Washington Post column, 12 million American vegetarians.

My switch-over has been a gradual move spreading across the past month. This weekend, grocery shopping found us scoring soy burgers, soy milk and a couple cans of veggie chili to go along with the typical pierogies, fresh fruit and pasta that are already staples of the Team Gentry diet.

My goal is to avoid red meat entirely, and try to keep to a minimum anything pig. Fish and chicken stay. So does dairy.

I would have "gone vegetarian" years ago, but wasn't really willing to do the extra food prep and meal planning required to make that happen and still keep Heidi and Ben on their quasi-normal diet. So far, no problem. Given that it's Basketball Referee Season, I basically eat no weekday meals with either of them.

The good news is that I feel much, much better. The running is much better. My concentration is much, much better (maybe due to mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks and an overall increase in food intake).

Should be way interesting to see how this plays out.

Oh yeah, beer remains on the Preferred Foods list. Good runner food, beer. :-)

Great start

Any day that starts with a 2-hour run, then Animal Crackers has to be a good day.

Just another day in paradise, baby!

Did 2 hours run/walk (7 run, 3 walk) with Mike Carpenter and P.J. in and around the 'Burg. Yeah, it was 13F at 0500 when we shoved off. Yeah, I was in shorts. Yeah, they made big fun of me. No, my legs were fine. My hands, on the other hand (arf arf!), were stumps, even in double gloves. Parked at Carp's house, I was so pathetic that i ALMOST had to go get help with turning the key in the ignition. Yep, guess it's time to replace those 7-Eleven Jersey gloves with some real ones. :-)

Strength work before showering: 4 rounds of 15 push-ups, 20 crunches, 5 pull-ups in 4:55. Nice number. I can go faster. The last round everything hurt. Awesome!

Tonight I ref girls' JV hoops at Spotswood High School with Scott Arbogast, a young guy who is top quality. Good supplemental training piece and should be a fun time. Nice change to be home by 8ish, too.

One Six Ohhhhhhhh!

Yep, I managed to click off 160 long runs for 2007.

Pretty cool when you consider that I only got 10 each in March and April primarily because of Umstead 100-Miler and then the 90-mile effort at the Virginia Run for Cancer 24-Hour event. That means a WHOLE bunch of long ones August through December.

So this year, my fifth since I invented this tracking system, finishes with 160 runs and 434.5 points. Previous top total of long runs was 2006's 150. This year's point total is a bit lower than 2005's 452, but still a good bit higher than the yearly average of ... let's see ... 400. Sweet!

What excellent fun.

Repeat after me: "Hammer curls are my friend."

So, wonder what would happen to the ever-so-ordinary ultrarunner if he were to, say, clip off 150 reps each arm of hammer curls with, say, 3 lb. dumbbells every day for, say, a month?

Dunno. More on this about Jan. 25 or so. :-)

Merry, Merry Christmas all!

That new Power Ranger game clearly takes a ton of Christmas-morning concentration, especially when you are at the Green Ranger level.

Serious, serious don't-mess-with-me business here, bucko. Go Rangers!

(Great morning here at 1300 Gum with Aunt Wendi and Allen coming for yummy b-fast and fun gift opening. My crew is resting now, then it's off to Elkton to do much of it again with my side of the fam. Good times.)

Sad Day

I cried myself out today.

Sherman, our 9-year-old lab beagle chow mix, succumbed to the diabetes that had wracked his world and ours for the past three months or so. We knew this was coming. Didn't make it one bit easier.

Heidi and I were up and down with Sherman throughout last night as he drank and panted and asked to go outside and ate grass and threw up and all that. A late-morning seizure sent me to call our Waynesboro vet and ask if they could put him down.

I thought I was all cried out as I loaded him in the truck one final time for the 15-minute drive, but you know how tears are. We've been pretty tight since I dragged him out from under that makeshift Stokesville cabin where he was born. I was his primary trainer during Head Start for Puppies. We slept a lot of nights on the floor together, me in a sleeping bag and him snuggled against my back, when H was pregnant with Benjamin.

Puppa, one of his many nicknames, always had a special yip sound for me when I came home. We always joked about him being my running coach, and how I would totally suck as an ultrarunner if it weren't for his sage advice. We concocted Rock Status, officially bestowed on me when I finished a 100-miler and yakked away when I didn't.

He's always been a scared boy hiding in a mean-sounding dog suit. And he's been one of the main loves of my life for almost a decade now.

As we headed down the road to Waynesboro, me with one hand on my buddy and the other on the steering wheel, I told him that I'd given this past three months my best and apologized for not always hitting the right spot on the twice-daily insulin injections. I told him I was sorry if he hurt much, and that I loved him more than even I imagined possible. I thanked him for being there for me through thick and thin, for always forgiving me, for always accepting my love, for always being willing to hear my dumb stories and come out in the yard and watch me do my pull-ups at the various places we have lived.

Just before noon, just outside the Waynesboro city limits, my Puppa said good-bye to this life. He had his head resting partially on his favorite pillow and partially on my lap. I wouldn't have wished it to be any other way.

When we get his ashes from the vet, I know the perfect spot. There's a doggie cemetery on one of my favorites running roads. Turns out that is at Stokesville, where our handsome boy was born.

Save me a spot, Puppa. When I hear your special Dad yips, I know I'll be home at last.

Love you, my old sweetheart boy.

Your Dad

true definition of "bonk"

This, courtesy of my Wesleyan brother forever Bill Potts, captures the essence of ultrarunning at those times when things go just a bit awry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk8uYmAo8y0

No. 150 already

Today's 2:20 late-morning effort gives me 150 long ones for 2007, and the outside possibility of hitting a hard-to-ever-top total of 160 before the year's out.

Absolutely, totally KEWL! And THEN some!

Streak update: All is well. Next significant date is Dec. 17, Day 300.

Tweeeeeeeeeet!

Yup. It's that time of the year again. Basketball season is here in all its glory.

That means I hit the court 4-5 games a week for much of the next three months. Reffing is a nice break from work, a little extra running of a slightly different sort and a pretty fair supplement to the ol' pocket book. No adverse effects on the running, other than that I get home sort of late on occasion and maybe are a wee bit charged up when it comes time that I actually need to fall asleep.

Last week I worked varsity girls Wednesday, eighth-grade boys Thursday, JV boys Friday and then a girls' varsity/girls' varsity/boys' varsity triple-header Saturday. The week's running included at least 2-hour runs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Got some really good strength training sessions in too.

Grueling physical effort? Nah. Glutton for punishment? Nope. Aging fool fully engaged in the ever-pressing pursuit of the poetry of a life in motion?

All depends on how you look at it, I guess.

Gentle, Gentle Fun

Saturday's Mountain Masochist Trail Run 50-Miler was a day of smiles, laughter, the drinking in of picturesque views and sharing of running with some of a neatest people anywhere.

The beautiful setting that is the mountains around Lynchburg was the scene for some pretty sweet reminiscing during my 13th successful traverse of the vaunted MMTR layout. Masochist was my first ultra back in 1991, quite an introduction for a relatively OK road marathoner who thought he might be able to score a top-10 as slow as those guys seemed to be going on those trails. I ran the first 43 miles or so, then walked the next six with tail firmly tucked between legs before blitzing the final mile to the finish.

Somewhere along the way that day, I found a piece of myself that I have held pretty tightly to ever since, across more than a decade and a half, some 85 ultra finishes and another 35 or so marathon finishes too.

Saturday was a fitting tribute to that first foray in ultra-mania. Coming in superbly fit, I chugged my way to the halfway point in 5:15, then just out of the blue decided to keep it steady and see what unfolded. What unfolded was a general slowdown that found me taking time out to stop and watch the glorious mountaintop sunlight, break to stare at the most purple leaves I have yet to notice, just generally gulp all of it in. Thanks to Rob Apple for sharing with me a unique view of nature borne from, among other positives, his previous FIVE-HUNDRED AND THREE successful ultras. Wow!

Sometimes, if you're lucky, you get the chance to witness the personification of "amazing." I got to do just that as I shared the final 12.5 miles with the venerable Mr. Apple. Very, very fun time.

By The Numbers

With today's 2-hour run/walk marking 36 straight weeks of running each day, it got me thinking about some numbers. A little digging uncovered the following ...

252 days in a row • 110 runs of at least 2 hours • a 100-mile finish at Umstead in March • a 90-miler at the Virginia Run for Cancer 24-Hour Run in April • 73 basketball games officiated (no, none of them count as runs ;-) • a 50km finish at Catherine's Big Butt in July • a 40-miler finish at Highlands Sky in June • a 26.2-miler finish at Shamrock Marathon in March • a 19:26 5km race at Gypsy Hill Park in Staunton on July 4 • 16 weeks of three long runs in the same calendar week • a 6:08 one-mile solo time trial • 5 other weeks of four long runs • 3 different trips around the killer 25-mile Wild Oak Trail • 2 other weeks of 5 long runs

Mix it somewhere around 5,000 crunches, 3,000 push-ups, 1,500 or so pull-ups and a couple hundred 4 a.m. alarm answers and, well, you get a crystalline picture of lunacy.

Wow. I really am a freak. :-)

Vintage me

What's one inch long, a half-inch wide and makes you feel like a complete and utter moron?

That would be the sweet new knot on my forehead, courtesy of an immovable door and my remarkable lack of attention to life's most mundane tasks.

Trying to close the door for my ref buddy this afternoon while in our dressing-room-under-construction at a local middle school and, of course, deep in the midst of what I am sure was a most important convo, I took one hard step toward the door an arm's reach away and -- BAM -- header city.

Paul: Bill, are you OK, dude?

Me: Oh yeah, no worries. I'm good. (Sung to the tune of "Oh yeah, I'm fine. No need to take the keys.")

Paul: Are you sure? I think you lost it there for a second.

Me: No, no. Really. I'll be fine. Let's see? Yeah, head doesn't hurt a bit except for right at that one spot. And I can feel my neck and shoulders, so I'm sure we're good. Well, OK, I may be having a little trouble feeling my elbows right now, but I'm sure that will pass ...

Game went fine. No problems at all. So really all I have to show for my lack of attention is what looks like a gigantic pinkish welt atop my forehead even with my right eye. With any luck, it won't turn blue.

Photos tomorrow if it does. Unless I spend tomorrow babbling like a complete idiot. How will anybody be able to tell the difference? Wow. Great question.

And from the nutrition front

This just in from a nutrition column at insidetri.com ...

"Believe it or not, low-fat chocolate milk has proven to be a very successful recovery beverage providing 84 grams of carbohydrate, 26 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat, and 345 mg of sodium in 24 ounces!"

Wonder how that stacks up vs. my 24 oz. 7-Eleven coffee with four creamers, four sugars and powdered chocolate?

Anyone see a research project in the making here?

Happens to me in most 100-milers ...

Quote from a runnersworld.com feature about budding world-class marathoner Brian Sell ...

But that's nothing compared to the story he likes to tells about himself at the 22-mile mark of the 2004 USA Men's Olympic Marathon Trials in Birmingham, AL. "The last four miles of that race were the worst marathon experience I've ever had," he says. "I hit the wall SO hard. If I never have to repeat that again, it will be too soon. Clint Verran said that when he caught me, I looked like someone who had crawled into a road-side ditch to try to find some used chewing gum."

Never thought I'd see this ...

2008 Umstead 100 Mile Endurance Run
April 5 , 2008 6:00am

Registration now open !! - click here

Race Cap: 250
Current registrations: 110 as of 8/31/07 8:30pm
Don't wait !!


Registration opened this morning for this one, my fave of faves. About lunchtime, I got e-mail from race director Blake Norwood saying not to fiddle around because he had about 100 entrants in the first six hours! So I leaped into the 21st century and entered via Active.com, which is awesome.

Cracked me completely up that this race may actually fill all 250 slots in a day or two. My first year there, 1996, We had 77 starters and 38 finishers. I entered the night before the race.

Who would have ever imagined this?

Time to go a little crazy maybe?

Last week long runs were 2 hrs. Monday, 2 hrs. Tuesday, 2h10 Thursday and 3h08 Friday (AWESOME Appalachian Trail run in Afton Mountain area with Sophie!!!), soooo .... I am thinking that maybe I may kick things up a notch during August and continue this M/Tu/Th/F long run thing. Would be good prep for my Two Loops of Wild Oak assault in mid-October.

The 2h20m of 9/1 went pretty smoothly this morning. Given that this is my first day back at work after my first real vacation in ?? years, maybe it's just an after-glow thing. Then again, maybe not. Guess we'll see, huh?

That next corner

So I'm on my third long run in four days during last week's vaycay in Greensboro, N.C., when it happens.

I round a turn on a paved bike path during the steamy morning when I see this little sweat-drenched kid running with the most determined look on his face, completely lost in his own world of effort. I'm guessing 7 or 8, about the same age as our Ben. Close behind, on a mountain bike, and ever-watchful comes his dad. Neither seems to notice me as we pass.

About 15 minutes later I come to the end of the path, then decide to do a bit of exploring through the ritzy subdivision by hopping out on the street. Up a short steep hill I go, then turn around to walk down when my watch beeps to signal a walk break.

As I'm walking down, up comes the kid. This time I get a better look and notice the slightly out-of-kilter gait and then the Special Olympics T-shirt. Still lost in the effort but starting to fade a bit on the pace, up the hill he heads. This time, I clap a couple times and give him a "good job, dude; relax and drive those arms on this hill."

The smile I got and the quiet fist pump from his dad gave me goosebumps. Such vast thanks from such a simple act. Then I spent the final 40 minutes of the run awash in gratitude for how easy my life is and how fortunate I am to have all the blessings that I have.

I had planned on driving into downtown Greensboro to run that morning, but at the last minute changed my mind. Sometimes, the best lesson you could hope for is just around that next corner.

... TEN thousand words!

9:55 and change. A really beautiful run. A really relaxing weekend.

a sweet getaway plan

Doing the Highlands Sky 40-Miler Saturday at Canaan Valley, W.Va., and it's so close to West Virginia Wesleyan that I am not gonna pass up the chance to visit Buckhannon for the first time in probably a decade.

So, the plan is: Leave here around 5 a.m., drive three hours to Sunny Buck, take a short run, shower, take a stroll around, hit the bookstore, head back to Canaan.

Race will be fun. Party will be better. Weekend promises to be a complete winner.

Lupus fundraiser with some shwag maybe

Just saw this on the Ultra List and felt the urge to pass it on, so ... here.

Seems a worthy cause, and what's $5?



Subject: Support my run, win some sunglasses!
From: Brian Thomas
Reply-To: Brian Thomas
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 21:38:17 -0400
Content-Type: text/plain

I've lurked on the list for a while now as I've been training for the
North Country 50 Mile Trail Run in Manistee, Michigan in September. This
is my first 50 miler, although I have a few marathons and a 50k under my
belt. I've decided that part of my training should involve working to
raise money for a good cause and therefore I'm spending the summer using
my run as a fundraiser for the Lupus Foundation of America. My family
knows several people who suffer from this disease and more than five
million people worldwide, mostly women, face an unpredictable future as
they struggle daily with the often debilitating health consequences of
lupus, a potentially life-threatening autoimmune disease that causes the
immune system to attack the body’s own healthy tissue.

On to the good stuff. Who doesn't like winning stuff? Tifosi Optics has
generously donated two pairs of sunglasses that I am raffling off to
those who donate money to the Lupus Foundation in support of my run. For
every $5 that you donate, you will have one chance to receive one of the
pairs of sunglasses (e.g. if you donate $25, you will have five chances
to win.)

I've been running in a pair of these for the last few months and these
are quite a step up from the cheap gas station sunglasses that I am used
to. They are lightweight, stay in place while sweaty, and don't fog up.
They even have interchangeable lenses. They're great for running and, I
imagine, other outdoor sports.

Please don't send me any money--I will just track the donations that are
made directly to the Foundation through their online system. You can
donate through my website at http://www.brianruns.blogspot.com.

My goal is to sell 200 additional "tickets," which would mean another
$1,000 towards our goal. Please pass this information on and help
support the Lupus Foundation of America.

One final note, if you have a blog and mention my effort, I will gladly
give you a free entry just for helping me spread the word. I've been
really impressed with the people on this list and, even if you don't
have the funds to help out the Foundation, I would appreciate any help
promoting my efforts. Thanks.

Regards,
Brian Thomas
brian@thomaswallace.org

A Little Run (arf arf)

A quick update on the latest running streak ...

106 days. 41 long runs, including two marathons, a 100-miler, a 90-miler and one loop out at Wild Oak. Actually have done two speed sessions at the track, but those should serve as my about-once-each-five years track workouts.

Upcoming races on the agenda: Highlands Sky 40-Miler, Canaan Valley, W.Va., June 16; Catherine's Big Butt 50 km, New Market Mountain, July 22; Mountain Masochist 50-Miler Nov. 3; VHTRC 50 km mid-December. Will likely toss a marathon in there somewhere, and maybe a one-day trek somewhere in the Shenandoah Valley when the fam goes on vaycay early August.

Me and Maddy

Had a spectacular 2-hour run this a.m. on the fire road alongside Madison Run in Shenandoah National Park, a 10-min. drive from my house. It's 5.2 miles of up, then 5.2 of down. Saw a BEAR CUB! Worked through some creative ideas for a project at work. Also had a bit of a brainstorm ... wouldn't it be completely cool to try some repeats here.

If today's one Maddy, a gentle 7-min. run/3-min. walk effort, took two hours, wonder how long two Maddys would take? Three? Maybe some version of Repeat Maddys is the order of the day on Memorial Day Monday?

Was off today to hang with Ben on a field trip, and was thinking of driving in the H-burg anyway and running beforehand. Extra thanks to Rinn for suggesting I go here instead. I forgot how amazingly peaceful Maddy can be.

Me and Maddy go way, way back. She has served as the start and end portions of probably 50 great trail runs across the years with lots of cool running buds. Jones River Falls. Big Run Portal. Black Rock. Jeff, Neil, Pete, etc. Lots of cool memories came rushing back at different times.

It was good to see her again this morning. I have a feeling we'll be getting together again a bunch in the coming months.