running, life and living the dream

The night before the race as normal I was anxious and a bit absent minded. I laid out all my gels and tried to picture in my head how many I would need to maintain 200 to 300 calories an hour. I had an idea of what I wanted to wear taking into consideration that it would be chilly at the start. My buddy Giles told me he would be picking me up between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m.   I set my alarm for 4:45 but snoozed until about 5:00 a.m.   Once I got up time seemed to fly.   I got dressed, drank half a cup of coffee and ate a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich. Giles picked me up and headed to Estrella Mounting Regional Park. We pulled into the parking lot of the Rodeo Arena, where the start and finish of the race would be. We had about 40 minutes until the start.    After picking up are race bibs we walked back to the truck to prep for the race and stay warm.   I pinned my race bib, #19 to my shorts.   I was curious about the live web cast.   So using ...

4 days until my second ultra marathon.  I really have not been too nervous about this race up until today.  Also taking into consideration in little over for weeks from now I will be running my third.  I got quite the line up.  I really feel like it is possible for me to run and finish these races. I am feeling confident in my training.  I wish could say my nutrition, I am eating more, but not so much the most efficient foods I could be.   A friend of mine asked me the other day if I run these races to win or place.  I kind of laughed and said no I mostly run to challenge myself, beat my own time and survive the challenge.  Truth be told, I do day dream of winning a race or being an elite, but I realize my limitations and I am completely satisfied with them.   I really enjoyed watching the coverage of the US Marathon Olympic Team Trials.  It made me curious about refocusing my mind from ultra trail running to marathon road races. Honestly right now I know I have just barley peeked ...

Keeping up with this blog is a bit more challenging then I imagined.   But I still enjoy it and hope to do it on a more regular basis.   I have had quite a few running experiences since my last post.   As I write/edit this I am counting down the minutes to the US Marathon team trials being aired on NBC.   Pretty exciting!   I was happy to see that some ultra trail runners qualified to run in the trials.   A few names include Jenn Shelton and Max King.   I am routing for Kara Goucher on the women’s side.   Don’t tell my wife I said this, but she is a babe! Last Sunday, February 8, I ran the Xterra White Tanks 20K trail race.   I was really excited for it.   I had it in mind to treat it as a training run for the Cold Water Rumble 50K coming up on February 21 st at Estrella Mountain in Goodyear, Arizona.   I still wanted to push myself to the limit and get a good time at the race.   I feel like I accomplished that.   I ga...