Sunday, January 29, 2012

Tat #1,Training, and congrats to David Riddle

When you run for hours on a treadmill you think about a lot of "what if". I saw this on Slowtwitch last Fall and decided to get my first one.

Last year I was not really prepared (distance wise) for the races. My ego would get the best of me, and I would ditch the slow long runs and replace with intervals. I would go to the track and start at a slow pace, but it would always evolve into a "let's see how fast I can do 400 meter intervals". It assured my sore muscles the next day, but did little for my endurance.

I read somewhere, leave your ego at the door, and run slow and long to train your body for endurance. So my runs, since late 2011, have been 1 to 1 1/2 hours and I should be at 2 hours soon. Of course, this drives me crazy, but I am finding ways to entertain myself. I guess my heart rate then look at the Garmin to see how close i am. Also experimenting with drink-nutrition schedules which will help this year. I also started listening to music which believe it or not, is new to me.















And congrats to my hero David Riddle:

Next, I wanted to acknowledge the results from the Ultrarunner of the Year voting. I was stoked to find out this week that I finished 4th in the UROY voting behind the likes of Dave Mackey, Michael Wardian, and Mike Wolfe. It's a huge honor just to be considered in the top 10 with all of the great runners on that list. And it was unimaginable just a year ago that I would jump from an honorable mention to being regarded as one of the top ultra guys in North America.

That was certainly great news, but I can top it. My performance at the JFK 50 Mile was voted the top performance of the year by a North American ultrarunner. I was stunned and speechless immediately after running JFK, and now that I know how highly the ultra community regards my race at JFK, it just makes it that much more difficult to comprehend.

This is what I see in my head, if I think I should stop when I get a bit tired training, it always works.