The Zen of Ultra Running

Monday after the race weekend I donated blood. I always donate blood whenever I have a break (3-4 weeks) from races as it takes around 2 weeks for my body to recover from blood donation fatigue.  This time I felt really weak after the donation. They also recommend no heavy lifting or exercise 8 hours after the donation. It's also the finals week and I had a lot of deadlines so I took 2 days off and did completely nothing (except work).  Wednesday - went to the indoor cycling class. Kicked my butt as usual. Despite 2 days of resting, my legs were still tired. Not sure it's because of the races or blood donation.  I was REALLY tired on Thursday. I felt like it's accumulated since the weekend. I tried to get out of bed in the morning to go for a run but I could not. Decided to sleep in and slept for 12 hours. It's also that time of the year when everything was due and needed to be done. I am usually stressed out and that always affects my exercise ro

Salt Fork Spring Challenge 10.5  12ish miles. When D. told me about this race and said a group of runners were going to run Salt Fork and had a weekend getaway, I thought it was a good idea but was not sure if I could do it because it's at the end of the semester. Turned out that I could get away on that weekend so I signed up for the race. I love the idea of girls getaway weekend. I did one last year with MOTR ladies (Superior Spring trail 25K in Duluth, MN) and that was very fun. There were 9 of us running the race and some ladies planned on staying for 2 nights. Too bad the race was at the end of the semester and it's usually the busiest time for me. I could only stay one night (Friday) at Salt Fork. We rented 2 cabins. I drove down there with D. and M. on Friday afternoon. We arrived at Salt Fork State Park around 5:30pm. Picked up the package, checked in the cabin, and had dinner at the lodge. This is the view from our cabin. The race started at 9:30am on Satu