The Zen of Ultra Running

The first race and first ultra marathon of the year - Olde Girdled Grit 50K. After coming back from the long vacation in Thailand, I started to look for a race in February and found this one. I've seen many people ran OGG in the past but never thought about doing it until this year. I signed up for the race not knowing any information about the elevation, aid stations, or even location. All I knew was it was in the driving distance somewhere near Cleveland. The week before the race was hectic. I was trying to meet a work deadline but still had to teach and had meetings all day on Friday. It was the first time I was still working on Friday night before the race. I did not get a good sleep that night and partly due to stress and anxiety. Morning of the race I woke up and had my pre-race routine. Drove to the race with the mindset that it's going to be a long, happy day in the woods. The forecast said it was going to be in the high 40s during the day so I did not wear enough l

Last weekend we had a chance to get out on a beautiful, (less) cold Saturday morning. It was my first run in five days and I was looking forward to it. In the blog last week, I talked about negativity and no motivation to do anything. Let alone exercising or running. I found that I was not alone in feeling that way. Many people also felt down on the very cold days that we had in NE Ohio. We visited Twin Sisters Falls, which were completely frozen. The trails leading to the falls were....pretty icy. We had to walk on a frozen stream, which we were not sure if it's completely frozen. However, once we got there, they were completely breathtaking. Due to the polar vortex the week before, the waterfalls were frozen and it created the most beautiful effect I'd ever seen. On that day, we ran about 12 miles, which was enough for me and enough to make me feel good about myself again. Then we went to Columbus on Saturday afternoon to buy some furniture at IKEA. It turned out tha