The Zen of Ultra Running

What a fun long (run) weekend! It's time to get serious and train for the A race this year. On Saturday, a group of us went to down Mohican State Park to run the "short loop" of the Mohican 100. I forgot that it was also on the same day as the Medina Half Marathon (MHM) and I signed up to volunteer from 5 to 7:30am at the race. MHM is a club race and I wanted to support the race as much as I could. I blamed it on the ultramarathon training (and work) that I could only volunteer on Saturday morning. After volunteering, I drove to Mohican and met the rest of the group there. T. parked her car at the Covered Bridge so we could use her car as an aid station (CB is the halfway point of the course). The weather was nice at the beginning of the run and it got really hot and humid toward the end. After the run, I drove home and went to an Ethiopian dinner with P. On Sunday, there was a fat ass event put together by a local running group called "Trail Seekers" ...

"Almost heaven West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains Shenandoah River Life is old there older than the trees Younger than the mountains blowin' like a breeze. Country roads take me home To the place I belove West Virginia mountain momma Take me home country roads" I've never been to the west side of Virginia before. This weekend was the first time I experienced Massanutten mountain and its beauty. After seeing Shenandoah River, this song popped up in my head. My dad likes John Denver and we've sung this song (Take me home, Country roads) since I was young. It's good to be able to connect the song with the landmark. This weekend I, together with B. and T., had an honor of crewing and pacing R. (Master) on his 20th finish at Massanutten 100 (MMT100). It was also the first time he had crew and pacers at the race (the previous 19 times he ran it solo - no pacer, no crew). It started with R. telling me to enter this race when I was thinking about ...

I still have unfinished business with Outrun 24 (O24). I signed up for this race last year because 1) I wanted to try the 24-hour race format and see if I would like it or not (I knew I would end up either loving or hating this race format) 2) I needed a tune-up race for any 100 miler I signed up in the summer. The timing of this race was not ideal. It always falls around the end of the semester (esp. last week of instructions). So, I was reluctant to sign up. Then, I told myself if I gave myself enough time to prepare for the end of semester crisis, I could still do this race because it's local (only 40 minutes drive from home). I volunteered at this race last year and ran about 15 miles with G. (in the dark). I thought it was 'ok'. A week before the race I went out with Coach C. to run a couple of loops on the course. The picture below shows what the course looks like and then the song "Baby Shark" popped up in my head. The week leading to the race day ...

Freezing rain, strong wind, numb hands/fingers. These pretty much sum my race experience at the 20 Mile Drop in Fairport Harbour today. This race was part of the Lake health running series. I was looking for a marathon on this weekend (April 13/14) but I could not find one close to home. So, I signed up for this race as it's at least a 20 miler, which I wanted to do as part of my long run. The day before the race I went out and ran 19 miles on the trail with D. (aimed for 4 hours and we ended up doing 4.5 hours). My legs felt fine but tired. I thought this would be a good back-to-back long run weekend after missing 2 weekends in a row due to work. The race started at 7:15am. It's a point-to-point race where the runners got shuttled to another town and ran back to the finish line where we parked. The buses left the finish line at 6:30. We had to wait at the start line about 30 minutes. Some waited in line for the porta potty. Luckily, someone opened a building in the mid...

Two words - Mud Fest The first year I ran the Buzzard Day Trail races was in 2017 as the 2nd 50K race. I was still very new to trail running. Last year I dropped to the 25K as the distance fit with my training plan. I started early and helped out in the kitchen after my run. The week of the race this year I was debating if I should switch to the 100K distance because I just ran Olde Girdled Grit 50K last month and that was manageable for me. I talked to my coach (she was also the co-race director this year) and the race director (R.) about the possibility to switch and they said I just had to tell them before the race day if I wanted to switch. Then, a series of bad events happened at work throughout the week and I was really stressed out and too busy with work. So, the idea of running the 100K was put on hold. My coach (C.) told me to see how I felt on Friday then make the decision. On Friday, I was too exhausted to even think about the race. So, I decided to stick...

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...