The Zen of Ultra Running

After the Canal Corridor 100, I was in a boot for 3 weeks. I admit that I kinda lost my running mojo after being in the boot and being away from the trails. My left ankle still hurt every time I ran on trails especially bridle trails. I also shifted my focus to triathlon training. In other words, I was all over the place. A good friend who is also a triathlon coach kindly sent me a brief training program after seeing me freaking out about the Akron marathon. After getting out of the boot, my longest run was still at 12 miles 3 weeks prior to the marathon. Two weeks before the marathon I ran 20 slow miles on uneven trails and that made my injured ankle worse (Yes, I admit that it was a stupid decision to train for my road marathon on trail but I missed trail running and my running friends). Then, we traveled across the world to attend my sister's wedding and were super busy while we were in Bangkok. However, I got a chance to squeeze in 12 miles on Saturday (a week before the mara...

Portage lake triathlon was the first and last triathlon race for me in 2018. Because my main focus since the beginning of the year was on the Canal Corridor 100, I did not allocate much time for swimming and biking (let along Brick workouts). Originally, I signed up for Vermillion triathlon (sprint) but I felt that I was not ready before Vermillion so I emailed the race organizer and asked to defer the race to Portage Lake. They were very understanding and switched my registration to Portage Lake sprint tri. A couple of weeks leading to the race day, I'd been biking with B. and K. on Sundays but did not seriously "train" for the race. I was glad to clip in and out of the bike shoes without too much ankle pain. Wednesday before the race I did Brick (bike and run) for the first and last time before the race. I did not have any expectation with this race at all. On the race day, it rained really hard and the temperature dropped to 50+ degrees that morning. Many people ...