The Zen of Ultra Running

Oh boy, what a busy (and lazy) Thanksgiving break! On Thursday (Thanksgiving), I signed up for the Home Run for the Homeless 4 miler (turkey trot) in Akron. I did this race last year with a colleague (and her family) and really liked the idea of running a turkey trot on Thanksgiving. So, this year I signed up to do it again. A couple of days before the race, I realized that a lot of my running friends would be there, too. That made me even more excited. On the race day, there were sooo many people making it very hard to find my friends. There was a group picture in front of Krispy Kreme at 8:45am. I did not know which group the picture was for and found out later that it was for another group that I have not even run with them (but heard of them). So, I felt bad that I appeared like I belonged to that group in the group picture. After the group picture, I slowly made my way to the front of the pack where I found E. and J. (and their friends). E. is a fast/badass ultra marathon runner...

In 2016, when I first moved to NE Ohio, someone told me about Bills' Badass 50K. I also got to run with the race director and became friends with him and the group. I was only training for my first marathon at that time and ran the marathon at Run with Scissors 2 weeks before BBA50K. After considering all the factors involved, I decided NOT to run BBA that year but volunteer at the race instead (to get the feeling/experience of the trail community in NE Ohio). I fell in love with the community on that day.  Bills' Badass 50K started 10 years ago. It's a free race because the RD wanted to make the race accessible to everyone. However, they encourage runners to make donations and each year the money goes to one of the non-profit organizations in NE Ohio.  In 2017, I ran the double marathon at Run with Scissors and had enough of the muddy, wet, cold rain condition that I did not want to run another 50K two weeks later in the same weather condition. So, I again volunte...

The first time I ran Autumn Leaves 5 miler was in 2016. I did not run it last year because I just finished the double marathon at Run with Scissors. This year I signed up with a couple of friends again. We also know the race director and wanted to give her the support. The week leading to the race was kinda...blah... It was raining everyday for a week, which made everything so dull. I managed to get some run in everyday even though I did not feel like it. On Friday, I had a curriculum summit on campus in the morning and in the evening I ran with H. on her birthday run. She turned 40 this year and wanted to run 40 miles on her birthday (pretty cool, eh?). She invited a couple of friends to run with her during different sections and I ran 5 miles with her on the Bills' Badass loop. Saturday there was a training run for Bills' Badass 50K. Many people showed up to the group run. We ran about 1.5 loops at BBA before some of us went to grab coffee at the coffee shop in Richfield....