The Zen of Ultra Running

First race of 2017 turned out to be a 50K! I signed up for the Buzzard Day Trail Race last year before the price went up. At that time, I just completed the first 50K at Buckeye Woods and felt that 50K was not too horrible. I signed up for the 50K because I thought I could always drop to the 25K if necessary. Then, after coming back from the 3-week vacation, I started a training plan with a hope to train for a 50 mile race in June. I upped my mileages too fast too soon and that's how I got injured. My left ankle started screaming after 13-15 miles. Along with other issues, I had to change my training plan to focus more on triathlon training instead. The week prior to the race I ran the whole Buzzard course with the Saturday run group for the first time in 2 weeks. My ankle was fine and I felt good after the run. I also ran 4 easy miles on Sunday because I wanted to test if my ankle could tolerate back-to-back runs and it did! (yay) The week before the race weekend we got a sn...

After couple of weeks of switching to a loose triathlon training plan, I finally got in the groove. Monday - All-level yoga. Started the week with low motivation to work and high level of stress due to a series of bad news last week. I needed something to calm me down. Tuesday - Swim. It was raining pretty hard on Tuesday morning and I did not sleep well the night before so I canceled a run with M and went to the pool instead. Swam about 0.8 mile to practice bilateral breathing. Wednesday - Indoor cycling class. After skipping class twice, I felt guilty for skipping another one. Now I realized the impact of cycling on my running. It helps tremendously on hills.  Thursday - Oak hill trail run with M. We talked about possibilities in life. Time flew when we engaged in a good discussion. My ankle started to hurt less. Friday - Candle light yoga. Wanted to swim in the morning but the pool was closed because of a competition. Then, I had a long meeting at work...

Sometimes, life is not always how you want it to be and we get lost in other activities that we forget what the true priorities are. We all have professional and personal goals that we try to reach but we have to admit that only few people could accomplish both at the same time. Lately, I have been focusing (too much) on my personal goals and on myself that I was told I gave running and exercise the first priority. Ultra marathon training is demanding and sometimes you can be running for 7-8 hours, especially when you do back-to-back long runs, which means your whole weekend is gone. It might be fine if you are single or your family is fully on board and they are not expecting you to be home by a certain time. That is not a case in my family. I have to re-prioritize things. Family comes first. Long run on Saturday will have to be subject to whether the family has other plans on that day or not. It has to also be clearly communicated a few days in advance about what time I will be h...

Since I came back from the vacation, I started to get back on my training routine and was thinking about doing a 50 mile race at Mohican 100. When I designed the training schedule, I forgot that I hadn't run for 2 full weeks and should have taken it slow at first. I began with running back-to-back long runs on one weekend followed by a 13ish miles on the next weekend. My ankle started to scream due to the fast increase in mileages. I took a break from running for a week hoping that I would feel better and the rest would be enough to run the marathon loop at Mohican. I was wrong. Around Mile 13, my ankle started to say "That's enough!" but I still pushed it til we ended the run around Mile 23 (we had to do a couple of short cuts). After the Mohican run plus other family issues, I decided to pause Saturday long runs for now and switch to the triathlon training plan instead. The good thing about triathlon training plan is that you do more biking and swimming and less...

On Saturday February 18, a group of us went to Mohican State Park to run the marathon loop (long loop) for Mohican 100. We stopped at Mellor's for breakfast. I had two eggs, bacon, and toast with a cup-ish of coffee.  After breakfast, we drove to the trailhead and started running around 8.15. The weather was perfect (50-60F). The course is challenging with a lot of hills. Majority of the course is on mountain bike trails, which, in my opinion, makes the course easier to run compared to bridle trails. It reminds me of the terrain at Lowes Creek Park in Eau Claire. Occasionally, we had to stop and give way to mountain bikers.  Around Mile 13-14, my ankle started to act up and I was thinking about cutting it short. However, due to logistics problem, I decided to keep going with the group. Eventually, we cut it short and only went 23 miles instead of the whole marathon loop. The famous root climb. Took picture with the gnomes. Mohican 100 has 3 distances...

*This article was written for Medina County Road Runner Club newsletter* On December 17 th 2016, I had a chance to run a charity race in Bangkok, Thailand. I usually go back to Thailand once a year to visit family and friends. If you are interested in visiting Thailand, the best time of the year is from November to February because it is considered “winter” there. When I say winter, I mean 70-85 degrees. The hottest month will be April and the temperature could rise to 100 degrees. This year I signed up for a 10K at the Greenwave Oxygen Run that donated part of the profit to the National Institute of Child Health. The race was organized by a popular radio station and several “Thai celebrities” were running the race. There were two distances - a 5K (called micro marathon) and a 10K (called mini marathon). That might have answered my question why many people told me they run a “marathon”. The race started at 6am (yes, you read it correctly) to avoid the heat. It was about 70...

After I ran the marathon at Run with scissors last month, I was considering doing BBA 50K as my first ultra because friends told me that I could take the marathon as the last long run. However, BBA 50K was full so I volunteered at the race instead. I found a "free" 50K race in Medina put together by Medina County Road Runners (MCRR), a running club in Medina, OH. The race was "Buckeye woods 50K" and it's free for all members. The membership fee is only 20 dollars so I just paid 20 dollars for the annual membership fee. This race is a good strategy to get more new members. Buckeye woods 50K was advertised as a flat 50K (that's why I wanted to do it). Runners began with a 1-mile loop and then traversed the 5-mile loop around lakes and through woods six times, which made it 31 miles. The route had 2 sections - limestone and trail. Runners who ran 3 loops or more (25K) but not as far as 50K (6 loops) were considered 25K finishers. There was only one aid stat...