The Zen of Ultra Running

A month ago, R. asked me if I could ride with him and a wounded veteran for 100K (62 miles). They had a "tri-cycle" specially made for this purpose and it would be nice to have someone accompanying them on the road. I said if they were not going too fast, I would be able to ride with them. The farthest I'd done was 31 miles so 62 would double the distance. He then signed me up to ride with them. The day before the ride (Friday) I went to a yoga class in the evening and hurt my back during the "ab workout" during the class. I was worried if it would go away in the morning. Took some pills and went to bed. My back was a bit in pain when I woke up but I thought a bit of exercise might help. I got dressed and drove to Fredericksburg, OH (1 hour away from my house). The ride started at 8am. R. already checked me in. It turned out that another friend could not join us. So, there were only 3 of us riding. The weather at the start was about 45-50 degrees (a bit chilly...

Last year I ran the half marathon at Akron marathon. At that time, I just moved to OH for about 2 months and did not know many runners. I also never ran any marathon and was still training for my first marathon at Run with Scissors. I had a good time running the half marathon as the course took us through different parts of Akron and it was a good way to get to know the city. About a couple of weeks after I finished the half marathon, I registered to run the full marathon at Akron this year. I heard from many people who ran the full that the fun part was the back half as the runners run through neighborhood block parties. A couple of days before the race, the race organizer sent out emails warning about the heat as it would get really hot on the race day (approx. 80-90F). I was not quite worried about it because Pro Football HOF marathon was also very hot! This year I ran both the marathon and the relay. I signed up for the marathon last year but I talked to the dean and told him I...

With the Akron marathon being 6 days away, I originally wanted to sign up for the mini tri at Portage Lake Triathlon, which for me would be the last race of the season. When I looked at the registration website, the price of the mini was not much cheaper from the sprint distance. Below is the information on each distance. Mini:  250y Swim (2mi Run) — 7mi Bike — 2mi Run Sprint:  750m Swim (5k Run) — 22k Bike — 5k Run So I signed up for the sprint instead of the mini (wanted to spend longer time on the course) and completely forgot about it. After the Vermillion tri, I switched gears to focus on training for the 50-miler (double marathon at Run with Scissors) by putting more time in running. I only swim and bike once a week. The weather got a bit cooler and the sun does not come up until 7am. So, I went back to indoor cycling classes, which work better with my morning routine. Indoor cycling always kicks my butt. The intervals that we do makes me work harder and my heart...

The post-triathlon week was supposed to be my "recovery week". Turned out that I ended up logging in 50 running miles, which was the highest mileage for me in a very long time. Monday - I went to a 75-minute yoga class because my muscles were very tight from the race and I needed to stretch them somehow. The class was cool because it was the eclipse day so the teacher made us do Moon salutation instead of a typical Surya Namaskar A & B (Sun salutation) like what we usually do in other flow classes. I really liked the flow that we did because it's not too "heavy" for my tired legs and arms. I also took a pic of my calf on Monday because it still had the tri number on. Body marking is one thing that makes me feel like a triathlete :) Took Tuesday off - completely off. Although the yoga class helped my body relax, I knew I had to have a day that I REALLY DO NOTHING. Scheduled a run with a friend in the morning but ended up postponing it because I wante...

I did my first sprint triathlon in 2015 and caught the bug. The first triathlon that I did was called "My First Tri", which was a race that geared toward first-time triathletes (only 500m swim, 10 miles bike, and 2 miles run). In 2016, I signed up for the Olympic distance triathlon at Brewhouse tri in Duluth, MN but, unfortunately, we moved to OH in July (the race was in August). Nonetheless, I managed to do another sprint tri in Eau Claire (EC triathlon) before we left. This year my goal was simple. I wanted to try the Olympic distance to gauge how much I like the sport and if I want to do longer distance tri (Ironman 70.3, or a full Ironman). Some people told me they did not like this distance because the swim is almost a mile (0.9) while the half Ironman swim is 1.2 miles. I left home at 5am and it took an hour to get to Vermillion, OH. The race started at 7.30am, which gave me enough time to pick up the package, set up the transition area, and use the restroom. One ti...

The purpose of our trip to Peru was to visit Machu Picchu (for me) and to eat Peruvian food (for my hubby). There are many ways that visitors can go to Machu Picchu. If you don't like to walk (much), you can take a bus from Aguas Caliente (about 20 minutes) to Machu Picchu. However, I have heard from many people about the beauty of the Inca trail and thought it would be nice to hike part of the trail. For hikers, there were several options depending on how far you wanted to hike the trail. We opted for the 2-day tour option because we did not want to spend too much time in our trip on the Inca trail. We stayed in Cusco for a couple of days to adjust for the altitude. We bought the tour package, which included the guides, meals, and the one-night hotel in Aguas Caliente. In the morning of the 1st day, we took the bus to Ollantaytambo to board the train to the starting point (KM 104). The bus from Cusco to Ollantaytambo was about 2 hours and the train was about 1 hr and 15 minutes....

Have you ever wondered how running in other countries is like? I have. Fortunately, I was able to run in Thailand when I went back to visit friends and family for the past 2 years (just 10K races). We were in Peru for vacation (much needed one again) and I looked for a race that would take place while we were in Lima (the capital city of Peru). Peru has a running website but it's in Spanish. I had to thank Google translate for their help so I understood what's going on on the website. I found one event that was listed a "Trote" (later on I knew it meant a fun run) on Friday July 28. That day was perfect for me because we would be back in Lima already after the hiking trip to Machu Picchu. I checked their facebook page for more information (all in Spanish. Thanks, Faeebook translator) to see where they started and at what time. The starting point was only 15 minutes walk from my hotel (even better) and they started at 7.30am. They said it's going to be approx 1...