TrailRun1980

Under the enormous canopy of the protected ancient pine forest as I ran long winding switchbacks and rose into the clouds, I stopped to take a quick photograph and in that moment heard a distant bird call, barely discernible over the shattering noise of my own heartbeat between my ears. The ground was soft with dirt under a blanket of brown pine needles whose aroma filled the cool damp air that I was gasping to inhale. I took my photo and enjoyed the foggy scene from a movie and continued on my way. If you had told me 10 years ago that I'd be running a coastal mountain in Oregon (and summiting it twice) in the middle of a 50 mile race, I wouldn't have believed it. Hell, if you had told me 4 years ago as I trained for my half marathon, I still would have had serious doubts. And yet here I am, doing what I never thought I could. So how'd it go?   Sitting on a plane headed home, let me digest this. 6 months ago I was reading the monthly ATRA newsletter and saw

How do you implement a fun, mildly spontaneous 10K into a longer training plan for an ultra?  Well, my goal was to run these 6 miles with coworkers and have a light morning, and then follow it up with more miles on trails (and get to explore some new dirt around Green Bay perhaps) So what was my plan?  Well I didn't really have one, I had to wake up at 4 am and make the drive to Green Bay, so I figured it's make for an easy run.  Well, I was supposed to go easy, but you know how that goes... Once you show up to a big event in a smaller town with 11,000 other people, it tends to lend itself to a little excitement.  And since some of my co-workers were planning to walk, there was no way I was sticking with them, sorry but I wanna run. I decided to take the training and goals of an ultra, and compress them down to a smaller scale, kind of a half life of the race (continually looking at the remaining distance and dividing that into smaller halves, continuously, unti

First and foremost, this is 100% credit to Matthew Inman aka,  The Oatmeal , go visit his site, buy his books and stuff, I didn't create this, but, after I got into running I discovered this, and it is wonderful. It makes me laugh. I can relate. I have the book and fridge magnet and sticker, I love it. It's 6 pages of a graphic novel online, spend the 15 minutes and read it, it's worth your time. https://theoatmeal.com/comics/running

*This is very much a live list, I will be updating with more info, descriptions, and more links as time allows, always looking for more!* If I can figure out how to make an interactive map I will, but this has been on my mind since moving to Wisconsin.  Here's a list of the trails we like to run, pretty much all of these are within an hour drive from the Madison area, so they're all good. West of Madison _______________________________________________________ Military Ridge (from the Verona Park & Ride)   Military Ridge - Google Pancake flat, but dirt, also on the south side of town, for long run days I'll just run here.  Dirt, so if you need to just do some long mindless miles, this is easier on the joints.  Bikes, a lot of them sometimes, just obey the trail rules and you'll be fine.  A few road crossings, but otherwise you can zone out You are pretty exposed for most of this, and besides Verona, and then Mt Horeb, no real options for water, so pack ac

In hindsight, a lot of this seems excessive, but, I've said it before and I mean it, I don't want to get lost or be that guy who isn't properly prepared. Bigfoot 40 was my first race over 31 miles, and is pretty remote and exposed, you get 2 aid stations and most of the day is spent in the middle of the eruption zone where nature has not yet recovered (only ash and lava rock) I'm responsible for myself, and with these distances, better safe than sorry. - Start:   mile 0 - Aid 1:  mile 12 - Aid 2:  mile 28.8 - Finish: mile 43.5 Here's what I carried: Ultimate Direction PB Adventure Vest 3.0  (16L capacity) 3L CamelBak Bladder (full of water) 1 x 600ml soft bottle (for my electrolyte mix) 1 x Katadyn BeFree Water Filtration System (empty, for filtering creek water) Iodine tabs (just in case) Poles Gaiters Small pocket knife Sunblock Bug repellent wipe Micro First Aid kit (tape/band aids/Benadryl/Tylenol/chaffing cream/etc) Compass &

This will be an eternally changing sheet, but it's been helpful, and really encouraging to see my history, and to be reminded just how new at this whole thing I am, especially in the longer distances!  Date Event State Distance Time Notes 2011 7/18/2011 Kaleo K9 5K CA 5K DNS 10/9/2011 Octobrewfest CA 5K 27:24 2012 4/22/2012 Capital City Classic CA 10K 56:40 8/5/2012 Color Run CA 5K 39:02 10/27/2012 Warrior Dash CA 5K 55:00 7/14/2012 Davis Moo-nlight CA 13.1M 2:08 2013 3/9/2013 LuckyRun CA 7M 1:04:59 2014 2/2/2014 Puddle Run WA 5M 45:28 4/26/2014 CanDo5K WA 5K 26:23 5/3/2014 Fiesta 5K Ole WA 5K 26:46 9/27/2014 Color Run IL 5K 35:26 11/22/2014 Decatur Turkey Trot IL 10K 56:26 2015 4/25/2015 Illinois Christie Clinic Marathon IL 13.1M 1:57 5/9/2015 Not Your Average Joe IL 5M 41:17 6/27/2015 Warrior Dash IN 5K 7/18/2015 Matoon Run for the Bagel IL 10K 58:55 10/10/2015 Sand Creek Trail Run IL 7.6M 1:08:41 3rd Age Group (30-39) 2016 4/16/2016 Illinois Christie Cl

Note to self, 2.8 hours of sleep before a trail race is sub-optimal. We were headed down to the Dances With Dirt Gnaw Bone trail race down in Indiana for my wife to run, so I decided to throw in on the race and take it as an aided long run to get another 31 miles down.  I'm at a point where I'm running out of PTO at work for travel, so we left work Friday night and drove into the dark, by the time we grabbed dinner and got to the hotel it was after 130AM when we finally got into bed.  Start time for the 50k was 630 AM and we needed to pick up packets early, so I set my alarm for 430 to get breakfast on board and do my pre race routine. Fast forward to the race.  630, Mikes Dance Barn, the sun is starting to rise, we left a cool and crisp weather system in Wisconsin (mid 50's), the humidity is high and I already realize it's going to be a warm one, yeah, the forecast calls for 80's, but how easily my mind forgets what that means when you're und