Philadelphia 100 Miler - Preview!

I've got even more than the usual pre-race excitement rushing through my veins this week as Saturday's Philly 100 gets closer. First off, I get to run with my newly-wed friend Amelia, Jamie and David Donaldson, and a bunch of other talented runners who will be looping around the Schuylkill River with us all day (including Badwater vets Phil Rosenstein, Keith Straw, and Alisa Springman). On top of that, the weather looks amazing for the whole weekend! It should be between 55-75 over the course of the day, and even though that may be a bit warm for running this early in the year, I'm certainly not going to complain...it's my first 'no tights' race since October!

The other thing contributing to my pent-up energy is the fact that I haven't been able to run at all the past few days. For no reason at all, my right hamstring started hurting like crazy on an easy run last week and I had to shut things down to try and heal up. Talk about a forced taper - I'm going crazy!  It'll be 6 days of complete rest by time the race starts on Saturday, so I'm hopeful that will be enough to get things healed up properly. I've been super lucky since last fall in that I haven't had even the slightest bit of pain anywhere in my legs, so I guess I had something like this coming to me...it's just frustrating to have it pop up so close to a race.  It's not the end of the world if I have to pull up early in Philly though, the big picture is what matters, so as long as I'm ready to roll in France I'll be more than happy.

...but I'm keeping the thoughts positive and going into the race with a plan to see how a slightly faster pace for France will feel. I'll plan on settling into 8:30-8:45s right from the start and see how that feels throughout the day. The trick is finishing the 100 miles with enough in my legs for another 8-9 hours of running. I know I can run the whole way if I pace myself with 9:00-9:15s like I did in Cleveland last fall, so this weekend I'll speed it up just a bit to see if I feel like I can go about :30/mile faster in the first 100 miles and still have plenty in the tank for 9 more hours of running. I really want to maximize my miles in France, and the flat Philly course will be a great testing ground for that!

As for in-race updates, unfortunately Utterli is pretty much dead at this point. Too bad too, since there were about 500 people who listened to the updates during the Iron Horse 100 back in February. That just proves there's a bunch of ultra fans who really want live updates from races every weekend...but I guess Twitter is the only option for now. I'll keep searching for an Utterli replacement, but for this weekend, the airwaves will be silent during the race. I should have a recap of all the fun posted on Sunday night or Monday. Until then, I hope everyone enjoys the great weather this weekend (on the east coast, anyway), and Happy Easter!

West Coast Weekend!

Just back from a whirlwind trip out to San Francisco, and even though the folks at Delta Airlines rose to new and uncharted levels by managing to lose our carry on bag on the way back (seriously), we had such a great time!

First off, it was like I had a personal tour of the great 100 miler courses of the West during the flight out. It was perfectly clear weather-wise, so my view from the plane was remarkable. As an admitted GoogleEarth nerd, I pride myself on being able to identify cities and regions when flying over them. When we hit Denver and I saw how clear the skies were from 30,000 ft, I knew I'd be in for a treat over the next couple hours. First up was the Leadville course to the south, shortly after that, the big peaks of the Hardrock course could be identified too. A little while later, Lake Tahoe (home of the Tahoe Rim Trail which is on my lifetime to-do list) and the Western States course were easy to pick out from the right side of the plane. You can bet I was ready to run when I stepped off that plane!

...but this trip wasn't about running, it was about heading across the Golden Gate Bridge to the hills of Marin County for Amelia's wedding!

 The only thing that could distract us from the beautiful views was Amelia looking stunning in her dress!

 San Francisco smiles from below as Amelia and Joel say 'I Do'!!

 Lizzy and I happy to be in such a beautiful place on such a happy occasion!

Lizzy grabs a photo op. with the bride as the John Muir Woods serve as the backdrop!

All in all, not a bad weekend! To top it off, I'm getting reports that some blazing fast Umstead times were run in NC on Saturday. Did Zach Gingerich really run a 13:23?!! Holy Cow!!  ...and also amazingly impressive was fellow 24-Hour Teammate Serge Arbona's 14:09! When the discussion of running 100 miles in times like these come up, I definitely need to excuse myself from the table. Well done, guys!!  Also getting a big congrats is another 24-Hour Teammate Jill Perry defended her title by winning the race again this year in 15:58...looks like she's tuned up and ready for France!  A special congrats also go out to Tony Portera for nailing his ambitious goal of breaking 20 hours by rocking a 19:24 (!!) and Tammy Massie for destroying her PR with a 24:58 (!!!!!!!)...You guys are Amazing!!!!

With all this great running going on, I'm anxious to get my final France tune-up in this weekend in Philly! I'll be sure to post some sort of update before heading up later in the week. It looks like Utterli is up to its old habit of working about as well as New Coke tasted, so I may not be able to call in live updates, but hopefully I'll figure something out to keep everyone entertained during the run!

Spring Has Sprung...with Surprises!

Every now and then things just work out for the best. A couple months back I had to withdraw from running the Umstead 100 this weekend in order to head out to San Francisco for my friend Amelia's wedding.  I was sorry to miss out on the Umstead fun, but I certainly wasn't going to miss out on the wedding, and the Philly 100 the week after looked like a fine replacement for me to practice my pacing for France.

Now that the Umstead/Wedding week has arrived, I couldn't be happier at how everything worked out. First off, without any need to conserve energy or taper for Umstead, I was able to log some long and amazingly enjoyable miles in the perfect spring weather we had here in DC over the weekend: 70s, no humidity, breezy...It was incredible!

I've racked up more miles on the Mt. Vernon Trail than George Washington himself, but never have they been as enjoyable as this past weekend!

On top of that, earlier in the week I found out that friends Jamie and David Donaldson will be coming out to run the Philly 100 too!  It'll be so fun to have such great company out there on the Schuylkill River!  As Hannibal from the A-Team says: "I love it when a plan comes together!"