UltraRunning Dec 2019/Jan 2020
- Our Favorite Things
- Challenges of Cold Weather Running
- Run Rabbit Run
- Mountain Lakes 100
- Tips to Avoid a Mid-Race Divorce
- Yeti 100
- Through Ultra Obstacles
Gradually my obsession about the meaning of DNF took on a less emotional and more abstract quality. I began to play with alternative and perhaps more useful meanings for DNF. Maybe I could make it a positive, motivational or even inspirational phrase…
Lately, my inner voice has been talking and I’m proud to say I’ve been listening. It tells me to push through summer’s intense heat when I’ve got no other options. Other times I hear a faint whisper throughout a long run telling me that things are not going as planned, and just to let it go.
We’re off to the races for July and that means many in the ultrarunning tribe will soon be tackling long training runs and races in the mountains. One strategy that’s often overlooked and misunderstood in mountain running is walking up hills.
I have run ultras in the mountains. I have run ultras in the deserts. I have run looped-course ultras. I have run an ultra across Death Valley. I have run solo ultras. But there was one glaring omission from my previous running resume: an ultramarathon with the opportunity to eat ice cream sixteen times per mile.
By Janice O’Grady, RD The North Fork 50 Mile/50K is not the toughest race, or the most rugged. By mountain…
Monday, July 27, five days until race day, the high temperature in Helena, Montana was 63 degrees with 0.45 inches of rain. Saturday, August 1, race day, the high temperature in Helena, Montana was 97 degrees, with only a few tiny puffy clouds interrupting Montana’s big sky.
We were 170 miles into the race and had just made the decision to try for a Top 10 position, something I hadn’t even considered until a friend suggested it one month earlier. She and her husband, who successfully completed this run last year, had taken me on training runs in Tahoe and had a good sense of my capabilities.
Wow, what a tough race. I already told people that 2014 was the toughest 50k I’ve done – now it’s a whole ‘nother level! They took out one climb and replaced it with three climbs plus extra miles.
Two days in a row I couldn’t find the trailhead I was looking for.
The first day I wasted almost two hours driving around looking for one. When I parked and thought I found the beginning of a trail, I ended up hiking a figure-8 around my car, wasting another twenty minutes down promising yet misleading paths.
I have always loved being a student of the sport—reading, asking questions, trying new things and learning what worked for me. I have been fortunate to have had several coaches who helped fill in gaps in the complex puzzle we call ultrarunning. Your question gets me thinking about the one who did the most to make me the runner and coach I am. Here are 17 lessons I learned from my favorite coach.
This year’s run was very challenging to put on. All time record heavy rains in the San Gabriel Mountains caused mud and rock slides on the Angeles Crest (Hwy 2) and CalTrans closed off our access to the 1st 25 miles of our run until mid August. However, CalTrans worked diligently to try to open the road and managed to re-open Hwy 2 before race weekend.
Here at UltraRunning, we get all sorts of race reports, and they have always been a key part of the magazine. Amongst our team, we read and edit each one at least five times in all—so we really appreciate the good ones. The stories that entertain, inform and educate.
We want to bring the races alive for you, and inspire you to get out there and get after it yourself—to overcome challenges and have life-changing experiences you can only find at ultras. Nothing fits that bill like a great race report and photos.
“The scree field; the scree field; the scree” …this topic was the major focus of the Beaverhead Endurance Runs 100k and 55k pre-race meeting. “You have to make it through the scree field by dark”
Today’s aid stations, especially at majors like Western States, are staffed by folks who are often veteran ultrarunners, have decades of experience and are as skilled as they come at meeting runners’ needs.
I’m not an avid reader of poetry, but the words in this Dylan Thomas poem have always resonated with me, and I think they express what I’ve done and what I continue to attempt to do in my ultrarunning. At various times over the years, my best friend has admonished me about my approach to my running and racing, and has pointed out an old adage: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If that bears fruit, then I guess most, if not all, ultrarunners are insane, or damn close to it.
I’ve been associated with the Finger Lakes 50s Trail Races for about 10 years, either running, volunteering or directing, and I thought the 2014 race was the muddiest year ever. So muddy that I didn’t think it could get any worse. I was wrong. With above average snowfall this past winter and relentless rain in the Finger Lakes region this year, the 27th annual running of the races was the muddiest by far.
On a high mountain ridgeline, early morning rays glance off your face as you stride over undulating single-track with never-ending views. Perfection. This is the setting of the Siskiyou Out Back Trail Runs (SOB). Starting and finishing only 30 minutes from downtown Ashland, OR, atop the Siskiyou Crest, all three races (15k, 50k, and 50-mile) traverse west along the backbone of the range and return to the Mt. Ashland lodge.
I’ll admit I have a bias on this topic, since when I first started running ultras in 2005, I also got hooked on road marathons. However, one thing I noticed was how effectively sub-ultra road races prepared me for many aspects of longer races.
Joe decided to throw a DNF party for Veronica, and I decided to sing her a song. When I told an old girlfriend what I was planning, she said, “But you can’t sing!” “That’s not true,” I told her. “I can sing badly.”