Ultra-Running Anniversary!

This weekend marks my 5 year anniversary since entering the sport of ultrarunning at the 2008 McKenzie River Trail Run 50km. Ultrarunning is such a major part of my life now, sometimes it is hard to think it has only been five years. At the same time, I still consider myself a student of the sport and there is still so much I want to do that I feel like am still a newbie! To date I have 48 "official" ultra finishes, but I have been out for a >26.2 mile run almost 150 times! It's funny that I spent most of my life thinking a marathon was a LONG way to run and now I am signing up for five 100 milers in the next twelve months.

To celebrate my anniversary today I went for a 10 mile run around Salem with a good friend at a very mundane 8:35 pace. And then I ate a lot of jelly beans, and I mean A LOT. Not such a great day from a nutrition standpoint, but otherwise a pretty good day.

One thing that made it so nice was the weather. After two days of storms, we got the sun back. I told my kids to go play outside, but they weren't in to it. "Can't we just go run on the treadmill instead?" they begged. Seriously?? Whose kids are these anyway?!? I used to train on the treadmill all the time; now I dread it. But both kids ticked off a mile.

This weekend is also Mac's 3 year ultrarunning anniversary as he too was initiated at the McKenzie River Trail Run 50k, but in 2010. His weekend activities were a bit more appropriate for an ultrarunning anniversary as he was off competing at the Volcano 50 - a rugged 50k around Mt. St. Helens with 8,000' gain traversing lava fields, major landslides, and a blast zone. The winner didn't even break six hours! Mac ran a 8:43 for a solid mid-pack finish. Today he says he is ready to retire from ultrarunning!

Redefining technical trail (photo FB steal from AJ Klausen)

While I doubt this'll be his last ultra, Mac is standing firm that he'll never do a hundred miler.

"You know why I don't want to do a hundred miler? Because I don't ever need to run for more than eight hours."

"Well, nobody needs to run for more than eight hours."

"Yeah, but I am smart enough to know that."

Well, at least we have one smart one in the family!