In awe

I am a bit vain this year to do a top 10 of 2020 of my runs.

2020 compares to 2019, let’s see. 2019 had tons of going on. I ran my first 50 miler plus going to Chile afterward for Patagonia and did many other stuffs. Thought can’t top that, can I?

But 2020 was not a dud. Still I am kind of scratching my head trying to think of what did I do in 2020. What happened there. So here go boys and girls, the top 10 of 2020 Antin’s running report.

10. I had Carlsbad Marathon (plus attending a wedding). Yes what was I thinking? It was a 007 operation

9. Seneca Greenway 50K. This was pretty dope. We were on the edge of having that canceled due to Corona. We got through by the skin of our teeth. We ran it before masking was required. Yike!

8. GVRAT. The rat race. Awesome in its own way. I ran 1000 miles. Never done anything like this. I ran across Tennessee virtually.

7. GSER. I went to Atlanta-Georgia twice during the peak of the second wave of the pandemic to do this virtual run and both times DNF-ed (failed to finish). We could label it as GSER1 and GSER2. Unbelieverably hard and risky. There were BLM protests and all (I saw more police than protesters though). It was one of the epicenters of what 2020 is about (as you know still ongoing with the elections). I had the boots on the ground! I can say I was part of history. Hey, we take that — both the good and the bad.

6. CRAW. A virtual race across the world and is still ongoing. We ran over 5,000 miles. The fun never stops. 31,000 miles is the end, so 26,000 miles to go. We will definitely be crawling. Are we an airplane though?

5. Camp Anderson. Another virtual event but WTF, everyone showed up in-person and we cumbaya at the camp… true, glad it was just 10-15 of us and not 150-200. It was still a WTH moment. I had a good 6-hr endurance run. Never was a run so hard. Great people though

4. Gettysburg Marathon. Thought all in-person races were canceled? I was able to “sneak” across the state line to do this one early morning (I didn’t tell my family). At the time they were not strict about needing a rapid corona test. Love this race though

3. Rock N the Knob. RTK. half marathon. Awesome trail race. Nuff said. Hardest of hard freaking race…”I need a sherpa”…who came up with a trail and a trail name like this? I will go back for a second. Yup, already registered it for 2021

2. Stone Mill 50. SM50 stressed me out like no other race. We started in the dark and finished in the dark. Way finding wasn’t hard, but I was worried the whole time of getting lost since “those” trails were not on any maps and the RD kind of handwaved that they were there. We did it that I got to say

1. Devil Dog the Lite version. 50K. Hmm. It was the last race I did. In December. Pog! Just a 50k but it has a “heritage” and I felt like I ran the 100. This means I need to do the real 100 miler version some day to earn it – a true devil dog

(Meta: I’m too lazy to post the links to the journal post of the runs I did …maybe some day I will go back to add them. By the way, just go to my run history page, it has the same thing)