In awe

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  • MMT pre race [Day556]

    I have been a bit emotional as I stepped back on the MMT course the second time. I was not mad or disappointed the last time when I did not finish. I know I tried my hardest at the time. It is satisfying to be able to try it again.

    I have been giddy all year looking forward to this. I have done plenty of training runs. January, February, March, and April. Now finally it is time for the real deal.

    I know what to expect this second time around. I packed my drop bags, 10 of them for 9 dropbag stations (one station, Gap Creek we will pass by twice (there are total 15 aid stations)).

    I spent whole Thursday night preparing. I did not sleep until 3 AM. I finished packing by 1 AM actually, but by then I was not sleepy. I know I need all the rest I can get. It probably pre race anxiety. Some runners go for med to put the body out for the night.

    Friday. after work I drove to camp. It was exactly like last year. I was caught in the DC area traffic, but I used the Toll Road to bypass all the local traffic. Got to camp in time for the checking and dinner, but I missed the race briefing.

    I met a new friend Zheng. This is his first year running the MMT. He was the sweeper of the last miles last year. Apparently I didn’t see him in the last year race. I know I was one of the last few on the course.

    After dinner, I handed over my drop bags. They will be transported to various aid stations along the course the next day and will be available when I get there. I packed food, clothes, shoes, lubricant, wipes and various stuff. The race provides food, but sometimes it can get so crowded around the aid stations and there is no time to eat. Also the food the race provided many times would not be sufficient. As a runner, we learn to bring our own. The race provided food is supplemental only. I learned this the hard way last year. It is not that their food is not good or deficient, but that their purpose is to feed a lot of people in shortest amount of time, so it means to keep portions super small (finger food). The solution is to get a doggie bag and fill it up!

    The night settled in. I slept in the back of my car. It is a perfect day to sleep under the stars. I brought a tent but too lazy to set it up (and to put in away the next morning). I just climbed on the back of my truck, laid down some yoga mats and blankets and crawled in.

    I set an alarm for tomorow 4 AM. I made sure it is AM and not PM. Actually my watch is on military time this year so I will not mess up on the AM/PM thing. Last year, I messed up somehow and my alarm did not go off because I set it to PM. I almost missed the race. It was at the last moment I woke up in time and ran to the start line, which was only few hundred yards away.

    I had everything ready this year. Even if I missed my alarm, as long as I could wake up, I could run any time. My hydration pack is filled. My shoes are right next to me. I dressed in the clothes I will be running in and I am sleeping in them. They will be the same set for the next couple days.

    There are some annoying bugs. They don’t bite but they are crawling on me and are making me itchy. Soon I will get under my blacket and ignore the bugs.

    It got colder at night. Of course the night dew too made things wet. I had a tarp on top of my sleeping bag so it kept my blankets and sleeping bag dry.

    As you can see, I didn’t sleep too well. I checked my alarm every hour. Volunteers came a bit before 4 (maybe 3:30). A few early birds showed up and parking people were directing them how/where to park. I was awaken by then.

    I didn’t feel groggy. It is race day. I am exicited. Race report will be continued in a later post. (This post was written before I felt asleep and added the morning bit subsequently)

  • weekend [Day555]

    Being a bit time crunch but I wish to get this out.

    MMT 100 is this coming weekend. I should be ready. There are a lot I need to do. Get my pace chart ready, dropbags prepared, and make sure I get to start. This is the race I have been looking toward since last year.

    Over last weekend, I drove down to Dublin, VA, to do the Lake Ridge Endurance run (at Lake Claytor State Park), – 12-hour category. This year I only ran 44 miles, 4 less than last year. I blame the weather being hotter. I also did not have a good night rest the night prior, my fault. I was very sleepy during the first 6 hours of the race.

    It was my third year running it. I stayed over night after. I met Steven, who is this year winner. It is not a race per se but he has the most miles done for the 12 hour category. Fitz won the 24 hour. Fitz is Stuart’s son. Stuart will be at the MMT next weekend. We will see each other again since Fitz will pace his father at mile 62.

    Chrissy paced me the last 10~ish miles. I was glad she did otherwise, I might only have done 36 or so miles instead of 44. As the night approached I was able to regain my strength and ran my “full” speed of 15 min mile pace. Chrissy recently moved to area. She ran the High Bridge 50K in 5.5 hrs, impressive to me. I recommended Eastern Divides ultra to her, which I signed up already. The race will be on the first week of November.

    In the morning, I got one more lap in for my morning run. It doesn’t count toward my miles but I like to have my morning exercise. I went and did the lap with Katherine. She is a new friend I met. She did Vol State a few years back.

    In closing, I was very tired. It took me more than 8 hours to drive back home, when it should be about 4-5 hours. I made many stops along the way. Slept a bit in a rest area to catch up on needed sleep.

    I also started arranging my race schedule for next year. I signed up for Roanoke Doubler over the weekend (April 20, 2024). My cousin in Sydney sent me a save the date for her wedding. That is next year in March. I tried to look for a marathon there so I could hit two birds with one stone, but unfortunately, so far, no marathons found in Sydney in that time frame.

    Other news, I am still streaking for the GVRAT. Day 14 so far. It has gotten easier after day 3 during my Canada trip. As for tapering for the MMT, I wish I don’t have GVRAT to do, because it gets my legs tired. But oh well. I chose this path. MMT will be interesting in that I am not entering it with a 100% fresh body. My next report will probably be the MMT race report or similar.

  • Toronto Marathon [Day554]

    It was an exciting trip and a big race for me. I like it just because Toronto is a great city. Granted I didn’t explore much but just the area near my hotel, the place seems orderly and unlike many places in the US. It has been many years, might have been like 24 years since I have been to Toronto, or at least 10 years. Has it changed much? Not much. It is just as hip as back then. I felt honor to finally run in it.

    For most marathons, I would fly in, run, and then fly out. I could have done the same too for the Toronto Marathon, but for traveling this far and not spending more time in the city seems like a waste.

    My mom and aunt wanted to come along, so I made it into a 5-day road trip. There certainly could have been a 7 or 8 days trip. It was a bit rush with 5 days.

    We arrived in Toronto on Friday afternoon having stayed the previous night at Niagara Falls. We stayed near a chinese center, Time Square in Richmond Hill/Markham. There were a lot of good chinese food to eat, which is mostly what I want to do in Toronto other than running.

    On Saturday, I went to check out the starting line at Yonge and Sheppard to get a sense how far the drive would be from our hotel. The race goes from North York and finishes at the water front at the BMO Field (about 13 miles away).

    At the same time, I was searching and was able to purchase a temporary Canadian phone plan. Most major US phone companies have data coverage allowance for Canada but my phone plan did not, so I had to purchase a SIM card to use cellular service and data in Canada. With a data plan, I was finally free from teethering to a wifi. It allowed me to contact my family to pick me up after my race. Wifi isn’t hard to find, since almost everywhere provide free wifi, but still having a phone data plan is kind of a must.

    The Toronto Marathon is a point to point race for the full and half marathon. Logistically, it is a challenge because either you need to know two separate locations – a drop off at the start and/or a pickup at the end of the race. It is kind of hard to tell your family where to pick you up at the end. They would have to find their way there. The race provided optional shuttle buses to transport runners to the start from the finish innthe morning. We could park at the finish and then take the bus. However, then our family members would have to wait there until I finish since the bus ride was not for them. So, as for me, I was dropped off and picked up by my family. I did not use the bus.

    The course being a point to point was one of the reasons I picked this race. I like to feel the distance I covered in a race and to see it on a map. I love to run across the city (actually any city). I like to feel I was going somewhere instead of running around in a loop as many marathons tend to do.

    It was an inconvenience for the whole city because the course caused road closures to a big section of the city, effectively dividing it north/south and east and west. Many city drivers were not happy about us running on the roads (and took their outrage to social media). I think many did not expect the duration of the closure to be long and also there was a lack of communication from the race organization and alternative routes being provided. Having just a map of the closure on their website is not enough. Some were upset they were blocked up to an hour. Some cars went on the course (probably illegally) and was driving among the runners — it was caught on video. Yes, wtf.

    My family too was having trouble going around the closures trying to find their way to pick me up post-race. The race website did poorly to direct where to park for post-race runner pickup. They mentioned a parking lot, but we being from out-of-town were not able to find the lot. My family circled around the area several times before contacting me to set a mutual meeting place that worked for both of us. I am sure locals have less a trouble with the post-race runner pickup. I ended up walking to them.

    The race recommendation was to use public transportation. Yes, sure. I will do that next time. (Note, trains didn’t run before the marathon started).

    Race day. Everything worked out exactly for me. I arrived 1.5 hrs early. I had my bib mailed to me ahead of time so I did not have to attend the convention to pick it up. There were issues for some runners receiving incorrect bibs or not receiving a bib at all before the race. Some runner’s bibs were not being recorded during the race either, which was a runner’s nightmare. Mine was working correctly.

    We arrived at the Yonge-Sheppard Centre by 6 am. It was not my first rodeo, so I knew to arrive early. We got a parking spot. Other runners also arrived. They closed the roads by 6:30 and began setting up. It felt late. I have been to races where the starting chute was set up during the middle of the night. There was a slight delay of getting the race start on time (5 minutes late — not bad but it was a shame they could not start exactly on the dot. Certainly some runners also couldn’t make it to the race before the start due to traffic.

    We lined up on the street. The race feels empty. There were supposed to be 3000 of us but it felt like 500-600 runners. It did not feel like a big city mega race. I had expected it for more runners, like 50 thousands. There was an announcer at the starting line. His voice did not carry to the back and, we who were lining up in the back could not hear much of what was said.

    I wish they had place some loud speakers toward the rear so we were feel the festive too.

    I am sure the announcer was giving out last minute instructions since there would be two other events happening. The half marathon started half hour after us. However, I think some half marathoners seemed to be mistakening joined us (I think unintentionally) and did the full.

    Some of the half marathon – walkers (walkathon) intended to walk the course, they started 15 minutes after us. They might have joined the full unintentionally. There were certainly some confusions that morning. I think also lack of signages at the start advising the half marathoners to wait or where to wait created some confusion.

    There were also runners without bibs — I don’t think they were race bandits, but likely their bibs did not arrive in time. Again, I think communication could have been better to resolve this. They mentioned they would have race officials to pull runners without a bib off the course. When I was reading over the postings on social media, there were some confusions out there.

    There were supposed to have different waves (corrals) to separate out the fast and slower runners but I think because they did not have time to set it up or volunteers to enforce the separations, it became one giant wave start.

    Some faster runners complained about the disorganization. I believe the slower runners must have gotten in the way of the faster runners and crowded the faster runners. For me, as a slow runner, I stayed to the right and let people pass on the left. I also lined up in the back instead of the front of the pack.

    Also other big marathons have restrictions that dropbags to be of a certain size (and a clear plastic bag). Here too they did, but the rule doesn’t seem to be enforced or followed. I saw many people brought all kind of suitcases, backpacks, and handbags. I did not use a dropbag myself because I carried everything on me like in a trail race, but I found it was comical that people did not follow the rules/or that the race organization did not provide those clear plastic drop bags for runners. Of course, there bound to be someone who missed the drop-off time (7:00 am). The bag drop-off closed 30 minutes before the race start. Not sure why, since they could have kept it open for the half marathoners too. Anyway, rules are rules.

    We had a lot of first timers and the race did not explain well what a bib is or what to put in a drop bag or generally what to expect. Some did not know they need to pick up their bibs un order to run. Some thought they could pick up their bibs on the race day (and they could with exceptions, for those who chose mailing but didn’t yet receive a bib).

    What went well: I am not complaining, with a big race like this, something would go wrong. Social media just amplified it more. However, I felt a lot of these could have handled and communicated better.

    As for myself, my race was a success. Everything pretty much in line to my expectation.

    The weather was good. We had a week of bad weather leading up to the race weekend and a week of bad weather after we left. I felt pretty lucky on race day, we had dry, calm, and warm weather.

    I started off with a good pace. I tried to keep a 7 min per 1 km pace (probably around 10-11 min-mile pace). There were a lot of people around me. Many could and did run faster. Slowly I made my way forward. I was not in a rush. I started in the back so there were a lot of room once the race started. The course was measured in KM and I adjusted in my head to KM. I counted my pace using mins per km. It was easier than I thought.

    There were some pleasant runners around me. At one point, the first km, I did it in 7 mins and I was saying what 7 times 4. The runner beside me answered 28 when I could not say it out the answer. hahaha. I was struggling with math. She said I am having runner’s brain already. True. I was actually calculating my finishing time of 7 times 42 in my head (7x4x10+14), which is 294 minutes or about 5 hours. Complicated math for running. I was stuck on the first part of 4×7.

    I know the course is 6 hours. I was not sure if I could do it under 5, or that I will need the full 6 hours. The first km allowed me to get a good projection of my finishing time. Note that I had not run fast for a long time, so I was not sure if I could do it in 4h30.

    I did enjoy the course. It had couple big hills. I ran up on all of them. Those around me also run up, unlike many marathons I did where most people would walk the hills. I was impressed with the Canadians.

    The crowd support outside the city was tame but I did not mind. Most runners were quiet too. No one talked much. It did not get boisterous until we merged back with the half marathoners and we arrived in downtown.

    Generally, I like to run with a pace group but this time, I ran by myself because they did not have a 5 hour pacer. I did not wear a smart watch (I lost/misplaced mine somewhere since my last race) and so I kept my own pace based on feel and an old watch. I did not caught up to the 4:45 pacer until couple hours later into the race. I think it would have been helpful for first timer to have a later finish pacers. I wish I had volunteered for the 5:00 group.

    Once we reached halfway (over 21 km), I saw a lot of runners went down from going out too fast. A lot of them needed medical services for cramping. They all sat down either in the middle of the course on the side. Medical personels would go to them and wheel them off the course. I felt bad that many of them could not finish their races. I wish I had stopped to help some of them. In races in the US, only serious injuries would require medical attention, as for cramps, I was told to walk it off, and I would tell others the same. I mean each runner would have to judge for themselves if they could still finish or they need medical aid. I was surprised so many called for help.

    It could be that the temperature was a bit hot. It was in the 60 F. For me it was perfect, but many prefer to be cooler say 45-50s.

    We were given plenty of water like at every 2 km except at the finish line. Some complained with a race this size not providing water or gels at the finish and it was a bit of a disappointment. It did not bother me, because as a trail runner, I learned to take care of myself. I brought my own gels.

    The last 10K was on a bike trail. Some faster runners complained that the path was not wide enough to have runners running in both directions. They said they almost crashed into runners going in the other direction. I (4:33 finisher) did not have that problem. Everyone mostly stayed in their own lane. I guess, they just need to educate runners to “slow down” and stay in their lanes. Some might have taken the race too seriously.

    Some also said not all the roads were closed off. The police/security people were letting cars to cross, and some runners said they did not feel safe having cars sharing the same road. Again I did not have that problem. I think it might be the very front of the race or the very back of the race where they let cars crossing the course or onto the course. Some runners said they were stopped by the police to let cars cross and they felt that was not right because they were held up from having a PB or BQ (personal best, boston qualified). Some said they were almost ran over (because they didn’t yield). I did stop twice to let an ambulance through and another time was to let the police to go through. Those two stops might have costed me the 4:30 finish. However, I didn’t mind, but you could imagine if someone was chasing a BQ and they had to stop for couple minutes.

    There were a lot of course marshals on the course, but I almost missed a turn during the final half-full marathon split. The half were making a right turn to the finish but the full marathoners were supposed to go to the left.

    They did say, know the course. However, somehow I missed this turn during my course study. It is on me but I wish they had made a mention on the course map, put a star or something to draw attention to the split. Also I wish they had several course marshals there to separate the full from the half. The race signage was kind of lacking. Their signs were small and easy to miss. I have done many marathons where they would use giant banners/flags to warn of turns. The signages here were like a 5k race instead a major city marathon. Not complaining. My race was saved when a spectator shouted out to me to make the left turn after I went the wrong way. I was forever grateful to him otherwise my race would come to an end at the turn.

    Running the marathon distance was not a problem for me. By 32 km, I was getting tired. The turn around point for the full marathon was a bit later maybe at 35 km. It seemed an eternity. I carried some gels on me, so I ate my gel. Then I picked up my pace, running a 9m30 (per mile) pace. It started to rain. I was one of a few who could still run at the time. Many were walking or slow jogging. I was able to pass many people. I finished at 4h33. It is a good finish time for me.

    At a turn around point, I met a friend was also running the full marathon. I was good seeing her. I was kind of searching for her during the race, knowing she flew in for this. However, we were not able to meet up beforehand. I tried to catch up to her but her pace was too fast for me. She finished 15 minutes before me. I did not have a chance to see her again at the finish. Maybe because of the rain.

    Ice: The weather was warm. Around 37 km, someone had a small bag of ice (maybe 5-6 lbs or so) and she was giving them out ice to runners. So I stopped and received a handful from her. Ice was so good on a hot day. I ate them. It was one of the reasons I could pick up my pace toward the end.

    The post-race was a bit disorganized. They guided the runners out of the finishing chute. We were then left on our own. Runners did not receive their medals or water nor were we directed into the Elizabeth where we could pick up our finisher’s swag. Some went home without picking up a medal!

    There were no signs or instructions where to go. Many met their family there at the end of the exit. So it was crowded. The Elizabeth building was right in front of us. Many people were crowding around there trying to get in but that was the exit. They would not allow runners to enter. The other entrance we could enter into the Elizabeth building was on the side. There were also a crowd there because they were handing out the medals at the doorway. I think it was not a good idea, say a stampede condition in the making. I waited around a bit for the crowd to clear but it started to rain harder, so I joined in and entered the building.

    Inside the building was not crowded as I expected. Some were saying there were no one handing out medals earlier, but I got my medal from a volunteer.

    There were food tables. They were handing out electrolytes. They were out of water. Likely the 5k/10k runners took them all.

    I also drank energy drink instead. They had bananas and muffins for us. Many runners grabbed a big box and filled up their boxes with food and drinks. There was no limit how much we can take. I think it is ridiculous people carrying boxes of food. It was not likely they would eat a whole carton of of waffles or drink cartons of 24 cans of energy drinks. People were extremely greedy and grabbed as much as they could carry.

    Late runners were out of milk and a lot of good stuff. I saw the earlier finishers had a lot of good food. Runners also discarded boxes and trashes all over (when they decided to leave behind after couldn’t finish them or the stuff they took was not good).

    There were volunteers cleaning up as quickly as they could but they could not keep up with thousands of runners throwing away their trashes onto the floor. To me, it showed the lack or anyone in charge inside the Elizabeth building and people were doing whatever they wanted. There should have been a one way direction to guide runner through the food tables and then exit the building and then to their ride pickup location. Runners were like a mob there, robbing the place. Some described it being like a refuge camp. I think refugee camps have more order than here. Yes, it is a shame.

    My family came to pick me a bit later. It took them an hour to circle around all the road closures to get near the building where I was. This was unavoidable. However, I wish the race had mentioned or provided a place for “kiss-and-ride”, a pick up area for family, taxis, and ride-share. They probably did, but I did not know about it. I stayed and watched how others were being picked up and did the same. We waited near the fire house, it seemed easy enough for our drivers to find us.

    I had runners asking me about whether shuttle was available to take runners back to the hotel or the start area. I doubt there was any race provided shuttling back. Again there was a lack of signs or communication post race of where to go especially for those who were from out of town. The website mentioned we can take a city bus to various points in the city. Those places were like greek to me.

    Personally, I enjoyed the race. The race could improve a few things. When runners pointed out the deficiencies on its social site, however, their comments were deleted. I understand it is to creat a positive experience but it was seen as stopping negative press. The race only wants positive reviews but not the negative comments.

    There will always be people complaining but if the race went out of its ways to antagonize both the residences and runners, the race would not last long. Some were calling to boycott this race. Before I ran this race, I had some hints that the organization would not be as top notch as the city’s other marathon races. I still picked it for the point to point course. Also it fitted my race schedule.

    I was lucky the race was good for me and my time during my stay in the city was also good. There were runners who ran this race every year. If I am near, I would run it again but since it is so far, it is a once and done for me. They do have a few bad sides but the goods certainly outweigh the bads.

  • Run-cation (night before) [Day553]

    Niagara Falls – passed by during a night run

    I am having my International Debut at the Toronto Marathon.

    The trip has been short. I spent a night at Niagara on my way to Toronto. And two nights in the suburb of Toronto (Markam). It is maybe 45 mins north of Toronto. Traffic is pretty bad here but probably not as bad as back home in the Washington, DC area.

    It is a bit far from the marathon start and finish, but there is a large chinese population and many chinese stores. Some considered this the new china town(s). For me, the whole weekend have been tasting many chinese cuisines. They are low price and good food. People speak my native language. I can understand them but I can’t speak to them. I had dimsum for breakfast, Hong Kong beef noodle soup for lunch, and congee/soup for dinner.

    I had a bit of problem for the first couple days because of not able to connect to the canadian cellular network until I was able to sign up for a local data plan. I purchased a prepaid sim card at a supermarket. Many stores no longer sell sim cards because you could order them online. I didn’t know that before I arrived.

    Tomorrow would be the Marathon. I have been resting quite well. My mileage has been quite low. I started the GVRAT – and this year, I am aiming to run 10k (ish, 5-6 miles) everyday for 123 days.

    It adds a bit of challenge. Day 1 was good. Day 2 was a bit hard. Day 3 was very hard, especially with the trip to Canada. Day 4 and 5 were a bit better. The body started to adjust of being out there every morning. Tomorrow would be day 6 plus, the marathon. I don’t know if I could handle the day after tomorrow. I bet the body would be screaming for recovery.

    The Amory at Niagara

    One good thing about being able to run is exploring places on foot. I ran down either direction from my hotel, traveling 3 miles one way and then another three miles the other way. It doesn’t beat driving, but it does give a sense of accomplishment to cover the surrounding area of I am staying.

    It is not my first time visiting Niagara Falls or Toronto, but actually the first time to cover a lot of miles on foot. One reason I picked Toronto Marathon (May race instead of the September race) is the course being point to point.

    I think the race will be good. I will write more (hopefully).

  • Volunteer at C&O 100 [Day552]

    Not much to report. I have been a zombie lately.

    C&O 100, I didn’t pull to the trigger to run it. I was on the fence. It was risky to do 3x 100 and expect to do well in the MMT. I could but who knows. I know some did do the C&O and would run the MMT too. I just have to be more conservative.

    I don’t regret of sitting out on it. I went instead to volunteer from 1 am to 1 pm on Sunday. It was a hard stretch but satisfying. I got to see the first place came in at 9 pm Saturday night as well as almost everyone finishing. I actually arrived early on Saturday at 6 pm. The kitchen/food crew cooked us dinners (I didn’t eat them since I was not voluntering at the time).

    I was one who handed out most of the medals (buckles). There was no first/second place awards. Everyone got the same prize.

    I helped bind up someone’s feet because of blisters. I guided the person in popping them and then wrapped them up with tapes. The person did finish the race. It was her first time doing a 100 miler. I couldn’t be more pleased. I remembered when I ran my first 100, no one taught me how to deal with blisters. I ended up quiting. I was happy I saved someone’s first 100 race.

    There were couple runners with very ugly blisters. Fortunately, I did not have to deal with them. RD himself helped pop them and blind up the feet. As for another runner, the Aid Station Captain took care. There was a concern that it was poison ivy and not blisters from rubbing against the shoes. We didn’t pop them. Instead, the Aid Station captain sent the person to lie down. The dude finished under 24 hours, and we think it was his body reacting. I think it was his first 100. Not sure what happened to him. The next morning, his feet seemed to not swell any more and seemed to return to normal. Yes, it was very disgusting when they swoll up.

    Another runner came in to the aid station in the middle of the night and her headlamp was out. She asked if anyone has a spare. I gave her mine. Unfortunately, she was not able to make the cutoff the next day and did not finish. She did return me my headlamp.

    Also another runner came into the station very late. By rule, 3:45 am was our cut-off. The person came in at 4 am. Luckily the race director was there during the night shift. He told the guy if he could make it out in 5 mins, he could continue. He did make out within 5 mins. He picked up his pace and made the rest of the cutoffs. He finished. I avoided making the dreaded decision of pulling a guy from the course. In some races, rules are rules, missed the cut-off, means you are out. I missed a cut-off twice, one in MMT and the other at Iron Mountain. Each one was about 15 mins after the time limit. I am not jealous, but sometimes, I wish I could be able to continue on.

    There were many first timers. This was the 10th year for this race. I handed out a 500 mile buckle for those who finished the race 5 times. There was a guy who ran and finished 7 times. I met one who did it 10 times. He was at every single race.

    C&O would have been my first 100. C&O was canceled in 2020 and I feared it would be too for 2021. So I went for Umstead, but Umstead was full, and I signed up for the Rocky Raccoon. So Rocky Raccoon became my first 100. I haven’t had a chance to go back to C&O to run it, just for fun.

    Other news, I signed up to run across Tennessee in a virtual race again. This time we started in New Orleans and we would run to Tennessee along the Trace. It is a well known historic trail. I think it is 444 miles long. I would love to run that some day.

    There is a Trace Trail run (50 miler) in Tennessee. I can’t do it this year due to schedule conflict, but I will try it next year.

    That’s all. Voluntering was a different perspective. I got to talk to many people. I was able to relax at the camp fire. We had bad weather, but as volunteers, we were sheltered under the tents. I was dry most of the time. Runners were not so lucky. I was glad I was not out there running. The race was much harder when it was cold and wet. Some runners though had a lot of fun in the rain it seemed.

    Sleep deprivation didn’t hit me until I was driving home. It was scary. Let just leave it as that.

  • Roanoke Double Marathon [Day551]

    It was a novelty when I ran the Blue Ridge Marathon in 2019. It was known as America hardest road marathon, the footlevelers, with 7000 ft of total elevation (gain and lost). I finished in 4:45 and I thought I was slow because I had expected myself to finish under 4:30 or less. Now four years later, I had a chance to redo it and up the game to run it twice in one day also known as doing the Double.

    Blue Ridge Footlevelers is one of the few marathons (might be the only one) that has an event where you could run the course twice and receive a time and an award for it.

    I became aware of the double marathon during my first time there when I saw the doublers finishing their first lap of their marathon as we were about to start our race. They would be then joining us on their second lap. It was beyond my imagination those days of anyone capable of running a marathon twice.

    Now fast forward to November that year, I ran the JFK 50, my first 50 mile race. I probably knew I was going to do a 50 miler since I usually plan things a year in advance, but still since I hadn’t run it at the time, it was a wonder for me that there were people out there capable of running two marathon distance on the same day.

    By February 2021, I ran my first 100 mile race. The rest is history, because I ended up doing several more by 2022 and 2023. I was just a matter of when I would to go back to Roanoke to do a double marathon.

    By then the challenge was no longer that hard to me, since I could run a 100 mile on trails.

    MMT has way more elevation gains than Roanoke of 17 or 18 thousand feet of elevation change meaning 32000 feet of total elevation (about 4 to almost 5 times as many), so 7000 feet at Roanoke seems minor. I did the MMT last year, well 95% of it at least.

    Note most races are measured by elevation change instead of total elevation gain and lost.

    Spoiler: Before reading further though I didn’t finish the double marathon. Not because it was too hard for me but because the race was canceled halfway due to a storm. I only finished the first lap, and had a time of 6:22:00 for my first lap. Compared to my 2019 time of 4:45, over 6 hours finishing is slow. Not that I would mind. I am pointing it out my understanding of slow also has changed.

    I was at least 6 miles in on the second lap before the race was called. I had a good time nonetheless.

    I drove down to Roanoke after work on Friday. The drive was long. It was about 200 miles away. It normally takes about 3.5 hours. I ran into some afternoon rush hour traffic and it was over 4 hours before I arrived. My eyes had glazed over. We runners joked about couldn’t drive more than an hour but don’t mind running 6 or more hours out there. Indeed, I don’t like driving that far.

    I arrived around 6-7:00 pm and made it to the expo, which closed at 8 pm. There were some people still around, but not a lot. There was a free concert happening at the amphitheater. I brought two pairs of new shoes at the expo, Altra Rivera 3 and Estalante 3. I feel comfortable in them. The volunteer asked me if I would wear both of them the next day since it was obvious I was running the double marathon because I was holding my bib and race shirt in hand. Hell no, because rain was forecasted. I don’t wear new pair of shoes in the rain. Rain ruins good shoes.

    The forecast had 100% of rain for race day. So I chose to go with my beat up trainer pair. I had two old pairs with me but I know if my feet feel fine, I would not even have to change shoes midway.

    My hotel Econo Lodge was only a mile from the start. I decided to rest early that night. I brought a Subway sandwich from next door. Price has gone up and my dinner cost me nearly $20 and I was grumbling about my footlong and drink being expensive since I could get a chinese buffet of an all you can eat at around that price (Hibachi Grill I think was under $20, same for a large bowl of Pho and drink, $16). Traditionally, I go for a buffet the night before a race and Pho afterward. They are my comfort food.

    I did not want a buffet this time because I did not want to go bed with a heavy stomach. After eating, I tried to sleep early since I know my double marathon event start in the middle of the night at 1 am, but I was unable to fall asleep until closer to 11 pm.

    I don’t know when I felt asleep, it might have been 10 or closer to 11 but I slept like a baby with the light on and my clothes unchanged. I had my REM sleep, which was great because that all I needed to have energy for the run.

    The race, my first lap was going to start at 1 am. We had a choice to either start at 1 am or 2 am depending how fast we think we were going to run. The rule was we could not finish before 5:30 am or after 7:30 am. I chose 1 am and was planning to need a 6 hour to do this for my pace. 7 am finish.

    I set the alarm to wake up past midnight at 12:01 to be sure I get the AM/PM thing not be mixed up. Somehow I slept through the alarm or I might have messed up with the am/pm setting. It has happened before (at my MMT race when I overslept).

    It wasn’t until 12:45 I was shock awake. I was having a real nice dream of running in some race. I was happily laughing in my dream. I remember in the dream I was running yet I was late to the event. I was running around trying to find to the start. It seemed stressful but I was having a happy dream somehow. That was when I woke up, and realized my dream had become my reality and you bet I was not laughing. I was about to be late in my real marathon. Thank to the dream I woke up, because I could easily have slept till morning and I could even have missed the morning marathon.

    I already packed everything and had my bib on and water pack filled beforehand. So grabbing those, I put on a longer sleeve short, feeling it might be a cold night. I grabbed my rain jacket too and food bag, I got into my car and drove to the start. There was no time to lose. It should not take long for to drive a mile, maybe couple minutes, and at most 5 minutes.

    However unfortunately, I drove down on Orange Avenue thinking the start was on Orange, due to my half awake state. I did not realize I had to make a turn on what was like the main street of Roanoke. I drove on for maybe 5-6 miles before realizing my mistake. Then I put on google map to help me get me back. By then the race had started.

    I arrived to the race parking lot past 1 am. I put on my headlamp, my reflective jacket, and my flashing lights and walked to the start. Luckily they had a volunteer still there to check me in. I unofficially started my run at 1:12 am. I told the volunteer, I wouldn’t mind if she recorded me starting at 1 am, to make the math easier when they had to combine my time for the first lap with the second lap.

    I didn’t remember to start my garmin watch until I reached Walnut Street’s bridge crossing. It was about maybe 5 minutes later. So my watched recorded my whole race time as 6:15:00. My official time for the first lap was 6:22:00. About 7 minutes more and half mile shorter of 28.5 miles.

    It was a quiet night. About 40 other runners started ahead of me. They were now at least a mile ahead. I, having done the race before, the roads seemed familiar to me. Originally, I was worried and wanted to run with someone who knew the course. However, now having to run by myself, I just had to make it work. I did have the turnsheet/map in my hand. I also had the running app telling me where to turn but unfortunately, once I was up on the mountain, the app stopped working since it had no cell signal. I think I had the battery saver mode on, so it was interfering with the app. If I didn’t have that on, it would have drained my battery before the end of the race. Those running phone apps is kind of a catch-22. The newer Garmin watches can give turn directions and avoided this issue. You bet I want one of those.

    The first 6 miles was pretty easy. It was just one straight road up to Mill Mountain and then to Roanoke mountain. There were check points along the way, where volunteers checked us in as we passed them. They also served as race marshalls, to ensure we were on course, plus also served as aid stations, with water for us to refill our bottles. Many of them had waffles for us. Cheers to them for staying up all night for us.

    By mile 6, the fast people already reached the turn around point and were coming back down the mountain. I was able to see many of them as they passed me.

    By mile 7 I was able to catch up to some of the slow runners, like about the last 4-5 runners slower runners.

    Unfortunately on the way down from Roanoke Mountain, I did not pay attention and missed a turn at getting off of Blue Ridge Parkway. I added like 3.5 miles onto my run on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Later, I found out people did try to chase me to let me know I went the wrong way, but they just couldn’t catch me.

    I was again about 20 minutes behind everyone. It was now around 3 am and 13 miles in (my watch distance, the race distance was much less, maybe at 10 mile). Runners who started 2 am caught up to me as they came down the mountain. They were very fast and an enthusiastic bunch. There were not many of them, maybe 5-8. They gave me encouragements. I couldn’t keep their pace though and soon I was alone again after they passed me. I noted that the first crowd of runners I passed were subdue and didn’t cheer but the second crowd (2 am people), they were as excited as I was and it was fun. The 1 AM runners were too serious in their run.

    By mile 13, I caught up to the tail end again of the 1 am starters. I still knew I was about 15 minutes behind the race pace. Lucky there were no sweeps for the night run. Even though I was behind on my pace, I was not in danger of being pulled from the race. I got to Mill Mountain, it was all downhill from there so I could run much faster to make up the time.

    It had a very nice view at the Mill Mountain, looking out onto the city below from the Roanoke Star. It was one beautiful sight. I did not take a picture because it was night time.

    Location of my unofficial start (from garmin pov) Walnut St Bridge. Crossing this bridge would begin the climb to Roanoke Mountain. A lonely night
    It looks something like this on top of the mountain. This is at the turn around point at mile 7. I know it doesn’t look quite impressive, but the idea was while they sleep we run.

    The rest of the night was uneventful. Once I got back down from the mountain, it was easier. We were in the city around 4 am. There were already some occasional traffic on the roads. The signs for turns were easier to spot and there were street lights. The terrain was flatter. I followed the road markings.

    5 am. I think I was passing the hospital where the finish line was around the corner. Yet I still had maybe 8 miles to go. I had to get back to finish by 7:30 to start the second lap (2nd marathon). I remembered someone was passing me. I told the person, 40 more minutes before the finish line opens. we couldn’t finish before 5:30 am because the finish line was not ready yet. I think we had somewhere between 8-10 miles to go, likely 8 ish. I said he could finish before 5:30 (doing 5 min per mile), while I need two more hours for this. I was half joking of course. I was jealous of the fast people taking way less time than me.

    Climbing Peak Hill was hard. I had to walk. The volunteer said I was not that far behind the runner ahead. I was estimating maybe 10 mins behind the pace. I hoped to close the gap.

    By mile 20~ish, I passed the second to last runner. The sky was dawning. The time was around 6 am. I knew by then I could make it back in time. People were waking up and walking their dogs. The street was not so lonely any more.

    A beautiful morning. Looking back up at the hill I ran down from earlier during the night. We were at the foot of the Roanoke Star. Rain clouds proved later of spoiling our race.

    The final few miles I was able to see some runners at another out and back segment. I caught up to race pace of 16:20. They were couple miles ahead of me. They cheered me and I cheered them back. I am a loud and boisterous runner. I passed a few slower runners. My feet were still fresh. Catherine, I found out ran the course virtually a week prior and the year before, she finished with an hour to spare at the transition. Not this time. She came in just as the 2nd marathon was about to start.

    Less than two miles from the finish, they had police blocking the traffic for us. I felt like a king as I was only single runner at the time running on a wide road. They allow us to use the road now. People who were running in the morning race were also arriving. Some cheered me. I started having the runner’s high and crowd support motivated me to run even harder. I made it to the finish line by 7:22 am crossing the finish. At least for the first marathon is done.

    I had maybe 10 minutes to get to the car and freshen up before the start of the second race. I refilled up my water. I took my food bag with me. This would be my breakfast. I didn’t get to use the transition area they had for us. I used my car as an aid station instead.

    The food was originally for my first lap but I didn’t bring it with me, and now I took it. I did not have time to change shoes or shirt. My feet felt great and had no blisters or hot spots. I kept the same shoes on then. I didn’t have to change socks or lube up. Though when the rain came later, I regretted of not having put on some lube because my shorts were cutting into my private area.

    I got back to the start with about 5 minutes left. I missed the national anthem. There I met Iris, who was in my running club. I didn’t know she was running this race. We were excited and caught up on stories. Iris was one of my crew for the Devil Dog. It was good to finally see her again. Roanoke was her first marathon 10 years ago, she told me. This was her second time running it. She is a friend of Catherine. She said several members from my runner club was there that day. One was 4th female overall before the race was canceled.

    For second lap, I planned to go slower. Having Iris as my companion helped. I kept at her pace. The second lap we had 7.5 hrs to run it. It was an hour more than our first lap. However, we had to reach mile 20 by a certain time, which means we had to maintain 16:20 pace for the first 20 miles. We were doing like 15-16 min mi pace, so we were a bit ahead.

    6 miles in, it started raining. Then thunders and lightning started happening around us. It got very cold. I had my jacket on but I was still shivering. They called off the race around 9 am, about an hour and half into the race. We had to turn around and headed back. They reopened the roads. Police officers were telling us if we run, we run at our own risk.

    I understand their policy because for the safety of the volunteers and runners, the event had to be canceled. However, I agreed too with many runners that we were left unsupported midway through the race and there were confusion as to what to do. Most of us turned around and headed back to the start/finish area. I was not sure if there were buses coming to pick us up. My motto was, I can walk back on my own power.

    I wish they had closed the race in stages instead. I know there were no optimal solutions. With a canceled race, they were going get complaints. Some chose to continue on their own and were surprised no water or food served since the volunteers also had left their stations. Again the roads had reopened. I didn’t think that was safe but I think they wanted to send the message to us that we should not continue the run.

    The rain lasted only about 15-30 minutes. In hindsight, the race could have continued. Many (ultra) runners said they had been through much worse and dangerous or exposed situations before. What they experience that day was nothing. Hindsight always is perfect 20/20.

    As for me, I did not continue on. It was obvious we wouldn’t have the aid support. I had my water pack so in theory I could run a marathon unsupported. I was also having some rub burn issue so as soon as I could get to the finish area the better. I checked with Iris, she also wanted to get back quickly. It took us maybe an hour to get halfway down the mountain. We got to mile 12 and 13, where the buses made their way up. We got on the buses. We were overjoy that the buses came for us. I knew I could make it back to the start by walking or running (we were probably at most only 3 miles away) but having the bus take us back was way better than walking in our wet clothes. The bus waited until it was fully packed before heading off. There were maybe 50-60 of us on a bus. We arrived back at 10:30.

    The finish line was a busy place. They were serving food and drinks still. I did not mind grabbing myself a slice of pizza. Those that did not take the bus were coming in. I guess they were the 3 hours finishers (half marathoners/marathoners). They were still handing out medals. The volunteers though received words that the race closed at 9, but had remained for last hour and half serving finishers. They were understaffed because majority of the volunteers had left. It was a shoestring operation! I did not stay for long because as more buses arrived, it was going to get more chaotic.

    It was a hard call to whether continue the run or give up for a lot of people. There is a bit of shame of giving up on a race. RD made the call, so in a sense the RD took on the blame. The drama is still going on the social media. All runners who did not finish were converted to a virtual race. We could submit our time and get a medal. There were questions how many miles do we now run, since the race was shutdown halfway, whether we had to redo from the beginning and or how to combine the two timings and courses for the upload. Technically, I think you have to redo the course from the beginning, the whole 26.2 miles. But it is a virtual event now. Who cares. RD just wants everyone to be happy and go on until next year event. Some were calling boycotting the next year event. Some were asking for a discount or refund. Basically I think do whatever they want since it is a virtual race. The race would not count for anything. This got people upset.

    FYI I took a medal and a finisher picture and I even cross the finish line (don’t tell anyone 🤫) and I rode on the bus back! People who rode with me on the bus, asked you could do that? sure! why not! Sorry for those who did continue the race in their own power and ran to the finish without the aid station supports. They were beasts. But you know I will do the full 52.4 mile run on my own, right (I will just use part of the upcoming 100 mile race as my time👍)?

    My action somewhat took away their honor, but to me since the race was over by 9, anyone who came in after that would not be recorded. We made the finish celebration to mean whatever we wanted it to mean by then. Hence there were a lot of dramas happening and complaints on Facebook going on. People were discontent that they didn’t get the proper recognition or for some was the opportunity to continue. I don’t really care by then. You go out there and have fun and deal with what was given. Stop giving people a hard time. Having the race canceled is part of the journey. Iris told me in her years of running never once was a race canceled on her midway.

    There was no DQ-ing for those came in after 9 o clock (or technically we all DQ-ed) and that was why people were upset.

    For me I think, we received no words from race organization on what to do and there was a general of confusion! I mean we clearly understood the race was canceled. It was like what’s next then. None of us wanted to go home. For me it was a successful fun run finishing with a group of friends and we celebrated we survived the ordeal being three hours out on the course. It was for our friends and family also because they wanted to see that is the end of the trip and all the training. So we took photos at the finish line. Our group promised we will be back next year to do it properly.

  • Spring Re 23:13 [Day550]

    Last season Re(view) of Day500, I ran a lot of races, such as MMT, Iron Mountain, Devil Dog. For my regular readers, this post is a repeat of what I have been posting, but for those who only tune in once every six months or a year, this post is for you. It also helps me placing mental separation like a season or so is done.

    Looking back, my perspective has shifted since then. Day 500 was written just before I did the Devil Dog 100 race. I had at the time seemed to be in an unsucessful year due to the emotional beatings received from not finishing two races earlier, e.g., the MMT 100 race and the Iron Mountain 50.

    The post ended of what would I do next, which is now and next year. I had at the time the Devil Dog 100 coming up and OBX 100 following.

    Since then I have completed both, the Devil Dog 100 in December and OBX in March. The fall races prepared me well for them. The Devil Dog was not an easy race, but couple friends came and helped crew me. I managed to finish. The full report is here.

    After running the Devil Dog, I took on the Outer Banks Blackbeard’s Revenge 100. It was an exciting race. I PR’d it, meaning beated my best time ever in a 100 mile distance, finished it a little over 26 hours. I was not even aiming for a PR. There is a lot to say. I went in not sure if 32 hours were enough for me to finish. The race for me was easier than expected and easier than any other previous races even though conditions were not as good due to the heat and strong winds and what seemingly the lack of food at aid stations. I love it a lot because I had a good time. Full report is here. This race was those once in a lifetime adventures. I was glad I ran it. It gave me the feeling I still got what it take to run a 100 mile race. This brings us to MMT 100 later of this year.

    Now for 2023, I have been training a lot for the BRR 50 and the MMT 100. I did the BRR just couple weeks ago. MMT is coming up soon in a couple weeks. This report comes in the midst of things. I felt better prepared this year than last year. We will see how I will do. Wait till the Next report to know. Day 600 will be near the end of the year or even early next year (depends 25-30 weeks from now).

    I ran several smaller races, e.g., Redeye 50K on New Year, Holiday Lake 50k, Cowtown 50K, Bull Run Run 50 Miler, Shamrock Marathon, Blue Ridge Double Marathon (report hasn’t written yet), Seneca Greenway 50K, Naked Nick 50k. Then there was the Reston 10 miler. I won’t link any reports here because there are just so many. Bear with me, I am throwing around a lot of names. Our virtual race  around world (CRAW) is done. We finished early January of this year. That was a three-year project. I am taking part in the extended version of adding 6 more regions, which added maybe 25,000 km. Likely will finish it at the end of this year or some time next year. We have a fast team.

    About races, each of them was a wonderful experience. Am I tired? Sometimes. I am used to now of running many races in a short span of time, I can’t remember them and I can’t even keep track of my up coming races. I can’t summarize them all here except each one was so good. I was living my best life to be able to experience them. They definitely helped prepare me for the next big race. I am grateful I got to run in them.

    Physically, I have been dealing with my weak left ankle. I believed I injured it sometimes after the Devil Dog, maybe at the Naked Nick 50k event. It is healing but the process has been slow and long. I started to suspect I teared a tendon or something (but some say that would be painful if I did). Now four months later, I still have a slight discomfort. It doesn’t hurt any more, but from time to time, I felt like I have that hit my funny bone sensation in my left ankle. It would bring me to my knees. All I know is it has not healed 100% and it is affecting my trail races. Road races are fine. I just have a problem standing tip toe, going down the stairs, putting on shoes etc. Not pain but a weak sensation that my ankle can’t be trusted. I have been praying for a stronger ankle.

    Now 2023, I will be going to Toronto, Canada. One of my dreams is to run outside of US and it is being come true. This race is in about a week. I just received my race bib the other day in the mail. News gets old fast. So by the time readers read this, it is likely be done or you might be reading the race report before this post.

    I signed up for MMT 100 again this year. I have high hope I will finish. This soon will take place. I am repeating myself. Yes MMT is very important to me.

    I signed for Grindstone 100 for the fall. It will be a hard race and hard training for next quarter. I might do Burnimg River 100 this summer. I think this pretty much it for 2023.

    I am in the process of planning for 2024. Not much can be said at this time, but will leave this in a future post, I hope my plan will be clearer by then. I am struggling in defining what I want beyond 2024. Things are moving in the right direction. Red Dirt Lousiana and Pinhoti Alabama are in play. It’s a secret right now.

    As for the Nepal trip, some new laws came in effect. One was we backpackers will be required having an approved mountain guide. No longer are we free to hike as we like by ourselves. I might not go there anytime soon because of this new law. It is a tiny setback. Having a guide is definitely what I like but I also like the free-ranch aspect and the sense of danger. I know the law is still evolving, so we will see. Too many people doing dumb things over there is the rumor. This trip was supposed to take place this year. Hence I set a relatively free running schedule. However, it is not on any of my immediate plan yet to do. It is one of my dream trip but I haven’t got off my butt to make it happen.

    What’s next after this (for 2024 or 2025). I have a bunch of marathons to run. My friend Caroline inspired me with her exact plan of running in all 50 states. Next year, I plan to run a lot of marathons, many of the same races she did this year. Imitation is the best form of flattery they say. I am not ashame to copy. Basically trying to get all 50 states done as soon as possible, meaning I will need to do around 10 to a dozen races per year. Maybe looking at a shorter time frame of 3-4 years. I have about 36-ish races left.

    Devil Dog 100 and Blackbeard’s 100 restored my confident in running longer races. 50 milers no longer seem that hard. 100 milers also seem a bit easier. I plan to do a lot more 100s. My goal might be also do a 100 in every state. My friend is tempting me to follow his footstep of doing 100 of 100 mile races. He is 62 year old I think. If he has such aspiration why can’t I? So instead of being a marathon maniac, I am now a hundred miler maniac.

    I have been looking at oversea races for 2025 and beyond. One is in Mexico. One is in the Philippines. That is a bit of a distance future. Mexico might be part of 2024 plan. So planning phase should start soon especially for the mexico trip. Mexico is a scary world. I hope to go in and get out as quick as possible.

    I need to constant push myself to do things outside of my comfort zone and leave things I am familiar with. 2021 and 2022 were like that when I reached beyond what I thought was possible. 2023 seems to have a safe schedule so far. How I know I am a bit over my limit is I when I started failing like in 2022. 2022 got me to admit I reached my limit and then I took remedial actions and redemptions this past winter and spring season.

    I made more running friends. They inspired me. In beginning 2022, I only met one person (Tek) who I thought was crazy running 100 mile races as if they were running a marathon. Then at the end of 2022 and last few months, I met several more (especially Fernando). Likely either this year or by this time next year, I will be like them. I don’t think I am that far away. The gap between what I thought was impossible to possible has narrowed quite a bit. One was my perception of things, I am no longer afraid of 100 mile races. I will start running 100 milers like I run marathons in a higher frequency.

    My Weaknesses: I have slacked off on my training a bit, last year. Miles wise is still pretty high but my effort has been lacking. Training is no longer “hard.” I could do better. I believe only we train against resistance do we improve. I still sleep through my morning training. It was one of my last year goals to wake up early and excercise. I only did it like once. I need to break that bad habit. That is my big weakness is I am easy to settle or compromise for less.

    I gained weight. Not a bad thing but I could lose some body fat. Not fat shaming. I haven’t gone to the gym at all. I could improve on my physical build. I run a lot but other areas needed to be worked on too.

    Fasting: My diet has not been that great last year. I need to eat less processed stuff and more fresh and natural food. I know so many people who eat cleaner than me. Fasting was not part of my training/life last year. I should occasionally fast to keep my body healthier. I plan to start fasting regularly, but staying away from food is hard for me.

    I am struggling with defining my future direction. Yes I am doing the 50 states completion. I am running ultras and 100 mile races. I am attempting harder races. But that is only a small part. I need to ask what do I want more in life. How do I get from here to there? from my small tiny dreams to my bigger dreams. A lot of times, I just need to push myself, get off my butt.

    If you ask what would be doped to do, I think hiking the triple crown would be it. PCT, CDT, and the AT. I consider hiking the Appalachian Trail a life dream. I need to actively reach for them. It is easy to dream, but action is hard.

    Also if I could travel oversea, I think that would be wonderful. I don’t strive to be the best gamer etc. I am just an average person. But if I could do something epic, that would be so good. This would tie into my retirement plan of living oversea.

    Lesson/observation/reminder. Life goes by so fast. I met couple friends who said 2017 was their best year in running and every since it has been downhill. Now I ran with them and they were far from the best forms. I don’t know if I have peaked yet, I hope this year is not my best year yet. I already ran for about 7 years and I felt I am just started. I fear in a blink of an eye I will be where some of my friends are now. I run with a lot of friends who are in their 60s. They are still going strong but no way were they compared to when they were in their 40s. It seems so fast. In a blink of an eye and they are “old.”

    I need to put in the effort to make the most out of life. Every year, I need to optimize my time. Choose the best things to do. Let not waste the opportunity I have.

    Another lesson, I thought I am in control of a lot of things, but these last few years, despite of my planning, there things like the covid interruption was beyong anyone could prepare for. I am just one of many floating in this sea of time. There will likely be major world events that will take place and that will turn everyone’s life up-side-down again. Yes, still got to make the best out of everything.

    Am I on track? Yes and no. I think I am on track of doing what I like. I completed 4 x 100 races. But I haven’t been aggresive enough in going after my goals. I met both Frenando and Caroline who inspire me to be like them. They are both much older than me yet they are doing like 10 times more than I am. I know I shouldn’t compare to them, but they do give a good reference point to me. I started thinking, I could do what they are doing. The question then became why not!

    Apart from running, I am or I hope to withdraw my time, energy, resource from the online twitch community. I supported several self-made artists/content creators last year and even past several years. They had kind of quit halfway. I am Not disappointed but also kind of am. It is hard to explain. I think it lacks closures. I will leave it to a future post to write more on this.

    Anyway, I just put it out there. I have been involved in this streaming thing since the covid started. Things are winding down. Many content creators are back to their regular work (real life/real job). The so called final fantasy has ended. I credit this to be why I was successful running the two 100 mile races the last 6 months, Because I had more time for training.

    I hope this has been a good read. That was about some of my current struggles and life updates. Until next time. Oh, here was a midterm review done not long ago for those who want to read more, Day532 (Feb 2023). It is pretty much similar to the present report. (I haven’t forgotten about Lake Tahoe). The next midterm maybe will be in July or August. Of course the next Re: will be 50 “days” from now and that is about maybe 25-35 weeks from today or 6-9 months.

  • News & Updates [Day549]

    I think I got a bit of clarity since last time regarding what races to run. Just a bit.

    After the last MMT training, I have been thinking a lot about Pihoti 100 in Alabama next year. Amanda was running with me and she attempted it in 2021. She said it is like Bull Run Run I did last weekend. I think it is a race I wanted to do next. I watched a few videos on youtube and got convinced. It gave that feeling of the right fit. I think this is their 10th year. If that is true, then it won’t be that hard.

    This fall I have Grindstone lined up. I am scared and excited about this one too. At the BRR 50 last week, while running along side of Jamie and her team and listened into their conversation. A few of them did it. They were talking about Grindstone. It gave me the confident I could do it well. They were comparing between MMT and Grindstone. If they are relatively the same, then it would not be a problem for me. They said the hardest part is the start time being at 6 pm and have to spend two nights out on the trail.

    Amanda’s husband also did Grindstone before. Hearing so many people have done it made me feel better. Amanda might crew me too. She said she would during our training run only if that weekend is free for her. I don’t count on it but that will be pretty cool if I have a crew. After I finish the MMT, you bet my attention will be on the Grindstone. Maybe this time I have a crew and pacers.

    Canada trip preparation. Feeling relieved that I got hotel and car rental settled last night. I have been delaying on this. It would be easier if I were traveling by myself, because I could sleep and stay anywhere. I could wing it and make my own decisions at the last moment. The price would not be an issue either for me. I would have stayed in downtown like minutes from the CN tower or somewhere along the race course.

    However, I will be traveling with my mom and two others, so there are other considerations and constraints. My mom wanted a specific date at a specific location (two nights at Niagara falls and two nights in Toronto, I would have preferred one night at the Falls and three nights in Toronto). Also pricing and room size etc. I can’t pick something like $300 a night or having two rooms. There were too many constraints.

    Luckily, hotels are pretty inexpensive at the falls at that time of year. In the end, I picked somewhere farther away from the race starting location. It is about 15 mins away. There is a problem of what to do with the car while I am racing. Exactly. They have trouble driving around in a strange city, plus there will be road closures. I hope they won’t try to get to Downtown on their own. But it will be their problem. I am thinking I will take an Uber to the start and Uber back when they are done. It will be a hassle for me, but it will reduce their complexity of navigating in a big city. I have to treat them like a 5 yr old.

    World’s End 100k in PA. I didn’t get in this year. I was going to volunteer again, but my cousin is getting marry that weekend, 6/6 from 3-6 pm. There was some snafus going on because they were not going to send out invitations. I felt impolite to ask if I was invited. So I made my own plan for that weekend. Actually I didn’t even know of the wedding date before this week. His mom called me maybe because someone (or my mom) told her they had left me out, and asked why I will not be going to her son’s wedding.

    It was awkward. She made her son to text me the invitation. So I guess I have to rsvp by messaging back. The situation is still volatile. I don’t like to be strong armed and I don’t want to force other people to do things because of me.

    I was thinking of how to deal with this. Does my cousin want me there? Or is this his mom’s idea? Likely it was his mom’s idea. In the past, I use first-come-first-serve policy. What ever plan is on my calendar, I do those first, others can wait. My own plan comes first. I already made plans for that weekend, and now 5-6 weeks out, this happens. I know 5-6 weeks is still flexible for me to change things around, but it is just frustrating when my plan is affected by other’s people. I guess this is what my sister means by being a grown up. She told me to grow up 🤫. I don’t always get what I wanted and just suck it.

    Otherwise, I would be creating a scene and have everybody hate me. It will go down in the family’s history, as the guy who skips out on his cousin’s wedding for a race, which he is not even running!

    A bit nearer. Tonight, in a few hours, at 1 am, I am doing the Roanoke, Blue Ridge Marathon Doubler. This race has several names. I don’t care what its official branding is. Maybe it is the Anthem Marathon again this year, who knows. I always refer it as the Roanoke Blue Ridge Marathon.

    I did this race in 2018 or 2019, just the marathon. I need to look up the race report for yoy guys. At the time, I found out they had the Doubler. It was a new concept to me that some people would go out and run the full marathon course at night and be back in time by 7:30 in the morning to run it again with the official start. This started as an informal event until recent years where the official race actually gives their blessing. Now, we have the proper signup and we pay the fee and receive some on course support and direction (water only, volunteers driving around, making sure runners are okay). So I signed up and will run two marathons starting later tonight.

    Finally, Congratulations to those who ran the Boston Marathon this year. A few people (friends) I recently met ran it this past Monday. I am so happy for them. I don’t know if I ever get to do that. One of my friends who is doing an 100 miler almost every weekend ran it. He finished Boston and he is doing the New Jersey Devil 100 this week without much of a break. Boy does he ever sleep? People in my social running club said the same of me when they heard me running a race every weekend, but I think this other guy is on another level. He is aiming 100×100 (one hundred of 100 mile races).

    There are a few more things but I couldn’t remember right now, so until next post.

  • Bull Run Run 50 [Day548]

    I wanted to run Bull Run Run 50 Miler for many years, possibly since 2018 and maybe as early as 2017 when I found out about the Virginia Trail Running Club, my local area running club.

    However, back then I did not know how hard trail running was or the distance and when I did, I backed out from signing up. It took all these years to get up the courage, to sign up. A few times I tried to sign up but the race was full or the registration had not yet opened.

    It was not until a friend encouraged me to run the MMT 100 about three years ago that I started to involve myself in the club. Covid also helped since less people sign up for group events and the lottery selection was not needed.

    If it was my first time running the MMT 100, I wouldn’t dare tackle the BRR 50. You know, one slight accident on the BRR course would derail the 100 miler that is a month out. Many who are doing the MMT signed up BRR, for the same reason as me.

    Long story short, this year I finally got a spot in the famous Bull Run Run 50 miler (BRR50). By now I am a much stronger runner. I can handle a 50 miler with confident.

    I still put in the work. I attended one of their training runs. They had three sessions this year but two of them I had scheduling conflict due to my racing or other training runs. I trained for it last year too even though I did not get in. I was sufficiently ready this time.

    We had a warm day. Hot in fact compared with 30 F we had recently. Thursday before we had 85 degrees (29-30C). I forced myself to go out and had a hot run for heat training and that was definitely very helpful in preparing for this.

    Note too just the previous weekend, I ran in near 30 F temperature. So the swing from near freezing to the extreme heat was difficult for a lot of people to adjust to. I almost thought I couldn’t handle it either. The heat in Virginia is not like the dry heat out west, here when it is hot it is also very humid. For runners, it means our bodies can’t be easily cool down.

    I ran for 7 miles Thursday. Friday I did not run. The temperature was a bit cooler around mid 70s. Saturday morning, I woke up around 4 AM, and it was already “hot” around 70s. I knew we were going have a hot day. The air was humid. Rain and thunderstorms were forecasted but did not come. So the humidity unofficially were near 100%. The air was thick.

    I arrived at the race site around 5:30 in the morning. Everyone were up and about. Some people camped there. Traditionally, you could stay in a cabin overnight. It is a lot of fun, like a runner camping trip.

    I was not early. Parking was an issue we were warned. They asked people to carpool if possible and the incentive was getting a closer parking spot. For the rest who didn’t carpool, we parked like half a mile away and walked to the start.

    The race started at 6:30. I met up with a few good friends. Charlie and Stuart and a few others. I had coffee from the dinning hall. That was cool they opened it and we could have a small breakfast and socialize with other runners.

    People saw how relaxed and confident I was thought I had run the race many times. They (the first time runners) were asking me various things because they thought I knew. I said I only ran a few training runs and am familiar with the trails. I love this race and the people. It is true VHTRC races have the best aid stations.

    The staging area was big and everything seemed well placed and well organized. I placed two drop bags, one to be taken to Foundtainhead (mile 30 and 37) and one to be remain at Hemlock (mile 17 and 50), which we’d pass by at mile 17. The course is a double out and back with the finish at Hemlock which is about “halfway” point from the north and south, in Clifton, near where I live. We were to run to Bull Run Park and back and then run to Fountainhead and back.

    I was sweating profusely immediately once we started running. I ran slowly and was not in an hurry. This helped with the breathing. I was not fighting for position with anyone. I learned from my experience during my few training runs there of not starting too fast.

    Slowly I reeled in people. I drank from time to time. My footing was good unlike during training in February when I rolled my ankle on this course. My feet just knew where to step without me being too focus on where to step. It was as if a second nature. I was happy and comfortable.

    During the training run, I was too focused on where to step. I had to pick each single step because a single misstep would mean tumbling or rolling my ankle. But today, I had the flow. I run in my natural gait and it didn’t matter where I landed as long as it is not loose underneath, I could find my balance. This was a big difference!

    In the past, I adjusted my steps and it messed up my gait but now I just learned to balance better no matter if I landed even on an uneven surface, I just have to balance on it. I found it was easy. Just run normally. During the training I got tired after half an hour on this trail but today I felt refreshed.

    The race was uneventful. The course was dry. Those who remember, a few times I did this trail, it was always muddy. I told myself, run a boring pace. No need to rush for anything. No surprises.

    I started in the back almost the last one out and so was not fighting for position on a single trail. Those I passed usually would be too weak to pass me back. Over time the separation of the fast and slow runners became bigger and it got easier for me to pass some of the “faster” people in the front because by the time I reached them, they were no longer fast and they were more willing to let me pass. I was not the only one using this strategy. There were a few others.

    I got to Bull Run Park and did the Blue Bell Loop. Amanda was there offering water. Amanda is my friend whom I ran with the previous week at the MMT night training. It was good seeing her again. I was a bit disappointed she did not sign up to run this one. I am sure it would have been a good training. But she might be struggling with the cutoffs and thus did not want to put her through the stress. Amanda will be doing the MMT.

    I was running with a group about my pace. Somehow after Bull Run, the pack spreaded out and I found the next pack. I was behind an older man, we were still in a pack when he tripped over a root and fell as I were thinking about to pass him. The pack ran on without pause but I stopped for him. So I walked with him for a bit to make sure he was alright. I got him to the Centreville Road Aid Station. Not sure if he later finished, his pace was slowing down after the fall. He seemed to be shaken up.

    There were a few people I saw with bloody elbows or shins who took a fall in the Centreville section. I actually don’t know why because this is the easier and flatter section compared to later sections of the race.

    The race slowed down a bit for me too because I was a bit bored and was by myself. There was a long stretch without seeing anyone since I walked earlier with the guy and my pace got behind a bit.

    The section going back to Hemlock was more hilly. I was familiar with this section because it is closer to where I live. I could run these hills since I was still pretty strong, however, I had to hold back on my pace. Two women (navy) were behind me and they were pushing the pace a bit earlier but somehow kept dropping back because they walked the hills. At times I let them passed me. One time during the passing, they almost collided with runners coming from the other direction. They were a bit of a rush and didn’t see. I didn’t like that. I don’t know if they finished either because I did not see them again. They also settled down in their pace after one of them tripped and fell. They stopped a few times for bathroom breaks. We were only 10 miles in.

    Next, we passed a team of three. They had an older man probably in his 60s of his first 50 miler part of their team. This race had a team competition. The younger people could probably run faster but they ran with the man. I think this team was one that passed us on the final 8 miles of the race. They were fast (after the older gentleman had dropped from the race I am guess). I knew they were fast. I stayed with them for a time and chatting with the guys. The lead of the pack almost fell too when he tripped over a root. We were all laughing at him since he seemed to be so good and shouldn’t be tripping.

    After passing them now, I encountered a few more guys. One seemed to be cramping up because he was kind of limping. We were closed to Hemlock. So I rushed on ahead. I was surprised people were struggling so earlier on and throughout the race, I saw a lot of the same, because fast people already ran on ahead and I did not get to see them. Those I came across were not doing well. I was not particularly fast but I was running and passing people. In my head I did the time and pace calculation, and I felt I was within an acceptable pace.

    As I rushed up to Hemlock I came across Alma (that wasn’t her name, but I assigned names to people) and I thought her name was Tracy during the whole race, because I ran with Tracy earlier but somehow I lost her and I thought I caught up to Tracy again. Later as I was writing this, I found out they were different people. I am one of those who think everyone’s faces look the same 🙈. Alma will be volunteering at the MMT.

    Anyway, Alma also took a fall earlier and bruished her shin. It was bleeding, swollen and looked bad. Later at the aid station a dear friend Charleen taped her up. She was moving but seemed to be struggling. She wanted to quit at mile 17 but Charleen got her back out.

    We were only at mile 17, not yet halfway. I said I will pace her to the end if she wants to because I figured I need a slow pace like I will be doing for MMT in a month time. I want to practice the slow steady pace on the 50 miler, aiming to finish by 7-7:30. I was sure I could do this race under 12 hours, but I wanted to run and not exhaust myself. I spent a lot time walking and talking with people to hear their stories. Some of course, did not look like willing to talk and I left them alone.

    By the way I came across Jeff friend’s from Eddingburg, whom I wrote about in a previous MMT training. Dylan was running in this race and Jeff was supporting.

    Alma said you are going to pace me for the next 35 miles? I said yes.

    I went for my dropbag. The guy who was limping earlier came into the station vomiting. I think he had heat related issues or could be food poisoning. You know runners grabbing food at the food stations, or they didn’t wipe their hands after using the restroom. Any of those could get a runner sick during a race.

    His wife was trying to help him. They had salt tablets available at the aid station but his wife heard me said to give him salt, so she found the whole can of salt and brought that to him. I said no, get the salt tablets. It was a OMG that was too much salt, she was going to kill the guy by pouring that much into his small cup. This remind me to put a big-big cup in my drop bag iny next ultra event. Looking back it was kind of funny to see the inexperience crew and a runner struggling. This is why you want crews who also are runners.

    The guy was probably having brain fog. His wife was not helping. I suggested give the guys some ice to cool him off. But my time was up and I left the station. I wish I know what happened to them. Not sure if the guy went on out after me or stayed. I wish I could help him but at the same time I did not want to interfere. If he had gone on out, he might have fainted because the day was going to get hotter and the trail harder still. He looked pretty beat up at that point and this was only mile 17 about 9:30 or 10 in the morning. I didn’t want to encourage him, so I quickly left. I felt torn to tell the guy not to go back out.

    I forgot all about Alma too and left without her. I didn’t see her again until 12-13 miles later. I don’t remember much of my run out from Hemlock to the Bull Run Marina. I was able to adjusted to the heat by now. My sweat was evaporating. They had ice at all aid stations and that was a life-saver. I had ice poured into my hydration pak. It kept my back cool. The oppressive low pressure storm system seemed to be lifted. Humidity seemed to be better. I could feel the breezes. I caught up to the race pack, those that seemed to be able to finish the race at that point in time. I passed anyone who walked.

    From Bull Run Marina to Wolf Run Shoals and then Fountainhead was uneventful as well. There I caught up to Jamie. I ran with Jamie in the past. She is quite famous due to her cheery personality. Everyone knows Jamie. She is usually faster than me. Today she was with her team of four and one of the women was struggling probably due to the heat, so their pace had slowed a bit, doing run walk. The woman couldn’t eat. They were offering her various solution. I think ultimately she was dropped from the race maybe at the second Fountainhead. I was with them for a few miles. No harm in following Jamie. Seeing her was a relief because I know I could finish by 6 pm at her pace. Jamie finished around 12.5 hours.

    I was thinking, I had not done the next section the Do-Loop that was coming up. I heard a lot of people had gotten lost in there before and so I wanted to follow Jamie, thinking she might have done this section in the past and we would not get lost.

    Jamie and her team was moving too slow for me so I passed them. I got to Wolf Run Shoals before them and then pushed onto Fountainhead. On my way there, I passed several people. Most were walking by now since it was past noon and we passed the 25 mile point. People were spent. They had a grim look and I stayed away from them and only shouted “you are doing great” as I passed by.

    There was this Asian guy. I was a bit sympathetic because he looked like me. I walked with him maybe for a mile and started talking. He was receptive. He said he couldn’t do this any more. I said, we still have 6-7 hours how come it is not possible to finish. Surely even by walking we could put in 20 miles in 6 or 7 hours. Surely his pace would pick back up. We ran ultras and so we knew, you have cycles of highs and lows.

    He said he has done this race 9-10 times. He knows that at his pace he wouldn’t finish. He said to make it he would need to get to Fountainhead by 1:15. And we were still couple miles out. Likely he would be arriving at the station’s cut off. The guy’s past strategy was to run very fast to fountainhead at first half of the race and then walk the rest of the way and would still finish under 10 hours, which is quite a feat. I ran 50 milers never gotten under 10 hours. I didn’t see him again.

    His plan did not work today. I think it was because of the heat. I said goodbye to him and ran to Fountainhead and arrived by 1:15. The station cutoff was not until 1:45. We had to finish the Do Loop and arrived back at Fountainhead by 4:15. Two and half hours to do 9 miles. To me that was a lot of time because I could run 4-5 miles an hour.

    There were a lot of asians that day, because the MARRC (Montgomery Asian Road Runner Club) were represented there. They had their separate aid stations. They all wear their club shirt.

    As I was filling up my water, Jamie and her team arrived. Alma also arrived. I apologized to her for not waiting earlier. Apparently she was fast enough to catch up to me. She said she was concerning about cutoffs, but to me, it should not be an issue, we had at least 30 minutes to burn. If we keep our current pace, we wouldn’t have to dip into our buffer. I would pace her in earnest. If I get a DNF (did not finish) because of the slow pace, so be it. I at least had my training for the MMT done.

    Somehow around this time Alma lost her phone. She thinks it might have fallen off while she was bending over for her drop bag. She did not realize it until we left the station. It was too late to go back for it. It was either to give up the race to look for the phone or continue on. I offered to check for it on find-my-phone app/something. But we were a bit tight on time, so we hurried on.

    Compounding that once we left the station about quarter mile in, we got lost. Granted we were with Jamie and her team too plus 5-6 other people around us. Our whole group of 10+ people all got lost together because everyone was following the person in front of them and not doing their own homework.

    Some people cursed and became angry as if it was our fault since we were nearer to the front and because they were following us. We went down this steep hill and the lead person said they no longer see the course ribbons and thinks we are on the wrong trail. We could either go back or continue.

    I went back immediately while the group stayed around still debating if to go forward or backwark. We were at a three-way cross trail without ribbons guiding us which way to turn.

    My spider sense told me we were off and backtracking was the right thing to do. I ran back up the hill and came to the last guy who just was coming down and he said this was the right way. He seemed sure.

    However, I did not go a little further back to double check on his words and I trusted him completely. Of course he was wrong. I am mad at him just like other people was mad at me. I ran back down the hill with his false info saying we had confirmation from an runner that we are on the right trail.

    The group was still standing there debating. A few of us then ran on ahead to see if we could see any flagging. We saw some runners came down on a parallel trail and there were blue ribbons on that path but not ours, thus confirming we were indeed not where we were supposed to be but we were not too far off course either. We could take a short cut to get back on the right trail from there but that would be a violation of the race rules. We had to return to where we got off course. So I led the group backtracking up onto the hill where we came down of. Some people already left it us once they heard the word to go back.

    From the map, they could also cut the course short because the trail was curvy but that would be in violation too. Alma’s GPS watch was indicating we were backtracking on the present trail thus, going the wrong way, and luckily we ignored that. Her GPS was wrong at the time. She blamed herself of not downloading the GPX file onto her watch before the race. I didn’t blame her. No need to cry over spilled milk. I did the map study before the race. I like some adventures like this.

    Once we got back on where we got off course, there was another argument whether to go left or right. We got off course on curve section of the course. No one remember where we came off from. Some said we came from that way, but some said the other way. Both ways looked the same. The earlier group that got there first of the group chose one way. Their reasoning was we were walking straight at the time and didn’t make any turns and believed we came from the left because that seemed to match our memory of going straight. By the time Jamie group came up, a few of us caught a glimpse of some runners (those that did not get lost with us) in a distance in the forest, so turning left seemed to get us there, and we picked to go to the left and luckily that was the correct way. My gut feeling also said to go that way based on the terrain and the parallel trail I saw earlier. We had no idea what happened to the few that took the other way because we never saw them again. They would have arrived back at the aid station. They could cheat and said they did the loop or they could give up, or they could go back in and do the loop all over. We were pretty much at the last position from that point on till the end of the race. No other people passed us until way later.

    Our little side trip costed us maybe 15-20 minutes in total, but it could have been a race ending event, thus many who were with us cursed in anguish. I did not let that affect me. In my mind, we were still in the game. Alma didn’t say anything either. We had to keep our emotion in check.

    Jamie and her team said we now had to run and they ran and disappeared. They have been mostly walking earlier for the sake of their weakest runner. I was left with Alma and an older gentleman (I don’t remember if the same gentleman who gave me the wrong direction).

    We soon left the older guy behind too maybe after a mile or so since he couldn’t keep the pace. Alma and I ended up doing the Do-Loop by ourselves. Alma put in a good pace of not too fast nor too slow. We passed a few people we saw earlier of those who didn’t get lost and that gave us confident we were back on track or on the pace we were originally doing. We passed a Jamie’s teammate, one who was having stomach issue. She later did not make the time cut-off.

    This was my third time passing many of the same runners. I felt like covering the same ground and I hoped that it would be the last time. Everyone we passed, were pretty tired and their pace couldn’t be trusted either. We knew and we did the math. Indeed, later many of them didn’t make the cut.

    Also as we entered the Do Loop (blue horse trail) a lot of earlier runners were exiting it, meaning they had completed the loop already, and we had wasted too much time with getting lost. Those people were at where we should be at if we did not have a little detour. I think at the this point we came across the real Tracy, who is a friend to Alma.

    I did not let the feeling of self pity messed up our mentality. I know we were a bit behind on pace. We got to the actual Do-Loop entrance, which is just a 2 mile loop. The critical point is to enter and exit it correctly. There were runners in times past who did this loop more than once by accident and we would not want that today. It is sort of a running joke. I enjoyed the loop. It was hilly but not any more so than other hills we encountered earlier.

    Funny thing was when we left the Do Loop, there were runners still entering it. Alma asked me if I think those people could finish. I doubted they could but did not want to discourage those runners or ourselves. I said I believe they have a chance otherwise they would have been cut earlier. If they have a chance so would we. Always believe. Those runners too were cheerful, giving us encouragements.

    Alma told me a lot of things in the interval. Of her races. She had attempted Eastern States in 2017, maybe after two years of trail running. She is a brave person. I ran for 7 years and did not think I got what it takes to run the Eastern States. She did The Wild Oak Trail, the Cold Trot during Feb 2018, and got it done in 47 hours? The TROT race director encouraged me to sign up for next year. Doing that race is an impressive feat. I did one loop of TROT, 25 miles and it took me 12.5 hours. Indeed 48 hours was anything but torture for her. Since then she attempted Grayson Highlands. She ran Stonemill and JFK, races I also ran before.

    She was not flexing. She didn’t tell me her results but later when I looked them up, yes she had impressive finishes, way faster time than me. She told me the time she ran out of water and there was 8 miles to go to the next aid station and she had to drink out of a creek and that got her sick. She was vomiting blood. She got to mile 68-70 before tapping out that time. That was some runner experiences I did not have and hope never will. We were not yet at that stage of desperation. I asked if she wrote race reports. She did not. I agree with her that race reports on races one didn’t finish is more important than ones we did finish.

    I knew from her stories she has the persistency to finish the race today. Even before her stories I knew she was a mentally strong runner based on the way she ran. She was running all the uphills within reason, which was a good thing. In the racing world one of the mantras is to walk uphill and run down hill. However, this usually applies to marathons, once you have done a lot of ultras the reverse is usually true, you run up on hills you can run and walk on the downhill, of those you can’t. Doing this will save the legs (quads). I knew I was not dealing with a newbie runner.

    Alma’s pace decayed a little by little during the Do Loop, which was normal. I was pray it would not decay too quickly to a point where she was too slow to continue. I’ve been through that before. She had the relentless forward mentality. She was saying we were doing 17 min mile and we were moving 15 min mile before. I think the course pace was 16 min mile. She was still pretty much in control of her pace.

    At every subsequent aid station we were losing couple minutes here and there. Our initial 15 minutes buffer from the cut off was down to 10 minutes by the time we arrived at Fountainhead after the Do Loop. We left at 4:06 pm (cut off was at 4:15 pm). We lost a bit more time at Wolf Run Shoals. No cut off at here. The next one was 6:00 pm at the Bull Run Marina. We got to the Marina by 5:52 pm. They said we only have 8 minutes left. That was kind of scary really.

    As we were pressing toward the Marina and there were a bit too much hills. Alma was slowing down a lot at every hill at this point. I could walk up on hills normally but she couldn’t keep up with me. She was breathing intensely each time. From the back of my head I knew we would make it but I was still afraid we wouldn’t. I had to take a deep breath from time to time to remind myself it is okay. If we get cut, we get cut. I did not want to stress her or showed being frustrated. I had to imagine that I was not in a race and felt calm again. From the Marina we had 5.4 miles to the finish and we had until 7:30 to be within 13 hours of the race final cutoff. She urged me to go ahead of her to get to the finish.

    We didn’t talk much after the Marina. I sat down at the aid station trying to clean my shoes because rocks were getting it and it creating a blister on the right foot’s heel, but then my quads started to cramp up. It was not good. I asked the volunteer for some banana pieces and drank some gatorade. It helped with the cramp. Alma said she would walk on ahead while I could catch up later. Smart of her. Yes, the ultra mantra is “avoid the chair!”

    The last section, people from the rear were passing us. Maybe 5-6 of them. They formed a train pack and ran on together. It was amazing I did not recognize these people before. Normally I’d recognize all the people I passed earlier. They looked tough and strong and absolutely fresh. What were they doing in the back I asked myself. They were booking it. I believe they might have been in a team and once their slowest team member dropped, they were free to run and they did. They were doing 9-10 min pace rushing to the finish. I wanted to join and run with them, yet I felt I should stay with Alma. I know we would able to finish but the cutoff was just tantalizing.

    6:45. We were nearer to the finish. I sense we were still two miles out and maybe three. We got to the rockiest section of the trail. I used to have trouble with this, but today it was easy. With a lot of practice at MMT, I could run on this section. It was fun for me. Compared to Kerns Mountain last weekend, this quarter mile or rocks was nothing. We caught up to a few people who were walking. Alma could still run on the flat section!

    7:15. We climbed the last hill. There was 15 minutes left on the clock. Unless the finish line were still a mile away there was no way we would not finish on time. Alma said lets run it in. Sure. I got in with 5-10 minutes to spare. We were the last six to finish the race. Actually there were a few who came in behind us, but I was probably looking away and was getting food. One guy who ran this 14 times from Alabama finished with 20 seconds to spare. We all cheered him and gave him a standing ovation. He sprinted in. It was heartfelt. We saw him earlier on the trail. When I first saw him, I told myself this guy will finish. He did. Somehow, we all liked the last guy finishing. I like how even we were the last to finish there were still a bunch of people there cheering us.

    One of the sweepers, Marty my friend, said I would finish when we were at the Marina. He said, don’t let him catch me. The race RD commented that this was the fastest sweep they had. The sweepers came in just under two minutes after the closing. We all cheered the sweepers too. We had stayed ahead of the sweeps. I told him I was running like he did at the Red Eye 50K at the beginning of the year (he and I ran together that time to make it under the cutoff). We did it. Marty is a fast runner (faster than me) and he is older. I joked with him that I ran like he did.

    Leasons: There were many. Aid stations saved the day, especially the ice and popsicles. I was quicked to make adjustments mid race. It saved my foot. I didn’t mention that I bandaged my foot at mile 17 when I started to feel hotspot on the back of my heel. The pace was right. Celebration good. I had fun.

    We stayed until 8:30 when it started to get dark. I wish I had finished earlier so to eat all they had to offer. Someone did metion they found a phone but they didn’t know what happened to it. I was not sure if that was Alma’s or if Alma was able to retrieve it at the end. I forgot to ask when we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I stayed to eat some more. My other friend finished but he could not walk to the food table. I was sitting on the bench watching other runners coming in. I shared my food with him. I kind of laugh that was how I used to be in other races, couldn’t move. Later I found him standing by the food tent eating. Avoid the chair! This time I finished and still was relatively fresh. The next day though was a different story (I stayed in bed the whole day).

    This was the end of my weekend adventure. If not for a race, I would not be able to will myself to run 50 miles on my own. I was happy with the new friends I made on the trail. Sometimes, running is not about time but the community.

    Up next, of course will be the MMT itself. I will have couple smaller events before it. I spoke with Larry, RD from MMT first training run, after the BRR (I think he ran the BRR that day, but he already looked clean and fresh), he said I should be careful of not overtrained for the MMT. Indeed. This is the same Larry that will be doing the Western States this summer. I felt honor he looked me up and talked to me. Everyone know that I am going back to the MMT and every race is a stepping stone including the BRR.

  • Hike [day547]

    (old post, but some might enjoy this).

    Last weekend I went to Sky Meadow for a hike with couple of my buddies.

    They have been one of the closest buddies since the pandemic.

    Over time, you know friendship changes. I can’t remember what my friend circle was like before I started running.

    I guess I was involved with church fellowship back then. Once I stopped going to church those circles and friends slowly faded away. It was like running last weekend. I was with a pack at the beginning and slowly everyone drifted away at their own speed.

    This current set of friends came to be from my hiking and running activities. We do a 5k race together every year.

    One even ran with me last year at the JFK50. I wrote about that.

    We were going to meet four months ago. 4 months — how time flies. I am not a very good at doing friend stuff. They forgave me.

    However, that day I had a 100 mile race. Like how you can have a 100 mile race and not tell your friends?

    When they found out, they felt it was better to postpone our get together, since I would be too tired to do anything after the race. They were right. I couldn’t even drive home that day much less meeting up to hang out. We were going to eat out! I thought a steak dinner would be wonderful after the race. Little did I know, I was knocked out from lack of sleep. Food was the last thing I wanted. Anyway, the event was rescheduled and morphed into a hike this past weekend.

    One of them came out to support me at my race and he crewed for me. I wrote about it. It is a cliche to say, I couldn’t have done it without my crew. Indeed, my friend was a tremendous help in getting me across the finish line. I love my crew.

    We said we were going to meet. So finally after four months, we (or I) finally got well rested and our schedule worked out. We went to hike at the Sky Meadows State Park. Note, pictures posted in the last entry.

    Hiking the at Sky Meadows, possibly on the the AT

    The cool thing about this hike is it takes you up to the Appalachian Trail. This runs from Georgia to Maine. For us, we only hiked just a small section, a mile or so.

    There was a lot to catch up. We talked of all things. For me, it was soul searching.

    I just finished a 100 mile (four months ago) but it was still like yesterday. I was thinking about it and it was the highlight of my last four months.

    I did many other races since, and even the day before, I just ran a 50k before the hike. It was still fresh on my mind. You know all the races just lump together in my head. I will run another 100 mile soon in a week or so. And I am asking myself, why am I doing this.

    I wrote about this a few times. I know I did it because I enjoy it.

    I wanted challenges. Six years ago, when I first started running, I thought 50 mile race was so cool and near impossible for me at the time, but of course now it is not so hard any more.

    I could do more 100 mile races. In fact, it is in the work, I might try to run a 100 mile in every state. This is up-ing the ante of running a marathon in every states. I only have 12 marathons done.

    My friend suggested I should do some traveling. Indeed, that has crossed my mind. I mentioned the Gobi desert, or Atacama desert race on here.

    I don’t know. I would like to do something exotic. In the end what is my goal and who am I try to impress.

    I never wanted to say wow look at me. I do want to feel impress by the races done and places I have been.

    Don’t know. I don’t have an answer. Two entries ago, I did a 10 miler. I was very impressed by the race. This week, I ran a 50k and I was filled to brim with excitement. It was worth the run.

    Conclusion: There isn’t any. Life is maddening crazy as I try to look into a crystal ball trying to find out what should I do next.

    Today (March 14), also Barkley Marathon started this morning. It is a crazy race. I won’t likely ever be able to do it. I would still do it if I have a chance. I run and do all the things I have the opportunity to do.

    In life, I hope to do some crazy things. Yes, this coming weekend I will definitely doing some crazy stuff. I have a 35 mile training run, plus the next day, I have a marathon. More to come. I will stop for now.