In awe

Tag: anniversary

  • Day507 Hello World

    Happy blog anniversary! This is my fourth year on the platform. I started around 2018 (first Hello).

    I looked back the previous hello world entries, and last year was kind of thick (I said a lot in that entry).

    Hello World is my way of starting a new blogging year of finding or determining what I will write in this new season.

    No surprises, I will be doing the same as I have been doing — that is I plan to run a lot and write about them. I already planned out for the next year. I haven’t signed up for races yet but I am likely going to do those races. (mentioned in day496)

    This next year will be like the past few years. I will make moderate improvements in challenging myself to be at the next level. There is one secret – I plan to go oversea…no not exactly over the ocean – just to Canada. We will see if I could pull it off. (race schedule)

    meta – I changed the layout of the site because I was tired of finding fixes for the twentytwentytwo theme that has been messing up the site. I concluded that the things I needed to do would require me to get a business level plan from WP to have access to the CSS layering in order to disable the default title/tagline/images.

    keeping my entry brief this year – signing off.

  • Day446 4th Hello World

    Can’t believe once again, I reached the end of another year on WP. Yes, this is the fourth. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are somewhere. Readers can search for them.

    In similar vein, it is the close of my fifth year of running and beginning of the sixth. I am not always a runner before. It used to be a big deal for me to note the season because each season I had some sort of goal I tried to reach. Now it is just, run and keep up with things. I am probably in my 12th or 13th season by now … I have lost count, assuming two seasons a year (fall and spring). summer and winter are usually too short to do anything, so I don’t count those.

    These few years have gone by so fast. The first year was fall 2016 – I ran my first 10K, and then a half marathon. I trained through winter and till spring, (season 2) when I had my first and second marathon within a month apart. My marathon was on April 1, easy to remember. My family thought I was playing a joke on them. They did however went and cheered me in Charlottesville. There wasn’t any marathon like that since. It was also one of the hardest marathons I did.

    Fall 2017, Season 3, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. I trained all summer. The result was not as I expected. I did not improve on my time. Reality set in, that this won’t be a quick thing to be able to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

    Correction: I think I ran NCR marathon in fall 2017 and I ran Marine Corps Marathon in Fall 2018. The story is the same. At NCR I met a lady who did like 22 marathons. And at MCM I came to understand that I couldn’t reach my goal in a year or two.

    Spring 2018, Season 4, I ran the Delaware Coastal Marathon, as the first or one of early out of state marathons. I guess the idea was forming that I wanted to do all 50 states. As I ran more races, I got to meet people who were on similar quest. I met someone who was halfway to the 50 states.

    Fall 2018, Season 5, history is a bit hazy here. I think I got accepted to the marathon maniacs club. At the time, I thought the standard was pretty tough, because one had to run 3 marathons within 90 days. Somehow I did it and qualified. I was thrilled. It led me down a path of endless marathons – yes I became a true maniac!

    A lot happening then. I might have started blogging then. And marathons were not as challenging as the next level – “Ultra Marathon!”

    No idea how I got introduced to the Ultra world. It just happened.

    Spring 2019, Season 6. The rest is history so to speak. Everything now is documented here on WP, of how I became an ultra runner. I ran so many races in 2019, I can’t recall them. We did many hikes too. Because this was the year, we would go to Patagonia. Plans were made in the spring. Ah I remembered how I came to the ultra world — I volunteered at an ultra event (Seneca Greenway 50K) that spring and then everything fell into places. Spring 2019 was very important in what led to me today — both as a distance runner and an outdoor man.

    Fall 2019, Season 7. I did one of the best ultra races – Old Glory and from then I fell in love with trail running. A week after, I ran the JFK 50 mile. That was one of the longest races – mind boggling long and epic. We finished the season by traveling to Chile and backpacked Patagonia. I think that always will be a high point of my life.

    Spring 2020, Season 8. Bad thing happened – Covid-19 came and all my plans and races crumbled. But I was able to do a race in California – Carlsbad Marathon. It was one of most scenic marathons I did.

    Fall 2020, Season 9. I was willing to up my game. Due to Covid-19, many races became “virtual” – basically you ran at your home of the distance the race required. One of the virtual events I did was to run the distance across Tennessee – about 630 miles over 4 months. That was the most miles I ever ran. I surpassed the requirement and finished with 1000 miles that summer. Also, I made two attempts to run a 100 mile in Atlanta and both ended in failure but it led to greater boldness in doing runs in all locations, any time, and any weather. There was the passion to be out on the street running day and night. I ran across my city for the first time doing 50 miles. My whole city became my playground/training arena. No place is too far to go on foot. I did a lot of miles alone, and self-supported. And that helped me in doing ultra races the following year.

    Spring 2021, Season 10. Finally I succeeded in my first 100 mile run. I traveled down to Houston, Texas, to do it. Not only did I run the 100 mile, I ran couple 50 miles, and a 70 mile. It was an ultra pop off year. races: Rocky Raccoon, Grayson Highlands, Laurel Highlands, Stone Mill 50, and Seneca Greenway 50k, oh I forgot about Iron Mountain. Each race was epic and an adventure in itself. The significance of this is I got tested on the trails. Sure I could run on roads, but what about trails? Doing those races gave the confident, yes and on trails too.

    Fall 2021, Season 11. As season comes to the close, I have another 100 mile lined up and several maybe-maybe ultras. I am committed to the Devil Dog, and very tempted to run either the Stone Mill or the JFK again. I know I got to be out of my mind to do them because I am sure the 100 mile race would drain all of me – the question is: will there strength left to do any other races afterward? We will see!

    What next year gonna be? It has not arrived yet. God willing, I will be running some more. My goal as always is to do all fifty states. And to be a better marathon runner – yes run faster and stronger. Also I am still part of a virtual race with a team of runners – and we are running around the world. This winter, we would be two-third way through (20,000 miles). Wow! we ran a lot. 2000 miles per person on average. I think I reached 3000 miles – maybe. Who is keeping count? More on this in future posts.

    Something to discuss on future posts, how has running changed me? Time is devoted to being on the road. I virtually disappeared the last year or so. The body adapted. What I thought was impossible, now seems easy. I am boasting I could do a marathon any weekend. Want to run 20-30 miles this weekend? Sure lets do it. While that is true, I want to be the person who can run 26 miles every day! This is a minimum for those who want to cross the country on foot. I have that bigger dream to cross the continent one summer on foot. Ya.

    There you have it. Thank you all for your supports. Once a year, I got to thank my fans.

  • Day371 – 2nd anniversary

    It should be my 2nd anniversary here on WordPress or the first day into my 3rd year of blogging. No special fan service today…other than Thank you fans always for your continue supports!

    I remembered in the early days it used to a delight every night as I finished my run and I rushed on here to post how great that run was and usually talked about this and that of what I discovered during the run.

    As my runs have been longer and longer recently, I don’t write so much about them any more. It is like oh another 5K, what to write about that.

    No, I still think short runs are exciting. I have not done enough of those. Couple weeks ago, I finished a short run. I think I went out to do a three mile that night. Details now escape me, but at the time I was so excited. So that was how it use to be like I told myself. I was going to write a blog entry about it. I think I fell asleep not long after and the entry never made it out the press. I forgot now why I was so excited after that run that I was dying to share. Only thing was it was a great run.

    These few days I have been reading on how to improve on my runs. I want to run fast. An article in the Runner World peaked my interest. It mentioned about form. You have to run more efficiently to run fast. A way to do that is build strength and also train your mobility (involve stretching). I hate doing either of them.

    I see that is one of my weaknesses. I don’t pay too much attention to strength training and much less on stretching to improve my balance and mobility (range of motion).

    When you look at fast runners, their strides are incredible! They are flying through the air. My strides compare to them are just baby tiny steps.

    I have been doing more running on trails and I notice I wish I have better footwork. There are certain positions I can’t do well. Some steps are too far out of reach. There were a few times I almost fell. Mobility training will definitely improve my trail running.

    I am kind of losing my focus this year. If you read the previous year anniversary, I was bubbling with excitement because I was on the verge of running the MCM 50K and I was just off the mountain the night of, which was kind of my first trail run.

    Nothing crazy for this year anniversary. I did not go to the mountain over the weekend. The race I thought I am about to run, got one of their permits denied. Race won’t happen unless they have all the permits approved. Who knew there are so many of them. We thought having the Covid permit approved was the hardest thing and rest would be easy. We held our collective breath for that one. What frustrating is our race will be mostly done in the park. I think we got the park permit approved, but we got hung up on the road permit. We do have a short section being on roads and a few road crossings, so it is not that we can ignore that. The county denied our permit for the road portion. The whole race is up in the air at the moment. The race director is trying to appeal the county’s decision. I don’t know what to think. The race date is so close already and now this.

    I know with Covid many races got canceled. We have come to expect no racing for the forseeable future. However, things were improving in our area and we got our Covid plan approved and it looked likely a race would be possible, but now this. It is like don’t get our hope up and then got dash by it.

    Why all this mumbo jumbo I am writing? I hope next year will be better. I wish I have the exuberance like I did before. This is the third year, right? It should be better than the year before.

    There are many different things I could write…I have a list of races I did for this year and a list of races I am ready to do for the next year. Don’t worry I will post it some day soon. I want to show, even with a crazy year, we got things done. That though is not what I am feeling at the moment. We are baking something but we are not there yet…not sure how it will turn out, since I am kind of doubting anything good will happen. A little pessimistic won’t you say?

    I know there is always next year. How about that for 2nd anniversary?

  • the night of!

    Day 185

    It has been a year since I started my first post! Thank you for putting up with my rambling.

    I have run a ton of marathons since. The following are race reports given here for those who want to read them. DC:Abebe19, MD:Baltimore , PA:York, WA:JackJill, WV:Morgantown, VA:EDU, VA:Roanoke19, VA:Seashore50.

    It is hard to choose a favorite among the races I ran. Each of them brings a lot of memories. I think running in Seattle was fun and so was Baltimore. I did two ultra marathons (EDU and Seashore 50K). I finished marathons in three new states (PA, WA, and WV). There are 44 states left to visit. California and Maine are two I plan to go to next year.

    Tomorrow, I will run another Ultra. The Marine Corps 50K. They gave me the patch already before I even run.

    I read it will be raining, but not cold. My expected finish time will be 6 hours. I ran my first ultra in 6 hours, and there is a chance I will be faster it because I will be running on the road!

    I did a 18 mile hike/run today (From Pen-Mar to Annapolis Rock) on the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail. I think I will be ready. Fall is here and the leaves are beautiful.

    Pictures just not able to show the vibrant color of the leaves. Paul, my hike leader. He will be camping, but I will continue on the hike by myself, since I have a race to do next morning.

    Paul is carrying a big tarp because it will rain tonight.


    I should get to bed soon. Got to wake up at 5 tomorrow for the race.