Thanksgiving – In awhile

Day 199 misc

Some of friends asked me to show them my medals from races. Here are the couple recent ones.

from left to right: Old Glory, MCM50k, and JFK50. That’s an Old Glory Patch, underneath the JFK medal, just received this week from the mail.

Not all races give all medals. I think it is less frequent for ultra to give them out. MCM and JFK are exceptional. I actually have too many medals from my marathons. I prefer patches, where I could stick them inside a notebook.

I love all these three races. It has been spectacular to able to do all of them.

I might not go back to do them again. I love Old Glory the Best.

After a few days of rest from finishining the JFK, I started to sign up for races. I just placed my name in for Laurel Highlands Ultra. This time, I will run the whole trail. My friend and I hiked it during May from End to little past the midway for 50 miles. The whole thing is 70 miles.

My entry isn’t guaranteed. They will pick 135 out of many entries. I hope I will be able to get in. However, if I don’t, I won’t be heart broken. I had several other races lining up as alternatives.

Letting my readers know, I originally was waitlisted for Grayson Highlands, but this week I got in! The race will be in may. I will be running the 50 miler.

Grayson Highlands is another of my favorite. My friend and I went camping/backpacking there two summers ago. We sweated tears and blood on that trail, which is also part of the AT (Appalachian Trail). AT runs almost the whole eastern side of US from Georgia to Maine. I don’t think the race will be on the AT but trails around the area. It will be fun and challenging.

I don’t know how hard either of them will be. People are saying Laurel Highlands is hard. I have personally hiked at both places. I can’t put it in perspective yet to run either of them. For Backpacking we took 4 days to do but with running, we are limited by time. For the Laurel Highlands, I am aiming for under 20 hours. For Grayson Highlands, not sure yet but within cutoff, maybe 15 hours. Need to read up on the race.

Then all is left is training. Both races are in the mountain, so hill training is a must.

Today I am doing a turkey trot. Last Thursday of November is Thanksgiving Day for us in the US, a national holiday to comtemplate the days of the pilgrims and God for this wonderful country where worshippers have freedom to worship without being oppressed by kings or government, something like that.

Traditionally – well modern tradition now, is ‘everyone’ go and run a 5k or 10k. A lot do. I am doing a 10k today. The weather is warm around 45-48F. Maybe 15 in C? Perfect runner weather.

I wrote up this post, so that I can get to day 200 to do my summer-fall review!