Run to Win

I recently watched this video that was compiled by Matt Hart at Coaching Endurance that shows you the past year’s ultra events through Matt’s eyes.

Very motivational; it makes me want to go outside and run right now. (Not that I usually need very much to make me want to do that, heheh…)

Here’s the video:
(Click here to continue reading…)

My buddy Jamie clued me in to this video from Matt Hart who put it together for a presentation he did at Montrail a few days ago.

There aren’t a whole lot of words, but it certainly makes me want to go hit the trails…

Good luck to Jamie and Stephen at Massanutton this weekend!

Just a quick announcement to anybody interested in running at the Pineland Farms Trail Challenge on Memorial Day Weekend in New Gloucester, Maine:

The Pineland Farms Trail Challenge is coming up on Sunday, May 24th.

After this Sunday the 10th the price for each race will increase by $5 so sign up soon! This year we have capped the 25k race at 250 and right now there are only 80 places left, these are sure to go quickly over the next two weeks.

We are looking for volunteers on race day and to help with set-up the day before, let us know if you can help. This year we are looking for school sports boosters clubs to take on aid stations, in return we will make a donation to each club. If anyone has connections to a group that may be interested please let us know.

This Saturday the 9th we will be running the race course at Pineland Farms starting at 8:00am. Meet in the YMCA parking lot.

The Trail Challenge consists of 3 races at 25k, 50k and 50 miles. All 3 races are run on the trails at Pineland Farms, which are like big, soft and grassy roads (with a lot of hills.)

If you are interested in running, you can get more information here:
http://www.mainetrackclub.com/pinelandfarms.html

If you aren’t interested in running but would like to help out, volunteers are needed! Click here to sign up to volunteer.

For those in the Southern Maine area that are interested, WCSH 6 News Center 6 at 6 will be doing a segment sometime this evening between 6:00-6:30 on Camp Sunshine and Mike Brooks’ 10 Days for Sunshine run.

Mike is going to attempt to run 500 miles over the span of 10 days starting next week, averaging almost 2 marathons per day as he runs around a 1 mile paved loop.

I recently did a coaching call with Mike where we discussed his fund-raising efforts for various non-profit organizations, including Camp Sunshine. (I’m still in the process of editing the recording and transcript.)

I’ll link up to the video tomorrow morning once it is available on WCSH6’s website.

(And don’t forget – after you get done watching the news tonight, head over to Maine Running Company to listen to Greg Meyer speak about Boston and running your first marathon or half marathon.)

The following article was written by Christian Griffith, a member of the Georgia Ultrarunning and Trail Running Society. He already has over a dozen marathon or longer races scheduled for this year alone.

You can read more about him at his blog, run100miles.com

Can you relate?

I just got back into town, and I’m rushing around, my wife’s rushing me around, I gotta buy printer ink, I’m sore, easily aggravated, and thinking about a million different things a minute …and all at once.

Car stereo’s loud, but I’m not listening. Too consumed with a cross between suburban living and post-race family responsibility catch-up.

As one of many errands, I”m rushing through the busy technology circle, headed to Office Max… when…

Ducks.

There’s a posse of ducks that live on this lake in the middle of technology circle, and when it rains, they cruise around looking for food (I think), oblivious to all the traffic and normal goings-on, and just mosey across the various busy streets in little groups.

Two ducks were crossing the street.

Just a’takin’ their sweet ol’ time.

One of ‘em bent down and pecked at something on the street, found it interesting, and decided to continue for awhile.

And there I sat, in my giant, gas-hog Excursion, 35 feet away from a bustling, 55 mph parkway intersection, and frozen in my tracks until the ducks decided I was going to continue my day.

That simple, momentary and voluntary powerlessness reminds me of how I feel when I’m ultrarunning.

The stark contrasts I experience between daily life, and spending 12 hours running in solid rain, through mounds of mud, with weekend friends, is pretty damn cool.

Ultrarunning is life’s interruption – my time to stop and “smell the roses”.

The ducks finally moved, and I resumed life’s conveyor belt.

When you race, do you do it for yourself, or do you raise money for others?

If you don’t raise money and donate it to charity, then why not? Has it never occurred to you? Did you have trouble deciding who to raise money for? Did you get stuck at the point where you needed to figure out what to actually do to raise that money?

Mike Brooks has raised money for charity before. In fact, he has donated tens of thousands of dollars that he has raised through his running to various charities such as Camp Sunshine, which provides a retreat for children with life threatening illnesses here in Maine.

Mike has raised money through marathons (he has run 3 in every state), ultramarathons (he has run through Death Valley), and through distance trials where he has run for 24, 48, 72 and even 144 hours (that’s six days of running!) The kicker?

Mike has only been running for about 13 years!

Mike’s latest exploit is going to be a 10 day race, where he hopes to average at least 50 miles per day. He’ll be starting in late April and finishing at the beginning of May.

Next week, I am going to hold another telephone coaching session, which is completely free to call in to. I’ll be asking Mike how he got started into running, how he chose the charities he donates to, and I will definitely be getting into the details for how he manages to raise so much money for his charities.

The coaching session will be on Wednesday, March 25^th, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. EDT.

If you have ever thought about running for others, then sign up below and I will get you the call in details. If you have any questions that you’d like for me to ask, then please enter it in the box below. I’ll do my best to make sure that I cover everything you are interested in.

Directions: Please type in your question below (optional),
enter your name and email address,
then click the “Here’s my question, Mike!” button.

Type Your Question Here…

First Name:

Email:

Mike has a website up about his Ten Days for Sunshine Run: http://www.tendaysforsunshine.org/

On Saturday, I ran 20.1 miles and then took a 2 and a half hour nap.
On Sunday, I took a 90 minute nap and then ran 6.6 miles.
On Monday, I ran 21.3 miles and then took an 80 minute nap.
On Tuesday, I went to work and didn’t have a chance to nap, but ran 5.4 miles.
On Wednesday, I ran 24.1 miles but didn’t nap. (I cooked a chicken instead. It was good.)

Thus ends the bulk of my training for the Running From An Angel 50 Miler on January 3^rd. This will be my first race that is longer than 50k, and my goal through this training period was to get as many back to back long runs on the weekends as possible with a long(ish) run mid-week as time allowed.

I didn’t get quite what I wanted, although I did bump my weekly mileage up to levels that I haven’t run at since college, hitting over 100 miles the week before Thanksgiving. This week I wanted to do the 3 runs over 20 miles every other day as the last tough training that I was going to get in before starting to taper and letting my body recover. I now have 3 weeks and 3 days before the race to do so.

Next week, I may run as far as 15 miles in one go, but no further. Christmas week, I am going to limit myself to 10 miles in any one run. New Year’s week, I’ll have 1 run that is 50 miles long but otherwise will try not to go over 5 miles at any given time.

That said, does anybody have any good running suggestions for while I am in Vegas?

Congratulations to Erik Barr for starting with a 1 mile run at the beginning of November and adding 1 more mile each day through the beginning of December, when he ran 31 miles. Erik ran a total of 496 miles (although he snuck a few extra in there so that he could have 500 miles total for the month) with the last 5 days of the contest requiring him to run further than a marathon each day.

Not too bad for somebody that has never run an ultramarathon before.

Ted Niemanm almost made it to the finish, but he had to drop out and concede to Erik on the second to last day after developing shin splints.

With Erik making it all the way through December 1^st, the charity money has been doubled with $200 going to each of NAMI of Hawaii and Mercy Ministries. Congratulations, Erik, and hopefully next year I can take part in the contest (and maybe convince a few friends to join in as well.)

(More Info: One More Mile)