Burning River 100

This weekend is the Burning River 100 mile run in Ohio. It's near Cleveland if I'm not mistaken... anyway, I'm super stoked on the whole race.

When I ran the 24 hour Adventure Trail run back in May, my dad, my brother, and Adam Tremper (my roommate) all paced me for various lengths. Actually, Adam ended up running 28 miles with me which was farther than he had ever gone by 12 miles. I was just as stoked on that as I was with my own race. My dad ran with me first and since it was on an 8 mile loop that was repeated as many times as you could in a 24-hour period, he ran one loop with me then, and another later on in the night...or morning, I kind of lost track of time. My brother ran the next loop with me.

The loop was designed like a lollipop. There was a 2 mile stick and then a 2 mile part to the right and then you crossed a street and that was the halfway point where there was a jug of water and a bag of chips or something. Then you finished the second part of the loop and did the 2 mile stick again for a total of 8 miles for the whole course. As my brother and I were nearing the halfway point of the loop I thought I heard some accordion music. I had been running since 7 a.m. and it was now around midnight so I didn't say anything to my brother for fear that I might be hillucinating the music. It was the first time I had run any distance longer than 50 miles and I was not quite sure how my body would react. I heard of people hillucinating everything from old prospectors at Badwater, to snakes and spiders at Western States. After a few minutes we were getting even closer to the street, and my broter turns to me and asks if I hear accordian music. Relieved that I wasn't losing my mind, I assured him I'd heard it for a little while. When we came around the corner we saw my dad sitting down playing the squeese-box for the runners! It was so awesome, and really unexpected, and I heard several of the other runners enjoyed the mid-night pick me up as well.

For Burning River this weekend, my dad, my brother Kevin, and one of my sisters, Colleen are all coming to help crew for me and pace me...at least that was the plan. Last night I get a text from Kevin, "hey, guess who's in the er?" Turns out he was riding in a go cart at his friend's house and they rolled it after hitting a curb. It would've been cool if Kevin's hand wasn't holding the roll cage. They were upsidedown and his hand was bearing the weight of the go cart, his friend and himself. He said one knuckle was crushed and the other was swollen to the size of his non-crushed hand. A while later, I found out nothing was broken...somehow. I'm still not sure if he will come to Ohio for the race or not, but I am sure he won't be running any. I'm in the process of convincing Colleen to help pace me at some point but she's a little uneasy. She is a sprinter, and a really good pole vaulter. She's going to be a freshman at George Mason University, and she will jump for them. Clearly, distance isn't quite her thing, but I assured her I definitely won't be going fast and she could probably walk to keep up. Still, she's never been to an ultra, so I think she's in for a treat.

My dad has been out of running with an injury for the past several weeks but he says he's up for running with me... I really don't want him to overdo it. Especially, coming back from an injury.

So basically, my dad, and sister are definitely coming with me, my brother possibly, and I have no clue if any of them are running with me. Not quite the ideal knowledge situation, but still, it will be fun no matter who comes, or runs.