Updayte

I realize I haven’t posted in quite awhile. Most of that is because I have been very busy and haven’t really had time to post. Since the run, I’ve gotten a job. I work for a company that sends direct mail for non-profit companies. I’m in an office.

As you can read from an earlier post, I ran Western States and had a blast in the process. Since I have a real job now, I can’t just go out and run whenever I feel like it, and don’t have a break in my day available to run. So I am forced to use the hours of the day that every other working schmuck uses. I wake up early to run sometimes and run after work most of the time. Working around a solid 9 hour block of work right in the middle of the day really cramps my style. I’m being dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood.

The good news is that I can run on weekends, barring large commitments, usually wherever I want because now I have gas money to get places, which is very nice. Two weeks after Western States I ran the Skyline Challenge 50k that is put on by the Hinton brothers. They put on a fun race of about 170 people that is out in the sticks of Gore, Virginia. The race was just the way I like it: lots of elevation change and pretty technical trail. When it started, several of us went out strong setting the stage for a quick race. After the entire field made a wrong turn within the first mile, we knew that this could be an issue all day. After the first major climb I was in the lead and saw an arrow that led me back down the mountain. At the bottom…there were no markings. 5 minutes go by, no one had come down and I knew I wasn’t running fast enough to have a 5 minute lead on everyone this early in the race so I figured I missed a turn and headed back up the climb I just came down retracing my steps. Upon reaching the top again, I saw several runners coming up the first climb and turning right where I had turned left. I was right near last place. Bummer. I ran hard to try to gain ground but I got too excited with the trail and 4 more wrong turns, and six hours and change later arrived at the finish line in 24th place. Oh well, it was still fun, the trail was very pretty, and I had a good time at the picnic afterwards.

Next was the REMR. The Really Early Morning Run aka Baconfest. It is a run put on by my friend Mark Guzzi who loves running almost as much as he loves bacon. We started at 2 am, ran a marathon or so, and then had a large breakfast including 3 lbs of bacon afterwards.

In the name of spending time on my feet, the next run was two weekends ago and I decided to get a group together to run part of the Bull Run Run 50 course. Starting at 4:15 am and not sleeping the night before made it fun to romp through the woods at night. Race Director for the Adventure Trail Series Races, Alex Popadopalous, (pronounced exactly how this is spelled, though probably not spelled correctly) came out as did Dave and our friend Brittany. Brittany is attempting Grindstone as her first 100 miler. 30 miles later, we finished.

In between engagements, I try to make it out to the mountains. I get to go this week and am stoked. Next on my race list is the Ring which is a 70 miler all on the Massanutten Trail on Labor day weekend. Should be rocky with though climbs. It’ll be a good last training run before Grindstone on October 1-3. After that, who knows. I need to save some money, so I will probably not race for the rest of the year so I can save up some money for races for next year.



We’ll see how that goes…


-- Patrick