For all of you, like myself, that have read stories of famed ultra runners running 100 plus mile weeks, well, I decided to try that myself. The most I had done previously, with no races included, is 61, only once a couple weeks ago and 36 was the high before that. 100 miles in one week should be a good challenge, I thought, with plenty of learning to be had. There was. This is what I learned.
It all started with me pacing back and forth in front of the front door. The voice telling me to take the day off. My legs and feet were hurting. Do not run, it would say. The…
It took place around Christmas time 2010 at my parents house in Kansas City, maybe slightly before, maybe slightly after. They were watching Reagan, my 6 almost 7 year old niece. I was visiting and about to take my parents dog KC outside for a quick run. KC is a poodle mixed with a Cocker, aka a Cockapoo, named after the city she was born in aka DUH. Anyways, as I was heading out, Reagan decided she wanted to come along on the run with me. Since I was not going to go very far, this sounded fun and on my parents ok, we were off.
4 Days after my first Ultra I was recovered and not sore. The night of the 50 miler, I was not able to move very well. The following day, I was limping, but by day 3, I was almost running fully at the valet job. Remember, I hadn’t run in months by this time, with the exception of a few medium runs and a single 15 miler. Which made me wonder: was it valet that made it possible for me to do these races with no outside running? Was it the barefoot/minimalist running as well? I don’t know. Valet was only sprinting off and on and it was only twice a week. But in the 50 miler, and the running hard at the end, it made me wonder if I could go faster to begin with. I wondered if sprinting in valet was some sort of training I did not know about. If you could call that training. But I also wondered about the Vibram Five Fingers and barefoot running. How much did that affect things? All of my running injuries had stopped cold turkey when I dropped the shoes. And although I did have growing pains in barefooting, which can be expected, as well as over doing it problems, those past races were not that hard on my body and I think it has to do with the feet! Now I am really curious about possibility!
The Insanity
That Turned Into A Marathon
That Turned Into A 50k
That Turned Into A _ _ _ _ _ _ _