overtaking haynes

3hr 59 minutes. about 15.5 on dirt roads and trails. The trails were pretty soft but packed down which felt really good. was super warm today and i quickly removed my jacket and wore a t-shirt. felt much better at the end than previous long runs and feel like i'm adapting although at mile 19 and up i have to sort of grit my teeth a little and pretend i have the eye of the tiger because i do start to break down. 3 water bottles with nuun mixed with gookinade. probably 150 calories in that. 2 whole wheat pitas 120 calories and 1 bag of shot block 200 calories. had plenty of energy left, the key was eating 2 bagels before the run. 

1hr 27 mins

1hr 21 mins. it was definitely cold this morning. it was 13F in the car when i drove to work and it was a bit windy. everything was fine mostly until i took a shower and then i had severe pain. i guess i need to wear like 5 layers of underwear. this is the 2nd time this year i wanted to throw up from frostbite to a certain area. 

now that the pain in my hip/ankle/knee is gone, pain has crept into my middle back randomly at about 11am today. i don't know what is wrong with me.
 

woke up at 5:30am checked the weather and saw that it was -1F outside and felt like -13F. NO WAY i said. I ended up running after work which actually was really nice for a change. 1h 10 mins.
 

am run 1hr 37 mins. will probably go skiing tomorrow and not run. 

only ended up skiing about 3hrs with my brother. we both decided that skiing was ok but not great and this allowed me to hit 70mpw for the first time in too long. i'm finally feeling pretty healthy again (with the help of advil) 1hr 13 mins.

was originally planning on hitting 25 today but i didn't get enough sleep over the past few days and thought i might even fall asleep. i decided i was only in the mood for 20. i had the intention of exploring a few trails along the road that i've come across or been on years ago and the first one turned out to be overgrown with prickers. i then wandered into a boy scout campground area and i remember there being some fields and trails. As it turned out there was over 3 miles of trails there. I saw another coyote. It was sprinting across in front of me, not even making eye contact. it didn't run directly away from me but came from the side and away. it wasn't as big as other ones i've seen. i also saw a large hawk and some deer. I guess this is where all the animals hang out. I then went to topstone pond and mtn which i knew would be overridden with dogs. all were friendly though. i took a break at mile 12 on top of the mtn and ate some pretzels and a fruit bar. Then ran back. Felt nothing at all till mile 17.5 but all in all it was pretty easy to get through. 3hrs and 15 mins. a "short" long run this weekend. Will hopefully do 25 next weekend and then start running no more than 20 until mt mitchell.   

am run. so hard to get up today...

1hr 23 mins. ended up being about 13 mins late to work in part because the trails i ran on were really icy. i didn't want to cut the run short though. joint in left toe felt off. 

1hr run. every day i wake up a little later and feel a little more tired...

woke up even later...no surprise. didn't plan on running long because i'm going to hopefully get a good long run in tomorrow of ~25 miles. we'll see. the weather should provide me with no excuse. i really like the brooks beast. maybe it's because they're new but i feel like they provide much better support. 

4hrs 17 mins. the trails were a bit icy in places but there were fewer people which was good. i didn't feel myself breaking down this week after mile 20 and i wonder how much of that is fitness vs having a pair of shoes that supports me better. i definitely could have run much farther today without much distress. i took about 450 calories on the run and began to feel hungry only in the last mile. this run bodes well for mt mitchell i think. now i have to worry about not getting sick.

3.78 mile hike in new york at storm king mountain state park by the hudson river. I was surprised at the beauty of the area so close to the city. i could easily see the catskills being only 25 miles north of new york city. the mountains rose well over 1000 feet from the river below. Trails were a bit icy although not enough to matter. There are lots of trails in the area both in the park and across the river in another park to explore. unfortunately there is at least one known rattlesnake sighting in the area which i found online which i'm not into. would have been great running today. wish i could have done more but i was with a friend who is new to hiking. i'm psyched my legs weren't sore at all from yesterday.

ran to huntington park and got to run almost 4 miles on trails. got back at 7:41 and was able to change and shower and be in my car going to work at 7:51. I was quite pleased with that performance. definitely a personal best, and as a result was only 5 min late to work. i probably would have only been 4 min late but there's this really creepy guy that glares at me and/or my brother every morning as he waits for the bus. i don't want to encourage any psychopathic urges he might have so i take the long way. 

It would figure that on friday it would be a day that i could barely wake up to get any miles in. i chose to explore a trail that turned out to be by a river and was super icy and slanted in parts on a hill making it very treacherous. i had to go back on this same trail due to time constraints. there are over 20 different trail systems or so in town but almost all of them are narrow and will be full of ticks in the summer. won't be back to this trail. 

3:36. This run was pretty interesting. i tried out some more new trails to modify my way to huntington park. they were a little hard to follow because they aren't well traveled and the patchy crusty snow and dead leaves look the same everywhere. didn't enjoy it too much but i got to the park and had a good run through there to the connector trail i always take. i explored a bunch of what looked like roads that i had vowed to explore but was always too focused on the mileage and knowing how far things were. today i took several of them and they kind of disappointingly dead ended. This one i took ended and i decided to just free run through the woods for what amounted to about 1.5 miles without seeing any houses. I made my way out and finished the run off without too much difficulty on only 1 cliff bar. i'm no longer nervous that i can't finish 40 miles pretty strong. 

I was sick since tuesday when i woke up with a really bad sore throat that lasted until friday morning. The throat stopped hurting but i was really stuffy. My plan was to just start off without pushing myself and see what happened. The weather was atrocious. The worst weather in the 12 year running of the race. The start was 45F and pouring rain. I didn't feel cold though in a long sleeve technical shirt and a sort of functional 6 year old rain jacket. I normally wouldn't have brought with me an extra jacket as a layer but because i was sick I strapped it to my hip belt in a plastic bag. I immediately regretting bringing the jacket and felt that i was already overheating during the first mile. It seemed like a hundred people were ahead of me in the first couple miles which started on pavement. After about 1hr i no longer felt warm but not cold either as i was completely soaked. i held my place into the trails at the 27 min mark for me. At the marathon turn around at just over 1 mile high in elevation i decided it was time for my spare jacket. i couldn't feel my fingers because of my annoying poor circulation problem and needed help getting my jacket on under my rain coat. It felt like i was at the aid station for a full 5 minutes. I felt immediately warmer and knew i wouldn't have any problems with hypothermia. At the next aid station i was told that we were one of the last runners to go through because they were turning people back because of the deteriorating conditions. I was glad to have made the cut. The last mile was more technical than the jeep road and easy trails to that point. There was some good icy patches and you had to go off trail a bit. I unfortunately had to poop and lost another several minutes. I felt much better though and in the last 100 ft of elevation it started to snow! There were wind gusts of over 50mph i'm told although i'd say 30-40 is more realistic. I would later learn that 20 people had to be driven down the mtn due to hypothermia. The visibility was about 10 feet and although i was now standing at 6684ft, the highest mtn in the east, i could see nothing. i have no idea what the mtns look like in NC. I reached the top in 3hrs 39 minutes. I felt ridiculously fresh and i started passing lots of people on the first mile of technical downhill before it mellowed out a bit. it was an amazing experience knowing there was over 4000ft of downhill. Unfortunately it felt like it was flat because it was so gradual. The race was definitely not technical at all but quite easy for an ultra. I started flying on the downhill but had to lay off the gas in one section because i started seeing spots. i hallucinated a person that was a log as well. I did take one good fall and thought i was in trouble with pulling something but ran it off. I passed about 10 people total on the way down and didn't really push it until it became clear that two of the people i passed were serious about beating me. A woman (who would win the women's race) and this other guy. The last bit of the trail with about 6 miles to go got really steep and i pushed it and my quads started to feel it. Then the road called appalachia way was the steepest road i've ever run down and that hurt too. i had dropped them. At the last aid station i was told there was 5k left and i lengthened my stride and was hoping i could break 6hrs but i couldn't. Near the finish we had to run one 1/2 mile or so loop around a lake and not only was there a posse of 8 mean looking canadian geese who i saw lunge at this runner in front of me doing the marathon but i saw the girl come out of nowhere. i was sure she wouldn't catch me but was surprised she was only a minute back. I would find out that the top 5 men got awards...i came in 10th, but only 10 mins out of 5th place, 20 mins from 3rd. the winner was 5hrs 10 min. overall an interesting experience. i think i'll have a good ultra season. am planning on taking a full week off to recover, and start running again on saturday.