I'm retired from racing. Really.

AM- First time my legs haven't felt sluggish all week, so I did a little workout.  3 miles warmup, 7 miles MP in 42:30 or so, then 1 cooldown.

Lunch- an hour plus BUBW

Ultrarunning magazine just came out with the 2012 Year In Review.  I heard I was in it, so asked Crockett to email me a page (thanks, Davy).  Sure enough, there I was on the Top 100-mile times.  Number 22 in the country.  Pretty cool.  I still think I have a 14:30 in me, although I don't think I'll ever run a fast 100 again.

PM- Today is my lovely wife's 30th birthday.  We woke early and drove the Columbia so she could attend the temple, then drove home and opened presents.  I snuck in a quick 8.5 mile run here.  Then went to dinner and came home to a surprise birthday party, where 10 of her girlfriends kidnapped her for a night of partying.  I've just got the kids in bed and plan to hit the sack soon as I'm very tired and definitely getting sick with a sore throat, stuffy, etc.

I'm finding myself thinking more and more about the Barkley. Less than 4 weeks away, so time to get serious. Should be fun. How much fun, you ask? This much fun...

 That's last year's winner.

AM- 8 miles plus some stair climbing and BUBW.  I moved up again on the wait list to number 2!!!  Crazy.  Just 2 more drops and I'm officially in the Barkley marathons, something I never would have even dreamed of applying for 6 months ago.

PM- 8 more by myself. 

Lunch- 6 ez

Planned to go to Paris Mtn but I've been feeling increasingly sick with a cold, with even my voice almost going out this morning.  My lunch run wiped me out much more than it should have, so I bagged the evening run.  I don't want to risk worse sickness the week before a big race. 

9 years ago today, Marci and I were married. Man, it's gone fast and been fun and crazy.

Still sick- really couldn't sleep last night, coughing all day. Did 15 min abs and did a little 30 min run. Felt tired. Gotta get better within a week.

At home sick, so no run. First goose egg since dec 19. At least I'm getting lots of rest for my taper!

Feeling a modicum better so I went to work.  Didn't even take running clothes so I would tempt myself.  Still hoping to get better.

After work, I walk in the door to see a beautiful homemade meal sitting on the table- chili soup, cornbread, corn on the cob, chips and homemade guac.  Then I hear my 4 year old in the bathroom crying, so I walk in to see her sitting on the pot.  She looks up at me and starts puking, so I naturally try to catch all of it in my hands.  Welcome home indeed.  Then, after washing my hands, my wife dashes to the bathroom and starts puking herself.  We figure this came from my 1 year old, who was throwing up all Wed night.  So, dinner was just my 1 year old, my 6 year old, and me, eating the food.  Now I hope I don't get the stomach flu on top of my cold. 

I was planning to taper this week, but figured I'd have 75 miles, rather than 30.  Oh well- most important is to recover.  Mileage is irrelevant for both Chuckanut next Saturday and the Barkley at the end of the month. 

It's been a few crazy days with me sick plus a puking wife and 3 kids. I think I've finally turned the corner a bit though. 5.5 easy miles- didn't feel great but it was nice to be moving again. Gotta get better for Chuckanut in 7 days. Definitely had more taper this week than planned.

Lunch- 5.5 easy with a big pack of guys.  Really not sure if I'm getting better or not.  Going to test myself on a 90+ min run tomorrow, and maybe a few fast miles on Wed.  If I don't feel on top of it, I won't go to Washington.  This is the first time I've been sick in a while and I'm pretty tired of it.  

PM- PM with six guys, including newcomer Jason. I was using this to see if my legs got fatigued after an hour but they felt fine. Normal loop, 10 miles.

Lunch- 8 with 9 guys.  Main topic of conversation was planning Aaron's wedding, since he just got engaged.  I felt pretty crappy.  I'm going to do a bit of a hard run tomorrow and decide if I go to Chuckanut based on how I feel.  Right now, 60% chance I go.

Am- wanted a workout to see if I should go to Seattle. Did a little run with 3 miles MP and felt ok. Not great, but good enough. So I'm going, but with low expectations. Heck, I even went to the doctor today cause now I have an eye infection on top of my cold.

In other news, I was invited to join Team PI, one of 20 ultra runners sponsored by Pearl Izumi. The team includes Nick Clark, Nick Pedatella, Dylan Bowman, Scott Jaime, and many others. I'm very excited. My singlet arrived today, so I'll be wearing it this weekend. My days of wearing greeny green shorts and my SGRC red singlet are over.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b23ecxkqmh7v5fj/IMG_8847.jpeg

Ran the beautiful Chuckanut 50 k. Had low expectations and just wanted to enjoy myself. Mission accomplished. Nice course, wet and rainy, nice people, fun weekend with David Nelson and many other runners. Finished 20th overall. Technically my second fastest 50k race ever, somehow. More later.

Update 2 weeks later- finally did a Race Report compilation, including for this race. It's all on my Greenshortsrunning blog.  

Got home at midnight. Spent 24 hours and 6000 miles traveling and was away from home for 65 hours, all to run a 4 hour race. What strange creatures we are. Thanks to David Nelson for a fun weekend and being a great host.

And, 64 hours into the trip while cruising at 34,000 ft, I officially was notified that I'm in the Barkley. Oh nuts. To putti in perspective, that means I will spend up to 60 straight hours running.

Got home from Seattle after midnight, woke early for work, and had a lunch meeting.  Plus I ran a 50k on Saturday and I have the hardest race in the world in a couple of weeks, so recovery is important.  In other words, no run.  My calves are a tiny bit sore, and I'm definitely tired, but I feel good other than that.  Run in the mountains tomorrow.

PM- Paris Mtn with the biggest group ever, 7 of us.  Justin took us adventuring onto some new trails, while Carl was kind enough to let me pester him with Barkley questions.  Again.  And give me some gear afterwards.  Wore my new Pearl Izumi Emotion Trail N1 shoes- liked them.  10 miles with 2k or so climbing based on Justin's watch, as I didn't wear mine.

I'm now 4 or 5 race reports behind again.  Apparently going from 2 to 4 kids in 18 months was the breakpoint for having enough time to do good race reports.  And with Barkley preparation needing all my time for the next 11 days, I'm not sure I'll ever do a report again! 

Lunch- easy 5 mile run.  At least it should have been easy.  Apparently I'm still really not recovered from Chuckanut and from a 2 hr run yesterday, cause it felt more like 15 hard miles.  Ugh.  Plus abs and BUBW.  Just over a week till the big day.

Still feeling run down and tired.  Had meetings till 2 pm, then headed to the gym to do some cross training, as I wasn't feeling up to a run.  Unfortunately, I discovered I hadn't put a pair of shorts in the car, so I was SOL.  No workout today.  Oh well.

Lunch- fitness assessment at the gym.  Happy to say all my upper body workout has helped since my last test in Dec- my situps improved from 40 to 60, my pushups from 32 to 41, and even my VO2max inched up a bit, while body fat stayed around 8%.  Now if only I can feel a bit better for next week.  Finished off with some biking.

Lunch- 8 on a cold lunch run.  Biggest group of guys ever- 11 of us.  Quite the crew.  Feeling better, except I've got a nasty sore throat and possibly swollen glands at the back of my throat?  I packed 20,000 calories of food to carry with me during the Barkley last night, and have another 10,000 more for in camp.  That's a lotta grub.

If you want to follow the race on Saturday (as best you can), follow @barkleymarathon on twitter, search for #barkley or #bm100 on twitter, or go to barkleymarathons.com and read the updates on the right.   There's also an unofficial facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheBarkleyMarathons?ref=hl.  All of this is unofficial, of course, cause the Barkley Marathons doesn't even have it's own website!

Rumor has it there's also going to be a New York Times article on the Barkley on Thursday or Friday, so keep your eyes open. 

Lunch- late lunch run with Phil, Jim, and newcomer (and only 19-year old) Kyle.  8 miles, maybe a bit more.

Lunch- 7.  I was running late but guessed the right route the big group take so met some of them halfway through- is that I sign I spend too much time with them?

 Packing for Barkley Marathons tomorrow and leaving either tomorrow night or Fri morning.  McKinley got sent home from school with a fever, so I really hope it doesn't happen to me.

In related news, the New York Times published an article on the race today.  Cool- I guess it's officially mainstream now.   

This photo is from the Art of Manliness website and seemed appropriate given the task I am undertaking this weekend.  

What better way to spend your life than to live it to the fullest, rather than shirking and simply wearing out... 

Am- 4 ez. Packed and leaving now. Next report will be post-Barkley.

Awesome. More later, after sleep. The coolest, toughest race I've ever been at.  Report coming soon- in the meantime, I finally caught up on 4 months worth of race reports, available on my Greenshortsrunning blog.  Barkley report will be next.

Update- my Barkley race report has now been posted.