The mountains are calling, and I must go…
John Muir
I enjoyed 99% of my training run in the mountains today. The last 1% was spent tripping over a rock and scraping up my elbow and knee some. I’ll be fine, and since nobody was around to see it, I can claim that I pulled off a graceful commando roll to avoid a serious injury.
Some reads and listens from this week:
- I enjoyed this episode of the Strength Running podcast featuring Doug Hay. The discussion was about the progression over a long period of time from non-runner to multiple 100 mile ultramarathon finishes.
- I have two Ben Duffus stories. The first was when we arrived at the start group of the UTA 22 race in 2019 for my wife to run in the last start group. Just after we got there we heard over the loudspeaker that Ben had just finished (and won) the race in record time. The second was when Ben and his folks led a friendly group run around Mount Coot-Tha. I decided to see how long I could keep up with Ben as he led from the front of the group. Not very long, as it turns out. And then to top it off, in the time it took me to climb from the base of one particular trail to the top, Ben had run up it, back down it, and then back up it again. He’s incredible to watch on the trails, and his writeup here of the Tarawera 50K for 2020 is an interesting insight into what goes on in the minds of race leaders at these type of races.
- I’d seen Jim Walmsley’s name in ultrarunning news for a while before I watched the backstory of his first Western States race. This story in the NY Times about Jim’s attempts to make the US Olympic marathon team provides a similar insight into his past, and how he became the well known figure he is today.
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