I’m getting excited for 3 Days of Syllamo. This is a three day trail running stage race covering 150k of pure single trac trails through the Ozark Mountains near Mountain View, AR. Day one is 50k, Day two is 50 miles, and Day three is 20k.
I ran this race last year. You can see my blog entry for that race here.
To quote Billy Simpson from his blog entry from last year “the 50miler was epic from all accounts. 16,000 feet of vertical, 100% singletrac. It took the leaders 5 hours to get to the turnaround. This thing was gnarly.” “It's that kind of run, camping, hanging out in a pristine place like Blanchard Springs for 3 days, eating great post race food provided by Cal Hill, listening to sweet bluegrass after the runs and just being part of a great ultra-running community. It's what the sport is all about.”
It took me about 6 hours to get to the turn around and I bonked at the end because I quit drinking my Perpetuem for some reason. But I finished in 12 hrs 28 min. 12th overall.
It’s very rocky and undulating like a roller coaster. It’s the kind of running that I truly love. Where I can just run free like I did when I was a little kid without a worry in the world. Just Mother Nature and I bonding for the majority of the time. And like Billy mentioned in his entry from last year – great people and great food are waiting at the aid stations and the finish too. What more could you ask for??
Steve Kirk does a great job putting this on and pulls in some real great volunteers to help out. They had some pretty nasty ice storms down there a few weeks ago, but the trails are expected to be cleared by race day.
Being a flatlander I better go get some hills in fast…… Happy trails.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Why do I live here??
It’s been a rough winter for runners in Chicagoland this year. As you see below – temperatures have been brutal and we’ve had plenty of snow. The last significant run that I was able to get in was the Fat Ass 50k on the Jan. 11th.
I’ve been hitting the weights a little bit more than usual, playing basketball on a men’s league 1-2 nights/week (I either broke or bruised my tailbone doing so), running the stairs at work during lunch, and getting a run in here and there as I can. Usually it’s not more than 10 miles due to the cold and snow. I just can’t bring myself to run the roads as much as I used to, and the single track that I run is rough going. Lots of twisted ankles in tracks in the frozen ice and snow. Every once in a while I get on a snowmobile trail, which is so nice, but the majority is rough going single track.
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