Per-Leadville Trail 100 thoughts

With the Leadville Trail 100 approaching fast, my thoughts have suddenly focused on the race. My training has been good but not where I would like it to be at this point. With the long recovery from Kettle and the heat and humidity, training has been tough. I have been logging some decent weekly mileage but, I have no runs longer than 20 miles. Every time I have tried to go over 20 the heat and humidity has killed me. Going into Leadville my only goal is to finish. I have no intention of trying to race as I have no experience running in the mountains or running at an average of over 10,000 ft in elevation. My plan is to go out and have fun, first and foremost and let the chips fall where they may. I have a couple races I'm going to run in the next 2 weeks as training runs. Friday night I'm running the 40 mile at Lunar Trek and next weekend I'm running the marathon at the Rock Creek Night Race. So hopefully I'll have a couple good training runs to get my confidence back up. I'm feeling a little more pressure for this race as a lot of my family is coming out to crew for me. My wife and son, mom, dad, and my sister and her daughter are all coming. Along with my aunt and uncle who live in Fairplay over the mountain from Leadville. My sister is a runner also and completed her first marathon last November. She is going to pace me for the last 13 miles assuming I make it that far. Good Ben Reeves is going to pace me from Winfield mile 50 back to May Queen mile 87. The countdown is on and the next couple weeks I'm going to hit it hard and then enjoy my taper time on vacation in Colorado the week before Leadville.

After Kettle thoughts and ramblings

Wow, has it already been a month since Kettle? Time is flying and before long I'll be doing it again at the Leadville Trail 100 August 22. The aftermath after winning the Kettle Moraine 100 was awesome, for a couple weeks I felt like a rock star. I had some many nice comments coming from all kinds of runners it was amazing. Having all these other runners who I have looked up to in my short ultra-running career saying all these great things about me, made my head swell up bigger than my legs in the days after Kettle. It was truly a great experience, i never expected to win or even had the thought I could win. But what a great way to have all your hard work and training pay off. I know it was not the fastest time ever ran at Kettle but a win is a win none the less and to get my first ultra win in a 100 was amazing. However, I do think the 100 is my best race, I'm not really fast but the farther we go the better my chances are of having a good finish. I seem to have some really good endurance, where that came from I have no idea. I never was a runner and never done any kind of endurance sport prior to taking up running in late 2007. Last weekend I ran the 15 mile at Psyco Psummer for fun and had a blast. Was probably one of the funnest runs I have had all year. It was nice to just go out and run for fun and not worry about racing. I had fun stopping at all the aid stations and chatting with the volunteers and thanking them. I also had a lot of people I have never meet come up and congratulate me and tell me they read my blog or listened to my interview on endurance planet. Funny thing I didn't think anyone read my blog so my posts have been really sporadic. I will try to do a better job of posting now that I know at least a few people read my blog. On a training note. My recovery from Kettle was long, it took me 3 full weeks to recover. I have finally gotten back into the swing of things with and 85 mile week and a 70 mile week last week.
Thanks again to all my friends who have really helped me a lot with my running. Your advice and constant encouragement has really helped me a lot. You all know who you are!