Girls Gone Wildwood

coming down from Fuji  photo credit Teri Smith The last few years we have DNF'd or cut short runs longer that 40 miles for various reasons, but mostly mental toughness. Despite these set backs we knew we had it in us to run > 40 miles, so when the lottery for the Waldo 100k we signed up. There was a part of me that knew that we wouldn't get in since we signed up using the buddy system. To be honest, I was ok if we didn't get it, because I could still say, "well at least we tried."  Well of course we got in. Which meant that my family and I had to shift our trip to Iceland by a week, oops. It also meant I needed to do some mental toughness training and we needed to push ourselves more than we had the last few years, since Waldo was mostly over 5000 feet and was a tough course. I decided to hire a coach, Yassine of Wyeast Wolfpack . In the past, Susan and I had trained with a coach together, but this time I need to work on my mental toughness and focus on...

At the start It started with a surprise Christmas gift. Ann informed me that she had payed 50 euros each to put us into the lottery for the smaller sibling of the most famous—and infamous— trail ultra in the world. At 101 km, Courmayeur-Champex Lac-Chamonix (CCC) is a distance we’ve done before, much less daunting than the 170 km of the original Ultra-Trail du Mount Blanc(UTMB) . Best of all, the course is set in the Alps, a circumnavigation through three countries of the tallest mountain in Europe, renowned for outdoor enthusiasts and some of the most beautiful views I’ve only seen in photos. This whimsical gift took a turn about a month later when we discovered that we both got picked in the lottery to run. All of the races we had planned for the year had to be reevaluated. Peterson Ridge 40 miler was still a good way to get our base miles up early, but our big race for the year—the Fat Dog 70 miler—wouldn’t work since it was two weeks before CCC. We cancelled and forfeite...

I honestly thought this blog post was going to be about our first DNF. Luckily it's not. But let me back up a little bit before I get to that.  The race namesake trail sign After running several 50 milers last year we knew we wanted to run a 100k this year, it really was a matter of which one. I really wanted to run Miwok 100k , because I had heard great things about it and I also wanted to run in the Marin Headlands again since we didn't get to fully experience them when we ran a very wet and muddy North Face 50k a few years earlier. Susan wasn't as easily convinced about Miwok, since her husband didn't want to go back to the bay area for yet another race. My stepsister, Gretchen agreed if we got into Miwok she would fly to California and watch Susan's son while we ran.  Ann at a viewpoint I remember from the North Face 50k in 2012 We both signed up for the lottery December 1st, luckily they have a buddy system. Meaning if we both sign up an...