Monday, April 30, 2012

April 2012 in Review

April seemed to fly by.  The month also seemed to kick off the ultra-racing season - races have been popping up throughout the country that provides excitement around the ultra-community.  The early trend seems to be fast times and course records.  One can't help but to be impressed with Dakota's performance at Lake Sonoma, crushing the 'not-too-shabby-themselves' field and simply obliterating the previous course record.  Timothy Olson seems to be standing on a podium somewhere along the west coast every other day.  A couple more studs are engraving their names on the Western States entry list.  Perhaps the best performance of the month came at the Promise Land 50k++; Eric Grossman outsmarted a fast field and achieved his goal en route to take down a 10 year course record previously held by Clark Zealand.  I was glad to be able to witness the showdown in the Blue Ridges.

Speaking of fast races and Western States, I join a cast of fast runners in two weeks vying for the final few spots on the WS entry list at the Ice Age 50 Mile race.  If the trend continues, this could be a quick race in itself.  Fast dudes like Timothy Olson, Matt Flaherty (out), Zach Bitter, last year's winner Shaun Pope, and Karl Meltzer (out) are all going to be making it interesting in the Kettle Moraine woodlands.

Running for me has been more relaxed than it ever has been.  I decide what to run when I wake up in the morning and go do it.  Some days I decide I don't want to run so I don't; other days I decide to run a good bit so I do that.  This is probably the least amount of structure I've ever had in my training and what I am finding out is that I am appreciating almost every aspect of running.  Hopefully a fresh perspective brings a fresh race on May 12th.           

March 26-1:    64 miles (10:18:52)
April 2-8:        41 miles (4:55:20)
April 9-15:      70 miles (9:07:08)
April 16-22:    80 miles (11:44:35)
April 23-29:    90 miles (12:54:45)

Total for April:  313 miles (43:45:28)

January:  535 miles (69:34:15)
February:  476 miles (65:18:24)
March:  221 miles (30:52:32)

Total Year:  1,545 miles