Running with Jack

Thanks everyone for your comments, they mean the world to me :-)

I’ve been reading a lot about training for an ultra-marathon lately, as well as lurking around some of the ultra-marathon blog sites. I am confident that with the right training I can complete longer distance races. I am not a fast runner compared to others in my age group, but I think I have the discipline and fortitude to go longer distances.

If my wife supports my decision I would like to run the 80K (49.7 mile) ultra-marathon at Karlsruhe in June 2007. The route is a good mix of asphalt and trails, as well as flat land and hills. It is also local, which means I might be able to get a support crew set up. The race is also well organized and has enough checkpoints to where I wouldn’t need to bring my own food and drink. Sounds like a good first race.

But for now I am going to run my marathon in March, recover for a few weeks – spend some extra time with my wife doing what she wants to do. Then we’ll see what’s going on.

Snow

I had a good cross-training experience when I woke up at 4:45 this morning, I had to shovel 4 inches of snow off the sidewalks in front of our house! Yep, it is the duty of every household to have the sidewalks around their houses clear by 8 a.m., so since my train leaves at 6 a.m. I was outside at 5:00 a.m. shovel in hand!

Now, four hours later, it is snowing again and it is becoming questionable if I run my 24K/15M run tonight. I may opt to run my 14K/8.7M run tonight and postpone the longer run until tomorrow night (it is supposed to start warming up again tomorrow). I love running in the snow, but by the time I get home and shovel the sidewalks again it will be almost dark. At the present rate that it is snowing I predict 8-10 inches of accumulation by this evening. A 2 ½ hour run in the dark and with deeper snow can be hazardous. So anyway I will have a better idea when I get home tonight.