Check it out folks, the Wings for Life World Run is coming in May. What is this? Think about a race that happens globally in 38 locations on 6 continents! Everyone starts at the same time. Some at 7am, some at 10pm all around the world. The real catch is the “catcher car”. The gun goes off, the “catcher car” gives us a half hour head start. Once the car catches you…you’re out. Who wins? Spinal Cord Research. 100% of proceeds go directly to Spinal Cord Research. Join me in Denver on May 4 at 4am. See how long you last! How about that two posts in two weeks from Speedgoat Karl. Check out my Speedgoat odds, coming on Monday morning. The race: The North Face 50 on December 7th. I’ll be handicapping the top 20 men and women. The field is super stacked and competitive for the $10,000 […]
by TJ Hooks
What does it take as a teenager to not only race UltraMarathons, but consistently place high?
My name is T.J. Hooks, I’m sixteen years old, and I run Ultras.
If that were true than I’d be completely qualified to write this. Unfortunately the truth is closer to…
My name is T.J Hooks, I’m sixteen years old, and I’ve run three 50Ks. Actually, with one being Karl’s baby, SpeedGoat, this would be more accurate…
My name is T.J. Hooks, I was fifteen years old, and I ran fifteen miles, speed hiked five, and then crawled up five just to find out that I’d only gone twenty-five miles, and there’s still a brutally steep four mile climb that didn’t exist according to the last aid station volunteer who may, or may have not been, laughing at my surprise and despair as I dragged myself up the mountain for what must have been the sixth time by my last count, or was it seven…?
My point is that I’ll need some help with this; and also that when the race is SpeedGoat, thirty two miles is pretty, really, painfully far.
(Sorry, Karl.)
Thankfully, I know some incredible people who may be able to explain what it is that makes us so different from the average teenage XC runner… (more…)
by Karl Meltzer
“100 miles is not that far” but what about 200 miles? Or even further? Perhaps 2178 miles? Why do we do it? And what is the attraction to punishing our bodies for 15-48 hours? Is it really necessary to run 100 miles to catch the “runners high”?
Hmmmmm, all these questions. I’d be willing to bet we could come up with 100 answers pretty easily. I’ll let the readers fire away on these questions.
My simple answer in one word? Addiction. We are all addicted to something, whether it’s Speedgoat coffee when we wake up, or watching Seinfeld at 630 every evening? A routine of what we like to do feels natural. So here’s my first tip of the month: If you like to push yourself to run 100 miles, or hike the entire Appalachian Trail, become addicted to running first (trust me It’s easy), fit yourself into a “routine”, it soon starts to feel “natural”. We soon start telling ourselves, “100 miles is not that far”.
Authors
- Andrea Jarzomek-Holt
(1) - Brian Donnelly (1)
- Desiree Marek (1)
- Karl Meltzer (15)
- Megan Zetter (2)
- Paul Nelson (9)
- Todd Janssen
- Yassine Diboun (2)
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