ROCKy and ROLL

So tomorrow we finally head for Texas. John, Kyle, myself and our wives will be flying out around 5am to Texas. I cannot believe the weather forcast!! A high temperature of 67 and a low of 53, absolutely perfect!!

Everything has been so busy lately that I haven't even got to pack everything up yet. I haven't been home before 8 for the last couple weeks with practices and stuff. I have never felt so good before a 100 miler before. Everything feels different this time. I guess the lack of high mileage buildup and drastic taper have kept everything normal. There are no aches and pains to worry about which is strange and I have been getting a lot more sleep since I have been substituting lunch runs for early morning runs.

My plan for Rocky is to just go with the flow. I just want to run at whatever pace feels comfortable and not get obsessed with the time. I am going to start out in my road shoes and see how they hold up. This will be the first time flying to a 100 miler so I had to greatly reduce the amount of stuff I usually take. Tiff is going to share a car with John's wife, Stacy, and try to get to both John and I while Kyle's wife is planning on using Ben's Nerdmobile.

Mark Stovall is flying down with Rick Saturday morning to pace me. It will be Marks first time at a 100 or pacing. He has done a 24hr run and a 50 miler as well as a few 50k's so he will be fine.

I hope to take my new mini HD camcorder with me on a few legs of the race if everything goes well and maybe have Mark take it out at night while pacing some. Tiff will be using it at some aid stations so hopefully we can get a few hours worth of footage.

Yesterday I had my bodyfat tesing and final weigh in before the race. My bodyfat was 6.1%. I weighed at 180 lbs after putting in a few slow miles on the treadmill. I was about 194 the week of Traveller, I am curious to see if losing 13 or so lbs will pay off over 100 miles. There is not much elso to lose so I am very happy with my weight loss and I really hope it pays off. John has dropped about 15 lbs and he has definitely improved a lot.

The trail nerds will be well represented at Rocky. Myself, John King, Kyle Amos, Ben Holmes abd Gary Henry are all running as well as a whole bunch of other people I know. I am looking forward to seeing those other crazies who like to do this stuff also.

As far as the kids go...Corbin has won 6 wrestling tournaments in a row, going undefeated since December 8th. Last weekend we travelled to Kirksville and spen the weekend there for a tournament. He got a nice 2ft trophy and we had a good time in the process. Tristans Basketball team is improving but they play in a very competitive league so they are still looking for their first win. We have been having Baseball tryouts for his team and will finalize our roster next week as well as getting everything tolling for COrbins baseball team too.

Have an awesome weekend, hopefully I will have some good news to report next week.

Swell

The last 2 weeks have been,,,.,,.,..well, swell I guess. I have been sticking to the faithful treadmill during the week and heading outdoors on the weekends. John and I went and played in the mud at Smithville on Saturday for several hours and I got in a nice solo run last Sunday morning, taking advantage of the great weather.

I ordered a pair of Saucony Triumph 5 the other day but shipped them back today for a size 13. I have never went above 12.5 on a road shoe but they felt snug around the toes. I plan on starting off in Roadies at Rocky Raccoon so I want to make sure they are big enough.


I have been hitting the diet pretty hard this week, luckily my OCD helps me to be able to eat the same thing every day and dinner is the only variety. I will wait another 10 days or so and then raise my calories the last week before Rocky. I can definitely tell by my sometimes low energy level that I am operating on a pretty hefty caloric deficit. i am at the lowest weight I have been since ohh,.,,7th grade.
I am still hitting the weights once a week and the legs are getting the brunt of the work there also. Monday I got in 5 sets of 50 with 175lbs on squats which left me sore for a few days.


I have been looking at the splits and trying to figure out a realistic goal to shoot for. I think I have on but we'll see after it's over how close I finish to my predicted time which I will keep to myself. It always looks so easy on paper. The one thing I remember clearly is the cold, damp night weather. I get chills just thinking about it.

Corbin won his wrestling tournament again last weekend. That makes 3 tourneys in a row undefeated. He is still getting very nervous and is in tears before every match. It is mostly from his intense desire to win. We have been talking a lot about just competing and trying your best, how the only real losers are the ones that don't try. It is a very very fine balance at such a young age. He wanted to quit before his second match last weekend but I made him stay even though he was an emotional wreck. After he got his first place medal he gave me a " thanks for not letting me quit Dad, you were right."

I will be stuck inside at another tournament Saturday and Tristan has his first Basketball game that day as well. Sunday I plan to get in a long run at Wyco with Rick and John and then out for some good old Mexican food afterwards!

Have a great weekend!!

FrozenAss FatAss

Yesterday was possibly the most unpleasant time I have ever had running. Several of us headed up to Wallace State Park for the Cameron Fatt Ass on New Years Day. The race temps were about 13 degrees and there was a nice 20 mph breeze to keep us cool as we plowed through the 6 or so inches of snow for 31 miles. It is a 5 loop course so we had to run by the warm cabin and our cars 4 times which was punishment enough.

I actually called it quits after the 3rd loop and started up Johns truck and enjoyed the heated seats for a while. After getting out of the frozen wet clothes and into some warm dry ones I decided to head back out rather that sit around waiting for him to finish.

I ended up finishing in a snail like 6:45. It was my slowest 50k ever but the most difficult also. I will be losing a few toenails from this one and all of the sliding on the snow. I think there were only 8 finishers of about 30 starters so I am just happy to be one of them. This was also our 2nd 50k in 10 days in the freezing cold and snow, but this one was far worse than last weeks at Wyco. I will post some pics later.

I found this pic the other day of me. This was in June of 04 about 6 months before deciding to try and lose some weight. Notice the large chew in my mouth and the beer in my hand, two staples of my past diet.


I hope everyone had a great New Years. A few of us got together at Johns New Years Eve and just hung out and ate a bunch of food and played some games although I did have a few beers also. Today the gym was loaded up with the New Years resolution crowd, in a few weeks it will be back to normal again I am sure. I am not real big on New Years resolutions although I hope to have more patience, be a bit less selfish(except for running) and be a better father and husband too.

Only 31 days until Rocky Raccoon and another 100 mile adventure. Hopefully It will be decent weather and I Can avoid the mental pitfalls of the 5 loop course. I do not like loop courses. It is just too convenient to quit.