Training for and a preview of Vermont 100 mile run

Theresa, Randy, Me and Tristan: With my previous pacer from 2008: Randy, and this years pacer (unbeknownst to me) his wife Theresa and Tristan prior to the VT100 miler last year. I am really looking forward to running with Theresa and know we will have lots of fun during our 20 mile journey together. She will be pacing me from Camp 10 Bear to Bill's. This will be from about 10 p.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. the next day.

Here I am at the top of one of the numerous hills with several other runners. To get to the top of this hill we had to climb pretty hard up this grassy trail. It was a pretty significant slope to get up, luckily our descent on the other side was a bit more gradual. At this point during the race (probably about 3 p.m. or so), I was running with my friend Rob Apple (who is just a super nice person and a great ultra-marathoner). We spent about 45 or so miles on the course together and he really helped me alot and was a wonderful mentor!

Here I am at the beginning of the VT100 last year. I would guess it was about 6-7 a.m. or so. You will notice I ended up wearing my headlamp around my wrist. I ended up with a less bright flashlight with me so found this set up helped in the first few miles of the course. My recollection is the first 10 miles or so have a considerable amount of single track interspersed with rickety jeep road. This year I will have a "real" flashlight and headlamp and will intend to simply drop them at the first aid station/drop bag site.

Towards the end of the race, I acquired Tristan as a pacer. He took this picture of my feeble attempt at running. You will notice that neither of my feet are really off the ground (thus by ultra-running standards Tristan fails at taking a good picture!)

This was at the Taftsville Covered bridge. It was raining pretty hard (rainstorm number one of three that were pretty hard throughout the day on Saturday). But I will admit this rain storm was a refreshing break although it did make for some wet feet. Luckily my Drymax Socks kept my feet from blistering much at all.

Later storms in the day included lightening, thunder, hail, and significant wind, but this storm just had pretty hard rain.

I have been trying to train for VT100 mile pretty unsuccessfully since late April. That is when my mom became ill, passed away then Gilligan was diagnosed with cancer. But I am starting to get back on track with a bit of cramming and lots of eating (well if you consider powering down Bruster's Ice Cream eating:-)

This past weekend I walked on the treadmill on a 15% incline for about 2 hours and spent a bit of time in the Sauna (as well as about 20 or so minutes swimming) and Monday included a 10 mile run that was pretty fast by my standards (9-10 minute miles I would guess).

Fourth of July will be my last high mileage weekend in which I hope to have at least 2 solid days of running including a day trip to Sugarloaf Mountain. I also will start assembling my running stuff in preparation for our 5 day trip to VT as well as creating my drop bags. I have a nice EXCEL spreadsheet that will assist me in this and think I have Tristan in agreement to see me at mile ~55 (Margaritaville). It would be nice to see him earlier in the course but worry that this might create difficulties in ensuring he is at the one place I want to see him.

I have picked Margaritaville because then no matter how long it takes me to arrive, Tristan will be entertained by the aid station and should enjoy the music as he is a closet parrothead.