Unbreakable: The Western States 100 – Journeyfilm Official Trailer

I think I lost my mind

So lets go over the race line up for the year.

 

• January 15th: Run for Regis 50k
• January 28th: Dirty Snowflakes 4m
• February 12th: Dirty Love 10k
• March 3rd: Green Jewel 50K
• March 24th: Dirty Feet 8K
• April 1st: Fools Run 50K
• April 28th: Outrun 24 hour run
• May 12th: 50′s for you Momma 50 mile
• July 22nd: Pirate Triathlon (Sprint)
• July 28th: Burning River 100 mile
• August 4-5: MS Point to Point 150 mile(bike)

I am sure that I am missing some random race that I signed up and forgot about. The main goal is the BR100. Every race before the BR100 is just another training run. Well maybe not the Pirate Tri, that one is to have as much fun as I can with my peeps.

2012 Lets do this

1. Get my wife to stop smoking.
2. Get my children more motivated and active in a healthy life style.
3. Try to have more family activities together.
3. Become a better Vegan, stop eating crap.
4. Remove negative thoughts towards people, replace them with happy good ones.
5. Be happy with the things I have.
6. Realize that I have limits and it’s ok not to be the first or the fastest or even number one.
7. Let people help me.
8. Help random people for no reason at all.
9. Discover more great music.
10. Run a 100 miles!

Thank you 2011

I am welcoming 2012 with open arms, ready to embrace every new day. I see a lot of people sending off 2011 with the middle finger. Not me, I loved every damn day. Well almost everyday. I was humbled and learned humility. I learned to swim and swim far, I was reunited with the lost love of cycling. I rode my first century ride and backed it up with a 80 mile ride the next day. I competed in not only my first triathlon but three.
Most of all I have found a few new life long friends.

January: Ran 82.3 miles Cycled 29 miles Swam 0.0

In January I set out to finish my ultra training with the 2011 Run for Regis 50k. Being humbled I only made it 13.1 miles before dropping out.

February: Ran 82.3 miles Cycled 95.5 miles Swam 6.6 miles

After Regis I started training for the Cleveland Marathon. Using cycling as cross training and started to learn to swim.

March: Ran 90.4 miles Cycled 54.2 miles Swam 6.7 miles

Returning to the Mill Creek Distance Classic Half Marathon again I PRed the course by over 15 minutes from the last year!

Also returning to the first 5k of the year Strides of March 5k, I PRed the course and my 5k time 25:33. The best part of the race is I met my running BFF Kirsten from Days go By. Ok not only running BFF, but maybe a straight up BFF.

April: Ran 120.2 miles Cycled 24.2 miles Swam 7.5 miles

No races, just a very epic birthday run. I had this planned for awhile, the plan was 40 miles for 40 years. Mission complete.

May: Ran 77.7 miles Cycled 241.1 miles Swam 4.8 miles

West End YMCA Run 5k a raining VFF Bad ass PR 23:50
Then comes in my second marathon the 2011 Cleveland Marathon. The plan was sub 4 hours. Mile 16 all hell broke loose. Cramped up legs ruined my day. I was done. I was broken. I thank the lord above for my savor to carry me the last miles.

June: Ran 68.6 miles Cycled 180.9 miles Swam 12.2 miles

Warrior dash! What can I say but the best 5k ever!
Lake Health Distance Classic Half Marathon this was my second time running this race. I have only a few small words about this race. HOT AMD HUGE HILL.
My very first biathlon! The Lions 2011 biathlon. Learned a lot on how to pace your run and bike.
Crossfit Akron Triathlon Sprint distance! I loved it! I am hooked! Swim bike run till I die!

July: Ran 63.8 miles Cycled 359.5 miles Swam 13.6 miles

Lake Metroparks Pirate Triathlon Sprint distance. PR! Hands down top three races of the year. Just plain stupid!

August: Ran 69.4 miles Cycled 349.6 miles Swam 4.8 miles

Greater Cleveland Triathlon Olympic distance. One of the hardest races ever. The swim, I don’t think I could ever explain. The bike was fun ass hell. The run was a death craw. Best thing I got out of this race was I learned to never stop moving forward. Push until you can’t push anymore, then dig deeper and push more.

Bike MS Point to Point 175 mile ride.
Once again a first for me. A century ride the first day then a 80 mile ride home. I didn’t know or expect this ride to be so meaningful in my life. I have so many memories from this ride I just don’t have the time. Once again I learned to push myself beyond any thing I could ever expect. I hope this will be a yearly tradition.

September: Ran 105.6 miles Cycled 90.5 miles Swam 0.8

It’s Better in Mentor 5 mile great race with my BFF

Believe and Achieve 10k trail race. This was my first real trail race. I killed it! Omg I’ll never race on roads again.

Akron Half Marathon PR! 1:55:00 sub two hours! Some thinks that I was helping them get that sub 2, true confession I could of never done it with out there help. Lunch was crazy stupid.

October: Ran 140.1 miles Cycled 29.4 Swam well let’s just say done for the year.

November: Ran 174 miles

Ran my second year at Autumn leaves 5 mile
PR the shit out of my 5 mile race at the CLE turkey trot!

December: 182.2 miles!

Ran my first 10 mile trail race at Salt Fork! It was, well to say the least it was a little muddy.

I ended 2011 with a running total of 1,271 miles in the books. Tons of new friends and a new love for trails. Will I miss 2011? Hell ya I will!

Bring on 2012! The year of ultras!

What I think about when I run

I need to get some more miles in. Maybe I’ll just run later. Sleep. Ding Ding. Sleep. I should run. Morning. Not sure. Good idea. Eat first? Where area headphones? Shorts or tights? Sweatshirt or jacket? Garmin or Runkeeper? Ok going for a run, see you in a hour. Did I dress warm enough? iPod or Pandora radio? Go right or left? Why does my right shoe make a funny sound. I should start running. Wow I am tired. Love these shoes, is 500 miles to much for one pair? I’m cold. Does anyone watch my RK live? Wonder if it posted to FB? Wonder what smalls is doing? I am running slow. Wow it’s windy by the lake. The waves are huge. That swim was crazy. Wonder if I’ll do any triathlons next year? I’m cold. I should of worn gloves. Starbucks. How does mike run so fast in the middle of his long runs? Chickens. I hate when my feet get wet. Sure wish I was on trails right now. What song is this? “RK update 5 minutes” Can’t wait until I get away from the lake. Morning. Cute dog. Finally good pace. I need new road shoes. I hate wearing my headlamp. Love running in the daylight. Lots of deer out here this morning. It’s cool when run threw here at night any only seeing glowing eyes. Wonder if I’ll hit the harbor before 15. Mine. These socks rock. Regis. Prayers. Wonder how far I’ll run in the 24 hour. 8:51 first mile? Really? Speed work sucks. I think I’ll just run home from my dads on Christmas. That’s only 12 miles. Oh well I guess I’ll just run what ever. Now run that 5 times. Br100. Tattoo. Morning. Lol scared the shit out of that person. Harbor. Lol I remember when it took me forever to get here. I am hot. I knew I dresses to warm. Thank god I didn’t wear gloves. I hate this up hill. Wish I didn’t work Saturdays. Bowling. Running alone sucks. Well not really then I would have to talk. This hill rocks! It’s RK better on a 3gs or a 4s. 8:39 what the hell? I thought I was running slower. Left turn. Do these cars see me? Wonder if I got hit by a car people would know because of rklive? This hat is way too tight. Beards. Mine. Christmas ale. What’s for breakfast? Hot. Where am I going to live? Wow that was a fast 5k race last year. Wonder they are doing at work. Who cares. Wonder if I could turn this into a ten miler. Nope no time. 8:54 that’s better. Right calf is tight. Love that mailbox. I need to eat better. My first 5k was slow. My last 5k was fast. I wonder how fast I can run. 24hours should be fun. I wonder if people can run laps with you. So glad I am running. I want to go to pg in the morning. wonder what time we will close tomorrow. Tuff mudder cost to much. I could run 5 local trail races for that amount. I want to run more ultras. Wonder if I’ll run Cleveland. I hate this part of the road. Makes my hip Hurt. 8:37? Really? Slow down dumb ass. Mine. I wonder if mike killed his chickens yet? Fat mans beard rocks. I am hungry. Has Jason ran lately? I could never get my 24/12 in this weekend. Good song! 6,5,4,6 only going to be at 21 for the week. Maybe two loops in the morning. I’m soaked. Wonder what they did with the horses. 8:32. What!? Has Kelly been running? Runners prayer. No matter what, to the end. #FF. Doug chews. I miss chewing. I want new Newtons. I think I’ll take the long way home. How many other people are running right now. Damn totally over dressed. Gonna chill the last 1/2 mile. I wonder what I think about when I run. I should record my thoughts one time. Tomorrow I’ll run 10 then Sunday maybe run home from dads. That would give me about 40 for the week. I hope that’s enough. Mine. Breakfast please!

It’s a blow out

It’s been awhile since my post. Lots of stuff catch up on, race reports, training and for now my lost love.
I love the Saucony Peregrine trail shoes. The 4mm drop and super traction up and down hills, how could I not fall in love. After the first 150 miles in them I noticed that I blew out the outer sides of the shoes. I trip back to the best local running shop ever. They swapped out them for a fresh pair. Back on the trails I logged another 100 or so miles I noticed the night before Salt Fork 10 mile trail run that the right one started to blow out. It was way to late to change out shoes so I decided just to run with them. Durning the race my damn left shoe kept coming untied, after getting past by around ten people I started to get a little pissed. Then I lost my left shoe in some deep mud. More on that in my race report, for now I was mad as hell and done with those shoes.
So returning to the running store I told them what was going on and I wanted to trade. After deciding on a new pair I walked out of the store with some bad ass Merrell trail gloves! I had my eye on these shoes for a while and wanted to try them out. That night all shoe high I wore them around the house and soon found out that I hated them. They felt like crap. The high was replaced by a low. The next day with my head down I walked into the store handing them the Merrells and walking out with my money back. I was now lost. Two days later I went out on the search for new trail shoes. I ended up at a not so local running shop that carried a huge selection of trail shows. The best part of the store is the employees, they are all trail runners! Some even ultra runners. After explaining my story to them and my running plans for the year the nice lady brought out a huge stack of shoes. I think I tried on four pairs and nothing really felt right. Another guy came over and suggested that I try the New Balance MT101rx.

She grabbed my size and it was love. I took a small run down the street to make sure they were a match. I walked out of the store with new shoes and a new pair of socks ready to hit the trails.

Today I headed out on the trails sporting my new NBs.

What can I say, they felt really good! I would say even better then the Sauconys. The only down fall was that they don’t have as much grip on the down hills. A bonus is they don’t hold the mud! So after running threw tons of mud they don’t weigh ten pounds.

So for now they are my new best friend.

New Shoes Please

Fall is back! and so is the trail running season for me. A few weeks ago training for the Run For Regis 50K started. I am going to try really hard to run all my weekend long runs on the trails this year. That being said I dug out of the closet my trail running shoes, a sweet pair of New Balance 875s.

I ran most of my trail running with these shoes. I even screwed in spikes for the Regis run last year. I have been running trails during the summer, but I have been sporting my Vibram TrekSports.

I love Vibram FiveFinger shoes so much! So much I own three pairs of them. The TrekSports, Bikila LS and the KomodoSports. Even tho the TrekSports are a great trail shoe, I ran a 10k trail race in them and towards the end I was loosing my form and started to slightly heal strike in them on the trails. My heals hurt for days, maybe even weeks. So when I got home I dug out my 875s for my next run. I was doing a short mid week run of 5 miles on the trails after work, so I grabbed my 875s and gear. Soon as I put them on it felt like I was wearing high heel shoes. They also felt so so so heavy. I didn’t have any other running shoes with me so I just ran in them. I remember coming out of the woods still feeling like I had tanks on my feet. I knew I needed some new trail shoes with a very low heel to toe drop.

Very Clean

A trip to the local shoe store was in order. When I walked in I told them I wanted a trail shoe designed for a mid-fore foot strike. One that had a small heel to toe drop. I told them that I usually run in Newtons and Vibram FFs. He showed me two different shoes that would do the job. The Saucony Peregrine and some green shoe. The green ones had a lower drop but it still felt weird to wear. The Peregrine felt nice and very light, also it has a 4mm drop.  I was running a 8K run that night so I thought it would be the perfect way to break them in. 

The last time they will look new

It was late when I started my run and it was getting pretty dark in the trails. My headlamp is not that good, I think it was one I got on sale. It got me threw the trails, I think that will be my next purchase, a nice bright one. Anyways as 

soon as I started down the trail I felt at home again. No high heel shoes, They even have just a tad of cushion to them. The only complaint was they felt tight in the mid sole, I had them laced up maybe a little to tight tho. I found lots of mud to throw at them and even some nice stream crossing to soak them. The traction was insane! I felt very confident on the downhills. I bought them a 1/2 size larger then my normal size to prevent the my toes from jamming into the front of the shoe. The up climbs up out of a small valley were no problem. Even soaked and full of mud they never felt to heavy. The mud also seemed to clear out pretty quick from the bottom of the shoes after a few 100 feet.

Overall with only 5 miles on them I am really happy so far. I plan on doing almost all my trail runs in them. 

When I got home I just sprayed them off with the hose and threw them on my shoe drier. This morning they look like new again! Good Stuff!

I need some mud floor mats

Thats better

2011 Akron Half Marathon

I really can’t remember the day the conversation started, I think it was back in July when I was training for the Rev3 Half in july. I think it went like this… Hey I am gonna run the Akron Half Marathon this year, you think you might want to run it with me? Did you know that there is a vegetarian restaurant in Akron? Hey If you run it with me I’ll buy you lunch there. So you want to run Akron with me? Half Marathon?, lunch? you in? Little did Kirsten know she had me from, ‘you want to run a half marathon with me?’ I played if off for a little bit and told her I was in. Why wouldn’t I want to run a half marathon and get free lunch from a really cool vegetarian restaurant. Duh, I am crazy but not stupid. As my Triathlon year went by I decided that the Rev3 just wasn’t going to happen this year. I did decide to keep training for it, then pickup on Kirsten’s schedule for the half. I think that most of my sunday long runs I ran with Kirsten, she’s a great pacer and the conversation is killer. Two weeks before Akron I had a 10k trail race that I PRed and gave me a good feeling about a sub 2 hour half marathon. (that was our goal for Akron). The week before Akron we ran a 5 mile race and both PRed! You can read about it here. So I knew we both could run our first sub 2 hour half.

Nice face dude!

The day before we met up and headed to Akron for the race expo to grab our race bibs and hopefully some new gear. The expo was ahhh… so so. The thing I learned the most is when looking for gear/clothes bring a shopping girl! After ten minutes of searching threw a huge pile of last years gear for a medium jacket, someone pointed out the one on display! SCORE it was a medium. Thanks shopper girl! After the expo we got some quick pictures out side the expo and headed out for some food.

The next morning came really quick, like 3:45am quick. I was picking up Kirsten at 4:20am then we were driving to Kelly’s house. Kelly offered to drive us and be the official photographer and cheer person. I think she just really want to hang out with two really cool people, or was it that we were going to a kick ass vegetarian restaurant? We got there about an hour before the 7:00 start so we had plenty of time to hang out and take some photos… Well they took photos, I am not a big photo person. Around 6:40 we started to line up in front of the 3:50 pace group. I figured we could hang out in front of them we would be sure to get that sub 2 hour half.
The first mile is always a crowded slow mile, we ran it in 9:08. Mile two and three it started to clear out a little bit and we feel into our running Mojo grove, 8:54 and 8:48. The thing I remember the most in the first three miles was a lady in a wheel chair, she was doing the first leg of the relay race! I think it was 3.5 miles! Its so crazy to see people like that, it makes you so proud of them. Just remember that when your doing a 3.5 miler and you feel like you can’t finish. This strong lady did it in a wheelchair!

Miles 4,5 and 6 we ran 8:37, 8:44 and 8:37. I was wearing the Garmin and was giving Kirsten time updates. I think I lied about a 100 times, telling her that we were just doing ok but we were going to have to hit it hard in the last 3-4 miles. Miles 7 8:55 and 8 9:01were the tuff ones for two miles we ran up hill. It felt like it would never end. As soon as we hit the peek it would let up for a couple hundred yards then turn a corner and go right back up. I love my hills, but man it was killer
towards the end. I was once again amazed with
Kirsten that she was right beside me pushing it

Last Mile

Mile 9 was a great gift almost all down hill! We ran it in 8:36. Mile 10 was once more a short up hill battle! I think we were both done with these damn hills 8:47.

From 10 to about 11.25 it was a huge down hill! one of those were you want to go crazy fast down it. we ran it in 8:16. Then the last killer up hill it was so crazy hard to be strong and keep running, if i was alone I might of walked it some. 9:36. When we got to the top of the hill I looked a the Garmin and new we had it in the bag. The last mile we got back on pace and hit it hard one last time, running it in 8:47. Finishing in 1:56:00.
It has been a really big goal of mine for awhile to finish under 2 hours. I am just so happy I got to do it with my friend in need from the Cleveland Marathon.

The Best Part

Its Better In Mentor Race!

Today was a great day for running! When we stepped up to the starting line this morning, I had one thing on my mind. To help a friend realize her awesome potential. There is know way I could of wrote it better.

Days go by and I grow stronger.

Believe and Achieve 10k trail race report

This was my first 10k trail race this year. My real love of running comes from running trails. So I was really pumped up for this race. The day before my race Kirsten and I ran some of the course just to check it out and get in some Akron half marathon training milage. We ran a lot of the normal loop and some of the buckeye trail. Nothing to crazy but enough to get ya a little muddy.

The morning of the race it started to rain about 3:00 am, when I woke up I knew it was going to be a fun run. When I got to the race everyone was hanging out under the pavilion talking about the course and how the small water crossing were now small raging rivers. Even talk of a muddiest runner contest. Before the race started I decided to ditch the rain gear and just embrace the wet mud fest that was about to begin.

I am a mid pack runner, I know I will never run up front with the sicko crazy fast guys and gals. Today tho I lined up front, I think I was 5-6 in line. I wanted to see what it was like, even for the first .1 mile. When the horn went off two of the guys just laid down the hammer, I mean they were gone as gone could get. The start was on crushed gravel trails and was a slight down hill, so its was a easy fast start. Only a few runners passed me by. When we hit around .5 miles in we turned left and headed into the woods for some single person trails. This is my favorite part of trial running! Even thou the trails were a muddy slippery mess I was still holding good ground and even past some of the guys that took me in the start. When we cam up to the first water crossing some guys were a little hesitant about charging in, some were even standing in the water that was now over knee height. I was following a faster guy that manned up and jumped right into it and continued to run it hard. I could not just walk thou it after that so I hit it to, that was a great feeling to hammer threw that. I continued threw some really nice trails and climbed up a nice muddy rocky hill and headed back on the crushed rock trails. On the open paths you can tell who was the road runners, thats were they took off, but when we hit the hills they fell back. Half way was a killer up hill with a water stop at the top. Grabbed a quick drink and hit it again. The trail took us back the was we came from for a little then headed of to some nice single person trails again. The only complaint about the race was towards the end it wasn’t marked out that well. I was running solo for a while and wasn’t sure I was even going the right way. 400 yards from the finish I saw a runner walking back into the corse and I yelled out to him to make sure I was going the right direction. When I popped out to the woods I hit it hard again when I saw the timing lights. I am not sure on the official time yet, my Garmin was at 53:27. That would be a 9:14 pace. I am fine with that for a trail race!