Merry Christmas!

I doubt anyone reads this, but if you are there, and you read, Merry Christmas!  I hope you have great holidays with your family!  Remember one thing, it's not just a cliche, "Jesus is the reason for the season!"  This year has been particularly great for me in terms of running.  I had my second biggest year of mileage, and just crossed over 3000km.  I also climbed by far more than I ever have also just crossing 36,000 meters.  I'm hoping for a even bigger year in 2020 and a successful Lost Soul ultra marathon.  Here are some family pics. 

Lost soul 100k "You're in!"

Lost soul ultra "You are "In"!".  We are officially accepted, I also payed to make it totally official!  I capped the weekend off with a half marathon run.  I felt good through out, legs at least.  My stomach said otherwise as I had one small pulled pork sandwich hours before and despite it being delicious it made my stomach unhappy to run!  I survived with only a couple walk breaks near the end.  At least the weather(-13) and footing were both good.  That finished off a nice 80km week with a bunch of climbing.  I'll get the two badges from strava again and also 3000km for the year.  Only beaten that once on strava in 2013.

So I'm excited to get training for Lost soul 100k.  Three key things I know I need to work on for next years ultra:

1. More long runs, this may seem obvious as with a 100k run you can never have too many long runs.  With the young family this is the one thing I struggle with and I need to try and find time to get out more often for these long ones.  My body will appreciate it come race day.

2. Steep hikes, the hills in Lethbridge are short but steep.  Hiking hills, but I need to train them as much as I possibly can.  During short lunch runs, as well as add them to my long run.  Simulate the transition from running to steep hiking, and back to running.

3. Transition, I already mentioned this as part of 2, but it's important enough to mention as it's own point.  On many of the steep climbs I simulate the hill as I run them during the race.  Start off running into the climb, sense when to switch to hiking(so my heartrate doesn't spike too much), then as soon as I hit the top and the flats switch back to running and recover while running slowly.

4. More kms if possible, more time on my feet.  I did well last year, I did as much as I could, but I'll def. try to do more.  Nuff said!

5. Nutrition, I did pretty well here last year, but it still needs fine tuning and also when I get to the race I need to plan it out better.  Some of the aid stations we ran into, I felt lost, so many options, didn't know what I wanted.  I need to plan so I know exactly what to get/do.  Then if some craving pops up, I can always change.

Here's to 2020, lets go run!

Lost soul continued?

Hi!

Well I'm hoping this Lost Soul Chapter gets to continue.  Where did we leave off, lets see.  So last year(really this year) we hobbled in to finish the Lost Soul 100k.  Despite the trouble(and corresponding slow time), both Terry and I really enjoyed the race.  Every part of it, well except for my bros knee was awesome.  The race organization, volunteers, the course, the challenge, even the weather turned out to be supreme!

This year we figure we want another go at this race, redemption if you will.  Apparently we aren't the only ones who like this race.  Last year while signing up, it filled within minutes.  Technically, I didn't even get in, and had to plead my case to the RD to let me in.  They brought down the "ultrasignup" servers and to solve that issue this year they implemented a lottery.  Booooo, this may prevent us from getting in!  But they realize that some want to run with others, so with the lottery system you can also enter as a team.  This way we can be drawn together, either we're in or we aren't.  There won't be a situation where only one of us gets in.  I guess if we don't get in, we'll find some other adventure to do this year.

So on Saturday Dec. 7th the lottery opened up.  It opened for 1 week, closing on Dec. 14th and on the Monday after the weekend we'll find out if we're in.  Good luck to the Penner team!  I hope we get to run the Lethbridge Coulees again.  I'm not sure if they will have a waiting list, we may have to decide at that point if we're willing to wait, or enter something else.  Perhaps Ironlegs 60km, or 100km!  One things for sure, we'll be hiking hills.  I'm already training my hiking legs!  At least we don't have to wait long for the draw.  Cheers!

Here's some recent family pics!