Ultra-long, Ultra-hard, and Ultra-beautiful

Yesterday afternoon we had a freak icy snow storm which lasted only about 20 minutes but left the streets and sidewalks treacherous and hard to walk on, let alone run. Of course this led to my wife worrying about my sanity as I headed out the door at 4:30 p.m.. But hey, the sun was shining and it was a warm 2C/36F outside :-)

Anyway I figured out right away that I had absolutely no chance with the first 2-3 kilometers that were over icy asphalt paths, so went to Emergency Plan B which was to head across the lawn of the church across the street, through a neighboring park, then on to some dirt trails through the fields that surround our town. These trails were much better so I decided to head East towards some distant hills. Normally it is 8K/5M to the base of the hilly terrain, but I was hoping to find a shortcut.

So I start heading over assorted dirt trails trying to find a shorter way to this ultimate training opportunity (e.g. hills). Several of these 'farm tractor' trails ended in a field, in which case I continued on across getting in some good cross-country training. Finally after about 40 minutes I gave up and decided there is no short cut and headed home. Total running time 1:01:24, probably about 10K.

It was a really diversion from my normal running trail and truly enjoyable, despite having to battle a constant wind almost the entire time. The latter didn’t really bother me, as for once I seemed to be wearing just the right running outfit combination.

So tonight is a rest night, Saturday morning a medium long run about 2 ½ hours.

I found a couple really interesting marathon and ultra-marathons that I would like to run. The best so far is a 63K/39M Trail-Ultra, which also offers a HM and M. The name of the run is the Baerenfelsen Lauf, which translated is the 'Bear Cliff Run'. If you look at some of these pictures you can understand how the race got it’s name! The club advertises the event as being 'Ultra-long, Ultra-hard, and Ultra-beautiful'! Yeah, I wanna do this run!! Whoohooo!