jturnerx Member

Garmin all the way. Besides my iPhone battery would never last the length of some of my long runs and races. I have the 310XT specifically for the long battery life.

I recently got a new PR at a 50 mile trail run which also allowed me to qualified to enter the Western States lottery.

I believe Azdak is citing Merriam-Webster which is a pretty credible source. Please go to the section labelled as "I" and look up "irony".

Ah, the Hokas. I remember when I used to see the occasional pair during trail ultras and I thought to myself - "I will never wear those ridiculous clown shoes." Once I finally got over my initial bias and with a recommendation that they are also a great recovery shoe (I was nursing a sore hamstring at the time) I tried…

It depends. If it's a major goal race for me, meaning I'm going to put in my best possible effort not treat it like a glorified training run, no matter how short it is you better believe there will be a taper in there. The length of the taper will vary from a couple of days to two weeks depending on the length of the race.

Is that good or bad? That sounds low until you realize that translates to 960 calories / hour.

Primarily alone although I do belong to a running club and it's nice to have structure around getting track work outs and early morning mid-weeks runs done. On the long runs on the weekends I will either do them solo or with specific training partners. I'm very picky about who I'll do the long runs with.

There's crazy (a little out there but the risk/reward ratio is high) and then there's stupid (there will be, not maybe, a heavy price to pay and it better be worth it to you). I've done both.

You won't know unless you experiment. Test during one of your long training runs. Every 20 minutes would be way too much for me. I can hardly choke down a couple of those things during a marathon.

I generally wear the same running gear whether it's raining or not. If it's going to be on the cold side I have an ultra light water resistant jacket I wear but that acts mostly as a thermal layer. If it's raining hard enough I'll get wet anyway. Anything that's water proof, like made of Gore-Tex, I find just way too heavy…

The course looks awesome. Hope you have a great time. Yes, be careful on the down hills. It's easy to think the downs are easy (and it feels that way from a heart/lung perspective) but you are subjecting your body to significant ground reaction forces. When people talk about blowing their quads it's not the ups that did…

I’ve done more trail 50ks than I can count with elevation gains anywhere from 4,000 to 7,000 feet and I’m heading into my 4th 50 miler this weekend so I have a little bit of experience with ultras. For me, one of the biggest puzzles to crack was pacing. I’ve blown up spectacularly (in a way I’ve never been able to do in a…

I was prescribed orthotics many years ago when I did something stupid and caused the arch to fall in my left foot. I wasn’t an avid runner back then. When I did start running consistently 4 years ago I stayed with the orthotics and have used them to this day. During this time period I've had two setbacks, one of them…

I got sidelined with a major injury a couple of years ago. Running and any extensive walking were banned for a minimum of 6 weeks before my sports ortho would reassess where I was. I was unaware of it at the time but I went through the Kübler-Ross 5 stages of grief leading up to the diagnosis. It was classic actually. I'd…

I did the Goofy Challenge a couple of years ago with some family and friends. I got a text from my sister this morning wanting to know if I wanted to do the Dopey. I declined. I do ultras so the mileage doesn't faze me. I just found the course, except for the short sections through the actual parks, mind-numbingly boring.

Didn’t you hear? If you run, your body will cannibalize itself and you will disappear into thin air. Maybe that’s where all the runners went. Me, I’ve been busy running. In the last 6 weeks I’ve completed two trail 50km races and one road marathon. In less than two weeks I’ll be doing a 50 miler and trying to qualify for…

If you have access to a pool, deep water running or swimming.

There will always be outliers given any situation. I'm don't happen to be one of them. I have no natural gifts for speed or running. I'm what Coach Jack Daniels calls his type-3 runner - "Those who lack much ability but have great motivation to achieve success". Any little bit of it I do have came from hard work developed…

Regarding hills, me choosing to run or walk up one depends on a lot of factors – grade, length of climb, overall distance of the run, racing or training, etc. Since most of my trail runs are in the 20+ mile category and the hills look like those in my profile picture (multiple 6-7% grade, 1-2 mile long climbs) there is…

I run trails. I do ultras. I'm about to leave my 40s and go into the next age bracket. I'll still enter road races but not as much as I used to. I enter trail races but mostly at the 50k distance and above. I really enjoy just opening a map and exploring places I haven't run in before. I've gotten very comfortable route…

As much as I need to accomplish my goals.

Let's see, this was in December. It was storming with pouring rain the entire week leading up to this trail race I was doing. It was so bad that the race organizers were required to re-route the course because the state park pulled their permit at the last minute and they had to stick to the national recreation area. The…

Absolutely! I think another factor to consider is how hard you run the race. If you are treating it like a training run and actually followed through on that then you shouldn't need to recover. Two weeks ago I did a 50k as a training run and didn't need any recovery afterward. However, I just did another 50k on Saturday…

Trails. No question. And I'm lucky in that I live within a 15 minute drive to some of the most spectacular trails in the country. Even just walking out my door I can get on a urban trail in about a quarter mile and either go coastal or inland.

Just go run on the trails during a storm and when it's been pouring rain the week prior. You'll have miles and miles of chocolate pudding to run through.

The chews are okay. The waffles I find too sweet and the gels are revoltingly sweet. Never again.

If you have to ask ...

ROTFL! Sounds familiar. Last summer I was back to a base building phase after an injury and had only gotten up to a long run of 19 miles. Pretty much on a whim I decided to do this 12 hour the following week. I figured if I felt terrible I could just stop after one of the laps and call it a day. I reached each milestone –…

I hate running belts. Nathan also makes a race vest (no bladder) called the HPL #028. I have no experience with the Spry but I do own the Nathan. It's super light and doesn't bother me at all.

I'm generally energy gel averse but Gu makes a peanut butter flavored one that's actually pretty good. That one I can tolerate. I didn't care for chews initially because chewing and breathing at the same time is not pleasant. Then someone told me to bite the chew in half and tuck each in a cheek and let it dissolve. That…