So, I thought I’d do a quick post to offload the stuff going on in brain concerning ultra running this week.
First off, I GOT INTO WESTERN STATES!!!! I may have yelled and threw my hands up, clenched fists of victory, when I heard my name called. You’ll have to ask my wife if it’s true….or my neighbors. Anyway, I’m fortunate to have had my name drawn with just my second year of trying. In the midst of my extreme excitement, I feel the weight of this opportunity. I plan on busting my hump and putting in the work to do my best for this race. I’m still working on my race schedule for 2019 as everything now points to June 29th in Squaw Valley. I’ve also entered the Leadville Lottery so we’ll see how that goes.
In the midst of all of this excitement, I’m running the Loup Garou 100 in my home state of Louisiana in a little over a week. It’s held in Chicot State Park in Ville Platte, LA. We’ll be running 5, 20 mile laps in the beautiful swamps around Lake Chicot. I’m super excited to run the trail where I trained like crazy and ran my first ultra, a 100 miler, for the Cajun Coyote 100 in 2013. I returned to run that race again but had to drop due to a tear in my calf muscle.
I have unfinished business. I’m coming off of a really fun running year (I’ll write about all of that later) and figured it would be fitting to close it out where the ultra journey began for me. My good friend, Edie, is race director for the LG and it’ll be great running her race and seeing all of my Louisiana friends who will be running and helping at aid stations. Edie and this Louisiana crew have helped me so much as I navigated the choices in training, gear, nutrition, hydration, logistics and all that go into running long distances on the trails. Yeah, it’ll be good to be back “home” doing what I love with a nutty, awesome group of people I love.
After Loup Garou, I’ll take some time off and rest before a few races early next year and the Boston Marathon in April. Official Western States training begins on February 26th according to my spreadsheet. Though, I can’t help to think that every mile in training and racing, whether on road or on trail, flat terrain or mountain, was in preparation…all building and strengthening me….physically, but also mentally, for the next big task. This month it’s the Loup Garoup. In June of 2019 it’ll be Western States. I’m a blessed man. Thankful for the life God gave me. Thankful for all I get to do and those I get to do it with.