Here We Go Again!

Earlier in the year, on one of my weekly road runs, I was stopped at a light next to an idling sports car. It was beautiful and the engine was growling throatily under the hood. One of them sleek Italian super cars, you know the type. A voice inside of me said "that's you man, picture that in your mind". These days the soft hum of a Toyota Camry comes to mind, haha. Oh c'mon it's not too far behind the truth. Camry's may not be the fastest but they get the miles done.

Don't get me wrong I'm feeling great just not at my peak and I'm ok with it. I've been laying down the trail miles in preparation for the Quad Dipsea the Northface 50-miler and the last two weeks of taper has given me back some of my speed and energy. Work has suddenly gotten busy which explains, for the most part, my absence from blogging but the timing couldn't be better since I was on taper. The freelance thing, sometimes really slow, sometimes really busy.

Brian Krogmann and his friend Katelyn are up from LA and he is also running the Quad Dipsea.Thanksgiving morning we did a double of the course in preparation for the race. Believe me I was thinking a Philz mocha and football but he has never been on the trail so when he asked if I could show him the course prior to race day I was more than happy to oblige. I spread the word on Facebook and posted the run on our triathlon club's calendar. We ended up with about 20 people for the run and six did the entire double. I kept the pace easy for the most part and I felt great throughout. I won't be as fast as last year but I should have a decent, solid run. Now of course I'm hoping for some of that race day magic, when the energy of an event, my fellow runners, the cheering spectators, the hard working volunteers, the beauty and gnarliness of the trail, catapults me into a better than expected performance. I'm hoping there might be some of that or it could be like Firetrails this year where I ran a slower race but a solid run nevertheless. We shall see. I will know after the first crossing of the Dipsea where I'm at physically.

I've been excited about the run all week. My favorite race on my favorite holiday weekend. Many, many things to be thankful for and the opportunity to run the Quad Dipsea again is one of them. There was a chance that the event wasn't going to happen because of budget cuts but they found a way to make it happen. Thank you Park Service and big, big mahalos to race director John "Tropical John" Medinger. To all my fellow Quad Dipsea racers, see you tomorrow!

We had a pretty good group going Thanksgiving morning.

Brian Krogmann (Javelina Jundred shirt, Daniel Fabun and Katelyn Benton before the run.

Megan Lewis, Kara Teklinski and Ed Swanson talk shop while Justin Wasielewski and Lisa Ledesma go over course directions in the background.

Just like on race day, running up the road to the first flight of stairs.

Katelyn Benton and Kara Teklinski heading back to Mill Valley.

Katelyn Benton and Kara Teklinski on the final descent back to Mill Valley.