Hola

Well, it has been awhile since I posted, my longest break from blogging yet. Where have I been? Nowhere really. I've simply been putting my head down and cranking through training. I'm on my 8th year in the world of ultra-marathons and I can honestly say I've never worked so hard on my training this early in the year, a level I hope to keep for the entire season. I took that break in December like I always do and hit the ground running in January. I've been working harder, trying to squeeze more out of these short stubby legs:)

I have been hitting the gym even though I still hate it with a passion, working on the core as well as the upper body and not just the legs. Getting the body stronger overall to withstand the rigors of races this spring and summer. I've dropped my holiday weight faster than I've ever had and have been putting in good long miles consistently. I've been experimenting with doing double run workouts, one in the morning and one at night and so far it's been great. It has been hard and to be honest it is kind of breaking me. I've had to pull back on planned workouts because of danger signals I was perceiving from my body. Last week was just such a week. By Thursday I was hobbling around the house with two incredibly tight and sore hamstrings. Sore was okay, tightness not okay. I've been here before though, it will be okay. I'm not always so smart in my training and January was a good example of that when I built up too many miles too quickly. The good thing is that I am always ready to back down, scale back on training plans when things are not feeling right. I've been injured many times, burned out once and those experiences temper some of the recklessness. I didn't come out of January unscathed however. Building to a 30-mile long run within a month has left me with chronically tight feet, the bottoms of them, and they get quite sore on the long runs. I spend part of the day with my feet on top of a tennis ball, a billiard ball would be better.

Anyway my first race is in three weeks. Exciting. I never know where I am condition wise until the first race of the season. I know I can cover the distance since I've been covering 26-30 miles in my long runs but how fast and how strong? We shall see. I am planning on a two week taper and I hope some of the nagging little pains and the feet tightness thing would clear out along with the accumulated fatigue.

With the triathlon club, cheering on runners at a recent half-marathon in San Francisco.

Saw several ultra-folk, putting up some fast times too. Chikara Omine of New Balance Excelsior, guy is fast in shorter distance races as well as ultras.

Our very own club run director Helen Kao, so fast she's blurry. Coincidentally she also used to race for New Balance Excelsior.

4-month old Huck, our newest member and girl magnet.

The after shot after all our runners finished.