What a fun interesting year so far of running!

Well January started off ok, I raced the Harbison 50k in Columbia, SC. Dan Hartley puts on a great race but 50k's (31 miles) are not for me. To short and not into running a track meet. If your interested in running your first 50k I highly recommend this race. Very well marked coarse and well organized.
I trained the rest of January and February with low miles and not expecting to race. But at the end of February I heard about  the Double Top 100k running in Northern Georgia the first weekend of March and the race had 20,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. So 4 days before the race I entered, why not! I was feeling good and felt like I was somewhat ready for 62 miles of really steep running on the Pinhoti trail. So off I went to Northern Georgia. The night before the race it snowed all night long and come race morning it was dumping snow, awesome! My kind of weather. When the gun went off we all ran together down a dark road for about 1/2 mile and then it turned left onto the Pinhoti trail. We crossed to big creeks within the first few miles, both about knee deep and yes it was still dumping snow. The race went really well for me, I took the lead around mile 5 and was never challenged from that point until....I got to the mile 42 aid station. The Co race director was there to let me know they were canceling the race do to the weather. The US Forest Service made the call and on top of it all I had a 1 1/2 hour lead on second. DAMN!!! Really?? Chalk that race up as a good training run.
I took a few days off and then entered the Leatherwood Mountain 50 mile ultra with about 15,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. So my coach Karl Meltzer had me on a great training program for Leatherwood. Again low miles but quality miles. I went into Leatherwood with the attitude that I was going to win this race and that's exactly what I told my wife Andrea and coach.  I said to her I'm not racing Leatherwood to finish or finish second, I'm going to win this race. So I trained angry and with a chip on my shoulder. I made every mile of training count. Leatherwood went really well and went as planned even though it was really muddy and lots of climbing. My overall winning time was 8:04. It was a great phone call to make to my coach and tell him how the day went. Even he said WOW man that's moving!
2 weeks later I was entered to race the Wambaw Swamp Stomp 50 miler in South Carolina. The week prior to the race I got the flu, really bad. Not good. So I went into the race with the attitude of just finish and my coach said run this race on feel, if you feel good then turn it up. At the start of the race I took the lead  immediately which wasn't planned. I got to the turn around (mile 25) in 3:20 feeling good running through wet, muddy conditions and had a big lead on second. So I turned it up on the way back and said to myself lets see if you can run a sub 7 hour 50 miler. Damn missed it by 4 minutes, ran a 7:04 for the overall win. That was another cool phone call to my coach Karl Meltzer, he said to me damn dude your making me look good! :-)
A month later I was heading off to LA to shoot a commercial and knowing I was going to be there for a week I was going to get in some good running. I got to run the Ray Miller trail, and run in and around on the trails of Topanga State Park in the Santa Monica Mountains. Also got to run Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. Good times and good running!
When I got back home I was on target with my training, feeling good and knowing that Speedgoat 50k was coming up soon.
So I was off to Mt Hood, Oregon. Wow what a gorgeous place that was. Shooting on location so that meant great running. I was able to run on the Pacific Rim Trail and other trails in the area. Good times and good running.
When I got home from Mt Hood it was all about Speedgoat 50k training. Training went well, lots of elevation gain training and low milage weeks. When I got to Snowbird, Utah I was ready. I knew I wanted to try and run up front even though Sage Canaday, Tony K, Timmy Olson, Cameron Clayton, Jason Shlarb and many other of the top ultra runners in the world were there. Well I was hit immediately by the altitude, running at 12,000 feet felt like I was breathing through a straw. So when I got to Larry's hole aid station (mile 21) I had to drop. Head ache was so bad. Karl said just think of that race as a good training run. He said put it behind you and let's get ready for the big one.
When I got home I took 7 days off, no running! My body sure needed it especially my legs. When I came back to training I felt so good and ready to get back to training and getting ready for a big race coming really soon. Which race? Stay tuned, you'll soon find out! It's going to be an ass kicker. Now get out and run! Richard