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Running - Race Running out of town today Animal Run Certified? Yes	2 miles 00:14:00 (7:00 min/mile)	Shoe: Zoot 0 miles on shoe Height: 5' 9

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Goose -	00:00:00	Height: 6-00

Another day off. Still hurting.

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Running - MAP Run THE Z Weather: Sunny, 45, SW wind 5-10 mph	8.50 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: Asics Foundation 12 (Blue) 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'11

Wind died down during this...

Really nice to get some easy miles in with MAP. He's outta shape and needing some good motivation...

He was happy how he felt too :)

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Running - Aerobic Shadow Lakes 5:30am Weather: 38, SE Wind 15-20 mph	7.50 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: Asics Foundation 12 (Blue) 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'11

Girlfriend got my ass outta bed to get these miles in before going to Seward today...

More later

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Running - Just Running Zorinsky 10:00am	9.2 miles 01:16:25 (8:18 min/mile)	Shoe: Brooks Adrenaline GTS 16 0 miles on shoe Height: 6' 4 Max HR: 169 Avg HR: 151

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Running - Race Rocky Raccoon 100 Certified? 6:00am	80 miles 15:15:37 (11:26 min/mile)	Height: 5'10

Since I paced Kyle at the 2014 Rocky Raccoon 100, which was me effectively walking with him in the cold/dark/rain for 14+ hours, I’ve wanted to go back. The course is a well-stocked set of 20-mile loops. The trail is technical in the sense that there are a lot of roots during the single-track sections. It opens up onto a jeep road for a section, which is on rolling hills. When I could get back to running somewhat regularly, the timing was right and my expectations of the race were low enough that I found it approachable. So I talked with Kyle about it and he was game. From there, planning began. We also picked up another ‘mate in Stacy Shaw, probably the toughest runner I know and that includes transcontinental record holder Pete K.

The race took place in Huntsville, which is about 70 minutes from Houston. We flew into Hobby airpot, which meant we had to traverse the entirety of Houston during Super Bowl week; this solidified further my hatred of driving. We made it to the park around 3:00 and picked up our race packets. I was gifted lucky number 13…which ended up being pretty cool as my drop bag at the start/finish area was just a few feet from the timing mat. From there we ran about 1.75 miles out on the course and back to get a feel for the terrain; the next time we’d see it would be in the dark in a swarm of a few hundred eager runners. After that, we prepared our drop bags for the damnation aid station and went back to the hotel. I ate PB&Js and Kyle and Stacy went for takeout.

Sleep didn’t come easily, but I probably managed around five hours before waking at 3:00am just before the scheduled alarm. Got to the park a little after 4am and got a great parking spot just off the finish area. It took me about 30 minutes to get everything situated. I wasn’t sure I even knew what I wanted to bring with me. I usually run with a pack just to carry my phone and keys, so I knew that wouldn’t bother me. I ended up doing that the whole time and liked it. I also had the bright idea to bring hammer gel in a gu flask, neither of which I’ve ever tested. That sticky/disgusting experiment ended after lap 1. About the time I finished getting things situated, Pete showed up. After having Kyle at multiple Bad Water 135s, he was coming down to do his share of the crewing. It was good having him there to get me refueled after laps 1 and 2.

Throughout the lead up and even the first few laps I didn’t really feel any anticipation for what was to come. I mostly just treated it as something that was going to happen one way or another. And so the gun went off at 6am and Kyle and I, about 30 people deep in the field, went loping, er, running choppily into the woods in the pitch dark. I realized shortly I should’ve tested out the cheap headlamp I planned on using during the first lap, saving my nice headlamp for lap 3 and beyond. It was utter shit. A flashlight may have been better. I tripped on about every root during the first 5k to aid station number 1. I caught myself with my gloved hands each time, so no damage done. Jerrod’s lack of trail legs was exposed early. From there we ran through the aid station through a short, technical section and onto the jeep roads leading to the Damnation loop. This section was kind of a sandy section of rolling hills. I didn’t remember this section from 2014 at all. There were definitely hills I should’ve power hiked, but I didn’t do any walking until loop 4. When we hit damnation, we just stopped to refill water and went along for the 7 mile loop that involves the longest part of the course without help. The first go around this loop went ridiculously quickly. Getting back, I grabbed one of the five ziplock bags filled with protein bars and jelly beans, took off my shitty headlamp, and we again took off. My stomach had been bothering me slightly at this point in the sense that I had to poop. I stupidly didn’t think to carry the wipes I brought with me until loop 4, so I ended up holding it until I found a set of three porta-john around mile 15 left alone in the woods as if they were put there just for this agorophobic fool. I stopped there and Kyle went on. I ended up still catching him in a few miles. Toward the end of this lap, Kyle asked me a question and I looked at my watch and ****ing went down in grand fashion. It was one of those slow-motion falls where you stumble forward for 10 steps and then still go down, somersault and all. My race bib ripped off the front of my shorts, which I had to fix at a later stop. Scraped up my knee, but nothing that bothered me. We ran in together in 3:01:07. The goal was 3:05, so this wasn’t too quick.

At this point, I again had to hip up the bathroom, which was the theme for the rest of the day. As mentioned above, I didn’t have the forethought to bring wipes. Pete had refilled my flasks and I took off immediately after about a five-minute stop. I ran along at a good clip through section one, happy to traverse this section without need of light. My legs were also getting used to roots. At least in the daylight. At the next aid station, I stopped again at the restroom, which had a sink and everything. That was pretty damn nice. I took off quick from there and quickly got to the Jeep road. After a mile on that, I could see Kyle crest a hill. I’d catch him and a guy named Mike who was also trying to hit 60 miles in 10 hours like us at the Damnation aid station. After a quick refueling, we took off. This loop felt much more labored than the first go around. There are some switchbacks and hills that I didn’t really notice on the first go around as being difficult. Mike seemed to be working hard and started to push the pace for whatever reason. We stupidly hung with him through most of the loop until he dropped off the back end, which pissed me off because I burned some of my reserves for no reason whatsoever. Back at the Damnation aid station again, I had to poop but had no option to do so and, stupidly, no wipes. I will not poop without the ability to clean myself. Call me a modern boy. It was about 4 miles to the next poo stop, but I thought I could make it. And I almost did. As if my body knew relief was in sight, when I turned the corner and saw god the damns started to give. When I got into the portable sanctuary, it was too late. It took me at least 10 minutes and most of the toilet paper in the three johns to at least clean the visible shit off me, pants, shirt, and all. And so it goes.

That was the last I’d run with Kyle on the day. That gave him a goodly gap going into mile 40. At the next actual aid station, I stopped at the bathrooms and tried cleaning myself a little better. I went on and into mile 40, disgusted, in 3:22:19 for the lap. I took a good twenty minutes with dude wipes and clothes changing before I felt comfortable enough to start running. And off I went. At this point, I noticed my hip starting to bug me a little bit. Probably from working too hard earlier. There’s a pretty immediate cause and effect with me running hard and my hip hurting. Nothing to do about that now. I began running with music at this point, which was refreshing. Overall, I never really struggled with the enormity of the length I’d be running. I just kept plugging along like a good little machine. I ran through aid station 1 again on loop 3 and continued on toward Damnation. No hiccups yet. I could feel the poop coming along for a bit of the loop, but there was a guy right behind me for a while. I was scoping out a good spot to hop into the woods for a good 2 miles before pulling the trigger. So I hopped off the trail and did the deed. I scrounged around for leaves and looked up for the first time, facing the direction opposite the trail I had just left. I picked the exact point about 50 feet from the Damnation loop turnaround where the trail started back toward the aid station. This is also the point where a race official sits notating bib numbers. So I inadvertently gave that guy and the dude behind me a full frontal. Good times. I still finished harvesting leaves and cleaned myself off until I was content. I eventually ran that guy down and tried to make amends. He said he wasn’t sure if he should stop to offer some of the paper towels he brought. That would have been a hard offer to turn down.

From there, I started to open up and feel pretty good again, the load a little lighter. This would be the end of my really rough stomach patches. I’d poop two more times, but armed with wipes all was good. The Jeep road section felt a little longer this time, but my overall energy throughout the day hadn’t dropped at all. Just a nagging in my hip that was starting to work toward a hobbled cadence. I ran through the final aid station hoping to catch a glimpse of Kyle around the turn around. He was running with Pete now about 2 miles total ahead of me. I came through loop 3 with a 3:51:43 split. Given I spent well over 20 minutes at the start of this loop cleaning myself, I was pretty ok with this effort. I refueled and took off for loop 4. I was still feeling ok, but my hip was starting to worsen by the mile. I ran through aid station 1 with no problem and continued along the trail to the Jeep road. Again. I should’ve definitely started walking the hills now, but I didn’t. I kept running up and through the Damnation aid station, hoping to make up a little time on Kyle. This was the exact point where his race fell apart in 2014, so I wanted to be there to make sure it wasn’t happening again. This loop felt like it took forever when it was really only about 85 minutes. Only highlight from this section was telling a guy in his 80s to, “Keep it up!” HIs response, without pausing for even a breath, was priceless: “You’re only saying that because I’m old. My wife said that last night in bed and it meant something.”

I stopped at the end of the loop to get some food and refuel, eventually running into Stacy. She was looking pretty good. About where I’d expect her to be this far in the race. I tried to start running out of this aid station, but I couldn’t muster much. My hip was bothering me and my legs were too fatigued to overcome the burden. I still managed to shuffle-jog the downhills here and there, but I walked the remaining 8 or so miles in to finish out loop 5 in a disappointing 5:00:08 loop. I could’ve kept going, but it didn’t mean anything at that point. My hip was bothering me and, to be honest, I wanted to run a 100-miler not finish one. So I didn’t start loop 5 with almost 9 hours allotted before 24 hours struck. I’m ok with that. Maybe I’ll do another one this year or maybe I’ll come back next. Regardless, I want to be running whenever I finish. I consider myself more along the type A perfectionist line than the type A completionist one. The DNF is ok. I’m ok with this. Or at least I’m going to tell myself that for a while.

On a brighter note, Stacy finished first over 50 female, which got her some great prizes, in just under 24 hours and Kyle finished in under 20 hours and almost cracked top 10 USATF male. I’m incredibly proud of them. I didn’t end up sleeping more than an hour or so in a sleeping bag in the rain during the night before we left for the airport early. Still kind of in a delirium writing this. For what it’s worth, I was first place among non-finishers. I destroyed the field of non-finishers to 80 miles. Ha. Given my inability to train more than 50 miles a week, having to take off 6 weeks due to separate injuries during this cycle, and having a previous long run of 32 miles before this, I guess I should be pleased at making it as far as I did relatively unscathed. Such is the moving target that is life.

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Running - Aerobic Papio Creek to Scutt 9:00am	6.16 miles 00:47:39 (7:44 min/mile)	Shoe: Guide 9 Hot Takes 0 miles on shoe

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Walking - Aerobic 6:45am	6 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: green & blue Omnis 0 miles on shoe

walking after foot surgery

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Running - Long Omaha Streets and Trails Elevation: Ascent+656 Descent-660 5:00am Weather: FL 19°, 28°, 11 SSE, 63% Kept It Real™	15.5 miles 02:11:11 (8:27 min/mile)	Shoe: Saucony Guide 9 [20160717] 0 miles on shoe Weight: 175/167

Omaha [20170204]: DT-FCT-SOT-KT

Lemke and I on the "DT10 - Field Club - South Omaha - Keystone" route that's all the rage.

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Swimming - Aerobic	1 miles 00:00:00	Height: 6'5''

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Running - Race Lake Manawa Lake Manawa Series Certified? Yes 10:00am Weather: 32, partly sunny	2 miles 00:17:02 (8:31 min/mile)	Shoe: Merrell Trail Glove 2 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'9

Not much motivation. Spent the first mile talking with Rob Cubrich which didn't slow me down as much as you'd think, since we were running into a gale. Picked it up coming back but the Usual Suspects wouldn't let me run under 7 minute pace.

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Running - Long Lake Zorinksky 6:00am Weather: Windy-S wind	16 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: Adrenaline GTS 16 Bluebird #2 0 miles on shoe

This was a great day to start out my birthday. I was not expecting to go 16 miles, but a couple loops with different people and I could hardly tell.

First loop with Ashley, Haug, Kathy, Meleia, Steph, and Shawn. The second loop with Steph, Meleia, Courtney, and Swany. It was so great to see Courtney again!

I am so thankful for all of the running friends that I have! Thanks for all of the runs! It is hard to believe that I have been running and racing in some capacity for about 30 years! God has blessed me with health and the ability to run. I have met so many wonderful friends along the way!

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Running - Workout 8:30am Weather: 20s, lots of wind	18 miles 02:44:56 (9:09 min/mile)	Shoe: NB 1980 Green Black A 0 miles on shoe

Group workout at Mercer. Warm up 4.7 miles. 3 x neighborhood loop. Cool down 5 miles.

19:05, 19:19, 19:20

Strength circuit at Y.

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Biking - Exercise Bike 6:45pm	20 miles 01:00:20 19.89 mph	Height: 6 ft

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Running - Tempo Kearney Hike and Bike Trail 3:30pm Weather: 40-50	20 miles 02:15:20 (6:46 min/mile)	Shoe: Pearl Izumi Trail N2 V2 0 miles on shoe Height: 6 ft

10:00 wu 2-20:00/10:00 3-10:00/10:00 5:20 cd

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Running -	7.5 miles 00:00:00

Empyrean 5k

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Running - Aerobic	8 miles 01:00:00 (7:30 min/mile)	Height: 189

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Running - Aerobic 12:00pm	3 miles 00:25:17 (8:25 min/mile)	Shoe: Brooks Pure Cadence 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'7

Warm up and cool down miles

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Running - Race Frost Bite Four Certified? No 11:00am	4 miles 00:27:27 (6:51 min/mile)	Shoe: Brooks Pure Cadence 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'7

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Running - Aerobic 10:30am	8 miles 01:13:11 (9:08 min/mile)	Shoe: Guide 9 A 0 miles on shoe Height: 5' 9'

Happy Birthday Mrs Goz!

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Running -	4.5 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: GTS 1600 blue 0 miles on shoe

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Running -	8 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: GTS 1600 gray 0 miles on shoe

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Running - Tempo	5K miles 00:00:00	Height: 67.5

Dalton Gang 5K course sweeping. How bout that Jay Welp (NRGE) in a solo 15:44 for the win. Jay's mate Nicole Norris showing that my coaching methods are still quite on point with a personal best and state leading certified 5K (19:51).

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Running - Leg Speed 9 x 30 Weather: W.A.F.	10 miles 01:28:00 (8:48 min/mile)	Shoe: NB XC 900 v2-1 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'10

w/u
4 striders
9 sprints
c/d

Had some coffee, read a little, got a jury duty notice, ran...you know, pretty nice little Saturday.

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Running - Long Etch a Sketch 6:00am Weather: 20's, S 19	22 miles 03:01:43 (8:15 min/mile)	Shoe: PI N3 blue/green 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'10

Fighting the wind to get the miles in before my 6 yr old's basketball game. After a shower, we are heading to Seward for a bball tournament for my 10 yr old.

Wind sucked, cold sucked. Legs were tired the last 4 miles. Bathroom stop at 8 miles included a snickers and purchase of a bottle of water that got me through the rest of the run.

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Running - Aerobic Zorinsky 5:00am	26.2 miles 03:31:30 (8:04 min/mile)	Shoe: Brooks Launch 4.1 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'8

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Running - Aerobic Mo Pac 6:00am	10.3 miles 01:32:52 (9:00 min/mile)	Height: 6'4 Weight: 191 Avg HR: 132

Quick trip to Lincoln to catch a run with Greg & Kelly. Feeling a bit sluggish today.

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Running - Tempo Harry Q Loop 9:15am Weather: 26 Sunny	5 miles 00:40:30 (8:06 min/mile)	Shoe: Fastwitch 7 vizipro Orange 0 miles on shoe Height: 6ft

Quick run around the block. Windy! Long run tomorrow.

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Running - Aerobic treadmill	6 miles 00:50:11 (8:21 min/mile)

Happy birthday, Theresa!

Good luck to all racers this weekend!

"Base training" of re-learning the trumpet is going well, but I am not ready for recording it yet.

Song of the day: "Ain't Too Many of us Left" by Nils Lofgren. Double power with Sam Moore (Sam and Dave) in a vocal duet with Nils; and Nils double tracking Stratocaster and Les Paul guitar parts to searing effect.

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Running - Aerobic treadmill 9:15am	3.25 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: Pink Saucony 0 miles on shoe

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Running - Long LT-Lake Z-LT 5:00am Weather: Cold Wind, 26	18.03 miles 02:30:46 (8:21 min/mile)	Shoe: Asics GT-2000 4 - B/S/W 0 miles on shoe Height: 5 10 Max HR: 178 Avg HR: 148 Rest HR: 40

Time with the usual Saturday crowd. Got a fax yesterday from SAS and Meleia saying they'd be around as well with the birthday girl. Always good to see those 3.

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Running - Long Jamaica North 6:30am Weather: 22 degrees	8 miles 01:01:51 (7:43 min/mile)	Shoe: Brooks GTS 16 0 miles on shoe Height: 6' 3 Weight: 176

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Running - Aerobic Ashers Neighborhood 6:00am Weather: 25 degrees wc 12 sse 13 partly cloudy	5.4 miles 00:00:00	Shoe: Asics Kayono Black-1 0 miles on shoe Height: 6.0

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Running - Long Just Me and My Virus. 5:00am Weather: 24. B Wind.	10.16 miles 01:27:36 (8:37 min/mile)	Shoe: BrooksLaunch4Black&Pink&Purple 0 miles on shoe Height: 5'3

Feeling a bit worse again, and therefore in a foul mood. Started with Bryan, Greg, and Matt, but after a couple of miles decided to hit the town solo. Just needed alone time, I guess. The wind was brutal, and I somehow ended up in the dark in a not-the-greatest part of town. I didn't really care. My lungs were filling up and I was tired. And the wind was irritating me. My plan called for 14, but Ann told me to take it easy. I don't know, with my foot and my sickness, this training week pretty much got flushed down the toilet. Here's to next week.

Headed to Millard South to watch my girl swim today. That will cheer me up.

Happy Birthday to Theresa. Hope she has a great day. One nice lady, that's for sure. :)

Have a great Saturday.

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Running - Aerobic Treadmill 6:am	3 miles 00:28:35 (9:31 min/mile)	Height: 5'9