Weekly Rundown #25

“When it’s pouring rain and you’re bowling along through the wet, there’s satisfaction in knowing you’re out there and the others aren’t.” 

Peter Snell

iRunFar.com's This Week in Running: Feb 20th with info on the Black Canyon 100K, Fourmidable 50K and more

What to do when you have a race coming up.  Here is a look at the Art of (Realistic) Tapering

LetsRun.com's The Week That Was in Running - Feb 13-19. 2017

Lori Masterson writes on Lessons in Patience

If you have watched many world class 800M races you have seen Bram Som.  He is the guy pacing the race and often right on target.  This is a good interview with a guy that moved from a pretty quick racer to a sought after pacer: From Racer to Pacer.

If you have never heard of Eamonn Coghlan then read this article as from the Mid 70's to later 80's he was known as "The Chairman of the Boards" for his success indoors.  He set the world record for the mile indoors in 1983 @ 3:49.78 and it is still second of all time to Hicham El Guerrouj's 3:48.45 (See Video Below) - How I Broke the Indoor Mile Record - I also posted a short section of a documentary on Eamonn below.

The Tokyo Marathon is this weekend (Feb 26, 2017) and should be a good one as the course records for men and women are expected to fall.   You may be able to watch it here at 9:05PM (this is the time listed but as the race starts at 9:10AM in Tokyo and that is 7PM EST the previous day I am not sure it is correct) on the 25th. (Update: Just found that NBC Sports Online will be streaming this at 7:00PM EST but not sure if you need an account with an internet/tv provider or not.  Still might want to try here as well at the same time)

Good podcast with Peter Defty &Naomi Land talking to Travis Macy on The OFM Transformation

Want to see some of Alan Webb's best races thanks to Runner's Tribe for posting 5 of them: Alan Webb's Top 5 Races.  Also, check out the Runner's Tribe's site and sing up for their daily newsletter with all things running.

Some good Spring Ultras to keep an eye on

I have not gone to a running camp since I was in college back in 78 but it was fun and a great time.  Here are 7 reasons, I am sure there more, Why a Running Camp is What you Need.  While on that subject here are 5 Trail Running Retreats for Runner.

Some cool places in this short video on the Ultra Trail World Tour



A self supported 230km Ultra Marathon in the Amazon Rainforest, Peru


This weeks Mountain Outhouse



Not the best video but here is the video of Eamonn Coghlan's World Indoor Mile



Short video documentary on Eamonn Coghlan


What a race as Billy Mills wins the 10K in the 64' Olympics in Tokyo.  Here is a color video of the race but it could not be embedded.



Want to run around Lake Tahoe, well here is one way to do it.  Thanks to Ultrarunnerpodcast.com for linking to this video.  You might want to sing up for their daily emails as they are full of great info.

Weekly RunDown #24

“Love testing yourself more than fearing loosing”

Ron Clarke

If you are looking for an American Made minimal shoe that actual does have some cushioning and feels great then look to Carson Footwear.  I just got chosen as an Ambassador for them and what is unusual with Carson is that I told them that it would take some getting used to minimal shoes for longer races and they were fine with that.  Also in asking questions about the shoes I not only got a quick response from them but the owner Everett Carson contacted me, do not find that very often.  So over the coming months I will give updates on the shoes as I get used to using a more minimal shoe.  If you are interesting in trying them you can use the following code when purchasing a pair of shoes or other items on their site: Run2017tonyk

Jim Walmsley smashes another record as he wins the 2017 Tarawera 102K Ultra.  Here is the iRunFar.com interview with Walmsley and also here is an interview with the women's winner Camille Herron.  Here is iRunFar.com's review of the results.  Also Mike Wardian finished 8th in 8:49:36 only a couple weeks after winning the World Marathon Challenge.

From iRunFar.com - This Week in Running: February 13, 2017

And from LetsRun.com the Week That Was.  Pretty amazing that Yuki Kawauchi from Japan has more sub 2:10 marathons (11)  since 2011 than all American men (10)!

Places to run in the 20 biggest metro areas in the US.  But if you are ever in the Fullerton CA area on a weekend and need a trail to run try the Fullerton Loop as while you can do more, or less, the main loop will get you 10+ miles - here is my Strava data for a recent 31 miler done by running the loop 3 times.

MAF training and 5K pace:  5km Race Prediction from Submax Performance Tests

5 Ultra Ultra Marathon Feats

8 Pros Share Their Best Trail Running Tips

If you are interested in Optimized Fat Metabolism (OFM) here is a Mental Roadmap to follow.  If you think OFM is only for elite athletes then think again as it is also good for the everyday athlete with more on their plate than just training:  Real World OFM Performance You Can Relate To

I would say that is putting it all on the line as Peres Jepchirchir collapses at the line after setting the Women's World Record for the 1/2 Marathon

Sedona Adventure Run


Here is a Biking-Running-Climbing combo for an FKT


The 205 mile Tor des Geants 2016
Tor des Géants 2016 | Official Report from Pillow Lab on Vimeo.

This weeks Mountain Outhouse



Video from the 2017 Orcas Island 25K

Weekly RunDown #23

"You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back."

Steve Prefontaine

There was a lot of running going on this past Saturday (Feb 4th, 2017): Six Takeaways From Some Fantastic Action Across The Globe on Super Saturday

And in the Ultra world we turn to iRunFar.com and This Week in Running: February 6, 2017

The Tarawera 100K (actually 102K) is this weekend and it should be a good one, check out iRunFar's preview.

LetsRun.com's The Week That Was in Running

How many of these have you run: 2017 Marathon Calendar

Ryan Kaiser earned a Golden Ticket to Western States 100 and ran 80% of his training on a treadmill:  From Treadmill to the Western States 100.  Results for the Sean O'Brien 50M/50K/26.2

Lori Masterson, of Loloruns.com and recent winner of the Bear Bait 50k, writes a review of the 2017 Louisville Lovin' the Hills races - Lovin' the Hills Results

Mud and snow - now there is X-Country: U.S. Cross Country Championship 2017

Have you entered a lottery for a race and not gotten in well here are the 4 Stages of Lottery Grief

Some quick times at the 2017 Rocky Raccoon 100 Miler in  Huntsville, TX this past weekend.

I just found out that I was chosen to be a Carson Footwear Ambassador this year.  I was very
impressed that while I was investigating the shoes the owner, Everett Carson, contacted me to answer some questions, not many shoe company owners have ever contacted me in 44+ years of running.  Carson's are a minimal shoe that, based on its design, has, at least to me, more cushioning than you would expect.  I will not be doing any ultras in them for now but will be using them to strengthen my feet and work to build up to being able to run longer in them.  I will be having a review of them in the next month after I get a few more miles on them but so far they are a great shoe.  I am running in the Black Ops version.


At the Nitro Athletics meet in Melbourne they added a new event called the 1 Mile Elimination.  If you know much about bike racing on the Velodrome, I have also done the race on a road circuit, there is a race called the "Miss and Out" or also called "Devil Takes the Hindmost."  The idea is the last person across after a particular lap is eliminated until a set number of laps or people are left.  For the Mile they eliminated 1 each for the first three laps till three were left for the final sprint.  Makes for an entirely different race, see below, there seemed to be a glitch in the video but it will go back to working, or forward it a little:



Salomon's new running series "How to Run"  -  Part 1 - What is Trail Running



Part 2 - What to Wear  -  More to come



This weeks Mountain Outhouse



Limone Skyrunning Extreme World Series Final 2013 -  I may have posted this before but it is great one to watch again:

Weekly RunDown #22

“No one will burn out doing aerobic running. It is too much anaerobic running, which the American scholastic athletic system tends to put young athletes through, that burns them out.” 

Arthur Lydiard

The Running Soles Team got chosen in the lottery for the Bourbon Chase Relay in Ky on October 13-14, 2017.  Looking forward to this one having not run a relay this will be fun.  Not yet sure if it will be my first relay as there is still the possibility I will be running the Hood to Coast in Oregon the end of August.

Some great videos in third post on Steve Cram's Top 5 Races

LetsRun.com's Week That Was for this past week

Ron Hill decided he had to take off from running Sunday.  This would not be news except it stopped the longest running streak at 52 years and 39 days or a total of 19033 days of running at least a mile.

If you are looking for information on Optimized Fat Metabolism this is a great resource: What is OFM

Some thoughts on all the sugar in many sports fueling strategies:  High-Sugar Fueling: Longevity of the Ultra Endurance Athlete Under Threat? 

Michael Wardian Shattered the World Marathon Challenge Record

iRunFar.com's This Week in Running: January 30, 2017

If you would like to try the new Spike-Free bars UltraRunnerPodcast.com has arranged for a code so you can try them:  UltraRunnerPodcast SFuels Code .   I have tried them and they do taste good and I think will be a good option for many people

If you have wondered about the Arthur Lydiard's ideas on training here is a site that has a short synopsis of them:  Lydiard Training Principles

Want to run an Ultra in Alabama the Pinhoti 100 may be for you


Aravaipa Running's Coldwater Rumble 2017



Want to run a marathon in an out of the way location, how about the Rift Marathon in Uganda


This weeks Mountain Outhouse



If you like sprints at the end of a race here are 7 of them Part 1



7 More in Part 2



7 More in Part 3


And if that was not enough here is more in Part 4

Weekly RunDown #21

The World Marathon Challenge (7 Marathons in 7 Days on 7 Continents) is still under way and Michael Wardian has so far won the first 4 stages and is averaging well under 3 hours and well under the WMC record of averaging 3:32:25.  Mike is in first after 4 marathons and averaging 2:45:16 and Ryan Hall is in 5th and averaging 3:22:35.  Results after 4 races.  -  Update - Mike wins Marathon #5 in Marrakech, Morocco running 2:45:33 and Ryan Hall got 4th in 3:04:56.

Here is an article from the Washington Post on Michael Wardian and his running the World Marathon Challenge: I Like to Do Stuff that Scares Me

You can check out the sprint finish to the Houston 1/2 Marathon here

If you are not sure what race/races to do in the up coming year, here are 19 Trail races of various distances

Hmm, interesting article on Kenenisa Bekele's fall at Dubai: Fall Guy

The Tarawera Ultra 102K coming up Saturday February 11th in New Zealand looks to have a great men's a women's filed with Jim Walmsley,  Jonas Buud, Magdalena Boulet, Camille Herron and others.  Hard to believe that Mike Wardian is entered as he is in the World Marathon Challenge and this would give him just two weeks rest, but with Mike nothing should be surprising.  Here is a race preview of Tarawera.

Latest The Week That Was for Jan 16-22, 2017 over at Letsrun.com

Sort of wish I had run Western States back when I was much younger and there were no lotteries.  I remember a very close friend TJ Key running the race and thinking he was crazy but looking back I was probably more ready to run such a race as I ever was or would be: Western States Lottery - I'm Not Bitter

Looking for some races in the spring:  The Best Spring Races You've Never Heard Of

Some useful Ultra Marathon Tips


This has to be one of the best races ever, the 1972 Olympic 800m Final



Mountain Outhouse for January 25th



100 miles not enough how about the 250K Big Red multi-day race in Australia.



And here is the more well known 2016 250K Marathon Des Sables (MDS)



Video from 2013 on the Leadville 100


If you missed the 2017 Dubai marathon here are a couple of the videos that show Kenenisa Bekele's fall:

Weekly RunDown #20

Well if you stayed up to watch the Dubai marathon, getting by the fact that FloTrack up and bought the rights to the feed in the US and Canada - a story on its own, you saw a race that went out fast and was won by the only one to hang on.  That guy was not Kenenisa Bekele who it appears fell at the start and was off the pace between 10 and 15K and was out by 25K.  That said Tamirat Tola ran a course record of 2:04:11 to win by over 2 minutes after splitting 61:36 at the halfway point.  Here is the 2017 Dubai Men's Recap.  Here is more on Bekele falling at the start.    Here is a recap of the women's race where the winner also got $200K as did the men's winner.

So you want to run an Ultra; Here is The A-Z of Ultra Running - If you are wise about "M" you can avoid "D" but I have never been able to avoid "T"

Anyone ready to be the next young gun for Salomon on the trails.   Also talked about here

Have you run any of these 25 Fun Half Marathons

iRunFar.com's This Week in Running:January 16, 2017

Regardless of who has the better field London 2017 and Boston 2017 should be good races - well lets hope they are races and not time trials.

If you are looking for the latest for 2017 in trail shoes iRunFar has a long list of them from the 2017 Winter Outdoor Retailer Show - Trail Shoes.

Here are some other items from the Winter Outdoor Retailer Show that Trail Runner Magazine highlighted - I think I could have found a few more interesting things than this but it is something if you like to see what's new in gear.

Here are a couple lists of running movies, what would you add? - From RunInfinity.com & from iRunFar.com

7 takeaways from the just completed Houston Marathon - I particularly like #5

I've mentioned this before but Ryan Hall, Mike Wardian and 31 other runners will attempting to run 7 Marathons in 7 Days on 7 Continents.  Starting this Monday the 23rd in Antartica and ending the 29th in Sydney.

Some tips for running in the dark 


A look at going through Hong Kong with Jamil, Sage and Tim prior to the Hong Kong 100K



And here are highlights from the Vibram Hong Kong 100K and here are the results of the race.  If you like stairs this is the race for you.


How about running here



Or how about going 600 miles from Missoula to Banff on the Crown Traverse



From Dave McGillvray, some important thoughts:  "Fit equals Healthy,  Wrong, Wrong"



The highest ultramarathon in the world is the Ladakh Marathon, actually 72K, begins at 13, 042 ft and peaks at 17,618ft.



If you want to do a long race how about the Spartathlon Ultra Race at 246KM, here is a video of the 2016 Spartathlon race.

Weekly RunDown #19

Garry Robbins has been accepted into the 2017 Barkley Marathons along with Michael Wardian.   Will be interesting to see how they do as Gary made it 4 laps and got started on lap 5but due to a navigation problem had to drop out last year and Michael is on his first try.

Hoka One One is putting together quite the team even getting a number of people that Nike did not re-sign, such as Tim Tollefson, Chris Vargo, Alicia Vargo, David Roche and Megan Roche.  In looking at the list of athletes interesting to see Michael Wardian listed as "Hybird":)

Last week in Weekly RunDown #18 I had a link to a story on Galen Rupp asking if he was looking to break the American Half Marathon record in Houston this weekend (1/15/2017) but now word comes that Rupp has dropped out due to Plantar Fasciitis.

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella of the Natural Running Center's newsletter #51

So where is Kenenisa Bekele running, Dubai January 20th, London April 23rd or as mentioned in the Letsrun.com Dubai article the IAAF Worlds in London August 6th?  Toni Reavis has him at Dubai and London which would make the worlds a tough go.  I guess we will see first if he does Dubai in a couple weeks. Toni also does some Geeking on Kenenisa's Numbers

This week in running from iRunFar.com.  Good to see Stephanie Violett, was Howe, back to her winning ways as she won the Bandera 100k overall and a Golden Ticket to Western States.  Here is a Trail Running Magazine on how she came back from injury to win: How Stephanie Howe Violet Bounced Back from Injury to Win a 100k Championship Outright.

How cool to run your first sub 4 Minute Mile on Oxford's Iffley Road Track where Roger Banister was the first to break 4 Minutes and also be only the second person to run under 4 Minutes there at the time.  Well Craig Masback did it.

Good article on Performance Mobility: Part 1 Introduction and Hip Mobility

UltraRunnerPodcast - Mike Wardian and His Latest Challenge

Top runners for the 2017 UTMB have been announced

How many of these 20 Iconic American Races That Aren't Marathons have you done?  I have only done 1, the Carlsbad 5000.



 A Fine Line - Running on Ben Nevis
A Fine Line from Nevis Landscape Partnership on Vimeo.


Retezat SkyRace Intersport 2016 in Romania
Retezat SkyRace Intersport 2016 from Sport La Orice Varsta on Vimeo.



2016 Eiger Ultra Trail



Man on  Mission
Man On A Mission from Motive Television on Vimeo.


Mountain Outhouse News