Here are a few things to help get you motivated and out the door to train.
My favorite race report of all time is Tom Nielsen’s 1999 Angeles Crest report called the Dream Wrecker.
For a great insight on why you run and healthy view of competition, here’s the classic speech that Jeff Johnson wrote to the borderclash runners the night before the 2001 race.
And for videos, remember this from WS in 2007? You go, JizzleWizzle.
Finally, a little climbing juice. This is Jacqueline Florine, an ultrarunner and climber, soloing the Nose of El Capitan in 2002. She lead, cleaned, and hauled all pitches by herself over four days. Wow. Jacqueline also finished Badwater this past summer.
Now get out the door and go do something. Maybe run a few miles for Dan Moores.
PS. If you’ve had troubles connecting to my site over the last two days, please be patient as the machine that hosts it is being replaced/upgraded.
That video of Andy will sure get me out the door training for two reasons. First, I’d love to be in good enough shape to run 17:20 without even pushing it. I mean Andy didn’t even puke for 5 minutes after the race! Second, I don’t want some geezer dropping me while I’m pacing him at States in less than 6 months!
– Lil’ Goat
The best part of that video is the casual…. “I might puke, I might puke…” with a smile on his face. Just as casual as can be. I need toughness like that. I was running my best 100 at Javelina this year… and Started Puking at 77 miles…. I NEVER recovered from that. Now I’ll just think of AJW when my gut goes sour and just think of it as ……”normal”
ted
@Bryon Powell – Just think how much you’ll motivate the old geezer if he does drop you. That might prompt him to do his Springstein dance at the finish.
@Ted – Yeah, JizzleWizzle is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever known. He lives life without fear. Downhill running, puking, renal failure … no big deal to him. I was pacing him at Angeles Crest a few years ago and he puked just outside Sam Merrill I believe. He just dealt with it like he was changing batteries in his headlamp. Old stuff out, new stuff in. Then he continued hammering the downhills to the finish. He still finished second, but it was impressive nonetheless.
I’m still learning what it means to be tough…. I’m definitely going to think of AJW when I run my next 100. You looked strong too craig at Javelina. I remember really, really wanting to catch you. But no matter how much you slowed down you still managed to be running…. impressive!
ted
Craig,
You dawg! Each time I see that video I find myself getting more and more obnoxious. It does, however, bring back great memories. Too bad there’s no video of your finish that year:)
AJW
@Ted – I sure wasn’t “running” very fast at the end of Javelina and I was thinking that somebody was going to catch me in the last 10 miles – was that you back there?
@AJW – There’s no video of my ’07 finish because everybody except you, Bili, and Twiet were asleep. And, you are obnoxious, but it’s part of your charm.
It probably wasn’t me. I was doing the “death march” for my last loop as you were just coming off the tonto trail. I was passing that trail as you were coming down. I went from about 13th and climbing to about 26th real fast…. I did the zombie walk for the last 25 miles…
ted
Craig, this is an awesome blog! The motivational readings and videos are great.
@William Swint – Thanks. And congrats on your Oregon Trail Series title. Hope we see you at Waldo again this year.
That was the 1st time I have seen the Jeff Johnson speech, thanks for sharing!
Jamie
@Jamie Donaldson – Yeah, that’s a good one. I really like the idea of competing with people as opposed to against them.
Jacque’s El Cap climb kicked some ass for sure. She has an excellent teacher in Han’s. He was in town a couple of times in the 90’s at the indoor climbing gym. He virtually run’s up climb’s, leaping from hold to hold!