Thursday, January 29, 2009

Blue Planet Blogger Showcase

Check it out! Chris, Turi, and I are featured in the Blogger Showcase on the Blue Planet Run website.
"Peter Lubbers and friends, Turi and Chris, blogged about the 30-mile challenge as they ran to bring water to Tanzania"

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Gold Country Grand Prix Awards Ceremony

The awards ceremony for the 2008 Gold Country Grand Prix was held last Sunday. Since I did not run all the races in '08, I was only able to scrape together enough points for 3rd in my age group at the last race of the season.

Before the race, I joined Chris, Gretchen, and Robert for a nice 12-miler on the pioneer trail. It was great to see everyone again. Good luck with your marathon in a few weeks, Gretchen!
Gretchen, Robert, and Chris
Chris, undefeated in the 2008 season, deservedly won the Grand Prix series (overall) and took home the $100 grand prize while Larry came in second in the 30-39 age group.
Chris Wins the 2008 GP, Well Deserved!

Next up: I am postponing my sub-3 attempt a little bit, so I am not joining Troy for the Redding Marathon this weekend. Good luck, Troy!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Tagged: 2008 in Review

I was recently tagged by Alan to answer a few questions about my 2008 running season, so without further ado, here are my answers:

1. What was your 2008 running highlight and running low?

High
:
Without a doubt, running and finishing the Tahoe Rim Trail 165-mile run. That was my most epic running adventure ever! Winning my third straight Tahoe Super Triple was a close second, of course.

Low:
No terrible lows really, but the last few miles of the Rucky Chucky 50K and hitting the wall pretty hard at the marathon of Spijkenisse (Holland) come to mind.

2. What race are you secretly planning on doing (or contemplating) for 2009 but haven't made it known to the public....until now?
My work takes me to London at the end of May and, surprisingly, that coincides with... the Grand Union Canal Race 145 Miler! The course record for this mostly flat run is 27:01. This one might just play to my strengths and sounds very exciting.

3. Where would you like create and direct an ultra that (to your knowledge) none exists?
I like Alan's idea of running the Death Ride course (Death March?), and I would love to see an actual race covering the entire 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail, possibly in stages.

Another great venue for a race would be Bullards Bar Dam Reservoir, where I do a lot of training. That place has miles of great trails. One day...

4. What is your "primary" race for 2009?
The Tahoe Super Triple, going for a sub-19 finish and hopefully a fourth straight win.

5. What is the most exciting thing about your upcoming race schedule?
Trying to first speed things up a little to try to run a sub-3 marathon and then going longer and longer.

6. List your planned races for 2009:
Depending on my schedule I will try to run some of the Gold Country Grand Prix races and some of the Ultrarunner.net series races (this series has a lot of new races, which sound like fun).

Apart from those, I am thinking about running the following races:
  • Redding Marathon (Jan)
  • Jed Smith 50K or 50M (Feb)
  • Ruth Anderson (April)
  • GUCR-145 (May)
  • Tahoe Relay (June)
  • TRT 50K (July)
  • Cool 12 Hour Night Run (August)
  • Tahoe Mini Triple (3 training half marathons around the Lake Tahoe on Labor Day Weekend)
  • Tahoe Super Triple (September)
All in all, 2008 was a great year and I am looking forward to the 2009 races.

Next up
: Back to work on Monday, some more snowshoeing on weekends, and then the Redding Marathon.

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