My Running 2007 in Review -- Tag Answers Part 2 of 2

Last year Scott Dunlap had tagged me, so I had to answer 6 questions:

1. Most memorable moment on the trails in 2007.
2. Best new trail discovered in 2007.
3. My best performance of 2007.
4. I don't know how I previously survived without...
5. The person I would most like to meet on the trails in 2008.
6. The race I am most excited about for 2008.

I answered the first 3 earlier this month. I even tagged some other runners before finishing the assignment. (I tagged Don Buraglia, Jean Pommier, and Catra Corbett. Catra hasn't answered yet, but I'll excuse her since she just ran HURT and is organizing the Fremont Fat Ass 50k tomorrow. I tagged Chihping, but he'd already been tagged.) Then I had to work something like 100 hours in 9 days. It was horrible. Then I went to Mexico for a week. Life's tough.

4. I don't know how I previously survived without...

Ultra trail running! Handheld bottles! Arm warmers! Lube! But I guess this is supposed to be about something I adopted this past year, not the past half-decade.

Hmm, I just got a a Garmin 305 at a really great price. It's fun, but definitely something I can survive without. Gadgets are gadgets, running is running.

So that leaves me with...

Blogging! --as an outlet of minimally censored self-expression, goofiness, reporting on my races and keeping connected. Plus, I started reading more blogs too after I started writing myself. So for a guy who has weird work hours and basically trains alone all the time, and never gets to race as much as I'd like, I feel more a part of the community.

5. The person I would most like to meet on the trails in 2008.

I'll like to avoid a lot head-to-head sprints with Ron Gutierrez at the end of 50 mile races, but I guess it makes for faster times. (Click for my Firetrails 50 report--I keep inserting links to this one, so you have to read it if you haven't.) Most of my training runs are during the week and alone, so hell, I'll meet anyone.


I'm so lonely on the trails....



Hey, how about meeting that Miss France 2008? Nice, woman, you think? Looks wholesome, the kind you'd bring home to see your mother.




I was thinking this. But now I know better. In case you haven't heard, regardez! check out these links:

one of many on-line articles about the...the...scandal!

link to the provocative and racy dairy-themed image (Okay, about half of you are going to find this too lurid, so you've been warned!):

http://images.programme-tv.net/images/actualites-tele-large/0/671.jpg

I would NOT want to meet this woman on the trails. No way! Spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E with a REALLY strong French accent! ne rien pas! I know what would happen. She'd wait for me to approach, lie down in the mud and feign some injury. Once I found her squirming on the trail, being the good samaritan that I am, I would ask what was wrong and try to help her. She would barely gasp out something in French. I would kneel down to hear what she said, prepared to assess and manage her airway, breathing and circulation using Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation and Advanced Cardiac Life Support protocols. But before I could even start to assess A for airway, she would grab me by the neck, moan, how she has this insatiable hunger-fetish for skinny dorky Asian ultrarunners and was thinking of me when she had those photos taken, how she threw away her chance to be crowned Miss World for me "pour toi," and using those wicked claws and insatiable tongue, start grabbing at my pocketed shorts, looking for gooey gels to lap up. As she's been working her tongue out, I would not have the stamina to resist her slurps. My knees would give out. I would try in vain to get up and run away. I would not be able to translate or sing the words "Leave me alone, I'm a family man." No one would hear my cries as the wind and my will would leave me...as the last gel on my legs got lapped up and I crumble lifeless to the ground, ashamed, guilty of moral decrepitude, I would wish I had never gone out on the trails that day. I might even wish I had never taken up ultra trail running as my main hobby.


Gosh, I hope my wife is not reading this. This brazen Eurohussy is going to ruin my marriage even if I don't meet her on the trails.



6. The race I am most excited about for 2008


Well, I tell you what races I'm NOT excited about:


I would've been automatically in Western States, but I hadn't applied for 2007 because we thought our 2nd baby was going to be born around June. He didn't come until after summer, so I probably could've gotten away with it. I must start the lottery over. Maybe they will do away with the 2 strike you're in rule. Thus, I will probably make my debut in this granddaddy of all ultras in 2017. Just in time for my fiftieth birthday.


You trying to blame something on me, Daddy? I thought you loved me unconditionally! What kind of daddy do you think you are?!


For a few weeks I thought I was going to be able to do HURT 100, but there was no way my wife was going to let me leave her with a toddler and an infant on a Hawaiian island unless there was family help available, which was too hard to get at such late notice.


I would've entered the Tour de Mont Blanc, but I refrained from applying to save my marriage, because I think it takes place in France, which is filled with women of questionable morals.


I'd like to go back and defend my only ultra title, at Kettle Moraine 100 this June in Wisconsin. However, this is up in the air due to an information systems rollout at one of my hospitals. So maybe.


Despite this, lots of great runs, even if none are new:


I haven't done Miwok in 3 years, and feel confident I can shave a lot of time off the 10:44 I ran in 2005.


I look forward to an injury-free Rio del Lago 100, which will be my 4th consecutive year at this race.


But I am looking for a new race that would require travelling to in August.


Next post: The Inaugural Miss World 100km/150km Trail Series.